White Sand

See you next year! I'm off to Ratnagiri. :-)

Personality Bites

This past year brought with it a new revelation. Something that has a strange paradox in the centre.
About eight years ago, somebody told me that I am a little too approachable. That people find it easy to come to me and speak their mind, and that isn't always a good thing because at times I end up getting hurt/offended in the process. I agreed, but did not know what to do to change things.
After all these years, I am standing at the other extreme end of approachability. My cynicism, insecurities, arrogance, and emotional baggage coupled with this thought at the back of my mind made me what I am today.
There were innumerable instances where directly or indirectly I was informed that people are 'scared' of me. And not in a very positive way. I like it if I think of it as something that makes people think twice before saying something to me. But then, if that's something that makes so many people have a negative perception of me, I am not too sure if it's such a great thing.
From where I stand today, my 23 years tell me that it's ok if this is the case. I've seen my mom be all that I am not anymore. It's sure brought her a lot of appreciation and love from people outside of her immediate circle, but then it has brought more hurt too. I like to believe that people who know me see the person that I am beyond this outer crust. If I need a life-changing, attitude-changing humbling experience to get out of this mode, I can't say. Or if this post becomes redundant by the time I am 30 or something, only time will tell.

The Parle G Boy!

There is a traditional, little, old-school boy in my college here. He's one of the papas of the batch - disciplined, wakes up early, high on values, takes care of drunk friends, and so on.
His maternal grandparents live in Delhi, so right from the beginning he seems to find it easy to relate to a few of us Punju girls from Delhi. What with mamaji taking him around west Delhi's best chaat stalls on his scooter, and us Dilli girls always on the lookout for good chaat in this land!
He is also sweet enough to follow my blog such that he opens the page in the same breath as his gmail, ibnlive, and afaqs.

It's his birthday today. Last year I forgot to wish him. Today too, I saw him in the morning and didn't wish again. However, I am hoping this might make up for the mistake made.

Oh, I forgot to mention the most important thing - if you want to see somebody obsess about snakes and take care of them too - meet our boy! The birthday boy! Akshay Brijkrishan. Mind you, that's a Kashmiri Brijkrishan. Not a south Indian Brijkrishnan that I mistakenly made him during the first couple of weeks of college.

'Pool of Watery Images'

The previous post made me realise that most of my outings this year were water-related. The almost-rough monsoon waves of the Arabian Sea, the mighty Ganga, the only reservoir meeting normal capacity levels this year - Khadakvasla Dam, cold water at Tamhini Ghat, and the incredibly serene Mulshi Lake. The one thing that links all these trips for me is rain. While the trip to Rishikesh in May saw random summer rain, all other trips were made in the Western Ghats and around the Konkan belt during the monsoons between June and August. The drawback is the unexciting sky in pictures that I managed between any given two spells of rain.

I am still to see a white sand beach. If things work out fine, I might visit one before the end of this year. Keeping fingers crossed!

It took time learning how to handle an approaching wave

Srivardhan was a clay soil beach

It stopped raining towards the end of day and all of us went almost crazy with our cameras

A group of fisherman passed by in the evening

This was Khadakvasla. Rains were at their heaviest worst. And so was the traffic. I only managed to click from inside our moving car.

The cloud cover which was more of a carpet at the Sinhagarh Fort that I visited the same day

Mulshi Lake was the most spontaneous and fun drive ever. Planned and executed in a snap, this was a perfect little trip I managed to be part of!

And did I have fun or what!

My first petrified dip in the ice-cold water at Rishikesh, and the water went up my nose. :|

And the 23rd birthday at Tamhini Ghat with friends!

I hope I manage to continue this new beginning over the coming years as well.

You've Seen This Before

While there is still close to a week left for the year to end, I want to write about the year that has almost gone by because I have started making my new year eve plans. So let's get to the custom of listing it all out.

