De-Motivated Driver!

Lately I have been dreading to drive on Chennai Roads. Why? 2 reasons:

Reason 1: Bad roads - All Thanks to the Rain Gods! Our Singara Chennai turned into an under developed town in 3 days! The city's bad infrastructure and careless maintenance was completely evident during the rains and this time we got leave from Work not due to Cyclone, but due to bad / non-existent roads! Ironic!

Reason 2: TRAFFIC!! Am not sure if any of you have realised, but Chennai traffic is growing by the day. Earlier, there was a meaning to Peak traffic hours. Now, mid-day during a weekend has peak traffic! There is always a Jam at S.R.P, Guindy, Ashok Pillar, T Nagar and where not! Even the prompt and up-to-date traffic updates on the Radio have lost their importance; there is a jam everywhere every day! I really hope Chennai is not on its way in becoming Bangalore! - Well not in all senses, but you get the point, right?

Hibernating

I feel extremely stupid in ignoring my own blog for so long. This blog has given me the hope that I can after all "Write" :) I may not be the best writer but I can at least make sense to myself ;) So what has kept me away from this blog for so long? Lots of reasons :)
1. Work - All work and no blogging makes Sakina a dumb girl :( I have been genuinely busy with the new happenings at work and have found very little time to come here and pen a few words
2. My sister - Yes Mallu, All because of you :P My sister was here for couple of months and whatever time I got was spent on her. Don't worry babe I enjoyed every moment spent with you :)
3. No words - Seriously, I have been struggling to write something decent out here. There have been so many times when I have started to write something and then deleted the entire post in a jiffy!
4. New Venture - I shouldn't blame my new venture at all for this, but I have to mention what I am busy doing besides work, right? I recently started writing on my friend's website www.chennaiwithin.com. I haven't written much there, but I am sure I can contribute lot more going forward :)
5. Vishnu - My beloved better half! I don't feel like staring at my laptop and writing something when I have the option to glare at his monitor, pull his hair, close his mailbox, paint his nails (I did that only once on his feet) and disturb him while he is busy working ;)
6. Motivation - I kept feeling that nobody cares about my blog, or reading my blog. Then I knocked myself on the head and said "What the heck Sak? You never started blogging because somebody cared to read! You started blogging cos you wanted to!"

Hope I don't go back to hibernation and feel stupid again.. I want to write and I will :)

Tarkeebein!

This song means so much! its like a Hindi version of  "If there is a will there is a way!". The song has been running on my play list for 2 weeks now and I am still not over it :) Here are the words and the video of the song for you :)


Tarkeebein, tarkeebein kitni hai tarkeebein
Tarkeebein, tarkeebein apni hai tarkeebein
Satrangi sapne hai, atrangi tarkeebein
Tarkeebein, tarkeebein kitni hai tarkeebein
Tarkeebein, tarkeebein apni hai tarkeebein
Satrangi sapne hai, atrangi tarkeebein
Tarkeebein, tarkeebein, tarkeebein, tarkeebein

Sir pe maalish ke jaise hain mansoobe har dil ke
Ulje baalon se leke raaste hain manzil ke
Jaibon mein rakh le yaara, kanghi hai tarkeebein
Tarkeebein, tarkeebein kitni hai tarkeebein
Tarkeebein, tarkeebein apni hai tarkeebein
Tarkeebein, tarkeebein, tarkeebein

Hum kal se kal niptenge, jo hoga dekh lenge
Hum tas se mas na honge jo hoga dekh lenge
Thande pade jo haunsle sek lenge (sek lenge)
Ho ho chadte suraj ko chooke sek lenge
Ho tension vension kya hai bas maathey pe bal hote hain
Beparwah muskano se hi masle hal hote hain
Aazma le aazma le, changi hai tarkeebein
Tarkeebein, tarkeebein kitni hai tarkeebein
Tarkeebein, tarkeebein apni hai tarkeebein
Satrangi sapne hai, atrangi tarkeebein
Tarkeebein, tarkeebein, tarkeebein, tarkeebein

