"Hi Miss."

"Hi miss," said the stranger sitting opposite my berth. I don't know when he boarded the train. Maybe it was during the night. He was was right there when I awoke. He seemed to me to be quite a forbearing kind, with no smile or any nod of acknowledgement to a fellow passenger. 
I thought, khadoos (means arrogant) who wants to befriend you anyway?


I looked up to be sure it was me he was addressing. I replied and he asked me if I minded chatting with him? To be honest, I am game for any chat, because talking is so ME. Its like if someone will ask me the time, I will tell him everything from the time I was born to the present time. I know I know, its wrong and I am trying to control it. really, believe me!


"What do you do miss?" he asked.
"I am a housewife, have 2 kids a 11 year old girl and a 9 year old boy, my husband is an exporter, I am coming from Calcutta and going to Delhi, and I am also a stock trader and I love my work because it is self employed and most importantly it keeps me busy, and you?" I answered. (saw the example now?)


"I work in a private company." he replied flatly. Thats it, I looked at him if he was going to offer me more about him.

"So tell something more about yourself?" I pestered.

"I am an old man memsaab. Nothing much to say." he replied.

Me,"well something? Are you married?"

Him,"Yes."
Me,"Ok kids?"

Him"Yes."

Me,"Ok how many?"

Him,"1"

Me,"Boy or girl?"

"Boy. Enough about me memsaab, Lets hear what you do.
Its interesting to see a woman trader in stocks specially, its largely a male dominated thing." he stated. I was a bit sad to see people still think of that about women. I disagreed with him and said, women can do anything as long as it doesn't require heavy physical effort. He nodded, and we went on to discuss the current market situation which was facing a huge financial crisis world wise. Sensex was at 12000, I told him, and I didn't see Sensex falling any further as it had already fallen 50% from its peak. He said," why not sensex at 7000?

I was taken aback. How can it go down so much? I considered myself learned enough and I completely disagreed with him. He didn't challenge me. He just smiled. His attitude of smiling in the face of adversary seemed both intriguing and irritating to me.

I probably had given him more info than required and I suddenly got wary of him. I told him, I generally don't talk to strangers and although I burst if I have no one to talk to, I gave him a subtle hint that if he was only extracting information from me and not giving any then I wont be game for his chat. 


The train had pulled over at Allahabad, some vendors selling tea, samosas, sweets and other beverages boarded and the compartment was full of their chai chai, garam samosa, jhaal muri in an accent which is special to them.
I stopped the chai wala (tea seller) and asked for tea, and he said one for him too. I don't know why I didn't do it myself first but he immediately paid for both of us. I could see he was a gentleman of the bygone era. I insisted to pay him back but he declined in a way that told me that he could not be forced. I quietly sipped my tea.


He gave an amused smile, and asked me my date and time of birth. At first I thought what a question to ask? Then he said it was his hobby to look at horoscopes and he was pretty good at it. There I was being offered a free horoscope and would I behave like any other woman and hide my age? No ways, I gave him the required data.


"Anything I say is likely to be incorrect (this is true of all astrologers). So don't take anything seriously,ok?" he started with this statutory warning. At first I thought there was some bad news about me and I braced myself to what was to follow.

"Extremely wealthy? And you will have lots after the June 2011." he told me..
"Whaaat? er, well yes, I am not poor definitely! My father says I am his lucky child. what else?" It was September 2008, 3 more years to roll in more money and why shan't I not believe this? 

"Fairly good understanding with husband, much above average quality of marriage. Strong martian and a gregarious personality. Overall a very very nice horoscope, the kind I don't see often. I am envious of your horoscope" he said.
"Gee." I was blushing now.
"Where is my commission memsaab?" he said matter of factly.
I hurriedly asked how much? He laughed and said, "2 rupees miss."
"Only?" I was shocked even beggars don't want less than a five rupee coin!
I made a mental note, 5 plus 2, I got to give him 7 back. hmm..

He was quite funny, not at all khadoos as I thought of him earlier. I asked him his phone number (which he didnt give) and told him that I will give him tips on stocks as an exchange to what he had told me about me. This was the least I could do to return the debt (Rs7 to be precise) back. 


After a while he got up took out his slipper and started to walk, I called after him, "hey, you are wearing only one slipper?" He smiled, "I lost it miss, it fell while I was trying to climb the coach."
It seemed he didn't have another or why else would he go barefoot to the toilet. When he returned, I told him he should carry an extra pair while travelling. He smiled again, "I am a fakir miss, had only one, now will have to buy another." I was suddenly guilty of the many shoes I have back home and the 3 pairs which I have to carry, a white, a black and multicolour for matching with my clothes. That 5 rupees must mean a lot for a fakir, but he didn't seem to mind parting with it. Wierd.
Whoa! Are there people like him really?

We were at Etawah and  it was lunch time, I opened my tiffin, I had brought with me fried aloo stuffed parantha. You get that uncanny sense when someone is looking at you intensely. I looked up and saw him stare hungrily at my paranthas. I invited him to eat a parantha, he looked guiltily away and stammered something about being not hungry. I am quite sure that he must have really had his eyes on my paranthas, for the next morning I had severe stomach ache and it is believed that if someone eyes your food hungrily like he was, it is bound to get you sick! 

