Good old Holi-days

Often I remember the old days when the way of celebrating every festival or occasion was different than the ones we see today. The festival of Holi also reminded me of some old memories of my childhood. Children have their own ways of celebrating festivals with all their innocence and soul, pure and untouched. But, as an adult we miss that child in us sometimes which leads us to think about our old days when our lives were much more simple and devoid of technical gadgets, when we actually had a group of friends and relatives with whom we celebrated every occasion, when our lives were still not touched by what we call a virtual network today. 

I remember the day of holi on which my mom and all of my friends mums used to take out old clothes which were not in use and which were supposed to be disposed off later after playing with colours.

The special instructions from parents to apply coconut oil all over the body so that colours would wash off easily.

Running behind each other with hands full of colours in the entire society, ignoring hunger or pain or tiredness. 

One or two crying children could be seen at every nook and corner of the society. However the laughing faces everywhere would outnumber them.

The long discussions of holi celebration planning with school mates which would begin a week before. 

Greeting friends with a bucket full of colored water the moment they enter the gates early in the morning. These days, greeting on FB or other social media has become more important than anything else.

Planning to prepare a strong color mix for those friends who were intended to be kept busy for washing out their colors for long or for those who were not very favorite ones. ;-)

The preparation of traditional gujiyas, mathris, namkeen, papdi, dahi-vada and other mouth-watering snacks which kept our mums involved in the kitchen for almost the whole week.

Those were the days when we could splash endless water on each other without any guilt as there were not much instructions for not wasting water on holi. Probably, being children in those days, we were not as conscious about preserving natural resources as the ones who are today.

The next day at school when the colors at one's hands would prove how hardly he/she played holi. How many of us purposefully left colors in our hands so that we could show them to our fellow mates next day at school ? ;-)

Though I never experienced tasting bhaang on holi, but got to hear it from few folks.Must have been an awesome experience.

Thinking about the fun and frolic at the end of the day would bring an immense satisfaction though we would hardly capture any pictures to view later or post on social media as there were no smartphones or DSLRs during that time. 

Those were our good old days which are left behind in the past, only to be cherished by us in the future. How many of you were drifted back in your childhood while reading this??

Family...!!!

I have watched the movie 'English Vinglish' many times and am in completely love with it. However there is a final speech given by Sashi (Sridevi) in the movie which I love the most. I felt a lump in my throat when I heard it for the first time. She speaks the lines with utmost sincerity and simplicity and that is what touches my heart. Below is the speech:-

This marriage is a beautiful thing.
It is the most special friendship, friendship of two people who are equal.
Life is a long journey.
Meera, sometimes you will feel you are less. Kevin, sometimes you will also feel you are less than Meera. Try to help each other to feel equal. It will be nice.
Sometimes married couples don't even know how the other is feeling. So how they will help each other?
It means marriage is finished?
No.
That is the time you have to help yourself. Nobody can help you better than you.
If you do that...you will return back feeling equal.
Your friendship will return back. Your life will be beautiful.
Meera, Kevin...May be you will be very busy, but have a family. Son, Daughter...In this big world, your small little world. It will make you feel so good.
Family can never be judgemental.
Family will never put you down, will never make you feel small.
Family is the only place where you will always get love and respect.
That's all.

I always feel very good after hearing this speech and now I can read it here too. Hope you feel the same as well. :-)

Book Review : Shiva Trilogy (Amish Tripathi)

Recently I have finished reading ‘Shiva Trilogy’ by Amish Tripathi and I must say it is an awesome debut attempt by the author. To my utter surprise, I finished reading all the three books – “The Immortals Of Meluha’, ‘The Secret Of The Nagas’ and ‘The Oath Of The Vayuputras’ back-to-back. Though it took almost 3 months for me to read all the three books, the trilogy was successful in keeping me engrossed in it for this long duration. The entire series is about the journey of a simple man from ‘Tibet’, who through his morals, intellect and warrior-like skills earns the title of ‘Neelkanth’ and how he fights to save India from the evil. What the evil of the century is another mystery in itself.

The Immortals of Meluha – This book starts with the introduction of a ‘Tibetian’ man ‘Shiva’ living near the banks of ‘Mansarovar’. He soon finds himself along with his tribe in the city of ‘Meluha’, where reside the ‘Suryavanshis’ who strictly follow the rules laid out by ‘Lord Ram’. Shiva discovers that almost every ‘Meluhan’ is immortal, thanks to the greatest invention of the century - ‘Somras’. During medical treatment, the ‘Somras’ which is fed by the ‘Meluhan’ doctors in disguise to Shiva ends up giving a blue throat to him. As per the Suryavanshi legend, the Meluhans accept him as their ‘Neelkanth’ – the living god who will lead the suryavanshis to victory against their rivals – ‘Chandravanshis’, who are the descendents of Lord Ram too, but have different lifestyles and  traditions and are seeking help from ‘Nagas’ who are considered as terrorists. Shiva is soon on a voyage to destroy the evil-considered ‘Chandravanshis’ in ‘Ayodha’, only to realise later that they are not different than ‘Suryavanshis’. During this journey, he meets ‘Sati’ with whom he falls in love with and gets married who later gives birth to their child ‘Kartik’.

