Oh, btw, I have stuff for sale. A brand new Blackberry, latest model and all. Comes with a 6 year old husband, 40 inch Panasonic flat screen and its remote, ABSOLUTELY FREE. Pick up and drop to be organized by you.
Interested parties pl leave a comment. Will contact you.
--KG
I spotted a tiny flock of petite colourful birds on the lemon tree, from my bedroom window. Figured, they visit everyday to wake us up. And then there is the neighbour’s cat and their stout dog constantly pooping in their garden, which, also has a slide, a green swing and a huge trampoline. Something Her Pinkness has ordered to be bought for our garden too. Their cat is black, something Ma would be horrified to learn. I left the vacuum cleaner’s sponge filter outside to dry, and when I tried to bring it back in, saw 4 snails sticking to it. Must be the incessant Sydney rains. The weather Gods are hopping mad. We’ve done something really contrite for them to behave this way, bang in the middle on the royal Australian summer. The lawn needs mowing and the leaves needs to be blown and collected. As I write this, my eyes see only green and shades of yellow, an occasional red and purple. All, as good, if not better than the blue expanse I was used to. The vibes the current space is giving out is pleasant and I feel like I am reliving my honeymoon days in Munnar, with all the tall trees and greenery around, not to mention the nippiness.
And the Jasmine creeper which our Korean neighbour planted, I reckon, years back, gracefully adorns our fence too. When I leave the doors open I realise there is one thing less to buy from the supermarket- room fresheners. Actually and there’s more I won’t need to add to my weekly shopping list- Parsley, Mint and lemons. :-)
A vital lesson learnt- embrace what the Universe grants you with open arms. They will in turn hug you back :).
(Pardon the quality of pictures. All taken by my phone)
Dear Home,
Its what, just a year? And i am already leaving you. But you must understand that I didn’t have a choice. You must know that I loved you. The minute from when I saw your bare walls, your huge French windows and the best of all- bay view. But all good things come to an end, and so should my stay with you. As I strip you off furniture and leave you bare I realize how little I appreciated being with you. How often I took for granted that setting sun that literally was a private show you arranged for every single day, just for me. I wonder if my morning cup of cha will feel the same, without you. And I must tell you that you inspired me to pen ‘By the Bay’, which has now come to a complete stand still. I don’t know if I’ll ever write with the same sensitivity and sentiment. You inspired me intensely, and just staring out into the blue expanse gave me such a sense of calm, being away from home. You were my first home, away from home. Thank you, for settling all those unsettling feelings about a new place and country.
I’ll come see you, and wave at you sometime, ok?
With love
Me
When Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel for Literature, he had composed a beautiful song- ‘Ei Monihar Amaaye Nahi Saje’ – that roughly translates to and conveys ‘I am not worthy of this honour’. Such was the modesty of great men in those times.
Obama, take that.
Ei monihaar tomaye nahi saaje.
You are most certainly not worthy of this honour. Or may be this honour is not as honourable, after all.
We live in a strange age indeed.
Me: baby, we are moving into a new place
Mishmash: Oh. But I’ll really mish Aushtrallia
Me: We will stay in Australia. Its just the house. We’ll move out of this home and go into a new one.
Mishmash: mum, can we pleash take my room there?
Me: mmm ok.
Mishmash: Micheal Police lives near that house?
Me: May be. I don’t know
Mishmash: Can we take papa too?
me: Of course!!
Mishmash: *big toothy grin*
This video is making the usual viral rounds of FB, like most funny videos. Hundreds have laughed, ‘thumbs upped’, and left ‘LOL’, ‘ROFL’, ‘awesome’, etc. type of comments on seeing this video. You too will, like many of my friends and acquaintances (in all probability) laugh.
I don’t want to sound like a cynic, but really, those of you who laughed without a thought, are so disconnected and unaware of the state of our government schools.
This video takes me back to my one year stint with an NGO called Naandi. I was part of their ‘Civil Society Cell’, that mobilised the civil society, like you and me, corporates etc. to come and volunteer/help in their elementary school programme, which was run in partnership with the government of Andhra Pradesh. It was during those 12 months that I went into government schools with donors, programme coordinators and sometimes alone too, to monitor how the programme was being implemented. My husband and I had also ‘adopted’ a school, which required us to visit the school at least once a month to interact with the children and meet their parents and encourage them to send their children to school everyday, besides financially helping the school in the form of books, teaching aids etc.
