Tea & Dark Chocolate

Its become almost a tradition, I noticed, me writing my year in review post towards the end of the year. And yes, I kinda like it, though I intend to change the documentary-ish tone I’ve used in the old posts. :-) I’ve stopped saying if it was a good year or a bad one, because its all about perspective. I definitely had fun, loads of it in this year too. Some new friends and some old have made the year very eventful, and as usual, I am grateful for having met them - each one of them, even if I don’t talk to them as often as I want, or the ones that I see almost every weekend. I guess I’ve stuck to the mantra – Always have a non-work-related-side-project , pretty seriously. There hasn’t been a time in this year in which I didn’t have a side-project I wasn’t pursuing. There is a blackboard in the house that I log these in, to serve as reminders on what I should be doing if I ever tell myself that I am getting bored. And no, I haven’t been bored in a while, thank God, for that! So the...

The past couple of weeks have been a mess. I screwed up a major holiday plan, because oh well, I was over-confident about my planning ability. I realized the f**k-up on the day we were supposed to have travelled, and so we cancelled the tickets. I thought I'd cry, because I had wasted a ton of money, and called the husband in the hope that he'd yell at me, and I can then cry. I wanted to cry. No, he didn’t yell. And I laughed about the screw-up with a bunch of good friends over some rum, and life was good. But I realized I hadn't cried at all. Not a single tear, at what was otherwise a very anticipated, and could've been a great holiday. I also didn’t cry over the money I lost, and at around midnight, in the middle of all the laughing I started crying. Or an attempt to cry. Again, no tears. That’s when a friend pointed out that the reason I wasn’t able to cry, probably was because the husband was being supportive, and hasn’t yelled at me even once! The minute I realized...

Let me just start with a disclaimer that I am not a sentimental person. For a very short while in my early twenties, I thought I was but I can now safely say that those days are behind me. I don’t know what label you can give to a person like me now, but I am now someone who enjoys the moment in the Now without wanting to do anything else with it. Every relationship I get into, I take it with a pinch of detachment, yet being attached to it. I work on it with a full heart, but I know that nothing is permanent, or I keep telling myself that, so I don’t fall in love with the moment. I have stopped falling in love with ‘things’. Am trying to not be in love with people also, but then, we all know that never happens. Self-preservation or cynicism, call it whatever you want! That said, the above two objects mean a lot to me. They both remind me of two once-very-important people, both of whom I don’t talk to anymore. I have not lost a lot of friends over these years, in fact very few. Most o...

I once read somewhere that if you want to sound intelligent , just quote David Foster Wallace. :-) I haven’t read Infinite Jest, and so I do not know his real literary prowess. And I think its slightly pretentious to quote him, but then we all know that I have a bad judgmental side to me. More on that later in this post. Its well known that the guy is a literary genius, and people have lamented at his sudden self-inflicted death. As a side note, what's it with very brilliant people being totally sanki , aka screwed up? Before I completely digress, let me get back to David Foster Wallace, one of those authors I’ve been quoting a lot lately. So yeah, people have said that he is literary genius. And by people, I mean Maria Popova of BrainPickings.Org whom I totally admire. Not only is the lady awesome, her writing and her recommendations are awesome too! Image Courtesy – Transparent Cities

Did you read the book by Jack Kerouac? Supposed to be a classic, so read it! :-) Though it is not supposed to remind me of happy things, this book, especially the title makes me fondly think of long drives, on dusty roads with no other human in sight. The book, in spite of all the grimness it has makes me think of intimacy, adventure and a lifetime of experience! This picture sums it all up greatly for me. Picture Courtesy – Pinterest

Yes! :-D And no, modesty has never been my most strongest trait. Yes, I know it could certainly be better. Behave better. Learn more. Love a lot more. Hate a lot less. Feel things. Be transient to emotions. Be more self-aware. Oh, there are tons of things I know my brain could’ve been, but then, this is all I got, right? And I gotta live with it, and work on what’s there to make it better. And that’s where I bring in passion. I can't remember how it all began, but a couple of years ago, I noticed myself using the word ‘passion’ a lot more, and not just in work meetings to pump up my team, but also at home. [I blame the Maslow's Hierarchy of needs , including the Wi-Fi for this ;-)] The husband and I decided a couple of years ago that we would work for passion and only passion going forward. [Don’t ask me how that is going!] We decided that we’d follow/do all those things that our brain takes fancy in, and thankfully, have been able to follow through with it, largel...

A couple of days ago, a friend told me that she was flying to Bangkok for just the weekend. I knew that this was her first trip out of the country, so I was confused on why would she do that for just a weekend? There was so much to Bangkok, that even after having spent 3 days just in that place, I left with a feeling that I should go back there again, which am going to do for sure, in future. Her reasons were justified, she couldn’t plan one by herself and wanted to follow her friends when they were going. This didn’t reduce the confusion I had - How ON EARTH can you experience a place in just a weekend, especially if you keep yourself busy throughout the time there? Bangkok was my first non-Indian-city to visit too. I was excited at my first international trip. I was 26, and chided myself at having gone anywhere out before - everyone I knew had traveled to a different country before. I was nervous as I boarded the flight by myself at the Hyd airport, was glad to find someo...

