Daily Dealings

Human Rights Professor is Anti-gay!

2009-07-27T12:13:00.002+05:30

I came across this article in Feministe, which talks about a Singapore professor, Dr. Li-ann Thio, who was invited to teach human rights at NYU Law. Dr. Thio has extreme views on LGBTs. Her comments are quite shocking. It is amazing that someone who teaches human rights believes in suppressing the rights of a certain group of people.

Gay is as Gay Does

2009-07-03T17:20:00.003+05:30

The Delhi High Court has decriminalized same-sex relationships. That is indeed a great leap in terms of the law, but what about Indian society? The majority of Indians still view homosexuals with open horror and disgust, with religious leaders condemning this amendment. According to them homosexuality is unnatural and against god's plan because they cannot procreate.

I would like to ask these so-called religious heads who appear to believe so deeply in god and the fact that god is responsible for earth and all its creatures: Well, if god was against homosexuals, then why are there homosexuals in the world? If god thought that homosexuality was "unnatural" then how come it has figured in his "plan"?

Homosexuality is not a choice, it is innate, it is just how a person is born. It is so natural that it also occurs in the animal kingdom - "some same-sex birds do do it. So do beetles, sheep, fruit bats, dolphins, and orangutans." And the gay penguins in a New York zoo are also quite well-known now. All these animals are also following their own natural instinct. The big difference between these animals and us being that they are not castigated for their actions by their own species, they are not made fun of, or regarded with animosity and disgust.

I certainly don't buy the argument that gay people lead to a breakdown of the family system. The family system today has already broken down, what with the steep increase in the rise of divorce all over the world. And there are so many dysfunctional families out there, who do nothing to provide a stable environment for children to grow up in.
Another argument is that a gay couple cannot possibly have a "normal" family because they cannot have children. Well, gay couples can adopt, or have children through a surrogate or sperm donor. And how can one say that they will not make good parents? There is bound to be some confusion when their children see that other families have one father and one mother, while they have two fathers or two mothers. But it shouldn't be too hard to explain to children. Children are naturally receptive to new ideas. In fact, children of gay parents could grow up to be less prejudiced and more open to new "radical" ideas.

Another bone of contention is that gay people give rise to more cases of HIV/AIDS. As we all know, HIV is passed on through four different way, one of them being indiscriminate sex with unknown partners. Because gay people are persecuted, they seek out unsafe methods of obtaining sex. This is one of the reasons why HIV/AIDS is high among the gay population. Now, if people would just be more tolerant towards homosexuals and not compel them to hide in the closet, they would hopefully not indulge in risky behaviour, as they could seek out a single partner for themselves. This is of course, a hypothetical situation. If a person, gay or straight, wants to indulge in high-risk sexual behaviour, then that person is going to have to deal with the consequences.

As is the case, people are afraid of anything that they cannot understand or relate to. Trying to explain to homophobic people that gay people are, well, just people, is very frustrating! I have noticed that men, especially, are extremely wary of homosexuals. They are afraid that just by being in their presence they could be "bitten" by the "gay-ness bug"! In fact, a cousin of mine refused to get his hair cut by a gay hair stylist. When I asked him, why not, he said, "What if he 'tried' something?" To which I replied, "You sure do have a high opinion of yourself!"

The situation is not really all that much better in so-called developed countries, such as the USA, where a Massachusetts school librarian was told that she might lose her job over a reading of 'And Tango Makes Three' - a "fictionalized children’s picture book based on two real-life male penguins at New York’s Central Park Zoo."

I have begun to look at 'conservative', 'orthodox', 'old-fashioned', and 'traditional' as synonyms for 'intolerant', 'unprogressive', 'backward' and 'bigoted'. And I'm not about to change my opinion anytime soon.

Intolerance Only Breeds More Intolerance

2009-06-30T11:01:00.031+05:30

"If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children." - Mahatma Gandhi

The Bajrang Dal seems to have taken Gandhi's words in a quite literal, but skewed manner. It holds an annual week-long training camp in Delhi to teach young boys and men to "protect Bharat Mata" from the Christian and Muslim "infidels".

If you read the Tehelka article cited above, you would see how well the Bajrang Dal and VHP fundamentalists are succeeding in brainwashing these young boys and men. They are told to beware of the "six Ms... Muslims, Missionaries, Marxists, Lord Macaulay, foreign Media and Maino [UPA President Sonia Gandhi’s middle name].”

Ladies and gentlemen, this is how religious bigotry is spread through the veins of a people. The policy of catch 'em young seems to work wonders for religious zealots. Islamic fundamentalists are doing the same thing, preparing their young men for jihad. I have not really heard of any Christian groups indoctrinating their young to be prepared for a "holy war". But I guess one could say that the Bush administration had filled up that position pretty neatly.

All religious fanatics think that their religion is under attack from other religions. The Hindus think that Muslims and Christians are up to no good and are ready to destroy their culture at the drop of a hat. Muslims feel that all Christians and Hindus want wipe them out; and many Christians seem to have a morbid fear of all things Muslim and Hindu.

(I'm talking about just these three religions because they are in the news more than any other!)

I'm not going to profess that I know everything about these religions, but I do know that none of these religions preach hatred. They do not ask their followers to go out and bomb innocent people, just because they do not pray to the same god.

Religious text is open to interpretation. This, I feel, is one of the main causes of religious bigotry. Certain 'holy men' claim to understand religious text, but they are interpreting them in a manner that they deem fit. They preach their hate messages to a populous that does not know any better. Of course, political agenda also plays a big part here. Politicians target vulnerable populations and promise voters that they will keep them safe from the fearsome Hindus/ Muslims/ Christians.

Christianity and Islam have a common ancestry - Abraham/ Ibrahim, Moses/ Musa, Jesus/ Isa Masi. How many Muslims and Christians acknowledge this fact? And even if they do, does it really make a difference to them? Does it give them more food for thought? How can two races who share a common ancestry not see how similar they really are?

Strip away the religious identity of any group, and what you will get is a bunch of people with similar dreams and aspirations. Everyone wants to have a family and enough money to provide for that family.

Why do people have a need to wear their religious identity on their sleeve and condemn those that belong to an allegedly opposed religion? When scripture asks you to "believe in the one true God" it is not asking you to denounce all other gods. Why should your belief in a certain god, a certain way of life be better or greater than another's? You practice what you want and I'll practice what I want.

It is sad that more people would rather abide by intolerance than try and have an open mind. It is difficult to have someone come up to you and tell you that what you have believed in all of your life is not true - not all Muslims want to kill Hindus and vice versa. But to try and change your point of view is an even more arduous task. And I think despite hate camps, like the Bajrang Dal one, there are people all around the world who are waking up and smelling the coffee for the first time in their lives. May their tribe increase!

To Wear or Not to Wear

2009-06-25T12:37:00.002+05:30

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy has declared that Muslim women cannot wear a burqa in France, as it is "a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement" and that it "will not be welcome on the territory of the French Republic".
Read the article here.

While I do agree that women should not be forced to wear burqas, I also believe that women have a right to wear whatever they want. I'm personally not pro-burqa, but I do know of some Muslim women who wear burqas because they choose to, and not because they are being forced to. Therefore, it would be subservient or debase only if women were being coerced into wearing burqas.

The argument that in France the stat is separate from religion is no excuse to ban overt religious symbols. This is religious intolerance in reverse, extremist secularism, if you may please. Though I do see the point that wearing a burqa may come in the way of getting assimilated in a foreign nation, all people, no matter where they choose to live, should have the right to dispay their religious identity.

Perhaps the problem here is not that it prevents burqa-clad women from being more social, but what the burqa is associated with - Islam. This is conjecture on my part, but many people are uncomfortable with conspicuous demonstrations of religious identity.

But I dont't want to talk about religion here, I want to talk about women in general.

On the one hand, we have M. Sarkozy who wants to ban the burqa as he thinks that it is against the basic rights of women, and on the other, we have dubious groups like the Sri Ram Sene, who would prefer it if women cover themselves from head to toe to maintain "decency".

Who is actually upholding the "rights of women" here? Both the individual and the group are telling women what they must do and how they must be dressed. How about letting women decide how they ought to dress? No matter what I wear - be it a short skirt or a burqa - no one (not least some stranger) has the right to tell me how I should dress.

It's a sad state of affairs indeed when people still think that women need to be told how to dress and how to conduct themselves. The rights of women go beyond cultural differences. Women have dealt with oppression since time immemorial. Forget about developing countries, women are subjected to subliminal (if not blatant) oppression even in so-called developed countries. Even now, in the 21st century, there are just a small hand-full of women who truly enjoy freedom - freedom to dress as they please, freedom to behave as they deem fit, freedom to work at a job they want to, freedom to marry or not, freedom to have children or not, etc. These may seem like small, superficial freedoms, but they add up to a freer life.

I don't see these freedoms extending to all women on earth, at least not in my lifetime. And maybe it won't be possible for several generations to come. But, there is always the hope that some day, all women from New York to Zambia, from Saudi Arabia to Japan, from Ireland to India would enjoy freedom from self-proclaimed moral and social guardians.

Autorickshaw "Travails"

2007-07-22T02:30:00.004+05:30

I have lasted a whole year at my new (and first) job! And what an eventful year it has been, in more ways than one. I have met loads and loads of interesting people, some who have become good friends. But this post is not about these interesting people; it is about some other “interesting” people that my friends and I have come across – the ubiquitous Auto Rickshaw-wallahs!

Most of us have to travel by auto to office, and in doing so, we have come across some of the most colorful Rick-wallahs, and I am not referring to just their clothing!
My office was earlier located at Hiranandani, Powai. So a bunch of us used to meet up at Kanjurmarg station, and try and get a Rick-wallah to take us to Hiranandani. And that was no mean task! Sometimes we have had to wait for 15 minutes, trying to persuade a Rick-wallah to agree to take us to our destination. And in the process we have received some of the dirtiest looks from many a Rick-wallah! It’s like they are thinking, “How dare you even ask me that question?!”
Or some put on a really pensive expression on their face, trying to decide, I guess, upon the pros and cons of taking us to our destination! And in the end, most of these “Mr. Pensives” shake their head regretfully and zoom away, leaving us gagging on the fumes! One of my friends, RT says that it’s like we are asking them to marry us, and that’s why they have such ponderous expressions on their faces!
Some also give us explanations for why they would rather not take us, “Nahi mai-dum, wahan bahut traffic rehta hai. (No ma’m, there is too much traffic in that area).”
But the craziest incidents have occurred when the big bosses of our company decided to change the office location to SV road. It has to be one of the worst areas in Mumbai! It is tiring just getting to this place because of the massive traffic jams, which we have to endure every single day.

Anyway, two of my friends, JJ, RT and I decided to meet up at GTK station every morning to “rick” it to office. As usual most of the Rick-wallahs would either give us dirty or apologetic looks, or just ignore everyone trying to hail them down and speed away. Most of the times the Rick-wallahs who agree to take us to SV road, have never heard of it!
And getting back to GTK station is just as bad! One Rick-wallah had actually said, “Woh manhoos jagah kaun jayega?! (Who will go to that god-forsaken place?)”

An “incident” occurred on the very first day that we took this route. All three of us were talking non-stop. When we had stopped at a signal, the Rick-wallah, a rather thin, stern-looking man, suddenly turned around and to our utter shock said, “Aap log kitni baat kar raheein hai! Thodi der ke liye chup ho jaeeye, sab dekh rahein hai!! (You people are talking so much! Please be quiet for sometime, people are looking!!)” We were left speechless by this outburst! I actually looked around to see if anyone was actually looking in!
JJ was the first to recover and said that we can’t help if people look, and we continued our conversation, but in lowered tones.

Another incident occurred after we had discovered a less congested route to SV road. It is simply referred to as Pipeline road, as a huge pipe runs down its entire length. It is quite narrow and passes through a market place. So we would direct all the Rick-wallahs to take us through this road.
One time, as usual, we told the Rick-wallah to take the Pipeline road. He turned to go towards the place, but overshot the tiny opening of the lane. We all shouted, “Bhaiyya (Brother)! Pipeline road! Left turn!” only to have him brake hard. He looked resolutely ahead, shook his burly head and stated, “Market se to main kabhi nahi jaaoonga (I will never go through the market!” We tried to convince him saying that we take this route everyday and that it is always traffic free. To which he demanded for us to get out! He was behaving like a petulant child and I was convinced that at any moment he would jump out of the auto, stamp his foot and throw a tantrum!
So we just sat there for a few seconds, after which I said, “Ok, at least turn around and take the other route.” He sullenly turned around his vehicle and we trundled down the regular route. But he seemed to be quite angry and began driving quite rashly, as if to punish us for our impertinence! But we did reach office in one piece!

Another time a really funny incident occurred. This time we were going back to GTK station from office. The Rick-wallah this time looked barely 18 years old. My friend RT, who is (or rather was!) a big Abhishek Bachchan fan, was a bit upset that he had gotten married, and stated that he should not have "done the deed". The Rick-wallah piped in just then and said, “Par Abhisek ki saadi nahi huyee hai (Abhishek has not gotten married).” All of us were quiet for a while, and I wondered if I had heard right. As RT and JJ weren’t sure of what he said either, JJ asked him what he had said. He once again said, “Par Abhisek ki saadi nahi huyee hai”. So JJ said, “Yeh log Abhishek Bachchan ki baat kar rahein hai (They are talking about Abhishek Bachchan)”. To which he reacted as if he had had an epiphany, “Ohh! Aap Abhisek Bachchan ki baat kar rahi hai! Mera naam bhi Abhisek hai, aur meri saadi nahi huyee hai! (You are talking about Abhishek Bachchan! My name is also Abhishek, and I am not married yet!)”
At this I dissolved into giggles, especially on seeing the look on RT’s face! She looked like she had been slapped! Abhisek Rick-wallah had left her speechless, which is an achievement in itself!
Sadly, since the past few months our little auto misadventures have all but stopped. The office has started a bus service. JJ has moved to another city, while RT is going to leave for another country soon. I’m going to miss these two girls and our auto rides...

Countdown 2006 - Part IV

2007-07-08T01:45:00.005+05:30

Here are my top 5 songs of 2006. I love all of these songs, and it has been a bit hard to rank them! I could listen to each of these songs over and over and over again...

5. Neele Neele Aasman Talay
Movie: Holiday
Music: Ranjit Barot
Lyrics: Neelesh Misra
Artists: Shreya Ghoshal & Vijay Prakash

This song is like a light, fluffy lemon suffle! I have not watched this movie so I don't really know how this song was picturized. It conjures up images of a clean, white beach with the lead pair in turns running around on the beach and in turns just lazily lying around. This has to be one of the most melodious songs that I have ever heard!

4. Ajnabi Shehar
Movie: Jaan-e-mann
Music: Anu Mallik
Lyrics: Gulzar
Artist: Sonu Nigam

I HATED "Jaan-e-mann"!! I thought that it was the worst movie of 2006! But most of the songs in this movie are quite good, and "Ajnabi Shehar" is the most divine composition in this album. Anu Mallik really surpasses himself with this song. And Sonu Nigam is absolutely, totally, completely, utterly FABULOUS! Gulzar's lyrics are very imaginative. I especially like the second antara:

"Baat hai yeh ek raat ki
Aap badalo pe letey the
Woh yaad hai aapne bulaya tha
Sardi lag rahi thi aapko
Patli chandi lapetey the
Aur shawl mein khwaab ke sulaya tha
Ajnabi thi sahi saans mein silgayi
Ajeeb hai yeh zindagi yeh zindagi ajeeb hai
Mere nahi ye zindagi rakeeb ka naseeb hai..."

