South Asian Bands Festival

I'm on my way back from the music concert organised by SAARC and ICCR in "Purana Qila" and I have to say Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy are just AMAZING! Truly truly amazing! I'm so glad I made it to the concert today.

The way they kept the crowd enthralled, involved and alive was just too good.

And the cherry on the cake was being able to meet them in person. I was awed by their simple and down to earth nature. They chit chatted so casually and freely with no airs whatsoever!

S.E.L. - you guys totally totally rock!!

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It feels nice

...really really nice to receive so many birthday wishes! Thanks everyone one. All your SMSes, phone calls, email messages and FB wall posts made me so happy!

Thanks once again!


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What do you do when...

...you start getting birthday wishes and gifts in advance?

This is the first time that its happening with me and although my birthday is still 3 days away, I've already got 3 birthday gifts and one birthday wish :o)

My sister in US wished me early since she would be moving houses over the weekend. My hubby's sister was in town over the weekend that just went by, so she also gave me the gift before she left on SUnday evening and that was a suit length. ILs were also in town and before leaving yesterday, they gave me the money to buy something for self. And today I got the H2G2 omnibus from someone at work! Must say...what a start of the birthday celebrations :)

Earlier I used to be a little finicky about not getting birthday wishes and gifts in advance and rather I was still until now. But looking at the situation when almost everyone seems to be in a hurry to wish me on my birthday I said "What the heck! Let the celebrations begin!"

I'm loving it!

Today Betu was cuddling with me and noticed some pimple marks on my cheeks. He told me apply cream so that it can get better.

I laughed and told him "Teri Mumma buddhi ho gayee hai."

He immediately replied "Nahi. Aap abhi buddhe nahi ho. Aap to young ho!"

I was on the 10th heaven hearing this and felt this was the best compliment I had got from him or for that matter anybody lately.


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Back from the vacation

We arrived back yesterday morning. The trip was wonderful.

Will post the details over the weekend. Have taken lots of pics so be prepared :)


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Europe Trip: Day 1 - Journey + arrival in London

Its 5 am by London time but its 9:30 by Indian time and we have been awake for the past 30 min. We arrived here at 7:10 pm (UK time). I guess we were lucky that our immigration check went quick and the moment we arrived at the baggage claim centre we saw our suitcase coming down. So we were out of of the airport in flat 25 min of arrival.

The journey in the plane was very good. Half the aircraft was unoccupied so hubby went and even slept on the three seats in the middle. I tried to sleep but just couldn't at all so I whiled my time by watching 4 movies on the onboard entertainment system. And thanks to Air India I finally managed to see "Rock On" :D

One of the attendants was very nice and helpful. The food was decent. Though service wasn't that great.

I tried to help a mommy on board out by distracting her 13 month young baby and playing with him because he had been giving a hard time to her. So when I offered to help, her eyes welled up and I saw her wiping her tears. I felt really bad for her and the baby because it wqas evident they both were having a bad time on the flight. She was traveling alone with the baby for the first time.

While we were waiting for Saurabh, a friend with whom we would be staying the night, to come and pick us up we tried to take a stroll at the airport. Had heard so much about the London heathrow that its so huge. But when we took a walk we didin't find it so. It was only when Saurabh came and he told us that this was just one of the terminals and there are total of 5 such terminals that I understood how enormous the airpot is. There were so many multilevel parkings and I loved ogling at the lovely cars lined up in the marking while we were going towards our car.

So today we shall head out for sightseeing and hopefully I will be able to write more again by end of the day if I get access to the net since am not carrying my laptop.

So keep hanging. There's lot more coming up your way :)

We are going on a summer...err autumn holiday!

Yes we are. Me and hubby are off for a short holiday trip to europe starting today.

We are sitting in the plane as I write this waiting for the flight to take off.

I'm really really excited about the trip.

This is the first time we are going for a holiday without Betu. Ever since we decided about just two of us going, there has been a great turmoil in our minds.

He has gone to Bangalore along with his Dadi-Dadu to spend time with his cousin Aryan and chachi chachu. He was mighty excited but a little sad too. But we could definitely make out this time that he is a really mature kid for his age.

Ok..flight take off announced and have to switch off the phone now. So more later.


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Good news or bad news?

Do you think its good news or bad news when you get a dress from someone which is one size larger than your size, atleast you think that is your current size, but it fits you perfectly?

:) :(
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What do you do when...

...you get close to 250 mails a day on your official mail ID and none of them are spam or can be ignored?

I just go mad everday and feel so mentally drained out by my EOD.

And no. I don't work at a call centre as someone thought when I was talking about this with that person :D


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Reliving my childhood - Part 2

Today Betu made me and hubby play a game with him which again took me to my childhood.

Remember the following lines?:

"Akkad bakkad bambey bo,
Assi nabbhe poore sau,
Sau mein laga dhaga,
Chor nikal ke bhaga,
Saanp ne khaaya biscuit
Madam bole very good"

Yaad aaya? :)

We used to put forth our hands with fingers spread apart. One person would say out these lines while tapping fingers of all the players and the finger on which the word "good" ended, we had to fold that finger. So the person whose all fingers would get folded first would win.

Any other similar game you used to play in your childhood?


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Happy Birthday Ma!

I wish I could hug you. I still miss you so much...

Reliving my childhood - Part 1

Today Betu was singing the lines which took me to 20 yrs in the past. It reminded me of the game we used to play.

The lines were -
"I wrote a letter to my father
On the way I dropped it.
Someone came and picked it up
And put it in his pocket...pocket...pocket!"

Now you remember the game?

For those who couldn't, it was a game played in group where 2 people would stand face to face, join hands in the shape of a bridge and others would take a circle around them and go under the bridge. And these two people would trap a person after saying the word "pocket" third time. And then that 'captured' person would go and stand behind any of these two players. And it would end with a tug of war.

Now you remember?

Singing this along with my son after so many years felt so very wonderful. I know I will have many more of such moments and that's why I have made a series out of it :)

Any similar incident you can think of?

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Where am I?

Right here. On Earth. In India. In New Delhi. :)

I've the same excuse which I've been giving every now and then for not blogging and nor not reading any of you. And the excuse is "Office is HECTIC". But then its true.

Whatever little time I've besides slogging at office I spend that time with Betu, making him practice some number writing and number names writing. And the rest I try and read a bit. And yeah..I am also learning Jive these days. So another 2 hrs in a week gone.

I'm trying to get back here and have loads to talk about. Trust me. I will be here soon. Very soon.

And those of you who thought I was pregnant after reading this post, no..I ain't. So stop jumping around in excitement and just calm down. I will tell you when I'm upfront. No guessing games for me :)

What do you do when...

...you find that in your passport photograph the photographer has made you like you have just seen a ghost and lost all your color? Or as if you have put on loads of powder/foundation to look fairer?

*rolling my eyes*


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Feeling totally blank...

Am sitting at the airport waiting for the boarding announcement for my flight to Delhi. And I feel this complete void in myself. It didn't feel nice at all leaving Betu here. He was getting upset too. He didn't want me to leave without him. He asked me to either stay on or take him along. It broke my heart. All his excitement of spending some days of his summer holiday with his Dadi-Dadu and his cousins who would be arriving on Tuesday seemed immaterial. I would have probably taken him back with me if I didn't knew this was just parting anxiety.

