What do they say in Marathon lingo for those who completes the race? A finisher?

"I am a finisher".

Yes, I am. A finisher of this "Blogathon 2014".And I am so proud of it.

I have always been in awe with the bloggers who could churn out post almost every day, and that too of quality which makes you addicted to their blogs.Not that quality is my forte here, this thought alone gives me jubilation that I was able to remember to post everyday and posted every even though it has been one-liners for a day or two. I have always wanted to write regularly and this project give the impetus I needed to write.

And for this momentous feat, I would like to thank:

1) the BSNL broadband connection which nver acted the entire month and without which I would not have been able to blog.
2) ZZ for being the best support. Downloaded Blogger app(which helped me blog on days I was travelling) and never rolled his eyes when mostly at cooking time I would declare "oh, I have to write the post for today" and occupy the laptop for some more time.
3) all those bloggers whose blogs inspired me to write my own blog.
4) bloggers I am subscribed to who are also participating in this blogathon
5) opportunity to find this Blogathon link in www.dreamymommy.wordpress.com and Maya, the blogger behind this blog for starting this "Blogathon 2014" project.

Just like first post, first blog comment, first tag invitation, first blog award, this First BLOGATHON is special.

I would like to be there..

As I was running short of ideas to write about, I looked back at the Blogathon 2014 meme at this post and here I am.
"If I were allowed to travel anywhere in the world, where would it be?"

Let's change it to "f you were to be anywhere else in this very moment, where would it be?

Many years back I saw this photo while browsing the net. I think this photo was on some newsletter's photos of the year or Photos across the world.
The lilac flowers, the carefreeness of the girl and the closeness wth the nature-all makes this pic so beautiful, so lovely. It almost looks like a painting. Hats off to the photographer who captured this beautiful image. I normally dont do this, but I liked this photo so much that I saved it in my laptop. The photo is still with me:

So if I can be anywhere at this moment, I would like to be there among the lilac flowers, in the sunshine and cool breeze.


Photo Courtesy: Google/ (I would love to have linked the source but I have completely forgotten in which webpage I found this picture)

Peek-ten-boo(ks)

Thank You Jeeves: This novel deals with the adventures of Wooster and Jeeves. The novel begin when Jeeves threatens and leaves his job of butler from Wooster household on account of the cacophonous noise of banzo that Wooster plays and is soon taken in by a friend of Wooster. Wooster himself has to leave his housing society on account of the noise that his banzo-playing creates and incidently was invited by the same friend to live in his county. Adventure begins when love blossoms, misunderstanding happens, revenge sought and well because of those plannings of Wooster and Jeeves. Loved reading it.

Psmith in the city: Already written about it here.

A Damsel in Distress:  Reading this novel was like watching a movie. Seriously, the story-line makes for an full-on commercial pataka rom-com movie. The kind of 70s movie with a simple landlore, his lovely daughter  who loves some outsider and therefore prohibited to go outside her castle, her aunt who wants  her to marry her step-son, the step-son who loves the secretary of land-lord, a successful music director who has love-at-first-sight with the land-lord’s daughter when she sneaks out of town for a day, the misunderstanding in landlord’s family who mistakes the music director to the American man their daughter loved, the seep-loving butler and housemaids and the adventures that follow. Read this fast-paced book and have a feeling of watching a movie. Loved it absolutely.

The remains of the day:  5 star. Loved this book and already wrote about  it here.

Of Mice and Men: I have a phobia of reading classic books. Name it as a classic and I fear that I would not be able to read/ complete it and do justice with the book. It has happened earlier.  “Midnight Children”, “One thousand years of Solitude”,  “Little Women”..I have started them all and my vain brain was not able to finish it. But “Of mice and Men” was different.  First of all it was a novella and not very serious on subject. So I successfully finished it. And John Steinback is a Nobel Laurete. His two other books also features in Classic books, and this book gave me hope that I can read them.

Come On Jeeves: A book of short adventured of Jeeves and Wooster.

The Little Prince: I have heard so much of this book. It is termed as children’s book but then you are never too old to read children’s books or to watch Disney animation movies. I loved “Frozen” so much. But let’s go back to this book. Just read the first page and you know you are in for a masterpiece.

My Man Jeeves: A book of short adventured of Jeeves and Wooster. I can never get bore of the Jeeves and Wooster series.

