Awwwwwwwwww

Lately I have been going awwwwww a lot. The reason being that many of my friends and acquaintances are getting engaged.
I have always admitted that I am the sloppy romantic kinds. I am witnessing it a bit too much of that me nowadays. So hearing all these stories of how these people got hooked... the first time they met... the initial awkwardness... the meetings thereafter... and finally the decision.... it just makes me tilt my head and go awwwwwwwwwwwwww. The hours after that are magical... I am all charged up and happy and there’s this serene feeling that it really happens...
Is it silly... may be but it just comes out of me... like the way you have this motherly instinct... I have this love heady instinct... May be it’s in the hope that it will happen for me too... and also that love triumphs... I am totally the happy ending kinda movie gal... the typical And they lived happily ever after kind...

The essential "F's" in life

Without "F's" life would be very lonely
Without "F's" life would be dull
Without "F's" life would be no life at all
As you must have guessed... I am talking about one of the most essential part of everyones life..."Friends"
It is indeed very strange that a stranger with whom you have no blood relations, you strike up such a great bond... a bond just like the way you have with your family...infact they do become your family...
I have had the pleasure of having many such Precious "not strangers anymore" in my life... some date back from the time we were in school and used to attend each others bday parties (in which I used to dress up like someone from a " no fashion planet") and have trips to the markets and fashion shows (with accessories such as our moms dupattas), some date back to the college days where we shared all notes, secrets, crushes, fashion tips, canteen food money, assignments, bus/train/bike/truck seats. Some have come up as surprises... d good old crush from the yester years, an old friend who you lost touch with, a person with whom i struck up a conversation online, a junior in school, a family friend, a sister, a colleague, the list goes on...
And I plan to keep d list growing... they form a part of my treasure... worth no money in d whole wide world...

Colours of Cities

The title of this blog came to my mind when I visited Bangalore last week....still cant manage to remember the spelling and pronunciation of its new name of the city . The city is amazingly green (it rains very often) and it aint humid and the weather is cool and pleasant. I absolutely loved the trees and the weather part of it but when it came to the structures placed on the road... I wouldnt exactly give it a thumbs up. Lets admit it, Bangaloreans love the colour green and not the nice shades of green... all the wrong ones... some of the houses horrendously painted with the shades of green ( was wondering... are the most unpopular shades of green are sent to this city and sold dirt cheap... anyone to back me up?) There is also yellow, purple amongst the popular ones... but green rules... aaaha may be they dont want the trees to merge in with their house so a different green... now i got it...So its Bangalore the "green" city.
Lets move on to Mumbai... I would give it a colour grey... that is what you see from the aircraft... since we dont have much greens or many vibrant colors... just glass buildings and the dirty nullas... it has to be grey... the smoke is grey too! Smoke from chimneys/vehicles/smokers... we have lots of each of them... I feel bad for my dear city... (grey is not my fav colour)
Then we have Delhi... I would like to call it the white city... White represents clean, pure, fresh,etc Delhi is reallly clean with the majestic parliament and other such buildings which are lined with white cars with laal batti... they have the maximum "white collared people" (though the clean pure adjectives wouldnt particularly suit them)
There are more cities too... like Calcutta, Chennai which I would have liked to add to this list but I havent visited them yet so cant tell...
Mind you these views are just based on what is seen to a naked eye... the colour of the spirit of the people living in each of the cities would vary BIG time (Mumbai would be most colourful... no prize for guessing why)

Khuda ke liye...