So after clinging to me and little pacifying, although upset, he agreed to me going. But he still didn't come out to wave me bye :(

On my way to the airport he called me saying he will stay for just two days. That is making it a bit difficult for me right now. I'm feeling this bit of "khalipan" inside me. All my excitement of some me time has vanished into thin air. It feels like I'm leaving a part of me behind. It doesn't feel nice at all...not even one bit...

Looking at all the airplanes standing, I can almost feel his excitement on seeing them upclose. He would have been glued to the glass walls overlooking the bay. The moment we would have stepped in the plane he would have demanded to eat something :)

Anyways. Betu I know you will miss me a little bit but I alo know you will have fun. This is the start of spending summer holidays with grandparents just like we used to do.

But whatever said and done, I'm feeling this void inside me.

P.S. He just called me again and

Betu: Aap plane mein baith gaye?
Me: Haan Betu.

Betu: Aap kya kar rahe ho? Aapko khane ke liye mil gaya?
Me: Nahi. Abhi nahi. Thodi der mein milega.

Betu: ok. Bye.


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What do you do when...

...you are relishing those "Puremagic Chocolate Biscuits" and just then the astrology alert pops up on your phone saying "You are leaning towards unhealthy snacking. Focus on healthy snacks and your health will skyrocket." ?

Do you stop munching that half eaten biscuit and put it away? Or do you press 'escape' key on your phone and continue to munch away just as I did? :P

My rendezevous with book reading

I had started reading books regularly when I took the subscription from BookMeABook. And because of that I was able to read an average of 2 books over a span of 1.5 months. I know this is a very very minuscule score if I compare it to other avid readers. But for me this was a big achievement too :)

The books I have read were all quite diverse when it comes to their genres. And the titles along with my start rating are -

1. "A Face in the Dark and Other Hauntings: Collected Stories of the Supernatural" by Ruskin Bond (**)
2. "Almost Single" by Advaita kala. (**)
3. "The Tunnel of Time" an autobiography by R K Laxman (***)
   
4. "Thorn Birds" by Colleen McCullough (*****)
   
5. "You are Here" by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan (**)
   
6. "Tuesdays With Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson" by Mitch Albom (****)
   
7. "The White Tiger" by Aravind Adiga (****)
8. "Sea of Poppies" by Amitav Ghosh (****)
   

As you can see some of them I really liked and some were just OK OK. I really loved reading "Thorn Birds". It was one un-put-downable book. "Tuesdays with Morrie", although philosophical in nature, but was quite interesting. "The White Tiger" was pretty good too. Next one that I'm going to start is "Kim" by Rudyard Kipling.

With office so hectic, I don't get much time to read these days but I still managed to read one book last month and I hope I manage to improve this pace.

So any of you has read any of these books? And how would you rate them?

Oye! Main to famous ho gayee...

Poppins and Meira both wrote to me that one of my posts has been plagiarised. Copied word to word and posted as own by one of the bloggers. I was surprised as well as amused. SO after asking Meira how she figured that out she told me how a very personal post written by Kiran was also copied by the same blogger and in one of the comments to Kiran's post she saw the link of my post. Someone had left both my link and the copied one as a comment in response to Kiran's post.

But when I tried to open the link http://2writeornot2write.wordpress.com/2009/03/17/wierd-observations/ I got a message that the blog has been deleted. I was pretty sad that I couldn't see it by my own eyes. But then our smart Boo managed to dig out the post from cache and sent me this link - http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:jgLN5ODFKiwJ:2writeornot2write.wordpress.com/tag/observation/+2writeornot2write+weird+observation+lipstick&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ch

And my original post is here - http://doiwrite.blogspot.com/2008/12/observations-about-some-people-in-my.html

And frankly I've only one grudge against the person who copied my post. She had copied my post which was a total time-pass, fully-faltu kind of a post. So my post being highlighted in this fight against plagiarism makes a bit embarrassed. I've written much better posts and how I wish she had selected one of those :P

But must say, she did correct some of the mistakes that are there in mine :D

Jokes apart, I can very well empathize with Kiran for she had written that post from the deepest of her hearts for her hubby dear. If one of my personal posts had been copied I would have been completely outraged too.

Apparently a lot of her posts were copied from other bloggers. God only knows if it was just only a few posts that we managed to figure out or was the entire blog made up of posts picked up from other blogs.

All this makes me wonder why would anyone want to do it. It defeats the whole purpose of writing/blogging. Reproducing a post is one thing and copying and calling it your own is another.

I'm sure that person has learnt the lesson well and will be too scared to attempt something like this again :D

Common sense is REALLY not common at all

As I came out of office to leave for the day, the parking guy told me that the person who had parked the car in front of mine had not given him the keys. And he added the car owner told him that he knows me very well and he will let me know.

I was raving mad at the parking guy as well that car owner. After futile attempts at tracing the owner of the car for good 20 min, the parking guy managed to open the door of the car. But then that also didn't help as this guy had put a gear lock as well.

I blew up the parking guy once again. While I waited patiently, the owner of the car parked next to me came. And thankfully after some efforts I managed to take the car out.

But whoever owned that car will not be able to save himself from my ire. I'm gonna give him big bashing in "meethi chhuri" style.

I'm still so so so mad at this lack of common sense in that guy.


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I'm alive...

...and kicking as they say :).

Its just that office has been really REALLY hectic leaving me no time for blogs. Be it reading or writing.

Even after coming back from work, I've at least one client call to take. Sometimes the number goes up to 3 calls in the evening. And the situation is such that Betu takes a status of all the calls scheduled for the evening when I pick him up from his daycare. And the big smile on his face tells how much he wants my time when I tell him only one call today.

But I hope to be back here soon. My reader tells me I've good 800 unread posts. I know time and again I have been away from blogging but then I've come back every time. Right everyone? :D So will it be this time too. I just need to figure out how.

The bundt marble chocolate cake

Remember the bundt cake I had written about in this post but couldn't post pictures?

So I made that cake again yesterday and here is the pic of it :)

Looks beautiful na? :D

Edited to add: The recipe had been posted long ago here. I made 3 times the portions mentioned in the recipe.

Debate: Scolding other's children

I would like all of you who come to this Blog to openly debate on the topic "Scolding other's children*".

I've always been on the 'against' side. And thankfully nothing had happened so far to make me move to the 'pro' side until yesterday.

I've always believed in telling the parent about how their kid was behaving and how they should talk to their child about it. Same way I expected others to do the same. But yesterday, at Betu's daycare something happened that I broke this rule of mine and went ahead to scold the child right in front of his mother. The other kid pushed Betu in the splash pool right in front of us even when his mother was telling him not to continuously. If I had not grabbed Betu by his hand on time, he would have totally been in the water but thankfully he went down inlt till his knees. I took BetU out of the pool and bent down to the other kids level and on the top of my voice shouted at him.

Me: why did you do that?
Kid: *no answer*

Me: How many times did your Mumma tell you not to do that?
Kid: *no answer*

Me: How many times?
*the kid tried to look away*
Me: look into my eyes and talk when I am speaking with you.

Kid: 10 times
Me: Then why are you not listening to her?

Me: If I push you in the pool would you like it?
Kid: No
Me: so he (referring to Betu) wouldn't like it too. Nobody would like it. So you will not do it again.
Kid: ok
Me: Now go to your Mumma.

The kid was slightly shaken up after this and I could see my scolding did have some effect him. He has become totally immune to his mother's scolding.

