Story tree...

Tagged by j'adore

A Journey Begins...

He thought it would be an ordinary journey. Standing behind the pillar he watched the train snort arrogantly into the station. With each snort he was reminded of his grandfather's words "You will fail in the city and return penniless"; with every heavenward whistle, he heard his cousin, "Don't worry. Come here and I will get you a job at the construction site." Now he had a 34-hour journey to prove one of them wrong, and he expected the excitement at the end of the journey. He looked at his ticket once again: compartment S9 berth 23.

He would preserve this ticket. When he would succeed, he would frame and hang it for all to see, as a reminder of the fact that greatness had humble origins, of the day when he set out to seize his destiny. His lips quivered with emotion as he carefully counted the money in his wallet, yet again. Four crisp hundreds and two crumpled fifties. At seventeen, it seemed like a fortune to him. He would carefully plan his expenses. He felt as energetic as the strong breeze that hit his face. He stumbled backward, as the wallet slipped from his hands.

Turag watched it fall, with the fingers of both his hands curled—one gripping the steel bar and the other gripping nothing but air. The wallet settled, the second time it touched the greased stones. It was diminishing in size and moving away from him like an open-mouthed balloon propelled by the gushing air. He knew, well enough, the events that would follow if he pulls the stop-chain. In fact it was a stop-chain that brought a wind of change in his life. Getting off from the thought-train that the stop-chain had evoked, he rushed towards it, with uncurled fingers."

Don't do that." said a voice from behind him. The command in the voice, more than his curiosity, made him stop and turn around. The first thing he noticed was her eyes which also held the finality her voice seemed to convey. He was still staring deep into the depths of her beautiful eyes when he realized that he had been stopped. He closed his eyes for a second, shook his head to clear out the image -as if wiping the slate clean- and reopened them."I drop my wallet.", he said.

Despite shaking his head, he couldn’t free himself from her gaze. She looked straight at him as if worried. He saw strength in her dark eyes, but he also saw sadness in their depths. Furthermore, the dark shadows under her eyes betrayed fatigue. Her face was classically beautiful, betraying little of her age. Guessing the lady’s sari alone cost several times the amount his wallet had contained, his childlike naiveté made him wonder why she seemed so troubled. He thought, ‘Here I am without a penny to my name, and more concerned about the woes of a stranger!’

It was always in his nature to help the needy so he couldn’t walk out from the sadness he saw in her eyes. He stretched forth his hand and said “I’m Hari”. She smiled and replied, Sheila. Hari was not ready to let go of Sheila, he wanted to help her, he wanted to wipe away the sadness and bring a smile back to her face. He stood there helpless, with out a penny to spare but a heart full of feelings. Feelings that even he had never felt before or even knew existed.

==============================================

(Everything below the dashed line above should be copied and pasted with every accepted tag)
This is a Story Tree and is best nurtured as follows:
1. A blogger can add only 90-100 words (not more or less) at a time.
2. All previous snippets of 90-100 words need to be copied before the new set of 90-100 words are appended.
3. Each entire snippet should be linked to the respective author (and not just the first sentence or so)
4. Characters, scenes, etc. can be introduced by an author
5. Bizarre twists, sci-fi, fantasy sequences are best avoided.
6. A tag must be accepted within 7 days else the branch is a dead branch
7. After appending 90-100, the Story Tree can be passed on to at most 3 bloggers.
8. If more than 1 branch leads to a blogger, s/he is free to choose any one of them but cannot mix the snippets of the individual branches.
9. The Story Tree is best left to grow than concluded
10. Please attach the image of the Story Tree below with each accepted tag (the link address can be copied and used).



Sorry guys, I hate to do this, but I tag Jaguu, Parthy and ROS

Talking ...

As a kid I was a huge fan of Enid Blyton books. I read all the books our local library had back then. One of my favorite characters was Amelia Jane. Amelia Jane was this doll that came to life after dark (or when so one was around - something to that effect). So I used to believe that when I went to sleep everything in my house would come to life, like table, chair, books and what not. So I started talking to these things like they had life. My parents found it amusing may be they never stopped me. This went on for a while.

As I grew older, I continued talking to inanimate objects. Since everyone started looking at me funny, I only talked to these things when I was alone.

