Life - or something like it

People who live in India or lived in India and learnt driving a car on the busy roads of major cities know that its nothing but the 'Survival of the Fastest'. We Indians, have a unique way of manoeuvring our vehicles through people with road rage, endless number of pedestrians, street hawkers, crazy kids on bikes, aunties on 'Activas ' with 'as slow as you can go' syndrome, the beggars and lastly the cows and dogs littering the road and bringing traffic to an absolute standstill whenever, they have the desire to just hibernate in the middle of the street. Added to this chaos is the endless horn blowing by some mindless freak. As if the red light at the traffic stop is just a minor hindrance in his way. Its been a pleasant experience walking on the streets of Lancaster. I am never in fear of being run down by some smart ass with a foot on the pedal. We moved from the University 6 months(after 'A' finished his MBA) to town. We felt the need of a car after

'A' and I have this long standing tradition of arguing just before I plan to have a haircut. Its a finely tuned ritual with each of us playing our well rehearsed parts. 'A' never wants me to cut my hair and says I look better with long hair. I tend to disagree (Well, what's the fun if you give in). The other reason being I think I look better in shorter hair, younger and also its manageable. After completing the ritual, I got dressed and left for work, an hour earlier. Being quite impulsive on a lot of things, I can never ever book appointments for any of the beauty regimes. Never did that in India and am not about to change here. So I popped into a swanky looking Hair Salon. After looking at the charges I started praying inwardly ...Please god, please let them not be free for an appointment. The cost of one haircut could feed an entire Indian family for a whole month. God heard my prayers and I moved on to my ever dependant salon whose charges were decent and did

As traditions of weird things happening in my life, I had a hilarious experience today afternoon... If you have read my blog post 'Me, Myself and Me again' . Point No. 16 in that blog, raised its ugly head yet again. But, being in 'phoren' lands its nature was a bit different. Lancaster is shedding the blanket of cold and is now welcoming spring with open arms. Today the weather was very pleasant. Bright and sunny with just a tad of chill in the air. I took this opportunity to spend my lunch break in sunshine. There is a small park just walking distance from my office. Check out the picture below: I was sitting here on the bench in the bottom left hand side of this picture. I was happily reading a book basking in the wonderful sunshine when a 'firang' chap (decent looking maybe in his 40's) asked me if he could sit on the bench next to me as all others were already occupied. I scooted to the extreme left so he could sit down. Just out of politeness I made a

Today was a weird weather day. I woke up to snowy showers. By the time I got ready it was sunny. In the afternoon it started snowing heavily again and when I reached home after work it was sunny again. I did not want to miss this first glimpse of the approaching Spring. I woke 'A' from his deep afternoon-evening siesta and dragged him to a pub which is on a canal at a very picturesque location near our house. I clicked some photos of our coffee date. Here are a few of them. It was sunny but bitterly cold.....some might call us insane to be sitting out in the cold but it was a marvellous impromptu outing. The Pub View across the Canal

I came back home from work sometime back and found an Indian friend (From Delhi) having a cup of coffee with 'A'. I joined the conversation and we started talking about 'How the Thullas (Policeman) make life miserable for Businessmen in Delhi". How at every junction a person needs to grease the hands right from Policemen Clerks and Bureaucrats to get his work done. Be it a simple a telephone connection or to paying his sales tax. 'Corruption', It has become such a part and parcel of life that we just turn a blind eye towards it. When things come to such a stage when you need to pay money to open the doors of your own shop, then where and when is it going to end??? I had an interesting experience at work today. Our company won a lawsuit with another company and I had called up to enquire about when our payment was to get released. Imagine this happening in India. I am calling up xyz co and speaking to a babu (Clerk) who works in the accounts Department. Me

I know the title is much too dramatic but yes that's what comes to mind when I think about the day 'A' (Hubs Darling) met daddy dearest. For all those people who don't know my father, here is a bit of a glimpse. He is a sweet man who believes in simplicity in life. He is very straightforward when it comes to things which concern his family. Very astute about money and has worked really hard to give us a good life. He is an extremely quiet man and has no clue how to do idle chitchat. My Mother is quite opposite in terms of talking and they suit each other perfectly. She can talk nineteen to dozen and just needs a faithful audience. 'A' and I decided to get married and we informed our respective parents. My father wanted to meet 'A' (typical filmy ishtyle) and so I called 'A' over for tea. Even though I had given him an idea of how things will proceed, 'A' was tremendously nervous since he was meeting my father for the first time. The meeti

I was just checking out Blog of Note and started reading the blog ' Chrysalis Dreams' and found this fun quiz to find out which Tarot Card are you? See my results You are The Star Hope, expectation, Bright promises. The Star is one of the great cards of faith, dreams realised The Star is a card that looks to the future. It does not predict any immediate or powerful change, but it does predict hope and healing. This card suggests clarity of vision, spiritual insight. And, most importantly, that unexpected help will be coming, with water to quench your thirst, with a guiding light to the future. They might say you're a dreamer, but you're not the only one. What Tarot Card are You? Take the Test to Find Out. Have fun with the quiz...