This kid has the habit of troubling other kids and laughs when he sees them in discomfort or not liking what he does. He is just a bit too bratty and I know there are kids who are like that and its normal. But at times it gets too much and today was the day when I felt I had to intervene.

But I know for sure that if Anirudh had done something like that I would have done exactly what I did with the kid myself. There would not have been any need for other parent to scold my child.

I have also seen other parents who react badly to other parents pulling up their kids even when they know that their child has done something wrong and take their side. I find that very wrong. I agree no one would like their child being pulled up but then we have to see the reason and how the other parent is handling it.

I still stand by my rule as I had mentioned above and will not say anything to other's kids directly minus such situations.

Now you tell me what are your views on the same. What would you do and what you won't do? How would you do and how you won't? Any real life examples would be great too.
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What do you do when...

...you make stupid errors of the same nature 3 times in a row? I feel like swatting myself sore :(

I really didn't expect this from myself and feel so ashamed to have these mistakes being pointed out by others. And I don't have any reason or shall we call it excuse for why they happened.

P.S. Work has been terribly busy so no posts on any of the blogs. I hope to resume soon.

Sympathies...but why?

As we all know I've been on my own since Friday afternoon with Betu and hubby both traveling. And since then I've been getting a lot of sympathetic comments and phone calls. Everyone expected me to be feeling down and out, a bit low and missing Betu badly. I did miss him initially and felt quite upset. But from the next day, there was no such 'sad' feeling anymore.

I was doing little little things that I hadn't done in the longest time such as sleeping till 8 AM, watching movies (on DVD), lazing around... and I was having a wonderful time. It was such a wonderful breather to be on your own. Some of my friends were even getting jealous and telling me not to get addicted to it ..hehehe..right Monika and Suma? :D

But I still wonder why some of the other people were expecting me to be sad and depressed because Betu was away. Because I'm a mommy? And are mommies suppose to feel like that? Is it wrong if I didn't feel as they had expected me to?

But today everyone shall be back. And I'm really excited to meet Betu when I pick him up at the station tonight. I wonder how he will react on seeing me. Or will there be any major reaction or just a plain hug? Although I cannot imagine this part but I can definitely imagine his reaction on seeing the chocolate bundt cake that I've baked for him. He is gonna be super happy for sure :D

And sorry..no pictures of the cake..coz I don't have my camera with me :(

Missing badly :(

Its been 2 days since last I saw and or touched. But it definitely seems so much longer. There have been so many moments that I felt running towards and end up thinking "How I wish..*sigh*.."

I never knew I had become so crazy about until now. The things have to come such a situation that I'm feeling a bit depressed without. I'm missing really badly....my camera. :(

Hehehe..what did you think? I was talking about hubby or Betu? :D

But call me crazy, mad, insane..whatever. But this IS the truth. I'm missing my camera more than I'm missing them. Much much more. Infact I handed over my camera to hubby with a very heavy heart. I was surprised at feeling so myself. I don't know why. It was as if its mine..only mine.

Do you have any such object that you don't even feel like sharing with hubby or people real close to you?

I wonder...

Whenever I'm asked about the age of our son Anirudh and I tell them, lot of people look at me with an expression which I don't know how to perceive. The tones varied from questioning to awed to surprised and to even disbelief. I say disbelief because they ask me the year of birth even after I've told them his age. As if I would be miscalculating his age. Can a mother do such a miscalculation on the child's birthday at least?

And that leaves me a bit flummoxed if they are saying it in positive or negative. If I go by my instincts, very few people have said it in positive manner leaving me wondering why the others respond to it with negative.

Betu turned 5 about a fortnight ago and he is a bit tall for his age which shows he has taken the height gene from his papa who is 6'1". So he is definitely tall but he is not overweight or over sized. To put it in clear cut words he is NOT fat.

How do you all think I should react to such statements? I definitely want to ignore them. Sometimes I do succeed and there are times when I don't and that makes me feel a bit irritated.

Have any suggestions and any real life incidents to share?

A break...

..not from the blogging people...am too much of a chatterbox to do that. I'm talking about a break from the duties of a mother and a wife. As you already know that Betu is away on a holiday trip with his grandparents, today hubby also left for his official tour and they both would be back by Monday night. So till then I've total FREEDOM!!

Some of my friends asked me how am I coping up and I looked at them with raised eyebrows and said, "Coping?? I'm having fun!!" :D

After initial emotional, melodramatic moments, I'm actually enjoying this 'me' time. I've been watching some TV, reading "Sea of Poppies" and finally managed to watch the movie 'Iqbal' after having bought the DVD many months ago. Yeah I know I am invariably late in watching movies. Ok ok..make that VERY late. But haven't you guys heard of the saying "Better late than never"? :D

Anyways, coming back to the movie, I just loved it. In fact I was clapping away loudly and yelling "Yay! Yay!" when the main protagonist "Iqbal' played by Shreyas Talpade, took the wicket in one of the final and crucial match...hehehe... but it shows how much involved I was in the movie and how well made it is. Doesn't it?

And now coming back to my 'break', day 1 of has gone really well. Lets see how the day 2 goes. I'm sure it will be awesome too. I'm so loving this no responsibility, totally chilling out time. But I also know that I would want everything to be back to its routine soon.

I've to have my betu around me even if it means moments of madness. I've to have hubby with me even if it means getting on each others nerves.

Do I sound like one crazy person? Oh well...but you got that right. I AM one crazy person :D

First time..

...that I am home without Betu.

Betu has gone along with his Dadu-Dadi to Chandigarh to spend time with his cousins (Bua's kids).

He has been super excited about going for the trip and since the past 2-3 days, every few hours, he would come up and tell me "tachee laga do meri" (he meant attache/suitcase).

And today he has finally left for his trip. As I was walking back on the platform after seeing him off, I felt a big lump in my throat. It took a lot of strength to hold backthe tears. And finally when I reached the car and sat inside I just couldn't hold them anymore.

Now that I'm home the house feels so empty. Its the first time that he has gone away. Although I'm happy that he will have a good time with his cousins, still I'm a little sad in some corner of my heart. Every now and then I feel that lump coming back and its a struggle to hold those tears from rolling down. Its not been even 6 hours since he left and it already seems ages.

He may not miss me as much as I'm gonna miss him and I'm actually glad that he won't. Him feeling upset and missing me will make it even worse for me to handle.

Have lots of fun Betu and Mumma loves you a LOT!

Is it ok to...

...not wanting to go on a trip with someone (close family) when they are really excited about taking you along?

Somehow I'm not at all inclined to go. And I can't pinpoint the reason. I just know that I don't want to go.

Correct way to weigh yourself

The correct way to weigh yourself:

I can't believe I was doing it wrong all these years. Were you too?

:D

Graffiti, it wasn't.

On the day of holi celebrations, as we were driving down on Khel Gaon marg towards Siri Fort Road, I saw a disfigured board of "Lead India Campaign". In the word 'Lead', someone had added a 'B' in front of 'L' and struck out 'a' and placed an 'e' instead  to make it read "Bleed India". I thought of it as a really bad joke by whoever did it.

But today I learnt that it was not just a disfigurement but a site with that name actually exists. I was very very surprised. Now I don't know if this site existed before the graffiti or did it strike someone to have a website concept like this 'after' they saw that graffiti.

