The blue sky

The other day I had written how my cook didn't turn up and how I managed to cut out a nice rice dish along with dahi boondi etc. I was returning home in the office shuttle today and on my way home, I was just thinking what I could make tonite for dinner and there my hubby calls me to ask me if I can join him for a Pizza party at Pizza Hut with his colleagues. I happily said yes to it as it was my favorite destination. I spent rest of the time in the bus thinking which Pizza should I order and what should I drink etc. I have always been on the heavier side of the weighing scale... Right from childhood.. If you happen to see my pictures as a kid, you would understand what I mean. I loved eating biscuits, chocolates, ice-creams and bananas. My dad had a medical store and being the only child, he pampered me a lot. Also both my parents are very bulky and have a heavy bodyline. So that body structure has been passed on to...

I am not a very good cook like my grandmom or my mom-in-law. But I can manage to cook something (edible) if it is really necessary. Like in situations when the cook doesn't turn up, I have a chance to test my culinary skills and manage to cut out a decent (looking and tasting too!) dish. Last evening, I was very tired, had a long day at work and to add to my woes, my cook didn't come as she was not well. I generally reach home at 7:15 pm and after that the very thought of cooking kills me. But that day I had no choice. I did not want to order anything from outside and so I mustered up courage and decided to make something. I am good at making any variety of rice! I mean I can play around with rice in the literal sense of it! The most trustworthy dish of rice is Khichadi, which can never go wrong and in which I can put all the vegetables available in my fridge and add some powders (garam masala powder, dhania powder) here and there,...

Miffed by the fact that nothing was going right in my life inspite of being very humble and religious and ritualistic, I decided to settle this dispute with the Almighty himself. I am not a very big fan of female gods right from my childhood, reasons unknown.. Somehow the only god which is close to my heart since I began to understand things is Ganpati bappa (the elephant god). So, on my way home, there is a temple of Ganpati bappa where I decided to go and talk my heart out to him. Ganpati bappa: There you are! Long time no see, where have you been all these days? Me (was quite irritated as I had a bad day at work): I am here only, where else can I go to escape from the life which you have gifted me? Ganpati bappa: Why, what is wrong with the life you are leading now? Me: You are asking me this? You know everything well. My work sucks, I have no recognition there no matter how much I contribute, I have to work on week ends many a times. People who joined after me are goin...

Parents give you birth, but grandparents give you life.  This is rightly said by someone. I was lucky enough to take birth in a family, where 3 generations (including me) stayed together and where grandparents were there at least for the few formidable years of my life. My paternal grandfather retired as a manager from the Ballarpur Textile mills and my grandmother was always a house maker. He had the decision making power and her territory was kitchen. Being born during  Diwali time, I was named Deepa by my grandparents and they left no stone unturned to give me the best of everything. As my parents were working, my grandparents took care of me, my school, my Tiffin, my homework, and my sports activities etc. They were deeply involved in whatever I did. My granddad whom I fondly called Aaba, always wanted me to study hard and achieve good heights in life! My grand mom always prepared the nicest dishes and pampered me with her love and care. Whenever I thought that I would...

Today it is 20th March and I just realized that my blog is already 1 month old! Phew.. How the time flies.. I started blogging on 17th February and have penned down 18 topics, which have moved me or affected me in some way or the other. How I wished that I hadn't waited so long to write about what I feel and how I react to things that happen in my life. But then as someone has said, things take their own sweet time and everybody has to wait for his/her right time. The blog happened when it was the best time. I should actually be happy that I at least made a beginning somewhere and have been more or less regular in being vocal about different topics. Instead of wasting time watching the idiot box or doing wasteful thinking about what next, I find it sensible to engage in this activity, where all my emotions find a fixed place of their own in the blog and I also get to know what others actually feel about what I see and feel. I...

My first pet was a dog. His name was Raju and he was a local breed. My dad had got it from someone after they came over to Dombivli in 1976. Ours was a big bungalow and there was no much locality around. This was in the late 70’s when Dombivli was just a remote village. So, for our safety and for the safety of our house, Raju arrived at our house and in our hearts. No one dared to come near our gate when Raju was policing there. Only a few people had that privilege. The only person he feared was my dad. Raju hated taking bath and just the utterance of my dad's name silenced him and like an obedient child, he let others carry out their duties. He loved eating rusk and milk. There was one Muslim chacha who regularly came to sell biscuits, Khari, toasts, etc. and without fail, Raju got his due share from chacha. Once he grabbed that small piece in his mouth, he used to run to the terrace and eat there in peace with no one around to disturb him.  When I was a baby, barely 2...

