Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Pissed off, bitter girl!

So it happens with us once in a while that we feel lost, helpless and bound by all our mistakes and bad decisions. Its ironic to call ones mistakes bad decisions because I've come to believe that we actually have a mechanism inside us that keeps giving these warning signals all the time that something's not meant to be..

The question is that why do we choose to ignore these signals, why do we ignore our instincts, why do we put ourselves through the misery and then cry most of our life about it later?

We make or break ourselves and yes, we make bad decisions all the time. Its just that some have a huge affect on us than the other... e.g Opting out of taking admission into a college maybe acceptable but marrying a person who you felt deep inside was wrong for you, marrying someone without thinking to realise in no time he's a psycho is so wrong at so many levels.

Yes I wish I had not made the mistakes I did but I am human.. I don't have a time machine to clean up my mess but I'm sure you out there also don't have it..

The hardest thing for me is that I can't come to forgive myself for putting me through this. Knowing yet ignoring the signals is something I can't even ask God why me.. God obviously gave me all the warning signals for me to stay away from trouble..so my why me is aimed at me only.

Why did not ignore these signals? I thought of myself as an someone who had things figured.. I definitely sis not do people any wrong. You know what my mistake was...? .. I was running after a mirage and when reality struck me,  I fell hard.

People learn from their mistakes and I seem to be making mistakes after another. Can you imagine what confidence would be left in me after all those mistakes? Can you imagine that on a bad day, how I would face myself?

The worst thing in this world is to let yourself down. One can lie to people that their life is fine but they cannot life to themselves.

Yes, my life is so far away from what I wanted it to be. I got all the things I wanted in my life but all those things are bad choices! Its taken me a while to come to terms with it and I know I faltered so many places... I let myself down.. I did not value myself.. but then I realized that I need to say NO!

I apologize to myself now and then for all the pain I've gone through, but I can't seem to forgive forgive myself.

I've stopped wanting anything now because of the fear that what I want may not be right for me.... Right now I want only one thing: to zip past the aftermath of my bad choices some true so that I can live the life I so deserve... and yes, I know for sure that I deserve a lot better and a lot good in this life.

I have aspirations and I will achieve them and I sincerely apologize to myself and promise I shall never let myself be in a life altering, bad situation ever again.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Its Friday!!!

Well, its not really Friday coz there is still one more day to go but the onset of thrusday just seems like a downhill drive..
 
I like to mix up things so that I get plently of time with my family, pampering my adorable nephew and niece, watching back to back episodes of Gossip Girl, meeting friends, going out for a movie/ dinner.
 
Last weekend was my first try of bringing Avu and Karan home. I mean just the kids.. It was superb with Avu giving her best smile and calling out to the woman in an ad in the newspaper as aunty (and buddhu's statue as uncle).
 
For this weekend, I have found a new restaurant that I need to review. I have never tried Bong cuisine though I am a big fan of their Jhal Muri and Puchkaas.. So for this week, Oh! Calcutta is what I fancy. Being a vegetarian, I'm not sure how much options I will get but I'm told that their Baigan Bhaja (read fried bhaigan) and luchi (read puri) are a must have.
 
Wait to hear from me again on how the place rates on my scale of ambience, food, service and value for money.
 
The place is not limited to Delhi and can be tried by food enthusiasts in Mumbai, Calcutta, Pune, Bangalore as well...
 
For Delhi the address is:
 
Oh! Calcutta
International Trade Tower,
E-Block, Ground Floor,
Nehru Place,
New Delhi - 110019.
Ph: 26464180

The Kanatal trip: Holyland, Haridwar

Post capturing the morning bliss and soaking in all the fresh air, I headed back to my tent.


Just a few hours left for us to start our return journey. The more time passed by, the more I was falling in love with the place. This generally does not happen to me as I am hard to please but the place had this uniqueness attached to it that it won me the moment I lay my eyes on it: a union of the calm, the enormous, the humble, the graceful.... like a cookie you had that was heated up to the right temperature for it to melt in your mouth.. ummm!


Anyway, home awaited me ... After a quick hot bath, we arrived at the dining area with our packed luggage. The stay seemed so short now and I was already thinking about coming back for a longer visit. Breakfast done and we sat outside with tea and coffee to say our last goodbye to the place.   


Thanking the people there for making our stay so good, we loaded our luggage in the car and started the descend. Next on our agenda was to stop over at Tehri Dam and from there to Haridwar. Since  we wanted to see the grand scale आरती that happens at हर की पौढ़ी, we left at 1130. Wel, we could have started earlier but our bat mobile just would not start and needed a kick to get warned up.

Our driver told us that general public is not allowed on the dam so we could do some boating at Tehri and after that he would drop us at the haridwar station. Just boating was not our idea for fun so we cancelled Tehri and decided to go straight to haridwar station. 


