Shopping, movies...and lessons learnt

Shopping alone is quiet an unnerving experience. With a two months of untouched salary sitting in my bank account, i decided it was finally time to let myself loose in a land of uninterrupted indulgence....

its like being a kid and let loose in a candy or a toy store.
anyway, the phase one of my shopping spree began yesterday, i decided to go buy some nice Indian wear, especially after a week at ashram where i somewhat ashamedly realised that i woefully fell short of Indian wear.

here's what my shopping list looked like
two sets of salwar Kurta
A formal Handbag ( sick of carrying my signature journalist's jhola)
A well cut jacket.
shoes (yet to figure out what kind)
and yeah a haircut (that reminds me, i have ta fix up an appointment now!)

there's Dandiaya at Secunderabad club today, so finally i'll be able to party which is not work related, though i don't fancy seeing the same page 3 crowd who owe their whole existence to the pubs and nightclubs in town.

So i went to 'W', which stacked a lot of ridiculously expensive kurtis, as a matter of habit, i ended up checking out the western line, and guess what!
no prizes for guessing that i came back home with two fusion wear outfits (OK western)!

went to Odyssey, the bookstore, got this book called 'food revolution' (a must read for all disgusting dead carcases chomping 'in'humans)

and headed home
on the way picked up a DVD (bad idea, watches 3 movies which really sucked back to back and woke up at 10 am today morning, reached late to work)

picked up grocery (no use, ended up having instant noodles for dinner)

Lessons learnt

never go shopping alone or without a budget .

nor do i recommend renting those 3 in 1 movie DVD.
coz the combined effect next day is equivalent to a bad hangover and brains that feel like they desperately need to thaw after centuries in deep freezer.

For Indian wear, as boring as it sounds: Stick to Fabindia.

Eat meals on time, else you end up eating any junk that comes your way!

okay i'm done... hope this blog leaves you more enlightened on how not to DIY

Made just for me...

okay, lately, every post i've tried to write is turning out to be horribly sadistic!
been under a lot of stress, and have just not been myself at all. The situations i am in are really not pretty and am sick of being so negative, so i decided to write a blog about all the people i love and am grateful to have in my life (in random order excluding the first)

Here goes

Master....
Its not been easy, you know it better than me. But i have accepted it, coz i know the pain is never going to go away. But the only thing that matters is that you are there, come what may. And this pain is just to make me stronger and deeper than ever.

Mom....
I know i have been the biggest pain in the butt, and i probably wont get my room cleared till the end of this century. Thanks to you i know miracles like unconditional love exist.

Dad....
I am the same little girl who would run into your arms as soon as you came back home in your army combats.

Krish.....
You've grown so much, but you're still ma baby bro and i have every right to torture you.

Dinesh Bhaiya.....
I am totally confused, and you're probably the only other person who knows that. The compassion and warmth in your voice are like a balm to my aching heart

Bau....
apart form him, its you i totally aspire to be like. you're a phenomenon, that no one can explain
if only i could be half as vibrant as you.

Tapan Bhaiya....
I know you care, but i need time, god knows its taking me ages. This process is taking a lot outta me.

Rags and ami
you people are family and you don't thank family, only torture them.....so beware

Harini...
Trust me, i learn a lot from from you, being with you i know i just have to be myself.

Ree..
we talk a lot, but what we don't talk means much more. I'll never forget the day we pierced our nose, the day we took PTC, the day we travelled in Mumbai local trains eating Mc aloo tikki....

Pavs...
I was always a bit intimidated by you, coz i was so messed up back then. Now wish i had more time with you.

Manisha...
just the fact that you exist...

at this point am really emotional, so before i start bawling let me just leave after saying that there are many such who make life worth living, and just thinking about them, makes my day.

I feel so cherished and taken care of- no wonder am sucha spoilt brat, so next time i make one of my typical unresonable demands, just remember who's responsible for spoiling me.

once upon a writer

See this is what happens when you start writing for a living

there was a time when i'd crave for opportunities to write

a time when stories would be treated sacrosanct

a time when i'd feel proud and cherish every published work

a time when i knew it, like i knew it, like i knew it

that i was born to write.

Its funny how similar it is to marriage, coz in a way, yeah, i am married
to my work.

But writing aint the same anymore, its like i am this human story churning machine.

writing stories that get murdered in the hands of editors anyway,

stories that probably have little consequence to the lives that we live

and stories, that in no way even comes close to changing the world.

But I continue to write......

Because that's the only thing i know i can do, and can do well

coz one step at a time, i probably can change the world

and no matter what, if i am true to myself, whatever i write, that
truth will reflect in my story.

and the judge of that my dear reader is you.

Reasons for not blogging in the past month (in random order)

1. Felt homicidal for not getting my stories published.
2. Application of Alt+Ctrl+Del way too often.
3. Ate too much chocolate.
4. Ate too much chocolate cak.e
5. Ate too much cheese.
6. Ate too much.
7. Designing strategies to get over my perpetual financial crisis, to get over being on the brink of bankruptcy.
8. Average time spent contemplating to exercise per day 44 Mins.
9. Amount of time spent contemplating per day 02:00 hours.
10. Torturing people in my life (goes without saying, the very purpose of my life).
11. Enduring 85 bad hair days in 3 months.
12. Agony of transforming from messy maddy to not-so-messy-maddy (ask Ree).
13. Singing the most out of tune Hotel California at a public place (thanx 2 Goli and Alice).
14. Adjusting to ghar ke expectation of being a 'nalla tamil ponnu (long sad story).
15. Having pointless arguments, all eventually ending with whatever !
16. Accepting a hygiene queen and miss-know-it all as one of my best friends.
17. Coming in terms with myself, identity crises- phase II.
18. Trying to figure out ways to gate crash iron maiden concert.
19. Travelling in a train for 40 hours, with full throttle PDA (public display of affection).
20. Travelling in train full of mullahs and quazis (with skull caps, and awakening the whole compartment for namaz at 12 am.
21. Living in the national capital where the concept of meters is unheard of to dilli autowallahs.
22. Waking up at 3:00 am in the capital, with the baffling thought of not spotting even a single departmental store, or even a kirana dukan.....how weird is that?
23. Rejoicing coming back home aka hostel with a huge sigh ghar aa gaye!

