Wedding Wows!

Just recently, I read a piece written by my colleague, where she mentioned how much she detested weddings. She wrote about how as a kid she hated to attend weddings and how as an adult it freaked her out that everyone around her was getting hitched left, right and center. She envisioned marriage to be this evil monster, which ruined one’s career, independence and eventually, life.

Reading that article made me realise how weddings have always been a part of my life.

As a kid, I had always loved weddings. I was this excited, exuberant little teenager at all the family weddings. it never occurred to me to not attend any cousin’s wedding. Bollywood songs, dressed up people, good food, crazy dancing, what wasn’t to love, I thought. Which, now I think about, is crazy since I hated getting dressed for anything, had too much inferiority complex to be dancing, and eyed all food with longing but ate nothing, considering I was FAT! Still, my joy at the mere idea of a wedding was hard to contain.

As I grew up, I watched incredulously as my friends started getting married one by one. I was afraid that their marriages would put ideas in my parents’ head to start thinking about my wedding. Because as much as I loved weddings, I shuddered at the idea of a ‘marriage’, wherein two people had to live together. There was a lot of stuff about ‘marriage’ that freaked me out. Having to share somebody’s house and room was just one of them. my bigger issues were with addressing somebody else’s parents, whom you’ve known no longer than a few hours, as mummy-papa or having to change my entire life, especially my surname. That was to me, literally cringe inducing.

And then, the day came. It was right after I had turned 23 that my parents decided to find the perfect groom for me. No amount of crying, blackmailing or tantrums would deter them from their self-declared parenting-right of finding a suitable boy for me. Suddenly all my earlier fears came back and all I ever heard was how good he would be for me. I wanted to run away from the madness.

Don’t get me wrong, I do want to get married eventually. I don’t have anything against marriage. I was raised with the idea that you grow up, study, get into a good college, make something of your life and then the natural progression is towards finding the right partner for yourself and settling down. That thought has naturally stuck. I did everything by the book. I grew up, got into a good college and am on the path of building a career for myself before I get married. Not for a moment do I think that I would want to be 40 and still be alone. Not for a moment do I believe that I would not be successful if I got married or that my career would be ruined. You just have to tweak your plans in accordance with what life throws at you. Marriage is just one of those many challenges.

Harry/Ron/Hermione :: We are one

RELIVING CHILDHOOD FRIENDS....HARRY, RON, HERMOINE!!!!

very few things in my life are as synonmous to my adolescence as the harry potter books. had i been one of those friendless people, harry, ron and hermoine would have been my best friends in the world. well, they still are my 2nd closest friends who have seen me through my growing up days. no evenings were boring with them and no holidays lonely and 800 pages were too less to be a part of their adventures and sinister plots, their triumphs and the quest to save the world from the evilest of all, lord voldemort.

the magic world of hogwarts appealed to me as no other place did and the years between standard 8 and 12 were spent reading the books again and again and again until i could actually rattle of the facts in my sleep. the hogwarts express, the quidditch practices, harry's squabble with the dursleys, ron's cheek and hermoine's love for rules had us standing in line outside universal book depot at 11 in the night to take home the order of the phoenix and at 8 in the morning in case of the half blood prince.

what i loved most about the books apart from the story was j.k rowling's formation of every character. the stability and growth of each and every character throughout the 7 part series is truly incredible. harry's valour and selflessness, ron's sarcasm and carelessness, hermoine's love for her friends do not change throughout the series and you can actually feel the characters maturing with each passing year. you could actually feel being a part of their lives. you love and hate the characters with the same intesity as harry did. every reader loved to hate severus snape as much as they loved to love hagrid's kindness or fred and george's pranks or being as repelled by the dementors as harry was.

why i love these books so much? its simple. its because they were a part of my growing up process. my friends and i looked forward to school so that we could discuss the adventures of ron, harry and hermoine with each other. debates, discussions and competitions to see who could read it the most number of times (in which i won hands down....i have read all the parts more than 30 times each, which makes it 210 times altogether :D) were a part of the package. the style of prose played a huge formative role in our spoken language. the use of catchy phrases and slangs in order to sound cooler was borrowed from j.k rowling. and i am truly glad and filled with joy that harry potter is as much a part of my teenage years as enid blyton defines my childhood.

thank you j.k rowling for giving us harry potter, ron weasely and hermoine granger.

IF.......:)

Usually i'm not a very big fan of poetry and prose ranks far above on my to-read list. I mean, i never get why anyone would want to express oneself in such a way that nobody is able to decipher what they are trying to tell us. I am more of a straight forward type of person, as in not straigh forward in when i am talking, but straight forward in when i am listening or reading. I would much rather that a person tells me in black and white what they want than going round and round a subject.
This is the problem with poetry for me. In plain words, most of the time i don't understand it. And rarely do i come across any such pieces of poetry which makes me want to stop and read it, i mean actually and thoroughly read it. But one such poem which made me stop in my tracks and change my mind is IF by Rudyard Kipling.
I am huge fan of this poem and somehow reading it always makes me want to be a better person. It is a poem which rudyard kipling had written to his son and was published later as one of his works. After reading this i have always wanted to read more of rudyard kipling's work but somehow haven't gotten round to doing it. So for now i have to be contented by reading if once again.
So, here goes....
If
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!
- rudyard kipling
I hope you enjoyed reading one of my favourite poems as much as i do.
lots of love,
$alOni.