Years went by and I forgot about this habit. I don't know if I stopped doing this or I just did it so often that it had become common to me. Yesterday, Shekar and I car pooled to work and when I got back I asked my car, "How are you today? I missed you." Shekar just stared at me, that is when I realized, I still talk to things.

Friend in a Stranger

Recently I read a post of ROS's blog about meeting a stranger. That is when I realized I have a very similar story. Thanks ROS for the inspiration.

It was the summer and I was coming back from my India. I had to get to college so I left India before my whole family did. Flying by itself is bad, flying for 20 hours is worse, but nothing defeats flying for 20 hours alone. So that is what I was in for. So I boarded Kuwait airlines from Cochin airport. The flight to Kuwait from Cochin was maybe 4 hours, so I had my Jeffery Archer book and I was all set. I was in the Aisle seat (I like aisle seat better, as it has more room) and the window seat next to me was empty.

That is when I saw a guy dressed in suit, by suit I just don't mean the regular blazer and dress pant, but vest and tie the whole nine yards. My first thought was why someone would want to fly dressed in a suit. My flying wardrobe is always jeans, full sleeves shirts, sneakers, and a light material jacket, just incase I feel cold - in other words something very comfortable. As luck would have it he sat right next to me.

Before the plane took off we started talking and I found that he was an MBA student and was going home (some where middle east) after completing his degree. We got talking and he said that when he was done packing that is when he saw his suit. He didn’t have enough room to pack his suit so he chose to wear it (Note to self: don't pass judgment on people at the second they pass by). That short flight we shared our life stories. In Kuwait I had 4 hours lay over to go to London and he had 6 hours. We spent the other 4 hours at the airport talking. We exchanged email ids and I left for London.

This happened 3 years ago and even now we email each others regularly and received an email form him today, hence this blog.

As someone has said, "There Are No Strangers Here, Only Friends Who Have Never Met".

Kal bi Aaj bi - Yesterday and even Today

Yesterday after I got out of work, I went to grocery store to buy some garlic to make Fish curry. When I got out of my car I realized I left my purse at work. Work was hardly a mile away, so I went back and got my purse. Then I finished my shopping and went home.

This morning I came to work and after like 30 mins I needed something from my purse. I looked for it and it was not on my desk. I figured I must have left it in the car. I walked over to my car and still no purse. Hopefully it is still at home. Strangely I had my cell phone and keys (these items are usually in my purse).

So today I'm penny less and driving around with out a license.

Sleeping Place

Last night I couldn't fall asleep right when I hit bed (may be all the self reflecting I did earlier - read my previous post). That is when I went to my sleeping place.

Sleeping Place - is a mental image of a place that I picture myself in. I used to do this since I was a little kid. My sleeping place is still the same as it was back then. My sleeping place doesn't have a name but for blog sake lets call it "Aven". Aven is a completely made up place and I have never been there physically. Aven has huge mountains, full of lush green trees and grass. I'm the only one in whole of Aven. There is a small house in the valley of the mountains. There is a tree in front of the house and I have a hammock tied on it. There are waterfalls near by. I have never seen them but I can hear them all the time from the house. Sometimes I lie in the hammock swinging, or under the tree reading a book, or inside the house painting thing I see around me. And most of the time I'm asleep after this.

Aven works like magic for me every single time. I used to think Aven was my little secret that only I am allowed to go to. Till the other day I was watching Friends and Monica is having a hard time sleeping, and Phoebe tells Monica about Phoebe's sleeping place and it sounded a lot like my Aven.

I was so shocked because I thought I was the only one that had a sleeping place. But now I see Phoebe has a sleeping place, that too very similar to Aven. Nevertheless, Aven is still my sleeping place and it can put me to sleep even to this day.

Am I weird or do you guys have your Aven?

20 Things about ME

Jaguu has tagged me to write 20 things about me. So here they go.

