The NO-Blackhead Syndrome

There is this feeling inside me, which sprouts up whenever I feel that something is not right. This feeling is usually followed by a deep restlessness and an itch to make that thing right and correct. This "thing" can be brought about due to a lot of reasons varying from cleanliness (a la Monica Geller from friends) to split-ends in my hair! Yes, I am that weird.

Now I can talk at lengths about split-ends, they just freak me out, whenever I spot one in my hair, I am immediately transformed into that state I mentioned above. I just have to get rid of it somehow, believe it or not when I was a student, while studying I had this very annoying habit of fiddling with my hair, the moment I spotted any split-ends, I would immediately get rid of it with the help of a scissor I always kept by my side. In case of absence of scissor in situations wherein say I am travelling etc, I have successfully used other instruments, namely my teeth! Yes, the condition is that serious.

This is actually nothing compared to what I experience when I spot a blackhead! I have forgotten the count of how many articles and books I have read which highlight  the fact that uprooting blackheads by squeezing them with nails is a practice that should be shunned. It is something that even the cave men and women never indulged in. I have also lost the count of how many times I promised myself that I will not torture my skin anymore. But Alas, all this is forgotten the moment I spot a black nasty blackhead. What's more embarrassingly serious about this blackhead thingy is that, it's not just about me. The restlessness to uproot the blackhead props up from any blackhead, by any I mean even those which are on someone else's body. Over the years I have brutally assaulted by sister's nose and also left a staring mark on it by regularly "cleansing" it. I have shamelessly offered this service to few friends, some colleagues and random acquaintances.

Recently while in a meeting in office, there was a client who was speaking at length about, well something! The reason I cannot remember anything from that meeting is that all my attention was on his neck which has a huge blackhead smirking directly at me. Taunting me. Making it hell difficult to concentrate on anything else. Trust me it took all of my will power and strength to sit still through the meeting and stay as far as possible from that client when the meeting was over.

It was then that I realized that just how serious it has become. It feels like I am a mad mad women on a outrage to change the world into a No-Blackhead world!
      

Book Review - Unaccustomed Earth

Whenever I go about selecting books I intend to read, I take my time selecting. Taking it slow, judging the cover, taking in the jest at the back of the book. Opening the first page and analyzing the style. Thinking whether or not I will enjoy reading it. Then and only then my friends I invest my hard-earned money into that book.

However as they say sometimes "Naam he kafi hai" (The name only is enough). I picked up this book called Unaccustomed Earth even before properly read its title. The only thing that caught my eye and attention was the author's name "Jhumpa Lahiri". It was immediately decided that this book will be bought, in any case. So I quickly and randomly shuffled the pages here and there, just to explain to myself that I have not cheated and I follow my book-buying rituals religiously.

This was not the first time I was smitten by the name Jhumpa Lahiri. The first time was for The Namesake, this time it was Unaccustomed Earth. But masterpieces in their own rights. While Namesake was a story spanning generations, Unaccustomed Earth provides you the joy of 8 stories in one book. It has the typical style of Jhumpa, very subtle, in a way that will leave you wounded (with a heavy heart) without you even realizing it in a conscious sort of a way.

I found myself devouring the book, savouring it, inhaling it, deeply involved in it. Each story teaching me a little something. The simplest of the human emotions and lives bringing out a radical change in the way I see things. Feeling the pain yet I never felt it to be a overtly emotional book, like say a Thousand Splendid Suns. As much as I love that book. It had me settling it aside at regular interval while I cried my heart out at miserable lifes of Mariam and Laila. Not able to get the horrible images out of my mind even after days of finishing it.

I especially loved the end of last story. It was very touching and indirectly telling you many a things.

Can't wait to start another Jhumpa Lahiri soon enough. Till then it's Three Cups of tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

*Some Quotes*

“She supposed that all those years of loving a person who was dishonest had taught her a few things.”