Most of these schools didn’t have teachers, let alone benches and uniforms for the children. But this was the least of our worries. Our biggest challenge was to get children to attend school. The mid-day meal programme that was also run by Naandi was a big attraction for most of these children whose parents couldn’t afford 2 square meals a day. So a free meal was most welcome, and if that needed their kid to be in school, so be it. But not all thoguht that way. Some didn;t go despite the free meal. Some attended only the day when free uniforms were distributed.
I saw no reason why they should come either. With a school so shabby and a bored teacher, what was their motivation? In one of the schools where a corporate had very active volunteers and conducted quizzes and other such programmes, children never missed going to school, albeit on the day the volunteers went. A kid from that school had come up to me and begged us to come more often. ‘aap teacher kaiku nai ban te didi’ , she had asked me with perfectly innocent eyes. I didn’t know where to look. I still cringe. I didn’t have an answer for her. She also added, ‘aap log aate toh bohut maja ata ischool mein, nai toh bejaar lagta’.
When we were in school and were asked ‘what would you like to be be when you grow up’, we all said those standard- engineer, doctor, teacher, etc without thinking much. The doctor, engineer, etc manifested inside us and we steered towards becoming something in life. These kids also had similar ambitions- just that I knew most would end up helping their dad sell vegetables, become domestic help, daily wage labourers etc and the slightly better ones would probably study further. But most would drop out.
Tell me if we are not sensitive to issues like these and sensitize others in turn, who will?
I smiled when I saw this Video too, looking at the kid in front who had really animated expressions! And its high time schools bid a good bye to rote memory. But I guess that will take a long long time.
(Note to self: KG, enough of these posts I say. Time for a breather. Time for some hilarity now).
And these aren’t in any order. Just that I have read these over the last few months and they are still fresh in my mind. I also think that in a rush to read more, I tend to overlook finer points in a book. Its a lot like having a lot of appetizing food on the table, where you want to try them all and in a rush forget what each tastes like. Somehow you didn’t eat enough of each, or had forgotten the taste, or even better..you remember the taste, loved it and want more of it. Re-reading a book for me is a lot like the last bit. Loved a book, remember it, and now want re-read for fresher, different perspectives.
Eat Pray Love – Friends, bloggers, acquaintances kept recommending this book. I picked it up in the book store, read the synopsis and kept it back. I was in no mood to read depressing anecdotes from a middle-aged woman’s life. Then, I read a fantastic review somewhere, which said, it was another life-altering book. I thought maybe I was wrong. So back I went and finally picked it, and haven’t regretted it ever since. Forget that depressing stuff- the book is far from it. The book records true accounts by Elizabeth Gilbert, written during her travels to India, Italy and Bali. She is hilarious and most insightful. She tells the most profound lines in the simplest possible manner, which makes you go hmmmm and mwahahahahah in the same breath. I absolutely heart the book. I think EVERY woman would relate to this book in someway or the other.
An excerpt: “Groceries, baby, listen to your friend Richard. You go set your lily-white ass down in the mediation cave every day for the next three months and I promise you this- you’re gonna start seeing some stuff that’s so damn beautiful it’ll make you want to throw rocks at Taj Mahal.”
Markus Zusak, made me shed copious amounts of tears.Not just at the end of the book, but through the book too. And if he made me cry, he made me smile too. I haven’t read a better book in the backdrop of the holocaust. Death is the main guy in this book. Liesel Meminger is the book thief, who is under the care of her foster father Hans Huberman, who is a painter and an accordionist. (Tragedies and a musical instrument is a must, no?) I fell in love with three characters in this book, Hans, Liesel and Death. Sometimes I can’t thank God enough for my nationality. I don’t know what life would have been like as a German, or being Jewish for that matter.
Buy this book. If you have an older kid- in his/her teens, gift one to them too.
I am an eternal romantic. After reading this book, I saw the movie too. That’s when I thought I should have stuck to just reading it. Its a book that brought out many emotions in me- mostly the kind that lovers feel- euphoria, desperation, anguish, hope, and just plain Lowwe.
Marquez is the best. He is indeed my most favourite author of all times, though I haven’t yet read his Memories Of my Melancholy Whores. has anyone here read it? The main man in this novel, Florentina Ariza reminds me of my own husband. No no, R is far from being quaint. He is most handsome :d. But Florentiono’s resolve and love for Fermina is so much like R’s grit to make me his. He waited real long for me, you know.