1. I can not sing, but am a huge bathroom singer and love songs.
2. I am a huge fan of Friends, seen each episode like million times, and still when I'm flipping through channels and I see Friends I watch the whole episode. I know everyone's lines. Can I BE more crazy (Chandler is my favorite) .
3. I make really good fish curry (don't we mallus all do).
4. I love learning languages. Can fluently speak Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi and English. Can understand Telgu and Gujrathi.
5. I have been working since I was 16
6. I love cars – In future I wanna own a Corvette.
7. I make an extra effort to keep in touch with friends.
8. I’m a bull headed taurean.
9. I hate to shop - I know it is quiet shocking, but I can never spend time at a mall. I only go shopping when I need something. I go to the mall, get what I want, maximum 40 mins.
10. Used to be a tomboy (I used to defeat guys in arm wrestling back when I used to be in school). Shed my tomboyishness after I started working (I dunno why)
11. I don’t like the color pink and hate people associating girls with pink.
12. I’m very aggressive, goes back to No. 8.
13. I don’t have stage fright.
14. I can not play any musical instrument. I always wanted to play the guitar. (Jithu are you planning on selling yours)
15. The Shawshank Redemption is my favorite movie.
16. Have a very short temper – I’m working on this.
17. I’m a people pleaser.
18. I can’t stand when girls use their girliness (cry, flutter eyelashes, smile ...and not restricted to only these) to get things done.
19. I am very organized; my buddy list is organized as school, college, work, family in my Instant Messengers.
20. I can not be mad at anyone for a long while.

Phew.. I'm done. But was a nice way to spend my Sunday afternoon self-reflecting.

Yeh Kya Haal Bana Rakha Hain?

Yesterday evening I was watching TV and I saw Aishwarya Rai in L'Oreal ad. Even tough this as has been out for a while this was the first time I was seeing. This led me to think about the first ad I saw her, it was a Pepsi ad. This got me thinking about all the ads in India. Here are the few ads I remember from when I used to live there

Bororlin - They had this great ad that showed grandmother and grand daughter and played a nice a song, I just remember the ending "Borolin antiseptic cream, Borolin.

Bajaj - Aaj bi, kal bi, kal bi aaj bi. Inn yaadon ka safar ruke na kahin. Hamara Bajaj

Coldarin - Yeh kya haal bana rakha hain? kuch lete kyon nahin? Colderin li?

Dabur amala hair oil - Gane mulayam kale baal, kille kille mathvale baal, Dabur amala kesh thel……….. Cherra kitna kaaz lage

Eggs - Meri jaan meri jaan murgi ke aande, Meri jaan meri jaan murgi ke aande
Sunday ho ya Monday, roz kaaye murgi ke aande.

Glycodin - Naya nau din purana sau din, kaasi ke liye baz glycodin

Hajmola - A little boy is jumping over dirt and an old lady passes by. He gives her hajmola and she jumps with him. Hajmola Candy, jo bi kaaye dost ban jaaye

Hawkins - Hawkins ki seeti baji khushboo hi khusbu phaili mazedaar lazzatdaar khaana hai tayar aji khaana hai tayar... (Neena Gupta stars in this)

Lifebuoy - Tandurusti ki rakshaaa... karta hai Lifebuoy, Lifebuoy hai jahaan...... tandurusti hai wahaan..Lifebuoy

Milk - Doodh doodh doodh doodh, doodh hai wonderful, pi sakthe hain roz glass full.
Doodh mai dalo ice, doodh ban gaya very nice
Piyo daily once or twice, mil jaayega tasty surprise

Nirma - Nirma Nirma, Washing Powder Nirma, Doodh si safedi Nirma se aaye
rangeen kapda bhi khil-khil jaaye, Sabki Pasand Nirmaaaa,
Washing Powder Nirma, NIRMAAAAA!!!! ( a little girl twirls... then she becomes the image on the cover of the washing powder)

Pan Parag - Pan Parag, pan Masala, pan ka swad pan ka Masala, Pan parag. (Shami kappor used to be in this ad)

Pan Pasad -
Girl (angrily): Shaadi!! Aur tumse?? Hmph! Kabhi nahin!!
(eats pan pasand)
Narrator: Pan pasand ghazab ka swaad, ghazab ki mithaas!
Girl (sweetly): Shaadi, aur tumse? Kabhi naeee...

