Cousin Connection

Recently one of my cousin sisters sent this message which read -

This message just struck me like a lightning bolt! "So true!" I exclaimed. I have grown up with my cousin sisters around me (especially mom's side family). We used to stay in close vicinity and would spend an entire weekend at each other's place doing nothing! Back then, we (luckily) fitted into each other’s clothes and would shamelessly dig into each other's closet. There have been numerous occasions where we have confused our parents as we would look identical in each other’s clothes. Well, we don’t do this anymore; we neither stay in close vicinity nor do we fit into each other’s clothes ;)

Coming to think of it, my cousin sisters and I share many similarities. Some of them are because these traits are running in the veins and arteries of the family tree
>We are totally self-obsessed; we get ready and stare at the mirror until we impress ourselves!
> We love posing for pictures and clicking millions of self-photos (in the 5 star hotel loo of course)
> We love food - one likes to cook, the other likes to take a pic of it and the other likes to eat. Well the love for food from different angles! (HEHE..keep guessing who is who ;)..)
> We LOVE HANDBAGS - I don’t think we have realized this as a group of cousins, but each of us separately drool over handbags and long for having a cupboard full of it!
> If you haven’t guessed this one already, we can oscillate between being "Gaandi" (Mad) to "dhai deekri" (obedient/silent/calm gal)
> We love giving "dhamki" - well not in the serious way of course, this is a bi-product of our nautanki character ;)

This list goes on-and-on. So, while I sit and figure out this list, why don’t you go ahead and probably send the same message to your long lost cousin :)

10

It was nice to see all the good responses I have gotten so far on my new year countdown blogs. Thanks guys for keeping me motivated :). Today I have numerous ideas on the 2 list. Some are mine, some are from my friends and some from the universe ;). So right now, the "dharm sankat" is, what the hell do I write about? Zimble. Everything!?! :P . So on popular demand, this list of 2 is actually a collection of 2 lists. Don’t worry about the math, just read on! :)

2 best films I saw in 2011: Out of the very few movies I saw this year, it is a difficult job to pick the best 2. Especially when you are a big Bollywood Fan and when Bollywood is hell bent on producing mind-blowingly awful movies. So, after a lot of scrutiny and deep thought, here are the 2 best movies I saw in 2011 - Kungfu Panda 2 - "Po" the Dragon warrior is simply the cutest, funniest, naughtiest, wittiest kung-Fu master I have ever seen in the movies :) he is totally adorable and all thanks to Po, the movie is on my top2 list ;). Second in line is Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara - Kabir, Arjun and Imran set out for a trip of a lifetime and discover themselves in the process. The movie has great locations, dialogues and songs. My favorite character in the movie- Imran Habib aka majnu  aka Farhan Akhtar:)

2 worst films I saw in 2011: Now that the best ones are out of the way, I think its far easier for me to pick the worst ones.  The movie which wins this gold medal is Dum Maaro Dum - I mean, why cant somebody please give Aby baby some shaving foam? And what exactly is Bipasha trying? Oh and why is Deepika even dancing on that song? Sorry, the most relevant question comes now - What is the movie about? This movie was such a Maar and no Dum!! The one with the Silver medal is Pirates of the Caribbean 4 actually I was going to say Transformers 3, but I think Penelope did a better job showing her pouted lips than  Rosie :) (pun intended). Can somebody please tell me why the pirates who are good at battling in the sea and conquering other ships go behind a goddam fountain of youth?? Seriously this movie was such a failure!

2 best reunions I had in 2011: I have had some very good reunions this year with some old friends, some of my cousins and some of my old colleagues. So the 2 get together' s I totally cherish are "The cousins day out" in Feb2011 - I think this was the best outing I have had with my cousins  Rashida and Mariya :). The second one is actually a small meet up with Rohini and Nivy :) We spent like 2 hours in Baskin Robins but had a great time playing around. Ro - please send me pictures :P