Satrangi sapne hai, atrangi tarkeebein

Bachpan se gyaan sunte hai, matt samjho life is easy
Itni bhi kya hai jaldi, thoda sa take it easy
Maana future se ummeedein toh lagi hain
Ho kyon na jiyen jo aaj mein zindagi hai
Ho mushkil ke dhabbon ko jam ke mehnat se dho lenge
Kamjoshi kaisi bhaiya hum saare nal kholenge
Aazma le aazma le tanki hai tarkeebein
Tarkeebein, tarkeebein kitni hai tarkeebein
Tarkeebein, tarkeebein apni hai tarkeebein
Satrangi sapne hai, atrangi tarkeebein
Tarkeebein, tarkeebein kitni hai tarkeebein
Tarkeebein, tarkeebein apni hai tarkeebein
Tarkeebein, tarkeebein

There is...

There is an un-riped cherry on my nose
There is moist in my eyes and a change in my voice
There is a small pain in the grey cells and my body feels warmer than before
There is something running faster than my blood inside me..

OK! Stop imagining - I was talking about my cold and running nose!

It's just a movie!

I like to save myself from controversies, so the disclaimer comes first!
This post just projects my point of view and is not meant to hurt your feelings or fanaticism.

There is this hype in the air. The hype is so overwhelming, that I feel choked! The hype is so strong that it irritates. The hype is so idiotic that it makes me write this.Actually, These days everything seems to be hyped up; CWG, Ayodhya Verdict, Malaika paid more than Sonakshi for an item number and then Rajini in Robot! Yeah, you got me right, what's with the Robot? People!!! its just a freaking movie. The whole of South India seems to have gone upside down since the day Rajini announced Robot release!
I have been a victim of Chandramukhi and Sivaji and I am not one of those blind die hard fans who is going to buy a ticket for this Robot! Yes, I know that most of you who are reading this are not part of my coterie and I feel sorry for you! Any film critic who rates the movie 2/5 is said to be a Kamal fan. How sad is that :-(. So, basically all you want to hear is awesome, super hit, Rajini's gift to God, The ultimate movie ever made - otherwise you are going to behave deaf and blind! So tell me, why is the world so mesmerized by this movie? It is surely not one of those out-of-the-world Avatar type masterpieces. Nor is it any of those witty 3 Idiots kinds. The answer is simple, it's a "RAJINI" Movie. There are folks ready to pay 800 bucks for a 1st row seat, and 400 bucks for just standing in front of the 1st row seat! I rather spend that money elsewhere!

Like I already said, Its just a movie after all, so Chill guys :)

The Maid Madness

A lot of us here use the services of a house maid in order to cope up with household activities. Maids are these days an inevitable part of our lives. Most of the households have job-going family members and rely on the maid to take care of the household work.Throughout my life, I have always seen one maid or the other at home. During my childhood, mom taught me to call the maid with respect as "khala" (Khala in Urdu means aunt). I have never had problems calling them that, as they were extremely caring and loving. I had my favorite "Mahboob khala" who took care of me for God-knows-how-many-years. She was/is my favorite khala till date. I have never seen such a loving maid ever in my life. I do not remember why she ever left our house, but yeah, she still keeps in touch with us.
Gone are the days when you actually emotionally bonded with a maid, that is a long gone era. Now times have changed..Maids hardly turn up to work, and if they do, they disappear within no time!They demand money as if the money plant in the house has grown in kilometers! They have charges based on the locality you live in, if you are unfortunately staying in an "IT" area - you are dead! The maids there not only ask for a fortune, they have a very low retention too! The worst part! We making them a priority and "adjusting" our priorities and work based on their availability, see how:
- You try to be caring and make tea for her - she will come to work during lunch time!
- You Wanna go for movie? - Only after 3, the maid comes late and leaves only by 1.
- You Wanna take your mom to the doc? - OK, send her alone, somebody needs to be at home to welcome the maid!
- You Wanna go grocery shopping? - let's do it in the weekends! (the maid can help out in some vegetable cleaning)
- You Wanna go out of town? - give the keys to the neighbour and make sure the maid comes!