 “There were times Ruma felt closer to her mother in death than she had in life, an intimacy born simply of thinking of her so often, of missing her. But she knew that this was an illusion, a mirage, and that the distance between them was now infinite, unyielding. ” “He still had the power to stagger her at timessimply the fact that he was breathing that all his organs were in their proper places that blood flowed quietly and effectively through his small sturdy limbs. He was her flesh and blood her mother had told her in the hospital the day Akash was born.” 

 “The sky was different, without color, taut and unforgiving. But the water was the most unforgiving thing, nearly black at times, cold enough, I knew, to kill me, violent enough to break me apart. The waves were immense, battering rocky beaches without sand. The farther I went, the more desolate it became, more than any place I'd been, but for this very reason the landscape drew me, claimed me as nothing had in a long time.” 

 “He owned an expensive camera that required thought before you pressed the shutter, and I quickly became his favorite subject, round-faced, missing teeth, my thick bangs in need of a trim. They are still the pictures of myself I like best, for they convey that confidence of youth I no longer possess, especially in front of a camera.”

 "Soon, likewise, my old native town will loom upon me through the haze of memory, a mist brooding over and around it; as if it were no portion of the real earth, but an overgrown village in cloud-land, …. Henceforth, it ceases to be a reality of my life. I am a citizen of somewhere else." 

Lazier - Without Resolution!

People generally start their New Year by making resolution and (not necessarily) sticking to them. New year brings out new ideas and tasks for people. First fifteen days of 2012 have passed and I am yet to come to come face to face with my plans/ideas/plannings. I am totally clueless these days about everything. If you were to ask me what day it is, it will take me approximately 5  minutes to ponder over the question and answer it. And yea, no guarantee of it to be correct.

   My office is really sucking the hell out of my life. To give you an idea of the extend of torture I will just say that from the past two weeks I am working on Saturdays (not to forget the 9AM -9PM weekdays)! After this I just crave some loneliness, good food and sleep (lots and lots of it). I have been avoiding a lot many phone calls a nd friends. In every corner of the world somebody or the other would be cursing me for the way I am behaving with my dear ones. I know they mean well and care for me, but I just don't seem to get it. I end up getting hugely irritated or shouting on people for no mistake of there's. So to avoid all this I prefer to keep missing calls and avoiding people. Really ashamed to admit it but its really easing out that building knot inside my heart whose weight was becoming difficult for me to bear.

 I have been really ignoring my blog since the last few days, though I have been occasionally dropping in a few comments on all your blogs. I was pleasantly surprised by Purvi's comment on my blog the other day where she mentioned that she has left me an award! Yeah awards make me very happy.

So, this award gave me the necessary push to start blogging. What could have been better than starting the first post of 2012 with an award. Thanks a lot for this award Purvi.

 One observation: I am becoming lazier year on year, without making any resolution for the same :|

Of Secret Santa and other Things Fun...

This week was totally and entirely about Secret Santa. Started the game here in my PG and went on to organize the same in my office. Needless to say the guessing game was super fun and ofcourse earned me a lot of brownie points (in office) and a lot of gifts (both in PG and office). And that my dear friends made me a very happy woman. Check out the pics for more details:

Various Gifts I received from Office

Closer look at this pretty little pink sand timer! {don't mind the messy room in the background}

Thats a very pretty hairband and bracelet gifted by my PG friend Sudha!

My favorite of all. He is called Snowy! Hello World :)

 Don’t you just love the festive season, everyone is in cherry moods, the markets are bustling with people, the malls are thronging with shoppers, and parties are on full swing. Talking of parties, we had a small party in my PG on the Christmas eve, nothing fancy really, some cake, little music (with mediocre speakers) and some groovy moves  with all of us in our pyjamas (well except for me,  I can’t get into the party mood without being all dolled up). So anyhow, we had fun, and slept only to find a very amusing notice sticking up proudly on our wall the next day we came back from office. It was from our land lord and read the following:

1.  MAKE SURE YOUR ID IS AVAILABLE 31 DECEMBER 2011
2. NO OUTSIDE FRIENDS ALLOWED
3. DO NOT CREATE NUISANCE TO NEIGHBORS, SOCIETY BY PLAYING LOUD MUSIC AND HATED ARGUMENTS

The NOTICE

Okay, the third point was a clue, so someone out there had complained about our little gig on Christmas Eve. Now let me tell you, it was nothing bad or over the top. As I said, it was little food, some music and some dancing, NOTHING ELSE. And let me tell you another thing, if this gig would have been done by any other family in the society, no one would have dared to question it, let alone the fact of complaining about it. Just because we are singles and girls, we have to put up with this behavior (and it’s Mumbai). I have noticed this weird kind of behavior that we PG people are subjected to, people around will be unusually interested about our life’s. The guard down stairs will keep a close watch on your timings, peek longingly (suspiciously) on all the plastic shopping bags you carry. Auntiji’s will give u askance glances. And sadly the scenario remains the same whether is Delhi or Mumbai.

Nevertheless moving ahead, so this will be my last post of 2011. 2011 ~ has been a very eventful year for me. Some important things that happened this year:

1.   My job joining came in the month of March, for the place I wanted it to be yes yes yes MUMBAI.
2.   I moved out of my home in Jammu for the first time ever. And yes it was not at all easy.
3.   I started earning and living on my own here in Mumbai.
4.   I met a lott of new people – good, bad, best, worst all types. Really. I did
5.   A lot of new friends were added into facebook, lol on a serious note, what i mean to say is that I made a lot of good friends, the ones I can trust and share my life with.
6.    A bundle of joy, my niece Supraja (Teenu) was born on 11^th July 2011.
7.    I learned a lot of new technology and open source tools like Zabbix, jmeter. Actually they have become my daily vocabulary so it would not be fair if I write about 2011 and not mention them
8.   I shopped like crazy! Oh yes I did.
9.   I hit an all time low on the blogging front when I did not post anything for 3 months altogether. But gladly I bounced back to where I belong as quickly!
10.   I learned COOKING. From daal to chapatti and sabzi to chicken, I can cook it all now!

So all in all it was an awesome year. I did have a few lonely low moments and I did hurt a few people really bad. I apologise for any intentional/unintentional harm/hurt I brought about on anybody. I thank all those you loved me or hated me, Coz in the end it has helped me in making me who I am today. I have no regrets but many dreams. So cmmon 2012, show me what you got! 

Served Hot From Mumbai..

Was going through some old pictures, when I spotted these beauties. Mumbai is at its best during the rains. Don't believe me? See for yourself...

 Sheer visual pleasure, right? 

The Ungrateful Daughter (and yea that would be ME!)

Mother-daughter relationship is very complex in nature. A strong thread of love mingled with misunderstandings, fights and (strong) disagreements. Mother is your best support system and your worst critic ever. At times she is the sole person knowing your secret while the other times she is the one you hide your dirty secrets from.  Some days you laugh together sharing jokes and gossips, other days you refuse to see eye to eye after thunderous fights.

My relationship with my Mom has changed drastically over the years.  Being youngest in the family I was always the pampered one. When a kid, my lies about false stomach aches for not going to school were always acknowledged in a very positive way by my mother. Even in my late teens, whenever I wanted to bunk school or college my mother always gave me a thumbs up. And I am very grateful to her for this. Not because she allowed me to do so, but because when I think about it now, I realize that my mother trusted me deeply. She knew it when I have to study I will study; she just left it to me to decide my priorities. She never forced or pressurised me to study or attend school. I love her for this, because it taught me at a very early stage that I am responsible for my own acts. If I don’t study, I won’t score good marks, so that was a lesson learnt early and very efficiently by me.