Anyhow..it hardly matters now. Although once I looked at the website and some of the content up there, it doesn't sound as ugh as it had initially on that disfigured ad. Have a dekho here - http://bleedindia.com/index.html

A very funny toon related to layoffs

I really had a good laugh reading this. So sharing with you all too!

My first encounter...

...with getting stitches on the injuries. Not on me but on my son. And I hope never again. It was dreadful enough for me.

Monday around 3:45 PM, I got a call from Betu's daycare. The supervisor told me that He had got hurt while playing and got a little cut. She went to tell me there was some bleeding but now the bleeding has stopped. Somehow the way she was telling me I thought it was a small injury so I did not think too much into it. Then she told me that while they were bandaging him he was continuously asking for "Mumma..". So I asked her to put him on phone so that I can talk to him and he will feel better. But when she told me that they have made him lie down as the bleeding was a bit too much that's when I realized the situation was not as simple as I had thought. It was a bit more grim. So I told her I shall be there in 10 min and she said responded by saying "Yes please."

When I reached the daycare and saw him lying on the bed with his head bandaged, my heart skipped don't know how many beats. I tensed up and walked towards him. And when he saw me he just hugged me tight and I saw 2-3 tears trickling down his eyes. I reciprocated his hug by hugging him tighter and tried not to show my tears to him. It was really a painful sight to see him like that.

The head of the organization was also there and they both told me how brave and strong Anirudh has been. Besides initial tears and that too for only a short while he hasn't cried at all. I was surprised (I will talk about why I was surprised in some other post.)

After picking him up from the daycare I took him to the nursing home where his pediatrician sits and took him to the casualty. The doc on duty took a look at his wound and said he needs stitches. I could feel the ground slipping beneath my feet. However I still managed to ask the Doc "why?" and "Why can't we avoid it?". He gave his reasons and I asked him to go ahead.

So they cleaned his wound and gave him local anesthesia. Betu was getting a bit nervous looking at the syringe but I talked with him to distract him that it won't hurt much and that he is being such a brave boy. I felt like a liar while I was telling him that its OK and that it won't hurt. I'm a person who is scared of needles. REALLY REALLY SCARED. I'm not scared of wounds or big injuries or blood but needles..I prefer to stay miles away from them.

He flinched his eyes when the Doc inserted the needle but he didn't cry. I could feel my eyes brimming with tears but I held them back. If he wasn't crying how could I? I had to be strong enough for him. But I think he still did see through my dark black glares which I refused to take off lest he sees my tears. And while the doc was giving him anesthesia he was softly patting my cheek.

The Doc then started stitching him up. And suddenly I felt a wave of giddiness come over me. I felt strange and wondered why. And it kept growing every second. I was feeling numb. For few seconds I was not aware of any sounds around me and everything looked hazy. The Doc looked at me and I at him and he could sense something is wrong. He asked me if I'm alright. I responded that something...some smell...is making me giddy. He asked me to just go and sit down and explained that it was because of me looking at the wound and the stitches being done. (This condition is called Vasovagal Syncope which I figured out after some basic search on the net.) I was surprised as I didn't find the wound or the blood repulsive. But I didn't leave Betu's side and just sat with him on the bed holding his hand and tried not to look at the Doc working on him. I realized what the Doc said was right because every time I would look there I would feel a sudden enormous wave of giddiness come over me. But there was no way I would leave Betu's hand and go away. I tried to take deep long breaths and that helped me a bit for sure. I continued to feel giddy but the degree was marginally lower.

Till now I had only seen on TV about people fainting on seeing surgeries or blood. It was the first time I felt it first hand. And trust me it sure was a very funny/weird feeling. Very VERY weird.

Anyhow, coming back to Betu's injury, it was about a 1 cm cut on the forehead and he got 4 stitches. Its healing up fine and we need to go every 3rd day for getting the dressing changed and shall need to go for getting the stitches removed on 8th day. We are just hoping it heals up quickly as his school re-opens from next week. Plus his big birthday party is scheduled this Sunday where he shall be sporting this little bandage.

It may not be a big deal for some but I guess it being the first (and hope the last) was a bit traumatic for me.

Edited to add:
Update and pictures on Betu's blog...read on...

The picture tag

I was tagged to do the picture tag by a few of you (and I've forgotten who all had tagged me :(..sorry) and today I'm finally getting down to it when Mimi also tagged me on this one :)

So I had to pick and post the 4th pic from my 4th folder in the pictures directory. When I went to the said folder I saw it had ONLY 4 pictures :D

So here it is:


This is Anirudh's baby foot. I had clicked this on June 26, 2004. And if I look at the date, it has an interesting twist to it. He was 3 days less than 3 months on this date. Interesting..isn't it? :D

I feel...

...so happy and so loved when Betu comes and gives me big tight puchhas out of the blue.

Its a bit difficult to describe the exact feeling. But I hope you get the feel somehow. Do you?


~~ Keep Smiling! ~~
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Celebrate what?

Yesterday when we were returning home around 8 PM, we saw a lot of policewallah's standing near one junction, quite close to our place. Hubby wondered aloud "Kya hua? Itni police kyun hai?" I just brushed it off saying, "They must be getting off the duty" referring to the police security and check posts through out the day across the city which we saw when we were going from one relative's place to another during the day earlier.

After we came back home and as I was reading to Betu, Hubby came in the bedroom and told me the reason for all the police we saw. I was aghast. The day had started so wonderfully and we had so much fun. But not this guy's family. While we were playing Holi, his family was mourning.

What is the world coming to? Why can't these people celebrate even the festivals in peace? Why do they have to become so violent, so ruthless so in-human? Why? Why? Why?

What do you do when...

...you are introduced to your colleagues in the new department where you have just moved and that colleague says "Welcome Abode" instead of "Welcome Aboard"?

Initially I thought I was hearing it wrong but when the same colleague sent me some information and wrote the word as I had heard it i.e. "abode", I just smiled and...smiled :D

What do you do when...

...you hear your yet to be 5 year old singing "Tu wahan, main yahan...jaise ki zameen aur aasmaan..." with the most serene expressions on his face?

Me and hubby ran to a different room, lest he hears us, and burst out laughing.

But must say he was singing pretty much in tune.


~~ Keep Smiling! ~~
Sent on my BlackBerry®.

Maggi tastes yummiest when...

...you eat it with your son slurping in one noodle at a time :D


~~ Keep Smiling! ~~
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9 years

9 years of love
9 years of togetherness
9 years of fighting with each other
9 years of being a wife

Happy anniversary dear hubby!


~~ Keep Smiling! ~~
Sent on my BlackBerry®.

What do you do when...

...when you get parenting lessons from your kid?

Yesterday hubby was getting angry at Anirudh on something when Anirudh, in a very calm and serious tone, says "Papa, bachon se aise baat karte hain? Bachho ko dante nahi hai. Unko pyar se samjhate hain."

What do you do when...

...in a small confined place full of people, your son says aloud "Papa, aapki zip khuli hai"?

I would have wanted to just evaporate into thin air right then if it was me. But I really liked my hubby's way of responding in such a situation. He just smiled and said "Thank you for telling me".

But we just couldn't hold our laughter at that point and both me and hubby burst out laughing at the situation.

Rendezevous with my camera

I finally decided to give some special focus to one of the things that I love. And that happens to be photography.

So I've started a blog dedicated to the pictures that I've clicked and which I would like to share with all of you. I've titled the blog as "Kuchh Tasveerein - Meri Nazar se".