He was marking something in the newspaper intently, I peeked and saw it was a sudoku puzzle. He told me that though they are classified from easy medium hard to evil, they are godly to him. He explained that its better to be doing something rather than sit idle. I agreed, after all empty mind is a devil's workshop. After that he settled down to read a book, it was Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, a classic romantic story of all times. The guy had some heart after all.

When Aligarh came, he got up to go. Before leaving he said, "It was nice chatting with you, but you must be a little more cautious of revealing too much about yourself while travelling alone. Bye miss."


After about exactly a fortnight, the sensex plunged to around 7000 levels, if only for a day!! I know, he was just casually mentioning it, but somehow I am intrigued by this mystery man and his simplicity of looking at things. And though I lost some money in the stock market, my husband did go on to prosper in his business and well we are definitely more richer now than we were almost 3 and a half years ago.
He was a strange stranger. I cannot say much about his looks, he was just like any of us, perhaps looked a little older than his 42 years. I know his age because I saw it on the chart outside. But, if any of you know of a simple man, who is good at predicting, plays sudoku, and calls himself a fakir, perhaps loves aloo paranthas, then please contact me here!

This is written for the Expedia, travel around the world contest at indiblogger

http://www.expedia.co.in/

A real getaway Dhosa!

farmhouse sighted!

entrance to the farm house over the foot bridge

Last year, while I was already vacationing in Kolkata, I had gone to the Sundarbans with my parents and my own family of husband and kids. My father has some friends who have a kind of a farmhouse just near to Sundarbans. This is a small village called Dhosa. We went there in our own car and it took us approximately 3 hours to reach that place from Kolkata. The distance is not much, but the roads are narrow and the villages congested so we have to drive slow.Now, the farmhouse I am mentioning although built recently had yet to get electricity and it was actually built on reclaimed silt. This area is a delta area and islands have formed over the years.

 For years these islands were too salty, because of the continuous backwash of the sea into the land, to be irrigated to grow anything. But, the villagers have made a kind of a natural dam and diverted the backwaters so that they could use the silt formed islands for irrigation. This new farmhouse was built on one such large silt island.

We reached there just before the sun was going down. When we came to know that there was no electricity we kinda panicked, we are so much dependant on it that without it we just cant survive. My kids took it very sportingly. They had a mini torch with them and it was good time to play torch torch now. My father's friend was the host and he was sorry that he couldn't arrange for electricity or any generator for us. Although he more than made up for it by arranging a most sumptuous feast for us, with fresh fried fish and prawns from his own ponds. I didn't know my daughter was such a cat, for she pounced on the fish like one and I had to show her my eyes to control her eating. Can't blame her though, it was truly the best fried fish I ever had.

fried prawn.

After dinner, we were shown the sky, and wow, my kids were ecstatic. I remembered my childhood days where I spent my vacations at my maternal grandparent's village. The moon and the stars have so much light, that if there is a full moon, we don't really need street lights or even perhaps a night lamp. Granted you can't see a whole lot, but it was not entirely dark. I think we just want too much of everything, we don't even consider less of anything. The concept of bare minimum is unheard of orthodox and maybe sound stupid to people today.

I was woken up early in the morning. Our host had brought something in a pitcher. It was the juice collected from the bark of a date tree over the night. My father urged me to drink. I was unwilling to even taste it. I was sleepy and asked them to keep my share and I will drink later after I have brushed my teeth. Papa said no, drink it NOW, this is not any juice which can be stored even for minutes. I raised myself up to a sitting position and took a sip. You wont believe it but it was a mind blowing nectar. I was told that they make gur (jaggery) out of it for personal home consumption. I later researched on juices of barks and found that they have such healing properties, which is actually used to make medicines. One can't think medicines as being anything but bitter, but this one was a pleasure to drink.

the eggs came from these hens.

desi eggs!

Soon the sun was up and we had to leave for Sundarbans tiger reserve. We got ready and washed ourselves  using as little water because even fresh clean water had to be pumped from the ground using a very small generator which could only do little for now. We had real desi (not poultry) eggs which were small and had a brownish cover. We had brought with us bread butter and jam. The host had even called his family over who had reached there in the morning to join us and brought with them fresh rosogollas for us.

man who shook the tree

berries I picked.

There was a small island behind the farmhouse and it was encircled with wild berry trees. This man in the photo shook the trees so that the ripe ones fell down and we picked them to eat, mmm delicious, my mouth waters as I write.

That's our motor launcher.

We went in a Jeep to a place called Sonakhali where the motor launcher was waiting for us. The whole launcher was booked for our use. We had taken cooks and enough ration for 2 days. The journey began with all of us excited to see the tiger. even in the launcher there was no plug point where we could recharge our mobiles because of which we had to switch on our mobiles and use it only when we had to make any calls. I couldn't wait to get back home to proper electricity and (ab?)normal lives!!

sunrise the next day

We did not see any tigers in the trip. We spent a couple of days away from the maddening materialistic and electricity dependant world and enjoyed nature as it is. Saw the moon and stars and the next morning got up early to take the breath taking view of the sun rising.

 How much we are chained to self created necessities! Can we go back to the era where there was no bond? Less dependency on things like electricity and mobile phones? What choices have we made? To choose unreal things for 100 % real things. In life when one is stuck in a situation where one has to make a decision to choose between the lesser and greater evil, have we instead chosen the greater evil?


written as part of Kissan 100% real blogger contest

Tumultuous Traveller

busy airport

Enter a railway station or an airport, I am throbbing with a joy quite indescribable. Being born and brought up in Calcutta, a basically plain and not so much happening city, the mountains, the deserts and the beaches were all the kind of geographies I wanted to see.


