So, well, here it is....a few of my manali Snaps. they're not in the right order, granted....but still

Sunrise over the Himalayas. Taken two hours after we'd started the trek. Easily one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen.
This................taken from a tent at base camp. Speaks a lot about my trip, this.
Top-camp.

So this is base camp. bliss-living.

White out, a little away from top-camp......

2 pages turned.

Okay, a few of my manali pics are here. I'll put up more later. I tried uploading on blogger, but it didn't seem to work.
Go check.
Also, I have a devArt page.

The greatest fear that was.

I had this fear, a fear of losing my self, my being, the whole persona, freedom, the way I look and the free-spirit way I think.
Maybe you can call it a fear of getting old, because as I age, somehow someday I'll lose it all. A desperate, clawing need to hang on tightly to what I am now, stay like this forever......

But then last week, I remembered an old box.....found it, dusted it off, and uncovered 4 year's worth of memories. Pulled out the latest, a diary I'd written in 9th grade, and in its colourfully inked happenings I saw....well, a stupid kid. A kid who cared too much about all the wrong things, a kid who didn't THINK at all! More happenings, events, kiddish excitement. OMG this and OMG that.(I still have the excitement.)
But by God I'd changed, and you know what, I liked it. I liked what I saw in the mirror now, I liked myself a little better, okay, much better, than I liked the girl who'd written in that book.
I'd kinda lost a whole self. Gradually,like cats shed their fur, like snakes shed skin, scales dropped off, rubbed of, and I'm reborn from the ashes.
And even in 9th, wasn't that my greatest fear? Losing my self?
And I'd never even noticed. So painless. Kinda like an injection, you know, you're waiting, cringing, dreading, anticipating the needle into your skin, and then suddelny they tell you, it's over....and you go "wha'?? when??"
So I think it makes sense to drop that irrational phobia now....
I guess change is inevitable, what we define is its direction.

He speaks!!

He would be our principal. Who has a penchant for giving speeches of epic proportions.
Today we started school. Today the new building opened. And today I sang a lot.

So yeah, we had an assembly in the new-big-beautiful hall....and we knew we were doomed when the princi came up to the lectern, with no respect whatsoever, the 1000-odd kids there groaned audibly.
And with good reason.
I'm suppose the guy gives inspiring speeches. I don't know for sure, because I've never heard them. The problem, you see is that he's not inspiring enough, to inspire us to actually listen to his speeches.
So today's was, I think, something about our school's spectacular board results, and an ex-ISM girl who got a Fullbright scholarship to Harvard business school, etc, etc, etc, How we must all work very hard etc etc etc, and the rest was just sound on my eardrums. No registering.
He droned on and on, with no track of time....Time came back, when suddenly the bell rang. The bell that signaled the end of first period. Which, btw, is SUPPOSED to be AFTER assembly. Yeah, the bell rang, during his discourse.
And he still didn't stop.
That takes the cake and the ice-cream and the after-dinner-mint.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hate obvious questions.And statements. Questions like....."Oh my God your hair's red!!"
or "whoa, you coloured your hair?!?"
Yeah, no, it coloured it self. whaddya expect? Or, no, the stylist did it. I don't do my own hair.
And yes, I have braces. Those aren't blue food particles on my teeth that you see.
irritants.

Physics tuitions started today. Big fat test on monday. And suddenly the cheese-grater-year panic all comes rushing back at me. So yeah. Study year....big whoop.
exams in August. class tests before that.
My vacation's over. Time to step out of it.

Don't try to convince us. We don't believe you.

Most creative professions have their little challenges, the dark horses, the Everests......the little hates...like Ami on Miami ink hates having to do fairies, I think advertisers must detest doing ads for sanitary pads.
Periods are a pain, period....okay, full-stop. You'd think it's easy to get used to, seeing that it's inevitable and happens every month....but it's not. Fact remains that we hate it and everything about it. Hate PMS, Detest the cramps, and loathe the ickiness...
Therefore, when we're in a state where violence seems rational, we really don't want to see the happy-happy pad ads, all SO untrue.
Most ads seem to say, use our product and you'll be comfy doing anything, playing soccer to climbing gates to running through sprinklers.
Not true. comfort lies not in the brand used, It lies in yourself....
So.."Have a happy period"...??
Not possible. Not even probable. Tolerable, maybe. Happy, no. Not unless your product can stop cramps and PMS and everything else we hate about this monthly show of blood. So keep dreaming.
I wonder if the girls in the ads have their period when the ad's being filmed......
Anyway. No biggie. just the "have a happy period" REALLY pissed me off.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

hmm. mess mess everywhere.
now reading: 100 years of solitude, finally.
now feeling: sick. no prizes for guessing why.
now wanting: sleep. and satisfaction with life.