The pictures there are my amateur attempts at photography. Although there is still a long way to go and so much to learn, I'm sure that I will learn slowly and steadily.

So I shall see you all there :)

BloodHelpers.com

I recently came across this website called BloodHelpers Where you can register and people who need blood can contact you for blood donation.

I think this is a wonderful concept which can help the people looking for blood donors. It is a very troublesome process looking for donors of specific blood type in emergency situations. And having such a resource center is definitely a boon for the people in need.

I've registered there and I request all of you to go ahead and do the same.

A sweet surprise

On Saturday Feb 14, was the craziest day this year so far. It was a rush rush rush situation from morning till late night. The details will follow in a later post.

Betu had a school play scheduled at his school. Once I was done with getting Betu ready Hubby went to drop him at his school. The same day we had to travel to Kota to attend hubby's cousin's marriage. So once they left I got busy trying to take out the clothes that we needed to carry. It was 9 AM and the stomach was growling with hunger. Hubby was taking a bit longer to return and I thought maybe he is getting something packed from Betu's canteen as he had mentioned the previous night. I again drowned myself in the packing frenzy with the hope of some food on the way. Soon I heard the door open and without even turning back I asked him to quickly take out his clothes so that I can put them in the suitcase. And then I heard him say "Happy Valentines day!". I turned around with a blank confused look on my face and saw him walking towards me holding a lovely bunch of red roses. I have no words to describe what I felt at that moment. From surprised to happiness to feeling all mushy.

Aren't they so beautiful? :)

It reminded me of my first valentines day celebrations way back in year 2000. Something similar had happened that time too.

Hubby is not the kinds who believes in gifting or doing special for such occasions. And I love it when he gives such surprises when I'm least expecting it.

I love you so much jaanu.

Andh-vishwas or Superstitions or illogical customs

Lot of us laugh talking about the so called superstitions from the yesteryear's. But has anybody given it a thought that there could be some logical reason behind them? I have. And after pondering over them I've realised that its us who are to be blamed and not the people from the bygone era who made these superstitions. I actually won't even want to call them 'superstition'. For me they were just the means of getting the others do something correctly. Since we all know common sense is not so common, people needed someone to guide them on the road to the common sense.

At the same time I don't agree with all of them. But again that could be because I do not know the real reason behind them.

Lets take the statement which directed not to broom after dusk else you will have theft in the house. For me there is no andh-vishwas in this. The statement was very much valid for the era when this would have originated. Those days when the source of lighting in the house was just a oil lamp, if you have dropped something on the floor and broom away, you will end up throwing it out without even realising. And then you would think there was a theft. Makes sense?

Now lets talk about a custom which is followed blindly at many households. A woman who was menstruating was not supposed to enter the kitchen or do any housework. She was just supposed to stay put in her room. People go on and lambast at whosoever created this custom. But I think it should be the people who follow it should be lambasted at instead. It made sense to me for having such a custom in those days because there was a lack of good sanitary options for a woman. There was a hygiene issue. I don't think I need to explain the hygiene issues involved here as I think I can safely presume and expect that the people who would be reading this would know the details. But now when we have so much at our disposal and when hygiene is not an issue, we are still following these customs blindly.

I can go on and on about such statements and customs but as they say "Buddhiman ke liye ishara kaafi hai". :D

So tell me know. Who do you think is to blame? Where is the fault? Times are changing and so should we. The problem is with US who do not want to look beyond, Who do know try to evaluate or analyse, who do not look at a problem in light with the current situation.

In the end all I would like to say "Nakal ke liye bhi akal chahiye".

P.S. I had been thinking of doing a post on this since long but reading this post by Cuckoo gave me the final push to go ahead.

Moms

Earlier whenever someone would say that Moms have 4 eyes and 4 ears I wouldn't really understand the true meaning. But yes, I would be taken by surprise many a times when Ma would know what we have been up to without being there. I also sprouted extra pair of eyes and ears when I became a Mom myself and then I truly understood the meaning of the above saying.

This post by Noodlehead reminded me of such an incident that happened way back in 1992 or 1993 when we were staying in Kolkata (known as Calcutta in those days). It was a Sunday. Ma had gone to her bedroom to take her afternoon nap after we all were done with lunch.

Suddenly it struck me and my sister to give a surprise to Mom by doing all the dishes since the maid was on leave that day. So we quietly closed the kitchen door. And were doing the dishes with utter carefulness lest we make any noise. We were talking in the lowest possible whispering sounds. We were almost done with them and had started to really feel proud when we heard Ma's voice behind us "Tum dono kya kar rahe ho?" taking us by surprise. We froze at our places for few seconds and then started to laugh. Ma being Ma, gave us a good lecture as to we needn't be doing all this and that she can manage but we knew she was happy inside. We could just feel it. At the same time we were wondering how did she know we were up to something? And we asked her so. She simply said when there is pin drop silence in the house, it means there's something fishy and then she also joined us in the laughter :D

We had tried to help her one more time, when the washing machine conked off and Appa-Ma had gone out of the house, by washing the clothes. Instead we ended up splashing and playing with water more than we did the laundry :D They returned at the most inappropriate moment with the water flowing out of the washroom and me and my sister totally drenched from head to toe. We got a really good dose that time! Now I can say it was well deserved. :D

Now that I'm a Mom myself I know I would have reacted in exactly the same ways in both the incidents as Ma did. And it makes me wonder. Is this a "mom' thing or is it because I'm her daughter?

Heard in the silence of the night

- The ticking of the clock

- The snoring of the two men in my life

- The dripping noise of a leaking tap in our washroom

- The strong wind outside making a 'wooo' sound

- A weird tapping noise outside our bedroom window.

- Growling noise of my hungry stomach :P

Besides these audio fillers that I just wrote about, the silence of the night was something that I hadn't had a chance to feel and observe in a long long time. Thanks to my 'Kumbhakaran" style sleep :D. It was an eerie yet an amusing experience for me.

~~ Keep Smiling! ~~

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I can't sleep...

Its 3 AM and I can't sleep. Why?

Because -
- Its raining heavily. You can hear and almost feel the big raindrops pattering on the ground outside.

- Clouds are thundering loudly interspersed with lightning. They almost light up our room real bright for a second every now and then.

- There is a car in the neighbourhood which has such a sensitive alarm that gets activated every time it thunders. The owner is also up I guess as someone switches it off everytime it gets triggered.

- Last but not the least, both the boys are snoring so loudly!!


~~ Keep Smiling! ~~
Sent on my BlackBerry®.

Separation anxiety

I'm sure we all have read and heard lot about 'separation anxiety'. But then whatever you would have read or heard would have been relating to the kids and the kids going through this pahse. But what I'm writing about here is not related to a kid but to US parents. Yes. We are going through a separation anxiety these days. And when I saw 'we', I mean me and hubby. Sounds confusing? Ok. Let me tell you in detail.

It's so that we have to attend a wedding of hubby's cousin at Kota. Betu's Dadi-Dadu and Chachu-Chachu along with their son Aryan will also be there. There is another wedding of hubby's another cousin to be held in Jaipur few days later. We shall be going there again 2 days after coming back to Delhi from Kota. So the thoughts are that Betu will go with his Dadi-Dadu and stay with them instead of coming back with us. It sounded like a good plan for him to spend some good time with Dadi-Dadu and also with Aryan. But me and hubby both are not sure if it will go fine as he has never stayed without us even for one night. So we both were totally confused.