The drive was long and tiring. With the window on my side unwilling to wind up completely, the chill started to give me a headache. I decided to pull up a jacket and doze off, which proved to be a good decision as I had not slept much the day before.

We made one small stop at a construction site because of the view the place had.. simply breathtaking !!





Ya, We loved all the posing.. who wouldn't :)


Starting the journey again, I went back to sleep...

Haridwar:
The setup of tents was all for the preparation of Maha Kumbh.. Around 1330-1400 hrs we had reached Haridwar station. With finances settled, we proceeded to the station entry.. No we are not heading back home yet.. So much to see, how could be go now. Moreover, we had some 10 hours to utilize for which an amazing plan had already been chalked out.


Step 1: Check in the luggage in the cloak room. For frequent travelers who have checked out of their hotel, this is a boon. No worries about carrying all that luggage! It took us 5 mins to locate the cloak room, 2 to buy a lock for Sanghi and another 5 to get the luggage registred. That simple!... We were ready to spread our wings now.


Step 2: A quick snack for lunch, basically whatever good we could get. For now it was some cake...


Luggage taken care of, semi lunch done, we headed out of the station.. It felt like one of those college days, me and sanghi out on the streets with no specific agenda in mind, the first sign of being a true traveler.. वेल्ले लोग हम दोनों..


While travelling to any place, my idea of fun is to see it from the eye of a local.. As we walked towards the temple from the station, we crossed a spice market, then utensils and finally we were able to spot what our hippie eyes were looking for.. JUNK JEWELERY! We started to load ourselves with bangles, malas, ankelets.. whatever our eyes fancied. The weirdest of my shopping there had to be some speciality papads which goes to show that food is my first and foremost weakness.


I was trying to look for something that spoke of the place but could not find anything... so junk jewellery it was.

With the time of the aarti gaining on us, we headed towards the banks of ganges and saw this man making exquisite offering made out of flowers.

Haridwar is a chaotic place otherwise. We found ourselves a place to see the aarti and it took longer than expected to start. A fact about the daily prayer that happnes there is that the diya's for the aarti are lit at the same time. It was a sight in itself.

Finally we saw what we came for!

Hungry as hell, we asked the locals around for a place to have a decent meal. Two suggestions came up: Hoshiyaar Puri and Big Ben!

errrr, Big Ben?! Anyway, we moved on asking more shop keepers and hoshiyaar Puri seemed to be a popular choice. On a funny note, the name of restaurant was just not registering in my mind and I asked this local girl where Rajnikant hotel was... telling her people have suggested us to eat there. The exprssion on her face were note worthy! I laughed and told her the name was a bit odd so we dont remember. She gave a smile and told us its Hoshiyaari puri and gave is directions.

Following the path, we reached the place finally and it found it to be a hit among the locals as well as tourists. We ordered an array of things coz we had not eaten since morning and hogged and hogged!

Done with dinner we stepped out and saw we still had 3 hours to spare. Without having any meetha, I was looking around for a place to get something good: jalebis and ladoos maybe. This time we asked the shopkeepers for a nice place to have mithai. Prachin Mathura Wale was enormously suggested so we started the walk.

The place served some amazing besan laddoos. We had a few of them and moved towards the station.

Though the wait at the station was long, it was quite eventful with a bunch of monkeys scaring us (no fault of theirs as they were just just sitting silently next to us having biscuits), our quest to find a clean loo, an opiniated man in his late 50's spreading gyaan to a couple and the unbearable waiting room.

To sum up, the trip was a success and would act as a building block to many more to come.



Wednesday, March 24, 2010

All things pretty

A recent trip to Dilli Haat presented an opportunity to carry my trusty canon to capture the mood of everyday life that was hard to resist!

Junk jewelery calling out to women of various age groups, loads of clay work, endless variety of indigenous clothes and chappals and not the forget the main attraction: the horticulture show.









Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Innocence Around

Here I was returning home from a hectic 5 day routine and planning my 2 days of freedom. As I stopped at a longer than usual red light near my home, I could not resist taking out my camera to click some random shots.

One click here, another there, its then I noticed that a lil boy selling Ganesha statues,smiling back at me. Oh yes! The kid had stopped to pose for the camera and was giving a hearty smile.

I tried my best to get a decent shot of him from behind the windshield and clicked one of him. Seeing his friend being photographed, his buddy came and joined in. It was sweet and enjoyable 2 min stop for all of us.

Just before the kids started to walk off, I called them and showed them their picture. The kids were all smiles and chuckles as they walked off.



Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Fun with Photography

While taking a break from work, I decided to pick up my camera and go out to the garden to click some pictures.

