Life - or something like it

Recently, someone asked me, whether my life has gone the way I had planned it. I was at a loss for words. Hell of an irony, right? Considering as a writer, words are my bread and butter.  That got me to thinking about my life, and especially the past few years, where I was able to amass a lifetime of lessons that I had not learned in the previous 40 years of my life. Life has definitely not gone the way, I had planned it that much is true. As a young girl, my head was full of dreams of a house, with a white picket fence, kids running around, and a loving partner (you get the picture, I hope). These dreams were mostly fuelled by the numerous books and movies, I had read and seen. Of a rosy life, where things are just as they should be. Even after a painful breakup with my first boyfriend in college, I still carried those dreams in my head. Call me naive, call me dumb..but that was who I was.  A few years later, I got married to someone I loved and thought finally those things wi

These days, my posts are all about the past and looking back, like my last post, Is goodbye just another word?  The past few years have been one of change. Good or bad? I don't know that, only time will tell, but yes, things have changed, and my world has altered beyond recognition. The change has happened at break-neck speed and it has left me running hard, literally and figuratively, trying to keep up with the change. This change threw up surprises and challenges  my way and made me a different person. Now, I welcome new experiences with open arms, as it gives me the opportunity to rediscover myself and my own strengths and vulnerabilities. I am learning to own every moment of this new adventure and experiencing the highs and lows of this new journey. After an extremely stressful one year, on the personal front, I delved into a 3-day break with close friends and escaped to a place called Tarkarli. A place where the ocean and river unite, where the choppy blue waters are tee

Today, as I walked out of the cinema, after watching the movie "Wild", I had no sense of time or space. It was as if my mind was in a haze, and I didn't know where I was going. I even crashed into a few traffic cones driving out of the movie hall. People came and helped to untangle my bike, but it still did not drive me out of the fog. My eyes were drenched and my heart was heavy as if it was made of lead. I sobbed all the way home, unheeded to the traffic around me. I sobbed my guts out and it felt good, it felt cathartic. We all cry, some loudly and some in the corner of their minds. Grief, I believe, can manifest itself in many different ways. For Cheryl, the actress in the movie, it manifested in taking drugs and sleeping with men, a series of self-destructive behaviour, trying to cope with her mother's death. My tears were so much for Cheryl, as they were for myself. I could identify with her journey of walking a 1000 miles through the harsh wilderness, to fi

There is a sense of realization that life has come a full circle, as I sweep the cobwebs and clean the dust that has gathered on this space. My last post was nearly 10 months back and this period has been one of rediscovery and shedding off my old self. The last year has been one of rebirth, rejuvenation, testing my endurance and understanding my own strength. Last year, at this time, I had completed my 40th birthday and was lying on the hospital bed, groggy from the anaesthesia and medicines pumped in my body, during my hysterectomy . It was one of the scariest, as well as a very hopeful period of my life. Scary, cause I was worried about the outcome and full of hope because of the promise of a pain-free future. After 7 years of struggling with pain, it was a testing time to know how life will unfold. I have not been writing much in the past year, not that I did not want to, it was just a decision I took to  rest and recover and find a new direction in life. The period of hiber

There have been many times in the past few months, when I had thought of quitting blogging altogether. My last post was nearly 6 months back. Life has been on a tumultuous ride since the past few years and I have been trying to hold on to my sanity, with all my strength. Many times, I did get an itch to write, but it slowly got drowned in the cacophony of stress, anger and disappointments. Shilpa Garg from "A Rose is a Rose is a Rose"  recently showcased my blog on her super successful blog. She wrote sweet and kind words, and I am very thankful to her for sending love and readers my way. Her blog post and the lovely readers were a motivation enough to scratch that WRITING itch. Thanks Shilpa, for prodding me to wake up my blog from its slumber. My old blog readers have already read about my struggle with infertility and I have openly talked about it in my posts  "My experiments with infertility"  and "Dealing with infertility"  . I wrote of my heartac