So to clear this confusion, we thought it was best to talk to Anirudh about it and see what his views are. The first day I spoke with him, about 2 days ago, he was thrilled at the idea. He was also mighty excited about playing with Aryan.

But I clearly told him that Papa-Mumma wouldn't be there with him for 3 days and that he would need to sleep with Dadi-Dadu. I thought that might make him retract back but that wasn't to be. He was just so happy about going to Jaipur with his Dadi-Dadu and Aryan. So far so good.

But to just check if this was not a one day excitement, I talked to him again about it yesterday. And still he showed the same excitement and was determined to stick to this plan. I tried an emotional trick to see what his reaction would be. I asked him "Aapko Papa-Mumma ki yaad aayegi, fir kya karoge?". He didn't even have to think for a second and responded "Koi baat nahi. Aapki wahan photo hogi na. Main usko dekh lunga. Fir mujhe yaad nahi aayegi."

I really didn't know if I should be happy that he is being such a strong boy. Or should I be sad that he won't miss us? But after looking at his determination, his Mumma papa are definitely going through a separation anxiety phase. We are not sure if we will manage fine without him in the house. Yup. The situation is other way around here :D

Scared of aging?

Then just gorge on blueberries. Termed as 'anti-aging superstars' they are also low on calories. So a dual benefit :D So says this article.

So why empty your pockets on those exorbitantly priced anti-aging creams when you have the natural method right in front of you. How I wish we could get these blueberries in India too.

The article also talks about how the antioxidant benefits of fruits and veggie is destroyed if consumed along with milk. It is an interesting article. So go ahead and read on.

Mixed Vegetables Souffle

After Manasi asked to post some non-sweet stuff, I made this today and had it for dinner -

This is a mixed vegetables souffle which was polished off by hubby dear and moi in 15 mins flat! :D

After the success of this one I want to try many more. And with that my plans of loosing those extra kilos just flew out of the window :P

P.S. Recipe will follow soon.

This was my dinner yesterday - Palak Paneer with Makke ki roti!

Do I have to add that it was droolicious? :D

It was an impromptu menu. I had palak in my freezer. I asked hubby if he wants to have palak with corn or with paneer. He opted for paneer. I had corn in my freezer but not paneer. So hubby went to buy paneer from the local grocer and bought makke ka atta as well. And so I ended up making this yummy combination.

And eating makke ki roti garma garam with lots of ghee on it, even though lethal, was heaven!

Baking rendezevous

As you can see I'm going through the baking mania phase these days. I keep trying different recipes from either the internet or from my previously collected recipe library. There are days when its a flop show and there are days when they come out really wonderful. Leaving me wondering if I really baked that cake *wink* :D

So today I happened to see this apple raisin cake recipe and I decided that I had to make it today in any circumstances. The cake rose just right, it browned just right and it was spongy and well moist too. Just the PERFECT cake.

So without holding back any further, I present to you the pictures of the cake:

I poured a bit of honey on the slices and it tasted even more delicious.

Want the recipe? Here you go.

Happy baking!

Handicapped..who?

Two days ago as I was watching this video of Jessica Cox, Betu came over to my side to see what I was watching. He asked me who is this person. I told him this girl doesn't have any hands and can still fly a plane. I showed him how she uses her legs deftly and manouvers the airplane so beautifully. He kept watching and when she started to play piano with her legs he asked me why she was playing with her legs. I again reminded him that she doesn't have hands. He then asked me "par woh apne pair se kyun kar rahi hai? Pair nahi lagate na? Gandi baat hoti hai na?" I knew where this came from. I always tell him not to step on books and toys and he was repeating what I have been telling him. I tried to explain and reason but he was not convinced. I knew it would be difficult to explain.

He continued to ask me questions about her and how she does things and I tried to answer as best as I could. During the conversation I asked him to thank God for making us healthy. The moment I said that I felt my statement was wrong. Having 2 eyes, 2 ears, one mouth, 2 hands and 2 legs doesn't make us healthy. Its your heart, mind and your physical abilities in totality that make us 'healthy'. Even if one bit is missing, it will be a state of unhealthiness.

And just because we cannot think of suriving and doing things without our hands or without legs, we call others as handicapped or as disabled? Isn't the other way round? Aren't we the ones who are handicapped?

My discussion with Betu left me pondering for long on the whole aspect of our being and calling us abled. The impact the video had on Anirudh, I realised only the next day morning. After he had woken up and was snuggling with me, he asked me again about the video and the 'girl' in the video. His questions were endless - "How she would brush her teeth? How would she drink her duddhu? How would she take her bath? How would she wear her clothes? How would she wear her shoes?" and it went on and on. I again tried to answer to my best and in the end told him "Betu, agar aap try karoge to sab ho jaata hai.".

And I closed the topic at that. I felt it was enough for him at such a young age. But it sure is a topic which we grownups should think and do something to change our attitude towards life.

Laughter

Yesterday night while I was ironing in our bedroom, I could hear Betu squealing with laughter every now and then. And once he just kept on laughing really hard. (He was in the living room watching some cartoon.) And hearing his laughter I started to laugh too. Not those little laughs but good loud ones.

Hubby was also there in the bedroom and when he heard me laughing he asked me what was I laughing at. At first I said "Kuchh nahi" but when he insisted I just drew his attention to Betu's laughter which was still going on. And then Hubby also couldn't help smiling and laughing a bit himself.

And then hubby and me looked at each other and smiled. We both had a feeling of contentment. Of happiness. And suddenly I was feeling so relaxed after a long day at work.

Whoever said that "Laughter is contagious" and "Laughter is the best medicine" was so very right.

Pictures from the Manali Trip

Here are the pictures from the Manali trip that I wrote about earlier.

Morning sky enroute to Manali

A submerged temple in river Beas

River Beas

Hot Water Spring @ Manikaran

Evening Sky enroute to Manali from Manikaran

View of snow caped mountains from our room

Me and Betu all set for zorbing

Betu enjoying the snow

Ooh..the snow is sooo cold..brrr...

Trip to Manali - January 2009

We finally managed to plan and go for a trip to Manali after pondering and some more pondering to utilize a three day long weekend. Betu's demands of wanting to see snow actually made it easier for us to decide what place to go. Manali was the closest destination where we could see some snow. So off we went there along with another family. Their son and Anirudh have been daycare buddies since the past 3 years and now thanks to the kids we parents are quite pally too.

Jan 23, 2009
We took a train to Chandigarh and stayed over at my sister-in-laws's place overnight. She had called up a day before to ask what we would liek to eat. First she asked Anirudh and he said "Chhole-Bhature". Then he asked hubby and he said "Pav-Bhaji". So when we reached there she had made both!! :D And she had also prepared yummy gajar halwa. It was so delicious that I had to literally hold myself for not taking more after gorging on 2 huge helpings. We finally forced ourselves to go to bed at 12:30 am since we had to get up at 4:30 am.

Jan 24, 2009:
We managed to wake up by 4:30 and and Started from Chandigarh at 6:00 AM in a hired Innova for Manali. We stopped over a few times for nature calls and chai-calls and snacked on the the stuff that we were carrying with us. We were dilly-dallying whether to go to Manikaran as we were not sure how much time will it take for us to reach Manali. Once we figured we could comfortably reach Manali by 6:30 PM after stopping by at Manikaran we decided to go there.
Manikaran is famous for hot water springs and cold water flowing together. I've already written about the Manikaran visit, thanks to mobile blogging, in an earlier post so you can read the details there.