But on the other side, my girlie issues and teenage trouble were always discussed and solved by my elder sister. So in that respect,  I wasn’t very close or comfortable sharing “the other side” of my life with my mom. However soon after my sister moved out, there was a considerable change brought about in relationship I shared with my mother. With my sister gone and my father posted in another city, I soon began discussing about my life, friends, trends etc with my mother and she began directing the gossips towards me (this department was earlier solely handled by my elder sister). Also she began taking my advice on various issues from fashion to food. However all was not bright and cherry, occasional fights were no strangers in the home. So on the whole we share a perfect mother daughter relation.

When I was at home, I left no stone upturned to nag my mother. From the type of dresses she wore to the kind of food she made. Mostly and almost always I criticized the food. Most of the fights we had were somehow or the other related to food. Mostly ending with me refusing to eat even a morsel of food and she after trying in vain, finally succumbing (again!) to my pressure and cooking my favorite dishes. I distinctly remember the times I pushed away and wasted food, simply stating that I hate it! When I look back now I realize how my mother must have felt during those times.

Now that I have started cooking myself I understand the kind of efforts and love that are put when you cook. When some criticises my cooking (and this criticism includes only comments like “salt is less”, “red chillies are more”), you won’t believe but I mentally murder that person and feel like holding their hair and shout at the top of my voice “DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH EFFORT I HAVE PUT ON THIS, CAN’T TO JUST SAY A FEW POSITIVE THNGS AND LEAVE THE REST TO ME”? It is then I realize that how ungrateful I have been t my mother. Far from venting out her anger on me for my behaviour, she went ahead and prepared food with equal amount of love and care. LOVE HER LIKE HELL!! Wish I could fly away and just hug her once and come back, just a hug.

The irony now is such that there are times when I crave like crazy to eat my mothers’cooked food (and believe it or not mostly the one that I hated back then) but I can’t! Waiting eagerly to go home so that I can gorge on yummy food cooked by mom and yea most importantly not forget to compliment her for the same

 :-)

THE KASHMIRI IN ME.(PART 2)

Dear All,

First and foremost I want to thank all of you for reading and appreciating by previous post on Kashmir and Kashmiri's. I had it written long time back but never found the necessary confidence to post it. I always though "who would be interested in reading all this". But your comments and appreciation proved me wrong and I am so happy about it. It has given me the necessary confidence to post what I had written in continuation of what I posted earlier!

Please read on to know more details about us, Kashmiri pandits ...

LIFESTYLE.

Like everyone else Kashmiri families today are mostly nuclear in nature. Kids grow up, go to different places and it’s the mother-father that are left alone in the homes. This is the scenario that I see around. In the old days there were joint families, bunch of children, lot of fun and lot of action. Not anymore!

The basic lifestyle these days is similar to like anybody else. We eat, pray, sleep, watch TV …. Nothing unusual. Yea, a lot of stress is given to education. Girls, boys are treated alike in matters of education and otherwise [I am strictly talking about what I see around in my family and those of my relatives!]. Even in the old days importance to education was given for the girl child. The girls in our community are married off only when they have finished studying and are independent (financially, I mean). There is no hard and fast rule but yea girls are not married off young. But otherwise the restrictions are the same (in India they are universal, aren’t they?). No gundagardi. Keeping the izzat of the family. No night-outs. Curfews. Yea. You get it. Same old. Same old.

RITUALS.

This is very vast. There are so many things under this. Festivals. Birthdays. Marriages. And what not.I will try my best to explain it all to the best of my ability.

I will start with birthdays. We kashmiri’s  have 2 birthdays a year. Shocked? Well, most of the people are! Okie let me elaborate. One is the normal kind of birthday which everyone has and knows about. Like mine is on 9^th of feb. The other birthday is based on the lunar calendar and it changes every year. Just like diwali does not fall on a same date every year. We differentiate between the two by calling one angreiz (English) and the other kashur (kashmiri). The Kashmiri birthday is celebrated by a small pooja. Yellow rice is made, you tie a red coloured thread on your wrist and put a tilak.  A myriad of kashmiri dishes are made (both veg and non veg). The other birthday is celebrated in the usual manner cake, party etc. you can even cut a cake on your Kashmiri birthday (in addition to the pooja), no worries, no rules.