Santoor -
Guy:Excuse me, App kaun se college main padthe hon?
Lady: College aur main, heheh
Kid comes out running "Mommyy"

Vicks - Vicks ki goli lo kech kech door karo

Vicco - Vicco turmeric, nahin cosemetice, vicco turmeric ayurvedic cream.
Jadi buttiyon ko aapna kar, Vicco ne banaya vicco Paste (ting ting - music in background) Vicco powder

And my all time favorite.
This ad came out when the movie Jurassic Park was running.
BPL - Little kid is home and animated dinosaur comes, they make popcorn in microwave, watch TV, popcorn falls on the floor, they vacuum it with vacuum cleaner. All these products are BPL products. The main reason i liked the ad was because it showed all BPL products in one ad. Very creative.

PS: All these ads have been reproduced from memory (from 10 years ago) so they may be incorrect. Please feel free to correct them or even add new ones.

Innu Onam annu - Today is Onam

We live a good part of our life based on our memories that we have gathered in yester years. How old should a child be to remember things in his/her adulthood?

My first memory was when was 3 or 4 years old. I was in Kindergarten, and Didi was in 3rd or 4th grade. It was a Monday and I was wearing this white frock that had red strings to tie it over the shoulder. Dad had taken the day off and Didi was off from school. We went to different schools so I had no chutti. As never before dad came during lunch and asked my teacher and took me home. I still today remember standing in front of this scooter excited about getting out of school.

We got home and mom had Vayzha ella (bananna leaves) laid out on the table and lots of dishes. She said monne, Innu Onam annu and we all had a sumptuous Ona sadhya.

After 22 years now, when Onam comes, this memory is still fresh. Since then Onam is not just about Maveli coming, but to me it is about family. Being with loved ones, letting loved ones know you are there for each other.

After all these years, this Onam was the first time I was away from my parents but was with Shekar. I made the Ona sadhya this time and Shekar and I had our first Onam together and that is when I realized that we do have great memories from our past, but we are just moments away from creating new great memories.

Leggo of Ego

There are few people in our lives who we know and can not stand them. May be because he/she talks too much, hard to get along with,has to comment on everything or something else. But we have all met these kind of people. Or we may be this kind of people to someone else.

One such guy I know is Aamir. I met him during my college years. He was one of my friend's (Priya's) friend. Priya and I used to hang out a lot together which meant I had to be around Aamir.

Then one day I lost my college ID card and to get it replaced it was 20 bucks. ID cards were quite important in our campus, swiped them to get in our parking deck, used them as Debit cards all around the campus and lots of other reasons.

So Priya tells me, Aamir works in the college ID card office, tell him, he will get you a new one for free. I usually do not prefer asking other people for favor, especially Aamir, someone who I dislike. So I went to the ID card office, made me a new card, paid my 20 bucks and promised myself that I will be very careful from now on.

Couple of days later I run into Aamir. He tells me "See what I found?" and hands me my old ID card. I asked him where he got it. He said one of his friends Ravi found it in the parking deck and since Ravi has seen Aamir talking to me, Ravi just gave it to Aamir to give it to me.

I said "Thank You" and I walked away with the thought, "My ego, I just couldn't ask Aamir for a favor. If I had asked him, I would be 20 bucks richer and still had my old ID active". But all said and done I like the picture in my new ID much better than the old ID, so that is a 20 dollar well spent.

Prints in my Heart - Conclusion

Bhavya - I strongly believe that friends we make in college last our lifetime. That is where I met Bhavya. We happened to take the same class a semester and then started studying together and became very good friends. Bhavya was 5 years older than me, as she was pursuing her second degree. So more than a friend she was like an older sister. After the first semester we met we would register for the same classes every time. While we were in school we would spend the whole day together. She introduced me to lot of things I have never done in my life. She was gujju, so she taught me garbha, took me to garbhas, made me realize that there are vegetarian dishes that tastes well, taught me gujurati (not that she taught me, but all gujjus speak gujurati regardless of who is around, so I picked up the language just to feel included in their conversations. Now I can understand gujurati quiet well). We used to pull all nighters together working on assignments, studying for exams. I survived college because of her. We did disagree and have our parts of arguments but we always patched things up. This was the first time I had an older friend, and it was great. I used to go her house all the time, knew her family pretty well. Our parents became real good friends. Now both of us have moved to different states, but my parents are still close to Bhavya's parents. Bhavya has a daughter year and a half old and I can not wait hold her. I haven't seen Bhavya since April, but every Saturday a 30 min conversation with her makes me feel she is right here.