If all of this is not enough, there are more irritating things about them; it is their creativity with excuses! If you have dealt with a maid before, you would have heard of any/most of these:

- You are unwell and desperately want your maid to come - she wont turn up, and the excuse next day - Both my kids were at home and wanted to spend time with me!
- You have guests coming home and specifically request your maid to come early - she wont come! why? Cos her husband was at home and didn't let her come (what!?!)
- You call the maid's cellphone (Thanks to Ambani, every tom, dick and harry has a phone) - she doesn't answer, why? she forgot to recharge her phone balance!
- You are ready to fire her cos she has not come for a week - she comes back with the excuse that she went to kovil cos her husband was extremely unwell. (For a week??)

Bottom line, I am just too frustrated with my "beloved" maid and I had to vent it out here! My weekends would have been lot more peaceful and simple to manage if not for her! God bless her, her kids, her husband, her sister, her neighbour, her whatever for making my life so challenging!!!

365 days of Awesomeness

It was back in July 2009 when a good friend of mine came about the idea of Blogging a photo a day - a 365 Picture blog; A blog which would capture all the funny, lovely, witty, classy, touchy and unforgettable moments all through the year. It’s been a year now since that idea, and little did I know that I would actually successfully capture 365 beautiful days in my blog!

Today my 365 blog celebrates a year and I have absolutely no words to express how happy and satisfied i feel! This blog had promised the world that it will live for a year and live to the fullest! And it has kept the promise! :)

On this emotional moment (nautanki sak!), I would like to take up few lines on this post to thank all the lovely people, animals and objects who made an appearance in my life and my blog! If not for all of you, my 365 days would have been just another year passing by.

Thank you dear friends, colleagues, family members, acquaintances for the sweetest smile and patience to pose for the snaps: Vasumathi, Subash, Jathin, Rashi, Mohit, Mummy, Daddy, Vishnu, Amma, Appa, Teeks, Ramya, Arun R, Deepa, Abirami, Naag, Senthil, Mariya, Kalyan bro, Ramya (ex-colleague), Preethi, Bajji and Shyama, Aji, Pavi, Mani, Arun (from Amazon.com), Ankit, Krish, Ravi Shankar, Mani, Gajendra, Shoaib, Yunus Uncle, Razia Aunty, Kindle QA Team, Digital QA team, Belin Giles, Gayathri, Rekha, Sudha, Karthiga, Praveen, Amitesh, Pranav (kid), Kiruthika, Anuj, Lata Aunty, Anirudha, Chandana, Nagaraj, Deepa and Pradeep, Bakul and Poorni, Vishnu's College Friends, Hyundai Sales Person, Shwetha Ramesh, Sunita

Thank you to all the non-living objects, the materialistic stuff which appeared on my blog:

- The selective cars: Vicky's car, Hyundai i20 (and all the scratches), Honda Civic, Subash's Car, Praveen's car.

- The "in" gadgets and the "Smart" phones in town: Benq HD Monitor, Kindle, my iPhone, my Blackberry.

- The yummy food and beverages served by the loved ones: Basundi, Pepsi, Sprite, Chocolates and their wrappers, HSB tea, Brownies, Choco bar, Mango Pudding, Pickles, Kulfi, Mysore Paak, Gulab Jamun, Pasta,

- The awesome India discovery: Kabini, Darjeeling, Sikkim, Pondicherry, Bangalore

- The movies from Bollywood, Kollywood and Hollywood which kept me entertained: Jab we met, 3 Idiots, P.S I love you, Chance Pe Dance, Paa, Karthik Calling Karthik, Ek Vivah Aisa bhi, Harry Potter, Love Aaj Kal, How to Lose a guy in 10 days, VTV, Ice Age 3, Monsters vs. Aliens, Wake up Sid, There's Something about Mary, Rajneeti, Raavanan.

- The various "hang outs" which I visited numerous times and spent some great time: CCD, McD, KFC, Fruit shop @ Greams road, Mocha, Don Pepe, Parfait 3, Gangotree, Pizza Hut, Little Italy, Donuts inc, Bela Ciao.

 Last but not the least - To myself - for appearing in the most number of posts on the blog: D

 P.S - The blog is still alive and kicking, but just catching up on age ;)

Hair cut - Again!?!

