A catalog of recommendations

Bought a new home? have too much on your plate to figure out? This blog post is dedicated to all the new home owners who are trying to make their home live-in ready! My home was a brand new construction. We bought lot of the stuff online, saving a lot of time and effort. We didn't have a car when we moved in and we preferred door delivery options. So, without further ado, here is a long list of tips, links and ideas for your new home... enjoy!

First things first,  measure your house, every single inch, height, width, length. Measure your drawers (each one of them), kitchen shelf etc., You will be buying a lot of furniture and organizers and trust me you need to know how tall your closet ceiling is :) and how deep the drawers are.

Kitchen & Pantry

1. Stock up on those OXO containers- trust me your pantry needs them. You can either buy them from Costco, Bed Bath and Beyond or even Amazon. 
2. This heat mat works really well on any kitchen top. I also got this or this to save my gas range from my clumsiness ;)
3. Recommended by another friend, these help seal the gap between your stove and kitchen top. These are perfect to save any food falling on the floor (think ants)
4. Show some love to your sink by organizing the brushes in this
5. Spice it up with these magnetic spice jars! They are cute and are convenient to stack on your fridge.
6. Invest in your kitchen drawers, buy shelf liners (I bought  "Variera" from Ikea). Measure all your drawers and find organizers for your spoons, ladles. Ikea has loads of options! I also like these from Amazon.
7. Water purifier - Both my husband and I have sensitive stomachs and cannot digest tap water as-is. We invested in an under-sink water purifying unit - link. We had no trouble installing this on our own and love the taste of the water. I got special discount for buying directly from the distributors. Ping me if you need a referral.

For your Closet

1. Our closet was provided with 2 pre-installed railings and was not enough. We re-did our entire closet with Ikea's PAX closet solution. These were a little painful to assemble due to the height, but made our closet so much more efficient! 
2. You would want to make your closet look uniform with the same hangers, so throw away those old ones and buy these! No matter how big your closet is, you will need this and this to optimize your closet space! 
3. Oh and if you are a shoe person (Who is not?), you might appreciate this shoe organizer
4. Get these moisture absorbent packs. They help keep your clothes fresh, I also have these in my pantry to keep the moisture away

Bathroom essentials

1. Water Bidet - the best thing for some of us who cannot just make do with toilet paper :)
2. Toilet cleaning kit - This one from Clorox is very easy to use
3. This drain protector is the simple and best solution to blocking hair getting into the drain. works perfectly in bath tub and shower stall
4. Get these diffusers for keeping your bathroom from smelling. I have actually found better ones in Metropolitan Market (Seattle) but you get the idea :)
5. Washable shower curtain - Hate the plastic-y looking inner curtain? I got these from Bed, Bath & beyond and love them!            

Furniture - We bought a lot of furniture online (trust me it was a gamble!). We host a lot of friends and family and were always looking for convertible furniture. These are some of my absolute favorites

1. This tri-fold foam sofa converts into a twin bed.
2. This bean bag  converts into a single bed.
3. This indoor chair does not convert into anything, but is great to just lounge and fall asleep 
   

Blinds - Well, we all know how expensive blinds are. For a new home with large windows and no blinds, we were suddenly having privacy issues! We were too lazy to go through an exhaustive list of options so we went with a friend's recommendation to Budget Blinds! Their prices were great and their installation was close to perfect! Highly recommend them if they are available in your neighborhood. They also had screens/stickers for doors and windows and we loved how our main door looked after the treatment

Miscellaneous things

1. If your home has a lot of hard wood - you definitely need this to mop the floors!
2. I don't know about you, but my house has way too many spiders. Buy this for cleaning cobwebs without getting a back ache!
3. Whether you like it or not, you will find yourself doing a lot of DIY and will need a nice ladder. We got this from Home Depot.
4. Call me obsessed, but this and this is the best investment I have made for my bed. I have always struggled to keep the bed sheet intact on my mattress and these do the job just fine!
5. We found these peg boards from Ikea super convenient - I used them to organize my sewing supplies

              

That's all for now! Hope you found this post useful. Cheers! :)

Waiting for Gas!!

Ayega ayega ayega aaane waaala ayegaaa ayegaa

Intehaan ho gayi intezaar ki ..ayi na kuch khabar mere….ki

Jaaaanejaaaa  dhoondhta phir raha hu tumhe raat din mein yaha se waha…tum kahaaaan??

Wondering who I am waiting for?  Read on.