My love for foreign travel was much more because there was more to see, the people especially, the whites, yellows and blacks!! Thanks to some big banner Indian movies, I got to get a glimpse of the beautiful alps and the golden and blue beaches of exotic locations. But all this didnt quench me, for I wanted to feel and be a part of them in flesh and blood, than just see pictures.

eeks! is this me?

When I was very small, papa often travelled abroad for work and I always begged him to take me but I always had school when he was going and even if there was vacations he would not take me because he wasn't going for a vacation himself, but his NO didn't deter me from taking out all my clothes from my wardrobe and crying my lungs out. My longing for foreign travel reached such levels that when my father took my grandpa for treatment to London because he had been diagnosed with cancer. I prayed that I should get some dreadful disease for which my father would have to take me there!!


 Even if this didnt work, I thought it would be best if some "foreigner" fell for me so that I could be his bride and in his foreign land for real!! For the love of travel too, I wanted to marry far away from home so that even if there was nowhere to go, I'd still be travelling once a year to my parents.


Enough about my rantings of my obsession for travel. I have met some people whom I might have influenced more than they influencing me so here I am writing about them.


After I had turned 18 (desperate to be 18), I planned a trip with only friends to Darjeeling. We had just finished our boards and ready to taste our new found freedom of adulthood! There was a group of boys who reached there same day as us and we kept banging into each other during our outings and sightseeing. We were already quite raucous and bolder than the boys. We thought one of them would pick up enough courage to come and ask to accompany us together for the rest of the trip, but I think they were either too afraid or just too genteel!! But as luck would have it, we had our train berths adjacent with each other on our return journey. Since the trip was over and they had done nothing at all (meaning to get friendly with us) we took it upon us to get at them, we kept lunging at them with our boisterous behaviour. One of them wore shorts on the train, obviously for comfort reasons, and whenever he passed us we sang aloud, "jungle jungle baat chali hai pata chala hai, chaddi pehan ke phool khila hai phool khila hai.
(the word is in all jungles that a flower wearing an underwear has blossomed) LOL!!
So he finally came up to us and asked us why were we doing all this? We couldn't answer at all, because we couldn't stop laughing at him! I have never forgotten them and the fun we had because of them and hope they haven't forgotten what fun we gave them!

inviting attention? :P

I particularly cant forget the south India trip which was the last I took before I got married. The hit film DDLJ was released and the story was similar to mine, heroines engaged to an unknown guy and she takes a last trip with her friends to enjoy her last days of being single. I had secretly hoped to find a Shahrukh Khan equivalent who would fall hook line and sinker for me and come to rescue me from being bonded to an unknown person for life. Unlike Kajol who was not in the lookout for any SRK, I was. I particularly laughed  aloud and made a lot of gesture to attract people around me, lest anybody missed seeing me. you see, there is no director in real life who can orchestrate the entire romance. I flirted shamelessly with a cute salesguy at a big store in Bangalore. I told him my entire itinerary in the hope of him following me all over the trip and propose to me by the end or perhaps even come to stop my wedding!! hehe.
He had promised to come to the hotel later in the evening when he was off from his job, but he never came :(
No dilwale for me.

desert safari

When I went to Dubai, I had gone to the desert safari and when we were at the highest dune, the driver stopped for us to have a view and I just felt like rolling down the slopes in filmy style so I just dropped down and let myself goooo..down down the slopes I rolled and the speed picked up so fast that I thought I would not be able to stop myself. It was risky but what adrenaline pumping!! Then at the camp, the belly dancer asked me for a dance with her and I kept turning around in such speed that I was caught in a tizzy and fell flat on my back. Seeing such high excitement in me the driver, who was also our guide commented if I had been possessed by any ghost or spirit inside me! I remember his face, he was plainly in shock!


Now, did I meet interesting people or did they meet ME?


Picture from here (airport), here (crying kid) and here (woman)


I am writing this post as part of the around the world with Expedia at indibloggers contest.

http://www.expedia.co.in/

Reliving Realities

Perhaps I was born at the right time or I was lucky enough to have stayed in 100% real places for most of my childhood holidays. Yes, my maternal grandparents stayed at the smallest of villages in North India, and I would look forward to spending my vacations there.

I was from Calcutta, a big city, with not much open spaces and though there are a lot many parks, they don't have trees with mangoes or litchis hanging on them!!

My grandparents lived in a sprawling if not very grand, house with a shed for cows and goats for milk. Some of my cousins and my sister sat around the milk giving cow and opened their mouths for the milkman who pulled at the udder and directed the flow towards them who relished the warm milk, much to my chagrin!! A coop full of cocks and hens for eggs and a back orchard for all kinds of trees from jackfruit, litchis, falsa, guava and not to forget the mango trees. Usually we were joined by other cousins for the vacations and we had a field time climbing on the trees of whichever fruit we wanted to eat and racing to the top to see who climbed the highest!

playing with the goat kid in the orchard.