It was back in November when suddenly I got my almost-waist-long hair cut into a "Bob". To me, this drastic change is not new and this is surely not the first time I got my hair chopped. My first big hair cut was back in school when I had very long hair (little below my waist) and the next day I walked into the class room with a boy-cut! The hair dresser was in tears when she cut them. Well, I had to do that cos of the never ending "lice" in my hair. I am sure all of us in school have had those dreadful black color creatures running on the scalp (yuck!! :-(..) Since then, I completely lost patience of growing and maintaining long hair and cultivated a liking of chopping my hair when it is least expected :)

The longest I have resisted and kept my hair growing was from Sept 2008 to Nov 2009. My hair grew pretty long and I kept longing for a haircut. Every time I stood before the mirror, I would ask myself - "Should I get a haircut?" and my mind would say, "Do whatever your heart says" and my heart would reply, "Do whatever your mind says". I ditched both of them and asked hubby, he simbly said "Cut it if you want, I wouldn’t mind either ways" - hmph! “Neutral answer” I thought. Then went to the Mom-in-law and hinted that I badly wanted to cut my hair. She said "Your wish dear, I like it both ways"; again the same kind of answer. One fine day, I finally made up my mind and got over my long hair avatar!!! Yippeee :).. and this is how I looked ;)

Trust me, I was so glad and excited about the new look! Almost everybody at home liked it (May be they were just nice to me). But when I returned to work, I got surprised looks and funny comments. People saw me in shock and moaned for my loss of hair. In a few days I felt bad that I actually cut so much of my hair and all my excitement of the new fringe and bob had drained down :(
It is 6 months since that happened and guess what - my mind is already thinking about a hair cut! (I told ya!!)....so I went to my favorite parlor, sat before the mirror and ordered - "Cut it!" - She asked me a zillion questions on what cut do I want?? How short? How small? How straight? How "U"? How "V"??...phew! After 15 mins - I came out with a new hair ishtyle...Tadaaaaaa! :)

This is so called "Layer cut" - Not so long, not so short. Takes advantage of my wavy hair and makes it look like a step cut :)..Now waiting for the world to react ;)

My first IA Experience!

It was again one of those painful trips I had to take in order to satisfy the team needs and recruit more people into the forest! The office admin could not arrange for decent flights and we landed up with "Air India". I have personally never travelled in an Air India flight, I have of course heard a lot of people literally swearing on the service they provide but have never taken them seriously. I always thought, what can really go wrong in an airline? Even if it is government owned? It still needs customers and has to work for the customers in order to be in business right?? WRONG!
They don't give a damn, they have no "customer" obsession nor do they care about who fly with them and who don’t - they always get left over crowd and they are happy with that. We reached the airport 1.5 hours ahead of departure and stood in a long never-ending queue to check-in. We as a group gave 9 tickets to the lady at the counter. She kept staring at the screen for more than 10 mins. No response. She looked around went to the next door aunty, no expression on her face, when we asked what was going on. No response. She took all our tickets and walked off, don’t know where. After 10 mins she appeared and we still didn’t know what was going on and were losing patience. We had to board the flight by 4:00 and until 3:45 there was no sign of boarding passes! The lady then walks to another uncle at the counter and he tried to print the boarding pass. We were lucky to have gotten 1 out of 9 boarding pass and were relieved that we are finally checking-in. Guess what!? The printer got stuck!! We were moving from one counter to the other until uncle found a working printer. After he found, he issued boarding passes for everybody else in the queue except us!
This was getting highly irritating and we started bugging uncle and all he did was Nod and say "1 min" - he did that at least 10 times...We finally followed the lady to the back office and she said, 1 min. it was 4:10 (15 mins before take-off) and we were still standing there waiting to check in. She finally came out and handed over the tickets to the same lost uncle and disappeared. Uncle took print outs of our boarding passes at 4:20 and we rushed for security check! While we were standing in the queue the IA lady announced "This is the last call for all the passengers boarding the Bangalore flight on Indian Airlines". We broke the line and ran to the gates, the lady was pissed off and didn’t even smile (like we care, do hell with your smile).
We reached the flight to find out that my seat was already allocated to somebody else and the lady was kind enough to ask me to sit in Business class (somebody was finally kind I thought!). I was finally happy that we got compensated for the wait and got business class seats. I guess I got too carried away, the air hostess were no better. One lady - Who looked half pregnant, another one who looked deprived of food and the other who looked as if she hated being there! Totally 3 ladies to serve us "first class" and make us feel that we are the bad boys stealing away their life from them! There was no Smile on their face, no please in their vocabulary - you would simply wish they didn’t exist.
So much for a 45 mins flight to Bangalore - I would have rather taken the train!