India is divided into many number of states on the basis of languages. Each state has their own divisions. Like in Maharashtra, you have maharashtrians, but there are bramhins, saraswats, deshastra, etc. Why is everything so divided? Why can't we have a "One" funda... things would be so much easier. Just "One" God... (thats what I believe in) and not hundreds and thousand devtas/devis, allah, jesus christ (no I am not swearing) Just "One" Nation...
I saw this movie the other day "Khuda ke liye" A very good one if you into reality and not karan johar kind of movies. It showed how a pakistani girl born and brought up in Britain is duped into marrying her cousin in Pakistan (who has turned into a religious fanatic due to some maulvi influence) and how she fights for all of it in the end. It shows that people try to do things in Gods name when HE himself never laid down any rules.
What is the reason we are born? I believe that we all come into the world to enjoy life, learn different things, pursue our passion, live in harmony with others, be truthful, respect elders, help the needy and try to make some contribution to this world to make it a little better place . If we go by my theory, then why should we be ever involved in these religious rackets. Just live and let live. Come on people, life is too short to live it worrying about issues like these. We already have live examples of how such issues blow up to sizes unimaginable.
So just fight for your rights but don't tread on someone elses... Khuda ke liye

AM & LM

This subject relates to the hot topic in my life... Marriage...

Had a discussion on the same...arranged marriages (AM's) and love marriages (LM's)... are any of these better? In LM's the advantage is of knowing the person and hence taking a step ahead in the relationship is marriage. AM's are more of a gamble, where you gauge a person based on looks, education, family and all this in a few meetings.

But I believe a marriage is a total different ball game whether you know the person or no. Things change drastically as u actually start living with the person. His/her eating habits/ sleeping habits... you got to live with each other with all of it. In AM's there's the fun of discovering the person right from the scratch, whereas in LMs you expect certain things out of the person and if it doesn't happen that way... then trouble rings in...
I haven't checked the surveys for divorce rates... whether AM or LM have higher rates... but in general divorces seem to be on the rise... and I really think people give up too easily... but it also means that people are no longer ready to stay married just cause "you have to" ... they standing up for themselves... but I just hope they fight it out well before giving up...
All in all I just hope that it goes well for me... whenever it happens... people ask "are u ready for it?" and I am like "How can I be ever ready for a thing I have never known before ?"

Hop hop hop away...

Torn in between two worlds are hoppers of the modern world. You may ask who are these... well these are the globe trotting friends of our generation. Job opportunities often take us away from home and they might take us to different places. But do we still yearn to be back? Or do we adapt to the new place well enough to find the "home" town too.... wats the word... well lets say not too fascinating anymore.
A friend of mine is working in bangalore and often comes to town to visit her folks. Initially her comments would be bangalore is real nice and clean, climate is cooler and a perfect place to bring up your kids. Slowly the comments turned to..."Gosh the place sucks, so much time and nothing much to do" and now its a mixture of the pros n cons of both the cities.
Lets take in to account our pardesi dears. How they miss the dear country... by country I mean the 3 F's... (dont get any naughty ideas now) Family, Friends and Food.... not in the same order though. But yet when they come to visit their country, they complain endlessly of the weather, traffic, corruption, pollution, dirt, .... (the list never ends)
I hope these people find solace in someplace...
Yet what must it really be to be torn it between two worlds? Yet to be experienced by me... but will definitely let you know then...

Fear of the unknown

Recently I came across situations... various ones where I had to put aside my fears of what will happen if I do it... and I just did it...
I always postponed those things cause I was not sure how I will be able to do it, whether I will be able to do it... never gave it a try... a stupid fear of the unknown... but surprise surprise... I was asked to do them.. as in was given an ultimatum... and I did them and they were just too simple...
It was like taking a walk in the garden... Sure I had to put in efforts but they were nothing compared to the scary picture I had made up in my mind... So its true when they say its all in the mind... Give it a try and if you win... gr8.. If you dont... well try again...
So those of you out there who are busy procastinating... take my word of advice... Just do it...

My Family rocks!

Had this feeling yesterday.... this overwhelming feeling of how great my family is...

We had this festival of Ramnavmi yesterday which celebrates the birth of Lord Ram. We all cousins started the decoration from Saturday evening... right from what looks good to which flower goes where and in what direction... then we continued it with dinner and the usual gup shup @ night and a little beutification process ( face packs) even my jiju and brother joined in...