During summer vacations the day started at the crack of dawn and the crowing of the cocks which seemed to go on crowing like an alarm bell refusing to stop. Grandpa wouldn't let us sleep and nudge all of us out of bed. We would straight away go into the orchard and start to play and climb and swing on branches which were low enough for us to sit. Sometimes we went beyond the orchard into the fields and trample on the sown soft earth (for which we would be admonished later on). I even ploughed the ground once and did the mud feel like velvety carpet? There is so much activity in the ploughing to sowing that each muscle is exercised and toned!

mango laden tree

I have to say that there are special ways to get to the highest ripe mango. Either risk your life and climb to the top without falling off or take this, a curved blade tied at the end of a long stick with which the mango is cut from its branch and it falls down. The third makes you quite a marksman, you aim at the mango and throw a stone to shake it off!! The mangoes ooze a fluid when it falls fresh from the tree, so we kept a bucketful of water and dropped those mangoes in it. When there was enough for everybody and the bucket was full, we would sit down to peel it and not with a knife but with a special peeler which was also 100% natural and made from a seashell. (wish I had one of them to show). The taste and smell of the mangoes is something I can never get even from the best alphonso mangoes!

There was a special guava tree. There was two things which made it special, first, it was our neighbours and secondly it had no seed!! Have you eaten a seedless guava? I have yet to buy one from the market. It was tasty as hell and we had to sneak and steal and run for our dear lives for the neighbour was a typical thief hater even if they were little children!!!

earthern stove

We only went back inside the house to eat our meals and get ready and be back in the orchard as soon as we finished. The house itself had small rooms and there was open space called aangan in the middle and a big kitchen beyond where women helpers came to assist in the cooking. Two or three of them would sit with a mill (hand grinder) to ground the wheat into flour. Curious that I was and wanting to try them all, I also tried my hands in grounding the wheat. Watching them change from grain to powder somehow seemed like magic to my young eyes. There was always two women grinding the spices together. And if you all think that the cooking was as easy as clicking a lighter on a gas stove then you have to get your imaginations to work again. There was an earthen kiln with 3 holes on top of different sizes. There was an opening in the front from where we stuffed the dried branches of fallen trees (this was yet again stored in a hut behind the house) which had to be fired with so much huffing and puffing till your lungs had all the exercises it needed in a day!! But it was fun and somehow the food cooked on it was the best and most delicious I have ever had in my entire life!!

handpump

There was no tap, only a hand pump. So, when I really had to rush to the toilet (and considering the amount of mangoes I ate, there was always a rush), pumping the water made the rush into a power rush and god helped if the only toilet was occupied. I had no option but to go to the fields and hide behind a tree and relieve myself!! Last year I had gone on a road trip with my kids there was a tyre puncture and we were not close to civilisation. I got the urge and I promptly went behind a tree with a bottle of mineral water and relieved myself. My kids were aghast!! Oh! they don't know what they have missed while growing up!

train just yonder the fields :)

Did I forget to mention the train tracks? Well, they were just beyond the fields and we laid 5 paise and 10 paise coins on the tracks and wait for the train to come. The train flattened the little aluminium coins and once I repeatedly put my 5 paise till it was absolutely flat as a blade and bigger than the old 20 paise. Interestingly we were quite small, with all of us not even teenagers, yet we were never stopped much and we could go and roam about the entire village. Playing hide and seek was never so much fun and I have even hidden inside the haystacks which is so perfect for this game. We had real mud to knead and make stuff out of it unlike the toxic clays of today! We made round balls and dried them in the sun and later used them as missiles to strike our cousins, which was so much fun!

 I forgot to say there was lots of insects and flies which came out in the dark and I especially couldn't no matter what sleep with them buzzing around me. So it came upon me to burn the dried cow dung which gave out thick smoke to ward the flies away.

rope bed

Could I have had a better relation with nature had I been to exotic locales each vacation? I think not, I cant say how much I miss those vacations. Although when I returned I was burnt black and my paternal uncles teased me for days on end that I lose my complexion whenever I come back from the village and that it was no fun to go. There is nobody who lives there and all maternal uncles have moved to cities and the house is almost beyond use. We cousins have plans to go back and relive some of our moments again with our kids to show them where we spent our vacations, but it hasn't materialised yet. Maybe some day I will.... I miss my village too much.


Pictures from here (mango tree), here (earthern stove), here (hand pump) and here (ropebed).

This post was written for The Kissan 100% real blogger contest at Indiblogger.

Potty and God

I have a year old toddler. Naturally the wonder bundles come with their pros and cons. One of the cons is, they are always doing potty in their pants, since they cant say when they want to do it. If I miss to make them sit on the pot they do it right in their pants and go on playing as if nothing has happened. Of course by the time I notice it, it is already spread to the thighs and I have the dirty work of washing the baby and the pants.

And I have a friend who particularly takes huge pleasure in teasing me whenever I tell him I was busy with potty. As usual today he came out with a smart one, "I am glad that mothers have to do it and not fathers." So I smartly replied, "men have to clean the potty of their bosses, at least we are cleaning our kids!"

The same friend, due to the respect I give him, often thinks that whenever I exclaim Oh god! it is him I am calling. He always replies, "yes, you called me?" One day, he asked me, why do I always call him God?"
I replied, " because I am an atheist!"

Smart answers no?

Kicking or Buried

Recently I had a chat with a cousin. She is a very fiery, impulsive and a spontaneous girl. If I asked her how was life? She would likely reply,"great or good." The last time however she said, "life is fine, going with the flow." It sounded like a death knell to me. So I couldn't help myself and said to her," only dead fish go with the flow of the stream." Then she smiled and said true.