For the past few months, hubby and I have been trying to run the household to make sure that the home my in-laws have taken a break from is in one piece when they eventually come back. Part of that responsibility is for me to cook and for him to eat :D.

So far, so good. However, the problem starts when this simple life starts depending on agencies and people who have no flexibility what-so-ever! One such is the insane… sorry Indane gas agency. These guys expect every household to have folks available at any time they feel appropriate to deliver the LPG cylinder. If not, they simply cancel your booking and leave a slip at the door. A slip at the door!? Wow, they actually left a note!? How kind. As if all this kindness was not enough, they also go ahead and cancel the order! (sarcasm alert). We tried to explain to the agency that both of us are working and cannot be at home during the day. The guy just said "sorry" and hung up. Customer service score = -100!

So,  now that we are at the mercy of our agent, hubby and I are taking turns to stay at home and wait for his highness, the cylinder delivery guy to show up! Well, all of you already know how I love working from home (more sarcasm)! It is not just inconvenient, it is annoying at levels I cannot describe.

So to kill this annoyance, I have a playlist full of intezaar (waiting) songs! Here's hoping that this playlist will last till the royalty deigns to put in an appearance! 

From the daughter's heart

It is exactly 3 weeks since he opened his eyes to the angels of heaven. His last moment is still fresh in my mind. Just about the same time 3 weeks back, all the family members were sitting around him and praying the Quran. His eyes were half open staring at the wall in front of him. I lovingly called him "Papli" and got not response from him. The only indication that he was alive was the movement of his diaphragm. Time was ticking towards the night, and as much tired I was, there was no sleep in my eyes. I didn't want to lose sight of him. I just didn't want to! Suddenly, his eyes opened wide and he started breathing heavily, it felt like he was watching somebody up above. "The time has come" my cousin brother said.
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I had seen him deteriorate inch by inch in the past week. The last hug he gave me was on my anniversary day. He was already a little weak and was coping with a lot of pain. My sister and I had made plans for alternative treatment to give his body strength and immunity. We were planning a trip just after my anniversary to an Ayurveda place as well. But God had something different in mind. Like they say - Man proposes, God disposes!
The next day after my anniversary, he seemed completely zoned out. He had drifted into a sub-conscious mode and had completely stopped talking. His only response was through blinking his eyes. Mom looked strong on the outside, but I could see the turmoil in her eyes. The doctor visited us and after examining him said "Please inform everybody possible". Her estimate was that he would stretch it for a week max! Honestly, I do not have the words nor the courage to explain how the days have passed after that. All i knew was, my parents need me to be the strongest daughter ever; I was and I am! That one week we saw him cripple into a skeleton. From blinking eyes, to half open eyes staring into space. From frequent anxiety attacks to a motionless body. The Doc was right, he survived exactly a week after that.
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All through that week I was only praying to God to stop the torture and grant him relief and peace. But when my cousin uttered those words, I was not sure if I was prepared to handle that moment. For sometime, I moved away from the room. I made a list of people I had to immediately call once anything happened and gathered the courage by saying to myself "I need to see this through". I went back to his room and sat next to him. My elder aunt had taken him in her lap and had her palm on his chest. He kept breathing heavily and tears rolled down his eyes. I closed my eyes for a minute in prayer and when I opened, aunt said "I cant feel the heart beat".The entire room stood still. I looked at mom and saw here eyes fill up. I tried to see if his diaphragm was moving, no sign. Looked at his face, frozen. I shakingly held his wrist to feel the pulse, just one pulse and nothing. I stared at mom and said "No ma, nothing, I cant feel a thing". He was no more! He was my Dad.

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

Phibe! :)

5 days to go for 2012 and 5 more posts on the blog to hit a century :) though I would love to welcome the new year partying I have a feeling that I would  probably be writing a blog post when the countdown begins :-). Actually! Not a bad idea at all :P. Whether I party or not, one thing is for sure, I will complete my 100th post on this blog on New Year’s Eve :-) With that hope and spirit, here is my list of 5 things I wish to do :)

Streak my hair purple: I am crazy about purple and all its shades. I have collected loads of purple stuff in my wardrobe and have never gotten tired of adding something new. I have driven shopkeepers mad asking for a specific purple shade dress or purse. In fact, my parents simply jump at the sight of anything purple saying "Sakina's favorite color". Recently when I walked into the beauty parlor, I spotted a huge Schwarzkopf hair color poster with a lady having purple highlights! And boy, did I get tempted? Yes! I sure did! I decided to streak my hair purple or rather highlight them on my 30th birthday. But...I couldn’t and that’s why this one goes as a top item on my wish list :)