Home

I'm finally home. I've also resolved never (NEVER) to fly Indian Airlines again. Not if my life depended on it, no.
Seats are rock-like. Person on either side, not my parents because we couldn't get seats together.
Elbows creeping into my personal space. I'm all cramped, into the smallest self possible.
ugh ugh.
And for the first time on a flight I felt too sick to eat.

Home....well, we managed to make it habitable rather fast, piling up all the books here, all the cds there, unpacking in a whirlwind, the house is still a mess though....
And now it's a home, the family really can't live in a catless house can we? So off we went today morning to get our cats back. Of course, their vacation was spent in a little cage in a pet shop. we weren't too happy about that. Getting them back was easy enough, and now they're settling, letting the memories and the sounds and smells of our house come back to them, creeping, tiptoeing cautiously, exploring, galloping frantically.....

I hate facebook photo uploading thing.

meanwhile. I've had a good vacation. Went to manali. had best time ever. Came to Mumbai, got some work done, got braces and hair-streaks, and I'm quite happy. Went to Pune, redecorated cousins room with more warli art, took lots of pics....loafed around, roamed around....
yeah, it's been a good vacation.
now if only i can get the pics to upload....

Pain is good?

Ah.... so the brace wires are in...and it kinda hurt yesterday and all....

so yesterday I announce, just thiking aoud kinda thing, "Pain grounds you....I mean I feel now I couldn't lose my head, can't fly or whatever, the pain'll keep me on the ground"

Both parents give me proudish looks like I've realised some deep adult thing

"What...?"

"Now you get it?" Dad says.."not just pain. hardship, difficulties, all ground you....that's why we need some difficulties in life."

Hmm....

HOLY COW!!

I just finished this book, and it's bloody brilliant.....

Ok, granted, Sarah Macdonald had an unbelievable story to begin with, but not everyone who has a great story can tell it well...but she can. Being a non-Indian, she sees all the little things that we've gotten used to, and she puts it in a way that makes us take notice of them again, and smile with familiarity.

But her writing style, that isn't even what hit me about this book...

'Tis true that India is a secular country, but in this case it doesn't mean we're religionless, it just means that we have possibly every single world religion....In India live Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis, Buddhists, Jews,....and these are just major religions, Indians have faiths, gurus, teachers....I guess India's the best place to find spirituality and inner peace...if you know how to look for it.

For those not familiar, Sarah Macdonald is an Aussie, worked as an RJ in Sydney, moved to India for close to two years to join her partner who was posted in Delhi as a broadcaster for abc network. When she came to India, she was an athiest, but her stay here was spent eploring almost every faith the country has, and reading her story, I realised I want to do that too.....

I proclaim myself to be "spiritual but not religious", but the two are interlinked in a way, you can have spirituality with religion or without.....Anyway, her book made me realise that each religion, each faith, is beautiful in its own way, in its own principles, as long as it doesn't lead to fanaticism, as long as we stick to the pure essence of it and don't get immersed into the hoo-haa and the rituals and regulations...

From the end of the book, an extract:

" I've learnt so much from the land of many gods and many ways to worship. From Buddhism the power to begin to manage my mind, from Jainism the desire to make peace in all aspects of life, while Islam has taught me to desire goodness and to let go of that which cannot be controlled. I thank Judaism for teaching me the power of transcendence in rituals and the Sufis for affirming my ability to find answers within and reconnecting me to the pwer of music. Here's to the Parsis for teaching me that nature should be touched lightly, the Sikhs for the importance of spiritual strength. I thank the gurus for trying to pierce my ego armour and my girlfriends for making me laugh. And most of all, I thank Hinduism for showing me that there are a million paths to the divine."