Most important festival in our calendar is SHIVRATRI as we are Shiv devotees. It comprises of a 4-5 hour pooja called the vatak pooza. This is done by all Kashmiri families. However the intricacies may differ. For example, we make 5 vegetarian dishes on this day to offer the deity, others may make some other dishes, some families also make non-veg food. The next day of the pooja is known as salaam. On this day most of the families make non-veg food. Though some eat veg on this day as well. One of my relatives don’t touch, eat, look at non-veg food for some good 5,6 days prior to Shivratri. They can eat non-veg only after salaam.

Being Hindus we celebrate other festivals with equal amount of zest and enthusiasm. Other common festivals are celebrated in the same way as everyone else with maybe a minor difference here and there.

Though majorly we are Shiv bhakts, Kashmir has it’s own history of saints. I will mention those I know of. There is Mata Kheer Bhawani (also known as tulmul) temple in Kashmir. A replica of it has also been made in Jammu. Then there is bhagwan Gopinath ji, his ashram has also been made here in Jammu. But then different people have faith in different gods. Talking of me, I am SAI BABA bhakt.

Marriages are very important affairs. The preparations of which is started year before the actual occasion. And many a small events commemorate its starting. Like bengali’s we too are rice lovers, so when we buy rice, it is also a function called the toomul saatun, in which the aunties of the family come together to clean up the rice and have a hearty meal. All the things related to marriage like masalas (spices), jewellery, clothes etc are bought on auspicious days, the day should be shub.

I my family we have a lot of girls,especially on maternal side. So most of the weddings I have witnessed have been of girls. Hence I will write about the wedding from the girl’s side. The main events are the Mehandi Raat, Devgon and Baarat. Apart from these sure-shot events there can be optional events like satsang, cocktail parties, reception etc etc.

So, the mehandi-raat includes a lot of mehandi, a lot of traditional foot tapping kashmiri music (a kashmiri music party is called for the occasion), whole-lot of nach gaanna and traditional kashmiri food (veg or non-veg, totally optional). In short a very colourful night and the most anticipated function of the shaadi !

Devgon is basically a pooja, where the girl enters the womanhood. It involves kaane shraan, wearing new clothes (supplied by maternal relatives), wearing some of the jewellery and performing a mini-havan with help of a pandit ji.

The main event of shaadi includes the welcome of the groom’s side (by putting garlands around them!) varmaalla exchange by the couple, a lot of photographs, more food (mostly this event has vegetarian food). The shaadi does not necessarily take place during the day (as is perceived by many) it can also take place during the night. The event of shaadi includes a lot of things, bride and groom are made to make different poses holding hands, etc etc . No. not for the photographs! They mean some thing. Also the kanyadaan of the bride. I love this part, where the bride sits in her fathers lap! The couple is taught the meaning of marriage by the pandit. Then comes the vidai part, where the ladies (and some gents) cry to their heart’s content.

Next in line is the event of satrat the night immediately after the wedding (for example, if the vidai was in the morning, satarat will be in the night of the same day), where the bride and groom come as a married couple and non veg food is cooked. Then reception may-or-may not follow. That more or less ends the marraige function.

MUSIC AND HANDICRAFTS

Kashmiri music is really popular amongst the older generation like my mom, grandmom etc. As far as my knowledge is concerned I feel the impact of kashmiri music on younger generation (including me) is non-existant. My knowledge of it is limited to few famous folk songs which are usually played out in parties and marriages.

 Kashmiri dresses and handicrafts are famous all over the world. The beautiful Kashmiri embroidered sarees, shawls, coats and dresses have many takers all across the globe.

CUISINE

I have no patience whatsoever to talk about this vast and mouth-watering topic, so I will just let the pics do all the talking:

 These pictures are a torture to look at, especially when you are staying away from home like me and pine and lust to eat food like this.

Anyhow, that's all I have to say in this particular post.

Love:

SEPO