The Metamorphosis: My brother had gifted me short-stories collection of Franz Kafka to which I frowned as the font style of the book was not very reading-condusive and I have neer read Kafka earlier. But ultimately it was in pdf format that I read this book. The book tells the story of a man who overnight has been metamorphosed into a reptile and how he and his family deals with this metamorphosis. A compelling book and you wonder how would you have dealt with this had you been Karl or one of his family member. I was unsure of ending though.

The Museum of Innocence:  I started this book long time back. This had been my nightstand fixture for a long time. I finished few more books before finishing it. But ultimately, one day I decided enough is enough and I got to restart it. And it seemed I had never left the world of Kemal Bey and Fusun. It is the love-story of a rich man and poor girl with an age-difference of 12 years who fall in love then part ways and then meet almost everyday for 8 years in her home during the period of which the guy kept on picking up little things that are linked to Fusan and ultimately made a museum of all those articles. The story is told in the form of guy’s narrative and I get amazed of reading about his perseverance and obsession with the girl. The love story didn’t terminate in a happy ending but in the end Kemal Bay wanted the readers to know that he led a very happy life. One of the chapter is titled “Sometimes” and all the sentences of this 5-page long chapter started with the word “Sometimes”. I was so amazed to see this and liked it so much. This was my first Orhan Pamuk and the fattest book I had read till date and I am ready for more.

home dynamics

         Have you heard the songs of "Highway" yet? A R Rehman has created magic.Every-time I hear its songs playing on some music channel on TV, I decide to download its songs. I had asked ZZ to download its songs, but since the guy is busy downloading and watching season after season of "Breaking Bad", my wish went on deaf ears. So I have still not downloaded the songs. Currently I am listening them on saavn.com.

       Downloading a movie or song is not a big task. But inadverently instead of downloading something from internet myself or upgrading to latest version of software in mobile, I look for ZZ to do that for me.So this made me thinking about all the chores which I can do without any trouble but ask/plead/want/leave it to ZZ to do it for me and vice-versa.

        So while ZZ is involved with downloading and upgradation of phone and computer softwares, I am the one who is entrusted for logging broadband complaints, if any. It is he who takes garbage out of home and washing clothes and sorting/ folding after they are washed and dried is my duty. It is he who fills the fridge bottles every day and cooking/ making tea is my duty though at times when I am too lazy to cook we swap our duties. Here I have to admit that ZZ is far far beter at organizing than I am. His wardrobe is always better organized and in case it is not, then there are heavy chances it is because of the presence of my clothes thrown among his.

           Both ZZ and I have been brought up in the families where our fathers help women in kitchen and home in general. I wonder how does the dynamics work in your household. Any special tasks you leave it to your partner even though you can do it yourself?

Pondering

"Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings." so said Jane Austen and how accurately it defines my today and maybe life.

65, 728, not 14

So while in the last post, I struggled for the title of the post, today I have this super title for this post.

65: Happy 65th Republic Day friends!! Even if I say this to the only reader *myself* who reads this blog. Today I sort of made a record by waking up so late in the morning. The morning began with watching the Republic Day parade on TV. Since childhood I wait for bated breath to see the tableaux of my home-state and other states. This time, when the tableux of Assam state appeared on screen, the atmosphere was mixed with the grave and mesmerizing voice of late Mr. Bhupen Hazarika. The beautiful profound song that was being played was this. I youtubed the song and thought of sharing the song in the blog as well:

728: The no. of pages of the fattest book I have read till date. I finally finished the epic "The Museum of Innocence" by Orhan Pamuk today. The book review is due but that is the post of another day.
   

not 14: I am a Rafa fan and was rooting for his 14th Grand Slam Title at today's Australian Open final. So was dissappointed with his injury and his loss but tomorrow is another day.

i wasted 15 minutes to think for a title of this 10-minte post

I had almost forgot to post for today and just now at 11:15pm I rushed out of my bed when thankfully it striked me that I have to post. Yaya to the Blogathon 2014 spirit.


Just a snippet of our conversation today evening while shopping:

Wife (showing her husband one dress *kurti* to be specific): Look, I am getting this dress for 40%!!!!!

Husband (nonchalently): uhh, ok.