2 top achievements in 2011: This is slightly tough. You know how difficult it is for me to boast about myself right? That too publicly on the internet :P hehe. So getting rid of all my sharm and haya, these are the top 2 things I achieved this year. First, this is a joint achievement between my sister and me. Yep, you guessed it right - Mom and Dad's HAJ! We (Maryam and I) had a sense of satisfaction once they returned from Haj, a feeling of comfort that we could finally make this happen :).  The second one is on the lighter side. I did my first ever snorkeling in sea  during my trip to Andaman's. It was seriously an achievement as I was a little worried that I might drown and kill some fishes in the sea ;)

This is my 2's list for this year, and since I am running short of time, I will end my blabbering right here and welcome the last day of the year with this blog post :)

P.S. There are 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't

Cousin's day out

Today I had such an awesome time that after a very captivating and overwhelming previous post I decided to write about this moment of my life where I truly enjoyed! My cousins and I have been planning to meet up and do something fun for years now, but due to some silly reasons our plans would always go down the drain! This time, i guess the sun and moon and stars were all aligned well and we finally found a day when we could actually go out and spend some time with each other! My husband is out of town, Rashida's husband is out playing cricket and Mariya is currently single! And finally we got a very good chance for the ladies to bond :)
We started our "Cousin's day out" at 11:00am in the morning and ended at 6:30 pm :) In that time span, I drove a lot (I was the designated driver for the outing) Mariya was our DJ and Rashida was the caretaker (providing snacks, water and cash ;)..). We didn’t really plan our day completely and wanted to just let the day take us where it wanted to. We were on ECR and just crossed toll plaza and Mariya sprung up and said "Let's go to Dakshin Chitra" - Three of us had never really explored the place, so we readily agreed and landed there!
The three of us had completely lost it and instead of appreciating the "art" displayed in Dakshin Chitra, we were too busy exploring our art of photography! We had so much fun just clicking away :) We sure had the "Self-obsession" part common in all the three of us..hehe. We spent some time in the bangles making session and saw the artist make a very pretty bangle out of already broken bangles! I must say it was quiet a process, but the end result was awesome! As usual, three of us indulged ourselves in bangle shopping and picked a few good ones to flaunt around ;) We started hearing sounds in our stomach and finally decided to just leave the Dakshin Chitra tour half way and eat!

We drove to Mahabalipuram and ate at Radisson Temple bay. The lunch was pretty good and we also got chocolate based desserts on special request :) well the best part of the day started after the hearty lunch! We spent more than 2 hours at the beach playing with water, analyzing the tiny orange eyed crabs, measuring the tide, getting pedicure done with the sand, sitting under the sun with coolers on, feeling the breeze pass by, letting our hair tangle and our minds untangle, watching the firangs getting sun tan and of course taking loads of pics!
We drove back to mummy's place and enjoyed the refreshing tea and biskut with Mom and Dad :) This marked the end of our meet and we said good bye to each other wishing for more such memorable days :) Thanks Rashu and Mars - it was super fun! :)

Naani maa

It has been quiet some time since i penned down my accumulated thoughts and it's time to vent out! So...here I was, all busy with my work, and i suddenly found myself addicted to this song "Meri Kahani" from "Atif Aslam". This song has not only been sung well but also has great lyrics too.

tera mera galyoon main yun phirna
phirte phirte raat ko yun thakna
thak ke nani ki godi main sona
paryoon k des ja ke na aana

"thak ke naani ko godi mein sona" - this line brought innumerable memories of my time with my naani. My childhood has been pretty plain and uneventful but is filled with some very good times with my naani. We had a ritual of visiting her every Saturday and the entire "jing bang" would go to her place and have a ball. I have seen her from walking around a huge house, to going slow with a walking stick until she got bed ridden. Rashida, Mariya, Maryam and myself used to spend most of our summer vacations there. Nanni's place was huge, with just 2 rooms separated by a long walk way where we could play cricket if needed. It was the best place to play Hop n catch, skipping race, kho-kho, hide n seek, blind man's buff and what not! During festive season, the entire family would gather and jabber and bring the roof down. Man it was the most happening destination in town!

(That's all the cousins @ Naani's place on Eid!)

I still remember the last smile on my Granny's face, when she looked at me and said "Sakina tujhe dekh mujhe aata hain paseena" - her favorite dialogue to me! She slept that night and never woke up. She slept peacefully with a smile on her face and free from this world. I still go to meet her at the Cemetery and whisper into her ears "miss u naani"

I really do!