The IPL disease

Well it’s that time of the year when everybody sees IPL, breathes IPL, eats IPL, sleeps IPL. Ever noticed the open mouths of people trying to eat and gaze at the TV at the same time? It’s a normal scene in Food court here these days. All of them (specifically men) care less about the flies on their plate and more about the sixer which was just hit by Sachin! What's in a Cricket? Or rather what’s in an IPL? There are 2 major things Indians are crazy about - Cricket and Movies! - What a good way to mix both of them and create money!! Shahrukh, Juhi, Shilpa and Preity had no other better work to do I guess - or maybe they just thought cricket would earn them more income than showing their skin! I used to follow cricket and would lose sleep when there was India-Pak match going on! I was crazy to the extent that I would keep offering 5 Rupee coins to the TV when I wanted Sachin to hit a four and if he did, the TV would get another 5! Those used to be fun and made me look as if the "Whole" of India was for the win! To me IPL looks like a civil war made popular! No? Then why does your blood pressure increase when Chennai Super Kings loses a match with 1 run? Or when Mumbai Indians win as if it was a practice session? I have hardly understood why would we split the states and fellow players, invite firangs to the teams and then play against each other so that all of the firangs whom you would play with later on will know about each Indian player in detail! Isn't it like "Aa bail mujhe maar"??
OK, may be I just don't understand it in the right way, but I also don't seem to understand the "hype" about it! First the media and the Ads- every radio station, every TV channel, every other hoarding is dedicated to the great IPL! Every product on earth is sold with a tag of IPL, from fairness cream to Digital TV subscription to chaddis! If thats not enough, they mix super singer competition with IPL and make them "IPL Rockstars". Aing? Where is this going? I wonder if this enthusiasm was ever shown during the hockey world cup! Actually, it was not!! People, there are more things in life than Just Cricket and IPL!

Do the Dune..

It was just yesterday where I had danced to 2010 and it’s already the 3rd month of the year. And to add to this, I also completed a year of wed-lock! Most of you know that this is not an arranged marriage and Vishnu and I have been hooked forever! So, 1 year of wed-lock was more of a wow-I-am-married-for-a-year feeling than wow-I-married-this-stranger-a-year-back! Never mind if you don’t understand the difference, but Feb was surely a special month for me but thanks to "Duty" that the most special month of the year (after September of course ;-) ) was spent alone!

My better half informed me in Jan that he will be "visiting" home during Feb aka he will be out of town for most of the month and my first reaction was - You better be here on the 20th OR I will KILL YOU!!!!! He simply gave one of his funniest-cutest-broadest-whitest smiles and said we both will not be here on the 20th! I didn’t know what he meant but later did I realize that besides his huge-hectic-horrible travel schedule he had planned a surprise trip for the anniversary :))))))))) Both of us have always wished to go to a quiet calm place and relax ourselves but we never got around to do that, thanks to our hectic work schedules. We finally got to do what we wanted (relax that is) at "The Dune" - Pondicherry.

We always have this image about Pondicherry - French Colonies, Auroville, Beach and Bacardi! And people mostly go there to either party or get drunk or do both! However, Pondicherry also hosts bunch of beautiful beach resorts and one of them being "The Dune" - The Dune is actually an eco-beach resort. It’s a town by itself, a place where you won't feel hot even though the sun is right on top of you, you hear the birds chirping and the sea splashing on the shore from your bedroom, you have mosquito nets but no mosquitoes (only bees), you drive a cycle instead of a car, you have a lotus pond in front of your veranda, you live on solar power, your roof is not made of concrete but of palm leaves, where sun light wakes you up instead of a tube light, where you eat organic and grow organic! This place was surely a wonder! The people there are friendly and caring, they made surprise arrangements for us and we enjoyed the limelight to the fullest! A room decorated with flowers, a dinner table specially decorated and booked for us, a beautiful candle lit dinner, a handmade card by the staff and a cute cake cutting ceremony with the staff made our stay and our anniversary so memorable!!!

