10 Day You Challenge: 1 photo

The tag continues..
And here I am..




Glad that I FINALLY finished the tag before the new year(the tag was supposed to be done in the month of July though)..

10 Day You Challenge: 2 songs

2 Songs
Strange how some songs holds memories. One day I was listening to some song and it reminded me of a college friend, a random song playing in the radio brought back the memories of days bygone. So the two songs are not only the favourite songs but favourite old memories also..

1) Dil dhoondta hain: An old friend introduced me to this song. I bought my first Gulzaar cassette at that time. Everytime I listen to this song, it reminds me of those lazy afternoons when me and my mother spread on the bed listened to the songs, me fast-forwarding/ rewinding the cassette so as to reach to my favourite song, getting in and out of the bed to change the side of the cassette once it has rolled completely. Those were such carefree days and everytime the song sings of the lazy afternoons of the winters and breezy nights of the summers, the heart dreams to live them.



2) Way Back into love: I had just watchd the movie, courtesy ZZ to whom I used to hand-over the list of good movies which he downloaded for me and brought to me during those days. I loved the movie and this song too. Inside one Diwali Greeting card that he had posted to me, there was a paper in which he had written the song in his specially-calligraphed writing in ink pen. I was back into love.

10 Day You Challenge: 3 movies

3 Movies

1) 1Dil Chahta Hain: The kind of movie I would enjoy watching again and again and this statement itself speaks a lot on how much I like that movie. Superb styling, witty dialogues, fantastic acting and fabulous script. “Hum Cake khan eke liye kahi bhi pahuch jate hain..”, “ Tumke kya lagta hain main pillow mein roz baithta hoon?’ etc still can bring a smile on the face.

2) Before Sunrise/ Before Sunset: I have to trust my brother’s choice. He told me long ago that “Before Sunrise’ is a nice movie and you would love watching it. But like his every advice, I ignored and one fine day when I watched this movie (smuggled from his Hard disc), I fall in love with the movie, the actors especially Julie Delpy (such an original) , the locales. The kind brother helped again telling me that its sequel is also there. Downloaded the movie and yes, I enjoyed it as much as the earlier one. One (Two) of the favourites.

3) Amelie: The very charming Audrey Toutou stole the heart. I get ZZ to download this movie for me. Loved the movie. Have already watched it thrice.

Conclusion

Its not a good sign when your Boss asks ' But why shall I do this for you?" at the crucial point when you ask for support.

10 Day You Challenge: four Books

1) The Time-Travellers Wife: This was such a different kind of book. Took some time to understand the story but once you do, the story engrosses you completely. While reading, I kept wondering how it would feel to have a Time-Traveller companion. It was late evening in the winters when I along with ZZ were roaming in the market when I decided to enter one store. So I stepped down from the bike and ZZ proposed to park the bike in the parking lot. And while I was wrapping the stole around my neck, I looked around and found him vanished. Yes not in the parking lot ahead nor around. And the first thought that came in to my mind at that point was oh, so this must be how Lizzee feel when her husband went away. See, the impact the book made on me.

2) The Catcer in the Rye: Well, I got to read this book in my mid-20s but then better late then never.

3) Memoirs of Geisha: I borrowed this book from the library. And I was transferred into that Japanese era of Chiyo. Later I watched the movie also but didn’t find the movie half as good as the original book.

4) Jeffrey Archer Short Stories: I was tempted to write Jhumpa Lahiri short stories but then of all her short stories, I remember only one even though I enjoyed reading all of them. I love how she plays with memories, fights with love and lonliness in her prose. But Jeffrey Archer style is more I like-straight to the point, with its own twists, the language simple yet captivating. Currently reading “Kane & abel” in ebook format and cant wait to finish it. This may well explain my bias towards the author.

10 day You Challenge: 5 foods

After such a long break, it's no sense to continue this tag but well its end-December. And like many things, I want to finish this and step into the new Year afresh, with new tags to do;) and no laments for the old incomplete ones;)

So here goes my favourite 5 foods:

1) Besan ke laddoo: Ma ke haath ke bane huwe. No matter how less time she has, she always ensures to pack a box of laddoo for me.

