Monday, September 29, 2008

You don't mess with the Zohan

This was perhaps my first Adam Sandler movie, rather movies were a rare scene with me untill I joined this buff called mitu. And now that we have a PVR at only 5 min walk from our home, we hardly need to plan in advance for it. Sat night, 11 pm, finished dinner & another episode of Big Boss, season2[inspite of the boring participants I am following this program just like that] & 11.30 we are inside the audi2 without any clue of the movie i was being taken for; for me its the company that matters, if i dont like the movie, i take a nap there - simple!

I am not writing any review here. Am only trying to express my astonishment at the humour in this movie.. The accent is one of my loved ones(as this one is easier to comprehend:o), the actor is fantastic & the movie inspires you to go follow your passion come what may. To sum it up, I would say- chances are that you will find yourself laughing for most of it but after a point in time I started looking for a place to hide myself in(due to embarrassment :/ ). When I told that to Amit, he suggested I go watch 'american pie'. Guys will be guys!

While I enjoyed the movie more or less, I don't think I will prefer putting myself into it again!

Monday, September 22, 2008

zuup ... at 120kmph

Speeding up to 120 kmph on the Chandigarh - Delhi highway was a drive smooth like makkhan :)

we were lazing around at home for last couple of weeks so the idea was not to be doing the same again. Chandigarh, Shimla, Amritsar were the options. we had already spent the Saturday doing xyz so Sunday early morning we set off for Chandigarh. while I had visited there before during school days, Amit hadn't been there and that makes Chandigarh the only place where I was the travel host n Amit was new to the place. its a beautifully laid out city, most of the time I was feeling that I have gone back to our defence camp with clean, green spacious surroundings.


in spite of the fact that we enjoyed the nature walk by the side of a 3 km wide, man made Sukhna Lake and also witnessed a local TV channel's shooting there, savoured the interestingly made Rock Garden by Mr Nek Chand, and had a sumptuous lunch at Pinjour garden's restaurant, the highlight of it is that I drove.. while going as well as coming back.. and didn't find it difficult at all. city driving needs patience, but when u are at this high speed on the traffic less, multiple lane roads, you only need the presence of mind and open eyes. Thanks to Amit feeling sleepy all the way, we did not fuss around me asking for the steering wheel and didn’t do much of back seat driving - he had rested his life on my hands and dozed off.


Some time back I wrote a small post on 'my memorable drives till date' but for some technical stupid unknown reason, it got lost while posting. This one definitely would be the latest addition to that list. I feel so good! I wish I could go beyond 120 :|

Saturday, September 20, 2008

A peak into our li'l garden!

This is the place where I love spending my free time at. If I am home and not glued to the TV or not trapped in the kitchen or when Amit is not around; you will find me doing just anything here. One of our balconies, yes that is where 40 odd plants of ours have been placed these days. I love them, as they are my babies. Almost each plant has a story behind. Some are bought from the nurseries I saw on our way during the trips, some picked up randomly from our housing area. I even have one or two stolen plants, for it has believed that money plant grows well that way.

As I mention a few of these instances, let me also tell u that I am enjoying the lovely post shower weather otherwise hot n humid Delhi, sitting in my balcony with Amit's brand new hp laptop [too much of show off I know :) but couldn’t contain the joy of it all within] while Amit is busy watching some eng movie he must be watching for 101st time. Anyways, let me tell you what happened when we were coming back from somewhere. A beautiful hill station called 'Bhowali' comes on the way and I asked Amit to stop near a small shop selling plants. Too hurried to chk them out, I didn’t carry anything with me and Amit came along. We saw the diff plants, inquired abt their chances of survival in Delhi's climate and finally decided to take a thorny cactus and two small cute soft cacti. We bargained the prices and asked the fellow to keep them in the car. Amit opened the dicky and helped us put the plants in a way they would reach Delhi safely. Now comes the fun part. After we were done and the dicky was bang closed, we both realized at once that the car keys were there in front of us but inside the dicky on the shelf above the plants :) WTF!! We had locked the car before we came out, all windows rolled up neatly and both of us don’t have anything with us that could lead us into the car (the second set of keys were in my bag, which also was in the car?? That means we were locked outside the car in the mid of nowhere. How we then managed to get help from the local people there to break into the car and reach our next destination was another adventure in itself but we got to know one thing- that our santro's locking system is not that easy for the thieves to crack.. The cactus today is guarding our home [some feng shui I read recently suggest that it is good to have a cactus placed near ur house's entrance but it should not be too close to the door] and the other soft ones are expanding horizontally.