# Life's second moment of hysteria happened early this year. More emotional stress than I could handle.

# Travelled to Jamshedpur from Pune to meet Shady who used to be

# Met Subhadip in Kolkata

# Started playing badminton after many years

# Travel ventures began with Ajanta and Ellora. And I covered everything from rock sculptures and paintings to river rafting in the mountains to frolicking on a beach on a rainy day to playing under waterfalls in the hills to a quiet lakeside evening to a drive to a beautiful dam followed by an awesome fort as well. A tiny wildlife sanctuary is on my list too. :-)

- So it was a first view of the sea
- A first dip in a river
- A first lakeside moment
- A first waterfall experience
- A first of a dam during rains
- A first walk on clouds in a fort
- AND a first of the wildlife

# Travel to Chandigarh to meet grandparents is definitely a separate point

# Holi brought my first rain dance experience

# Break-up happened and I became my cynical worst after that

# Got the fourth piercings in the ears

# Experienced working with a chauvinist

# It was one of the most volatile years of friendships

# I bought my first dress

# Got drunk for the first time

# Ran a marathon

# Bhaiya got engaged!
# Bought the perfect red saree I had dreamt of for a decade, for bhaiya's wedding
# More of ultrasounds and related crap

# Siddhartha passed away

# Bought a new lens with my own money

# Invested in a photograph for a good cause

# Made a perfect wall

# Dev D's music was one the biggest forms of madness ever!

# And so was Delhi 6

# Missed a flight

# Lived the thrill of having a Costa Coffee in Pune for the longest time!

# I contested and lost elections in college

# Experienced guilt like never before

# My first plant died

# Did political PR

# Voted in general elections for the first time

# Watched somebody I loved fall in love with someone else. Twice over.

# Made a little trip on Delhi's local trains

# Watched way too many movies on my laptop

# Got associated with one of the biggest brands in the world

# Attended a santoor vadan concert of Rahul Sharma's

# Saw Shah Rukh Khan :P

# Started loving peanut butter

# Sinus pains went beyond tolerance levels

# Had a man tell me I'm perfect

# Fell out of love with Nike for Woman

# Watched theatre

# Became more rude, arrogant and intolerant

# Broke my laptop's keypad in anger

# Laughed through many days too.

I am sure I am forgetting more things. I'll come back and update this list. Until then, spend some time in writing out comments. :D

Dormancy and the Dhol

The activity (or the lack of it) on this page over the last two months is making me feel like I have aged a little too much for the kind of time span we are talking about. Things might change once I get back to Pune, I don't know. Let's wait for that - just another three days. Maybe it's just this overwhelming pace of life that has kept me away from updating.

As of now, the latest and most interesting update is that my brother is now engaged. I have waited for this occasion for the longest time. I think I was 14 years old ever since I have been planning to look pretty on his wedding. Of course, the marriage changes the family's dynamics too, but that is still a couple of months away.

So I did the whole mehandi, earrings, and pretty clothes jazz over the past few days. I was even forced to buy gold-coloured shoes and wear make-up. Well, what I did to my face apparently does not qualify as make-up, but I think it was just about fine. Especially because it does something to my stomach just the way sequins do. And I swear I have seen enough shiny wedding-y clothes, shoes and bags which look good minus any sequins. Yes, fancy things are made for me too. :D

Apart from all that, I think there is a general issue with some 'nice' men. They don't seem to know how to handle women-related issues in their head. I won't generalise about the type (of men or situations), but everyone has some issue or the other. It's pretty incredible. I think credit also goes to women like me who always seem to attract the wrong kind of men (wrong for us, nice in general - yes, the corporate training also taught me how to be more politically correct).

On a lot more serious note, now I am pretty clear about the kind of job and the kind of organisation I want to join once I finish college. The million dollar question, however, remains that who is willing to hire me!

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Trivia: Audioslave should feel happy to be owning my first ever cellphone ringtone in six years. That does not mean that I have stopped hating the concept of ringtones. Sometimes life's complusions are plain weird.

Trivia 2: 'Weird' and 'stuff' have been the two most controversial words - independently and together - of the past two months. The irony of it has also been factored in.

Trivia 3: Ranbir Kapoor in Rocket Singh is the hottest thing I have seen in the longest time! Totally reminds of the sardar I had a crush on in WWW! Completely adorable and handsome!!! :D

The Pink Ball

Getting to work on sustainability affairs for my present organisation.
Recently organised throwball matches for the girls of a government school adopted by us.