2) Biryani: that ZZ makes. I am a big fan and on special demand, the guy cooks his awesome biryani

3) Corn: bhutta, bolied corn, sweet corn, baby corn-corn in every form. I like.

4) Khandvi and Dhokla- I so much relish these snacks.I have tried making Dhokla more than 5 times and eveytime it ended non-fluffy and hard. Hmm..in new year I have to get some of my culinary disasters right.

5) Sweets: I have a sweet touth. As a kid, I was notorious among my relatives for my love for anything sweet.

random Realization

So finally today I took a stance and spoke for myself and asked for a sort of favour to the boss. I dont know what will happen tomorrow or in the long run, but I am kind of pleased with myself that finally after a lot of dilly-dallying I put forward my situation and asked for a way out.

Also I learnt an important lesson: Whenever you are in a position to help your subordinate, help. Whenever you are in a position to make or break someone's review, make it better. Whenever you are in a position to choose between forgive and forget and revenge, choose the former one. You may not realize it but small deeds like these will make a huge impact on your subordinate. 'Whenever possible, Be an open-minded Good Boss' as a retired GM said in an meeting.

The lesson that I learnt above doesnt mean that this was the response I received. But I would rather be what that ex-G.M than any other version.

All that I would like to believe at this moment is " All that happens is for good."

A monday morning of December

As I enter that compact room
That seats four and some more
I bowed to the man sitting ahead
And waved as another passes by the door

I went to the small cabin inside
To mark my presence for today
And back to a table that houses
A pile of folders with sticky notes

I powered on and logged-in the screen ahead
And checked the emails of previous days
And replied to some and forwarded a few
And later browsed the company’s web page.

It’s a cold Monday morning, I woke up late
And rushed my way to this place
The mood not good and the work too
Is not feeling the same today

And as I sip the office tea
I noticed the sunlight playing
on the glass surface of the table
Filtering from the large window panes

Yes it’s a cold Monday morning
And now I feel warm
For the winter sun has given
This day a blissful charm.

And now I also remember
The boss is today on leave
Oh what more can I want from Monday
Some sunshine and some peace.



Edited to add: this i wrote in the morning and by evening there was no peace but some turmoil in the mind. Hope all will be well.

On Marriage

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow

-Kahil Gibran on Marriage

around me

She was transferred to my office on marriage grounds from the other unit. Tall, beautiful and a smile to die for. They were a small family: she , her husband and her in-laws living in a duplex home at a decent society. Her husband along with a steady job co-owned a small telecom business and her father-in-law was a retired government officer. Like every new bride at a new home, she had to make some adjustments in her new home. She quitted her habit of drinking morning tea as none in her family drink tea early morning. To start for her office at 8:00 am, she has to get-up and rush to the kitchen to make breakfast for everyone and lunch for herself, in the evening reach hhome at 7:00 and cook dinner for all. She accustomed herself with the big city travel system and changed 2 buses to reach office on time. Work at office was also not very smooth and work under a hot-tempered boss has its own ill-effects. Once she told how her mother-in-law gifted her a gold bracelet of exactly same design as the one she had lost earlier. We were impressed after all whose mother-in-law gifts gold even after marriage.

A year into marriage, she hadnt been to her parents home. She yearned to go home. Any requests to her husband to take her home were transferred to her mother-in-law who dilly-dallied it to next time. The work she used to do at home and then managing to work as efficiently at office was really tough. From 6:00 in the morning till night she was in a constant grind and even on that her mother-in-law insisted to wake up a bit more early so that she can manage everything better. She tried her best to ensure her mother-in-law that she had no interests to come in between her and her son and that the husband would always been her so first.Its not like that she didnt discuss the problem or spoke her mind but whenever she did, the mother-in-law started crying and cursing herself and the girl started feeling guilty for making her mother-in-law sad and crying.