Buy a Purple Honda Civic: I love Honda Civic! The sexiest car I have ever seen and dreamt off! And the sexiness just gets sexier when it’s in purple! Most of you who know me have seen me getting completely distracted when I spot a civic on the road, especially when it’s purple! Oh and I also have a Civic poster on my desk which acts as a Motivation factor! ;) I just hope I get my hands on this car before the Honda guys decide to make it ugly :(

Get a Tattoo on my neck: Ha! This one is recent too. I remember hating the idea of torturing yourself and permanently encrypting something on your body. But hey! We permanently have ear piercings even though they tend to hurt, so what’s the big deal with a tattoo then, right? :) I want a nice cute small tattoo done on the back of my neck :) preferably in purple :D Any designers?

Write a book: From the time I started blogging, I have been wishing that one day I will write a book. I have written a lot about myself on this blog, may be one day I will publish an autobiography ;) or may be my love story or may be about purple ;)! Who knows one day I will be the next popular writer in town. Hehe :)

Open my own boutique: Fashion designing has been my dream for a very long time. I still hope that one day I will officially open a store and sell clothes which are “branded” by “Sakina” :) A day when people would come to my store and are ready to pay a fortune for my designer Saree” :). A day when people passing by my shop look at the mannequin and say “Awesome Ghaghra”! Well I can go on and on, but you get the point right?  

Here is wishing that at least one wish out of this wish list comes true before I die :)

Six!

I have always loved travelling, I have never hesitated to pack my bags and just go out there and discover the world. Be it a leisure trip, or a trip for a friend's wedding, or a small weekend getaway; I am the first to volunteer and probably the one organizing too :) After I got married, Vishnu and I have tried to make a list of places we want to visit and then pick up a place whenever we are ready for a Holiday :) That's exactly how we landed up in Andaman’s earlier this year :). I do have a very very long list of places I want to go to, but today, 6 days to 2012, I wish to list the 6 places I absolutely want to go/visit :) (Actually my hubby is making the same list and trust me, the places are different ;) hehe)

1. Tajmahal in Agra, India – As one of the  travel guides mentioned "There is nothing as beautiful as viewing the Taj by moonlight" - that's exactly what I want to do. Go to Agra during a full moon night, get special entrance tickets, sit at the Taj and enjoy the silver shine around the building! Absolute beauty!

2. The Pink City - Jaipur, capital of Rajasthan! Place filled with Mahals and palaces. One of the finest planned cities and a city of royal ancestors. I want to go for a weeklong tour to just Jaipur and walk into every palace built there, eat the bajre ki roti at a local restaurant and get myself dressed up in a Rajasthan costume :)

3. Kerala Backwater tour in a huge houseboat :) - This place has a movie connection, remember the Jiya Jale Song from Dil Se? I want to do a 3 day long trip from Cochin to Kumbarakom and simply enjoy the lush green view around me.

4. Venice, Italy - The first time I came to know of this place is when I saw one of the most romantic songs from The Great Gambler,  Do lafzon ki hain Dil ki kahani . I surely want to do a romantic boat ride in the city  of Water :)

5. The Alps, Switzerland - I have seen this place only in Karan Johar movies. I want to play with the snow, do lots of skiing, and go on the cable car and roller coaster rides on the snow!

6. The Grand Canyon, Arizona US - What can I say, when my dad told me about his experience here, I quickly made a note that I have to make a visit there. When I saw the move 127 hours, I was convinced that I wanted to visit this place before I die :) I believe that the sunrise/sunset view is simply spectacular.

These are not the only places I ever want to go to. I do have another list of short trips I want to make, but for now, these are the 6 most wanted places I ever want to go to :)