The experience was absolutely brilliant!

The 10th standard girls who won the first match

Earthly

Nothing can be defined as 'effort' if not waking up at 6:30 am on a Sunday morning. But like some efforts are totally worth every penny, or as I'd like to say, every minute of precious sleep, so was today's for me!

Daksh, my cousin, and I had planned a trip to Rajasthan for my first week in Delhi this time. But my father often plays spoilsport. And so he did this time too. So, as Sariska waits for me, a green patch en route to my current office greeted us this morning. Asola Wildlife Sanctuary was once home to a host of animals including the leopard. Today, it is said that there are more birds than anything else over there.

We did know the route, just had to ask around to find the entrance to the वन. At a check post I asked a police guy for the route, and he was surprisingly sweet enough to offer us tea too. ;-)

We reached just when the sunlight was perfect. But it took us a while to spot our first friend for the morning. Huuge peacocks, lots of deer, white camels, pretty butterflies, some animals whose names I did not know, and unfortunately very few birds - they were all there!
Moreover, I had good company in human form too.

His father was nice enough to let him take his car on his 22nd birthday! :D

Poor guys were scared!

And I was super-excited! Not because of the thorns and wild twigs in my jeans though. :|

I read somewhere that Pune also has a little wildlife sanctuary. I'll have to check on that soon. But a good, bigger national park can't be kept waiting for too long. The itch is getting too much!

P.S. - Every morning should be like a Sunday morning for Mathura Road and the B.R.T. corridor. The drive was dreamy!

Bump on my head

A feeble attempt. Of sinking feet. In a colourful hue.

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I have watched Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge innumerable times, but never imagined that something from the movie could come true in my personal life. Remember Simran's hands reaching her ears frantically every time she imagined hearing the leitmotif? I did the same today. Only, I did not imagine that tune. Some annoying person's phone rings to that tune in office every day. Endlessly. The moment I did it the scene flashed in front of my eyes. How I wished somebody fun was around to share it! :-/

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I never thought being polite and formal all day could be so taxing! I admit it's a nice change for someone like me who had forgotten how to be polite (read non-sarcastic) in normal conversation. It's a place where definition of casual goes beyond jeans, and makes me realise that I am more casual than I thought I was.

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Today the driver rammed the car for a second time in a week. Last time the car got damaged, this time I got hurt. And people tell me that it's a comfort traveling in the backseat of your car!

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A guy from my college was on the front page of ET today. For getting recruited for an obscene 32 lakhs after his graduation. Of course, sounds hyped - it's an international placement. But still! Three and two! The highest after my immediate juniors' who got 14 lakhs' packages by Lehman Brothers that used to be.

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I am soon going to become the expert queen of awkward social formal situations. It will equip me for a good consulting business that will fetch me 32 lakhs a year too.

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I recently visited the WWF office here. Got an opportunity to visit their exclusive gallery too. I cannot write about the brilliant work I saw there. It was out of the world! In fact, even the tiger was SO beautifully adorning their walls in the front lobby that I almost fell in love - with the place, the photographer, and the tiger itself!

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Some more relationships are officially over. I want to say that I don't know how many more there are to absorb, but I am so sure there are many many more to absorb!

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My struggling equation with god is also in a transitionary phase right now. I'm wondering where it will go.

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With this yours truly is hopefully back to being regular. Not planning on fighting with time anyway.

Heartache

Obliged to...
Misunderstood so...
Expected to...
Unreasonably so.

A loop, an endless loop.

Scrambled

The white car got scraped.

The leaves got wet in the rain.

The kathi roll had too much onion.

He lost yet another game of cards.

She bought her first non-leather bag in more than a decade.

The squirrel jumped over.

This time she cooked for her son.

We expected him to design it better.

It might explode within the next 10 years.

That's not the purple she likes.

The Peanut Butter Weekend

This weekend came and went by in a snap. After ages I felt like my social self again. And it was great because unfortunately, like I've been telling everyone I know, in spite of an entire lifetime in this city, I hardly have any friends left here. So it was great meeting some of my people again.