And Fermina Daza reminds me of me. Just that we ended up marrying and i saw better sense in saying a yes to him. I’ve always been a tad vain and have made the most stupid decisions in my life. I always believed there was nothing like True Love..I thought it was but a notion. But read this book and you’ll see how that notion changes to something concrete. And such rich language! Deservedly a Nobel prize recipient. Ah Marquez, I wish I met you some day. I cracked up at many points in this book. Here’s one classic line from Dr Urbino, Fermina’s husband in the novel- “The problem with marriage is that it ends every night after making love, and it must be rebuilt every morning before breakfast’.
Its a strange kind of happiness you experience, when you read a book before the film releases. And while I read the Time Travelers Wife I had no clue, this was being made into a film. when I began reading the book, I was a trifle irked with the concept itself, and almost junked it. But it was a gift on Valentine's, and in the top list of a gazillion booklists - Amazon, that BBC thingy going around FB, OZ book stores, internet, where ever you will care to look. It was one of those- 'read before you die' types. So i read it anyway. And it kind of grew on me...the more I read it, the more I got used to the idea of of time travelling- else it sounded so fantasy-ish, and i am not a big fantasy fan. I haven't read the Potter series or the Lord of the Rings- yep. Go ahead mock.
But this one really got my attention. In the loo, around the kitchen, on the couch- this book followed me everywhere.
More than anything else, what I really thought and understood, was the importance of living in the present - now and here..in the moment. Its not the greatest thing to keep wanting to visit the past and neither is it all that thrilling to visit your future before hand. It kind of warps everything, your present included. And of course, the kind of love the book talks of is a trifle tough to find. I mean, I don’t think I'll ever marry a Time Traveler. Who wants that kind of tension, man. Imagine, here I am introducing R to my parents, and there, swoosh, he vanishes into thin air, and is romancing me in college days.. Its a tough concept to accept and comprehend unless you've read the book. Oh, I so can't wait to see the film, its going to be more fun watching it, am sure. And I wonder what genre it will be classified under???? fantasy? Sci-fi?
Methinks, its about romance. For this book, more than anything else is, about LOVE.
I suggest, go get a copy. (wrote this bit when I read it first on FB. Did a cut paste job here :) )
Scribbler got me to reading this. And I can’t thank her enough. For I have been savouring this book, little by little, lest it finishes and leaves me with no mirth. Its funny. And I really cannot say a word more to exactly say how funny. By far the funniest celebrity memoir I've read. Dawn French’s memoir comes in the form of a series of letters. And here’s a sample from one of her letters to her dad -
“We have experienced overexcited, drunk people standing on chairs and announcing, to a whole piazza of unaware and frankly uninterested tourists that we are over there in the corner, look. We’ve had photos taken from the balcony of our hotel into our bedroom, and on one excruciating occassion, Len and i were on honeymoon in Kenya and the dining room of Brits joined in a loud chant of ‘we know what you’ve been doing’ as we entered. Exit swiftly stage left. Room Service, thank you, goodnight.”
So if you are in one of your worst moods, just pick this up. the book clubs here are promoting this book as one of the 50 books you can’t put down, and I so agree.
I have 3 books queued up- A Rohinton Mistry, a collection of shorts, and Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Grey. Btw, has anyone here read Chimamanda Adichie’s newest collection of short stories….did you like them? And who here has read Pratibha Ray’s Yajnaseni?
It was a long weekend for us too. So after tacking all the crankiness of my little baby, who always strategically falls ill on weekends and long weekends, and tucking her in bed after 17 failed attempts, the husband and I decided to watch some telly.
I don’t generally join him, unless he is watching World Movies. But today, I just wanted to vegetate on the couch and stare at the screen mindlessly. I was staring at the screen and thinking of something else. And soon enough I realized I couldn't do it, because I was watching CNN.
Scenes flashed in front of my eyes-
From Somalia….thousands of displaced civilians, hundreds of hungry babies, flies swarming above their heads sickness all around and teenage jihadists with a machine guns..
From a burning California..orange flames engulf the TV screen. I see nothing more.
From a devastated Philippines after the storm. Broken, shattered, uprooted, displaced. Gloom.
From a decrepit Indonesia, under rubble. Thousands dead. Bodies buried under debris. Misery. Fear. Horror.
From a war ravaged Afghanistan. Meaningless. Mindless. What more can be destroyed there, really?
From a distraught Islamabad..So is suicide bombing the hottest selling profession?
From flood battered Karnataka and Andhra. Homeless, orphaned, marooned.