The Secret of the Nagas – The realisation that ‘Chandravavnshis’ are not evil but something else leads Shiva to ‘Panchavati’, where the ‘Nagas’ reside, who are actually humans, but are born with some deformities;  a pair of extra hands and nose like elephant. The Nagas are the babies born to ‘Meluhans’ but are abandoned as they are born with deformities. He discovers the relation of his with Sati with the Lord of the people - Ganesh and Queen of Nagas - Kali, which even Sati was unaware of. Soon Shiva realises that unlike described by Suryavanshis and Chandravanshis, the Nagas are kind-hearted. This leads him to rethink on his views of Good and Evil and he soon learns that Good and Evil are two sides of the same coin. The Good needs to be destroyed when the Evil completely takes over the good. But when does Good become Evil?  Shiva moves ahead further in his quest to discover the ultimate evil of the times.

The Oath Of the Vayuputras – Shiva, along with his followers meet the secretive tribe left behind by Lord Ram. The Vasudevs help him in deciding what is evil. Once Shiva becomes sure of the evil, he decides to destroy it, but a conspiracy is underway. He goes to the distant land of Pariha – the land of Vayuputras, a secretive tribe left behind by Lord Rudra, who are sworn to help Neelkanth in any case. In Pariha, he comes to know how his throat turned blue and earned the title of ‘Neelkanth’. Was he the one chosen by Gods as the saviour of mankind or was it his destiny? How will Vayuputras help him in destroying the evil? How will Sati, Kartik, Ganesh, Kali, Bhadra, Kritika, Nandi and the army survive when Shiva is in Pariha, far away from them? At the end, will all the struggle and sacrifice made by Shiva to destroy the evil be worth it?

I cannot answer above all questions here as this curiosity is what makes this trilogy work. It is a great work done by Amish and I must say all the research he has put into writing this novel is worth it. Even after finishing this book, you won’t be able to keep all the characters out of your mind for days. I would recommend it a must read for everyone, especially those who are interested in Indian mythology. 

A Friend In Need Is A Friend Indeed...!!!

Sometimes, I think how often do we catch up with our friends, without whom, once our lives seemed to be completely meaningless? How strange it is, that a friend who is a true partner in our joys and sorrows, whose absence makes our day quite gloomy and dull, suddenly becomes so close yet so far that you need to really struggle hard to even shake hand and say “hello’ to each other.

Since past few days, I am missing my best friend ‘Kirti’ (http://kirti-momentstoremember.blogspot.in/). It is not that we both are not in touch with each other. It’s just that I muse on how life has taken turns in both of our lives that we don’t get to even see each other for months, in spite of being in the same city. Our friendship was started when we both were colleagues, and destiny somehow had decided to bring us close to each other in manners we could not have even imagined of. I remember the times when both of us struggled hard to learn our technology and survive in our first organization at the time of recession. The painful days when we would travel to the other end of the city and reach office in the early hours of morning, work for the whole day together solving so-called critical and high-priority issues and waited for the day to end up desperately so that we can go back to our homes. However, those were the best days of our lives as we laughed and cried together, supported and criticised, promised to be together always, however gave space to each other and enjoyed each and every moment to its fullest. There was a time when we were so busy with our lives that we did not even talk to each other, but the essence of friendship did not vanish, even after Kirti changed her job, left Pune, shifted to Hyderabad and thereafter Dubai. I had never thought that we would meet someday again and relive those old days, after all that is what usually happens when someone dear goes far from you. But I was wrong. She came back to Pune and much to my surprise; we were again working together, in a new organization. But, false to our expectations, those good old days were somewhere lost in time. We both had our share of good and bad experiences in life and we had started to take life more seriously and maturely than ever before. 

The best part is, even today when our lives have changed completely, we both find ourselves besides each other whenever needed. The sad part is that we didn’t even realize when the term ‘need’ came in between our ever-lasting friendship. There was a time when we would meet without any plans, reasons or occasions. But, today we even find hard to see each other when we desperately want to. Yes, we always have an option of calling each other on phone, but sometimes I feel the need of that kind of conversation where I can sit beside my friend and speak nothing, but come back home feeling calm and relaxed. With our growing responsibilities and unexpected circumstances, that seems to be quite a distant wish these days. Thankfully, we at least stand besides each other when we are in need. After all, a friend in need is a friend indeed.

Nostalgia...!!!

Its Diwali today. While almost everyone out here is busy celebrating this festival of lights, half of my family is asleep and I am writing this post at 22:45 PM in the night wondering about how somber has Diwali been to us this year. Yes, we are not into celebrations today as we faced an unfortunate death of one of our uncles five days back. He was 72 years old with poor health conditions, however his sudden passing away has created a wave of grief among everyone of us. May his soul rest in peace; that is all what I can think of right now. Nevertheless, life moves on and we do have too whether we want or not.