Incidentally, the house we are staying in for last 4 months was one of the few ones I liked particularly because of the Rangoon creeper (Madhumalti/ Cocuisa) loaded with flowers emanating nice fragrance right in front of this balcony of a bedroom. But today that climber isn’t there anymore, after a heavy rain, when it got into a bad shape, our neighbors got it cut n cleared and it doesn’t grow again now :(

I never shy away from planting some new small testers in the emptied curd containers or the takeaway bowls we get when we order food from outside. Once they grow well, they are carefully transplanted into a pot. That reminds me to ask you which pots do you think are good for the plants? The plastic ones or the earthen? Last time when I found 'buy two get one free' offer on plastic pots, I got home three of them and Amit hates them to the core. He likes them natural with mud pots with green algae on them.

I like them in the rooms but not all plants enjoy being in shade all the time so I keep changing the positioning of these plants... other story abt things that happened almost at the beginning of my plant collection season. There is ample of money plant (MP) in our area, every time I would see those overgrown plants, I would tell myself to get up early next morning & pick up few stems for our home. Somehow, I couldn't do that, due to the fear of being caught I guess.. So one evening, while coming back frm work, I saw that aunty outside & gathered courage to talk to her.. Hello aunty, how are you? yes we are new here. I work in so n so company & my husband works at blah n blah! After those necessary exchanges, I told her abt my secret wish of steeling MP from her garden & she started smiling. Beta u shouldn’t have asked me..Just take it without my knowledge :) now how do I do that.. I hv already told her so it won’t be called steeling anymore.. But now I was granted permission to steel :) funny that was. Then next few days, I would go down and get 5-10 stems every morning. I put them in water initially because that is easier to maintain. At that time we had money all over.. I mean money plant dear!.. In the kitchen, on the dining table, on the fridge and even in the bathroom. Now I have put all of it into two parts. One is planted in soil & is growing taller and the other set is nicely placed on the dining table. I hate when their leaves turn yellow though. I also bought one MP but that isn’t doing too good so if u want money, pls go steel it.


And how can I forget that day when I came back with few stolen MP stems and was busy in the balcony, the bell rang, Amit went to chk & came back with a long stem of a different species of MP(darker leaves) surprisingly telling me that it was lying at our doorstep. I also didn’t think much and got busy into what I was doing... suddenly we hear someone saying, "I kept it there." Actually, a gentleman staying across our house had noticed my inclination towards plants and as a token of appreciation, he gave me that stem.. A nice feeling! he keeps praising our plants while going up n down the stairs but last Monday when I found one pot missing from there, I transferred all my plants to the balcony thinking that someone took my plant; only to find out later that this gentleman had shifted that Morpankhi pot to a position where it could get more sunlight as its leaves had started dying. How stupid of me to think like that.

There are more stories and I can go on and on.. Perhaps I will continue this series..Presently I am little bit worried abt these plants.. Tomorrow, if I am not there to care for them, I hope they still keep smiling :) U don’t be heartless to laugh at me on reading this.. Ok?? [:)]

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Sunny & Neha's bundle of Joy!!



