Tea & Dark Chocolate

  Books were one thing that bound us together – me and the husband. From the first ever time we met and discovered that we both loved GodFather equally, to discovering Paulo Coelho’s genius in Zahir and Eleven Minutes to re-discovering that he is highly over-rated to reading each others’ favourites, books have been one thing we could talk about, any time. We love our books, both he and I. So much so that , before we could even discuss marriage, we discussed what we would do with our books. We both laid conditions that we would not disturb each others’ collections and that we would not read the same book at the same time, and so on. An ideal holiday for us is to laze around on a lazy boy/bean bag/hammock/beach-side-chair and read a book. :-) No wonder why our parents ask us why should we even go to a different place when all we want to do is to sit and read. :-) So when we both moved to our first home, he from his parents’ house and I from my apartment which I shared with my fri...

The description of the book says its a love shared between Rumi and Shams of Tabriz, and of a housewife in US called Ella with a writer called Aziz. And that this is on Sufi-ism, which is what made me pick up the book in the first place. Well, the writing certainly could've been better, I found the style too amateurish. Every time Shams attempts to the rule of love, he quotes the number and says the rule. I wonder why the editors didn't let Elif Shafak know about the different methods of introducing the rules. :) And then, what seems unclear throughout the book is , how can two men be so much in love with each other - Rumi and Shams? Yes, they both are Sufis, and Sufi means love, but why that depth in love. This whole topic could've been dealt differently by the author. And for all the description of Shams that they give, him being the noble, the wise, the kind and the embodiment of love, how did he marry Rumi's daughter and not consummate their marriage, and also insu...

  Yes, that’s how many posts I’ve written till date! :-D The first time I read the husband’s blog (Link doesn’t exist anymore, but he used to be The Eternal Six Year Old ) and thus discovered blogs and spent hours reading Vaish’s blog (restricted users, no point in clicking the link :-)), I was in love. With the concept of writing. What I used to scribble in my little notebook at home wasn’t enough. I wanted to write on my comp, and wanted to see my writings in print (Yeah yeah, tall order but still :-)). And thus started my blog journey. From a blog with a silly word like ‘Smiling’ to another silly word like ‘Chocolate’ in its title to a more matured name inspired by one of Ayn Rand’s books, I’ve had a total of 7 blogs! Phew! That’s a lot. Well, there are many reasons why I skipped from one blog to another(all of these documented as I did the hop and skip, some of which I hope to publish here someday) and I never counted the number of posts I wrote in all. Until today. :-) A...

  With Harry Potter , JK Rowling didn't just create a magical world. Not just an exemplary friendship story. Not just a story of a brave boy and a selfish man. Not just a story of an open genius(Dumbledore) or that of a hidden genius(Snape). Not just an example of how loyalty can border onto madness. (Pettigrew and Bellatrix) Or not just a story of how strong Mother’s love can be. (Narcissa Malfoy and Lily Potter) As I saw Snape hold Lily Potter and weep with all he’s got after she is killed by the Curse, as I saw him tell Dumbledore after showing his Patronus that he has always loved her, the pain in his eyes, and the slight quiver in his voice, I realized – she wrote the greatest love story of our times. A love so strong by a man that it refused to die even for years, after the death of the woman. A love so strong that the man was ready to give up his life to take care of the son of his arch enemy, just because he was also the son of the woman he loved. A love so strong...

[Rehash of an old post, I wrote on Aug 29, 2009 on my old-blog] [ Not a review, more like a journal to not forget my impression as soon as I finished the book! ] I have always been intrigued and amused at this book and the reason for naming it that way. And after having heard from friends that this was a beautiful book, I knew that someday I would read it. Well… today was the day, and it took me precisely 5 hours and 2 sittings to finish it(and its 3 AM right now!). And my, what a book! Truly a work of pure mastery, the play of the characters and how they are interrelated is an art of fiction which can be woven only by masters as great as Marquez himself! Though it is a small book, the characters, their names, how they are related to each other and what they all do is so inter-related that I got confused a 100 times during the book and had to refer to the sheet which had the family tree. I generally pick out the characters I like from the books I read, but this one is so magical that...

  As a responsible adult with many teenaged nieces and nephews, I know I will have to face these questions a zillion times in future - Why the need to permanently ink yourself? What is that pressing a need that you needed to express yourself so loud, permanently? What were you thinking?  I love the design I got inked with. It means a lot to me that what it looks like. And this is entirely the reason I went ahead with the tattoo. But there is a slightly deeper reason to it. I might mince words, smile and pass off the questions or break out the honest answer depending on who asks these questions, but this is one place where I can be honest – Yes, I got myself inked because I wanted to. Simple. If I don’t want it in future, then I will still accept full responsibility to what I did, and deal with it the way I want to. And no, I am not a rebel. I do not hate this world. I am not questioning the ways of the world. On the contrary, I love the world and my life and everything in i...

After having built, maintained and tested huge and complex systems for almost 5 years now, the first thought that enters my mind when I see any design is – Can it be rolled back? How much of an effort it is to roll this back? Can we make the rollback easier? What is the damage to the system when we rollback? Call it a personality trait or work-seeping-way-too-much-into-life , I have started thinking about a rollback strategy for most of the things I do in my life too. A small change to the house layout or design, and I go ahead on thinking about it only after I am assured that it can be rolled-back. A change to the way I dress up or get my dresses is also considered only after my mind quickly calculates how to roll it back if it were to go wrong. Any item of furniture that I even consider buying would be thought about after I find out multiple uses of the same, and I know that the look it gives to the house can be rolled back! Even the ear and nose piercings I have had, I got th...