It's true, all of it is true. I've never truly been athiest, though there was a time when I was confused, But I do know that there is a divinity, and this woman has tried to experience it in all the ways possible, and I want to do that, I want to learn, I want....to live her story, or make my own.....absorb the good in every faith, and I think that's how I 'll find that happiness or that....something...that's been missing, that happiness I've always looked for....

Of course, it will need age, maturity and experience, but I think it'll be worth the wait....at some time in my thirties, I'll remember the book, and I'll have time, and I'll be off.....

In the end, the aim in what, to find inner peace, divinity, and a destination or maybe a journey, so does it matter whether it's done through a religion, or one religion, or from a sweet faith-mix with the best of everything...

It's been too long since I actually cried in earnest in a movie....I think the last one was Kabul Express.....I didn't even cry for Taare Zameen Par...I just got lumps in my throat and sniffles....while next to me my mom had twin rivers running down her face....

Lessee...weird romance movies do it for me.....Kuch kuch hota hai did it, I must have been 7. Kal ho na ho did it.

And now Jaane tu ya Jaane na. Bloody cute and bloody hilarious, I laughed even with a red nose and streams down my face.....

Wow. Must've been REALLY good then......as I said, only Really good movies make me cry so much......damn....but yeah, it was hilarious, Genelia D'Souza's performance here was any day better than in Mere Baap Pehle Aap (three hours spent in the theatre listening to her irritating giggle, hunting for a story in the stuff playing onscreen. Groans and more groans.) And yeah, I loved the songs, for once, I actually loved everything about this movie.

Sisters so different....(the idea.)

Sisters, call them Bombay and Poona.....They live, what, 4 hours away, but they're so different, so different...

Bombay, well, she's the crazy extrovert, the flamboyant one, with wildly streaked hair, deep necklines, short skirts....she dresses like a model, almost. (my brother's observation when he came there..he lives in Pune. LOL) Wakes late and sleeps later....She takes a lot of effort to look good, and probably has the latest in everything.....sexy, crazy, naughty, extremely bitchy. Will have a sturdy umbrella, and lives life wild. Travels in the rain by local train or bus, and that's why she doesn't have a driving license yet.

Poona, she's the careful one, the wary one....shy, I think, but getting there. Obviously has a license, and drives a Scooty or a bike. A little less daring in her dress, she'll wear jeans and kurtis maybe, and she'll almost always have a dupatta to wrap around her head hijab-style to bolckout the dust, something her sis would never even think of doing....Pune speaks more Marathi than Hindi, and is a bit reserved.....

Two sisters, living across the ghats, each a bit of a mystery to the other....who knows their relationship....who knows how well they get along..

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ah well,feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, the idea was just to potray them as sisters....help me out, and I'll edit and do a final draft later.....

Pune/poona?

I was awake most of yesterday night......on the phone, mostly. I still managed to wake up at 6.30 and get to the Dadar-Pune bus stand....yayy me!!!
Boarding the bus, a wave of nausea and memories hit me.....nausea, dunno why, and memories of the four days spent in the bus to and from Manali, dancing, music, sleepysleep, the huge bed-like back seat.....cramped, hot, stuffy, bumpy.....the jokes and the songs....
And now here I am, at my cousin's place, in the Bhartiya Vidyapeeth campus, her Dad's director of the management college.....and i watch on as she turns the walls of her tiny bedroom into a warli procession, I draw, she paints....
Went to Tulsibagh with her today, revelling in streets and winding streets of jewellery and various knickknacks, explored a small wada I found there, took a rickshaw to the wrong road by mistake, and finally ended up home much earlier than we intended to....
So yeah, I'm njoying myself...

I'm looking out of the window with an irritated expression. Out there, it's raining on my parade. literally. And rather hard, too. Therefore, i cannot go. Even if the rain stops, mom says it'll be all waterlogged. grumble....why me, why do i have to be so far from everything? ugh this is brain-rippingly irritating. welcome to Bombay, huh?

Edit on 2-7-08:

I ended up going after all....the rain eased up, i packed a bag and caught a rickshaw to chimmi's place, an hour away. the roads were beautifully clear, it didn't rain again, and we spent the rest of the day in the pool and then in the sauna at the building complex in kandivili called Oberoi gardens. :) even though I can't really swim, I had a really great day...