3. Mitwa
Movie: Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna
Music: Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy
Lyrics: Javed Akhtar
Artist: Shafqat Ali, Shankar Mahadevan, Caralisa

I would put this song in the same category as "Tujhe dekha to yeh jaana sanam" from DDLJ and "Dholna" from "Dil Toh Pagal Hai". For me it has that slightly breathless feel that one would get when one realizes that the person you love loves you back. And this knowledge fills you with a sense of freedom like you have never experienced before.
I also like "Tumhi Dekho Naa" from this movie.
My favorite antara is:

"Jeevan dagar mein prem nagar mein
Aaya nazar mein jab se koi hain
Tu sochta hain tu puchata hain
Jiski kami thi kya yeh wohi hain
Haan yeh wohi hain
Tu ek pyasa aur yeh nadi hain
Kaahe nahi isko tu khulke bataye
Jo hai ankahee jo hai ansuni
Woh baat kya hai bata
Mitwa kahe dhadkan hai tujhse pyar
Mitwa yeh khudse toh na tu chhupa"

2. O Saathi Re
Movie: Omkara
Music: Vishal Bhardwaj
Lyrics: Gulzar
Artists: Shreya Ghoshal and Vishal Bhardwaj

I think that this is one of the most romantic songs ever!
Vishal Bhardwaj is a really talented man. Not only is he a good music director but a good film director too. Some directors go on and on about how the songs in their movie "take the story forward" or "give more insight into the characters", and after watching the movie I feel that the director had just been talking through his hat! This song forms a wonderful setting that showcases Omkara and Dolly's relationship. My favorite line comes in the beginning of the second antara:

"Kabhi, kabhi yun karna, main daantu aur tum darna..."

1. Tu Bin Bataaye
Movie: Rang De Basanti
Music: A. R. Rahman
Lyrics: Prasoon Joshi
Artists: Madhushree & Naresh Iyer

This song, composed by the incomparable A. R. Rahman, is also one of the most romantic songs that I have ever heard. Madhushree and Naresh Iyer take this song to another level altogether. I regard it as the best song from "Rang De Basanti", and this movie does have some brilliant songs, right from the rambunctious title track to "Luka Chhipi".

"Meethi lagi, chakh ke dekhi abhi
Mishri ki dali, zindagi ho chali
Jahan hain teri baahein mera sahil wahin
Tu bin bataye mujhe le chal kaheen
Jahan tu muskuraye meri manzil wahin..."

Countdown 2006 Part III

2007-06-24T01:27:00.002+05:30

Countdown resumed. :)

10. Aaj Ki Raat
Movie: Don
Music: Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy
Lyrics: Javed Akhtar
Artists: Alisha Chinai, Mahalaxmi Iyer, Sonu Nigam

"Shaam hai, jaam hai, aur hai nasha..." Thus begins the silken voiced Alisha Chinai. This song has a mysterious, seductive quality to it. It also helps that it is really catchy! I think that it is the best song from "Don". Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy did not handle the remixes too well. Even Sunidhi Chauhan, who is usually really good, did not do a good job in the remixed version of "Yeh Mera Dil".

9. Dekho Naa

Movie: Fanaa

Music: Jatin-Lalit

Lyrics: Prasoon Joshi

Artists: Sonu Nigam & Sunidhi Chauhan

Sunidhi Chauhan more than makes up for the uninspired singing of "Yeh Mera Dil", with this song. And of course Sonu Nigam spins his magic again. It is my favourite song from "Fanaa". I like the way it is shot too - raindrops falling in slow motion. :) Too bad Jatin-Lalit have decided to go their separate ways; they had come up with some amazing music! I just love each and every composition of theirs from "Khamoshi - The Musical". It is one of the best Hindi movie albums!

8. Bheegi Bheegi Si Hai Raatein

Movie: Gangster

Music: Preetam

Lyrics: Mayur Puri

Artist: James

The angst in James' voice completely matches Shiny Ahuja's shock and anguish at realizing that Kangana Ranaut had turned him over to the cops. It is a very dark song. It starts out slow with

"Bheegi bheegi si hai raatein

Bheegi bheegi yaadein..."

and then delivers a punch when the music swells to

"Najaane koi, kaisi hai yeh zindagani...

Humari adhuri kahaani."

James' powerful voice adds a forceful vitality to the song.

7. Tumse Yun Milenge

Movie: Ankahee

Music: Pritam

Lyrics: Subrat Sinha

Artist: Kunal Ganjawala

I had stayed awake till about 1.30 AM on a weeknight watching "Ankahee", waiting for "Tumse Yun Milenge" to come, to no avail! :( Later I was told that the song plays when the titles roll at the beginning of the movie, which I had missed! :/

I could listen to this song over and over again, which I do quite often! The music is calm and soothing and Kunal Ganjawala does full justice to this song. Don't know why, but each time I hear this song I visualize a hazy picture of green meadows on a bright and sunny day.

6. Kya Mujhe Pyar Hai

Movie: Woh Lamhe

Music: Pritam

Lyrics: Neelesh Misra

Artist: K K

I didn't think much of the song the first time I heard it, but by the fourth or fifth listen, I was completely hooked! The line that grabbed me the most was the refrain "Kya mujhe pyar hai..." Later I began to enjoy the anataras more. This song also has some good lyrics:

"Pathar ke in raston par

Phoolon ki ek chaadar hai

Jab se mile ho humko

Badla har ek manzar hai

Dekho jahaan mein neele neele aasmaan tale

Rang naye naye hain jaise ghulte hue

Soye the khwaab mere jaage tere waaste

Tere khayaalon se hai bheege mere raaste..."

Sky High VI

2007-06-15T00:41:00.002+05:30

I'm in Hyderabad right now, enjoying my one week vacation! So I didn't feel like continuing with the Countdown, instead I thought I would upload some pics I had taken recently of, what else? but the evening sky! I loooooooooooove sunsets! :D

I somehow am still unable to believe that Mumbai has some of the most beautiful sunsets! What with the pollution and all! But I just love looking at the oranges, pinks, peaches and blues that paint the sky during that time of the day...
There are more pics that I had taken of the sky, but those are in my Mumbai PC. I'll add them to this post when I get to Mumbai then.

Countdown 2006 Part II

2007-06-03T01:27:00.002+05:30

14. Teri Deewani

Album: Kailasa

Artist: Kailasa

This song is the perfect mix of Sufi and Rock music. Kailash Kher's raw voice adds so much to 'Teri Deewani'. When I first heard the following lines my arms broke into goosebumps!

"Ishq junoon jab hadh se badh jaaye,

Hanste hanste aashiq suli chadh jaaye..."

It wasn't because of the lyrics, but because of how the music swells, and Kher's voice just envelopes you with raw, earthy appeal. It's a powerful song! :)

13. Koi Tumsa Nahi

Movie: Krrish

Music: Rajesh Roshan

Lyrics: Nasir Faraaz

Artists: Sonu Nigam & Shreya Ghoshal

I think that most of the songs from 'Krrish' are very, very average, save "Koi Tumsa Nahi" and "Main Hoon Woh Aasman". I actually did not think much of "Koi Tumsa Nahi" when I had first heard it. But then one day I was listening to the radio and the song came on the opening bars struck me hard, and I have been hooked on to this song ever since! Sonu Nigam, as usual, is wonderful, though I think that Shreya Ghoshal sounds too sickly sweet. But the song's great thanks too Rajesh Roshan's music.

12. Hai Ishq Yeh Kya

Movie: Bas Ek Pal

Music: Pritam
Artists: K. K. & Sunidhi Chauhan

This is a very high energy song! Both K. K. and Sunidhi Chauhan totally rock the song! I have not watched 'Bas Ek Pal', but have heard reviews from people who have, and the consensus is that the movie is quite bizarre! But the songs are quite good! I like "Tere Bin" and the title song too. But this one appeals to me the best!

11. Sohniye

Movie: Aksar

Music: Himesh Reshammiya

Lyrics: Sameer

Artists: K. K. & Sunidhi Chauhan

This song has very average lyrics, what sets it apart is the music and the talented K. K. with Sunidhi Chauhan for company. I have always maintained that Himesh Reshammiya is a better composer than a singer.This is a very passionate song and I like the slow and langourous manner in which it unfolds. The remixed version totally kills the song!

Countdown 2006

2007-05-27T03:19:00.002+05:30

I have been terribly irregular with blogging this year. And I could make a 1000 excuses, but the truth is, I've been bitten by the laziness bug! :(

So without any further ado, let me just start on this long overdue post! I'm gonna now list down my top 20 songs of 2006. Tan tana!! :D :D

20. Dil Lagaa Naa
Movie: Dhoom 2
Music: Pritam
Lyricist: Sameer
Artists: Sukhbir, Soham Chakrabarthy, Jolly Mukherjee, Mahalaxmi Iyer and Suzanne

I like this song for Sukhbir's powerful vocals. And the beat is really foot-tapping!

19. Mehfuz
Album: Mehfuz
Artist: Euphoria

Euphoria is one of my all time favorite bands! Mehfuz took a while to grow on me though, but grow it did! :) It has been sung with a lot of heart by Palash Sen. I like the picturization of the video too. It has the Euphoria trademark on it. :)

18. Kabul Fiza
Movie: Kabul Express
Music: Raghav Sachar
Lyricist: Aditya Dhar
Artist: Raghav Sachar

Last year Raghav Sachar was on my countdown with his song, "Baahon Mein Tu Aaja" from his dubut album. I liked "Kabul Fiza" the first time I heard it. I love the way Sachar has sung this song with a lot of energy.

17. Golmaal, Golmaal
Movie: Golmaal
Music: Vishal-Shekhar
Artist: Anushka Manchandani

This song is highly addictive! Each time I hear it I wanna break into a jig! :D Vishal-Shekhar has really got the best out of ex-Viva girl, Anushka. Another fun song from this movie is "Kyun Aage Peechhe Dolte Ho".

16. It's a Beautiful Day
Movie: Aryan
Music: Anand Raj Anand
Lyricist: Kumarr
Artists: Shreya Ghoshal & Hamza

I find this song very soothing. It sets the mood for a lazy afternoon. :)

15. Pal, Pal Har Pal
Movie: Lage Raho Munnabhai
Music: Shantanu Moitra
Lyricist: Swanand Kirkire
Artists: Sonu Nigam & Shreya Ghoshal

This song is reminiscent of Cliff Richard's "Theme for a Dream". Maybe Mr. Moitra wanted to pay homage to Sir Cliff! Hehe! Anyway, I do like this song a lot. I'd kept on hearing it on the radio and fell in love with this song. But I was really disappointed by the way it was picturized in the movie! I wish it had been shot more creatively. Oh well! At least it sounds good! And the lyrics are very apt for the situation.

I'm going to end the countdown here, as I'm feeling very, very sleepy. Hopefully I will pick it up next saturday! :D

Mahabaleshwar New Year III

2007-04-08T20:41:00.003+05:30

This is the last installment of my Mahabaleshwar Odyssey, which had taken place about 3 months ago! Talk about promptness!! I have not been blogging regularly this year, unfortunately. It’s all got to do with working, not having Internet connection at home, and of course, plain laziness on my part!! After this blog, my next few blogs are going to be about my favourite Hindi phillumi songs of 2006. And I’m gonna try to keep those blogs coming in regularly! :D

Ok, in my last post, I’d spoken about Day 2 in Mahabaleshwar. Now I’m going to talk about Day 3, i.e. 31st December, New Year’s Eve. On this day we went to a lot of ‘points’ around Mahabaleshwar. The first one that we went to was Echo Point.

We saw some really beautiful views of the lake and the green, rolling hills.

P and J had a rollicking time screaming out our names and various other names making all of us collapse with laughter. We were acting like a bunch of teenagers! Heehee!

A five-minute walk away from Echo Point was Elephant Head, a bolder in the shape of, what else, an elephant’s head! :D It was quite an interesting sight!

Next we visited a Strawberry farm, where an enthusiastic kid explained the finer points of strawberry farming to us.

We had some delicious strawberry and cream there. We had had strawberry and cream every single day there. It was quite addictive!
We then made our way to Lodwick’s Point. An avenue of over hanging trees covered the road leading to it. I thought that it looked beautiful, something out of a Gothic romance novel! :) I’m just sad that I did not take a picture of this tree-lined avenue. I’m sure it is one of the scariest looking places at night!
Anyway, we arrived at what we thought was Lodwick’s point, but our surly driver informed us that we had to walk a small distance to actually get to this point. So we started walking, and were in good spirits, and I was quite happy to see that a tree-lined avenue also covered this path.

But soon, our happiness turned into misery, when even after walking for about 20 minutes, uphill, Lodwick’s point was nowhere in sight. Says a lot about our level of physical fitness! But anyway, we huffed and puffed our way up, and by the time we reached there, I had some very colorful terms for it!
We decided that making us walk so much was some sort of revenge on the part of our driver, who didn’t seem to like us much, and was always in a hurry to get rid of us! Talk about conspiracy theories! Heehee!
At Lodwick’s point we found this ledge sticking out into the valley below, and took turns climbing up and posing for the camera.
With Lodwick’s point, our Mahabaleshwar darshan came to an end. We then had our lunch and retired to our rooms, anticipating a fun night ahead!
Oh yeah! We got hold of this taxi driver in the market who promised to pick us up at our guesthouse, and to drop us back too. So we were quite pleased with ourselves!
At around 5.00 PM, the lights went out. So N and I just lay on the bed and chatted about this and that. When the lights didn’t come on till 7.00 PM, I began to worry a bit, as the driver said that he would pick us up by 8.30, and it does take me a while to get dressed! Turns out that it takes N quite a while to get dressed too! :D Well, the lights came on at 7.30 or so and N and I tried to get dressed as fast as we could manage!
Our taxi came to pick us up by 9.00 I think. We were all quite excited and raring to go and party! When we reached Hotel Fredrick we confirmed with the driver that he would come to pick us up when we called him (we had his cell phone number with us). To our horror he stated that he would come only if he woke up, as he planned on going to bed by 11.00 PM or so. We were a bit mad at him, but decided to go and enjoy anyway.
So we made our way down to the lawn where the party was being held. We sat around for a while, listening to the music.

