Toast to a coming one and half month of 2012 :)

I open the glass door and struggle to see water drops because its heavy rains out there, the house opposite mine seems almost  blur. Its cloudy and quiet, almost a perfect saturday which is here after quite a while. Especially after so many events that happened in line. More travel, too much of office, Indian festivities and increasing work with every professional and personal commitment. Don't you get tired of being overly enthusiastic sometimes? I do. Its hard to draw a line between this western and Indian lifestyle you know, struggling to stay uptight as a perfect working women and then preserve all that culture you have grown up with! Not that anyone is asking for but its just about making sure you stick to your values and still make use of all that knowledge you have collected over years to make some good money :) When you get caught up in the busy circle, its another whirlpool !!!

Anyways, HERE IS A NEWS UPDATE:

Year end is coming closer and so is my favorite December.

Christmas tree has already been ordered :)

I am still lighting my evenings with lots of candles, even post Diwali.

The Diwali lanterns are hanging and there are no signs of those coming down until next year.

The graph of urge for tea vs. cooler weather is showing a linear increase :)

My yearly objectives at work are coming to a closure slowly and steadily.

There is an interesting trip planned for our 5th Anniversary to Vietnam :)

Last but not the least, i cannot wait for an evening in December when my Daadaa will be visiting Singapore (my place for the first time since i got married) with moma and sisi darling. 

Lots to look forward to! Let this time go slow until next year :) i don't want that January-rush to push me in the grind again :(

Wont wish you happy holidays just yet, let us get more closer to Christmas and let me have another post specially to wish you !!!

A little Ginger and memories gush :)

No pleasure can beat the feeling of getting up early on a weekend to a quiet kitchen with just two rays of morning sun peeking through the window making your tea pot shine. My ginger tea comes to a boil this morning and takes me way back into the childhood memories from when this smell lingers in my senses. This gingery flavor with tea leaves were the motivation for me to get outa my cozy bed, only to have a cupa tea with my mom, dad and little darling sister. The not-so-specific chat on the morning table and dad completely engrossed in the world of News with mom's black & white enemy aka-newspaper :P mom well engrossed in listening to the show "aap ki pasand" on dad's black & white enemy aka-radio, us-the two siblings half asleep sipping tea with the greatest Parle-G, the milkman going around doing his morning rounds, gran-dads walking their dogs, grand-moms gossiping about their daughter-in-laws and lush green garden in our front yard, glowing fresh with the rising sun!

Just an hour before the everyday-rush starts and my most beautiful time spent with the core family! Ahh, gone are the days but this ginger tea and its aroma still stays, only to bring those short lived moments back with a gush of memories, lots of memories...

Nonetheless, the taste of my tea can never ever be same as my mom's....and thats the saddest part :) Good morning and Happy Sunday! Tea Anyone?

Absolutely Cafe'd :)

If i get a chance to develop a small part of land in this world, anywhere, I would crowd it with cafes. Small ones, big ones, old style, contemporary, vintage, chic, English, cozy…cafes. The concept in itself is miraculous. To go and sit with a hot cup of drink, read or just watch people, listen to music or enjoy the sun, do your nails or simply think, get nostalgic or chat endlessly. Cafes have no dress code for the fun of it, no one cares about your dressing sense and you still won’t be left out. Your outfit claims Your style because cafes are So YOU, no one escorts, no one serves, no one asks questions like “Would you like some more coffee?” Just pick a cup and claim your seat, sit there for hours and….and what? Who cares!! 

They are for you to unwind…unwind stress or whichever that mood you are carrying before walking into this magical world of coffee and tea and croissants (yummmm).... the aroma turns your ho-hum world up and down :) and you are instantaneously on some other planet.

Be it the coldest of winters or hottest of summers, cafes just work for me, you know!
Ummm…
How to put my thoughts into words?
Ummm…ahh!
It’s something like an artist who knows how to breathe life into his portrait…
Ummm…

Yaaa, i think that's about it!

Oh and yes... that's why i want to move to Europe...for the love of...Cafes :))

Time for a B.R.E.A.K :)

Perfect!

After a long and tiring week, i gave up on working out this Friday. Left work early, cold shower, straight in bed with a mug and laptop. Lying in there all evening i surfed---half asleep. Caught up with an old and a distant friend, chatted for longgg...had a non-specific dinner---still half asleep. A little gmail, a little facebook, a little whatsapp, half finished-full buffered-movie, a dim light---almost asleep. Some 2:30 am, the dim light still on, movie finished...i think and 196 new messages on whatsapp---slept. Some 7:15 am, and here comes the Saturday-ahh!