Wife (showing off her tact in looking for good deals) : See, we went to Biba but they didnt have this on sale. Then in Shoppers Stop, they had this same kurta for 10% discount only. Online I was not getting my size. Pantaloons always have better discounts than others. (Husband and wife had roamed to these stores prior to coming at Pantaloons store)

Husband (with a straight face and sarcasm dripping with every word spoken): You have missed to check the prices in Lifestyle store. May be now you should  check there.

Wife:




Image courtesy: Google images

Today..

• Today morning I read an article in newspaper on how bad posture can lead to neck and back problems in future and how Yoga is an easy way to attain good posture. I resolved to do it from today onwards. more than 12 hours have passed, I have eaten my dinner and watching a movie and plans to go to sleep soon after that and I realize hat my resolution for yoga today has gone kaput. A resolution that didnt stay for one day. Shame!!! And this remind me that doing physical exercise and yoga everyday was my New Year 2014 resolution and that too didn't stay even a day. Double shame!!! I blame the cold weather for this. When the weather improves, I will surely stick to it. And the point is even while writing it, I know that this is not going to happen soon.
• Rafael Nadal won his semifinal against Roger Federer. Yippie!!  
• For the first time, I watched any video from my office-seat Yes few glimpses of the aforementioned match.
• Something I was looking forward to got cancelled. And strangely, I am not reacting over it as I thought I would. Yes, I am getting there..The Zen stage. lol.
• I made creamy pasta for dinner.
• The Sale season is going to end soon. I have plans to raid malls this weekend.

           Oh there are people who can write pages after pages even on topic like "What to write?". I distinctly remember, in Hindi language there is a classic essay on "Kya Likhu?" which used to be in our syllabi. Which class? I dont remember. But I am just a mortal. When I wonder about what to write (for today's post ofcourse), I am not able to wax eloquently like them. I just jot down the happenings of my day in bullet-points. 

Observations on Shopping expedition

With this “Sale” season going on, my mind knows what to think about. I love Sales. It is just that I don’t exploit it to my benefit as much as I want. So while I can share my shopping woes some other day, let me share some of the moments which I have experienced during mall-hopping.

Light-bulb moment:  There are a lot of young parents who carry their oh-so-young kids in strollers all around the malls. Even at crazy places like Big Bazaar stores. Earlier I used to judge them and  wonder why do these guys bring such young babies to these places where there is so rush and noise. The babies lie flat on their strollers and there can be chances if something drops over them or somebody collides with the stroller, or so I used to thought. But then on my another excursion through mall on seeing those parents and kids, the light-bulb in my mind lighted and I realize they bring their babies for shopping etc with them because they had to as they might not have support at home to look after their kid. And with this wisdom I realize how difficult is parenting. Who knows someday I myself would be the one carrying my baby in stroller roaming around malls.

Oops moment:  This kind of incidents have happened with a lot. I would loiter around the collections of different brands and find something good in one of the racks. Unable to find my size, I would look around to find the sales representative. I would go to the sort-of uniformed guy in black sweater to ask him if x size is available for that particular item. That guy would try to ignore me. I push myself ahead to ask him again the same question. The guy would stare back at me and blankly say “I don’t know.” Then I would realize that this guy is not the sales guy but some random shopper like me. It is definitely embarrassing to both of us. And I resolve that next time before thinking anyone as sales guy, I will triple-check.Have something like this happened to you? You, the-random-reader-who-has-lost-his-path-in-blogosphere-and-still-reading-this-piece.

Eureka moment: You are browsing the stores when you find something which is in your to-buy list but which is not something you are here for to buy and that too at a good discount. The happy-dance in your heart moment. The Eureka moment. I experienced this moment when I found my shopping bag from Mango for less than Rs.1000/-.

WTF moment: When you go to buy jeans for yourself and in the trial room realizes that you are able to fit neither in the size that you normally wear nor in jeans one-size bigger. *true story*

Sigh-of-relief moment: You can fight the parking woes during sale time, even rush ahead to snatch your likes (in your size) from the racks but oh how the patience is tested when one have to wait for long in the queue  in front of trial rooms. The trial rooms where there are women who after every trail came out of the store and go all the way to the entrance of the trial section to get the opinion of their husbands, friends, mothers. So the sigh-of-relief moment comes when you get the trial room empty and don’t have to waste your time standing in queue or you finally get thfruit of your patience and at last got the trial room.