It starts with a small itchy sensation in your nose and a scratchy feeling in your throat. You sneeze a few times and blame it on the dust and pollution and carry on with your day. You sniffle a few times and think that it will go away on its own. Such dumb thoughts lull you into a sense of security and you sleep off thinking tomorrow is a new day. Next day dawns and the scratchy feeling that you happily ignored is making your throat hurt like hell. The only consolation is that you now have a voice that is a cross between a squeak and a roar, which you plan to call husky. Your friends ask you to verify your identity because you sound "kind off weird","like Marlon Brando in Godfather". Any man would have given his left arm for such a compliment, but you just fume. You tell them they are jealous because your voice sounds sexy. You hear raucous laughter when you say that and even though you angrily want to bang the phone down, you stop yourself. You look at the d

She was my first friend on foreign soil. She held my hand and was a strong support for me, when I moved to the UK and settled in a new job. Her name is Nirali Pandya and she plays many roles every day, that of a friend, a wife, a mother and an entrepreneur. I know her since the past 6 years and each day I see her achieving new milestones in her life.  Nirali at her desk When you meet Nirali, you can see the effervescence and the enthusiasm bubbling from her personality. Set within her small frame is the determination and drive to achieve her dreams. Coming from a Gujarati family, entrepreneurship was always in Nirali's blood. She worked for a SEO firm while in UK and so starting her own Web design and SEO company when she moved to India was a natural progression. Also it was important for her to maintain flexible work hours as she was juggling pregnancy, her business and home all at the same time. Nhance Web solutions Pvt. Ltd. started its operations in June 2009 from a

I know, I have been blogging sporadically and not visiting other blogs. The dwindling comments on my previous posts are a testimony for this erratic behavior. Okay... I have to admit, I have been plain lazy, distracted and having quite bit of fun.  What when the elder sis comes to India, with my adorable niece and nephew (twins). Life just came to a standstill, for me, when I went to my hometown and met these munchkins. I had forgotten what fun it was to be a child and to draw and color and play hide and seek. Among numerous rounds of playing UNO and putting mehendi on tiny chubby hands...time just flew by. Sticky kisses and the sound of "minnie mousie" (that is what they call me) is what I miss the most now. Going on shopping trips to our old college day haunts and new malls with sis darling consumed my time. It is been good two weeks since I am back home, but I am just not able to shake off the hangover of those two marvelous weeks. Doing bucket loads of laundry and dus

I had read mixed reviews about Lootera so I was a bit hesitant to watch it. I went with an open mind and boy I was not disappointed. Lootera is based on O'Henry's short story "The last leaf". I had read this story during my school days and as such knew the plot of story. I have not seen Vikramaditya Motwane's directorial début "Udaan", but had heard a lot of praise for it. "Lootera" stands the acid test and is one fine piece of art. The film is set in 1953, during the time, when Zamindari abolition act was about to be passed. Varun (Ranveer Singh) is an archaeologist who comes for a dig to Pakhi's (Sonakshi Sinha) fathers land. Their encounter slowly blossoms into romance, which later turns into betrayal for Pakhi, when Varun disappears from her life. Their next chance counter is after a year in a remote cabin in Dalhousie when Pakhi is struggling to deal with her emotions for the man she once loved and Varun seeks atonement for his mi

I know this post might come as a surprise to most readers, who know my love-hate relationship with cooking. Even though cooking is not on my to-do list, I venture into the kitchen to cook the dishes I love. When it comes to cuisines, I love Italian a lot and love to cook some Italian dishes at home. I love experimenting with different ingredients to make pastas and salads. Here is my  recipe for creamy Pesto pasta with vegetables,  which is not only quick to make but also tastes quite delicious. Take 200 grams of raw pasta of any shape, I prefer Penne or Fusilli and cook it  al dente  as per the instructions given on the packet. While the pasta is cooking, you can wash and chop different types of vegetables such as 200 gms Broccoli, 1 Red Bell pepper, 1 Yellow Bell pepper, 10-12 mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, baby corn and keep them aside. Take a frying pan and put some olive oil in it and after it hot reduce the heat and add 2 crushed garlic pods (this is optional). Usual