I have known some people who seem dead to the world, bereft of fun, self secluded from the crowd. These are people who disagree with the world. They have a mind of their own. They may not follow or lead, but are the best of friends who know them closely enough. These people seem to me to be swimming against the flow.
Quality people who don't care for the quantity. If everyone is doing it, they probably wont do it.

We think they are snobs, dead to the world, loners....

Now who would you say are alive and kicking and who would you term dead and buried?

The (fun loving seemingly) fish swimming with the flow of the stream or these rare (seemingly sad) fishes who dare to swim upstream, even if it means swimming alone?

Picture from here

The real princess

As a girl, I was always dreaming of my prince.
There were many of them, in stories of Rapunzel, in the sleeping beauty, in the Snow White, in Cindrella.
However, there was one princess I was in love with.

She was as mentioned in the book, a real princess.
She had come knocking one day to the castle of the prince who was looking for a real princess. She announced as she came in very nonchalantly that she was a real princess. The queen decided to give her a test and made her a bed of almost 40 mattresses with a pea under the first few mattress. Sure enough the princess could not sleep the whole night and was black and blue all over.

I couldn't take my mind of her. I don't know why, but I had fallen in love with such a delicate creature. I was so tomboyish in my earlier years that even I felt my heart warming up to her. My mind and heart was in turmoil. Is that what a man likes in a woman? A delicate woman? A woman who is like an expensive porcelain? I don't know really, but if I was a real man, I think I would want such a creature to be my princess!

So I err, well, I decided that was what I was too. I flung my tomboyishness to the winds and now all I wanted was to be as sweet and delicate and pretty (she was so pretty in pictures) just like the real princess. I don't know if I became as delicate as her. All I know is to this day, my bed mattress can never be hard (even if doctors seem to suggest that a hard surface is better to sleep in) and the linen should be of the very fine material and very soft. I have conditioned my mind to think I am delicate and I can't sleep without a nice and cosy and soft and clean without even a dot of dirt bed!

Picture from here

Affairs of life!

A LIE is to LIFE what an extra MARITAL affair is to MARRIAGE

timeless love!

The tree of love bears fruits if it is watered by the sands of time!

unlimit by limit

                             
Needs you limit
conscience unlimit

To hell with heaven!

Whats in heaven for women anyways?
I have heard them saying.. heaven is full of overflowing rivers of milk, honey and wine!!
And of course hoooors and apsaras (beautiful women)!!

Now what do I get?
milk? I stopped drinking it even before my milk teeth fell!!
honey? a spoonful is ok, but rivers??
wine? tasted it and cant say it really turn me on!!
beautiful women?? eeeeks !! I am no lesbian!! (sorry to lesbians)

To top it all the men who make it to heaven, the dull slow and boring types?? Get the point?
Whats life(even after death) without someone interesting?

With no offense to Ram, because I am no Sita! I am in love with Ravan
I have tried I swear, but I have never identified with Sita ever.
And these serials nowadays depicting Sita in every daughter in law and a Kaykeyi in every mother in law, greatly pisses me off. Even the filmmakers seem to be smitten by Ravan and all top notch actors only want to do a Ravan. Can I help it if I am in love?

I have decided, heaven is not for me, so to hell with heaven!!

Picture from here

Loafer

My Sir called me a loafer and guess what?
I am one.

I remember when he arrived to teach me, I used to get terribly upset.
Seeing him at the door turned me off. The smarta.. that I was, I would pout and make a huge fuss about him coming at the wrong day and time. He usually had no fixed time to come and teach. If he wanted,he could even come on a Sunday.
Being a disciplinarian with regards to time management, (loafers are beeg time managers, they just know what they need time for) I had self banned studies on a Sunday. He on the other hand, made it a point to arrive on a Sunday, and No, he didn't come in the mornings, he usually came to spoil my evenings!! urrghh!
He would plead me to do just one problem and promised me he would go after I did it. Obviously he picked out the toughest which took me more than an hour to solve!!

He always spoiled my Sunday outing plans and I got pissed. He said I was a loafer to be wanting to go out each and every Sunday. He taught me till the day I gave my boards, and then he taught my brother.
Once while visiting my parents, I needed the car which my brother had taken with him as he was taking tuitions from Sir. I called my brother and asked him to get the car. Sir asked him what it was I wanted. When my brother said, didi wants the car, he said, she is still a Loafer!!! :O She must be needing the car to to go out and loaf around!!!!

hmm impressing impression!!

Picture from here

My lost time

I hate people who ask for a second and take mins and hours and sometimes days!

My good friend especially has no idea what 1 second is all about. Despite my regular efforts to ask him to change his seconds to hours, he still asks for one sec (whatever that means)!!

My husband is as silly as my friend or vice versa!!
He is somewhere miles away and when I ask him what time would he reach home. He always has one answer, 5 mins!

Earlier it was like hell waiting for that SINGLE ONE SECOND to pass, now I simply say Bye, as soon as I hear the dreaded one sec!
Same for my husband, Earlier I used to panic and get ready for him in just under 5 mins and wait for an hour for him to reach, sometimes he just came so late we had to cancel wherever we planned to go or do anything!!
Now, I simply don't expect him to come home in 5 mins or an hour. I simply start getting ready only when I hear the car horns at the gate. After all I can get ready in 5 mins flat, all those practice has not gone to waste!!