Upset moment:  When you plan to expand your wardrobe and  do a lot of shopping and collect hordes of clothes for trial but came out with none, if lucky one, piece that actually fits/ suits you.

Happy Moment: When you plan to expand your wardrobe and  do a lot of shopping and collect hordes of clothes for trial and amazingly you have selected the best that fits/suits you.

Right now, "Notting Hill" is coming on "Z Studio".Love this movie..

Image Courtesy: Google images

Love quotes

     The month of February is approaching and the shops have started displaying the Valentine Theme promptly all-over. So let me jump on the bandwagon and share some of my favourite love-quotes from movies:

1) "Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivalgates at the Heathrow Airport. General opinion starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I dont see that. It seems to me that Love is everywhere.Often it is not particularly dignified and newsworthy, but it is always there-fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, old friends. When the plane hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls were messages of hateor revenge- they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I have got a sneaky feeling that love actually is all around."
                                                                                                                                         -Love Actually

2) "The fame thing is not really real you know. And don't forget I 'm also just a girl standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her."
                                                                                                                                          -Notting Hill

3) "It is good to have a beautiful mind, but an even greater gift is to have a beautiful heart."
                                                                                                                                 -A Beautiful Mind

4) "I have always believed in numbers and the equations and logics that lead to reason. And after a life-time of such pursuits, I ask whattruely is logic? Who decides reason? My question has taken me through the physical to the metaphysical, the delusional and back. And I have the most important discovery of my career, of my life. It is only in the mysterious equations of lovethat all logical reasons can be found."
                                                                                                                                   -A Beautiful Mind
5) "When You Realize You Want To Spend The Rest Of Your Life With Somebody, You Want The Rest Of Your Life To Start As Soon As Possible"
                                                                                                                     - "When Harry Met Sally"

Ajemr-Pushkar Travelogue-Part 2

    ..continued from here.

          So after ZZ talked to few taxi-drivers, we agreed for Rs. 300/- for taxi to Pushkar and within half and hour we had reached our hotel . We had already done the hotel booking through www.ixigo.com.

          Pushkar is a small town and the whole town surrpunded around the pious Pushkar lake. Legend has it that the gods released a swan with a lotus in its beak and let it fall on earth where Brahma would perform a grand yagna. The place where the lotus fell was called Pushkar. Pushkar in Sanskrit means blue lotus flower.

          Our hotel was on the out-skirts of Pushkar. So after taking some rest we took an auto to go to Brahma Temple. Cameras, handbags are not allowed inside the Brahma temple but mobiles are. I didnt find any govt. locker facility but the shopkeepers in the vicinity of temple have make-shift locker facility to store cameras and handbag.

         There were people around clicking photos of the temple from their mobile of the temple. But when we were clicking, two policemen told us that photography is not allowed. Anyhow by then we already clicke done photo which I am posting here.

     

Brahma Temple-Pushkar in the night

           After a quick darshan, we decided to explore the local market and look for some good restaurant for dinner. There were a lot of foreign tourists around and road-side restaurants serving Middle-east dishes like humus, falafel, pita bread among others. We picked Baba restaurant for our dinner. The next day time-pass hub and lunch-place was also this restaurant only.

Baba restaurant

dinner at Baba Restaurant

          Pushkar is also known as the city of Ghats. Next day I tried to click pics of as my Ghat names as I could. These are a few of them:

             We also visited the old Rangji Temple at Pushkar. Rangji temple is an perfect blend of Rajasthani and Soth-temple architecture. There is also a famous Rangji temple in Vrindavan as well which is made in South-indian style architechture.

              We had our train (Ajmer -Pushkar Shatabdi) at 3:45pm. So after a light lunch, we left Pushkar by 2:00pm via local bus. Go local!!!

              

             Pushkar is a small town and on can easily do a Ajmer-Pushkar in a single day without any night-halt. So here end this two-day journey.

          This is my first travelogue in the blog and jope I continue to share the travel tales here.