Baby eaglet

Black eyes with grey pupils, occasional blinking would reveal silvery eyelids.... it lay there, crouched, helpless, and frightened to death. After all the initial commotion and hushed oohs and aahs, it lay forgotten, battered and unattended.

I wondered what all the noise was about as I climbed up the stairs of hostel, and i saw instantly a sight that was hard to miss

Because it was the most beautiful and heartbreaking sight. A magnificent eagle, lay at the corner of the balcony, for a moment i felt as helpless as the eagle.

"Ooh what happened"...Rims was as awestruck as I, we just stood and gasped at the sight. What do we do? What do we do? Flurry of phone calls, and finally Harsha comes from PFA(people for animals). By this time, we were fast friends with it, Rims was playing radio mirchi songs to him, and we were in the process of baptising our friend.

"it so clichéd",...said rims sounding disgusted, and wouldnt let me name him Angel.

Harsha spread his beautiful wings, and I was scared,

" he’s not had water for a couple of days, so has fainted of dehydration, he’s barely 20 days old"

"Ooh a baby eaglet!

"A baby eaglet...there's no such thing as baby eaglet".

We fed him water, and he was up in minutes. "Can he fly"

"sure, in about a month"!

"That long"?

"Yeah, coz it cant hunt yet"

"so its really a baby eaglet"

"i said there aint nothing known as......"

"Where are you going to take him?"

"Animal hospital"

"can we come visit him"

"we have about fifty birds, you wont recognise him"

Harsh then put eaglet in a shoe box...and I made one last desperate attempt ."can I carry him"

"uh, no thanks".... And he was gone,

We named him eaglet (and that’s not clichéd?)

Phone rings an hour later saying he's in the ICU and will be fine.
Some how the image of eaglet in ICU on the ventilator and nurses fussing over him cracks me up.
"You can visit Saturday’s and Sundays", which cracks me up further.

I don’t think I’ll visit him,
One day when I look up at the sky, I wouldn’t be surprised to see my angel...er...eaglet soaring high watching over me.
And who says I wont recognise him.

Bombastic

Okay, i had to say this, as am sick of hearing what blessed Uncle Sam's troupe have been upto! one day they are bombing Iraq, Afghanistan the next, recently it was Somalia, and why, coz of its alleged link up with al-Qaida, recently this report on NDTV got me livid..

The head of US spy operations has said that Pakistan, while a key ally in their hunt for terrorists, represents a major source of Islamic extremism and a refuge for top terror leaders.

So now that they admit it, why dont they start bombing Pak? Why does the victim always have to be some backward, war ravaged nation ?
I feel benevolent compassion for the people of Pak though, out of 60 years post independence, 50 years were under military dictatorship, the present one with a benign smirk on his face was to hang his boots way back in 2004, but now as things are going, ahead of the presidential elections its likely that he'll continue till 2011.

War and games

Yet another new year! Celebrations, firecrackers, champagne......It was none of those, in fact even hearing 'happy new year' repulses me, let alone saying it!
Every time a new year comes, we promise ourselves a year of peace and happiness, and yet another year goes by with more blood and gore.

How Can there be a celebrations when there are hundreds of parents weeping for their kids at the nithari village, i cringed when i heard the UP PWC minister terming it as 'yeh sab choti- moti ghatna chalti rehti hai......

There are fire crackers alright, when dozens of Innocent civilians in Iraq are killed everyday by the Americans....How long can the world remain a silent spectator to the brutal hegemony of US. Its a joke to be called the most civilized country in the world when their actions are that of a blood thirsty barbaric nation. If this is what 'civilization' means, then I'd rather that we remain poverty stricken .Guess the higher we go up the ladder of evolution, the more and more are values get eroded.

Speaking of values,is there supposed to be champagne when a person is being hanged a day before new years eve for the whole world to watch! Being in the media,its mortifying to watch things happen and not being there to change it. Happy New Year indeed!It just depresses me to hear that...coz there's nothing to be happy about,but there are things that helps me though, to see things in a better perspective, like this column i read in the Newspaper.

War and games
One thing that seems to be common between war and game is that,in both, you need to be insensitive towards the other. If you are sensitive towards others' feelings, you can't defeat the other. Today, when children play video games, Internet, watch violent cartoons, they get in-sensitized. These games have turned into real life situations, leading to class room violence. The last decade has seen unprecedented instances of violence in schools. Dropout rates in schools in Washington DC is an alarming 50 per cent and there is an increase in gang violence amongst the adolescents the world over.

His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shanker excerpt from speaking tree column, Times of India, December 13.

His Holiness's view help us understand things from a larger prospective, this is the kind of knowledge that the world is in desperate need of today.

To solve a problem, we need to understand it first, and for that we need to go back to our roots, to ascertain a sense of identity, coz we don't identify ourselves with the right things,need to ask the right kind of questions - who am I? whats my purpose in life? Well i guess with this knowledge i am ready to begin the new year,though not quiet convinced what it holds for me, but just knowing that the biggest war and games which we are subjected to are not always external.