These prints in my heart are going to stay for ever. Years go by, people go by but memories stay alive. These few lines from Yaadein are the best conclusion I can give to this series.

Duniya mein hum saare
Yaadon ke hai maare
Kuch kushiyaan, thode gham
Yeh humse, inse hum
Yaadein, o meethi meethi yaadein
.
.
Baatein bhool jaati hain
Yaadein yaad aati hain

Prints in my Hearts - II

Poornima - She was one of those girls that I used to love to hate. We were never friends more like rivals. All the girls in the class were divided into two groups; they were either friends of Thanu or friends of Poorni. This started when I was in 6th grade (so I was around 11 years old) and continued on till I left that school. We would compete against each other for everything. I remember this incident where we had to color the map of Africa and my main reason to do that real well was because I wanted to be better than Poorni. (sounds silly now, but that was my main drive in school years). She was mainly book smart, so I took part in all kinds of competition speech, skit, sports to be just better than Poorni. She always got better grades than me, but I comforted my self saying, that all she does, but I do so much more like sports and extra curricular stuff. Now that I look back at all these sounds so silly, but I guess if it wasn't for Poorni I would just be a book smart kid. Thanks to her even now when I am amidst a huge crowd I don't feel intimidated. I can MC a whole show for 3 hours in front of 500+ plus people and not get a ounce of stage fright. I guess what I am trying to say here is THANKS Poorni for making me aim higher and reach those goals. If it wasn't for her I would have turned out very different.

Sushil - After 9th grade I moved to a new school. Sushil was the first person to talk to me in that school. So he was always special to me. Whole of 9th grade and 10th grade we were friends. In 11th grade we became very close friends. We would talk about anything and everything. He would come to me with girl troubles and I used to help him resolve these. Then again, I switched schools but we kept in touch. He is working somewhere is Banglore these days. All my India trips, we make a point to meet up with each others and share our stories. Recently I told him that he was the first person to talk to me in our school and that is why he was so special to me and that is when he knew about it. We do something simple and for the other person it means the world. Sushil - Thank you so much for being there when I need a friend the most.

To be Continued...

Prints in my Heart - I

We meet a lot of people in our life, but only a few holds special place in our heart. Years can go by, but still our memory of these special ones always stay alive. These are the people who left prints in my heart

Dheeraj - I must have met him in first grade but my earliest Memory of him was somewhere in 3rd grade. We were not great friends, but we were friends. He was great in academics and I guess he was the drive for me to do well in school. I admired him so much, I was 8 and all I wanted was to do better than Dheeraj in everything. It was such a healthy competition. But to my memory I never did better than Dheeraj, he was always class 1st and me 2nd. His dad got transferred and he moved to .. I don’t know where. I missed him a lot after he left. Then 2 years ago I got an email from him, and I was the happiest person on earth that day. We still email each others, both of us are 25 and we went different ways when we were 10 years old and after 15 years we both are fresh in each others memory. Just that thought makes me happy


Dhvani - First real close friend I had. I met her in 5th grade, I don't recall how we became friends, but we were very close. As we got older, we got closer. We would do sit together in class, have lunch together. Our Birthdays were 10 days apart and we felt that was such a special thing. When she was sick and missed school I would go over to her place and write my notes again for her and vice versa. Even to this day I have not shared that kind of friendship with anyone. She was a great dancer and I remember staying after school while she practiced so we could walk home together. I changed school after 9th grade (due to my dad's transfer), and I still remember how we hugged each others and wept. We shared letters back then, and now we share emails. Things so special happens once in your life time and I am so happy it happened to me with Dhvani.

To be Continued...

Why do we take so long?

Last weekend Shekar (my husband) and I were invited for a friend Seema's wedding, as I was getting ready for the Saturday evening wedding, Shekar was all ready and watching football on ESPN and waiting on me and that is when I realized, why do we girls take so long to get ready and why do guys fail to understand this.

So I decided to put this blog up to explain it to all guys "Why do we take so long?"
Here is why I take so long, most of the girls could probably agree to this.