We reached our place of stay at Manali, Sterling Resorts, by 6:15 PM. The resort was quite nice and peaceful. After we checked into our rooms, the other family came over to our place for chit chatting along with rounds of chai and snacks while Anirudh and Prithvi, his daycare friend, played on. We had a kitchen in our room so hubby got some Maggi, tea laves, sugar and milk and we prepared the tea in the room itself.

Around 9 PM we went for our dinner at the restaurant and thoroughly enjoyed the food. The 'garma garam' tandoori roti's seemed so heavenly. Finally around 10:30 PM we retired to our respective rooms.

Jan 25, 2009:
We woke up at 8:00 AM. When I opened the curtains beautiful sight of snow clad mountains greeted us. We all went 'WOW' at the sight in front of us. After enjoying the beautiful view I made some 'adrak ki chai' and had it snuggled in rajai. And then we got ready for sight seeing. We started at 10:00 AM to go to Solang Valley. We rented some snow gear (body suits, gloves and gum boots for Rs 100/set) for all of us. On reaching solang, we did some snow sports such as snow-slide and zorbing. In snow slide, we would climb up till some part of the mountain and then those fellows would make us sit in the inflated tyre tube and push us down. Me and Anirudh did that and it was really thrilling. I actually closed my eyes the moment we were sliding down. Anirudh insisted on doing it again and I didn't say no to him. And the second time I managed to keep my eyes open and it was all the more thrilling. Anirudh wanted to go again and again but the each ride costed Rs. 100 and so we had to say no. Then me and Anirudh went for Zorbing (thanks to Mampi for telling me the correct term). Its a big inflated ball with two layers of walls. We slipped inside it, they strapped us inside and then rolled the ball down on the mountain slope. Me and Betu were continuously shouting 'yippee'. Betu wanted to go for it once more after we were done but I was not sure I could manage another round of it :D.

Then we went for a horse ride up the mountain while Prabha, Prithvi's mother, stayed back as she wasn't comfortable riding horses. We saw so much snow there and Betu -Prithvi had a gala time walking on the snow. But soon with their feet getting cold, they both started to cry. We saw a group of guys with a fire lit inside a tin canister. Those guys held both the kids in their laps and stretched the feet of the kids over the canister to make them warm. And I hung the socks at the rim of the canister. After 10-15 mins their feet and the socks both were warm and both of them were smiling again. And at this point Betu did a complete 360 degree turn and said "main aapko bol raha tha mujhe snow nahi dekhni. Snow bahut thandi hoti hai!" And I just rolled my eyes thinking that because of him we made this trip and now he is blaming us. Aajkal ke bachhe..baba re baba.

On the way back it started to rain a bit and was getting really cold. Thanks to the rented gear we were feeling warm. So off we carried on with our ride down the mountain and from there to our resort. But we got stuck in the jam close to 2.5 hours. Luckily we had snacks in the car because with just breakfast and no lunch, our tummies were growling. We finally reached our rooms around 5 PM.

After freshening up, we made maggi in our room and after than some tea. It was the yummiest Maggi I had ever eaten :D

After than we went to the activity center where all the people were gathered. A localite was acting as the host and we played some really interesting games there. In the end he sang some songs and he had such a beautiful voice. He could easily put all these Himesh reshamiya types and the younger breed of singers to shame. And after that proceeded to have dinner and then to bed. All of us promptly dozed off thanks to the tiring journey.

Jan 26, 2009:
We had planned to start by 7:00 AM. But we didn't wake up until 6:30 AM and were scrambling to pack things and get ready. Betu didn't want to get out of the bed at all. He said "Mujhe yahan achha lagta hai. Mujhe is new ghar mein hi rahna hai. Mujhe dilli nahi jana." :D But somehow managed to drag him out and we were on the road by 7:20 AM. Stopped by at a "Raja" hotel for breakfast at 11:30 AM and had yummy gobhi and aloo tandoori paranthas with fresh curd. We reached Chandigarh by 3:30 PM. Had yummy daal-rice at sister-in-laws place and were off again by 5:30 PM to catch our train back to Delhi.

And thus came the end to our short and quick holiday trip.

You know its time to lose weight...

...when you can feel your cheeks jiggling in a moving train.


~~ Keep Smiling! ~~
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Manikaran, Himachal Pradesh

Its 3:45 pm and we just started back from Manikaran. The place is famous for hot water spring and cold water spring flowing together. Calling it "hot" would be an understatement. It was boiling and bubbling. You can't put your finger inside for more than 1/2 a second.

I bought a small bag of rice and kala chana for Rs. 10 each from there and left it dipping in the pool of hot water spring and it got cooked there. In 15 mins rice was completely done and kalachana was 75% done.

There is a gurudwara there and they cook the food in big earthen pots in one of the hot water pools. We ate at the 'langar' at the gurudwara and relished the kadhi with roti and rice. A young boy helping there told Anirudh that he is not supposed to waste the food and Betu followed his instruction to the T. He did not even leave one spoon of the food in his plate. When I asked him to eat as much as he wantsto, he told me in a very serious tone "unhone bola hai na ki bilkul khana nahi chhodna. Poora finish karna hai."

We were earlier planning to skip going to Manikaran because of tight schedule but am really glad we came here. It was an experience in its own. The pictures will follow few posts down when I reach back Delhi.

- Jan 24, 2009
~~ Keep Smiling! ~~
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What do you do when...

..your son picks up the shirt, that you have taken out to wear that morning, looks at it questioningly and asks "Yeh shirt kis bachhe ki hai?" (This shirt belongs to which kid?). And when I said its mine, he looks at me with raised brows and says "Yeh to aapke liye chhoti hai. Yeh aapko nahi aayegi." (This is small for you. It won't fit you.)

I suddenly felt so 'fat' hearing his comment and that too right in the morning!!

:(

Edited to add: The shirt size was 'L' and was bought 2-3 months after delivery to fit my huge size in.

The journey of 4.5 hours

Almost barren trees with leaves sprouting on some branches.

Kids playing cricked on open grounds where the wickets were made out of earthen bricks.

Ladies in colorful lahengas with gota work embellishments, sitting in a circle chit chatting, laughing and smiling.

A calf nuzzling up with its mother cow.

A little girl, sitting on the pillion seat of a scooter, carrying a really tiny baby goat in her arms.

A farmer working in the middle of his mustard fields surrounded by a sheet of yellow flowers.

A small white temple on the top of a huge barren mountain.

Little girls in blue uniforms with red ribbons in their hair walking to their school.

Little girls selling newspapers at the traffic signals instead of begging.

And finally the jubilation of Betu when we reached his Dadu-Dadi's place.

All these happened during 4.5 hours that made me smile and feel happy at heart.


~~ Keep Smiling! ~~

Sent on my BlackBerry®.

My cake baking rendezvous!

What are your first thoughts looking at this picture? Are you thinking on the lines - looks yummy, so well baked, wanna dig your teeth into it?

But wait..hold your horses. The phrase "Looks can be deceptive" fits so aptly here. This cake was a total fiasco.

So what went wrong? For one, it had very little sugar so it kind of tasted very bland. Second it just didn't rise. Reason? Even I don't know :|

But you know what? My Betu still eats it with enthu that it just melts my heart. He goes "Wow! Cake" and gorge on. His expressions are priceless. As if he is really really enjoying the cake and as if the cake is really really delicious. That makes me feel so guilty because he so wanted to eat a cake and I told him I will make one instead of buying. And eventually it turned out to be such a flop show :(

Betu, next time I promise I will bake you a better one.