The winners of the Blogiversary Give away are 1) Aditi Purohit 2) Shilpa Garg Congratulations !!!! To be frank, only these two people participated in the Blogiversary competition, which albeit a bit disappointing was much better than no one taking part. I am giving away Flipkart vouchers worth Rs. 250 to each of both these lovely ladies.  It was quite easy to find the answers, you had to just use the search button on my blog and Voilà, you would have all the answers in 15 minutes.  1) A post about ridiculous things people say - People say the darnedest things 2) A post where I talk about my hair woes- Hairy Tales 3) A post where I just manage to make Paneer (Cottage Cheese)- Cooking tips for the uninitiated 1 4) A post where I talk about the birds and bees with someone- How to talk dirty, to a teenager 5) A post where the Bollywood mother reigns supreme- Mothers day special 6) A post where I review an unintentionally funny Hindi movie - Killerk 7) According to me, what

My blog is turning five years old this month. It seems like yesterday that I sat down and wrote my first ever post because I was missing my dog. My writing journey started on 31st March 2008, when I sat down and opened a blog on blogger and took my first step in the blogging world. Little did I know that this space will not only become an extension of me, but will also be a means to step into the profession of writing. Though I was missing from the blogging world for nearly two years in between, because of personal commitments, something always prompted me to come back to this space and get back in touch with the wonderful friends, I have made over the years.  When I started blogging, the blogging platforms were not very professional and there was not so much competition amongst the bloggers. All of us were writing for the pleasure of writing. In the beginning, my posts were read only by my friends and they were such a loyal bunch.  After nearly a year of blogging, I made some

All of you must have heard the news that Google is phasing out Google Reader by July . When I heard the news, I was a bit worried as it meant that I will lose out out on reading blogs that I follow very diligently.                                                                                                                 RIP Google Reader Photo Courtesy: Freedigitalphotos.net After checking online for various options to Google Reader, I finally signed up with Feedly. All of you who want to move from Google reader to Feedly , you can find the guidelines here . To know about various options for Google Reader, go to  Mashable website Since I use Chrome as my browser, I just had to add the Feedly plugin for Google Chrome and all the feeds that I follow were smoothly transferred from Google Reader to Feedly. No fuss, no mess. It does take time to get used to the layout of Feedly, but am quickly catching on. With Google Reader dying, I am also worried about the readership of

In my life, friends' have always played a major role. From the time I was a child, I was always surrounded by hordes of friends and my family had to tolerate them as all my friendships were sacred to me. My post Death of a friendship talks about it. I also got into numerous fights with my older sister, when she called some of them wacky. Such was my devotion to my friends. The idea of friendship was firmly ingrained in my mind. Being a good friend meant that, I was always there for that person come rain or shine, through thick and thin, day or night and I expected the same in return. There were many books I read and the TV series I saw, such as "Friends" and "Sex and the City" that further influenced my thought process. I was fully convinced that such friendships existed in the read world, where friends called each other at 3 in the morning or rushed to help each other without a second thought. The Movie Sholay's Jai and Veeru epitomised friendship for

This is not a post about the band "Fred said right" or about Govinda gyrating to the god awful Hindi song, "meri pant bhi sexy". I am talking about the emergence of a new eye candy in our Bollywood movies. Move over Bipasha Basu, John Abraham has arrived.  It is now the dawn of the era of the "female gaze" in Bollywood. The naked male body was never in the limelight, as it is now. Salman Khan set the precedent, when he discarded his shirt in each and every movie, whether it was hot or cold, raining or sunny. Mr. Khan never left a single opportunity to show his 6 packs and bulging biceps, which made several women swoon and gasp for breath. Gone are the days, when heroines in drenched white sarees, gyrated seductively in the rain and made men's hearts race. Gone are the days, when raunchy lyrics and dhak dhak karne laga dil's were only the privilege of men. Who can forget John Abraham in the movie 'Dostana', walking out of the oce