1. One month before the event date (ED) I talk to mom/sister/friend about what I should wear for this day. Should I wear a saree or salwar or Lehanga/lacha - what ever the long skirt outfit is called? Once decided what kind of outfit I should wear(in my case saree as I love sarees), then choice is given to the above mentioned characters and mom says "wear the nice yellow saree, it looks very rich". Didi says "please don't wear yellow, you will look like egg's yolk, wear the maroon one". Friends says "Arre yaar, pink is so in these days, you should wear your pink one, but few months ago for Suman's baby shower you wore pink na, phir you wear maroon then". As always didis rule so I decide on maroon.
2. Week before the ED, I try on the blouse to make sure that it still fits, and drape the saree casually and parade it for by Shekar. He says "Its nice." Me all happy now
3. Day before the ED, wash my hair, blow dry it and straighten it (I have hair below shoulder length) so this take almost 60 – 90 minutes. Then I pick out a nail color that matches my saree and paint my nails. Iron my saree, have to be very careful as the saree has lot of bead work.
4. On ED, we have to leave home at 5.00 as we have an hour long to the wedding place. So I start getting ready around 3.30 (1.30 hrs sounds pretty good). I start with draping the saree - came out well in the first try. First thing I do is pull all my hair back in a clip so it doesn't interrupt the makeup process on my face. Put moisturizer, then foundation, then powder, curl my eyelashes, then eye shadow(I have to make sure the eye shadow is a shade of my saree's color), then eyeliner, then mascara. Apply tad bit of Vaseline on my lips and then lipstick (this also should be the shade of my saree's color). Face DONE. Next hair. I usually like to wear my hair down, and pull back little hair in a clip, so I brush my hair down and put a clip and now I'm 90% done.
5. Next is jewelry, have to pick something to go with the work of the saree. So pick a small necklace, few bangles. Finally footwear. This can make or break the whole outfit. So I carefully select a sandal that has a small gold flower in the corner. My favorite perfume and I am all DONE

The above was my timeline now a list of what Shekar did to get ready.

1. At 4.30 of the ED, comes over to me and ask "Do you think I should wear a suit or a dress shirt and pants?" For which I respond "Suit pehana". Next question "Blue, black, grey"? I say blue and he nods his head and walks away.
2. Shekar shaves, puts moisturizer on his face, gel in his hair, combs his hair, takes him a minute to decide what shirt to wear with the suit, wears the shirt, wears his suit(dry cleaned already, so doesn't have to iron). Then a pair of black shoes. Viola he is done and time is 4.50, 10 minutes to spare.

Now with both of us dressed Shekar pulls out the car and I get in and he looks at me and says "Why are you so decked up teri shaadi nahi ho rahi (you are not getting married), why didn't you wear the cream salwar you wore at mama's house for dinner". I roll my eye and bite my tongue so I do not burst out on him.

Blogger’s world is a singles world

Recently I have become an avid blog reader. Especially after Google launched blogsearch. I have noticed that most of the blogger’s are single. Don’t get me wrong there are few married ones, but majority are single.

Is it because married people do not have anything blog worthy happening to them, or they just want to share things/feelings/questions/.. to the significant other and not to rest of the world. Or is it that a majority of married people blog as single people to increase the hits to their site due to the universally accepted truth that married people are boring.

This leads to the next question – why do single people blog?

Is it because they are lonely and want to share their feeling with rest of the world? Or is it just a way to keep in touch with friends far away, to keep them posted about what is going on. Or is it just a way to make new friends or even find a life partner.

Just wondering

College or Work...

I recently had a conversation with my cousin, who had just graduated college. She was so excited about starting the working world. That is when I thought is Work all that exciting?

I graduated college 3 years ago and have been working since then. But has work been all that fun? Or is work expected to be fun? This led me to make a list.

Things I miss about college...

Vacations - Number of days I did not have to go (choose not to go) to college

Friends – Closeness with friends and meeting them for lunch/breakfast/late night dinners. Staying up with them till wee hours of the morning talking, watching movies.

Schedule – The flexible schedule, like having your first class after noon, or having classes just few days of the week.

Structure – I know what I am doing, where I am going when I am in college.

Food Joints – Favorite little food place that served the best food and was always open when you had a craving for them.

Don’t get be wrong. I also love working. I have been working since I was 16, but real jobs after I graduated. I love what I do, BUT it is not college.