I was so glad we went to the Dune - waiting to go there again :) And, thank you for taking me there :-)

Whose Turn is it anyway?

Looks like me and my husband are taking turns! When I was blogging almost every day, he was silent and never wrote a word on his blog. Now that I hardly find time to blog he is writing essays-elaborated-to-books-size blog!
Well that’s not the only case we are taking turns.. We take turns to be in town too! - When he goes out of town I stay at home waiting for him and just when he is coming back I go to the same city where he was and miss him there! - Gosh! Well he has described this situation very nicely on his blog so I am not going to take the pains to re-write it :) however, my side of the story for Feb 2010 is surely unique from his. I spent most of my Feb waiting for his call, talking to him only 1 hour (in total) in 20 days, spending 2 out of 28 February days with him!
Oh, we also take turns in sleeping and reading.. What? Confused? Don’t be :P The reason is, when he is reading a book and totally drowned in the author's words I keep bugging him with some stupid work or nag him about not listening to me! And he perfectly reciprocates when I take a book in hand :) He sleeps when I am awake and working and he wakes up when I get the best sleep!
We also take turns to drive the car :) lol - we cannot drive the same car together duh! He drove me to Pondy @ 120kmph and I drove the rest of the world to Pondy at the same speed. I usually am not a TV watcher and very rarely stick to that dumb box, but he, he sticks like glue! And just in case I choose to watch TV, he snores! Oh yeah, we take turns to be late :) - Weekdays I wake up late and Weekends he is late! If that was not enough, we take turns to act crazy to each other too!
It was my turn to write on my blog, so I did :) Abba, your turn now!

Valentine day Special

It was 13th Feb, 11:30 PM in the night. Half an hour more to go for the mushiest day of the year, and I was (for a change) romancing with my laptop! I had no better thing to do :( and after a lot of farming and buzz-ing I finally started doing some cleanup work on my lappie. Went through all pictures, videos, docs, apps and what not. And then I landed into my "Movies" folder and decided to watch a romantic movie until 14th Feb came along!
The movie I chose to watch "P.S. I love you!" - What a perfect movie to watch! i had no idea about the movie and I was assuming it to be any normal romantic comedy like "Music and Lyrics" or may be "27 dresses". But this one, bloody hell, it got me tears! I have no idea if somebody could love someone so unconditionally! I had tears for the passion and the intensity of the love portrayed in the movie! The movie touched my heart so much that I just could not sleep until dawn! And the question kept arising "Can somebody love someone so much?" - Do I? Can I? Honestly, I don’t know!! I don’t want to know! The movie is a piece of fiction and I don’t really want to start comparing the love a person in the real world has for his/her wife/husband! But yeah, I must say, this movie got me thinking and got me sleepless too! Beautifully made and beautifully executed!  A superb movie to welcome “Valentines day” :-)

Republic day!

It's Republic Day today. Seems like just another Holiday! I didn’t even bother to go for the flag hoisting which happened in my apartment premises - feeling bad about it. However, when the National anthem started playing on TV I left all the work I was doing and stood there in front of the TV and started singing along! Felt so good! There is something in that anthem - Something which makes me happy, or may be proud?  Or maybe just so patriotic!
Well, this is not the way I used to celebrate this day always! During school it was mandatory to join the flag hoisting ceremony, and I never felt lazy to do that :) It was in Dec 1997 when my PT (Physical Trainer) Teacher at school randomly came to me and said "Sakina, would you go for Republic Day Parade?" and I replied "Miss, why now? Republic Day is in January only". She didn’t bother to answer and enrolled me for it.
For the next 1 month I was instructed to be at the Traffic Police headquarters (near Dasprakash, Chennai) at 5:30 am for a 1 hour March-Past Training. Initially, I was like, what have I got myself into? I should just back off! But my parents felt I should go ahead with this and my dad religiously dropped me at the headquarters every morning! As the days went by, the practice sessions became less painful and more fun. I had couple of friends from my school and met many more from other schools too.
As the big day neared, we started having rehearsals at the Marina Beach! The first day they took us there, they made us March from the Light house to Madras University (which is 2-3 KMs in distance). Our hands ached and our legs felt numb. The daily practice would hardly cover 500 meters of distance and this rehearsal really killed us! We had 2 more rehearsals to go before Jan 26th and in the 3rd rehearsal we were experts! We felt the distance to be shorter and the marching didn’t pain at all!
On Jan 26th, the beach was beautifully decorated; the Dias was setup near Gandhi Statue (It is not held there anymore I guess). That day we were at the venue by 4:30 am and kept waiting for the Chief Minister to arrive for the Parade to start. It was 10:30 when we finally saw signs of the Minister and we finished our parade by 12 in the afternoon. I was marching in the row facing the audience and when we turned to salute at the VIP's on the Dias I felt PROUD! Really PROUD! This was my best Republic Day Celebration I have ever had and I ever would have!
See, I told you, I have stories for everything! Btw, Happy Republic day to all in India and abroad!