We then left our handbags with a family sitting around a fire and went off to the dance floor to boogie! We sure did have a blast dancing to songs ranging from “Dil Mein Baji Guitar” to “Hips Don’t Lie”. At about 11.00-11.30 we began to feel hungry, and went in search of the snacks, which we had been promised would be inclusive of the tickets that we had bought. Well, guess what? All the snacks were over! All that was available was ice-cold cashew nuts and cold drinks. So we bought a plate of cashew nuts and bottles of Mirinda and sat down to eat our ‘dinner’. At quarter to 12 we once again made our way to the dance floor and swayed somewhat to the music, our spirits slightly dampened. At mid night we saw a wonderful display of rockets and hugged each other and screamed “Happy New Year!!” at each other! We danced a bit more energetically now, getting into the whole “New Year” mode again.
But after a while we decided to call the taxi driver, but he did not pick up his cell phone. We wondered what to do, and made our way to the gates of the hotel. Ms. Matron had told us earlier that there would be taxis waiting outside the gate, but we saw none. We did see a middle-aged couple leaving the party at that moment. We ran behind them, P shouting, “Uncle! Aunty!” When they turned around we asked them if we could walk back with them to their hotel. They agreed and we heaved a sign of relief! On our way we came across a lot of guys zooming around in cars and on bikes. One guy drove his bike quite close to where P and I were walking, and his buddy who was riding pillion made a grab at P, but as I was walking right behind her, I pulled her away. Some men can be just so disgusting at times! But that’s a rant for another blog…
Anyway, we reached Hotel Rajesh where the middle-aged couple was staying (J hobbling the whole way because her shoe strap had broken!), which was about 15 minutes away from our guesthouse. We were wondering how to get back and decided to stay back at Hotel Rajesh, when the man, Shaukat, offered to give us a lift to the guesthouse. We will be eternally grateful to him and his wife for driving us to the guesthouse! They were quite a delightful couple, pulling each other’s leg all the while! :)
So when we got back to the guesthouse, we decided to go to bed at once, because we were to leave the next afternoon. But we were all still quite hungry. So we got out some snacks that we had, and drank the last of the vodka and Sprite. Later on when we recalled our adventures to our friends back in Mumbai, N insisted on telling everybody what exactly we ate for dinner in painstaking detail! LOL!!
We stayed up till about 4.00 AM, just talking and laughing the whole time! I don’t even remember what we had chatted about that had made us laugh so uproariously!
The next day we got up a bit late, had our lunch and caught the bus back to Mumbai. The bus driver was some kind of an idiot! There was a traffic jam on the way, so he drove on the wrong side of the road to cut ahead. And he kept on driving on the wrong side for a few kilometers! P and I saw some openings, where the bus driver could have cut back on to the right side, but he kept on driving on the wrong side! He had to stop at last when he came across a tunnel! He then reversed all the way back till he found an opening to get on to the other side! P and I wanted to get off our seats and give him a piece of our minds!
Because of all his shenanigans (plus all the traffic jams that we encountered) we reached Mumbai late. We were all a bit sad that our adventure had come to an end. This has been the best New Year’s ever! For the first time in my life I wasn’t sitting at home with my parents, watching insipid shows on TV. And for making this the best New Year’s ever, I would like to thank my buddies, J, N and P! We sure did have a fantabulous time! :D

Mahabaleshwar New Year II

2007-02-26T18:46:00.003+05:30

I’m updating my blog after eons! I still do not have Internet connection at home. I’m typing this out at home, then will copy it to a pen drive, and upload from an Internet café. What all one has to do to keep on blogging!!! LOL!!

Anyway, I will continue with my Mahabaleshwar Odyssey now. :))
I’d stopped the last time at the end of our first day in Mahabaleshwar. The next day we went to Panchgani.
Before I go on, I have to mention that all of the conversations that we would have, would always inevitably, come around to the point that we had nothing to do on New Year’s Eve, as the guesthouse where we were staying had nothing planned at all. We thought that we should check out any of the other hotels in Mahabaleshwar, which had some event planned. Everybody liked the idea, but then we wondered how exactly we would come back, as the guesthouse was a 15 minutes walk from the market place and a great deal more from the other hotels that we had seen.
On our way around Mahabaleshwar we had come across Hotel Frederick, which had a banner displayed up front announcing that it was hosting ‘The Wildest New Year’s Eve Party’. So on our way to Panchgani we stopped there and decided to enquire about the ‘Wildest New Year’s Eve Party’. We were met at the reception by a very matronly looking woman, who made us all feel as though we were back in school and had broken some sacred rule, and were to now receive our punishment! Ms. Matron told us that the party was only for couples, then looking at our despondent faces, asked us if we were only a group of girls, when we said ‘yes’, she decided to grant us the tickets to the party. We were quite excited and decided to purchase the tickets there and then.
We went back to our car and after the initial jubilation died down, began to wonder once again about how we would go back to the guesthouse after the party. We thought that we could ask the driver who was ferrying us around Mahabaleshwar, or maybe ask the guesthouse caretaker to suggest some alternative. So having to a conclusion we then had a delicious breakfast of corn cutlets and corn pakodas. They were terribly yummy and just melted in our mouths!
En route to Panchgani we stopped at ‘Parsi Point’, which offered a view of the green hills and lake.

We then reached the Panchgani ‘Tableland’ and were at once beset by a tangawalla and a ghodawalla. After working out which would be the cheaper option, we decided to go with the tangawalla. P sat upfront with the tangawalla, while N, J and I sat behind in the buggy. As soon as the horse took a few steps forward he reared up! All of us screamed, or maybe it was only I who had screamed! Hehe! But that was one scary experience! And throughout the ride the horse kept on acting funny, he would run just a bit too fast and I was really scared that he would keep on running over the edge and take us along with him! All of us were holding on to the buggy rails as tightly as possible!
We saw some 6-7 ‘points’ on the Tableland.

One of them being the footprints of the Paanch Pandavas. Apparently they had visited Tableland while they were on their Vanvaas.
The roller coaster buggy ride came to end at last and the tangawalla told us that if we wanted we could go down and check out a cave close by where we had stopped. I was quite gung ho about visiting a cave, and dragged the others along too. It was quite a steep climb down to the cave. There was a little restaurant being run in the cave, which offered modest fair like tea, coffee, samosas etc

. The cave was quite cool, literally and figuratively!

There were quite a lot of monkeys running around too.

After we finished our Tableland tour, we visited two Mapro factories. Mapro manufactures jams, squashes and some other stuff. I bought a bottle of mixed fruit jam for my grandma and a bottle of green apple squash for my brother and myself.
We then went back to Mahabaleshwar, had our lunch in the market place and went back to the guesthouse.
We lazed around in our rooms and this time decided to start out earlier for the market place than we had done the last time, when we had had to walk in the dark and pretty much freaked out!
N decided that she wanted to buy a skirt to wear to the party as all the rest of us were wearing skirts. She bought this gorgeous white skirt with sequins. We then fell upon this tiny shop that sold some very interesting jewelry. A lot of brightly colored stones were used. I bought myself two pairs of stone earrings, which I simply LOVE! :D I also bought two interesting looking necklaces. Then we went to this shoe store, and N bought a couple of pairs of shoes for herself. We even bought nail polish for the ‘Big night’! You can say that we really went all out! Hehe!
After we had shopped to our heart’s content, we stopped at a bakery for dinner. It was terribly crowded, and as there were only two tables to sit at, we decided to pack some burgers and pizzas and eat them at the guesthouse itself. So while I was standing in line for the food coupons, guess who walked in? Shaimak Davar and a bunch of his friends! So we gawked a bit, but as discreetly as possible! Most of them looked as though they danced in his troupe. One of the guys from the group was standing at the food counter and he just could not stand still, he kept on moving to the music that was blaring in the bakery. And the music that was being played was stuff by the Backstreet Boys, and Enrique Iglesias, and Ricky Martin – all the hits from my school days! :)
Anyway, our order took ages to come, and as soon as it did, we made our way to the taxi stand and rode back to the guesthouse . After dinner we decided to turn in a bit earlier than we had the previous night. So after playing one or two rounds of UNO, N and I went back to our room and fell asleep at once. And that’s where Day 2 in Mahabaleshwar comes to an end!

Interim

2007-01-22T11:26:00.002+05:30

A few people were wondering if I had abandoned my Mahabaleshwar travelogue midway. Well the thing is I have a problem! My Internet hours at home are over! My brother had taken up this silly scheme, which was supposed to last for the entire month, but got over even before the middle of the month!! :((
And I cannot blog from office, so I will have to just wait till next month! This pushes out my plans to start on my Songs Countdown too, unfortunately.
I have hence decided that I will use the Internet hours more judiciously next month, or just maybe get a better scheme!
Tell then, KANK, as one of my wacky friends loves to say! LOL! :D

Mahabaleshwar New Year

2007-01-07T01:12:00.002+05:30

First of all, let me wish all of you in Blogosphere a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
I've been unable to post a blog or even visit all of my favourite blogs in quite a while now. And that's because I was completely swamped by work. But now a project has just gotten over, and I feel free! I won't be for long is my guess, but I'm gonna try and make the most of it! :D

This New Year's weekend I went to Mahabaleshwar with three of my friends, J, N, and P. This has got to be the best New Year's I've ever had! Till now all I'd ever done was sit in front of the TV with my parents and get bored out of my brains! And I felt that I just have to celebrate my first year of financial independance in style! :)
All of us at office were sitting and wondering what we could do on New Year's eve, when J stated that she wanted to get away from the Mumbai crowds. I jumped at the idea at once. Then we had to decide where exactly to go. A lot of places were thrown up like Matheran, Lonavla, but we finally decided to go to Mahabaleshwar. I had been to Mahabaleshwar when I was in school, and had fond memories of the place, memories that invovled eating fresh strawberry icecream and corn patties! :D So I was quite excited to go back there.
P booked rooms in a guest house for free (I was extremly pleased about that!!) and I booked the bus tickets to Mahabaleshwar.
28th December, D Day arrived and I was terribly excited! What I did not know was how adventurous this trip was going to be!
Anyway, our bus was supposed to leave at 10:30 at night, so we had all decided to meet at J's home, as she stayed closest to the pick up point, which was in Chembur (an area in Mumbai). So all of us reached Chembur by about 10:00 PM. We waited for our bus, and waited, and waited, and waited some more. It was about 10:45 and there was still no sign of our bus. We went to the bus counter repeatedly and asked them when the bus would show up. The guy there kept on saying that it was late.
It was about 12:00 AM now, and the bus had still not come. Most of the shops had closed down, and everybody else around us had boarded their respective buses and gone. And there we were, four girls, sitting on our bags on the pavement in the middle of the night! J and P then went up to the guy and demanded to know what was going on. Even he was left scratching his head, and stated that the bus was never so late. He then called up the Dadar office, from where this bus was supposed to have started, and also called up the bus driver. The bus driver said that they had completely bypassed Chembur and were on their way to Vashi, a distant suburb in Mumbai. And he told us to go to Vashi to catch the bus! We were like, "What the @#%$?! is going on??!" We would now have to catch a taxi to get to Vashi. The man at the counter assured us that we would be refunded the taxi money.
Just a while ago J had mentioned that she had never been to Vashi, and wanted to visit it sometime, well she got her wish alright! LOL!!
We then caught a taxi, whose driver first said that he had no idea where exactly the place was in Vashi where the bus would be stopping. We looked at each other and just hoped that we would be able to find the place. We were in a hurry, but the cabbie decided that he just had to fill up his tank at that very moment. Don't know what he was doing before, when he was parked on the road side!
Anyway he filled up while we fumed and told him to hurry up. And after the tank was filled, suddenly a light dawned in his mind, and he said that he knew exactly where the bus would stop!
We reached Vashi at about 12:45, and got down near some bus stops. There were hardly any people around, and we could see a lot of creepy men standing around. So after P fought with the the guys at the bus counter to get re-embursed for the taxi fare, all of us stood near the bus stops. We must have waited for about 10-15 minutes and boarded our bus at about 1:10-1:15 AM! All I wanted was to sleep. But I knew from previous experience that I could never really sleep in a bus, and would be semi-conscious at the best.
"Apna Sapna Money Money" was being played in the bus, and save a few scenes that were chuckle worthy, most of the movie was quite yucky! But I must say that Ritesh Deshmukh does make a pretty girl! LOL!
Anyway, I tried to go to sleep, but these two women sitting behind would not shut up! They kept on chatting with some man behind them till 3:00-4:00 AM, and I was really ticked off!
We reached Mahabaleshwar at 6 in the morning. It was pitch dark outside and really, really cold! A taxi guy saw us and hurriedly put our bags in his car and took us to the guest house. He dropped us off at the gates of the guest house, which was on this desolate stretch of road. The entire place looked like a scene out of a spooky movie. On one side of the road there was this forest, and on the other we could barely make out the outline of a big forbiding looking bunglow beyond the gates. I just wanted to get inside and escape from the darkness and freezing cold.
P tried calling the caretaker of the guest house and after a few mistrials caught him at last. J then tried pushing the gates, and we realized that it hadn't been locked at all!
We were then met by an old woman who was bathed in the yellow glow of light emanating from the room behind her. How Hitchcockian could it get? :))
We were then taken to a room, where N and I collapsed on the beds. So J and P decided to take the other room that was booked for us. We slept till about 8 o'clock and got up to freshen up.
The tourist guide attached to the guest house then came calling, and we fixed up the schedule for the next 3 days.
We decided to visit Pratapgad Fort first.
We hired a guide there, Umesh, who claimed to be a descendent of a soldier from Shivaji's army. He sure was passionate about the fort and its history. He explained every aspect of it in detail. He was much better than any boring history book that I had read. The fort was quite fascinating, and we climbed up and down some 400 odd steps. Our friend, N, is rather short, so she had some trouble climbing up really high steps, but she sure did conquer them all! :))

Pratapgad fort is made up of rock, lime (chuna), milk and jaggery, and most of the structure is still standing tall!

The views from the the fort were quite amazing, rolling green hills everywhere!

There was this really interesting tunnel there. According to Umesh, if enemies ever entered Pratapgad, the army would escape through this tunnel, and sneak up and attack the enemy from behind.There was a short staircase that lead down to the tunnel after which there was a steep drop down the hill.

These people sure did lead an exciting life!

The last point that we visited there was the Punishment Point, from where criminals were thrown off into the valley below, wrapped in gunny sacks. I contemplated throwing some people off of there too! Hehe!
Opposite Punishment Point is a staue of Shivaji that was installed by the government..

After climbing up Pratapgad, we returned to Mahabaleshwar and had our lunch in the market. The guest house that we were staying in did not serve any food, so we had to have all of our meals in the Mahabaleshwar market. We ate at this place called Tinkler's (God knows why!) at least 3 times, and each time they insisted on playing songs from "Vivaah" and "Jaan-e-man"! So we heard "Mujhe Haq Hai" while eating breakfast and also during dinner! :D
When we got back to the guest house all of us were so sleepy that we decided to have a quick nap and then walk out to the market again for dinner. The quick nap stretched into 3-4 hours and I awoke at about 7:00 in the evening. We then decided to go to the market, which was a 15 minutes walk from our guest house. It was awfully dark outside with not a single street light in sight. As I'd mentioned earlier, the stretch of road on which the guest house lay is quite desolate, and in the darkness it just appeared more foreboding. Somehow we did make it to the market place.
After dinner on our way back (we decided to go back in a taxi) N suggested that we should get ourselves a small bottle of vodka to help us (ahem!) keep warm! ;)
So that night we played a few rounds of UNO and had vodka heavily diluted with Sprite and Limca. And contrary to popular belief, I did not get drunk!!! :p
We had a lot of fun gossiping about people we knew, and also people whom we didn't know that well! I've not laughed so much in a really long while! :)
Thus our first day in Mahabaleshwar came to a delightful end! And I will continue our further exploits in my next blog.

Song in My Head

2006-12-02T18:56:00.003+05:30

I always have a song playing in my head. No matter what I'm doing; whether I'm working, or reading a book, or eating, or travelling to and from office, or talking to someone, or just lying in bed waiting to fall alseep or to wake up as the case might be! I always wake up with a song playing in my head. Right now, while typing, "Aaj ki Raat" from "Don" is playing in my head.

While growing up I always thought that everybody has a song playing in their head like I do, that everybody is programmed like that! But I have recently (pretty late, I must admit!!) found out that that is just not the case! I have met quite a few people who have debunked this theory of mine! Some people seem to have these long conversations going on inside their heads at all times, while others have nothing going on.

It is quite an entertaining thing to have a song playing in my head at all times, especially now that the radio on my cell isn't working!! :(( I don't have to try too hard on trying to bring a song into my head, one (or sometimes two-three) is always playing in my head. It also comes in handy when I'm stuck in boring company! ;) Of course, it can spell trouble when I zone out while a meeting is going on!! LOL!!