Picture from here

drive woman!

The other day while driving my husband lost control of his car. The road was a bit wet and slippery and we just about missed having an accident!!

My husband gave me an apologetic look and I smiled back and said, "its okay, you are allowed these mistakes!" As long as there was no accident or harm done, no need to change seats!!

Now I told him, if it was me who had been driving and skidded over, but not caused any harm, my husband would have immediately blamed the whole of women folks.. "oh you women don't know how to drive at all, which idiot gave you the license? blah blah blah!!
Stop the car right now and get off the driver's seat right now, all the time screaming and giving angry looks!!

It used to happen a lot when I started driving, people always jeered at me. Some policemen just stopped me even for no fault of mine. Taxi drivers yelled when they passed me. Once I got so instigated with another taxi driver because he made a remark as he passed me that I raced after him, overtook him and barked #$@#$#$@# back at him. I still remember the look he had on his face!!

Nobody gets away with me!!

That song is quite apt from the film "Ready, main karoon tho saala character dheela hai!" :P

Picture from here and here

Greedy unlimited!!

I was a greedy girl.. Always greedy for more.. and not just more, it had to be more than everyone else!!

During my childhood times, a Sunday escapade would mean either an outing to the Victoria maidan, Outram ghat or infrequently to eat at a south indian or chinese restaurant. Rarely did we go to the theatres. Movie going was such a hassle, booking tickets beforehand or pay in black, the amount often double the printed value.

I for one would never miss an opportunity to go out, unlike my sister who preferred to stay at home with our granny. I loved icecreams and when the icecream wala came I promptly had one for myself and gobbled it up even before my parents and sister had decided for themselves! Of course, I did this for a reason.. so that I culd have another and I did always have two because papa couldn't see me looking at him like a dog with its tongue hanging out while he ate his ice cream!!

The same goes for everything else in life.. Yeh dil maange more ( and not just more, more than the rest!! ) :P

Picture from here

tongue and paper

The word of the tongue is no longer in vogue

The word on paper makes you rich or a pauper
Character is doomed and wealth just zoomed!!

daunting daughter!!

The other day my father in law was telling me that I should start to care for my daughter's looks
Make her wash her face as many times in a day and that will make her look fairer!

He insisted that only fair girls were likely to get a good groom for herself. I was listening to all this and said nothing. My daughter was right there and after he had finished with his sermons, she whispered to me, "mom, do people even "now" look for "fair" skin girls?

Cant say, if I got an answer to her question as well!!
Time will tell!!

Recently she has been asking me strange questions and giving me snappy answers, stirring inside me thoughts about my own childhood and was I as mature as she is at the same age??

A friend of mine who is a mother of 2 grown up daughters tells me that her daughters hate her to come online and on facebook, they tell her to act her age, go and pray and always remain in the service of God!!
She warns me to beware of my daughter who will soon be a grown up and hate my coming online and doing anything which is unconventional for a typical housewife!

She has already told me on the sly that I should be more like her nani, (my mother)  the epitome of the sacrificing and ever genteeel  mothers of the 80's!!

bhaag shazia bhaag

One of these days, I will simply run away!
I have a deep desire to just leave everything, wipe my footprints and get lost.

The day my desire is backed by stronger emotions and ability to run away, I will.
The demon inside me is always instigating me to run away.

I am trying hard to control it, but I may lose one of these days.
Till then, my friends, enjoy or bear my presence!!

Thou You U

I was wondering today that when there were less machines and more work people had time to talk in leisure and they used less slang and more courtesies!!
Not only talk but spell with all proper spellings and use proper grammar!
This is true for all languages. Since I write in English the title is the hint as to what I am trying to say here.

Strange, all things look kinda mixed up and smaller and shorter, what with mixed languages like hinglish and urdu which is a mixture of persian and hindi.

People marrying cross country inter religion international!
In a way its good.. no more boundaries in future perhaps.
Maybe one day all languages will converge to form one language, like the new sms lang and internet emotes, youngsters have a knack of it.

Then we wont have war at least!! :)
As optimistic as I am, I started to write a post on degrading of languages and ended up seeing the brighter side of things!! Keeping myself surprised as usual. :)

Man Woman

A man must earn and a woman must spend.. 


In order to continue to admire each other forever!!

Why don't I feel old?

I still feel like I am young.
My daughter is a constant reminder that I have grown old and I should act so.
I tell myself while I gaze into the mirror, " you are old now, so you better behave as one."

I thought of my parents when I was my daughter's age who has stepped into teenage, They looked so old to me, and I must be as old as them. But heck! why the damn don't I feel old?

As much as I loved my birthdays and wanted them to come twice or thrice in a year, now I really wish they came once in a leap year!
Its not that I hide my age like most women, but I genuinely don't want to grow up!

Each day steals away my time, my age, and leaves me helpless..
Its not that I am really scared of death though I wouldn't want to die yet!
But that doesn't mean I want to be very old and die.

