And my heart speaks….

Right from the conception of this post, my mind or rather heart is teeming with thoughts. So, let’s see what comes out. A prelude from the classic ‘Notting Hills’ to what follows…

A leading American actress Anna Scott accidentally meets an attractive, but unassuming British travel book seller William Thacker .Against all odds, they fall in love. Fame however gets in the way and they’re drawn apart. My heart breaks. I don’t just love these candyfloss romances, I believe in them. It’s always dismal to see people in love get apart. Anyhow, William, just as is expected from a *man* wins his love by a candid outright proposal in a huge Press conference. Here’s an excerpt from movie….

P.R. Chief: Next question? Yes. You in the pink shirt. (pointing to William)

William: Uh, right. Miss Scott, are there any circumstances that you and he might be more than just friends.

Anna Scott: I hoped that there would be but I've been assured that there's not.

William: Yes, but what if...

P.R. Chief: I'm sorry. Just the one question.

Anna Scott: No. It's alright. You were saying?

William: I was just wondering what if this person...

Journalist: Thacker. His name is Thacker.

William: Right. Thanks. What if, uh, Mr. Thacker realized that he had been a daft prick and got down on his knees and begged you to reconsider if you would... indeed... reconsider.

Anna Scott: [pause] Yes. I believe I would.

William: That's wonderful news. The readers of Horse and Hound will be relieved.

As timid as I am towards public displays of affection, I as much long public admission of love. Nothing’s more ideal than being with a guy who could candidly open his heart out in a congregation, right in front of everyone. I remember when I was young; I used to loooove the tales of Cinderella, Snowwhite, and sleeping beauty. All these tales have a female protagonist, all passive characters, who are rescued by their prince charming. To think of it now, it’s a little weird. I don’t happen to remember any fairy tale apart from Hansel and Gretel where the female character is strong and independent. Yet, I have always adored these fairy tales!!
I am an educated independent girl, well capable of handling things on my own. Ever since I was little, I’ve been high on my self esteem and generally prefer to take care of myself..all by myself. I don’t feel the need of some Prince Charming to speak for me or rescue me. When it comes to emancipating women, I surely want to be in the vanguard. As an individual, I might be least rigid but when it comes to my ideals, ethics & respect, no compromises ever.
Nevertheless, when it comes to love, I’m particularly fine with men taking the lead. I’m as much a woman, who loves to be loved. I particularly, am a hopeless romantic. My heart melts when Raj gets hold of Simran’s hand and helps her get on the train in my all time favorite DDLJ.
This ironically, is nature’s oxymoron. Men might be from mars and women from venus; still they as much need each other. In the war between sexes, there can never be absolute winners, only a collusion between the enemies ;)
Hence, I tend to believe in these fairy tales and candyfloss romances, hoping against hope that a happily ever after do exists. It’s indeed possible if you base your relationship on mutual respect and realise that there’s no victory or defeat in love. And there should be no ego at all. Our male counterparts have got fragile egos and as women, we’ve got the heart and the will to protect it. So, rather than trying to seek equality with men, we should seek the power within us, the power of giving , nurturing and preserving. So, go on guys, I concur. Conquer the world, only to lay it down at our feet. :)

Life…by contrast

It’s quite late at night, the air smells of onsetting winters and there’s an alluring chill in the air . I’m relinquishing the slow relaxing drive at this hour after having some gala time in TC. The silence is giving a delusion of stillness and I’m deeply immersed in my thoughts thinking how time flies, how fluid life is, out with the old, in with the new. My friend next to me has quietly dozed off and is in his own reverie as we reach the gate of our housing complex.

RWA of our area has kept a watchman at the gate for security reasons. He’s supposed to pen down the number of every vehicle which enters the complex after 10 o clock and then let it in. The watchman, wearing a light sweater to beat the slight wintery chill, too has reclined on his chair when the glare of my car’s headlights seize his attention. He stands up to note my car’s number, and then opens the gate to let me in. A street dog in his deep slumber , lying on the road, does not even bothers to look up.

I reach my home & my friend leaves for his. I climb on my bed, curl up in my quilt and doze off to sweet dreams. The watchman too would have reclined back on his chair only to be woken up by another glare or horn….

IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT

Dear Mr. Sibbal has always been apprehensive about distressing students. The recent proposal by our HRD minister to introduce 85% cut off for IITs seems to disparage his own preachings.

Mr. Sibbal surely is more concerned about the whooping money that the coaching centers reap out of the whole education business. However, what we need to understand here is, students who are preparing for examinations like IIT JEE resort to coaching centers only because our education system itself lacks the ground infrastructure to reap in the basic concepts. The course content has not been revised/reshaped for years. Practicals are mostly namesake. Not even students, even the schools don’t take the boards seriously; assuming that students have their respective coachings for their guidance. What needs a reform here is the education system and not JEE examination system.

And well, every one seemingly wishes to blow their own trumpet. This proposal definitely doesn’t runs down so well with Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar who is more concerned about the incompetent class of students who manage to secure an admission in IIT, simply because they are blessed to born with some quota.