The next day was packed with action... with relatives and friends pouring in and kids running around... cricket on tv (!!!) and the puja ofcourse... then the aarti followed... and then the yummmm lunch... I had to serve two pangats (batches) before sitting down for it... but it was all worth it... d food was blissful... Next started the hunt for a place to sleep... since the house is always overcrowded... u just have to seize the opportunity of any comfortable nook and corner... Evenings are again busy with more friends and relatives visiting and a singing session of my sister which can calm down any ones nerves... and the place was full of kids crying, laughing, playing... too many emotions all bundled up... To top it all there were amazing snacks doing rounds...
In the end, while leaving, I felt real sad... sad cause the day ended... sad cause I had to leave all these wonderful people and get back to the grind... and sad that it might just be my last year as a singleton with them at this occassion... all good things do come to an end...
But theres always a repetition and a new beginning somewhere... All in all a gr8 day with my gr8 family!!

Pune ---- tikde sarvaach une....

As u can guess (from the title), its about the city of "Pune". The sentence further means that its a place that lacks a lot of things whereas the original saying is the opposite of it (Pune tikde kahi nahi une --- a place that lacks nothing) I had the good fortune (?) of visiting the city three times in a row... once every weekend.

The first was the worst. I have relatives who stay on the outskirts of Pune and I had to take a rickshaw to cover the distance. My observation of the fellow rickshawalas: A) They are real good liars B) They are rude! I paid almost double the amount for distance I covered and they treat you as if they did a favour to you. The places I visited still has those 6 seater rickshaws which should ideally fit 6 people but surprise surprise you can fit 12! I so love the bombay rickshwalas now... even thought they are north indians... they atleast dont cheat you! I even tried the dialogue --- "Marathi manusach marathi mansala madat nahi karat" ( a maharashtrian never helps a fellow maharashtrian) but it fell on deaf ears.
The weather ( I might (?) sound as if I am complaining but I just want to!) was real harsh too. The sun slaps you across your face and gets you all parched. You dont even get to sweat it out.
Then the journey back to aamchi mumbai, the bus stand was a big confusion mela. The bus which I finally got was a 6.30 one (in d eve) and after it showed me the rest of the Pune , it dropped me near my humble abode around midnight. The drive is actually just two and half hours away by the way.
So all in all, even though the city has a lot of good places to eat, nice weather (in winters only) and lot of youngsters, it still is blahhhhh in terms of transport and traffic sense.

So if you want to have a nice one day outing and you have your own vehicle (with lots of safeguards) and places to go all chalked out, then only, pune is safe to be.

brrrrrrr..... its cold

Believe it or not... its cold in Mumbai! ... people are actually wearing jackets n sweaters n shawls n even caps n roaming on the streets... not just in the closed confines of their air conditioned offices... coz thts the only place people in mumbai do feel cold... but now we can boast tht we not far behind in that respect too... Don't know if it will be a regular phenomenon meaning yearly or is it just tht once in donkey years one... Whatever the reason... I thoroughly enjoyed it... got all those warm clothing stocked in the attic out to flaunt... we can now discuss with our fellow puneites and delhiites about cold weather and the nuance n fun related to it...you get one more reason to reach office late (ohhh it was so cold i just couldn't open my eyes), and wat pleasure other than having to cosy up in your bed with a warm something/someone or having hottt soup...we mumbaiiites have braced this weather with open arms...welcome welcome n pls stay for a while...
Aaaah the pleasures of staying in this city... it just got better!

To forgive or not to...

How and when should one forgive someone. Betrayal by a stranger can be dismissed easily. But the one that hurts the most is when its done by someone too special and dear to you. How and when do you forgive them or not ? Do things remain the same after that? Parents are like role model forgivers. I rememeber doing so many mistakes as a kid and a grown up too. Stole money for postcards, was caught roaming with my boyfriends, lied to them so many times and got caught about it and yet they love me like it all never happened. Does it really require a big heart or is it just a course of life... you just let go...
It probably depends on how serious the "crime" is. Is it done intentionally or out of pure stupidity? Initially you tend to get hurt thinking about it all...emotionally, but an afterthought helps... u can seggregate the matter logically and reason it out.
Life is too short to live it holding grudges against people. Letting go the hurt or the person is the best way.