On Saturday morning, my brother was kind enough to actually ask me to accompany him for some shopping. In the process I got myself the most beautiful pair of earrings I have ever bought. They beat the second most beautiful pair of earrings I own which I had bought just last week. :-)

I met Megha as well, and pleased her by showing interest in shiny clothes because according to her I wear extremely boring clothes.

The evening was spent in shopping with mom at another location. Even though mom paid for herself (obviously! I'm a student. What do you expect?), she was happy that one of her kids was nice to her for a change. Especially because we only shopped for her.

I came back with a brilliantly annoying headache, but Avan tried to meet my demand of wanting to talk to her for two hours on the phone. We didn't meet the two-hour goal, but we came close. We did a lot of pending 'catching up'. Only I know how much I miss our long phone conversations ever since she went to a B school!

Sunday afternoon was something I was looking forward to. I was meeting school friends after a really long gap. So much so that I saw my closest friend from school after about a year today. I was damn excited. Most of the people in that chain mail did turn up. Basketball kept the boys away for longer than expected, but it was still nice to meet the old gang! The old commerce gang (I used to hang out more with the science students in 11th and 12th)! We had a lot more to talk about, but other commitments kept it slightly shorter than we would have liked. Incidentally, we also ran into one of the most dedicated students of our batch from school. The conviction with which he used to say that he wants to be a doctor totally reflected in the fact that today he's at the Safdarjung Hospital. Highly impressive!

Among other fun things, I had a fruit salad sundae from Nirula's after really long. As in many other places, the quality is nothing like it used to be. Nonetheless, it remains one of my most favourite things ever!
This reminds me - last week when I had gone to Chandni Chowk, we'd gone to the parathe wali gali and to my disappointment, the size of the parathas has now been halved. Moreover, there was absolutely no difference between a khurchan and a rabdi paratha. Yes, I have progressed from the apprehensive days of aloo parathas, but let's not digress from the point. So much for a slowdown! :-/

Back to today: From CP I headed to Khan Market with Kulsum's truck driver skills. She turned out to be better than what I was told about her. She left, and I met Udit. We spent some time at Cafe Oz. A place where pasta was not well-cooked, none of the desserts were (thankfully) appealing, and the iced tea was just about ok. I also went through some of his photographs' prints. Quite liked a few!

He was nice enough to drop me home. Post dinner I sat with my family, and we talked for a good two hours. It hardly ever happens. I loved every single moment of it!

My tickets for going back to Pune are booked. A train that takes more than a day, and I don't have a window seat. I know how much sulking these facts involve!

And oh, I got to talk to the 'love of my life' Sahil properly after more than three weeks today. It was nice. :-)

Why peanut butter? Because back in the hostel I developed a liking for untimely slices of bread with peanut butter - something I never really had at home. So to add to my already excessive weight, I got a jar recently and have been having untimely slices of bread with peanut butter again! Who would have thought I would bring stupid habits from hostel to my home! But stupid things are the easiest and quickest to travel, aren't they?

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I could not make a post about the recently-discovered engineer hidden in me. For your reference, I am working with one of the engineering giants right now. Last week I was disappointed because a stupid reason led to me missing a photoshoot of our technology at a substation. On Friday, I highly enjoyed reading about all the physics I missed out on after 10th standard. I also visited our instrumentations factory. It did take all these weeks for me to begin enjoying it, but really, if it wasn't for nauseating chemistry, I would have been in a completely different world today!!

So this is it about my weekend. Now I'll go decide what I have to wear to work tomorrow. Tada!!

Head Girl and Vice Head Girl - Batch 2004

Best buds

Trained at Delhi School of Social Work and National Institute of Fashion Technology respectively - talking about and agreeing upon how to handle rishtedars with shaadi ka rishtas

Kulsum has a 'thing' for getting people's invisible feet in all pictures she clicks

And Parul ka dil! :D

Not So Dull

Why should dull be a bad word?

# When everyone is hyper, somebody dull can actually be someone sane.

# When the light is blinding, something dull can bring relief to the eyes.

# Things that are dull can contrast well with most things pretty.


Help me add to this, please. I am working on a defence for my friend Dull.

*...*

Not for a reason, not in any order...






































Two of the pictures here are not clicked by me. Priyam, a friend, has the copyright.