Five things which I love about diwali:

Meetha

I’m a self-confessed sweet-oholic. Undoubtedly best part about diwali is all the mouth watering sweets and delicacies; soft supple gulabjamuns, rich gujiya, my all time favorite kaju katli and the crispy moong dal halwa loaded with dryfruits. Lack of mom made delicacies this diwali was ofcourse disappointing but then it gave me a chance to do all that for her..things that shes been doing for me all these years. For you mom, A thousand times over J

Rangoli

I’ve been making rangolis on diwali since past 9-10 years now and the passion grows everytime I see a finished beautiful rangoli beaming in bright colors.

Diyas

Every nook and corner is illuminated on the eve of diwali, rightly referred to as the festival of lights. Adorning every corner of the house with beautifully carved earthern diyas is something that I looooooove.

The pooja together

I’m not someone whos piously religious but then I love the Pooja part because it brings us all together, and together we pray for all we aspire. A strange kind of tranquility dawns as it infuses a fresh tinge of optimism. Hope,indeed is a strange and powerful thing.

And last but not the least,

I love the proud look in papas eyes, on seeing my rangoli, the decorations, and all the hard work that goes for a sparkling diwali J

Chokhi Dhani- A mere deception?

It’s Thursday morning, 9 A.M. and thanks to shutdown, I have the luxury of lazing around right now, curling my feet on my cosy bed. Life’s good (mostly) these days with lots of time to do the lot that I usually want to. I went on a short trip to Jaipur with my friends last weekend. Though, I did manage to enjoy owing to the company I had, the trip offered few major disappointments. A big spoilsport being Jaipur’s scorching heat, there was another bigger let down. The main item on our Jaipur itinerary was Chokhi Dhani- a much heard about place in Jaipur. Almost every now and then, I hear Delhi’s much of the elite heading towards this place and I well, was quite tempted to check this out. All that I feel about it now is that it’s evidently more of a fad than anything else.

Chokhi Dhani is a resort in Jaipur which tries to capture the cultural heritage and charm of Rajasthan and its village life. The question here is, why do we even need this? Ain’t places like Chokhi Dhani a dime a dozen in a country like ours which inherently is the “land of villages”. Even today, the Gandhian belief that villages should remain the main building block of Indian society stands so true. When roughly 750 million of India’s 1.1 billion population still continues to live in it’s 680,000 villages, Do we actually need these village kind setups?

I guess the only people who get actually benefitted by these places are it’s owners. The place is way overpriced and considering the crazy hordes of people who rush there every weekend, I bet, the owners have their hands, all in black. But what does it actually offers to an average middle class Indian like me?

Imagine the plight, a place jam-packed with minimum 1000 people, scorching heat, dust all around, and after literally an hour of waiting in a queue, I get to have the so called traditional Rajasthani food, which again was just average considering the other places that I tried in Jaipur.(Here’s a tip: We tried a place called LMD in Johri Bazaar. It did assuage the disappointment that Chokhi Dhani offered. ) By the time our turn came, half of the dishes were simply not available. It was evident that they were just not able to manage the large number of people who have turned up but still we had to pay a whooping 350 bucks per plate for a disappointing meal.

India is a land of diversities. With more than 29 languages spoken by more than a million native speakers, and radical cultural shifts every thousands of kilometers, India sure has lots to offer. I would like to see and experience every bit of it in it’s actual manifestation rather than by paying thousands of bucks to some rich businessman. The owners of Chokhi Dhani have surely done a great job in bringing multiple facets of Rajasthani culture at a single place. Such places do nicely mimic the whole village set ups but they can never capture the essence of India’s ethnicity.

A tale of two days.....

A silhouette of mountains standing splendidly with all its grandiose, the majestic ganges flowing quietly amidst the rustic surroundings, a white sand beach next to the river, startling pebbles scattered meticulously all over the sand, and there I’m standing, a trifle entity, watching it all totally mesmerized. The serenity of the surroundings are seemingly bringing me closer to where I belong. It’s so quiet that I can actually hear the musical sound of ganges gushing through the rocks. I’m not dreaming!! This is nostalgia. It’s a consequence of my recent trip to Rishikesh for river rafting. The two days have perhaps been the most adventurous days of my life and I’m wondering where to start. Few excerpts from my unbelievingly intense encounter with nature.

We stayed on a beach camp in Byasi. There were small little tents lined up on a majestic sand beach. As I headed towards mine, a strange kind of serenity was settling somewhere inside me. The very thought of living in a tent was so enticing that I felt ecstatic, yet so much in control of myself. A little downside were the tent washrooms but as they say, “No pain No gain”. Living in a tent, by the river side was actually an amazing experience.

