So long, dear friend!

Neither Hersheys Kisses,
Nor the orange Lindt.
Both on their backs bent,
Tastes they only wish!

Sweet little cherry in the center,
Liqueur as little as the rivulet.
With the smell of a flower,
You were the best dark chocolate!

You gave me company,
When boredom was not puny.
Sometimes ten at a time,
Or just one at dinnertime !

Always sweet and never high,
A pleasure you always deny.
With the last of you gone,
Tearfully, I'll kiss the box bygone !

Ah.. the pain of finishing a box of your favourite chocolates, knowing that its going to be days before you eat them again... That induced this poetry!

So long, my dear M&S Cherry Liqueur chocolates!

2009!

Oh this post is long due... It should've come up in the Year Review on Dec 31st or Jan 1st. But better late than never.. not certainly when it has been a good year!

If I temporarily forget that for the major part of the year, I was a forced-pseudo-bachelorette which certainly was not pleasant but had great learning, this year has been in fact, very good.

There were plenty of lessons, some maturity, some open compliments on how I have changed and lot of travel, including a stay(mind you, not a visit like a tourist, a proper stay) in one of the greatest cities of the world!

There has been a lot of thought-maturity, which I count as real growth. It feels like I have aged in mind during 2009. I have learnt to let-go, to stop expecting, to enjoy the Now and in general get back my positive self, of course not without a fee, but I have also learnt to not worry about the fee and leave everything to destiny.

Like they say, the master appears when the pupil is ready... This feels true in my case. I have realized that I will get something only when I am ready for it in all respects. With this thought on the mind, any kind of pain, suffering or disappointment seems small, if I don't forget to see the bigger picture and that its teaching me something in the process. This has surely made life a lot better... Lot better if I think of the setbacks I have seen in 2008, personally and professionally!

Another of the things I did in 2009 of which I am proud of is to openly thank the people who stood by me during 2008, during those endless hours of weeping/whining/cribbing, and also the ones who gave me a slap in the face, which also helped me! I thanked each of them who are responsible for this growth in me, and their responses have been truly heartening!

Reading some life-changing books, grasping the right message from each of them, applying them to life in general, and never forgetting them even for a minute has helped a lot too..
I learnt something which I never thought I would learn - driving. The fact that I will not have my personal chauffeur to drive me around the city for a full 6 months threw me into a desperation to learn driving the car. Yes, I did bump it around a bit, gave quite a bit of gaalis to people out of road rage but eventually sobered down in both the driving and the controlling the rage and rediscovered my independence!
Talking about learning, starting to learn a new foreign language is truly interesting. Its a true back-to-school and I figured out I enjoy languages, so much that I can think of a career in them!

The much-awaited promotion did finally happen in 2009, but when I had stopped giving it importance. People say I should work twice as harder for the next one, but I am unfazed. Deep down, I only want to enjoy my work, and be good to people! Promos will happen when I am ready in all respects! This has brought a lot of much wanted peace in work-life, and has paved a path for some very interesting and beautiful conversations with people who matter, at work!
I also learnt how to understand politics at work... this helped me understand who my true friends are!

I went through the shock of getting out of my comfort zone, of having to live in a strange land full of weird people, and outgrew from that self-made shell. This taught me to be more open, and that the world is truly like a mirror! Gives you what you give it! Made friends in the new city, explored the whole city by myself and fell in love with it as well, and almost cried when I had to leave it!
Many couples face what I faced this year, having to live apart from the spouse for a long time. But the fact that I got to meet mine at regular intervals made me feel that I am truly God's favourite kid - he kept me happy throughout. Its not everyday that one gets the feasibility to do this, and money had nothing to do with it!

I also discovered that I actually love shopping and perfumes, shoes and bags are what interest me! Clubbing this new-found-interest with the philosophy of minimalistic-living has been challenging, but thankfully did not warrant me to let go of any of those live-on-less-principles! :)

I finally got out of mourning the loss of my best friend, my brother and got on terms to talk to him! The philosophy behind this was simple - selfishness. I stopped crying over the fact that we weren't important to him, and started seeing the point that I still need him around, and certainly when I am 80! This made me forget what he did, for my self and I am not far from forgiving him. I know its going to take time, but the negative thoughts have stopped coming. This episode also taught a deal about detachment, how tough it is to practice it and the peace it gives when you actually do!

I started letting go of how the maid cleans the house, of how mother-in-law obsession with me staying over at her place, Dad's attitude towards life(in fact, I begun to understand it and appreciate it!), Mom's constant negativity on life, and the irritations some colleagues give. I started smiling at each of them or in spite of them, and life has never been great!