It's self-daba time!

Its mid-year review time at work!! The time of the year when you are officially asked to spend time on what my friend calls it - “self-dabba”. This opportunity comes twice a year in my work place and all of us put as much hours as possible to make our self dabba look perfect! Well I wish it just ended with just a self-dabba process :( They make us write good and not-so-good things for everybody else on the floor too. If you did not know already, it’s easy to write good things about yourself and much easier to write not-so-good things about others!! :) - It's human nature yaar! But, during this time all of us go against this natural behavior and are asked to write the exact opposite in detail!! Hmph!
So, for the past week, I have been writing a lot about my co-workers. It took me lots of time and effort to actually dig all my mails and come up with "fair" reviews. A lot of us think "kuch bhi likh de yaar, ye thodi na self review hain" – That’s the exact problem!!! Because it's not about me, I cannot take the liberty to just blabber what I believe I did over the past 6 months. The person for whom I am writing is probably much better than me and I would have to kill-my-ego, kill-my-attitude, kill-my-fears, kill-my-straight-forwardness and write a diplomatic, logical, crisp, justifiable, reliable review. What a huge responsibility it is...!!
Well, after finishing my co-worker review, there was another bomb dropped in my mailbox; A request from my manager to give feedback about him. I think it’s a good thing to give "Upward feedback", but it is equally bad too. This is not my first time I am giving the upward feedback but when it was, I thought, "arey wah, yaha pe toh manager ki bhi waat laga sakte hain", then my brains replied saying "yeh toh locha hain re, yeh toh mere big boss ke paas jayega" - I have to kill all those things I mentioned above 3 times more to come up with a small paragraph about my manager! Luckily, I didn’t have to struggle this time, I am pretty new to my new manager and vice-versa, so very less to write and lots more to avoid :)
Phew! Now I can finally sit and do what I love to do the most - self-dabba!! I wish it would come as easily  as blabbering in this space! Wish me luck!! :)

Out of words?

This is my 4th attempt in this week to write a blog post. And am hoping I won’t Ctrl+A+Del this one as I did it for the previous 3! Wonder what is wrong, I have forgotten to write? (Did I know at the first place?), I don’t have a good topic to talk about? Well, I don't think so. For most of you know that I can talk forever and about everything which is linked to me! In fact, my pervious attempts were about mehendi, office, work, zoo zoo and what not! So, that's not the case either. I have lost interest? - Hmmm, I hope NO! This blog is set out to become big this year; I don’t think I would lose interest so fast! So, what is it? Just too busy to even think and write a good post? May be, May be not! I don’t take hours to write a small Para!
I guess I am out of words; Just Out of words! I have no proper words to express what I want to in the right sense and in an understandable form. That's why I find myself writing and deleting every single line I try to post! How did I write this one then???

Never mind!

Kulfi Kulfi Kulfiiiiiaaaaaaaaa!