After having our breakfast, we embarked for rafting. Just to add few pieces of information here, Rafting is mainly done on WhiteWaters where the currently is bubbly, or aerated and unstable; and the frothy water thus appears white. Coming back to the buzz, 4-5 hours of Rafting were amazing thrill. As we maneuvered our way through the emerald green water and entered the rapids, the seemingly quiet river gradually manifested into brisk turbulent spurts. In a gist of moment, our raft was potently hit by the waves, leaving us all drenched and euphoric. I practically got my first glimpse of real thrill and was craving for more. Whenever, the flow was regular, all of us actually jumped into the cold river water and simply swam, floated. It was amazing. Floating in a vast river which has been flowing continuously for years as if I’m a part of this vastness. Made me feel kinda majestic. Anyhow, the most awe-inspiring part was cliff jumping towards the end of rafting. This was to jump from some 25-30 feet cliff straight into the water. Sounds remarkable ?Yeh! I did it :), though after minutes of mustering courage, but I actually did it…… !!

By the end of rafting I was so damn tired; I had my lunch and quietly dozed off to sleep. When I woke up, it was dark. I went outside and gosh!, I was completely spellbound by the starlit sky, silhouette of the mountains, moon gleaming on the river, rippling sound of water, lanterns shimmering in the dark and a camp fire right outside my tent. It was totally spectacular and romantic. I enjoyed the bonfire for some time and then along with some friends, went for a walk towards a rapid named ‘The wall’. Walking on the beach amidst the rocks in a starlit night had its own mystic charm.
Next day wasn’t as adventurous but was equally fun & enjoyable. I did rock climbing & rappelling. We did lots of water splashing, got ourselves drenched, clicked some amazing photographs, enjoyed a nice meal at Rishikesh , made a mess during the return train journey and reached Delhi around 12 o clock.
My two days filled with thrill and excitement were thus over leaving me with many wonderful memories to cherish….. all kudos to the unmatched thrill, serene and rustic surroundings, and most importantly, the spirits which each one of us had :)

A flash of epiphany………

Another dry spell and here I’m, back again. I have again been ignoring my blog for some time. That’s because there are literally many things that are keeping me busy…I’ve also been doing a lot of thinking lately, a little paranoid at times and few epiphanies have dawned upon me. You might have an apprehension that this post is going to get too philosophical but relax, we’ll be reflecting on the mundane only. By the way, talking about philosophy, here’s an FYI….

We already have an answer to the ‘Ultimate Question’ of life, universe & everything. The answer is “42”. Unfortunately, The Ultimate Question itself is unknown ;)

Coming back to the point, 2008 has been a chaotic year. A wave of turbulence has steered the course of my life from being ecstatic to heavily tumultuous over the past one year. Life changed too fast. I embraced it. There, I had barely started feeling like a woman, enjoying the sudden shower of responsibilities and looking forward to a bright future. Suddenly, all the ‘single’ things were getting lost in oblivion. I had matured from the ‘Do you mind if I have your no.’ type conversations (and the numerous speculations which came with them),the spicy gossips to a laidback, a little aloof and a little more content life. And suddenly, life took a blizzard turn leaving me almost shattered. Looking back over the last one year in retrospection, there are few things primarily that I would like to mention.

• Life is not fair(and I’m getting used to it)
• What you see is what you get. We should accept people in our life as they are.
• We all are used to living in our shells. We have our comfort zones comprising of family, friends, GFs, BFs etc. Relationships gradually become so crucial in our life that we start living for them. However, amidst everything, there’s one thing that we should never forget, to love ourselves, to live for ourselves.

Warning: Be careful to keep the ‘self’ away from the devil named ego.

• We all aspire big things in life. Dreams like a promotion, a big car, a house by the age of 30, a perfect relationship seem to become the very purpose of our existence. However, these big things can and usually do go wrong. It’s very important then to find joys in small little things in life. Your job and your loved ones undoubtedly remain your prime focus but it’s equally important to find out and do things that you love. Look for things that make you passionate and fill your heart with a child like contentment. For once, do things without being concerned about their outcomes. It could be reading a nice book, tuning in to your favorite rhythm, to probably getting a spa at your favorite parlor. But Do, Love and pamper yourself :)

I have been doing a lot of ‘pampering myself’ lately and plan to continue with it. 2009 has few exciting things in basket. I generally don’t keep resolutions, but there are certain things that I’ve always wanted to do. This is the time to embark. I gradually plan to take things, one by one.

• Dancing tops the list.  I had always wanted to learn it formally and I’m totally on it. My jazz classes are going in full swing & I’m loooooving it.
  
• Sketching is next. I hope to start soon
  
• There’s one new thing that I’ve included in my wish list-Travel. The plan is to visit a new place every year. Let’s hope, this year, I do it soon.
  

One more thing which is getting the most of me lately is a television series ‘How I met your mother’- a light, humorous and totally engrossing take on relationships. For anyone & everyone reading this, do watch it. You’ll find it LEGEN-wait for it-DARY;)

I have my fingers crossed and I’m really looking forward to 2009. I hope not many things go wrong this year. Anyhow, I’m quite optimistic that even if they do, I’ll have strength to handle….ahhhh…still…how I wish God would be a little more kind:)