Why I like to be in Chennai

Recently lots of my colleagues crib about how much they hate/dislike Chennai. Thanks to my non-Tamilian look, people often assume that I would second their feelings and have a similar story of how this place ruined my social life or rather LIFE! Nothing personal against the people who don’t like this city, everybody has their right to liking or disliking something, however, this outburst from my colleagues really got me thinking, is this place that bad? Well my immediate answer was - No! "Why do you like this place Sakina?" you may ask. My answer - this blog post :)
- Chennai is what I call "home". I have had the most memorable memories, the best school life, the most fun filled college life, an interesting career and a very filmy love life. I have lived most of my life here, and do not mind living the rest here. In simple words, I am born and brought up here.
- I believe that this city is one of the safest places in India, especially for the girls. Try going on your scooty at 1 am in the night all alone in some other city and be sure to reach home safely. I have done this many times right here with no fear!
- The weather - yes! I mean it! The weather! (I can totally imagine your eyes pop out reading this). They say Chennai has 3 seasons Hot, Hotter, Hottest - Agreed. I rather enjoy being under the hot sun getting a tan, than wrapping myself in half a dozen layers of clothes. I rather have bath with normal tap water than from a boiling geyser. I rather sweat it out and get my body to cool down than freeze to death in snow. I rather enjoy those few rainy days with joy, than to carry an umbrella/rain coat daily and suck at it! I rather fall sick just once a year during change of weather than be sick all through the year due to erratic change of weather daily!
- The beaches - the world's second longest beach is in Chennai :) - well keeping that fact aside, having a beach at a driving distance is luxury. Beaches are a good way for me to unwind and a good adda to catch up with my friends. I don’t need a food court at the mall to meet someone; I would rather go to the beach with them and eat roasted peanuts instead :)
- The simplicity - the people here are simple and grounded. No show off, no bull shit. People here don't expect too much out of themselves or each other and are happy with what they have. None of us ever missed KFC, or a McD, or EA mall 10 years back.

This place is not perfect and has its flaws. But the point is, which place doesn't? I guess every city, every town, every village has its own good/bad and people who live there (or decide to live there) just see the brighter side of things. This city is special to me and will always be no matter what other people may think about it :)

A dream come true

 They say dream hard, dream a lot, dream something which will wake u up and make u achieve it, dream something which will bring tears to your eyes when they come true.

I spent the whole of last weekend with my parents. I got pampered and I pampered them. Mom was busy packing and I was busy executing her orders (hehe). Dad kept filling the house with savories, vegetables, eggs etc. for Zenab (she is going to be staying alone while they are out). I must tell you it was the funniest and most memorable weekend I have had. Oh btw, you must be thinking why I start about dreams when all I wanted to do was spend time with Mom and Dad? The actual dream was my parents’. They wanted to go on the pilgrimage that every Muslim longs to go on, the pilgrimage which has the most importance in any Muslim’s life. Yes, Mom and Dad were finally going for Haj!

When my sister and I started to work, our first and foremost goal was to get the family in good financial shape. Well we almost achieved that so we jumped to the next one and that was "Send Mom and Dad to Haj". We have been planning for this day for god-knows-how long. Beginning of this year, Maryam and I made up our mind that we will send Mom and Dad to Haj this year no matter what. The "no matter what" attitude really helped all the four of us to make it happen. There were a lot of people who had applied for Haj and we were just praying that our parent's application gets approved. It didn’t :(. But Mom didn’t lose hope, she went ahead and took all the possible recommendations to the Haj organizers and Mullahs and followed up every day to get their name approved. Fortunately (or unfortunate for somebody else) there was a cancellation and Mom and Dad got their approval! Hurray!!


After that Mom single handedly did most of the prep. From preparing a list of things needed to going for shopping and getting them :). She was motivated and enthusiastic, she was happy to see that she would be finally going for the trip she always dreamt of. Dad started his process of wrapping up work, so that there would be no unfinished business when he was out. Maryam and I were there to help wherever/whenever needed :) In fact, Mom and Dad were well prepared a month prior to their travel dates and the last few days before the trip were simply spent in spending time with each other and relaxing :)

Just the day before the travel, I felt anxious; I was worried about my parents having a safe trip. People who have been to Haj before have told loads of good and bad stories. They say going to Haj is life changing and I was hoping they would just be fine. This year they are expecting around 35 lakhs of people there, huge enough crowd to get lost and never be found :(. I am sure Mom and Dad are equally tensed. But they are being brave enough to make this trip.

On Monday Morning (Oct 3rd 2011) Mom and Dad woke up early, said their prayers and started getting ready for the long trip. They had to be in complete white from head to toe; White burkha, white chappal, white specs (the thread), white bag. It was an absolute overwhelming moment to see the dream come alive :). It surely brought tears of happiness in our eyes. Here's wishing them a successful and a life changing Haj!

Life.....