I guess I have a song playing in my head at all times because of my passion for music. I cannot imagine living without music! In fact my favourite quote is by Friedrich Nietzche, "Without music, life would be a mistake". I strongly believe that. Well that's about me and the goings on in my head. What usually goes on in your head?? I'd sure like to know that! :)

On an aside, I watched "Dhoom 2" last week, and was thoroughly entertained! It was a totally masala movie, and you just have to sit back and enjoy the proceedings and not question some instances that just don't add up! Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai have completely stolen show. I'm not a fan of Hrithik at all, but man! did he look hot or what?!! Both my friend J and I drooled over him throughout the movie! LOL!! Another friend of mine put it quite aptly when she said that he looks like a Greek God in "Dhoom 2".
Aishwarya has once again gotten bad reviews, but I thought she carried off her role with much aplomb! I did not expect Aishwarya and Hrithik to share such an amazing chemistry!
Uday Chopra was also kinda cute!! He was really funny with his "Mummy" refrains!
I thought that both Abhishek Bachchan and Bipasha Basu were wasted in the movie and deserved a meatier role.
And apart from all of these good looking actors, what I loved were the stunts carried out with flair and style by Hrithik. Those were quite mind blowing!
In fact I found them so mind blowing that I'm gonna watch the movie again ! :D

Weirdos of the World Rejoice! You are not Alone!

2006-11-05T03:00:00.002+05:30

It was my Happy Birthday 2 days ago (LOL!!), and I had wanted to post this on that day. But I was so crazy busy that I just didn't get the time! So, as a tribute to my (ahem!) inherent weirdness I will get down to doing this tag. I had been tagged by S0ul. The rules of the tag are that I have to note down 8 of the weirdest things about myself. I'd actually asked my pal A, to come up with a few, and lived to regret it! Her list was really long! And when I whined that "I didn't do that anymore", she refused to believe me and smirked, "Weirdos don't change spots, hon!"

Ok, so here goes:

I like making lists. I make lists about almost anything that catches my fancy, from the number of movies and books I've read in a month to what clothes I wear everyday of the week!! And (there's more!) the movie list is further categorized in terms of the month that I'd watched the movie in, the date, director, actors, , and I'd give it my own rating!! :D And before people think I'm really loony, I make a list of all the clothes I wear because I have a really, really bad memory, and can't remember when I wore something last week! Gotta keep rotating the clothes na? Hehe!
I don't like to see loose threads hanging off my clothes. I just have to cut them off at once! A few years back I couldn't bear to see loose threads hanging off the clothes of other people too, and would be terribly tempted to cut them off too. And I have... err... even succumbed to this temptation innumerable times, much to the horror, bemusement, shock of the other person!! I'm glad to report that I can control these impulses now!! :D
I don't know if this counts as a weird point, but I have this major foot-in-the-mouth disease. I'm the Queen of saying the most inappropriate things at the most inopportune times! There was this one time that I was going on and on about how terrible this scooter looked and I wondered aloud who'd ever buy one, when one of the people around who was shooting icy looks at me all through, thundered that her brother had just bought the very same scooter and that he was very happy with it!! This bit of information had obviously slipped my mind!
I like weird food combinations! I looooooooove pineapple with chocolate sauce! My Mom thinks that that has to be the weirdest combination ever. She was shocked when I had first tried it out and declared that it was one of the most amazing things I had ever tasted! When I was 8-9 years old I would grate cheese and add heaped spoons of sugar to it, mash the entire concoction together very enthusiastically and then eat it all up with much relish! An aunt recalls this incident very vividly: She had come across me doing this one time and had asked in horror, "But who eats something like this?!" And I had apparently proudly answered that I do! LOL!! I can dunk roasted papad into almost anything, ranging from soup to cola!
I get spaced out very often. A bunch of us would be sitting and talking about something, and suddenly I realize that I hadn't been listening to a thing that had been said for the last 10-15 minutes! I'm made the butt of jokes for this reason soooooooo many times! I've even been spaced out while driving my Scooty loads of time! Then suddenly I come out of my reverie when one of those I-don't-know-what-an-indicator-is auto drivers swerve in front of me out of nowhere! But I'm told that lots of people day dream while driving, so this is probably not my weirdest point!
Hmmm... what next? I can't think of anything else. Maybe I'm not as weird as most people believe me to be! :)) I wonder if this counts as being weird... I wash my brush and comb each time I wash my hair (that's like every alternate day). And not only that, I even clean the dressing table thoroughly before placing my clean brush and comb on it. I think that it's just good sense, but some people have told me that I tend to go a bit overboard! Some of my friends call me Monica (from FRIENDS) for this reason! :D
I have this routine before falling asleep. First I lie down on my back, then after sometime on my left side and then lastly on my right side. And then.... I fall asleep at last!
Lastly, according to my good pal A, I'm weird because I liked "Dil Ne Jise Apna Kahaa"!! She thought that it was a really stupid movie, and was quite stunned that I actually liked it! But I did! It was quite sappy, but I did! I think I would be truly weird if I had liked the monstrous atrocity, "Jaan-e-mann". That has to be the worst movie of this year!!

So there they are! All of my weird personality characteristics!
I think that all of us are innately wierd in some way or the other, and should just celebrate it! :D :D

Songs Tag

2006-10-15T20:37:00.002+05:30

I have been tagged by Manish. It is a very interesting tag, and one for which I had to think a LOT! I hope I'm able to do justice to it! :)

1. Your favourite lyricist and the lyrics you remember the most.

Hmmm... I would pick Javed Akhtar. And the lyrics are of the title song of "Kal Ho Naa Ho":

Har ghadi badal rahi hai roop zindagi
Chhaaoon hai kabhi
Kabhi hai dhoop zindagi
Har pal yahan jee bhar jeeyo
Jo hai samaa kal ho naa ho...

2. Your favourite song on friendship.

It would have to be "Mustafa, Mustafa" from "Prema Desam" ("Duniya Dilwalo Ki" in Hindi).

I remember I was in the 9th standard when this movie had been released in Hyderabad, and all of us friends had gone to watch it. It had become a huge hit thanks to the awesome music provided by A. R. Rahman. Each and every song is good, right form "College Style" to "Prema"! And "Mustafa, Mustafa" had become THE anthem for anything to do with friendship! :)

3. Which song are you humming today?

I was humming "Everybody's Changing" by Keane. I'd heard it back when Radio One was Go 92.5 FM and played English pop (I wish they would go back to the old format!). This song has a lovely melody.

So little time
Try to understand that I'm
Trying to make a move to stay in the game
I try to stay awake and remember my name
But everybody's changing
And I don't feel the same...

4. One song, which brings tears to your eyes.

"Le Chale Le Chale" from "My Brother Nikhil".

Chandani muskuraye jab hawa kuch kahe
Jo ghana ho fiza mein andhera
Layenge hum savere tere liye
Le chale le chale yeh yaadon ke kaafile
Jayenge hum jahan
Yeh zameen aasman mile...

I'd also like to add the title song of "Kal Ho Naa Ho", especially the second antara (verse):

Palko ke leke saaye
Paas koi jo aaye
Laakh sambhalo pagal dil ko
Dil dhadke hi jaaye
Par soch lo is pal hai jo
Woh daastan kal ho naa ho...

The image of Aman (SRK) imagining himself to be in the shoes of Rohit (Saif Ali Khan) is just heart breaking!

5. A song that gives you hope, a reason to try again and again, a reason to say that life is beautiful :)

This is a tough one! Maybe "Roobaroo" from "Rang De Basanti".

Aye saala!
Abhi abhi hua yakin
Ki aag hai mujh mein kahin
Hui subah main chal gaya
Suraj ko main nigal gaya
Roobaroo... roshni... Hey!

6. When you want to be by yourself, silent and content but with music, which song would that be?

"When you say nothing" by Ronan Keating

It's amazing how you can
Speak right to my heart
Without saying a word
You can light up the dark
Try as I may I can never explain
What it is you say
When you don't say a thing

The smile on your face
Lets me know that you need me
There's a truth in your eyes
Saying you'll never leave me
The touch of your hand says
You'll catch me wherever I fall
You say it best
When you say nothing at all...

7. If you have to express your love for someone with a song, which would that be?

I'm going to cheat here, and include three songs instead of one! :)

"Ab Naa Jaa" by Euphoria

Aankein band kar lu jo mein
Dekhoon bas tujhe
Khwabon mein hi keh sakta hoon
Apna Tujhe
Rehene do mera yeh vehem
Hai yakin naa jaaoge
Pyar ki yeh raat hai, ab naa jaa
Chhotisi ek baat hai, ab naa jaa...

"Runaway" by The Corrs

Say it's true,
There's nothing like me and you
I'm not alone,
Tell me you feel it too
And I will runaway, yeah, yeah
I will runaway
I will runaway with you
'Cause I'm falling in love with you
No, I'm never gonna stop
Falling in love with you...

"Can't Help Falling in Love" by Elvis Presley

Wise men say only fools rush in
But I can't help falling in love with you
Shall I stay
Would it be a sin
If I can't help falling in love with you...

8. Five songs you listen to the most.

Only five??? There are a countless number of songs that I don't get tired of listening to!
Hmmm... from the top of my head here they are, in no particular order:

Mann Ki Lagan (Paap)
Dheere Jalna (Paheli)
Gazab Ka Hai Din (Qayamay Se Qayamat Tak)
The Unplugged Album by The Corrs
Yeh Raat Bheegi Bheegi (Chori Chori)

Now it's my turn to tag some unsuspecting blogger buddy!! :D
After giving this due thought, I've decided to tag Vir! Enjoy this tag!

Forgot!

2006-09-21T10:40:00.002+05:30

I was going to post this on the 14th of September, but completely forgot! :(( If you are wondering what was so special about the 14th of September, well, it was my Phoenix Tattoo's 2nd Birthday! I'd already posted a long tribute to it last year, so I won't repeat myself again.

I'm dying to make another addition to my "family" of tattoos, but I haven't come across a design that I would want on my skin for the rest of my life. So the search is still on for my third tattoo...! :D

Sky High V

2006-09-09T21:37:00.002+05:30

I have nothing interesting to write about, so I thought that I would continue my 'Sky High' series. All have been clicked using my Olympus digicam. They have been taken over the past few weeks from my first floor balcony. Each time I see the sky go pinkish-orange I just go crazy clicking snaps!

The last two aren't sky pics, but I just thought that the yellow flowers looked pretty.

Brand New Day

2006-08-27T00:53:00.002+05:30

A few people were wondering about why there was such a long gap between my previous two posts, Koval-ummm and Kanyakumari. Well, the thing is, I have gotten a job! The timings are from 9:30 AM to 6:00 PM. So all this while, my entire system has had to rearrange itself and get used to waking up at 6:00 AM in the morning, every single day! Thank God I get the weekends to myself. But all I do on weekends is to sleep, sleep, and then sleep some more! :D

And that is the reason why I could not blog as much as I wanted to. Now I’m somewhat used to this new routine.

During the last few weeks of my post-grad course I was quite worried about what I was gonna do once the final exams were over. I thought that I’d most probably be sitting at home twiddling my thumbs. So I decided to put up my resume online. And then one day I got a call from this company, asking me to come down for an interview. So I wrote my last exam on 16^th May and went for the interview on 17^th May, and got selected after a short test and an interview. To say that I was euphoric would be an understatement!! I just couldn’t wait to get home and tell my Mother!

As most people know, I have done Clinical Psychology. My current job profile is slightly different. The company where I work is all about Usability. We make websites and other electronic gadgets user-friendly. So at first I wasn’t sure what exactly I would be doing here.

I’ve completed exactly seven weeks at work now, six of which were spent in training. And they have been wonderful weeks! We are a bunch of 14 trainees. As a part of our introduction at the office, we were asked to put up a play. So we put up this silly play, which was about usability in a very filmy context! We were sure we’d be booed off the stage, but thankfully most of the people were laughing really hard! I played (very reluctantly, I might add!) the role of a law enforcement agent who was a cross between a Charlie’s Angel type and a bumbling havaldar! The best part of this experience was when my role ended! LOL!!

After the play was over, there was this big jam session, where our CEO played the guitar, and a bunch of other people began banging on drums, dholaks and other beatable instruments! I too got a chance to play a drum. The noise levels were really, really high, but it was just sooooooo much fun!!! And I must add that our CEO has to be the coolest of all! He’s terrific!

Last Thursday was our certification test, which all of us were quite tense and nervous about, as the passing grade was 70%. I hardly ever externalize my stress, but it eats me up from the inside, and I keep on picturing the worst-case scenarios over and over again! But, we passed! And now I’m even more ecstatic!

These past seven weeks have made me realize something. I was unhappy for the past two year. There! I’ve said it! I never thought I would be able to admit this to myself! Back then it was a sort of self-preservation thing, I suppose. If I’d admitted to myself that I was unhappy, then I would really have been unable to be even a tiny bit happy!

And a lot of the happiness in my life has got to do with my fellow trainees. At last I have found people who I can relate to, who share the same brand of humour as mine! The girls in my college were quite nice, funny even, but it was rather hard to connect with any of them, save one-two.

It’s a different story at work. I’m grinning like an idiot most of the time, so much so, that I catch myself grinning even while walking or sitting in the train on my way to work or going back home! I’m not even the angry lout that I’m most mornings! I’m not a morning person, you see, and am pissed off in general, whenever I have to wake up early!

One time last week, I was going back home by train, and I kept recalling this really funny incident in which this guy at work was imitating someone (and doing a brilliant job of it!). I found it really hard to stop myself from bursting out laughing. So I tried to just look out the window and smother the laughter by pressing my hand down on my mouth, but a few giggles escaped along with a lot of shoulder shrugs!!!

I thought to myself that I was glad that there weren’t too many people in the compartment at that moment. But then I happened to look at this girl sitting before me, who was looking at me with some alarm! She started giving me strange looks, and having decided that it wasn’t safe to sit anywhere close to me, picked up her bag and sat at the other end!! :))

I’m actually laughing out loud (and scaring my grandma in the process!) while recalling this incident!

I feel so blessed! Blessed to have landed this job, but most of all to meet such wonderful people!

Now I just hope that I will continue having fun even after I’m assigned to a project…

Koval-ummm!

2006-08-13T00:18:00.004+05:30

Here I’m after aaaaaaages! I’m going to complete this long overdue post now!

So, last time I’d left off at the point where we had started off from Kanyakumari for Kovalam. En route we stopped at Nagercoil to visit the Padmanabhapuram Palace. The following three pics were taken by D.

It appeared to be a very well maintained structure. We saw everything from the royal bedchambers to the royal WC!! :D

I liked the Festival Hall the best because it had beautifully sculptured pillars and statues.

We arrived at Kovalam at about 2:30-3:00 in the afternoon. We stayed at a resort on Lighthouse Beach. Here is a pic of the lighthouse that I'd taken from my hotel room.

The view from our room was quite fabulous; tall coconut trees swaying lazily in the wind, and we could just about make out the sea in the distance.

After lunch we decided to snooze for a while. In the evening we decided to go for a walk on the beach. We were really surprised to see that the sand was black in colour. We later found out that in November-December the sand changes back to a pale yellow colour. This is all got to do with the way the sea moves, tides etc. This is also the tourist season in Kovalam.

Anyway, as I’d probably mentioned earlier, I looooooove water!! So I was completely excited and wanted to wade in. But Ma as usual was like, “Don’t go in too deep! The waves will suck you in!” Well, this time she did have a point, as the sea was really rough. You could hear the waves crash against the beach really loudly.

We then walked along the promenade and looked into all the seaside cafés. We then decided that we would dine at these cafés every night.

Next day we decided to go to Trivandrum. We first went to the Veli Tourist Village. There were lots of bizarre sculptures at this place!