For years I've walked past this building, always telling myself that I am going to come back here someday and take up one of their courses. I didn’t know then that this was some kind of a learning institute. The building only evoked a strong feeling of I-HAVE-go-inside-and-sit-here. It is from this building, and from those years that a seed to learn Urdu was planted in my head, I guess. I even acted on it for a while, honestly. It helped that the husband had a similar thought, the linguistic couple that we are , and so we both set about learning it.

<<This review is first posted on my Goodreads profile here >> Nigeria has fascinated me for the past few years, thanks to Adichie, The other two books of hers have interested me greatly, and I was glad to discover a different side to Nigeria, the one that is intelligent, rich and prosperous, not the one we are otherwise used to knowing, full of princes wanting to give us money over the internet or the one that we generally put in the same category that we reserve to African countries … that place in our heads that’s reserved for some pity, some shudder and a sigh at a lost continent.

This is one of those happy, peaceful, contented Sundays. For all the impatience I have in wanting to get out of the kitchen and hence having to finish up early, there is something very nice about a bustling kitchen, even if the food being cooked is just for the two of us. Bread pudding is being tried, some of which will be treated to office friends, there is sabudana khichdi for breakfast and some karela fry stuffed with yummy nutty paste is being attempted to by the cook, and am sitting on the table in my place, reading some obscure stuff. I hid the the wine bottles that were on the table to not scandalise anyone. These was supposed to be made into sangria  by the husband, who being the busybody  that he is on some weekends is taking an interview in the study, and was supposed to be taken to a friend's place where we are brunching !

I think nesting is in our genes. We, as women, are genetically inclined to nest. To create a nice, cozy home where we can fuss around with our family and friends. There is something incredibly relaxing about returning home and putting your feet up on your couch. It is extremely fulfilling to whip up meals for your near and dear amidst friendly banter. And it is contentment you feel as you relax in your favorite spot with a book in hand or sit in your balcony with a cup of tea or a drink in hand. The mere fact that I feel all the above makes me feel that I am indeed a woman. I like all the above things. I like my space to be all the above. And that’s when it becomes home for me. And home is the most comfortable place for me. It is one of the primal needs for a human, according to me. Food, Sex and Home are the most important things that drive many of our behaviors and it’s the way its evolution intended it to be. Good so far. It’s the rest of the stuff that comes with nesting that...

Can you remember it? The first moment you realized you were in love? Think about it for a moment. Just humor me. Did you smile to yourself? Did you wish you could relive the moment? Did you just do that little trip down the memory lane? It is a beautiful trip, isn’t it? That first instance when you realized you love the person you are with. And that its not just like, and you want to be with that person more, may be a lifetime. And you more than just like everything about that person. There is something about this feeling that warms the heart, no? That instant when he peered at you through the mesh of his long fingers sheepishly . Or the moment you saw the moon and him in the same frame and thought , this is it. Or when you lean on to him in a moving train and look at the moon together , and sing songs familiar to you? Yeah, I cherish those moments. They make living fun. :-D

Oh, what a joy it is to finish reading a book you've loved. And yet, what a pain it causes in your heart at having finished it. A deep, numbing pain, and a wish that the book has a sequel . Or may be there are some pages of it left unread somewhere. And the hope you have as you are nearing the end, hoping it doesn’t end, hoping all goes well with the characters you've so grown to love and hoping that there is some more, just a little more. Yes, I am still in the hangover of this feeling. I just finished reading a book I thoroughly enjoyed and felt, and as I hit the 100% mark, I felt the longing and the wish that there was some more of the book. I wanted to share it somewhere. The husband understands perfectly how I feel , the passionate reader that he is, but I wanted it to be some place more permanent. And that’s when I realized I have a blog, a place I love yet something I've neglected a lot in the past few months. A place which I've stopped visiting myself because I ...

So, I've been tagged to post 3 things am thankful for , for the next 5 days. This is going to be generic, and not just for this day, coz I have a lot of things am grateful to the Universe for, and my moment of epiphanies cant happen in the middle of a busy day . :-) Gratitude - Day 1 1. As sappy as it sounds, I am grateful for having found love. And it really makes me feel complete. 2. I am glad that I have t...he opportunity to talk about self-actualization, feminism, freedom and all other stuff like this. I think about what keeps me going often, and I try to work on that. I am grateful that I get a chance to follow my heart, very often. And I can do all of this because all my other basic needs are taken care of, which I cannot thank the Universe enough for. 3. I am very glad that I have a choice. I have a choice at everything I do, at work, in life and in general. And I exercise it. Even if I am lounging on my couch for an entire day watching a silly sitcom or if am toiling on ...