BEAUTIFUL DAYS AND NIGHTS...:)

Its 3:00am in the morning and the weather outside is beautiful, owing to some early showers and a light dust storm this evening. The night is as dark as it can get and the skies are clear with a modest sprinkling of stars just visible through the trees and the air is smelling divinely of rain. There is something so calming and peaceful about standing in the balcony this late at night thats its almost therapeutic. It makes me forget all the strains and tensions of the day. I just want to stand there and inhale the natural scent of the earth with my eyes closed. I want to go for a long walk or maybe just sit on the terrace alone with a book and perhaps a mug of hot coffee.
But 'sigh' lets admit it....its laaaaate....verry late and I cant go for a walk for obvious reasons. I can't enjoy my own balcony or the guards stare as me as though I have lost my mind or am in serious trouble or something! Remember when life was simpler and you could sleep outside when there was power failure. Believe it or not I have done that...many times in the past. Tai-tau, mom-dad, Aayush and I , everybody...we used to sleep on the terrace once in a while if the generator wasn't working (and if you have ever lived in my house, you would know that this happens an awful lot of times). Its sad that we don't do this anymore. I wonder why we ever stopped.
As much as I love the beauty of early mornings, I have decided that they are not really the thing for me. It has now dawned on me (no pun intended) that I am, as jahnvi aptly name me, a night owl. It has always been me, among all my freinds who has stayed up the entire night doing absolutely nothing. I have witnessed many a dawns and sunrises and heard many early prayers without going to bed, and actually sleeping after 6 in the morning. I can work as late as you would want me to without a shadow of a frown. Just don't make me get up early in the morning if you would rather avoid witnessing an entire day of snapping, grumbling, pouting and a general air of drowsiness. Even just now, I have been at the computer, studying, for the past 3 hours, until I decided to take a break. That's when I stepped out to the balcony for a minute to get some fresh air and took in the scene of absolute serenity outside. So i decided to write about it. Hey, if i cant enjoy it, atleast i can grumble about it to you, which mind you, i am very good at doing.
And now, I am afraid, I better get back to what I was doing earlier, which was reading about the missile programmes of India and Pakistan.
So here's wishing even more beautiful weathers all through the year to you.
Lots of love,
$alOni.

GOD SAVE ME.....ITS SIN!!!

Okay, i am ecstatic. I am happier with myself than I would have been after scaling Mount Everest or swimming across the english channel. You know why? Because i resisted chocolate cake!!! Can you believe that? I definitely cannot. That dark chocolaty, incredibly rich, gooey and moist chocolate cake sat right in front of me pulling me towards it, but I actually did not take a bite. Not even a teeny weeny one (except a lick, which does not count)! What does that say about my determination, huh? Definitely high!

Why on earth is it so difficult to resist temptation when we know we should? I am telling you, there should be brownie points awarded in god's mark sheet for that. Its not easy, I tell you. Like right now, for example, all i want to do is go to bed, pull the sheet over to my head and sleeeep. I am staring at the computer with my eyes open just enough to make me see what i am doing. BUT instead, I know I should be studying and so comes the herculean task of resisting the temptation and trying to keep away sleep by drinking gallons of water and going to the loo every few minutes. I think I should be saying the Lord's Prayer ( lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil....) but I doubt it would help at this hour.

Okay, I have rambled enough for the moment and now I am going to sleep....sorry, I meant STUDY!!!!

So signing off with one off my favourite quotes which seems most appropriate going with the tone of my post..."everything good in life is either illegal, fattening [my chocolate cake..:( ] or bad."There is no justice in this world, take my word, none!!!

Bye and good night to all....go sleep while i go to my books......if i can resist the temptaion. ;)

THE FUTURE BECKONS

You know what amazes me? Its the thought of how much we have grown up. From being creeped out at just the thought of being alone in the house, crossing our fingers and praying to god in case of a blackout to managing our homes, budgets and our life, we have come a long way. And can you guess what scared me most...it was the idea of travelling alone in a train or a plane and I know I could have braved watching exorcist alone at the age of 12 rather than travelling alone at the age of 18.

Then, we grew up a little more and entered the last 2 years of our schooling. We laughed, we cried and we screamed but we stayed just the same at heart. Just yesterday it seems we were preparing to give board exams which were more important to everybody than life itself. Heaven behold if you scored less than an 80 in any subject. And now WHAM! Back to the present. Its 3 years later and some of us are on the verge of becoming graduates.

There are people, in fact our ex-class mates, who were our comrades in arms in those very boards, who are actually getting married. married... can you believe that. I have to admit that it would scare the living daylights out of me if somebody mentioned marriage seriously to me. I would probably have a nervous breakdown and I am sure my friends would too (in fact I am pretty confident that they would not hesitate to have me shipped out of the country if only to save me from the dark pit of matrimony). Anyway, they are sure of the future they have chosen and are content with their choices.

Then there are those who are not getting married but they too are sure of their future which rests on their career for which they have worked really hard. They know what they want out of life and work to get it with plans which are well executed by them.

And then there is me. I dont want to get married( it gives me the creeps) and I am not really sure of the future too. I have gone with the flow and have chosen the path which came along and guess what? I found I was happy with it. Yes, there are doubts and a sense of insecurity but you know what. I have faith. I have faith in god and I have faith in me that together we can make this work. I can make something of my life with the choices that I have made and eventually it will all work out for the best.

So, no fear...and be there with me...

lot of love...

$alOni...:):)