By then my head was on his shoulder and I heard him say ‘our world is in such a mess…while nature’s fury is at its worst in some places, people are screwing up real bad in others..we are in deep shit baby..’
I got up and went to sleep, incredibly sad.
What does one do when one feels this way?
(Couldn't sleep, so here I am trying to share my anguish)
What kind of an abysmal show is Pati Patni Aur woh? What the hell is NDTV imagine out to achieve? Why are TV shows getting so regressive? And the MOST important question- What in God’s name were the parents thinking? How the hell could a mother give away her baby, and for heaven’s sakes, a BABY, to these so called stars, or for that matter, any darned stranger?
I am so appalled at the very format of this show. Are you watching this crap? Will you turn off the TV, please?
Besides, why would an audience want to watch real time couples going about their lives? What’s so darned interesting about that? Haven’t you enough to deal with in your daily lives, yourselves? Don’t you have children to play with, a partner to have a conversation with, friends to hang out with, books to read, chores to complete, parents to spend time with, star gaze, read stories to your toddler, music to listen to…? Why would you want to waste your time watching such utterly harebrained shows? Don’t you think there is so much more to life than revolting television shows, that creates enough and more hungama in our otherwise normal lives?
I hear there have been protests against this show to go off air. And i read here that the show won’t go off air until it gets a Government notice( Gayi bhayns paani mein) .What I don’t understand is, how did this even go ON AIR. By the sound of it, itself, it sounds illegal, then how on earth did this manage to get aired. And to my horror, I see people enjoying these shows. Imagine the impression it can have on young minds!
Sometimes I think, media and broadcasting should be completely Govt’s prerogative. I know, I know… but see what happens with privatization.
I am totally dismayed…and this is such a sad thing.
Pat’s photo tag is absolute fun. Fun coz ever picture you take has a story. Each and everyone. And given the number of picture folders on my notebook, this was going to be a tough one too. I closed my eyes and clicked on a folder and then picked the 10th photo.
The folder was ‘Sydney Rocks market’. Its a market close to the harbour in Sydney, and is most charming. Open from fri-sunday, the Rocks Market has food, drinks, cafe, exhibits, art, flowers, people, and a whole lotta fun.
Armed with my d60 i gallivanted about the market, and it was oh so romantic. The quaint lanes, the smell of fresh street food, stalls selling Oilve oils from their estates, wine tasting stalls..it was like a dream. I wandered about, a little away from the market place and came across this shop. A tailor shop with walls dotted with threads of all possible colours.
It reminded me of Ma. Ma stitches all my salwar kameezes and her sari blouses. She does it as a profession too. Way back when I was in class 12, things weren’t great financially. Pujo was approaching and we didn’t have money to buy ourselves clothes for every day of the 5 days of Pujo. We never made it apparent, but ma knew how I might be feeling. Dad was out of a job then, and he was possibly going through his worst phase in life professionally and personally. That’s when ma swung into action. She spread word that she could deliver orders over night. She took orders of Salwar Kurtas, frocks for little children, cushion covers…what not – she took more than she could handle. But she managed it. That’s how she pooled in enough money to buy Dada and me new clothes for all 5 days of Pujo.
I remember her sitting through late nights and stitching crappy synthetic salwar kameezes (a fabric she so abhors). And over one month she made a lot of things possible for us, as a family. Ma set it right. I recall accompanying her to Ameerpet, an area from where she picked her threads, lining, needles and other such stitching supplies. I used to stand out side the store enthralled at the sheer number of thread shades available.
All that stitching for a living might sound filmy as you read, but as i write, tears well up.
‘
And as I see this pic today, I think of her and the very popular business that she is running today, out of sheer will power. Through my college days, I NEVER once wore a ready-made kurta. And the ones i wore were such sexy ones!!
Ma, if you ever visit, I’ll take you to this shop. I promise.
There were such lovely pics from Rocks market you know..and there are more stories to say. But let’s leave that for another day…uh..ummm..every photo has its day :D
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Not tagging anyone, but urge you guys to do a tag on a photograph with a story. If the pic is random its even more fun. You’ll see how a story will unfold right before you eyes, even before you know it.
The rules:
1. Open your first photo folder. (I did that blindly)
2. Scroll to the 10th photo.
3. Post the photo on your blog and tell the story behind it and
4. Tag people to do the same.
Those who respond to the tag, do lemme know. Would love to see the picture and read your story too :).
Much love.
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