Ajmer-Pushkar: Travelogue

Last weekend we took a trip to Ajmer-Pushkar. Ajmer Sharif is known all over the world for the dargah of Sufi saint Moinuddin Chisti. Pushkar, anearby town of Ajmer (11km ahead of Ajmer) is famous for one of the few Brahma Temple.
        The best way to reach Ajmer from Delhi is by train. Ajmer Shatabdi leaves the New Delhi Railway Station at 0615 hours in the morning and reaches Ajmer junction at 1240 hours. The same train leaves for Delhi at 1545hours and reaches Delhi at 2240 hours. Many people who come for Darshan at Dargah take this train for their to-and-fro travel.
          We took this train and after reaching at Ajmer Railway junction, deposited our luggage with camera at the Railway Station Cloak Room. (Cameras are not allowed inside Dargah but mobilephones are allowed). I have read that there is a cloak room outside the dargah as well but was not sure of that. So off we deposited our luggage and before proceeding to dargah took our lunch at a nearby restaurant. The Lonely Planet guidebook had suggested "Honeydew Restaurant" is nearby railway station. So that was our venure for lunch.
          We decided to took rickshaw to go to Dargah but soon realised that it was a bad decision. The road to Dargah from Railway station is steep at times and it would take about the same time to reach the dargah if we had walked the way. The road towards dargah was lined with shops on both sides.
           On the way we met a gentleman who without asking for it startd guiding us to the dargah. The man had intense eyes like Irfan Khan. Through Gate no. 2 where we deposited our shoes, he guided us to a shop to buy chadar for price as high as Rs. 500/-. We modestly declined and purchased one flower basket from the shop and stepped ahead. By now, the gentleman sensing our austerity had left us.
            Soon we were inside the dargah and after offering our prayers we were back in the complex. In the complex there is a huge chowk and in the afternoon it was getting some good sunshine.Who doesnt want some good sun in the winters. So after clicking some photos, we came back outside. Outside I found that the locker facility was just outside the Gate-No.2.
            I wish we had taken some good photos here to upload in blog but the few photos we took were selfies from our mobile.

            By 3:00pm we were back in the station after darshan and were haggling with taxi drivrs to take us to Pushkar. The journey to be continued tomorrow with a lot of pics...


         
           
           

Quote-Unquote

"Tomorrow God is not going to ask-

What did you ddream?

What did you think?

What did you plan?

What did you desire?

BUT He is going to ask-

What did you do?"

           In my college 3rd year, I got to read this quote somewhere and found it profound enough to hang it in front of my study table so that I could take motivation and study instead of just day-dreaming planning to study.
            My room-mate when saw a new quote hanging above my study-table came over to my desk to read it. Her reaction: "Dear, God is not going to ask that as well.."

My experiences with online shopping

Flipkart was the website from which I did my first online shopping. That was the time before Flipkart diversified into multi-retail brands. That was the time when it trades only books and there were no shipping charges for any purchased amount. And how happy I was to know that the books I want to read are just a click away. Until my last shopping, I have purchased only books from flipkart. They have a super-fast delivery and at several instances I received my order in less than 48 hours itself.

Few days back I ordered a pair of Enroute sandals from them. They were on 50% sale in the website while in other websites they were available on full price no discount. The color I wanted was the nude shade of the item but the only available colors that were showed in the website were Black and Brown. I decided to pick brown. After 2 days, to my amazement I received my order. I know a customer should be enraged when one receive not what one ordered. But I did a happy dance in my mind because instead of Brown that I ordered they had sent me the nude one which I wanted and was not displayed in their website. Happy lucky me. But on a serious note, this is a mistake on Flipkart part but wth the customer is happy.

Jabong is one of the websites which I like to surf. I find it very user-friendly to browse and have made a few purchases with them and happy with their delivery and quality.

FashionandYou is another destination that I am subscribed to and I have bought shoes and kurti from them. The deliverytook longer than a week. But this was in the year of 2012. May be they have now improved in delivery timeperiod.

Nykaa was the website I hopped in through my random internet surfing. This website deals with beauty products from reputed  national and international brands. I was in love with their website. They have this big sale going on and I ordered 8 items from them. While I have been spoiled by Flipkart, Jabong and others with their speedy delivery the delivery of these items took a long time in comparision. My first batch of 6 items arrived after 5 days and one item was defective. I clicked its photo and sent a mail to the Nykaa team of the problem. The second batch of remaining items arrive some 6 days later as their excuse was that the ordered items were out of stock in their inventory. The defective item was yet not replaced. I dropped another mail to them. And while I was thinking that they are not going to replace the defective piece, they surprised me by sending the replacement within 3 days. All the items were despatched from Mumbai. And being a new entrant they may not have stores in other major cities, that may be a reason for the delay in orders but all’s well that ends well.. But well, they look promising as beauty products only website. 