Entire house to myself, hubby overseas, beautiful morning and NO specific agenda for the coming day! Hot tea, toast and rerun of the finished but unwatched movie. Eggs, more tea and 226 new whatsapp messages :) Emails, friends, chats, laptop and nothing more. Hindi movie in the afternoon "london, paris, newyork"...a cute movie really! Half of the Saturday is gone, an ambitious plan for a long run this evening and may be some cycling tomorrow. A book will do for rest of the evening and then back to bed.

"ME time", i think everyone should take some time off once in a while...i love doing it, not rushing, sitting by myself and moreover not doing anything specific, a breather for yourself, relaxing and refreshing, isn't it?

I don't give a S*** about it....hmm,really?

I was angry, agitated and stressed…with lot of things, small and big. I broke down !!!
For a last few days, I have wanted to get away, from what? I don’t know. I have been staying positive… very positive, looking around at lives that are really messed up, feeling blessed for what I have! But is staying positive always easy? I don’t think so! Yesterday a small thing triggered me and I burst into tears, many tears, lots of tears, lots & lots of tears!

After thinking for long about what made me cry so hard, I came to a conclusion. It’s not someone else who stresses me out, its “me”  who expects too much of myself. Last night i got really tired of keeping myself on track, ordered, disciplined, organized…don’t misunderstand, I really like being organized, I cannot tolerate chaos but then endlessly asking yourself to do more and more and more can be exasperating. Its perturbing to be the “responsible” one always, at work-people don’t reply to emails on time & I end up reminding them, at home-I have to maintain the inventories, clean, cook & manage, relations-I have to call up to maintain them, birthdays-I have to remind my husband to wish his friends. Morning 5:30 am and i start to toss & turn in bed, push myself to wake up & run, evening 5:30 pm & I start planning dinner. 3 days without exercise and I am worried if I have gained weight. My husband’s distant relative is dead-and I have to remind him 500 times to make a condolence call . Make sure I call my in laws & check on them, make sure hubby calls his in laws. Friends decide to meet on a weekend, why am I the one to reach the venue first and wait? On my way to office why do I keep thinking if I left the heater on? Why no one else but me is bothered to turn the AC off before leaving the house? If you need something, I give it promptly, if I need something, why do I have to ask twice & thrice? Am I too careful and way too responsible, for once I want to get off track and just not be bothered.  Determination is good but life can get very hard sometimes if you are too much bound by yourself!

Yesterday I think was a burst out of this i-don’t-want-to-be-bothered feeling! I was crying and rambling and blabbering until I was extremely tired, until I fell asleep to wake up to a new rising sun –
& instantly….I start thinking…. “today’s run=I have to do at least 9km”…… huh! Again???

Some things never change, you feel dull & churned & disturbed…. you cry and shake it off….and I guess move on with a new day!

Strange, eh?

Last Friday Mandar went to China for business, on Tuesday morning i went to Malaysia for business, Tuesday night Mandar returned from China and Thursday night i reached home. We went around the world our different ways, yes the flying, meeting people, staying in star hotels is quite tempting but back together in home sweet home is more than any luxury in this world.

I ended up thinking last night, in time of one week, we traveled miles away from each other, he doesn't know how many people and nationalities i spoke to and i don't know how many Chinese delicacies he must have tried. From a common point, to a common point, with this in-between journey involving individuals, places, food, drinks, discussions which we can keep for just "Our-selves". So close  yet so far yet so independent. And this in-dependency is an interesting part! You space out a little and find missing each other again. You wait for a weekend by yourself and start going crazy just after he leaves.You like and then you suddenly don't like! Relationships are so unpredictable and strange sometimes!

Stop reading now, i am not going to write anymore, that's all i felt last night....and you know i write what i feel :)

She was my Angel for the entire Sunday!

I am dancing and whirling, singing and tapping, twisting and turning, bouncing and wiggling....i wish i could show you my "Happy Dance" :) Who knew one day I will be this amused and excited to have a domestic helper around. When I was in India, day in and day out helpers used to be all around us to serve us better and only better.  I sincerely think I wasn’t very appreciative of them back then. After staying out of India for more than 5 years now I simply lost that luxury. Especially in a place like US where everything else can be bought cheap except for a maid helper, I struggled washing dishes, doing laundry, sweeping and mopping….and with the flow got so used to it that I didn’t even notice my hands which used to be really soft a few years ago have undergone a good amount of wear now.  In the process I loved this independence of getting things done by myself but somewhere the fact that nothing can be Done, Done without me actually doing it drove me nuts.

Advantage of moving to an Asian country… last weekend this helper called so and so made her grand entry and spread her magic all over my place. In a matter of few hours her jadoo ki chaddi took me to a world of dreams where my house turned into a mirror while I was sipping a nice hot coffee in the balcony. Much engrossed into my book, I looked back and the entire house was spotless clean, shining clean, superest clean :) And I felt like this luxury that I had almost forgotten should have been a lot more appreciated. I don’t like to address these angels as “maids”, a helper sounds a lot better. Thanks to all of them who do this work and give us some space for a sign of relief! A big thank you and a long due appreciation for all the helpers :)

Its really that Simple!