After the rains, afternoons have once again become a pleasant time to step out and the crisp sun made it a joy for me to click some beautiful plants in my garden and enjoy the warmth at the same time.

Here are some pictures I clicked:

another close up of Jade.. I love this plant on Twitpic

my garden on Twitpic

.. lost one on Twitpic

Friday, February 12, 2010

WannaBe All American Diner

Having heard about the all American diner at India Habit Center for so long, I decided to check out the place and review it for myself.

Amidst the pruned landspace of India Habitat Center- the place has an impressive address for starters.

My hunger struck greedy eyes looked around the place...

To start with the place, it is tucked in a tiny area and felt claustrophobic, though the interiors were bright and peppy, synonymous to any diner: Neon lights.. pink in this case, myraid posters on the wall, jukebox, booth seating and the typical tissue dispensers.

I liked the way the various breakfast cereal were displayed on the counters for buffet and made me hungry instantaneously.

As we moved towards our seats, I was dissapointed to see the crammed seating space for two. It seemed like one booth was cut through the center to make space.

Soon however, I was distracted by the menu which seemed promising.. A good amount of options for us vegetarians, with the regular pancakes, waffles, hash browns, eggs to order and what not.

I had heard a lot about their pancakes and waffles so ordered the same and some hash browns on the side. Hearing the conversations of  people around, I definitely saw it as mecca for them wannabe's -  posing as intellectuals as soon as they stepped in.

5-10 mins and my pancakes finally arrived with the hash browns and there is when the array of dissapointment started...

  1. Hashbrowns served to me did not look like hashbrowns!!! Dunno what I was served.
  2. Pouring the syrup over the pancakes, as soon as I dug into my first bite, I realised the taste was all screwed up.
  3. The texture of the pancake was too sticky and believe me I have had good pancakes that melt in one's mouth.
  4. The meal portions were so tiny that it seemed like a joke.
This experience stopped me from ordering more. I wonder when these world cuisine eateries will stop being stingy in their meal sizes as they definitely aren't stingy when it comes to presenting the bill.

I give the place a thumbs down and the following rating:

Food: 2/5
Ambience: 2.5/5
Service: 2/5
Value for money: 1.5/5

I'm now on a lookout for a place to have an amazing breakfast and the menu has changed from american to our very own piping hot spicy South India... Yummm

Saturday, January 30, 2010

The state of being: NOW

After watching movies back to back over a couple of days, I shifted my liking to a much subtler option .. Music.


Off late I've started fancying the sounds of Electronica and lounge music, after all it is quite soothing and irons out any signs of stress from a hectic day! So, with a chrisper version of me at the keyboard, I start to write about all that is around me.


The music's positive yet mysterious vibe, the sounds of the accordion binding you to itself as the music progresses. I wonder what story is it trying to portray.. Yeah! I got it.. like a bumble bee in the busy streets, lost and trying to find his way back home... hmm, It doesn't make much sense does it, but neither do most incidents around us or the discussions that we have with other people.


when I think about how my life has progressed in the last week, my accidental injury which has left me almost immobile (temporarily) and the survival instinct for me to continue: I realise that bigger and new incidences always overshadow the chronic, lingering ones. Another conclusion that doesn't seem to make any sense. 


But, Life is anything but a survival instinct. The way we join the dots of this puzzle, thats how our life turns out to be. And sometimes, though NOW does not make sense, embracing our surroundings brings about a newer, BIGGER, maybe better tomorrow... just like the bumble bee hitting a bit garden in the spring season.


I guess all I have to say is that enjoy the eccentricities of today no matter how unconventional they may be as you wont get this moment ever again.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

The Kanatal trip: Rise and Shine!


So I'm not used sleeping at 9 p.m. and as a result I tossed and turned in my bed all night long! It was difficult staying all covered along with the tossing so I was even more restless. The saving grace for me was that lights were not turned off. I get scared easily so I needed that comfort.

I woke up hours later and for a split second could not recollect where I was. Scared to death, I looked around and saw the luggage on the floor and also Sanghi cosily tucked in. Phew! I am still alive, I thought to myself and with a sigh of relief looked at my watch.. 11 p.m. only? Apparently, You recoup as fast as you get exhausted in the hills. I really did not feel tired or sleepy or anything but I thought to myself I have to sleep. So, I went back to bed to get up just before sunrise.

I'm glad my body clock was one with nature because the time I woke up and stepped outside, I could see the sun coming up.. Well, not the sun but hints of red, orange, yellow in the sky. I ran back in to get the camera...





Our tents were west facing and behind our tents, towards the east were huge huge pine trees. It looked like a view from a painting when the light from the sun was peeking through the thick and thin branches.The Sun seemed to be shy in coming out. Here are some pictures that I captured of what surrounded us..