All-in-all I find online shopping is very good and addictive at the same time. Here without venturing outside the comfort of your home, one can shop without getting dropped. Also the availability of discount coupons make online shopping attractive. I have a few colleagues who have brought items like Masalas online. So online shopping is the way to go for people who are short of time to hop malls and stores.

One of the things that I avoid while making purchase online is not paying shipping-charges. I like when my items are free-shipped. Even if the shipping charges are minsicule like Rs. 20-30, I avoid buying items or try to club more items on my order list so that I could get free-shipping. Weird, yes.

But at the same time, there are a few precautions one has to take when going for online shopping. Following are the some which Itake while shopping online:

1)      I try to make purchases mostly from renowned websites.

2)      I trust those sites which have “Cash-on-delivery” option. This feature gives me this fake assurance that my money is not on stake.

3)      When not sure of your size, don’t buy. There are many sites which have free-replacement policy and do replace your items within 1-2 days if your size is available, but why take risk. If I am planning to purchase some specific item like dress, jeans, shoes etc of a specific brand online because I am being offered some good discount and I am not sure of their size, fitting, I try to get to the real-store of that brand and get a size check. Cheap, yes I am.

4)      Almost all of the websites have facebook pages. So if there is some new site you want to buy something from, just take a look at their facebook pages as well. The reviews and feedback from users there will give an glimpse of their services.

Disclaimer: Though it look like a paid post for online shopping, this is not. These are just the vanity of my views on online shopping that I chose to write about in my Blogathon 2014 journey of everyday posting the month January.

Peaceful, Easy Feeling

• after a long afternoon nap. 
• on a weekend morning, drinking our morning tea in the bed and reading newspaper.
• on the drive back home from market/ trip in the night and radio playing soft old melodies.
• while I am reading something on my side of bed and ZZ sitting beside me watching something on his laptop and I love the silence of those moments
• the moment when I get to know that the boss is going to be on leave that day.

And how can I publish this post without sharing the you-tube video of the original "Peaceful Easy Feeling":

             

Realization no. x (since I have lost the count)

One is never too old to read "Charlotte's Web" and "The Little Prince".

Homely Bites

There is a separate Food folder in my computer consisting of photos of food I clicked. So let me share with you some of the homely-bites:

1)      East-meet-South

When you have dosa batter in the fridge but not yellow dal in the kitchen, you improvise. You cut open the packet of Knorr soupy noodles and eat dosa with it instead of sambhar.

 2)      When recreation of Sub-way sandwitch breakfast means home-made sandwitch, honey- pancakes and softdrink
                                               

3)      When husband decides to eat a healthy breakfast on Sunday. Disclaimer : I was not present at home  to see this maha-sandwitch

4)      When you crave for home-food
                                          

5)      This was my invention and a one-time wonder dish as next attempt to make this couldn’t do justice to this masterpiece.Recipe consisted of stir-frying boiled black-grams, beans, potato in butter and adding sone Amul cream for added flavour.

                                   

Oh the desperate measures that one have to make in order to post every day.:p

:Thinking of The Remains of the Day

“One is not struck by the truth until prompted quite accidentally by some external event.”

                Have you ever felt the anxiety (or say temptation) to talk to somebody to share the warmth of the words, the directions of the story, the flaws of the characters, the complexity of the situations of the book that you were reading. It has not happened with me many times earlier but while I was reading the book “The Remains of the Day”, I distinctly remember that after I had read the chapter where Mr. Stevens stood gracefully on his duty even after knowing that his father has died, I had this huge urge to talk to someone who had already read the book and discuss the flaws (virtues) of Mr. Stevans. And now that I am writing this, I wonder what an amazing oasis internet is where one can quench his thrust of knowedge and sharing. If I had searched the internet then, I might have found scores of discussion-boards on this best-selling book.

                “The evening's the best part of the day. You've done your day's work. Now you can put your feet up and enjoy it.”

                The story is set in England of 1950s and told in a first-person narrative by Mr. Stevens, the old butler of Darlington Hall where he shares with us how different and modern his new master Mr. Faraday is and how is he finding himself incapable of quick repartee when his master shares some light moments with him. When his master provides him opportunity to travel to English country in his blue Ford car, he grabs it after mixing business with the pleasure of the travel. The business of meeting Miss Kenton, ex-house-keeper of Darlington Hall and pursue her to come and join the house-keeping staff of the hall once again as he is under-staff and she has thrown some hints of the breaking of her marriage in her latest letter to Mr. Stevens.