This place was apparently first used for movie shootings, and has now been opened up to the general public. The best part was the speedboat ride that we had. I’d never been in a speedboat before, and I’m so glad I did at last! It was sooooo much fun! We were just zooming all over the place! The guy who was driving it took quite a few sharp turns and I could actually hear Ma squealing behind me. I couldn’t make out if she was enjoying herself or was just scared out of her wits! LOL!

As for me, I was just grinning like an idiot throughout the ride, and this song called “Na To Raa” (which I think means “Come with me”, but am not too sure) from a Telugu movie called “Ninne Pelladata” kept on playing in my head. Nagarjuna and Tabu had starred in this movie. All the songs in it are damn good! It was even dubbed and released in Hindi, but I forgot what the title was in Hindi. It is the song in which Nagarjuna and Tabu are enjoying all sorts of adventure sports on water.

Anyway, I digress, so lets get back on track. After the Veli Village we went to see the Padmanabhaswamy temple.

We then went to visit the Napier Museum, but couldn’t as it was a Tuesday, I think, and all the public places are closed on Tuesdays. So we then went to this departmental store called Parthas, and did a bit of shopping there. We then had lunch and headed back to Kovalam, with Dad in a very bad mood, as he thought that the entire day had been wasted since all the “places to see” were closed. As is his wont, the tirade did not stop till we reached our hotel in Kovalam, and D and I escaped into our room!

At night we dined at the Malabar Café. I had a pizza after a really, really long time and was very, very satisfied! :D

D was also satisfied as he got to watch the FIFA on a TV mounted at the restaurant. A variety of fresh fish were displayed outside most of these cafés, and one could inspect and choose which fish one would like to eat.

The next day we went to the Neyyar Dam sans D, as he just wanted to have a day of R & R on the beach. The road to the dam was just awful, and even though I had taken a travel sickness pill, I felt quite sick! At last we arrived at the dam and I was glad to walk on stable ground again!

The dam was surrounded by a large garden. We turned a corner and all of a sudden came face-to-face with a man peering at us through a binocular lens! I got so startled! And after a few seconds I realized that the ‘man’ wasn’t moving at all, and that’s when it hit me that it was just a statue! There were freaky statues like this all over the place! There was a statue of a woman in a swimming suit even at the edge of a swimming pool! Photgraphy around the dam was not allowed.

There was a Crocodile Protection Center some 3-4 km away from the dam. The poor crocs were kept in tiny cages. Most were quite small. The biggest one is the one below:

We then found out that there was also a Lion Safari Park just a few km away from the Crocodile Protection Center and we signed up for that along with another family, who were also from Bombay. I’d never been on a lion safari before, so turns out this trip was one of firsts for many things!

There are 3 female lions, 1 male lion and 2 cubs in the reserve. We were told that there was a distinct possibility that we may not come across any of the lions. We could hear the roars of the animals from time to time though. We then turned into a clearing and came across two of the lionesses.

We were all so completely thrilled! We were just about 2-3 feet away from wild animals! I rushed to sit in the seat just beside the driver’s and kept on filming the two lionesses on the camcorder, even though all they did was sit around and regard us with an air of utmost boredom! Some distance below the clearing was a large cage in which the two cubs were kept. The lion was sitting just outside the cage. The two cubs were not really all that small, and were kept separate from the lion to avoid any territorial fights.

At one point the driver asked me if I wanted to see the two lionesses walk. I just shrugged my shoulders and wondered how he would manage that. All he did was nudge the van closer to them. The two got up grumpily, walked just a few inches away and plonked themselves back on to the ground!

Then the driver got out on to his side (the lionesses were on my side of the van) and tried to get the lion to come up where we were. He shouted a bit and threw a stick or pebble to distract the lion and make him come up. At this point I grew quite nervous as the lionesses could come around on to his side at any moment and swipe at him as if he were a rat! I just wanted him to get back into the van and shut the door tight!

After the excitement of the lion safari we headed back to Trivandrum and visited the Napier Museum at last!

There is also a zoo somewhere close to the museum, but I was not in a mood to visit a zoo, so we just went to the museum. It had some really interesting artifacts ranging from Southern India to Fiji! There were also some models of the famous seals and statuettes found at Harappa and Mohenjodaro.

We spent the next day at our hotel, and I got a massage. This one was much better than the one that I’d gotten in Thekkady two years ago. I felt completely relaxed afterwards and I think it even cured my hair loss problem!!

At night we went back to the Malabar Café on the Lighthouse Beach promenade. It was our favourite little café. It even had a hotel attached to it.

Out of all of the places that we had visited this time, Kovalam was my absolute fav! It gave me a very “Dil Chahata Hai” feel! And the whole time that I was there I kept on thinking of how fantastic it would be to come back to Kovalam with all of my gal pals and spend an entire week (or more) just lazing around on the beach, eating at the Malabar Café, and maybe getting a massage or two. That would be just heaven! :D

The next day we got in to the Netravati Express and came back to Bombay after spending nearly 24 hours in the train, as it was terribly late! So I just spent the time getting onto D’s nerves by talking utter nonsense all the time and asking him innumerable questions! Hehe! Well, he deserved it for annoying me for all of my 23 years!

We were greeted by a very wet Bombay and all that was left of our trip were fond memories and a deep tan!

Kanyakumari

2006-07-15T18:49:00.002+05:30

To recap from where I left off in the last post, we were walking toward our hotel in the fast approaching darkness, and my camera caught the static electricity bit, with Dad in the background looking very cross! :D

Next day we set out in an Ambassador car to our third destination, Kanyakumari. As usual I fell asleep almost as soon as the car started moving. This was a strange kind of phenomenon. Each time I stepped into a car on this trip, I would fall asleep almost immediately! I guess the anti-travel sickness pills that I was taking weren't helping matters any!

But I would wake up intermittently, and thank God I did, otherwise I would have missed some amazing scenery. We stopped for a while at the bridge that connects Rameshwaram to the mainland. The water here was of the most fascinating shades of blue and green!

The railway bridge is slightly below the one for motor vehicles. And Ma recalled that when we were on that bridge on our way to Rameshwaram, she felt as though if she just reached out of the window, she could touch the water! I unfortunately missed this sight because I was asleep on the upper berth.

It was a cloudy day when we set out for Kanyakumari. It even rained a little. Masses of grayish-white clouds were bunched up in the sky. Add to that the fields of coconut trees, green shrubs, and hills in the distance.

We even passed by fields of windmills. The sky at that moment took on a peculiar purple tinge. The views were absolutely breath taking!

We reached Kanyakumari sometime in the late afternoon. We could see the Swami Vivekananda Rock Memorial and the Thiruvallavar statue from our hotel balcony. On our first day it rained quite a bit, so plans to stroll down to the beach in the evening had to be cancelled.

We were in for a not very nice surprise when we went to the restaurant attached to our hotel for dinner. The food though sort of palatable was quite below par. No Nonsensical Dad flared up and fired all the poor waiters there about what terrible food we had been served. I felt bad for the poor guys, so I stated that there was no need to exaggerate. But next morning Ma found a big fat dead fly in her omlette! It was decided there and then that we would eat all our meals somewhere else.

Anyway, on our second day in Kanyakumari, we first visited the Suchindrum Temple, which is dedicated to Lord Shiva. I like the way South Indian temples are designed, with their beautifully sculpted gopurams, which are painted in vivid colours, although the gopuram of the Suchindrum temple wasn’t painted and was plain white.

We then went to the Kanyakumari railway station. It is the last station on the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent. Here again D was up to his usual tricks and directed me to record him walking down the tracks, while Ma sang “Musafir hoon yaaron”! :))

Then we visited the Swami Vivekananda Rock Memorial and the Thiravullavar statue. For this we had to go in little boats. The sea was very, very rough and the boat tossed around quite a lot. I really had to control a strong urge to lean over and throw up!!

But I reached the Rock Memorial without parting with my breakfast! LOL! All the tourists were first ushered into a room and told about the history of the Memorial and how it was built. Right opposite the Memorial is a structure that houses the impression of a single footprint, which is supposed to be Goddess Parvati’s. Apparently she left it there when she was meditating standing only on her right foot.

The Memorial building houses the statue of Swami Vivekananda. No photography was allowed within, but we could take pictures from the outside.

Outside the memorial a Sunrise Calendar has been inscribed on the ground, and beside that is a structure called Sun Time. I’m guessing it tells one how to calculate the time of sunrise or sunset, but of course I could be wrong.

Strong gusts of wind were blowing, and I just loved that! :)

I forgot to add that from Kanyakumari one can see the waters of three different water bodies. The blue waters of the Bay of Bengal, the white waters of the Indian ocean and the black waters of the Arabian sea. We could just about make out the distinctions, especially the blue waters of the Bay of Bengal, because it was a very cloudy day and the distinction is apparently much sharper when the sun shines brightly.

So after wandering about the Memorial for a while, we took another boat to go to the island on which the Thiruvallavar statue stood.

Thiruvallavar was a saint-philosopher-poet who lived in B.C. I forget which year exactly! There are 70 steps leading up to the statue. So Lazy Parents once more elected to sit put at the base and D and I made our way up.

While we felt strong gusts of wind blowing when we were at the Memorial, it felt like a mini cyclone was attacking us when we got to the top of the Thiravullavar statue! We were literally and physically being pushed around by the wind! Sometimes sprays of water also fell on us. It was sooooo much fun!

So after being pushed around by the wind for a while we made our way down.

Next, we made our way to the Wax Museum. It houses mostly Tamilian celebrities, like Jayalalitha, Rajnikanth, Mohanlal and others.

A statue of Rahul Dravid is going to be installed soon. There’s also a statue of Shree Anandamayi Maa, which looked so real that it was spooky! The statues of Jayalalitha and Manmohan Singh were quite accurate too. But Rajnikanth’s statue didn’t look too real. But as I’m a great (ahem!) “Fan” of Rajnikanth, and had promised some friends to pose beside him, I did, with the “Baba” hand gesture!! I was hoping that his statue would be dressed in some flashy clothes on the lines of bright yellow shirt, but was disappointed to see it wearing a plain ole kurta. Ah, well! :D

Anyway, after this we ate at some other hotel and went back to our hotel. And thus the second day in Kanyakumari came to an end.

There was a lighthouse right beside our hotel and the revolving lights at night looked very pretty. I have tried to capture it using night mode on the camera but it’s not come out all that clearly.

Next day after breakfast D returned to our hotel room while my parents and I visited the Kanya Temple after which we did a bit of shopping for our family back in Hyderabad. Of course, I also bought some stuff for myself.

In the evening we visited the Church of Our Lady of Ransom. It was a beautiful church! And it looked even more beautiful with the azure sky in the background.

After spending a few moments there we made our way to Sunset Point. This was beside the sea. But the sea was in the southern direction. So all my dreams of taking the pictures of the sun drowning in the sea were shattered! And also it was a very cloudy day so the sunset was not as fabulous as I had expected it to be. But as most people know, I’m a sucker for sunsets, fabulous or not, and this one was stunning nevertheless! I had clicked 14 snaps of the sunset, and here are some of the good ones.

While the sun was descending we made our way to the rocks at the shore. I shot off toward a nice rocky outcrop, which jutted into the sea, with Dad in hot pursuit!! :)) The waves were lashing against these rocks with such ferocity! In fact I have never seen such rough waters ever in my life before I came to Kanyakumari. Below, the first picture was taken without the assistance of night mode, while the second close up was.

Water bodies and sunsets are two of my most favourite things! So one can imagine how much I loved being there at Sunset Point! I just didn’t feel like leaving, but as usual, all good things must come to an end… but not for too long! :D

The next day we set off for Kovalam in Kerala. But looks like I’ll have to have a separate post for that as this one has gotten quite long too. But I promise the third one will be the last in this series. :)

Chennai to Rameshwaram

2006-07-07T20:48:00.002+05:30

After procrastinating for as long as I possibly could, I decided that I should update my blog at once! :D

So I’m back from my vacation in parts of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. It was gooood! We were most of the time beside a beach, and as I loooooooove water, I enjoyed myself immensely!

So first of all, from Hyderabad we went to Chennai. Suffice to say Chennai was as hot as hell! On the first day we went for a day trip to Pondicherry, which was even worse than Chennai, weather-wise that is. We went to the Auroville Visitor’s Centre first and ate cake and did a bit of shopping. How’s that for spiritual?!

My parents refused to walk the 10-15 minutes that it probably takes to go to the still under-construction meditation center. I’d heard, and seen pictures too, of the uniquely shaped dome, and wanted to see it, but well, Lazy Parents prevented me from doing so. According to Lazy Dad, “We won’t be allowed inside anyway, so what’s the use?!” Well, we could have seen it from the outside!!!

Anyway, we then saw Aurobindo Ashram. It was a quiet place maybe because there were notices all over the place urging everyone to be silent! Unfortunately I’m not the most spiritual person in the world, so I really can’t say how the Ashram affected me or didn’t affect me or… whatever!

The hotel that we had lunch in was bang opposite the sea-face promenade. So we posed for pics after having a hearty meal! The colour of the sea was a wonderful blue. My friend Annie could tell us all the exact shade of blue shown in this pic!! Hehe!

So that was Day 1. On Day 2 we went to the V. G. P. Universal Kingdom Park. When we entered a ‘Human Statue’ greeted us. It was a man who looked like he acted as the villain’s third henchman in masala South Indian movies in his spare time! I could just imagine him laughing that fake laugh that villainous henchmen laugh when the hero’s mother, sister, wife/girl friend, third cousin etc. have been kidnapped and are crying for mercy! LOL!

The guy did stand perfectly still, and there were a gaggle of kids and adults cracking jokes and flapping their hands, hell bent on making him move, and in the process making fools of themselves!

But my brother, D, and I noticed that though his body was still, his eyes roved constantly! And so D directed me to take a close up of his roving eyes on the camcorder, and we acted like this was the proof needed in some serious criminal case! :D

After the ‘Human Statue’, we came across a roller coaster. I was very, very, very excited, as I’m crazy about roller coasters. I want to sit in each and every roller coaster ever built on this planet! So D and I clambered in and when the car dipped for the first time I let out a scream and clutched on to D and didn’t let go or stop screaming until the car halted at the end! I loooooooved it!!! And if anyone is wondering, the screaming is not under my control; I can’t help but scream, even when I try not to, my mouth just cannot remain close!

After the ride we learnt that digital cameras are placed at strategic places all over the roller coaster. These pictures were then displayed to us on a computer screen, and in most of them my mouth is wide-open! I look like a cartoon! And in one of the pics I look like I’m digging my nose!!! I really wasn’t though!

We then went to the V. G. P. beach, and nearly burned our soles off on the hot, hot sand! The water here didn’t look all that great.

After V. G. P. we made our way to Mahabalipuram/Mammallapuram. There we saw the Five Rathas and the Shore Temple. We also some caves and a lighthouse. As I had mentioned in my last blog, I’m very interested in ruins and old monuments. I would have liked to spend more time looking at both these monuments, but as usual, my parents are always in a hurry to get from one place to another, so I had to satisfy myself with taking a few quick pics, which are displayed below. The lighthouse pic was taken by D.

After gazing at the temples we returned back to Chennai. Next day we had to catch the train for Rameshwaram from a place called Tambaram, which is about 2-3 hours away from Chennai. So our parents had given us strict instructions to wake up as early as possible, and we were to be on our way by 10 AM. But of course, we weren’t! As it was a Monday we were caught in massive traffic jams and Dad grumbled all the way to Tambaram, “Why couldn’t you people (that is, D and myself) be on time? We are going to miss the train now! When I tell you to be dressed on time, you be dressed on time! Now we’ll have to waste a day in Tambaram, blah, blah…!” It’s really hard to get him to stop once he starts!