As I hogged the very famous "Rajasthani Kulfi" today, I started narrating this story to my soul mate. I couldn’t stop myself from blogging this small and short story of my connection with "Rajasthan" and "Kulfi".
First, let’s deal with Rajasthan - As per my dad, his dad was from Rajasthan who stayed in Madhya Pradesh for most part of his life and then settled in Maharashtra. So, even though i am born and brought up in Singara Chennai - i still have traits of Rajasthan, Madhya pradesh and Mumbai in me! - Wat a mixture!
Second, KULFI! - I used to stay in Parrys corner locality when i was doing my studies. At that point, Parrys corner was supposedly the "heart" of the city and was the most happening place too (in terms of business). It hasn't changed much w.r.t business and crowd but yeah the heart seems to have been misplaced. Anyways, back to kulfi...every evening after dinner, my sister and I would impatiently wait for a cycle wala. In those days, there were many Kulfi walas in the small galis of Parrys area who used to sell the kulfis on a cycle. This specific cycle wala had a unique style of ringing his bell and shouting "kulfi kulfi kulfiiiiiaaaa" The moment we heard that chant, my sister and I would run to the small balcony and start jumping with joy and shouting back "kulfi kulfi kulfi" (yes in the exact same way I do "see see see" also :P ). The cycle wala became so used to us, that sometimes if we wouldn’t go to the balcony, he would come to our home and check if we were doing ok and a kulfi would help :). How sweet!
Gone are those days of yummy kulfi offered in Rs.5 with a caring hand. I must say his kulfis were the best from the rest of the kulfi walas in the area. Until one day, he probably became greedy and stopped making yummy kulfis for us and made the ones which would sell for less price..:(
After narrating this story my hubby said - you have a story for everything!!!!!!!!!!!
BTW, today is my Mom's birthday. Now you may think, what’s the connection with Rajasthan, Kulfi and Mom? Of course there is! Rajasthan connection is for the same reason as above :) The kulfi and Mom connection is the yummiest ever. Why? Because mom makes the best kulfis in the world! My friends would be specially invited home when there was stock of kulfi in the Freezer :) - The so called "Kulfi Party" :)

Mom may you live longer and make yummier kulfi's for me :)
Oh, forgot to mention - the Rajasthani Kulfi at Ascendas Phase 2 was pretty good ;) 

Wish List For me, To me, By Me!

It’s finally 2010!! Another big year went passed and another big year to come. Almost everybody seems to be making "New year Resolutions" or "2009 flashback list" or "Best of 2009" or "Worst of 2009" lists. Well, I tried my luck too, but didn’t get anywhere. I don’t believe in waiting for a New Year to make a resolution. I neither like to see the past only when the year is over (I see my tumblr blog from the most recent to the first post every other month!) Coming to Best and Worst of 2009 - A lot of it are there - I rather write a novel than spend time posting it here (I can probably get some royalty out of the book ;-)..)

 I am just hoping for a great 2010 and hoping to have some things fine tuned in me. These are no way “resolutions” (I don’t want to get caught guilty by the end of the year for not fulfilling them). All I can promise myself is that I would try as much to get these things done! It has no end date, no priorities and no dependencies. It's a long due Wish list, a Wish list for me, to me, by me!

#I wish for a brighter day each day.
#A routine of my own, no alarm clocks waking me up, no emergency calls making me stay awake.
#I want to get back to the sakina I was couple of years back, in size ofcourse!
#I want to stop looking at that packed treadmil daily but put it to good use!
#I wish I can prioritize better - Its not important if its not for your good. Period!.
#I want to learn to say "NO" - I am capable of doing everything, but i am not capable of doing everything at the same time!
#I want to become more practical and less sentimental.
#I want to stop explaining myself to people who are just not open to understand me. No Point making a Point when there is no Point in making a point…did I make sense?
#I want to get my Dad out of his financial problems and allow him to retire and relax.
#I want to travel more and more! My travelogue cannot survive otherwise
#I want to get back to my dance classes and brush up my skills :)
#I want to spend more time with my old friends (I just seem to be ping them when its their Birthday..or sometimes even forget that - But I Miss them :(...)
#I want to write more, I want to improve my vocabulary and become a better writer. I want more followers to my blog and more stories to write :)
#I want to make the 365 project a success - I have lot of my friends who started with me and left me behind!
#I want to probably start singing too - I am a good singer (at least in the bathroom :P)
#I want to facebook less and orkut more  -- sheesh bad one, I totally dont want that..lol
#I want to get a hike, probably get promoted and help Vishnu retire so that he can read books on the Kindle forever and always stay lazy! :))
OK except for the few funny ones in the end, I have a serious list of things I wish/want to do! I am gonna keep this list of things in front of me and check it whenever I think I have achieved it!

All the Best to ME!