Why cant people live their age while still at least looking young? I'd hate to look wrinkled and scary all the time feeling young inside. I think none of us never really grow up. Its only the physical aspect which grows old, the mind is forever young! No? :)

Chashme buddoor

When I was in class 10, I really studied like I never studied before, and I hoped that the long hours of strenuous exercise of staring into my books would earn me a cooool CHASHMA! (power glasses to show off my studious self) !!! :P
I complained of eye pain and imagined letters blurring and narrowed my eyes frequently to give myself the illusion that my eyes were definitely weakening now! I even strained my eyes by staring so much and rarely blinking that it brought tears to my eyes and reddened them.

My mom at last convinced that I wasn't pretending about my eyes, took me to the eye specialist.
The doctor checked my eyes and then put some drops in my eyes.
Soon, my vision blurred, and I couldn't see anything in front of me, and then I was secretly ecstatic.. wowowow i would be getting glasses now!!
What I did not know was that those drops was just to enlarge the pupils so that the doctor could have a better view of the insides of my eyes.

The doctor then checked my eyes and then made me wear several glasses and asked me to read letters big and the smallest on the wall!!
I rattled off the big letters and deliberately slowed down more than was necessary to read the fine print..but read them all almost effortlessly.
The doctor then pronounced my eyes as sharp as an eagle. He gave me no more drops and said that I should give breaks in between studies and wash eyes if it reddened, otherwise I was completely fit and fine!

I think I studied quite hard, meaning as hard as hard means to me. So then what did the others read so much that they looked so studious with their thick glasses! I still dont wear chashma though now I own one .25 powered glasses just to wear it sometimes to show how serious types I really am ! :P

Disclaimer: the title is the name of the film and it is only used for the sole purpose of getting more traffic.

Picture from here

Scribbling

As every other child, I loved scribbling.
No, not on paper, but on walls!!

When nobody was watching I would make a dash for the wall and start writing/drawing/scribbling..whatever!
But, I always got caught and punished each time.
Slowly I gave up the habit for fear of punishments. :(

But I didn't do it anymore didn't mean I didn't have the urges to do it anymore.
Once papa announced that the painters would be coming the next day and the house was going to get painted.
I instantly found my urges calling again!

I would scribble and scribble and scribble and this time since the walls was going to get painted, no one would even punish me. So I took out my crayons and wrote and drew and what not!
I knew it wasn't just me who loved doing it and so I called up my cousins who lived close by and invited them to the first ever of its kind scribble party. And were they delighted? Well, we all squealed and scribbled with all our might. Soon it became a kind of competition, about who scribbled best?

Who wrote the most? Who drew the largest?
In short who made the wall most dirty?
Soon, the all the walls were full of crayon marks and we did not even leave the ceiling. We got up on stools and ladders and completed the job!

Phew! it was fun and that day all my urges were satiated!
The painters who came to paint the next day was horrified to find such walls and boy they had a tough time (a week approx) cleaning the walls and scraping off the crayon before they could paint it. :P

I still wish to have a scribbled wall which is never painted so that I can just look at the wall and go back in time!!
picture from here

I LOVE YOU

Somehow I hated movies where the heroine always succumbed to the hero's charms and fell for him lock stock and barrel. Sometimes the hero saved her from gangsters or an evil family member etc.
I was irritated by their behaviour. There are people who sometimes help during emergencies, it is done by anyone who would be present there.. but why the hell do you have to fall in love with that guy??

I wished there was a movie or a story where the heroine never says YES til the last scene! Phew!
The movie came and though it bombed at the box office, I loved it.
It was an Amir Madhuri starer called "Deewana Mujh Sa Nahin.

I have done the same, my love stories ended where and when they all proposed!
The moment, they said I love you, I lost all interest in them.
I don't know why? but I found no thrill and desire left to love back.
Come to think of it, the saying of I love you was the death knell of the relationship!

I still don't believe in love. More than love itself, I hate the proclaiming of it!
If you really loved, do you need to say it?
Isn't love a feeling to be felt? and not heard?

"If you love me, I will know it." Shazia


Picture from here

Stealing?

I was 6 when I first tried to steal.
It was in picturesque Kashmir, where I lost my moral virginity.
We were floating on the Dal Lake and along came another boat laden with silver jewellery and artifacts.
I took a payal (silver anklet) and was busy putting it around my ankle for fit and look. When I looked up, the boat shop had left us and apparently my parents had not wanted to buy anything.

I had mixed feelings.. Should I tell or just keep it?
For the moment I decided to keep it. After all, it was the shopkeepers mistake he didn't take his ware back when he turned his boat shop. I don't think papa or mommy would have bought it for me, in any case.
Maybe it was destined to be with me.

I kept thinking and justifying the reason for it to be with me.
Was I a thief now? Naah, I didn't deliberately steal it.

After a lot of inner turmoil, I finally gave in to my conscience. I tugged at my mom and held out my open palm with the payal in it. She was shocked and admonished me for keeping it with me all this while.. She immediately told papa and he instructed the boatman to start a search for the mobile boatshop.
Luckily we found him pretty fast and the payal was returned to him.

I have never forgotten this incident..somehow!!

Picture from here

Only look old.

Its so strange but we realize we are also getting older by comparing people of our age.
As long as we compare the actresses of the same age as us.. we think we are young by their standards... Aishwarya doesn't look 38.. No Ways.. and I am younger than her.

But, during my last visit to my parents place.. I met my old friends.. some friends I met after almost 17 years and God! have they grown old??!! I cant believe it.
Its been quite a catch up of what happened after we went our ways.. the ups and downs the struggles and smiles..