P.S. Its a Chocolate Yogurt Cake.

A fractal broccoli!!??

How cool is that?

Read the details here.

Is it just me?

Or do you all also find it funny when people wear layers of woollens inside the shirt and they appear as wearing only a shirt and pant during feezing winters?

Why doesn't wearing sweaters OVER the shirt seem like a good idea to them? I wonder...

~~ Keep Smiling! ~~

Sent on my BlackBerry®.

Celebrating Lohri

Not so long ago I had posted how we celebrate all the festivals of all the religions at our place. We went and celebrated Lohri with our punjabi friends today evening. Betu was super excited and when he saw we were among the handful ones who had arrived at the celebration point, he started to shout at the top of his voice "Happy Lohri". When I asked him to be a bit quiet he told me "Sab log so rahe hain. Lohri manani hai na isliye sabko bula raha hoon." I had no words looking at his enthusiasm and I let him shout and call out to everyone :)

Here are the two pics from the celebrations -

BookMeABook.com - the book rental company

Talking to someone who recently read my book review posts asked me where am I sourcing my books from. Whether I'm buying them or renting them? Its then that I realised I'vent written about the book rental company from where I'm sourcing my books from.

In September 2008, I had received an SMS advertising for this site "BookMeABook.com" where they were giving books on rent after you register with them and paid some refundable deposit to people in New Delhi and NCR region.

I have always been fond of reading but somehow always preferred borrowing them rather than buying them to read. Reason being, books need lot of care and lot of space to be maintained. The space was the main constraint why I preferred to borrow them and this company seemed to be just perfect for readers like me.

I went to their website and they had couple of plans on offer depending on how many books would you want in a month. I opted for the easiest plan available i.e. the one where they offered 2 books a month. After browsing through their website for about 5 min, without thinking much I went ahead and got the subscription for it. Then I proceeded to add books to my queue from their catalog which I wanted to read. The same evening I got a call from them and next day my books along with a bookmark were there at my doorstep. (Its another story that the bookmark has been duly chewed away by betu ram from one corner. ) I went WOW with their promptness. And so far they have kept the WOWness intact except that they do no deliver the books in the same sequence as I've specified.

I wrote to them about it and they had their reasons that all the copies were out in circulation and thus the preferred sequence of books cannot be adhered to. To some extent it makes sense but I still can't help feeling a bit disappointed when the book I'm looking forward to doesn't arrive.

So this is how their system works. I've provided a delivery address at the time of registration. I specify the list of books that I would like to read and sequence them. The next step is to click on the button "Order Pickup". For a first time user, it basically means "Send me the books". For a second time and subsequent time user, it means, "I've read the books you had sent and please send me my next lot of books". Once you have submitted your "Order Pickup", a guy will come personally and take the read books from you and give you your next lot. In the envelope that they send the books in, they also send a self addressed envelope for us to keep the books back in before handing them over to the delivery boy.

Its obvious that they had put enough thoughts about the system before implementing it and they have been able to keep up to it. The books I've received have all been in good condition.

They have quite a few books in each genre including for kids although couple of books which I've looked for once in a while I haven't found there. I'm planning to write to the librarian with those book titles so that they can add them to their collection.

So far I'm pretty happy with their service and I hope they keep increasing their collection. I've already figured out the books I want to read for the whole year and am looking forward to read them all.

So any of residing in you Delhi and NCR can make good use of this site if you are fond of reading.

So happy reading everyone!

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

I finished reading "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini on the Saturday that just went by. I managed to finish it flat 3 days compared to the weeks I usually take to read books these days.

After reading and hearing such rave reviews from so many people including some of you from the blogworld that I just had to read it. It is a wonderful tale of two little boys from Afghanistan and their journey of growing up and moving on with their lives. How from being such "pukka" friends they drifted apart and they could never see each other again.

The book was very well written and kept you glued to it. The emotions, the turmoils in the lives of the main characters of the story seemed so real that you could almost relate to it. There were 2-3 points in the book that made my eyes wet.

After I finished reading it, for about half an hour I kept thinking about the characters in the book. About their lives and the whole story as such. It made me sigh. It was a mix of sad and a happy sigh. It touched me a lot.

But still I feel his other book "A Thousand Splendid Suns" was much more intense and overpowering than this one.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

I had read the book "The Historian" more than a month ago but never sat down to write down my views on it. Until now :) I won't call it a review as I am not sure I know how to write reviews. I don't now what it should have and what it shouldn't so that it doesn't become a spoiler.

This novel by Elizabeth Kostova is a tale of a quest for the 'Vlad the Implaer' who is none other than the Dracula or 'Drakulya' as called in the novel. It has been presented as a first person account and it reaches through the past five centuries with the story settings all over Europe.

Although the book was a bit thick, about 650 odd pages, but I really enjoyed reading it. The story was quite gripping and thrilling. The author kept the curiosity maintained almost throughout the book.

And after reading the book I really wanted to travel to Budapest and Istanbul. The way the author described both the cities I was quite intrigued.

So people how like a bit of history, a bit of horror and a bit of thriller its a good read.

Lego Sculptures - Aren't these amazing?

I was so awestruck looking at these sculptures. Aren't they just so amazing??!! See more here.

It has been a long debated topic

and still it never ends. The topic in question is about women and treating women well if not equally.

My thoughts on this were triggered by a post that I read recently where they had shown this label:

As I said lot has been talked about and debated on this topic and I've nothing more to add. But it always makes me wonder how long will this continue? When will the people actually think maturely?

Like the author I didn't know whether to get angry or laugh at it. I just rolled my eyes and left it at that.

Does this make you drool?

It was really yumm and polished off in flat 5 mins by Beturam, Hubby and moi.

Click here to view the recipe.

What I hate about new year wishes

Yeah you read that write. There are things that I hate about new year wishes. Especially these SMSes that keep pouring and pouring and pouring in. It gets so much to respond to all of them. So after responding to about 7-8 SMSes I just stopped.

So if any of you who sent me an SMS and I didn't reply, please don't think I didn't because I didn't want to. I thought of you and sent my good wishes in my thoughts itself :)

Not satisfied still? Ok..then please accept my wishes right here :D

"Hope you all have a wonderful year ahead which is filled with lots of joy and good health for you and your dear ones!!"

2009 has arrived...

..and somehow it feels no different than any other day. But then is it supposed to?

Anyhow...we had a wonderful impromptu celebration with a cousin bro, Avi bhaiyya, who stays close by. And when I say close by, I mean a 2 min walk :)

We had no plans of going anywhere and I was busy making the eggless orange cake when he called to ask our plans. When we said none, he called us over for some soup and macaroni salad. Who would have said no to that :D

So off we went to their place with my just out of the oven orange cake which was devoured and finished within 10 mins. It was then followed by some good Indian white wine and must say it was awesome.

After licking the soup bowls clean and eating yummy macaroni salad, we came back home by 11 PM and I promptly dozed off while putting Betu to bed and woke up only around 8 in the morning.

Here is the pic of the orange cake that I've intentionally mentioned too often ;) Although the picture doesn't do justice to the cake. Am planning to make it again on Sunday and shall click a better picture of it then.