We met and saw the joy of being first time parents on their faces today. It doesn't matter if Neha is all swollen due to some wierd reason i dont know and sunny is getting worried with every moving second abt the baby for one reason or the other, they are simply on the top of world.
We reached there at around 10 on this sunday morning and didnt feel like moving away even after spending 2-3 hrs with them. Here are few interesting things for ur reading. After few minutes of sleep, the baby got up crying and as soon as daddy dear came near him, he did what he does best- susu ki fuhar and guess on whom; papa ke upar and mumma ke bed par! Sunny was being observant - and he immediately calls the doc and asks about the reducing wgt(not his wgt ironically) and the baby's colored susu. And the piece of gyan that the doc gave us all was that babies are expected to have 10% wgt reduction after birth & before they again start gaining and a slight jaundice is natural at this time. The funny thing is the doc asking sunny if he heard some relative talking abt this jaundice thing, probably he didnt expect him to be knowing these things and what he meant is that since he is just become a dad, he is being over protective or concerned abt the baby however he should not get worked up or worried abt each and every move of the child :).
Busy with all running around with the child, they didnt think of posing together even once to capture this moment forever. So I did my bit and here is their first pic with the baby(and some other usual ones with granny n sabse chota TAU:). Today is baby's home coming- Neha is getting discharged from the nursing home. Wish her a speedy recovery and great time ahead with this bundle of joy.

Friday, September 12, 2008

A New Life

Seems like just yday ...
http://www.jeevansathi.com/success/complete_success_stories.php?sid=197
Touch Wood!

A Challenge..a secret wish

a conversation with myself, maybe a confrontation or some persuasion.. Picking up too many words to complete a sentence itself strengthens my weakness. But hey, did I complete the sentence? I am still fighting with words to decide what first, but let me try n sort things a little better before I start with this blog of mine- my comeback to blogging; not that I wasn’t thinking of doing this for so long but when somebody tells you the same thing that was in your mind, then you want to do it with higher conviction.
Been married for 16 months n few weeks, have never ever ridden the horses of my wishes more than in this short span-be it a craving to have golgappas, tubs of ice-cream, need to work late in office or not willing to work at all for weeks, bike rides in the middle of night & in the rains, trying my luck at cooking, movies, shopping beyond the limits to make home, long drives, beaches, mountains, deserts, dams, snow, just doing whatever comes to your mind & going wherever u can, most importantly without anybody stopping you- this and much more happened in the recent times. How to set curd, doing puja & rituals on the last day of 9 days navratra fast-which includes the tiring session of cooking halwa, poori, chole, nariyal prasad, inviting girls for puja & prasad & performing all formalities, hosting relatives all by yourself, spending days all alone when amit is not in town, managing the maid, clearing the bills, buying the veggies, the list would run into pages, but I had not done any of these before. Its fun to be doing them when u do it at your own pace. That gives a feeling of freedom and of responsibility...
Having said all that and expressing all my gratitude to the master planner up there, i am still not done. There is just too much on my mind to do and to accomplish that i feel like being trapped in the daily rigmarole of work, home, travel etc... They say 'when you state what you want to do, your commitment to do that gets firm' I try this often with little success in my hands-
`I want to go and spend time in old age homes and orphanages.
`The 3 things I want to learn as I write this blog - swimming, driving, salsa.
`Art of living and some retreats to explore & discover myself.
There are few or rather many more and its a challenge to gather the determination and discipline to do all of this. Will blogging help here? It’s a question not to someone else but myself.

Y series

My mom & dad were happy when I was born, though my grandma perhaps wanted a grandson after my elder sister being already there. I was their New Year gift. Mom says I have been a hassle free girl, no crankiness-no fuss, very quiet and nice baby. I think I have also been lucky to get things my way with little or no effort from their side, be it admission to pre primary or college or job or Amit.
But still, I know they have done so much for me and I will be doing everything that I can and I also know that won’t be even a fraction of what they did & still offer to do for us. Today when I think of the situation of being a parent, I am not able to think of anything. I am so busy in my own rigmarole. It’s such a commitment, devotion, responsibility and promise. It demands investment of the best years of your life. They happily did this investment even if that would have pinched them at times giving up all their other priorities or interests only to see a time in future when they have to stay alone all over again but this time with lesser energy and grey hair still wishing the best for us and their eyes always looking forward to see us, spend some time with us, talk to us, to hear us and be happy knowing that we are so.
I so much wish I was around them today and always, when they need me and when I am capable of giving them some comforts in life. But I can’t do that as much because they married me off and that resulted in now me being entangled in my own things. Y did they have to do this?