Today is my in-laws 39th wedding anniversary. 39! WOW! First, wishing them a great wedding anniversary and many more years of togetherness! We celebrated today by visiting an orphanage cum old age home 20 kms from Tambaram - New life Old Age Home. We started off early and drove on good and bad roads to reach the small place. We spent couple of hours there, went around the place, said hi to the welcoming inmates, ate lunch with them, heard a very nice old lady sing and came back. all in all, it was a great visit!
This place is owned by a couple who left their Govt Jobs and started "New Life" with a small hut. Today the place has around 64 kids and 60 Old men and women. Aunty (Owner) spoke to us about all the challenges they face in the day to day operations of the place and how they need to struggle to keep the place clean and livable. She had loads of stories and experiences they are going through to run this place. Few of the surprising things I heard were "There are so many people ready to donate, "money" is actually not a problem, "man power" is the problem. There is nobody who comes forward for voluntary service. Everybody needs salary. Lots of youngsters promise to come on weekends and teach the kids, but not many turn up! They tried recruiting MSW (Masters in Social Work) graduates and they demand 25K per month salary as a start!".
Well that's the "kadwa sach". WE have no time to spend on anything which can help the society! And NGO's like these just keep struggling without much support! I left the place with a heavy heart after looking at all the nice and cheerful oldies staying there. I have never understood how some son/daughter would have the heart to leave their old parents in a place like this. There are so many inmates who are from well to-do families and lived a very great life until they were suddenly thrown out of the house because they were of no "use" to the family. These so-called "families" don't even bother to visit them or ask about their health. That's worse than the kadwa sach I just spoke about!
Anyways, at the end of the day my in-laws were happy that they made a choice to help them and celebrate their anniversary by spending time with them :)

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! :)

Rambling thoughts

Well here i am finally, trying to write what i feel like, but don’t think my mind is in the right state of mind to actually make my hands write something decent or something interesting to keep you sticking to your monitor and continue reading. While reading the below post, please understand that I am using this space to blabber and vent out some things which have bothered me for a while! This post no way indicates that I am depressed and need a counselor, so just read it and forget about it!
People say i have a perfect life! Well i don’t think anything is imperfect about that statement, but when i really think deep, i kind of tend to disagree. One day my friend told me "Sak, I envy you! You have a job every techie wants, you work on a product everybody likes, you married the guy you always wanted to, you got amazing in-laws, you have the coolest parents on earth, you are Miss Popular and you have whole load of friends!" Wow! First, I would like to say a BIG Thank you for summing that up! Honestly, I had no insight! But then, when i actually read that statement all over again, i feel if that's the case, i should be happy all the time and should be the most satisfied person on earth! Shouldn’t i? But at this point of time, while i am actually writing this, I am not in my best of moods and surely not close to being happy!
You may think, “come on Sak, what's wrong with you?” The answer to that is, “Nothing”! If life was always happy and settled, then probably i was not living! So, analyzing the statement my friend made, "I have a job every techie wants?" - I doubt! May be every techie wants to work in the company i work in, but surely does not want to do what i do every single day, especially my developer friends, they would completely hate it! "I work on a product everybody likes" - well I don’t want to use this space to comment on that! So let's move on..
"I married the guy I always wanted to" - Absolutely! No doubt about it, I wouldn’t have fought and consistently and patiently waited for him if i didn’t know that he is not the one! He is the best thing that has ever happened to me and will be! But the sad part is, he is in a job which makes him travel, i mean travel a lot! I hate it when his boss calls and throws a bomb on him and asks him to go to US for a month! I have to not only support his travel and help him out but also have to behave sensible and mature and understanding wife who will be ok to see him go for a month! uuurrggh! "I got amazing in-laws" - Well if the guy is good the parents have to be better :) don't you think? They surely are amazing; I have never seen such understanding and accommodative parents in-law! They have accepted me the way I am and my work and have never complained about it!
"I have the coolest parents on earth" - well not literally, but yeah they are! If not for them, I wouldn’t have gone for all the random treks, trips and weekend outings and had the small accident which got a permanent scar on my face! They were also supportive when i wanted to stop with 10th Std and jump into Fashion Designing! (But that never happened :(...never mind!) So, yes my parents are the coolest parents, they are the most welcoming and warm hearted people i have ever seen, they have never frowned when we had friends coming home to eat Biryani and Kulfis and never complained when they saw 50 ppl in the house practicing dance and ruining the carpet! Yes, i have had my share of tiffs with them too, and may be that way we understand each other better and I get to have a small say in what goes on in the house!
Moving on to the last one: "I am miss popular and have a while load of friends" - Yes and No! My husband keeps teasing me with this "Sak knows half the world, and the rest of the half knows her!" I don’t know whether to be proud about it or not! I feel ironic, the reason being, I have 650+ friends on my Facebook account, I had close to the same number before i deleted my Orkut account. I have 300+ contacts on my LinkedIn and my Google account is overflowing with 900+ email ids and all i was looking for is 1 friend! 1 friend with whom i can share every secret, who knows me from child hood, who kicks me when i am acting weird and pats my back when i do a heroic job! A friend I would call immediately when i have something special to share! I am a loner in this crowd! At the end of the day, everybody has their own life, their own priorities, their own groups and parties to attend! It’s easier these days to say "hi" on the internet than getting somebody to come and meet you! (No bajji, I am not talking about you!). I have been trying to get our college re-union done for more than 5 years now, in my last attempt; exactly 3 people came from a class of 65! My bro is trying to do a re-union of all ex-colleagues from our ex-company for couple of years now, and we always land up with not more than 4-5 people! Our outing plans with friends from work have been canceled many times because of other priority stuff!