Soon she got pregnant, by chance. They were not prepared for it but went with the flow. With months into pregnancy, she faced difficulty doing the house-hold chores like kneading dough and standing constantly at the kitchen. On coaxing her family to get a maid for some help, her mother-in-law wondered aloud that if the girl is having any problem to do house-hold work , she(the mom-in-law) is fit enough to do the work and there is no need for the maid as they are unhygenic and dont do things properly.

Once after reaching home after office with a headache, she asked her husband to get her a glass of water. That was , may be, the first time the boy was doing anything for her. As he was taking the water bottle for her to their room, the mother-in-law taunted her son, "So now the queen cant even drink water on her own?" That was the day and since then she had sworn to not get her husband to do anything for her before the mother-in-law.

In the mean-time, her father-in-law got a heart-attack. The focus was now the health of the father-in-law. Not that she was ever the focus of the house as it was always her mother-in-law. As she wondered sometime that noone in the family has shown any care or love for her health. The husband would run post to pillar if her mother will get a headache and when she demanded extra-care owing to her pregnancy would ask "why? you dont have any problem."

In the second trimester when she desired to have delivery at her parent's home, the mother-in-law and her husband made it clear that they are nobody to say in this matter. But whatever happens. she will be solely responsible for it. The girl went to her parents place for a day and returned back the same evening from the train.

Till her last days before taking maternity leave, she came to the office from the same bus, while earlier she was contemplating to get a driver and came to office in the family car.

The girl had a love-marriage. She knew her husband before the marriage. This is an outsider's perspective from what we hear from her, may be the things were not as dark in the inside. The insecurity of a woman that her son will not hers after marriage, the husband who does his best to be the good son of his mother and made it clear to his wife that her mother is the first priority in his life, a girl away from her family and friends entangled in the roles of the dutiful daughter-in-law and wife, loveless relations and as she earlier confesses, in no feeling of maternal affection with her womb. A sad state to be in and all one can wish is a happy beginning to her family with the new baby.

10 Day You Challenge: 6 places

This tag was supposed to be done by July end and I have just reached half-way..So without any delay lets continue the tag. Today os the turn of 6 places:
1) Milam: To see the splendid beauty I have heard of only.
2)Laddakh: What to say. If you havent seen Ladakh, well you havent seen anything. or so I think. I so want to be there.
3) Goa: I thought I wouldnt like that place, that paradise of so-called hippies, well I so didnt know myself. I loved that place. If possible every year I can go and stay there and not yet get bored.
4) Europe: Not just a place, a country but the entire continent from Turkey to Holland.
5) Thailand: Just to see the beaches there and gorge on the heavenly food and shopping and some foor massage and temple-visits..
6) Home: After all the travels, its good to be back to the home, to the loving faces of all those who matters most.

10 day You Challenge-Seven Wants

Seven Wants:

1) Some bright coloured clothes in my wardrobe. Just noticed that my wardrobe is full of earth tomes of black, brown, green and blue.
2) A clean flawless skin. And then I promise I will take good care of that. At present, the only skin-care I do is to take 8 + hours sleep, haha. That reflects- the oily, patchy, blemished, tanned, big-pored, acne-prone skin.
3) A job at TLC for both me and ZZ. That way we can both roam, explore and see the new destinations free of cost.
4) Big half-yearly holidays intermixed with small breaks fortnightly.
5) An elegantly done house with balconies (lined with bonsai s), big lawn, a small backyard at a nice location.
6) A good active lifestyle.
7) And last but not the least, World-Peace.

10 Day You Challenge: 8 fears

Continuing the tag, here is the list of Eight Fears. Following are my eight fears that can be tamed and win over:

1) I fear that I will never gain weight. I so want to gain weight and look different from my earlier self.

2) I fear that I can never drive in the insane city traffic.

3) I fear that I am not becoming the person I want to be. I know this, I fear this but I am not at all doing anything towards it.

4) I fear if all the dreams I have will be dreams only.

5) I fear of heights.

6) I fear that I might turn into a non-active, non-spiritual, lazy woman who don’t exercise, yoga, pray and is lazy to do her household chores and cook and clean and attend functions.