All these years my mind recollected only the image which was stored when I last met them.. and it was a much younger image than what I saw, when I met them last month.
But, in our hearts we might have never grown because we felt the same as we felt then..
Sure we are parents now.. but meeting with them revived childhood memories which was so refreshing, we felt we were kids again!

Friday prayers

My seven year old nephew is very God fearing and is ready before noon to offer his friday prayers.

Today being a friday, he had a special wish to ask from God!

He was seen earnestly praying and offering his salaat.

When I asked what was it he was asking Allah.

He replied, " Allah and Satan fought and Allah won. So Allah has locked Satan in the bathroom."
So he said he was asking Allah to please take out Satan from the bathroom and lock him elsewhere because it has become very difficult for him to go to the bathroom even during the daytime And he is so scared that Satan may hurt him inside the bathroom.

Amazing wishes of the kids!

Picture from here

Title

I still use my maiden name.
My father asked me if I would change my title to that of my husband's name after marriage.
I was very clear about it. I would never change surname and I gave a valid reason.

"Husbands can come and go but there will never be another father."

Of course going by the same reason, what if my mom married someone else? Wouldn't I have another father?
Was I right in giving such an answer? What made me think my parents had no right to marry again while I thought I had all the rights to do the same?

Strange what we think of others and what we can think of ourselves!!

Picture from here

Scared and Shy

Last week, my broker buzzed me.

He asked me why wasn't I trading. (I used to be that fool in wall street who thought that one had to trade everyday.) Well, I learnt the hard way, and when I learn a lesson, I am particular not to learn it again.
So, I told him, I am in the learning stage and my baby is giving me good company right now.
He insisted that I still trade in small quantities. So I blurted out the bitter truth. I told him, I was scared to touch stocks now. He wouldn't believe it. He said," You and scared, I don't believe this!"

Now was that a compliment?

Next there was a call from a friend, who was a friend of uh hmm a close friend.
Well, he said that the close friend would like to reconnect and he gave me his mobile number.
I said that I could no longer talk to him, and both of us are married and this was wrong.
He was insistent and said that, its okay, just get updated and have a casual talk.
And then I had to tell him the truth, I told him I was shy and I couldn't do that.
Guess what? he wouldn't believe it. He said, " You and shy, I don't believe this!!"

Now what was that again?

Picture from here

What does real beauty mean to you?

Big eyes.

Slim figure.
Fair and tall
Nice smile
That is real beauty?


As a child, fairy tales enchanted me and I looked forward to my prince charming. But Prince Charming would not settle for a vain and naughty girl, so I studied the princesses the prince liked.. and made them my ideal. There was a story of “The princess and the pea.” This story had a real princess who was very beautiful and so so delicate that even 20 mattresses couldn't stop the pea underneath them to bother the princess.

That for me was real beauty..

In my own house, the princess took the shape of my very beautiful mommy, she has a heart of gold, not so delicate with all the housework and taking care of us, a little tough but beautiful to my eyes.
When I was in standard 1 and I got to make sentences for the word “beautiful,” I always wrote.. “ my mommy is so beautiful!”

That was real beauty to me.

As I grew older and stepping into the threshold of teenage, and more exposed to the world, I discovered films and the heroines who looked really beautiful and I wished I was like any of them! Wished I had the smile of Madhuri, the figure of Zeenat, the spontaneity of Juhi and so on.
That for me was real beauty.

Then I got married and on my wedding day, I thought I really looked nice.. and splendid with all eyes only for me and people fussing over me all the time..I felt on top of the world and so happy!

That for me was real beauty.

My first born was a girl and I asked everyone,“have you seen a more cuter baby than mine?” I was ecstatic, and so happy I could make such a beautiful baby.

My babies are my real beauty.

Being a very hyper and a moody girl, I had some turbulent times, during the beginning of marriage. Times when I thought I should give it all up, but thank god my husband never listened to me when I said, “ leave me alone!” he never left me!

That for me was real beauty.

I have a few nice friends, they sometimes unknowingly make my day, by sharing with me their thoughts. Men and women who take me as I am and bring on cheer to me and boost my morale.
That for me is real beauty!


I find that intelligence and gentle behavior is the necessary ingredient for real beauty. While beauty is important to a woman, strength of character makes a man more attractive.
A woman who is pretty but not sweet natured is a turn off, just like an expensive thing which can be bought only because of conspicuous demand, but apart from show off, it has no intrinsic value to it.
If you are beautiful, you have a passport, but if you don't behave well, you don't get visa to visit.


It is intelligence which gives tact to your actions and reactions. But intelligence without sweetness is also a turn off. Its like a machine who works only with logic and no human feelings. Only logic will drain you of life.
If you have beauty and intelligence, you can be an apple pad or any machine, but not human!


As time passes, I grow older and wiser, the meaning of real beauty metamorphosed from an external to an internal one. Sure the outside beauty is very appealing to the eyes, but our other senses want more.
"A thing of beauty is joy forever." by John Keats. How do you get joy? Joy should not be only for you. Give and get joy!
It is a combination of outer physical and inner mental beauty which can only be really beautiful.
I must mention that, the inner beauty in the long run outweighs the importance of physical beauty which in any case fades away.

Real beauty is one where all senses unify and say together, along with the heart and mind.. 
that is real beauty!

Readers can read more at http://realbeauty.yahoo.com/