Now, if this how my life is, I am surely not happy at the moment and surely want this blog post and the day to end. I feel lot better just writing this down and I know when I come back tomorrow and read this post, I would be having a hearty laugh! This is hoping for a brighter day tomorrow!

See ya!

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 :)

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!!!

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!

The Pepper Spray Story...

Yesterday's topic at RJ Kanmani's show was "Should we use pepper spray in Chennai?" - Well good question. I didn’t really listen to the answers but immediately drifted away into my own Pepper Spray Story! I used to carry Pepper spray in my bag when i was in the US.
I was staying with a couple of girls in a shared apartment and had my colleagues staying in and around the same area. One of my friends who helped me find the apartment was finally wrapping up his tasks at work and was getting ready to get back to India. In order to give him a good farewell another common friend invited both of us for dinner. In the evening after work, we walked to our friend's place and settled down when suddenly he remembered that he had to pick up his last set of clothes from the nearby laundry. He promised to be back in ten minutes ..sharp! All of us started setting up the dinner table and waited for him to arrive. 10 minutes became an hour but no sign of him. His phone was not reachable and we waited impatiently!
He came back after 2 hours, sick! His eyes swollen, wounds on his cheeks, his stomach was hurting bad and his cuts on the face were bleeding! He was MUGGED! The laundry was in the parallel road and 2 huge guys had attacked him while he was returning and tried to take away his purse and cell phone! He started screaming for help and the more he screamed, the more they punched him. Finally somebody spotted him on the road and called 911. The 2 guys fled after they got what they wanted and left him stranded on the road. The Cops and ambulance arrived soon and he went through emergency medication and filed a police complaint.

All of this happened at the door step of my friend's house and none of us heard it or saw it!

We freaked out and were in a state of shock. We lost our hunger and all we could think of is his safety! We booked a cab from her place to his place (which is the parallel road again). We had no courage to walk on that road in the dark again! Everybody around us looked suspicious (the Cab driver included)! I dropped him home and went to my place, Shivering with fear in cold weather!
We went to the nearby hospital next morning, got him checked and confirmed no severe injuries and bid him farewell at the airport! I must mention, the entire team in the US called and checked on him (Including our CEO). It was heart filling to see the care people showed around us.

I was strictly instructed with the following things after this incident:
- A pepper spray in my bag ALWAYS
- Nothing more than $5-$10 in my purse.
- When mugged, don’t scream - just surrender and give money or spray the pepper!

A lesson learnt and an incident which can never be forgotten! RJ Kanmani is surely reminding me of a lot of things through her not-so-commonly-spoken-about topics :)

Steal from your own house?