And not to forget, I got my best ever gadget towards the end of 2009 - my Kindle 2. Having to let go of the obsession with paper-books was a huge leap, but I figured out I can let them both co-exist! And have never felt more contented!

Another significant development during the year is that my interest towards alcohol has dwindled! Thoughts of polluting what is actually God's gift and filling the body with toxins are the main reasons, but I still do enjoy a nice slow drink. Thinking of days when I acted like a clown when I was high, now make me look back in disbelief if it was actually me! Drunk dancing in pubs is almost unbelievable now!
Oh, the interest to stock up alcohol at home has not gone. The bar is now full with the much-coveted imported liquor bottles(thanks to the international travels!) and I clearly know both of us are never gonna finish them!

All in all, 2009 has been an year when I rediscovered myself. In soul and essence.
If only I completed my swimming lessons and did more yoga, it would've been perfect! :)

We are the Idiots!

Seriously, what was all that hullabaloo about the 3Idiots movie was? How is that movie so superior to the rest of the Yash Raj/KJo/SRK movies? All of them are feel-good, and all of them have great deal of drama, and painfully irritating tear-jerking moments... Atleast the second set does not preach!

OH MY GOD! All that preaching is soo irritating. And that pseudo-cuteness displayed by Aamir Khan. I had half a mind to run and give him one thappad everytime he smiled that cute-smile of his or looked here and there just to look cute. And those hands in the pockets ... GOD! I can kill him for that one alone. Will someone please tell him you doå not have to inject 100 tons of botox near your eyes to look young. If you really wanted a young hero for your perfect-movie, you should've hired one! And why on earth would you hire a 40 year-old-yet-cute-in-his-own-way-Maddy to play a 18 yr old guy, especially when he has a paunch? Did Aamir Khan's perfectionism go to the gutter when he gave Maddy some bangs to make him look young?
And that pee-ing on the spoon thing.. I dont think it really works.. Its not like a bloody water pipe, flowing right? Okay, if I am wrong, please do not correct me! I rather not know that!

Seriously, what was the message in the movie? Dont we all know that Indian education system seriously needs a new approach? Didnt we all study in it ourselves? And have an edge on our counterparts from other countries in spite of it? So whats the whole deal here?
Yes, we all know that excellence is what we should strive for, happiness is what we need and all that crap, but we certainly dont need preaching by 40 yr olds semi-clad in towels and hiding their man-boobs in soap lather!
And that showing-chaddi-and-bending... God! Could they not have limited it to just ragging? What were they trying to show by two friends doing that to the other friend? And that baby kicking everytime he heard Aall izz well??? Honestly, that Mr-Oh-I-am-so-perfect didnt really read the script?
The whole movie had this smug factor around it, that it reminded me of that smug episode of SouthPark!

Boman Irani, is no doubt a great actor, but dont these guys have any brains at all? Which principal wears his pants on the stomach? And which principal is so ruthless? We all have had the worst principals in the history of principal-hood, but am sure with little brains, we can all vouch that no principal is this foolish to risk his student's lives... Looks like RajKumar Hirani could not get out of the whole sachchrine-induced-MunnaBhai-dose and had to use the same preaching and actor here for a villian!

I genuinely and totally loathe Chetan Bhagat but I think the book is better than the movie. It is crappy, and a total waste of 100 Rs/- and 2 hrs of time, but atleast does not preach, and sticks to the point of folks being 5-Pointers!

After this movie, I loathe Aamir Khan all the more, and am super glad that I still did not see Taare Zameen Par! I saved some saccharine being rubbed into my day!
And boy, am I glad that I figured the whole thing about excellence-success before Mr.Perfect-Khan told it...

Avatar!

O.H. M.Y. G.O.D!

What a movie! Avatar truly is the best movie I have ever seen! I loved the visuals, the music, the story, the concept, the ideas and the message. Total package!

What I loved the most was the subtle or not-so-subtle message given throughout the movie – that humans do not think twice before raiding other races/species for their own means. They do not care a dime about nature. They think they can rule anything just because they can think and think that they are powerful. They have killed their own mother, Earth, and do not hesitate before doing the same to others’. In pursuit of money, humans forget what being human all about is.

And the music… it had this exotic feel to it, when Na ‘vi were being shown on the screen… It felt ethereal. What with it being my first ever 3D movie(yes, I didn’t even see Chota Chetan!) it truly was. The visuals were so stunning, I felt like getting up and touching everything I saw.. the luminescence added to the exoticism.