And yet again I confirm that Hellen Keller and I think alike. Her quotes are lucid and I so agree with every line she puts in this world of internet. She says “All the beautiful things in life are neither seen nor touched but are felt in the heart” Ahh! perfectly weaved into words.

Beauty is like million different feelings to me!Walking in the rain and smelling a row full of beautiful wet jasmines by the road-side, that smell in the air is beauty. Putting your hair up in a messy bun which really is messy :P but you are out-of-the-world-comfortable with it, that comfort is beauty. The teenage crush when he stares at you and you couldn’t help blushing, those blushing cheeks is beauty. The day when you get married and look at your partner with all possible commitment, that look is beauty. The age when your knees don’t let you get out of the chair easily, the hand that helps you get-up is beauty. A lovely perfume that makes you turn to see who just passed by in the morning rush is beauty. The SMS from your husband on a Friday eve, “Meet me at Starbucks for a coffee before we go home, Luv u :)”, that blinking symbol on your cell is beauty. The cold shower that helps you relax after an intense workout, that feeling of accomplishment and sigh with an “Ahhhh!” is beauty. You call your mom on a mother’s day and she by default has tears in her eyes, the way she tries hard to hold them back, pure beauty. The AC in your bedroom feels too cold in middle of the night and you urge for the sheets to glide over your body, that tucking under the sheets is beauty. You finish reading a 550 page book and suddenly realize, I read it all, that shuffling through the pages with a mellow smile of satisfaction, is beauty.

It’s that small part called Happiness which brings million reasons to make life worth living. That tininess which can make you feel on top of the world is incomparable…that Feeling of getting a Simple Pleasure is Real Beauty, for me :)

I can feel the Flare and smell the Smoke...

I stepped into this place called "The Summit House" in 2006...where i smelled and felt the beauty of being on your own for the first time in this apartment complex in US. Until then i was in a shelter, a small world that my parents had created for me. This place taught me a different meaning of Life. A new shade of independence where no one can ask you why you came in late or no one can tell you to sleep at 10 pm. I lived my Masters degree to the fullest here, i stayed in the lab late nights, i came back home in the mornings, i dumped junk food in the cabinets, i lived a perfect bachelorette life away from home in The Summit.

Friends, late night chats, parties, drives everything was just perfect and then the perfection became even more interesting when i was walking past one of the apartments in the summit that night and just like any bollywood director would plot his movie, Mandar opened that door when i was passing by. And we met, it just happened, in The Summit. I found my Love, my Life here and then of course we created never ending memories by just being with each other in this magical place. This place with no fancy view, no clean carpets, a typical economy PG students apartment which i got so much attached to that i am devastated today after hearing this extremely sad news about it.

The Summit was on fire, red-hot-fire a few hours ago, no idea what caused it but that door where i spoke to Mandar for the first time, his apartment where i spent hours getting to know him, my apartment where i lived like a free bird.... its all....gone!

The old, miserable, full of roaches Summit House, the adda for all desi newcomers....is gone. I would have never felt so bad if it was demolished for some reason but looking at this place burning into ashes really, really hurts.

I can smell the smoke and feel the flare miles away...Love you forever....Summit :(

For you!

First post for the New Year. I have been slacking. I Know! All I have dealt since September 2011 is check-ins, check-outs, baggage claims and crammed airplane seats....some personal travel, some business, most of it unavoidable though! But whats a better place than an airport when you are waiting for the next thing to happen and you open your laptop…which seems quite dead without internet honestly but sometimes Word works quite ok to type in a long due post, right?

So, It’s HIS birthday soon, in the month of January, my first and oldest best friend…Abhijit!

As I type this sitting on the Milan airport, I totally believe that it doesn’t matter which corner of the world I am sailing through, 22^nd January cannot be forgotten, now and ever. Abhijit and I share this lovely friendship from Kindergarten to grade 10^th to grade 12^th to graduation to post graduation to job to real world! It really seemed to never stop! He has been a friend with whom I was 100% ME, a person who just never expected anything out of me! The whole equation was very simple with him, no complexities and formalities involved.

Kindergarten to grade 10^th was a very immature period where I never realized that this guy means a lot to me! It was only after we changed paths while entering college, we made different decisions and 2 years kind of just flew away. Engineering were the days when we gelled again in our mature senses and then there was no coming back. Tremendous fun and exuberant joy….thats ALLwe share. The beauty of this friendship is that it’s truly Pure. A true true Friendship that has no definitions, he wouldn’t want me to be something he would like me to be and I wouldn’t ask him to be what I would like him to be! We just adore each other the way we are!

So, a very Happy Birthday to my first and oldest F.R.I.E.N.D, Abhya!