As I was getting ready for work today I tuned into "Radio Mirchi" to listen to some new Tamil tracks. The RJ Kanmani was talking and calling out the question of the day to all her viewers (actually hearers? Whatever!), and the question was "Have you ever tried to steal from your own house anytime in your life?" – First, I found this question a little silly, why would anybody in their right minds steal from their own house, and second, if they did, why will they confess so publicly? But hearing the number of people calling back and answering made me really think about the question! One girl called and said " I needed pocket money and I stole Rs.500 from the rice box" and another one, "I picked up the change from the dining table" and many more such callers! So I started to think, did I ever steal anything from my own house? For some reason, I immediately remembered one of the stories Mom had narrated to me, an incident which happened when I was small.
I was a small kid, probably still wearing diapers and chewing toys! My sister was a little older and was probably in her kindergarten. Mom used to store all my diapers (remember we had cloth diapers those days) in a small aluminum box. One fine day, Mom dressed me up after a nice bath and in few minutes I was crying. Crying really bad. Mom had no clue what was going on! (I wasn't the crying types apparently). To her surprise, she spotted ants on my clothes! Red Ants! The ants had bit me so bad and I had no choice but to just keep crying. She did some investigation and found that all my clothes in that aluminum box had red ants and lots of cashews!!! Cashews?? How did it get here? My sister then confessed that, she loved cashews and she used to keep the extra ones for later. All those extra cashews she hid in my beloved clothes box and finally forgot to eat them! My Parents appreciated her "storing for future" idea and gave her cashews as a prize :)
This is no way the answer to Kanmani's question of the day, and I was surely not going to call her and narrate this either. It just struck my mind as I was thinking of my own stealing moments.
Enjoy the story as I still think on what I stole from my own house..

You!

YOU guide me and confide in me
YOU motivate me and irritate me
YOU let me BE, and be to the fullest.
YOU allow me to make mistakes and help me correct them.
YOU stay at work all night when I need to do a night out.
YOU drive me nuts and you drive me around the city too.
YOU are an indispensable part of my life and you complicate my life too.
YOU let me listen to my kind of music, even if its something you hate listening to.
YOU take away my troubles by just making that funny face.
YOU are my weakness and my strength
YOU add logic to my senseless emotions.
YOU are a pain and the medicine to a lot of my pains!
Being with YOU is like being with a Best friend.
I love YOU!

Boondon se baatein

Rain has been playing hide n seek with me. When I was out on my week long vacation it was pouring here. and, when I was in Bangalore during the weekend there was a down pour here. I haven't got a chance to see much of rains myself, but I love this season.

Besides all the havoc rains creates, it bring out the music in life. The downpour, the dark clouds and the flashy thunders add on to the not-so-happening city life. The rains add a beautiful aroma to your surroundings, wonder if you have ever smelled rain and said, "Is it raining somewhere?". It is the time when Mom's are busy frying pakodas and bajjis and malphuas! yummm! Slurp!

The Air conditioner's are given a break and the natural breeze is given way. The fans run slower and the wind blows faster. The old thick blanket on the loft is finally put to use and you hardly sweat. The dried clothes get wet again and the mud covered cars get water washed naturally :-) The schools and colleges get generous with holidays and a privileged few get to Work from Home. The roads are empty but flooded and schedules slow down as the rains get heavier.

Often rain is expressed as an emotion. Some people think that nature is crying along with them for their sorrows and some think its a celebration of their success. Some see it as a reliever to heat and some call it a menace. Some call it the season of romance and some just don't think anything at all!

For me, Rain is music, rain is dance, rain is rhythm, rain is refreshing, rain is energy, rain is fun, rain is rejuvenation, rain is awesome!! (I didn't bother to sound rhythmic though ;)...)

Rain Rain come again, Lil Sak wants to play :)

Nothing official about it!

Just about when I thought my team is growing big and we have lots to do together I was suddenly moved to another team. This new team was once the "neighbor" team on the floor and now the neighbor has open doors for me to stay in. This surely came as a shock to me, it felt as if i just joined this place all over again! My "adoption" process from one team to another happened few days back and I was formally handed over to the new team by my old manager - literally like how a baby is adopted from the-mother-who-gave-birth to her and the-mother-who-will-raise her!

Thank fully, My desk location has not changed and I am still sitting with my old team mates. But lots of other things have changed, I no more get emails from my favorite boss, I no more exist in the team group emails, I no more share work with my team mates. I don't even get the heart or motivation to go and talk to my new team mates (I don't know why). Nothing against them, they are good at whatever they do and they are welcoming too, but I am just not ready to enter those open doors..

Some of you must be thinking; :Sak, Don't get emotional about it, it's after all your work place and as long as the pay cheque comes in, be happy!" Well you are probably right, but not completely! I don't (nor does anybody else) work in isolation. And yes the pay cheque is why everybody starts to work, its finally the environment and the people which motivates you to get going and do the best at work!

I hope that this remains as a temporary "phase" and though i am not trying right now, I would be out of this soon.