There were some moments I felt were beautifully done…

The moment where Jake and Neytiri confess their love to each other and bond for life.. it felt way too romantic even if the scene was on two aliens…

The sequence where Neytiri’s Mom tells Jake and Grace – If you are one of us, help us! That was it.. It had the helplessness of a spiritual leader of a race…

And the moment when the Hometree finally fell… I don’t know what it did to others, but I cried.. thinking of all the trees that are felled every minute around us, all because humans want space for roads, or money from the trees or another xyz reason… :(

That moment when the Toruk Macto flies down on the grieving Na ‘vi… it was beautifully done to show the power of the moment!

Beautiful movie.. I am soo going to watch it again.. More than anything,  I think the movie appealed to the environmentalist in me !

Here… again!

Oh well.. the past couple of months have been crazy. I have been hit with tons of work, some regular changes in the arrangement of personal life, lots of ennui and I think, Blogger’s block. Well.. I say Blogger’s block and not writer’s block coz first, I don’t think I am a writer (that was an easy one!) and I have not been exactly not writing. I was lending my writing hand to couple of things, mostly on work front – helping people write reports on Speaker Series, write loads about collaboration with other teams where I would mostly boast about myself and how I made a difference to other people’s lives, and editing couple of boring plays. So you see, the writing part of my brain hadn’t exactly been idle. The other parts of the same poor old brain has been though.. which I shall get to in a short while, or may be in a different post altogether! (I believe I should respect the Ennui and dedicate a separate post to it, lest it gets angry and stays with me forever! :D)

Work has been largely good, with me changing roles and getting into one where I just have to follow-up on things to get work done, and yell at vendors for screwing up things thus spoiling my reputation! I cannot say I am not enjoying the role what with all the liberty I get to throw my weight (which is a lot these days!) around poor vendors and get paid and accolades to do it, but I do miss my technical side. But since this is a pilot I have put for myself where I get to see if I really want to stick to it, or get into the managerial path, I should make the most use of this time when its there… Screaming at the vendors that is. Coz when I get to the total IC path, I will be screamed upon, and will have no one to handover my frustration to! Basically, some days I like my job and on some days, I kick myself for having given the poor vendors a bad day thinking about the poor hubby who happens to be in Services! (He doesn’t exactly do what my vendors do, but he has a client to report to, who is as painful as I am to my vendors! :D) On some egoistic days, I think I am wasting my brilliant brain in doing vendor management when I should be coding away to glory. Those are the days I tell myself that I am in fact changing the world by being accountable for what I am… (No seriously, I am a part of the team that changes the world! :D But then, that’s the story every person recruited into my company is given! Eventually all of them realize they are not even minutely close to changing the world, though! However, in my case, I truly am changing the world, in fact saving it! :P)

True to the promise I made to the hubby that I would come visit him in what-ever-weird-land he is in right now, I have arrived in this country-of-small-eyes last week. Its been a good homecoming with me feeling all misty-eyed at returning to this place! I’d like to think of it as tears on returning home-away-from-home, but I think its also because the cute-guy-with-spike-hair in the flight never cared to look back at me, I only attracted the attention of not-so-cute-yet-very-noisy-10-yr-boy-kids who spoke to me in Telugu and chopped off my brain! So here I am, back in the land I mucho enjoyed last time, eating away salads at my favorite restaurants and walking on these roads like an alien… Yep.. I look like an alien in my sweat-shirts and floaters when everyone around me is lugging around atleast 5-inch-thick-Eskimo-jackets with fur, and knee-length boots… But then, this is one style which is going to be costly to adapt, so I have decided to let it be! Well… that is something that puzzles me.. its cold here, alright, but not as cold as the Eskimo-jackets and minks demand. So the length to which the people in this country can spend money for the only reason called style will continue to amaze me.

I truly got an identity crisis the first day I landed here. Imagine a simple girl whose winter clothing has one fleece jacket and one winter top which she has never got the opportunity to wear and who grew up in the hottest place in India. Now put her in a country whose average temperature is 15 C. Now imagine flocks of people walking on the roads wearing knee-length leather boots and minks/huge jackets. Well… I call it over-doing-the-style! Coz I have been pretty comfortable in my Converse shoes and regular jackets.

So well.. that’s about it. To sum up the past few weeks into one post. Well, I have seen Avatar and totally loved it, and there’s a lot of ennui(I like the word, hence using it over and over again! :D) on my head.. both of which will get their own posts…