 “After all, what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished?”

The book then leads us to the magnanimous sceneries of the country side of England and throughout the journey he kept reminiscing of the glory days of Darlington Hall, the specific affairs in the pre-war era which were quite important in his journey of butlery, his personal trials and his moments of victory and most importantly his relationship with Miss Kenton. And as one presumes that finally his journey would end up with his union again with Miss Kenton, the book took the more realistic path.

 "The evening's the best part of the day. You've done your day's work. Now you can put your feet up and enjoy it.”

                Kazuo Ishigaro is the hero in this book for creating the character of Mr. Stevens. Incidentally, through  Wooster-Jeeves series of P G Wodehouse, I had already read of the impeccably formal English style of the butlers and language of the book since it is in first-form narrative form played its part immaculately. Even if the characterization of Mr. Stevens was very professional and keeps aloof yet one connects to him. One feels sad on reading the accounts where Mr. Stevens honours his duty above his personal life and anxious when he feels uncomfortable and wonders what if…

This book has already been made in the 1993 Anthony-Hopkins starrer movie of the same name. After reading the book I sowanted to see the movie and it didn’t disappoint.

I have saved 2 different lists of “100 Books to read before you Die” and while classic books are present in both the lists, both the lists quite differ in the rest of the selection but this book features in both. Since I have not read many classics in life, finding it among the ever-gren classics was great.

“What is pertinent is the calmness of beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, its own greatness, and feels no need to shout it.”

And the book lives up to its own quote.

Today

It's almost 10 pm by the clock and I still have not written the post for today. I had plans to write the book review of the latest book I had read and I had even started the post in the wordpad while I was in office. But just after writing a few paragraphs, I saved it in my gmail and decided that I will finish it in home.

As I reached home, I was aghast to find that the big whole bunch of the keys that I carry have not the key of the main door. (Since ZZ goes office late than me, it is he who locks the door and by reaching home earlier than him I have to open the door). I was about to go to my friend's who live in the same colony that I am, but then remebered that she has in-laws and guests at home. So I went to the terrace to take a little walk. It was cold here and I feared that I might catch cold but then had no other option to do.  I called ZZ to ask about his wherabouts and found out that I have to wait for 20-30 minutes.

After some good 10-15 minutes I went to the nearby market to pass some time and couldn't resist getting 'samosas' to eat with the evening tea. By the time I reached home ZZ had arrived. I got a bit upset with ZZ as his utmost reaction was not that I had to wait for such a long time in cold but his curiosity on how could I forgot the keys. I told him in not-so-calm voice that I didnt forget the keys but somehow the main dooor key is 'missing' from the bunch. There is a difference!!! In about 5 minutes the silent war was over and we were there drinking our tea and relishing samosas.

Tomorrow is "Makar Sankranti". In North,(UP, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and some other areas) there is this custom of making "Khichdi" and eating "Gur" (jaggery) and "Til" (sesame seeds) this day. I made a local delicacy which is made of wheatflour, jaggery and sesame seeds. It tasted a bit different than what it usually  taste like. The culprit was the multi-grain flour that I used instead of normal wheat flour. But ZZ and I consoled ourselves that these may not be as tasty as it should be but they are definitely more nutritious. "Dil behlane ke liye ghalib khayal achcha hain." Mummy suggested that since the muhurut of  Makar Sankranti is beginning from the evening of 14th, I should rather make "khichdi" on the morning of 15th if possible.I blatantly told her that it is not possible for me to make lhichdi in the morning but I am more than ready to make it continously on the evenings of 14th and 15th for making khichdi is always easier than the roti-sabzi-dal combo of the dinner.

I had thought of wearing sari to office tomorrow but right now I am feeling tired to get up and take the sari out of the suicase and iron it. So may be day after tomorrow.

In the street, the music system is playing "Lungi Dance" at top volume and from faraway I can hear the dhol. It's Lohri today.

So Happy Lohri friends!! And wishing you Happy Makar Sankranti, Pongal, Bihu.

Rushing by

Sunday morning, chilled air, bright sunshine, lazying around, plans to roam around..