Why i liked rocket singh...

They had their research on Sales pit-pat... And that was refreshing.. That you took the trouble to understand and then tell me the story and didn't just shove absurb, bizarro fantasies you have my way.

Can you imagine how this would have turned out if Madhur Bhandarkar had made it - given his penchant for making vertical focused movies.
He would have called it "Sales" for starters, and then shown the salesman sleep with all the customers to get the business and then i am guessing something about him becoming the biggest salesman in the country and how that gets to his head and how he ruins it all! something along those lines. Trust me.

Rocket Singh took Ranbir Kapoor's biggest asset (his face) and covered it with a beard and a paggdi and said "now go deliver" ... and he did!

What i didn't like... the curse of the 2nd half i would like to call it.
Stretched a bit too much and got quite preachy in the last few scenes.

But all-in-all, good watch. 3.5 stars from me.

I went to Dubai for my 1st phorren vacation.
And No, the week long NY trip i took early last year does not count
because ...
a) it was for work
b) i had NO money
c) i almost froze and died... and surviving near-death experiences does not a vacation make. Fair?

Anyway, this trip was so so different..
i was with family, i had a longish break, the weather was just the kind i can handle (hot and humid). All in all.. great!
Also i had some money....
soo i did shopping-ish things...
soo now i have to say, "i used to have money".

Dubai is very different from what i expected it to be.
The way my brother made it sound, i thought it would be teeming with malayali 'somewhat-relatives' type people who you never even wanted to meet "back home" (Ha, there i said it.. THE ultimate ex-pat phrase)...
Not true though! Its a super large city filled with superlative things... literally. Tallest building, biggest fountain, largest flag, largest LCD display.
If it does not have an EST attached to it - tis not worth the Arab's time.
(fingers crossed that the recent crash is not the largEST).

But seriously. Great holiday spot... (limited experience but still!)

I often look for my husband on the internal office communication system (called OC - how's that for creativity!). And then get very irritated that someone who does not work in my company is not available on the chat... How inefficient!

Soo bored!! Think i will look Appa up on OC now.

SenR & Me have an idea...
and i think this might really be it!!

Communication. It's the first thing we really learn in life. Funny thing is, once we grow up, learn our words and really start talking the harder it becomes to know what to say. Or how to ask for what we really need.


- Meredith Grey

My dear dear J,

Yesterday was our 2 year "Proposal anniversary"
(I wonder if other people also have anniversaries like that)

My guess is that your memory of that night can't be very nice, thanks to my very freaked out reaction to the proposal. I am sorry for that.

You should know though that i had the most incredible experience that night,
Something i never expected to happen to me - did.
Someone i loved asked me to marry him...
& not just asked, mind you - asked on bended knee, with a ring and wine ...
Thank you baby for making my memory of the proposal so so special.

In the last year of being married, we have been through 3 trials (i think we have consensus on this) and dealt with it better than okay...
and even though the miscarriage is only a week old (i have decided that its okay to talk about this), i still recognise that while i would rather have had things work out differently, now that they haven't, i am only grateful that i am dealing with this situation with you.

So j-boy... 2 and something years of being with each other, and 1 year of marriage later, i know today what a good decision i made 25th Aug 2007, when i said "YES".


With All My love,
A
-----------------------------------------------------------------
p.s.: don't worry about this being a public forum. only 4 people visit...
and they'll be okay with anything. Trust me.

i take longer to put detergent in the washing machine,
longer to hang clothes - clipping each item to the clothes line with more care thean i normally would
i take a bath slowly, trying to get cleaner than i normally would
apply more cream and more patiently than i normally would..

is your life also slower & more careful when you are sad? like you just could not afford to be careless with any task.

I Left This Morning
~ by Peter Bland

I left this morning saying 'I love you'
as if setting out for some unknown country
instead of the corner shop. I wanted
you to be sure, in case
this time - out of, say, 10,000 departures
I never made it back: although
after 50 years together, 2 countries,
3 children, and several former journeys
that would put this one to shame
you'd think there'd be no need to pause
on my own doorstep, suddenly afraid
of the distance between us, of your absolute beauty,
of the growing aloneness when I clicked the latch

I'm going to Kerala tomorrow for a whole 8 days!!!
I CANNOT wait.
My self esteem has taken such a beating at work in the last month - it needs the kind of biased, blind-sided boosting only parents can provide.