As is her wont, my mother grew a tad hysterical when the driver said that it would take us another hour to get there, and our train was supposed to leave in exactly an hour. Now it was Ma’s turn, “One hour?! Humari train ek ghante mein chaley jayegi (Our train will leave in one hour’s time)!!!” she screeched at the driver. The driver then took it on himself to get us there on time and drove in the most incredible manner! I was sure that forget Tambaram, I would straight away reach heaven itself! Ma screeched once more, “Itna fast mut chalaao (Don’t drive so fast!)!!” Aah! Fun times! :D

Of course now I can laugh about it, but at that moment all I wanted to do was to stuff something down both my parents’ throats! I do love them so dearly!

Anyhow, we reached Tambaram station with half an hour to spare thanks to our dare devil of a driver! So we did not miss the train and both my parents cooled down a bit.

We reached Rameshwaram next morning at about 7 AM. All I wanted to do was crash as soon as we got to our hotel. But my parents insisted that we eat breakfast first and then we can all sleep for a while.

After we finished breakfast, our steward told us that we should go boating right there right now as the hotel’s boat guy was free. I wanted to protest, but the boat guy said that it would be only for an hour and that the water comes up to only the waist. I didn’t understand what that had to do with anything and so we all trooped down to the beach.

The water was a beautiful bluish-green! Small, narrow boats were bobbing up and down on the waves. Ma wondered if we too would be riding in these boats and had her fear confirmed! Ma has a morbid fear of boats capsizing with her in them!

We saw some dead starfish on the beach. And D got totally excited. He somehow likes looking at dead things like frogs and such others!

Anyway, we scrambled into the boat and pushed off seawards.

The boatman (BM), who by the way, had the most brilliant white smile, stopped the boat a few km from the shore and got down into the water and fished out a dead crab. So there we were sitting, expecting him to fish out more stuff out of the sea, hopefully not dead! But he produced some snorkeling goggles and asked us to step down from the boat. That was when the “the water comes up to only the waist” comment began to make sense to me. My parents were horrified at the idea of getting off the boat into the water, but D and I couldn't be stopped! We got down and stood on the ocean bottom! The water did come up to only my waist. All we wore were the goggles, no wet-suit nothing! I was dressed in a kurti and pants! :))

Then BM taught us how to fix the goggles and attached the breathing pipe. At first I could keep my face down in the water for only a few seconds as I thought that I would be able to breathe naturally from the pipe. But as I found out, this is not how it works. I had to keep on breathing in and out consciously. After I got the hang of it I stayed submerged for long minutes. We saw all kinds of fish and even live starfish! I even held one in my hand, while D held a live squirming crab. We also saw some sea urchins.

After a while we got back into the boat and BM took us to where the corals were. This time we were told to keep our slippers (hawai chappals) on. This part of the sea bottom was terribly slippery. The water was much higher and the waves stronger. The three of us held on to each other’s hands tightly all the time. BM would sometimes swim ahead and then indicate with his hands to follow him. We saw heaps of corals. Most were pinkish-orange in colour. They were so pretty! I even tried sitting on a big one that was shaped like a stool! But the strong waves wouldn’t let me! :)) I wish that we had had an underwater camera to capture all these delightful sights!

It was D who lost one of his slippers first. He found it floating behind him! Then I too lost my slippers a few times. It was always the right foot one, which kept on slipping off! After a while we got back to the boat. I just didn’t feel like leaving the water, but our hour was up and we went back to our hotel, soaking wet, with sand stuck to our feet! The bathroom in our room resembled a mini indoors beach after we had washed up!

Due to the lost slippers D cut his feet on the corals a couple of times. I too got a cut. Annie was most surprised that there was someone clumsier than me, because I have a great propensity to trip over even flat surfaces!

Then in the evening we went to see the main temple, the Ramananthanswamy temple. The unique thing about this temple is that there are about 22 wells in it and before taking darshan one has to be drenched from head to toe with a bucket of water from all of these wells.

Once we were back at our hotel room, D started fiddling around with the camera and started clicking snaps of who else, but himsef! I forgot to tell you people that D is highly narcissistic! :D

I was reading ‘Shantaram’ by David Gregory Roberts, trying to ignore him, but he insisted that I take a few pics of his! I reluctantly got up and took a few pictures, after which even I got into the mood and both of us began striking silly poses with our hair in front of our faces, and horrible grimaces!

After a while D came up with a silly idea and he wanted me to record him on the camcorder. Our room had a small balcony, and as we were on the ground floor we could easily jump on to the lawn. So my brother began acting out his weird poses on the lawn with me filming him! That sure was a barrel of laughs!

The next day we hired two autorickshaws and went around to visit all the other temples of Rameshwaram. The first one we visited was called Dhanush Kodi (I think!). Apparently, it was here that Ram, Lakshman and Hanuman had plotted on how to get Sita back from Lanka. The stumps of two pillars are all that remains of the original temple, but a new one has been built on the same spot. From this place, Sri Lanka is only an hour of boat ride away. Allegedly many refugees sneak in to India from this point.

I forgot to add that the sand in Rameshwaram is so light that it looks almost white. Bordering the tar road are stretches of this white sand with green shrubs and trees. It was a different but beautiful sight.

We then visited a few more temples. One of them was called the Floating Rock temple. Apparently the rocks displayed here were those that were used to build the bridge to Lanka by the Vanar Sena. These rocks looked like dried up corals and seemed porous. Some were kept in tanks of water, and what do you know? They actually did float! And they were actually quite heavy.

We were then taken to this light blue building and told that this was the ‘House of Kalam’. Did you know that President Kalam’s hometown is Rameshwaram? I didn’t! Attached to the house is a shell factory owned by Kalam’s family.

We did a bit of shopping here too and then were back at our hotel.

The same evening we walked down to the beach and sat on some logs of wood there for a while. The entire scene was just sooooooo gorgeous! Beautiful shades of blue everywhere! And the wind was so strong!

On the way back I took the picture displayed below. I did not see the red streak when I was taking the pic, in fact Dad was grumbling again and telling me not to dawdle, so I had moved the camera just as I had clicked the button. I think D said that it is static electricity.

I will stop here, as this post has gotten quite long. I was hoping to finish everything in one post, but I think another one is in order! :D

So I’ll post the concluding part (hopefully) after a few days

Mini Adventure

2006-06-16T02:01:00.002+05:30

My friend Annie and I had a sort of an adventurous time a few days ago. We decided to go to Taramati Baradari, an old ruin a few kilometers away from Hyderabad, in the cantonment area, on my trusty Scooty! :D

Taramati Baradari was where courtesans danced for the kings of Golconda fort. I think it was named after a favoured courtesan, Taramati, but am not sure about that. Anyway, this ruin has recently been developed by the Andhra Pradesh Tourism Board. A restaurant, a sort of arena and, a souvenir shop have been added.

I love ruins! I’m a great ruins buff, if you will. So I just had to check this place out. And who else to take along, but my partner in, well not crime, but silly antics, Annie!

So we started out bright and early in the afternoon (!) at about 12:15 or so. We soon reached Taramati Baradari (TB). We decided to eat first as we were starving. After lunch we set off for TB. We had to climb up a few steps after which I was left quite winded, just showing how out of shape I really am! There were quite a few tourists around too. Annie and I thought about playing a prank on some unsuspecting tourists by posing as tour guides and making up some convoluted history about TB! But we soon abandoned the idea, as I just could not stop laughing. So we just climbed up and took a look around. The view from the top was quite amazing. We could see Golconda fort in the distance, and another Baradari just a few meters away. It was a perfect day for outdoor activity!

We then started clicking pics of the beautiful surroundings as well as ourselves. We struck up silly poses, which had both of us in splits! We both struck up dance poses and spent an hour or so sitting on the lawn just beyond TB. We tried our hand at trick photography; in one of the pics it appears like Annie is hanging off a rock into nothingness!

After a while we decided to go for a short ride. On the way we came across a bunch of army guys sitting by a gate. All of them just got up when they saw us approaching. We wondered what that was all about! Probably hadn’t seen many girls riding around those parts on a Scooty! LOL!

We were a few kilometers away from the Gandipet dam when we decided to turn back and go home. After passing TB we came across another bunch of army guys who were jogging by the side of the road. We hooted and yelled out, “Keep it up!” as I speeded away on my Scooty! We just collapsed with laughter at our juvenile antics!

We then came across the road that leads to Golconda fort, and on the spur of the moment decided to go there too. We raced some RTC buses to the fort! He, he!

At the fort we actually forgot to buy the tickets at the entrance and had to go back and buy them!

There are always many guides hanging around over there, looking to make a quick buck. Some pestered us to hire them. Annie, who is a Tam Bram, doesn’t speak Hindi too well. So she went around saying, “No thank you!” to all of them. This just made them even more persistent! I told Annie that they probably think that she is a firang and that she should just learn to speak in Hindi. So there I was shooing away all the guides in Hindi, assuring them that this was not the first time that we had been to the fort. But one really persistent guide actually launched into his spiel, saying that he would give a free introduction! Man! These guys sure are enterprising!

As a child I had been to the fort quite often, so I donned the role of tour guide and explained a few features of the fort to Annie. We passed through this hall full of extremely noisy bats, with me cowering beside Annie, and covering my ears and almost jogging to get out of there as soon as possible! This hall smells really bad and I have always hated it! An uncle of mine had once commented that it smells like moldy cheese!

Anyway, we then made it to the area where a Sound and Light show is held every evening.

There is a fountain in the center, surrounded by beautifully carved walls. People visiting Hyderabad should not miss the Sound and Light show. It is truly breathtaking! The Hindi version gives the best effect, and is voiced by Amitabh Bachchan himself.

Anyway, there was still a long way to go to get to the apex of the fort, but as Annie was too tired we decided to sit and ogle at a good looking foreigner we spotted! I’m sure he could make out what we were up to! ;-)

After a while we decided to head out and buy some water, as we were dying of thirst! We settled for a Fanta and Limca instead. We then headed for home at last.

Just before you enter the fort area, you have to go through this narrow enclosed passage like road. It is so narrow and curving that there is a signal at each end indicating when you can drive your vehicle through, so vehicles coming from the opposite directions do not collide with one another. Just before this passage was a nasty speed breaker, and I tried going as carefully as possible, but it was really bumpy. Annie bounced on the seat behind me and banged her ankle on the side of the bike and yelled out in pain. I was of course very apologetic, but jokingly said that it is a must to get injured somehow on trips like these! She threatened to do some serious hurting from behind if I did not shut up! :-))

On our way back, I was the first in line waiting to pass through the narrow road. As I was making the first bend, Annie suddenly asked me to stop by the side. She sounded really urgent and I wondered if she was going to throw up or something. I tried telling her that I didn’t think that I could just stop, but she sounded really insistent, so I stopped and tried to park the Scooty as close to the wall as possible. But there was a bus behind me and it could not pass until I was totally out of the way. So I had to leave poor Annie standing by the side while I had to zoom out of the passage. I stopped a bit away and went back to see what the problem was. Turns out that while trying to adjust her pants her leg had cramped up. I then told her that I was only kidding when I said that an injury is a must on such trips, to which she showed my her fist and told me to start the Scooty if I didn’t want a knuckle sandwich! Annie sure does have a way with words! LOL!!

We got back to her home at about 5 o’ clock in the evening and just collapsed on the couch. We were thoroughly drained! But both of us decided that it was a day well spent indeed! We want to go back someday to Golconda fort for an entire day and explore every nook and cranny. But that will be another story for another day.

I’m going off on my tour of Chennai, Pondicherry, Kanyakumari and other places tomorrow, well actually, today if you take the time into consideration (which is 2 AM right now)! I’ll be gone for about 2 weeks, after which I’ll resume my blogging with gusto, hopefully! :D

Democracy? What Democracy?!

2006-06-06T14:49:00.003+05:30

The two topics that I am going to talk about have already been done to death, but I cannot help adding my own two cents!

First I want to talk about “The DaVinci Code”. What a hue and cry has been made about this movie! If people are so sure that what has been depicted in the movie is terribly wrong, then why are they so upset? Well, the fact is nobody likes their beliefs to be attacked and to be told that what they have believed in since they were children is completely untrue, and that their truth has been distorted. This could range from a child realizing that there is in fact no Santa Claus to an adult vociferously standing up for his or her religious beliefs.

A few years ago I had told a Christian friend of mine, S, about this article that I had read, which stated that Jesus Christ probably had short hair and not long hair as He is usually depicted. She reacted with a, “What a load of crap!” And this was only about whether Christ had long or short hair!

I could take my own example. About 3-4 years ago a friend, A, came to me with an article she had read in a magazine about Parsis. It stated that contrary to popular belief, the first Parsis had not landed in Sanjaan (Gujarat), but in Diu. Guess what my immediate reaction was? “What a load of crap!” :D I had been told all of my life that when a group of Parsis had first come to India, they had landed at Sanjaan. There is also a fire there in our temple that the first Parsis had ostensibly brought with them. A was quite puzzled by my reaction. When I saw the look on her face I was confused myself. Was I reacting too harshly or too quickly? After thinking it over for a while I conceded that it is indeed possible that the early Parsis had indeed landed in Diu and not Sanjaan as it is popularly believed. I was not present at this historical moment so I would never know what was true.

So that to me is the power of our beliefs. Some like me don’t really care all that much, but others have only their beliefs to fall back on. And one reason that we do not want to question our beliefs is that we feel incredibly uncomfortable when we do. We are so perfectly comfortable with our belief systems that we do not wish to step out of our comfort zone when we are faced with a decision to change them. Instead we react with indignation, violence, and of course bans!

Nowadays every other group or community is seeking a ban against some form of art that is apparently against their beliefs. Some of the bans do make sense, but most of them are quite ridiculous. “The DaVinci Code” was released in Bombay, with a disclaimer at the beginning and end of the movie, stating that it was a complete work of fiction. I just rolled my eyes when I saw that. I think that at the end of the day, people are going to believe whatever they choose to believe, a disclaimer here and there is not going to change that.

Some scholars believe that Christ had been married, while others believe that the very notion is complete hogwash! There are always going to be two sides to any issue, or even three, four, five…! And anyway, if one had a strong faith in one's beliefs then why should one feel threatened by apparently wrong views?

So how about letting the public decide if it wants to watch a movie or not? I know that many of my friends in Hyderabad have been disappointed because the Andhra Pradesh government has banned “The DaVinci Code”. Oh well! They may just have to go to some other state to watch the movie, like three men from Gujarat came to Bombay to watch “Fanaa”!

The ban against “Fanaa” is first of all grossly unconstitutional. We are living in a democracy for God’s sake, not a bloody anarchy! And as far as I can tell, Aamir Khan has not spoken a single word against the Gujarati community, nor has he said that the dam should not be constructed. All he has stated is that the people who would lose their homes as a result of the construction of the dam should be rehabilitated. Is that too much to ask for? Does the Gujarat government not want to rehabilitate its own citizens? This is a prime example of creating a mountain out of a mole hill. Of course this has taken a religious tinge too; as many people say that Aamir Khan is being targeted because he is a Muslim. But it would take a separate post to get into that topic.

It is quite courageous of Aamir Khan to stick to his guns and refuse to apologize. He is refusing to get bullied into submission, and for that kudos to him! A few member of the film industry have stood up for him, but I think that the entire film industry should stand solidly behind Aamir Khan.

On a lighter note, last night I saw this quite comical bit of news. Motilal Kashyap, the fisheries minister of Madhya Pradesh wants to, hold your breath, pass a bill stating that prawns should be considered a vegetarian item!!! I burst into laughter as soon as I heard that! His reason for this bill is that people from various communities eat prawns, so it should be considered vegetarian now (?!?). He is prepared to fight for this bill! Of course there are others who are hell bent on stopping him and have labeled this bill nothing short of blasphemy!