These 5 young ladies met in a local train. As most of us know, local trains form an integral part of Mumbai and one cannot imagine Mumbai without the local trains. Trains are over-crowded, there are accidents, delays, etc. etc, but they can’t replace any other mode of transport.  The trains help cover a great distance in lesser time. Here’s an account of how this train system helped foster a sustainable and very unique bond amongst the fellow travelers. Their names were Shaila, Smita, Manju, Ulka and Medha. I would call them mavshi (aunt) here. All except Shaila (who is my mom J ) were employed in a bank and my mom worked in the BMC head office. They all were newly married and had come to the central suburbs like Dombivli and Kalyan after marriage, but for job purposes they had to travel to the then Victoria Terminus (now CST) everyday. Being newly married and marred with adjustment problems, they bonded with each other quickly and shared the day to day things each other. La...

I was a movie buff when I was in school and it continued to be a rage in college. I knew every single movie which released that time and also knew all the stars, the famous and the infamous ones too! Whenever someone asked me about a song, which was playing somewhere on TV or radio, I would tell the whole history around it without much efforts. I was so proud of my general knowledge about films in those days.. I still remember those golden movies, which I watched in the cinema hall. The first movie which I remember watching in the theatre was the movie Kaash, starring Dimple Kapadia and Jackie Shroff with a small boy who wants to spend his last days with his estranged parents. He dies, but unites his parents again. I was very touched to watch that movie and till date it remains one of my favorites. Other movies, which are my all time favorites and which I can watch over and over again are Amar Akbar Anthony, Saagar, Aandhi, Guide, Seeta au...

Last Saturday, I was checking out something on my Nokia E 63. I kept pressing the number 0 for a long time and I realised that I got connected to internet and the google page opened on my mobile. I was jubilant for a moment and I quickly checked my gmail account and also checked out the cricket score of the match which was going on b/w India and England! I did not know all this while that I could access internet on my cell. My joy however died in few minutes as I got bored of surfing on a small screen. I thought, is it really worth it to be online and reachable all the time? Say on Facebook or google chat or yahoo chat? Or on office mails? Is it not a compulsive behavior to check mails every hour or every two hours? Am I really missing out on something by not using the laptop at all on a w/e? I am online on weekdays for office work. Then why don't I do something else on w/e? I sincerely feel that my generation has become addicted to technology now. We have forgotten to m...

It happened again.. This time in Japan. An earthquake followed by Tsunami, which has left many people dead and homeless and many people are still missing. Tall buildings have been razed to ground, there is water everywhere, the oil refinery in the city is on fire and the nuclear plants are in a great danger. A loss of crores of rupees plus the loss of precious human life was rather uncalculated and unasked for. People are struggling to come to terms with this sudden change in their lives, where everything just vanished in a second and turned the things upside down. Now an alert for a tsunami is also given to the neighboring countries and people are waiting and watching.. What next? or rather who next? It is indeed sad to see innocent people caught unawares by this fury of the nature, but somewhere, I think, nature seeks balance and harmony and has it's own way to achieve it. Over-population, depleting natural resources, global warming etc. are all...

Hello people, Today is International Women’s day and the celebrations are on in almost all corners of the world for the same. Personally I do not think that women are someone, who are to be celebrated only once a year. Every new day brings new challenges to her and she celebrates the triumphs on those problems almost every day. My husband wished me today and then my best friend Koustubh sent me a very nice message wishing me a very happy women’s day.  How nice is the feeling when someone so close makes you feel very special. Today, I would like to take an opportunity here to salute a few women whom I have met in my journey till date and who have taught me valuable lessons of life, which no book can ever teach. These are not famous personalities or super women or feminists, but they come straight out of mundane and ordinary lives and this ordinary nature of theirs has brought out the extra-ordinary in them. Here goes: First and foremost, my mom, she is full of life and laughter...

What do you generally like doing on an evening, where you just want to engage with yourself? Drinking brewing coffee or hot ginger tea Eating onion rings (kandaa bhaji) or samosas Listening to songs of Kishore da, Asha tai and Gulzar or listening to ghazals or any instrumental music or watching funny, bone tickling comedy movie Reading books like P. S. I love you or Love Story or Deepak Chopra's Who will cry when you die Viewing photo albums of school or college days. I am not talking here of the digital pics here, but the ones which our parents clicked, innumerable of them which captured all the moments and fun we had as kids and our parents still consider them as their greatest possession. It was indeed the trend till the digital boom invaded our lives and pushed those albums and black white photographs into oblivion. Reading old hand written letters by a friend or a relative. You might be wondering, in this age of e-mails ...

I had a bad day today.. Seriously.. My maid left me in lurch in the morning after I paid her the salary yesterday for last month. She wouldn't even take my call to tell me the reason for her sudden exit like this. She left me wondering, am I that bad or unimportant that she wouldn't even feel like talking to me? I have to now think of an alternate maid who comes in the morning before I go to office. So, it was not a very pleasant feeling to start the day with. I went to the office and god knows why I thought of installing the MS Office 2007 version on my laptop and while doing so, I lost all the data in the sub-folders which I had created. I searched everything possible on earth to get them back and so did the IT guy, but just couldn't retrieve anything. My blood pressure rose and head started aching. To make it even more exciting, I got an esclation mail for a certain document which I had translated. The reviewer was not very happy with the choice of vo...