One of the most treasured memories of my childhood is of being in my grandparent’s house in Kerala at night; with no electricity, a million cousins & a handful of torches.
At least one cousin would be flashing the torch from below their chin pretending to be a ghost,
While the rest of us tried to identify insects from the sound they made in the dark.
& we would all talk in to the night – ghost stories and all.
Aaj kal bijli kam jaati hai

Having been told quite early that I must not attempt to sing,
The only times I did was when the power was gone,
And I needed to distract myself from the darkness and from wondering “what’s that shape near the door?”
Soon I would forget all about odd shapes, refrigerator sounds and the darkness,
As I tried to remember the paragraphs of old Hindi songs.
Aaj kal bijli kam jaati hai

My mother & all other aunties in the colony would come out and sit at the entrance of our building when the power would go
They would just sit around there talking, cutting vegetables for dinner,
While all their kids would be sitting around playing Antakshari or Hide & Seek.
Have you ever played Hide & Seek in the dark? It's the most fun.
Aaj kal bijli kam jaati hai

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Am writing this in the comfort that no one ever comes here and the ones who do come out of deep unconditional love for me and will not stop coming because i wrote random things (again).

Whatay truly terrible week this has been ...
Actually 2 more terrible days to go before we can call it a week!
(Yes i know "Faith", i wrote about her 2 posts ago. I write this after having consulted her.)

Anyway, i now feel bitchier than the average week.
Here are some specific bitchy thoughts:
1) Frequent readers of this blog (26% of the 2.83 who visit this blog) would know that i dont have a cabin at work yet... i would like to change that very dated idea you have and have you know that now i don't even have a seat. Thank you!
2) I do have a very good team though and while i have had a great 1st 6 month innings with them, i am now having some very very depressing things happening.
(since this is a public forum, i cannot share much more, but to give you a parallel - remember how you felt after you watched "prem aggan"...Exact same emotion)
3) In this most motivating work envirnment, i want to add - i am light years away from achieving any goal set for me at work.
(actual count as of 28th May '09: 0/3236 goals achieved)

This is a small account and captures only very few surface emotions...
Don't get me started on acquaintance type relative who wanted to know if i had "any good news" to share, Calvin - pup by day, Taliban funded sabotage agent by night and
many more life-embracing situations sprung quite recently at J & me
(largely because of god giving in chhappad phaad ke format).

Introduction to Poetry
(Billy Collins)

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means

I am reading a book called Mr. Pip.
A small half para in that book talks about faith and religion.
I loved it... so here it is (in my words with my some of my beliefs).

Faith is what keeps it all together.
You must have faith... in yourself or in a God or in the Universe
in Something... just ANYTHING !
You need faith so that when things go wrong, you can summon that faith and get going again...

And you need this Faith in a place in you where it is summonable.
Thats not so easy - to have faith at your beck and call.
Enter Religion.
Maybe Religion and its practices are not the villain i have thought them to be. Maybe Religion was built just as a tool for the practice of faith, so that when you reach out to faith - you find it easily.

Religion gives you the book, the prayers, the hymns, the rosaries, the temples and the churches so you can practice having faith...
The faith that a man condemned and crucified to his death can rise again,
The faith that even the gods can come to difficult places in their journey, and when they do need to cross that ocean (without a boat)... the faith that all the universe would come together to make them a road (monkeys and squirrels included).

Maybe religion was made so you may have stories - stories that you listen to all your lives and hopefully come to believe... believe that anything is possible.

Faith keeps it all together but dont dismiss religion.
Maybe it has a purpose... It gives you the practice to summon your faith.

Here's what i was thinking last night.
Remember that song - "When you're happy and you know it - Clap your hands."
You, like me, have probably known that song all your life... and yet for me - only last night did it really fall in to place.

The key is not the 'being happy' part or what to do when you get there...
its the "KNOWING" part that makes all the difference.

Finding something joyful and happy in retrospect is the easiest thing in the world. That's what nostaligia is all about, the imagination that you were happy in the past...
The appreciation that Now is good and Knowing that you are happy in this now will make all the difference.

Valentine for Ernest Mann

You can't order a poem like you order a taco.
Walk up to the counter, say, "I'll take two"
and expect it to be handed back to you
on a shiny plate.

Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, "Here's my address,
write me a poem," deserves something in reply.
So I'll tell you a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.

Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn't understand why she was crying.
"I thought they had such beautiful eyes."
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he re-invented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.

Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the odd sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.
And let me know.

-- Naomi Shihib Nye

Feb 3rd 2009

************************************************************************************

Feb 2nd 2009

*************************************************************************************

Latest latest entry in to my life...

Name : Calvin X Thomas
Breed : Basette Hound
Date of Birth : 17th Dec 08
Entered home : 24th Jan 09
Strengths : Awwwww!! Ohhshooshweeeetttt! Muahhh!
Weakness : Refusal to get toilet trained. Also Sulky sulky @#$%^&*(
Opportunity : Hmmm..
Threat : JX, MX, AT + 1 number driver in risk of losing their minds.






Also here's one of my Archie-Parchy in Kerala. Far far away from me.
Driving parents + 1 number neighbour crazy.








Ayyoo shoo shweet!! Ohhmydarlingdarlingbabiesssshh... muahhhh
********************************************************************************

In case you haven't been paying attention to blogs of long before...
This is story so far!