Really! Who said that all our politicians do is throw chairs at each other or snooze when someone else is trying to discuss something? Apart from changing the names of cities and every other gully, they are now investing their energies into changing the food groups! Lucky us!

Link

2006-05-17T21:14:00.001+05:30

Some people have been quite surprised that my profile picture is actually my own tattoo. So here's the link to the post I had written to commomerate (ahem!) my phoenix tattoo's first birthday!

New Life

2006-05-17T20:56:00.001+05:30

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!! My exams are over at last! I still can’t believe that I’m finished with my post grad! It still has to sink in! Now all I gotta do is wait for my results, which will be out in July most probably. So one whole month I’m gonna just freak, after which a new life starts! LOL!!

The first week of June I’m going to go to Hyderabad and catch up with all my friends properly after, like aaaaaaaaages! And then I’m going for a tour with my family. We are going to go to Pondicherry, Kovalam Beach, Kanyakumari and a few other places. And after I come back I’m definitely going to put up some pics from this holiday. Hopefully I will be able to click some interesting ones. Kanyakumari is famed for its sunsets and sunrises, so there will definitely be a couple of (who am I kidding? There will probably be hundreds!!) pics of those.

So to start out right now itself, here are a few pics that I had clicked on my Olympus digicam. The pics have been taken over the last three days. And as I’m a big sucker for sunsets, so the pictures are of what else, but sunsets! And to add a bit of variety there are a few pictures of the moon too.

The above was taken in the Panoramic mode. I didn't realize that it would actually brighten the picture! So yes, this is the moon!

Here is another pic in Panoramic mode.

This one has been taken in the normal flash mode.

I'd taken this one on night mode. I don't know about other cameras, but on my camera night mode pretty much sucks! But I decided to give it one more shot, and I think this one has come out quite well. It sort of looks like a fire, but that is just the haze of the street light.

New Addition

2006-05-02T16:40:00.002+05:30

Here’s a real post after a really looong time. It’s not like I had nothing to talk about, but just that I was feeling really, really lazy to sit down in front of my computer and type out something. So well, here’s some good news for everyone!! :D

My phoenix tattoo was getting quite lonely, since the day he (strange that I should think of it as a he!) had completed one whole year last September. Sooooo… I decided to get him a sibling. It’s an entirely different story that the “sibling” is on my wrist! Yesssss! I have gotten my second tattoo! And I am quite excited to present to everyone the Chinese Water Symbol on my left wrist:

I quite love it! I wanted it to be a little bit smaller actually, but did not realize how big it would be until I removed the bandage for redressing the next morning. But I love it all the same! And yes, I know I have already said that! But I really do!! :D

I’m gonna get at least one more tattoo, but that’s gonna take a while now; maybe next year. My mother went, “What happened to you?!” when she saw me come home with a bandage around my wrist, and just as soon she screamed, “You got another tattoo didn’t you??!!” My Ma’s so damn clever!! She is of course quite against me getting another one. But well, we’ll see! LOL!!

Well, that’s all I have to report for now. I better get cracking at my books as my final exams start on 12^th May and I haven’t started studying yet. Thank the Lord I have only three papers to give! So this is probably going to be my last post for a while to come. Bye! :))

Epitaph

2006-04-21T01:43:00.001+05:30

I found this on Nomadic's blog. 'Twas fun alright! I sure do like my epitaph!!! :D

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

Tagged again!

2006-04-05T01:40:00.003+05:30

My assignment's done!! YAY!! I have been busy these last few weeks with my final case submission of MA Clinical Psychology. So, though I could visit some of your blogs, I did not have the time to sit and type out a post. I cannot believe that I'm almost done with my post graduation!! The practical and theory papers are still to go unfortunately... :(
I just hope that I'll be able to do them well, and then begins my search for a job, but more of that another time.
Cheesy made things easy for me by tagging me, coz for my next post I gotta do a bit of research. I have been wanting to put it up for sometime now, but the research bit is left. So thanks Cheesy!

Tagged by Cheesy.

1.Grab the book nearest to you, turn on page 18 and find line 4.
“…Canadians his neatly rolled joint. The taller man took it, and puffed it…” – from “Shantaram” by Gregory David Roberts. I’ve not yet started reading this book though.

2.Stretch your left arm out as far as you can.
I can touch my balcony door. [Not my balcony]

3. What is the last thing you watched on TV?
“Seinfeld” – I loooooooove this show!! One of my all time favs!! :D

4.Without looking, guess what time it is?
1.00 AM.

5. Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?
12.57 AM. Hey! That was close!! Hehe!

6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
The traffic out on the street. Bombay really does not sleep! Also can hear “Yeh rishta kya kehlata hai” from “Meenaxi” playing on the radio.

7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
Just this afternoon. Had gone to watch “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” with a friend.

8. Before you started this survey, what did you look at?
You mean on the PC? My inbox, saw Cheesy’s comment then went on her blog. And then got down to doing this tag.

9. What are you wearing?
Red PJs. Those are not mine, by the way! :D

10. Did you dream last night?
I dream every night. I always time my alram a good 30 minutes before I actually have to wake up, and during those 30 minutes I keep on hitting the snooze button every 10 minutes, and I actually dream during those 10 minutes before the alarm wakes me up again!! I'm a compulsive dreamer!!! :))

11. When did you last laugh?
Just a while back while watching “Seinfeld”.

12. What is on the walls of the room you are in?
There are three embroidered picture frames, a clock, a tube light, and also a fan. My room’s quite boring. Hyderabad one is much more interesting! ;)

13. Seen anything weird lately?
“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” was quite weird, but I liked it. ‘Twas interesting!

14. What do you think of this quiz?
It’s ok I guess. Kinda fun actually.

15. What is the last film you saw?
“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”. WOW!! This is the third time that I've mentioned this movie in this post!! LOL!!

16. If you became a multimillionaire overnight, what would you buy?

What wouldn’t I buy??? A nice big apartment, lots n lots of books, clothes n shoes, my very own Baskin Robbins cart (heck! I'm a multimillionare! I can buy the entire business!!), a Ferrari or two! What else? I cannot think of anything else for the moment. Wait a minute! A place in Paris, Florence, Athens, Edinburgh, New York, Yorkshire, Tokyo, etc. etc.

17. Tell me something about you that I dunno.
Hmmm… I had wavy hair but got it straightened recently! LOL!!!

18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
Do away with ethnic divides, which I believe is the main cause for the current state of this world.

19. Do you like to dance?
Yes I do!!

20. George Bush.
Hasn’t enough been said about his stupidity?? Heck no! What an idiot!

21. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?
This one is easy! Emma, after the protagonist of my favourite book, ‘A Woman of Substance’.

22. Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?
Hmmm… never thought of that. Maybe Eragon!!! Just kidding! Seriously, I like the names Sameer and Arjun a lot.

23. Would you ever consider living abroad?
Yess.

24.What do you want GOD to say to you when you reach the pearly gates?
“I’m sorry! Chitragupt made a mistake, your time on earth is still not done!”

25. 4 people who must also do this meme in their journal.
Niki, Arz000n, S0ulasylum, Rebel_on_loose.

Mrs. Dalloway, Eragon & Amir

2006-03-11T19:57:00.002+05:30

In the last few weeks I’ve read the most amazing books. Without further ado, I’ll just start with the first one: “The Hours” by Michael Cunningham.

Many of you must have heard of this title in connection with the movie staring Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman. Nicole Kidman had also won an Oscar for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf. I had seen bits and pieces of the movie before I read the book, and I hate to say this, but I couldn’t quite follow what was going on. The performance by all three actors was really good though, and that’s quite an understatement! But when I read the book I could understand it so much better.

The first time I heard of Virginia Woolf was in connection with the Elizabeth Taylor movie “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” I have never seen it and don’t know what it is about. The next time I came across Virginia Woolf was in my third year of BA, when we had to study a poem and an extract from her book “A Room of One’s Own” in English Lit. She was one of the founders of the Bloomsbury publishing firm, the same one that now publishes the “Harry Potter” series!

“The Hours” is about the lives of three women – Virginia Woolf, Clarissa Vaughan/Mrs. Dalloway and Laura Brown, all set in different points of the 20^th century. Cunningham interweaves events that happen in their lives with the events that occur in Woolf’s novel, “Mrs. Dalloway”. It is just brilliant the manner in which the narrative slides back and forth between the lives of these three women. I was totally drawn into their world, and it was like I was standing in the room with them, watching their lives unfold before my very eyes!

Another factor that garnered my interest, as a student of clinical psychology, was that mental illness is present in the lives of all the protagonists. There is this line in the book that I really liked: “…sanity involves a certain measure of impersonation, not simply for the benefit of husband… but for the sake, first and foremost, of one’s own convictions.” Makes you really think doesn’t it?

The other book, rather books, that I’d read are the first two in the “Inheritance” series by Christopher Paolini: “Eragon” and “Eldest”.

And for this I gotta thank Monk, as he was the one to suggest that I give these books a try. These two books belong to the same genre as “Harry Potter”, “LOTR”, “Simoqin Prophecies” etc. I love this genre because it is to do with MAGIC and FANTASY!! I guess it’s to do with my desire to possess magical powers! Who wouldn’t like to possess some kind of power that would elevate them to a position above almost everybody else? But what I really liked about the “Inheritance” series is the concept that the energy it takes to accomplish a task using magic is equal to the energy that would take to do it without the help of magic! This adds a very human twist to magic.

The adventure is set in a land called Alagaësia populated by human beings, dragons and other magical creatures.

Paolini was only 19 years old when he published “Eragon”! I find that incredibly cool! His protagonist, Eragon, is himself only 16 years old. He is working on the third and final book in the series. If any one of you is a fan of magical tales then “Eragon” and “Eldest” are a must read!

The third book that I’d read is “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini.

It is set in Afghanistan and America, and tells the story of two Afghan boys, Amir and Hassan. It is told in first person, in a very matter of fact manner, but the emotions and feelings are very much in evidence in each and every line. The turning point in the novel was so shocking that it knocked the breath out of me. And I’m not being overly dramatic by saying so.

“The Kite Runner” is a story of courage and redemption and finding your place in the world. It has been a while since I have been so moved by a novel. Even though it is not a thriller, it was simply unputdownable. I’ve already added it to my ‘favourite book list’.

So there they are now, the books that I’ve enjoyed reading these past few weeks. Books have seemingly replaced the weekly movie ritual that used to take place when I was in Hyderabad, with my parents dragging me to see the worst movies ever!! They are such movie aficionados that they want to see every single movie that hits the screens, and I have had to sit through horrors such as Pyar, Ishq aur Mohabbat, Baaz – A Bird in Danger, and more recently, Kyun Ki…, Shaadi No.1, and Garam Masala!

Anyway, I think this is gonna be my last post for a while now, because I have to start working on my second file submission, and if I want to avoid getting panic-stricken as I’d gotten last November, then I better start in advance! :D

May be I’ll be able to squeeze in short posts now and then, but I make no promises!

Tag Story

2006-02-27T02:34:00.002+05:30

Here is the story I was supposed to post a while ago but never got down to it. I have obviously exceeded the word limit and I hope I have stuck to at least Rule No.2 and not repeated the words. And to boot it is quite a strange story. Hopefully it will make sense to at least a few people. Read at your own risk! :D

The rules were:

(1) Write a 100-to-200-word entry using the following words:

I, me, blowjob, grapes, random, power, loneliness, water, robot and blue;

(2) Use these words once and only once; and of course

(3) The entry should make sense.

She looked around at her surroundings, still unable to believe that she had made it to the city of Robot. Watching all the machines acting and doing things like normal flesh and blood human beings had caused her much alarm the first time she saw them. She never thought that it would be possible, at least not in her lifetime.

The way they looked was creepy enough, but they also seemed to possess human emotions. This was what had disturbed her the most. But now she was quite used to their presence. She had found out that the only thing that separated them from their human counterparts was their slightly high, metallic voices and the strange manner in which they spoke.

She walked along the city in a random, haphazard manner, lost in her thoughts when she suddenly found herself in a green gazebo across which was a pond, the surface of which was absolutely still and reflected the blue sky and fluffy clouds perfectly. She gazed at the beautiful scene in front of her totally awestruck, and wondered how come she had never been to this place before. A wave of loneliness suddenly washed over her, knocking out her breath with its intensity. She sighed, knowing that she could never go back to the place where her kind resided, Lande.

Suddenly she heard a rustling sound and looked up. On the opposite side of the pond stood a man, “or was he ‘one of those’”? she wondered. He walked slowly towards her and asked her, “Alright there?” His voice was deep and smooth. “A man!” she thought, and her heart leaped. “Oh! I’m OK. Was just thinking about my home and feeling a bit sad …” she trailed off. “But, tell me! How did you get here? The only other Humans that were here went in to battle a week ago. You did not wish to go?”

He looked at her with an amused smile. “Me not Human, miss.” She looked at him with surprise, “But your voice…”

“Aye. Latest technology, miss. Make sound more human-like.” He gave her a broad grin, as if he had accomplished it himself.

After a pause he asked, “Your home you miss. Why not you go then?” She sighed once more and murmured, “It’s a long story.”

“Eldor having lots time, miss.”

“Eldor?”

“That being my nomenclature, miss. You telling story now?”

“Well then, here’s the short version. Stole grapes from neighbour’s vineyard, got caught, was banished.”

“Crime suits the punishment not, Eldor thinks.”

“Grapes equal power in Lande. And that is the most important thing. Without it you are nothing. Wasn’t thinking right when stole the goddamn fruit!”

“Well, cheer up! Eldor know what help you be happy yet again. Do you know blowjob how to?” saying so he reached down into his pants.

She was stunned for a second then yelled, “WHAT???!! How dare you?? I cannot believe this! Get out of here before I ping for the guard. One must be around here somewhere”

Eldor looked at her in mild astonishment, reached into his pocket and removed a small pipe-like instrument. He held it out to her to see.

“What’s that?” she asked suspiciously.

“It a water bubbler be. You pour in,” saying so he scooped up some from the pond and poured it in, “blow from this end then…” He then blew softly into it and a melody poured out of it, like a gushing river. She just stared at it and at Eldor. He slowly began moving towards the pond and she followed him, mesmerized by the strange yet soothing sounds made by the bubbler. Soon he was ankle deep and she followed him in. After a while he stopped playing and she snapped out of the reverie she had fallen into and gasped when she realized that the cool liquid came up to almost her shoulders. She started panicking and clung onto him for support. Eldor smiled down at her then pushed her head underneath. She struggled to breathe but he was much stronger than her. Soon she struggled no more. Eldor let her go and walked back to the bank. He looked back one more time, smiled sadly and dialed a Lande number with his head. After it went through his said two words, “Job accomplished” and disconnected it.

I Just Wanna Spend My Life With You

2006-02-24T02:01:00.001+05:30

I really love this song from "Neal 'n' Nikki". The lyrics aren't all that great, some are a bit cheesy, but it is the excellent music provided by Salim-Sulaiman and the super smooth voice of Clinton Cerejo that make this song great. Clinton Cerejo is accompanied by Dominique Cerejo.