7) I fear that I will never learn swimming.

8) Lizards..

Now that I have documented the fears I have, I will come back here from time to time to check if I have overpowered them or not.

10 Day You Challenge: 9 loves

Continuing the tag from here, today is the confession of 9 loves.

I love:

1) my sweaters knitted by my mummy . I don’t know knitting and i have made a pact with her that she is going to knit for my kids.

2) houses with balconies. I would any day take a room with balcony over a ground-floor room.

3) sense of humour of my father.

4) deep husky strong voice in men, in women also. Not the kind of Rani Mukherji voice but Angelina Jolie type voice. Strong and clear. I remember during my school days when I had got a bad cough and got my voice all hoarse, I secretly loved it and was sad when I lost my sexy voice. Ala Phoebe from Friends.

5) the idea of being in love.

6) New destinations, great vacations, good food, nice company, great movies, awesome books- i love them like everybody else.

7) sunny mornings on winter days, cool breeze on rainy days, flowers around in spring, colours of autumn and sunscreen on summer days.

8) the beautiful and cute twin kids who used to live in my building at my previous place. They were so adorable. They used to call my specs “Ai” for ‘Ainak”. Here I written one of their tales. They are the most adorable and smartest kids I have known.

9) the expression on my brother’s face when I crack my ‘deadly’ PJs and crass jokes.

10 Day You Challenge-10 Secrets

Saw this "I, Me,Myself" kinda "10 Day You Challenge" in this blog. This being my birth-month and in a hope to end the blog-draught, here I am taking up this Challenge. As per rules, it is to be done in 10 consecutive days. But well (lets make our own rules) my challenge is to complete it by Julu end.

Here are my Ten Secrets:

• I am not crazy over Harry Potter series or Twilight series. I have not read any of those books from the series and don’t follow the movies very keenly. Apart from the main characters, I hardly know the names of the other characters. The same goes for the Twilight series.

• I love to sing. Blame it on those days singing reality shows, when I was alone, I used to sing with one of my hand folded as a mike and other hand gesturing the surs of the music. In my college 1^st year, my room was next to 4^th year Senior Maam who was the singing champion of the college. Through the open window, my soulful;) voice must have reached her ears as on her farewell, she called me and complimented that she loves my voice and asked me to participate me in the college annual function. I famously couldn’t cleared the Auditions.

• On the eve of fourth semester examination of “Network Theory”, I famously slept from 7:00pm in the evening to 8:00am in the next morning. The room mate, friends all came in the regular intervals to wake me up but I didnt budge and wake up at my sweet own time. Then grew morose, cried a tear or two on my situation, flirted with the books and notes and went to the exam at 2:00pm. Thankfully the paper was easy and I passed. A friend told me after exam, “I was looking at you time to time. To check if you are writing anything or not. And when you get up to take another copy, I sighed a relief, even if garbage at least she is writing”:) Luckily cleared the exam and all friends checked to see my marks in that subject. When I look back I couldn’t understand why did I do that.

• I didnt know how to carry an umbrella. Monsoon time, rainy mornings, big bag on the shoulders, black polished shoes, neatly pressed dress- almost all my friends will come safe with not a drop of water in their clothes and I would have my shirt sleeves and skirt ends wet with rain.

• Shantaram, Midnight’s Children, Little Women, Pride and Prejudice, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Catch-22- all Classics-all books I have left half-read. *hangs her head in shame*

• For past 8-9 years my weight is almost constant as is my height;), no matter how much I eat. And I am underweight as per BMI.

• I am not good with showing emotions through words. I cry when I feel bad, when I am emotional, and usually at loss of words to show my gratitude, condolence towards others, especially when it comes to talk to some elder or rude person.

• I wished I have departed on better terms from my last office.

• You know there are some people who are so level-headed at all times, who don’t panic at crisis. I admire them.
• For the past couple of years, yoga and pooja everyday is in my New Year Resolution list every year. And I have never been able to complete this one it due to sheer laziness. Mornings are a hurry and evenings are busy or so is the excuse I give myself for this inactivity.