Friday, December 31, 2010

The New Year Is Coming…

A lot of hype’s in the air about what should be done for New Year, where should we go, which party to attend, whom to get together with, and so on. How fruitful does this seem? Party, eat, drink, drive home and back to sleep. A new day is here on waking, some excitement in the air still, lots of forwarded messages wishing you Happy New Year and then that’s it. Things once again back to normal - routine, so to say.

How about every day which is new too… does it not call for happiness about its arrival? About getting one more day to live your life and come closer to your dreams. We all take each day for granted…as if we were to live forever. And we take love for granted too. As long as it keeps coming to us from our loved ones, we don’t bother to acknowledge it. The meal cooked with love, the home cleaned, the love showered upon us day after day - we don’t seem to notice all this. We don’t seem to be interested in finding out why our better half does not feel good today, what is it that he/she misses, what can make him/her happier. We constantly think we have given so much to the other... but we don’t see the opposite person has perhaps given much more and may be deserves good after all. We don’t seem to have time to talk about issues, solve them and even avoid them in future. Issues are simply buried for the time being, only to raise their ugly heads later and maybe buried again.

Let us resolve this New Year that we shall love without inhibitions… care selflessly for our loved ones… cherish their love every moment… you never know when the person might be gone forever leaving you behind with a sad wish that you should have seen this coming and perhaps prevented it… don’t take love for granted… it’s the worst thing you can do to your love and to yourself…

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Of good and bad things

She felt like screaming her lungs out and hurling half a dozen abuses at the guy who whizzed past her, splashing her crisp cotton saree with muddy water that had comfortably settled in a pot-hole on the road. However, Tanya could not muster enough courage to put this scene into action at that time, though, it played in her mind a dozen times over during rest of the day. In an attempt to avoid what happened, she had even managed to drop the file she had clutched under her left arm, landing her presentation papers precisely inside the pit on the road.

Every time she stepped out of her desk in office to grab a cup of coffee or to collect a print-out, she pitifully watched her saree which still had some remnants of the muddy blobs, though she had tried to wash it off – the first thing she did after entering office.

Tanya had made a mental note of the number and had even decided what she would do the next time she spotted that car. Little did she know she would bump into it so soon.

As she left the office that day, a guy caught her attention while he was stepping out of a clinic, just a couple of blocks away from her office. He struggled with a limp and a fresh injury on his elbow - and he was approaching a car that seemed familiar to Tanya. In another flash of a moment, she realized it was the same car. She felt a rush of blood to her chest and her heart-beat started racing as her mind quickly retrieved information on what she had planned to do next.

The guy opened the door, took a laptop bag out of the car, closed the door, locked the car and waited for a taxi to arrive. After being turned down by a few of them, he finally managed to convince one taxi driver and drove off.

Tanya was left dumbstruck as she was reminded of one of the recent discussions with her mom. Her mom had explained to her that ‘Nature’ has its own way of getting back at people. The good we do, comes back to us, as well as the bad. It’s just a matter of time and faith.

Tanya felt pity for the guy, and maybe, a little guilty too – she felt that whatever bad happened to him after this morning’s episode was partly due to her. Maybe if she had hurled a stone at the car, it would have settled scores and ‘nature’ would not have stepped in between. Trying to get these thoughts out of her mind, she turned out and called out loud ‘Taxi…’

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Another proposal on its way

The list of weird people never seems to end and the additions are somehow so amusing -every time. This time, it was a family that came with a marriage proposal for my friend… something she despises so much, especially when the guy himself is out of country and she has only chatted with him a few times. The family decides to barge-in on her mother, get a date for an ‘informal meeting’ with my poor friend, all set to attack her with their baggage of questions.

The group of whackos finally entered the restaurant to interview – yes ‘interview’ – my sweet friend, to judge whether she was eligible for their son or not. If I even begin to evaluate whether their son even deserves someone half as talented as my friend, I will be unstoppable – so it’s better I don’t wander in those areas. Anyway, coming back to these ‘examiners’ of the prospect bride, they start off with some funny basic questions, which, I wonder, who discovered in the first place. All right, they need to know her but there are better ways to find out this. Why make her feel like she is being interviewed by a pompous HR-head of some company? Well, once the funny ones are over, their questions start getting little nasty, I was told. Some not-so-pleasing ones that deserve to be mentioned here:

‘Would she like trying out new dishes if given the recipes from the internet?’ (Do they need a bride or a chef?)

‘How easily does she cry in front of others?’ (Is this a psychiatric evaluation for depression or do they plan to beat her up in public?)

‘How often does she visit the beauty parlor?’ (Excuse me! Would you be pleased to have an unkempt duckling sitting across the table? In any case, what business does the mother-in-law have to ask this?)

‘Do you have a temper?’ (Yes… I could burst that weird- question-compiler head of yours into a thousand pieces, right now!)

‘Are you afraid of me?’ (Well, if any six-feet-tall and hefty woman with a bull-face, monkey-brain and a knife-like tongue was to ask this to you, what would your answer be?)

My only advice to my friend was… stay away from them!

Sunday, June 20, 2010

It’s raining cats and dogs

What is the origin of this famous phrase? I just happened to read it on the net today and though it worth sharing here.

In olden times, when the rooftops were not so sturdy, a heavy downpour would disrupt the roof tiles and bring down the cats and dogs that would be sleeping on these roofs. So when it’s ‘raining cats and dogs’ you know it’s a heavy, heavy downpour.

Another explanation given was that in the past, animals would be associated with weather conditions. Cats, for example, were associated with rain and dogs, with wind. So when it’s raining heavily and with lot of wind, the phrase comes into picture again.

Interesting, isn’t it??

Friday, May 28, 2010

Of women and shoes…

Yes, I have a fetish for shoes…period! Do I need to justify the reason? Being a woman, this obsession is as much my birthright as it is to breathe. The problem, however, begins when I don’t find a pair that my mind has conceived, when I set out on my hunt for new ones. I may have something very specific in mind such as open sandals with heels about 2 inches big, comfortable straps to hold my feet in place and with some classy design on the top that is neither gaudy nor sequined. Preferably black in color, soft on my feet and the kind that goes on Indian as well as western outfits – these are few more criteria to impress me enough to buy the pair.

With this in mind, I set out to check a dozen showrooms before I even begin to like some pair. Sometimes I wonder if the salesperson at the showroom has marked me as a ‘junk customer’ since I end up with so many criteria that they would even go so far to tell me, ‘Madam, why don’t you get a customized pair stitched? You will simply love it’. Hehehe… I quite like the idea…just that I don’t have the patience to wait that long… and then I go hopping to the next shop… Voila! I find what I wanted… glad that someone imagined exactly what I wanted!