Like a dream you can't explain
Love can chase the bidding of your heart
Like the sunshine in the rain
Love can make your whole world fall apart

But I want it now
I just wanna spend my life with you
Time will show me how
Suddenly everything has turned me inside out
Suddenly love's the thing that I can't live without

You're my dream, my love, my life
I just wanna spend my life with you
You're the one that makes me smile
I just wanna spend my life with you
Gotta love somehow
I just wanna spend my life with you
You can show me how

Suddenly everything has turned me inside out
Suddenly love's the thing that I can't live without

You're my dream, my love, my life
I just wanna spend my life with you
You're the one that makes me smile
I just wanna spend my life with you

What have you done to me?
Is this how it's meant to be?
Can't control this feeling in my heart
I can see paradise
Glowing inside your eyes
And I know you feel it in your heart

But I want it now
I just wanna spend my life with you
Time will show me how
Suddenly everything has turned me inside out
Suddenly love's the thing that I can't live without

You're my dream, my love, my life
I just wanna spend my life with you
You're the one that makes me smile
I just wanna spend my life with you

Love is a crazy thing
Something that you wanna see
And the world's like deep inside your soul
But somebody comes along
Together you sing this song
You just let the music take control

And I want it now
I just wanna spend my life with you
Time will show me how
Suddenly everything has turned me inside out
Suddenly love's the thing that I can't live without

You're my dream, my love, my life
I just wanna spend my life with you...

Here's the link to listen to the song.

Filler

2006-02-23T00:45:00.001+05:30

This is just a stop gap post. Don't feel like typing out some lengthy stuff... I was in good ole Hyderabad over this last weekend and am still in a shaadi mood, 'cause I've just come back after attending the marriage of one of my closest school friends. She is the first from our batch to get married!! YIPEEE! Am so happy for her! May she find every joy possible on this earth!

Anyway, thanks to Niki I came across this blogthing:

The Movie Of Your Life Is A Black Comedy

In your life, things are so twisted that you just have to laugh.You may end up insane, but you'll have fun on the way to the asylum.
Your best movie matches: Being John Malkovich, The Royal Tenenbaums, American Psycho

If Your Life Was a Movie, What Genre Would It Be?

Angrezi Top Ten

2006-02-11T19:03:00.001+05:30

Here is a list of angrezi songs that I had made last month itself, but kept on forgetting to post. I have heard all these songs thanks to GO 92.5 FM. This radio station sure keeps me connected to the world of music, both our Hindi phillum music and the English variety. So gentlemen and ladies now I present to you my Angrezi Top Ten:

10. Don’t Phunk With My Heart
Artist: Black Eyed Peas
Album: Monkey Business

9. Spun
Artist: Flipsyde
Album: We The People

8. Lonely No More
Artist: Rob Thomas
Album: Lonely No More

7. Lay Your Hands
Artist: Simon Webbe
Album: Sanctuary

6. Speed of Sound
Artist: Coldplay
Album: X & Y

5. City of Blinding Lights
Artist: U2
Album: How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

4. Reasons
Artist: UB40
Album: Who You Fighting For?

3. Breakaway
Artist: Kelly Clarkson
Album: Breakaway

2. She will be Loved
Artist: Maroon 5
Album: Songs About Jane

1. You’re Beautiful
Artist: James Blunt
Album: Back to Bedlam

One Night @ the Call Center

2006-02-08T00:08:00.001+05:30

I had finished reading ‘One Night @ the Call Center’ a few weeks ago, and had wanted to blog about it as soon as I finished reading it, but I thought I should do Puneet’s tag first.

Anyway, Chetan Bhagat’s latest book is damn good! I liked it better than ‘Five-point Someone’. ‘Five-point Someone’ was also good, a fun read; but I couldn’t really relate to the protagonists. It was easier to relate to Shyam, Priyanka, Vroom, Esha, Radhika, and even ‘Military Uncle’, the protagonists of ‘One Night @ the Call Center’. Each is a stereotype, but yet the characters are so well etched.
Bhagat has used quite a bit of Black humour in the book to make you smirk now and then! The manner in which people working in call centers are taught to relate to Americans is just too funny! Now I don’t know if all this is true, or Bhagat has just exaggerated things a bit, but it’s hilarious nonetheless.
The book covers so many wide topics: love, heartbreak, jealousy, mystery, spirituality and the cynicism of the Indian youth. All these elements have been cohesively bound in a book that is hard to put down once you start reading. You just want to, have to know what’s gonna happen to the protagonists next.
The ending (of Shyam’s story) is quite filmy, very Hollywoodish. But it made me laugh all the same, and not sarcastically at that!
And recently I heard on GO 92.5 FM that Rohan Sippy (director of Bluffmaster) has decided to adapt ‘One Night @ the Call Center’ for the big screen, and Chetan Bhagat is himself working on the screenplay right now. It’s not like Sippy’s gonna take my suggestions, but that’s not gonna stop me from suggesting the actors who I think would be perfect for each role! :D
I think Ritiesh Deshmukh would be perfect as Shyam and Zayed Khan would make a good Vroom. I guess Esha Deol could play her namesake’s role. I can’t think of anyone else but Kajol to play Priyanka’s role, but then she would look older than the character’s age. Maybe Preity Zinta could also suit the part. Hmmm… I can’t decide on Priyanka’s part. Amrish Puri would have been perfect for Military Uncle’s role, but unfortunately he is no more. But I guess Boman Irani could also do this role justice, even if it is quite small. Now who can play Radhika? Rani Mukherjee could I guess.
Now I hope I have inspired at least some of you to go out, grab this book and read it. And those of you who have already read, how about suggesting the names of actors you think would be perfect for each of the characters.

The Purrr-fect Lover!

2006-01-30T12:59:00.001+05:30

The Perfect Lover. Compiling this list took longer than I thought it would!! I was stuck after the 3nd point itself. I guess I don’t ask for much in my Perfect Lover! ;)

Tagged by Puneet

RULES OF THE TAG:

1. The tagged victim has to come up with 8 different points of their perfect lover.

2. Need to mention the sex of the target.

3. Tag 8 victims to join this game & leave a comment on their comments saying they've been tagged.

4. If tagged the 2nd time, there's no need to post again.

Sex Target: Male

1. He has to make me laugh, all the time! But when it’s time to be serious, he should realize it and, well, be serious!

2. He should be able to as well as love to cook, and well too. :))

3. He should RESPECT all my decisions and me.

4. He should looooooooove kids!

5. He must stand up for his own beliefs and not agree with me all the time. That would be too boring then. In short, not looking for a doormat figure. At the same time should not be over bearing and know-it-all kinds.

6. He should be out-going, as I’m a bit reserved myself.

7. He should be ready to help me out with whatever I need him to help me out with. :D

8. It would be great if he were a mixture of Shahrukh Khan, Akshaye Khanna, Kunal Kapoor (Rang De Basanti dude), Joaquin Phoenix, Abhishek Bachchan, Shammi Kapoor in his youth, Keanu Reeves… The list is endless! :D

I’ve no idea who to tag now. Most people already seemed to have been tagged. But I have not seen this tag appear on the following people’s blogs, or may be they are ignoring the tag. Anyway I tag the following, and there is no compulsion to do it.

1. Athena
2. Amitken
3. Gumnaaam
4. Hotice
5. Manish
6. The Monk

Countdown - Part III

2006-01-28T18:45:00.001+05:30

5. Chup Chupke Chup Chupke Chori Se Chori
Movie: Bunty Aur Babli
Music Director: Shankar-Ehsan-Loy
Artists: Sonu Nigam & Mahalaxmi Iyer

I love all the songs from ‘Bunty aur Babli’. But when I was wondering about which one I should select for my list, the answer was simple! It’s gotta be “Chup Chupke”! This song is like “Suraj Hua Maddham” from ‘K3G’. I don’t mean that they sound alike, but they have the same quality. I don’t think I’m explaining myself very well here. But I don’t know how else to explain this! Anyway, once again we have Sonu Nigam and his super smooth voice skillfully accompanied by Mahalaxmi Iyer, and the entire effect is just divine!

4. Jeeya Dhadak Dhadak Jaaye
Movie: Kalyug
Music Director: Anu Malik (Am not sure of this)
Artist: Rahat Fateh Ali Khan

This is such a simple song, with simple lyrics but it has been rendered with such emotion by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, just like my all time favourite song “Mann ki Lagan” from ‘Paap’. Did you guys know that he is Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s nephew? I didn’t till a few weeks ago when I had read an interview of his in the paper.

3. Aadat (original version)
Album: Aadat
Artist: Jal

The manner in which this song starts gives me goose bumps! It just cuts at you! The lead singer has such a raw, powerful voice! I have heard so many versions of this song including one called “Zaheerili Raatein” from either ‘Chocolate’ or ‘Aashiq Banaya Aapne’. After a while I guess all of us tend to confuse the movies, which Emraan Hashmi has acted in! The guy’s just all over the place! And then there is the remixed version that appears in ‘Kalyug’. Anyway, Jal’s version is the one I like the best. I had that as my caller tune for the longest while. :)

2. Say Na Say Na
Movie: Bluffmaster
Music Director: Vishal-Shekhar
Artist: Aneela Mirza & Arash

Most people feel that the best song from ‘Bluffmaster’ is “Right Here Right Now”. I too like the song a lot, Abhishek Bachchan rapping away, what more can a girl ask for?! ;) But I just looooooooove “Say Na Say Na”. It is one of the most fun songs ever! Aneela Mirza has such a unique voice! However, I did not care much about the song the first time that I heard it. Then suddenly one day I was listening to the radio and doing something else too, when this song played and I was like, “Wow! This song is fantastic!” It would have been my No.1 song had it not been that my No.1 song for 2005 is (hushed silence, with bated breath!): -

1. Dheere Jalna
Movie: Paheli
Music Director: M. M. Kreem (Keeravani)
Artists: Sonu Nigam & Shreya Ghoshal

What can I say about this song? My favourite Indian artist, Sonu Nigam, has sung it. And he has been competently accompanied by Shreya Ghoshal. I liked this song as soon as I heard Sonu Nigam sing the first line, “Dheere jalna, dheere jalna, dheere jalna/ zindagi ki lau par jalna”. I was completely in love with this song right then and there! :)) For some expert commentary on this song you can check out Manish’s blog. It has been explained really beautifully there!

Countdown - Part II

2006-01-26T02:24:00.001+05:30

14. Dil Jo Bhi Kahey Maane

Movie: Dil Jo Bhi Kahey
Music Director: Shankar-Ehsan-Loy
Artist: Shaan

This is a really fun song! I liked it the moment that I heard it.

13. Piyu Bole
Movie: Parineeta
Music Director: Shantanu Moitra
Artists: Sonu Nigam & Shreya Ghoshal

I had to decide which songs from ‘Parineeta’ I like more, "Piyu Bole" or "Kaisi Yeh Paheli", and the former won hands down! It is such a quaint song. And Saif Ali Khan and Vidya Balan look so good together; it just adds to the song.

12. I Just Wanna Spend My Life With You
Movie: Neal ‘n’ Nikki
Music: Salim-Sulaiman
Artists: Clinton & Dominique Cerejo

I have not seen this movie yet, not because of all the bad reviews that I had heard from people around me, but because I had no time to watch it. Despite all the bad reviews I still wanna see this movie, I mean, how bad can it really be?! Anyway, however bad this movie may be, the songs are really good. Right from the title track to “Haiyo Haiyo Rabba! I’m in Love”. But the song that I like the best from this movie is “I Just Wanna Spend My Life With You”. I have been told that it plays when the titles roll. This song can put many a boyband to shame! Clinton has such a smooth silky voice, and though the entire song is sung in English, he does not put on a fake Umree-can accent.

11. Huzoor-e-ala
Movie: Page 3
Music Director: Shameer Tandon
Artist: Asha Bhosle

This song scores points with me at once ‘cause the incomparable Asha Bhosle has sung it! Just her presence is enough to send the likeability factor of a song up a few notches. Not only is this song beautifully rendered but it also has a very haunting melody.

10. Naam Adaa Likhna
Movie: Yahaan
Music Director: Shantanu Moitra
Artists: Shaan & Shreya Ghoshal

This is one of those ‘quietly romantic’ songs. No screaming from the roofs about the physical attributes of the loved ones! This song is filled with beautiful symbolism instead.

9. Kahan Ho Tum Mujhe Bataao
Movie: U, Bomzi and Me
Artist: Neeraj Shridhar (Bombay Vikings)

This is another song with a haunting melody. It is just WOW! This one too I liked as soon as I heard it! It is a sad kinda song, but the rhythm is upbeat!

8. Tinka Tinka
Movie: Karam
Music Director: Vishal-Shekhar
Artist: Alisha Chinai

This is one of the most beautiful songs that I have ever heard. It’s sad that it hasn’t even gotten its due yet. Alisha Chinai has outdone herself in this song.

7. Le Chalein Le Chalein
Movie: My Brother Nikhil
Music Director: Vivek Phillip (Not sure of this either)
Artist: KK

Each time I hear this song I get a bit misty-eyed, because then I remember the movie it is a part of. It is, and should remain, one of the best movies that the Hindi Film Industry has ever made. And this song has been sung so beautifully by KK. There is another version by Sunidhi Chauhan too. But I like the KK version more.

6. Hum Hain Is Pal Yahaan
Movie: Kisna
Music Director: A. R. Rahman
Artists: Udit Narayan & Madhushree

The movie apparently sucked big time, but this song is just beautiful! Another haunting melody.

Countdown Begins

2006-01-22T21:09:00.001+05:30

Here’s the list of my favourite songs of 2005. What is so special about this countdown you ask? Well, it’s special because it is mine! :D And as is tradition, I will be working up from No.25 to No.1. So here goes:

25. Tauba Tauba

Movie: Kaal

Music Director: Salim-Sulaiman

Artists: Sonu Nigam, Sunidhi Chauhan, Richa Sharma, Kunal Ganjawala

24. My Dil Goes Mmmm…

Movie: Salaam Namaste

Music Director: Shankar-Ehsan-Loy

Artists: Shaan & Gayatri Iyer

23. Woh Lamhey

Album: Aadat

Artist: Jal

I like the slow un-remixed version sung by Jal. I think that it sounds much better. Also, this song took some time to grow on me, and once it did, it has just stuck in my head!

22. Halka Halka Sa Yeh Nasha

Movie: Chocolate

Music Director: Pritam

Artist: Sonu Nigam

21. Saara Jahaan Kahe Ishq Hai Jhoota

Movie: Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena

Music Director: Pritam

Artists: Sunidhi Chauhan

20. Baahon Mein Tu Aaja

Album: 24 Karat

Artist: Raghav Sachar

I liked this song the first time I heard it. It’s a damn good one! And for those who have not heard about Raghav Sachar, here’s a bit of basic info: he is 24 years old and knows how to play 24 musical instruments. And he has composed the music and played all the instruments in the songs that appear on this album.And it also helps that he is quite cute! ;)

19. Aashayien

Movie: Iqbal

Music Director: Salim-Sulaiman

Artists: KK, Salim Merchant

18. Bawra Mann

Movie: Hazaron Khwahishein Aisi

Music Director: Shantanu Moitra

Artist: Shubha Mudgal

17. Kangana (unplugged version)

Artist: DR. ZEUS

I don’t really know the name of the album this song appears on. I like the unplugged version more than the original dhinchak version! :D

16. Tera Intezaar Hai Mujhe Tumse Pyar Hai

Album: Tera Intezaar Hai

Artist: Rahul Vaidya

I had heard this song a number of times on the radio without knowing who had sung it, or if it was in a movie or a private album. I figured it must be Sonu Nigam. But then I saw the music video and it was Rahul Vaidya, the runner up in the last ‘Indian Idol’! One reason that I like Rahul Vaidya is that he sounds sort of like Sonu Nigam. Both of them have really smooooth voices!

15. Mahi Ve, Teri Yaad Aati Hai

Album: Mantra

Artist: Fakir

I’d heard this song too a couple of times before I knew who had sung it, and I was just dying to know who had sung it. It was actually Manish who had passed on this info.