Its quite gloomy here inside and my thoughts are constantly drifting in the past. Exactly one year back, on the day of Diwali, I was in Pune, with my dear Yog. I very well remember the sequence of events that occurred that day.  I was around 9-10 weeks pregnant, hence we did not go to our hometown as travelling was not advisable.  We woke up at sharp 5:00 AM in the morning, not for Diwali preparations, but to watch first day-first show of RA-ONE. Yog is extremely crazy about SRK and leaving the movie that too while in Pune was not at all affordable to him at any cost. Hence, I had no other choice than to accompany him. I wont say that I did not enjoy the movie at all. I actually felt quite good after watching it back then and a lot better today as it has become one of my most memorable moments and occupied a space in my blog. A ton of thanks to Yog for this. We also had one of our friends Mayuri with us that day, so it was whole lot of fun and happiness together.

After coming back from the movie, we busied ourselves with the preparations. Its unbelievable, but true - I had spent more than 3 hours just to prepare a single rangoli leaving the cooking task for my super cook husband. Did I mention anywhere in my blog that Yog is an expert cook? If not, let me mention that you will be completely spellbound once you taste his food. So, while I finished the Rangoli, our lunch was ready after which we headed off to a market nearby to buy diwali lamps and few other pooja related stuff. Rest of the day went quite fast while we did preparations followed by Laxmi pooja. All three of us were so tired by end of the day that after having dinner, no one had the energy to play firecrackers and hence, we opted to stay inside the house and watch Television. It was a perfect evening till the time one of our relatives called us and said to clean the used utensils which is not considered a good sign otherwise. The next moment all three of us were in the kitchen - washing the utensils which were unfortunately in huge quantity that day :)

Watching RA-ONE..

Busy with Rangoli...

Diwali Pooja...

Distasteful...!!!

Aarav has turned 6 months and now its time for me to introduce semi-solids to him. For the past 6 months, I was impatiently waiting for this day when I would be giving lots of varieties of food to him. However, I did not imagine that it would be a pretty tough task, not because he is not accepting the semi-solids, but because I am confused about what different varieties of food should I prepare for him. Initially I gave him clear fluids and was surprised to find that Aarav enjoyed it a lot. But now its time for semi-solids and I find myself thinking about the menu everyday. Though I know that a 6-months baby would have no more than 5-6 spoons, but still preparing even that much keeps your mind busy all the time, especially when you have to think about new varieties in order to develop your little one's interest in foods. So today I thought to give some change to Aarav, afterall he must be bored of Cerelac and Apple puree for the past few days. Today, I had enthusiastically prepared mashed potatoes with fresh coriander, believing that he will surely love it. But all my excitement ended when I saw him making as worst face as possible at the very first morsel. I could not find the reason why he did not like it as I tasted the same first and found it not quite bad. The only other reason could be there was no salt or any other tastemaker in the potato puree which sounds a bit distasteful I agree, but salt/sugar is unadvisable for infants till they turn 1 year. Seems, Aarav is going to be quite specific about his food choices once he grows up. However, my sweetheart did not let my efforts go to waste completely. He had atleast 6-7 tiny morsels of the puree (though with a bad expression on the face each time) and this gave me a chance to know how his body adapts to potatoes and coriander. After all, he is in his testing phase. This is how he looked when he was having his food today :-

After a long time...!!!

I am back to my blog after exactly one year, a long time indeed. It’s not that I did not wish to write, but yes I somehow excused myself every day due to some xyz reason and this is how I completed my anniversary of not posting anything on my blog. I must say that past one year has been a roller coaster ride for me. 17^th September, 2011 was the day when I got to know that I am expecting and very soon a new member would be arriving in our family. Life changed forever since then. Needless to mention, pregnancy comes along with uncountable things in your life and I was no exception. Mood swings, nausea, vomiting, strange food cravings, daily medicines, special focus on diet, extra care from relatives and friends and above all this, lots of love and attention from dear husband, all these had become part of those nine months of my life and this day I don’t even exactly remember how was my life prior to all this.

Well, the experiences that I had during the past one year cannot be covered in one post. But most important above all is that five months back, a bundle of joys came into our family and I and Yog got blessed with our sweet little champ - Aarav. We welcomed him on 28^th April, 2012 and it seems that he is with us since long back. The journey of five months with Aarav has been incredible and he must be awarded for entertaining us with something new every day. The best part of motherhood is the moment when I feel that he needs me the most, when he searches for me even when there are many to take care of him, when he recognizes my voice even without looking at me, when all he has to do is come to my arms each time I am around him. He has given a new meaning, a new dimension to my life and now I feel that my life is worthwhile. Though on the other hand, Yog had to go to Germany for an office assignment in June and both I and Aarav are eagerly waiting for him to be back here with us.  His absence is definitely creating a void somewhere in the midst of the biggest happiness of our life. As of now, life and family both seem incomplete without him. But, everything will be back in place soon. That’s all I can think of right now.

Aarav has been the centre of attention for everyone this year, especially for me and he will be always. I will keep posting more about him further. Till then, have a look at my new born darling. 

Aarav. Age - 18 hours :-)