Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

WISHING EVERYONE HOURS OF HAPPY TIME AND FUN WITH THEIR FRIENDS AND FAMILY DURING CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR:-)

Onions driving me to tears!!

The prices of onions and other regular vegetables are skyrocketing again! All because of heavy rains in several onion and other vegetables producing areas.

Here in Bangalore, I found them priced at Rs.90/- per Kg at a grocery store near my home. I heard my friends complaining that they have guests during Christmas and since they cannot do without onions in most of the dishes, they are forced to buy them even though they are priced at a whopping Rs.100/- per Kg near their place. The cafeterias in several companies have revised the food rates now. So have all the hotels and restaurants. I read in today's news paper that they have stopped making "Onion Dosa" in several hotels and restaurants in Bangalore!! Moreover, with the vacation time around for children and with relatives visiting, its becoming tough. We can compromise on several dishes, but in the long run, it becomes tough to handle.

It seems the prices may not go down even during New Year! According to some news channels, this situation might continue till the end of January next year!! All this happening during a time, when the government is paralyzed with too many scandals. Previously too, governments have fallen down due to price hikes. If it comes to this, then what will we eat???

Image : courtesy - google

I really wish we had something like "Onion Essence" or "Mixed Vegetable Essence" similar to "Vanilla Essence"!!!

Some funny animal signs :-)

I came across some funny signs related to animals while browsing something. I thought of sharing them here. I'm sure, you'll have a smile on your face at the end of it...

Blog ratings...

I don't remember where I got this from because its been a long time. But since I haven't posted for some time, I guess this just serves the purpose :-)

I know this place has been completely boring lately with my philosophies and crazy ramblings. But for anyone who still stops by to read, I want to say "Bless You"!!

Lots of things have happened in the past so many days and I must say I have heard all kinds of news possible on the face of the earth in this short period of time. My conclusion is that the stress and tension have finally caught up with me. Or may be its just my feeling!

Anyway, I hope everyone is enjoying their life.

Later folks!

Monday morning blues...

This is my mood on a Monday morning!! I'm absolutely sure this is how most of you feel too :-)

Ma :-)

Finally the waiting is over...my mom is home after a full 3 months and needless to say, I am super thrilled to have her here with me :-)

I wanted to give her some gift and was thinking what shall I gift her. I got my answer - nothing, simply nothing! I was shocked, but....

Little did I realize that she is the one who shaped me, refined my qualities, taught me to differentiate the good from the bad and made me what I really am today. Which means, I am nothing without her. Can I return her all that? Can I really compensate for all the sacrifices she made for me to make me what I am today? Can I give her back the 26 years that she spent on me? Obviously, the answer is a big fat NO. I wonder often, how can a person keep on giving so much without expecting anything in return?

Growing up, I was always a daddy's girl and was scared of my mom. Needless to say, I miss my dad a lot. I am more attached to my mom now. I know she loves me so much (even though I get scolded by her at least 10 times a day) and wants me to be ME despite everything. I want to be so much like her, but deep down I don't think I can be as awesome as she is. She is truly a gem of a person and I am super lucky to have her in my life.

Love you Amma :-)

The pursuit of happiness...

Well, I finally cleaned up 60% of the disaster zone (my room) yesterday evening (may be it was not as dirty as I thought it to be) and I really felt good about it. Guess I will be doing the rest of it between today evening and tomorrow.

While looking for some information on the internet, I read somewhere that “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather a skid sideways, chocolate in one hand and your favorite drink in the other, totally worn out and screaming –what a ride!” Wish it could be that way for everyone :-)

Now, that made me think, a time comes in everyone's life when in the midst of all our anxiety and fears, we stop dead in our tracks and a little voice in our head screams “enough is enough”. Enough fighting, crying and struggling to hold on to that last bit of sanity.  And just like a child after a blind tantrum, we begin to calm down and see the world in a new light. 

Now, what about happiness here? Is it fleeting? May be, it really is fleeting. Because we never make an effort to really hold onto it. I feel that sometimes our fears or our ambitions surface too strongly to wash away the happiness and we are left yearning for it again. Probably, this cycle repeats itself carelessly.

Naturally, the next question here is what can we do about it?

There are some people around us, especially our friends who really care for us and always have the best intentions for us. They are all there for a reason. We should hold on to them like a thirsty man holds on to water. These people might vary at different points in our life but happiness will elude us without them.  Probably, we can also try not to harbor any hatred for anyone however bad they might have behaved towards us. This only increases our tensions and affects our health. We need not nullify who we actually are because someone hates us. We humans always tend to believe that the grass is always greener on the other side. But in reality, it is always better to assess and count the blessings which we already have because the other road will always not lead to happiness.  Most importantly, it is always better to define the set of people whose opinion genuinely matters to us. Otherwise we might end up caring or pleasing people who are indifferent, insensitive and narrow-minded. It is best to cultivate multiple interests or even revive our old hobbies and passions. When the going gets rough, these interests might act as cushions for us to fall back on. I know that it is easier said than done. But trust me - reviving an old passion really is a great stress buster.
  

I can go on and on and on. But let me tell you. The simplest thing that anyone can do to bring back some happiness however momentary or fleeting it might be is to smile. On a tiresome and frustrated day, a genuine smile could be all that a person needs. 

Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it. - Groucho Marx

Ramblings of a lazy soul :-)

Revelation today: I churn out new posts on this blog mainly when I am lazy!

But today is an exception because I am totally lazy now and don't have anything proper to post. Which probably explains why my room has turned into a disaster-zone :-) I have been getting up late in the mornings for some time now because I've been engrossed in reading Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol". I have to admit that if a book is interesting, I can't put it aside very easily. Being a coffee lover, I even made myself a steaming cup of coffee at midnight!

However, witnessing all this, my brother ( wanting to take revenge on me for refusing to make him a cup of coffee yesterday) dutifully warned me that if I didn't get up early the next day, I might have to clean the entire disaster-zone (not just my room, but the entire house!!) before my mother's visit this weekend! Which is why, today, surprisingly, I was up sharp at 6 AM even before my cell phone alarm went off!!! Does that mean I am lazy or just plain scared of my brother still!!!???? I can't seem to figure it out :-)

There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it - Mary Wilson Little

Reality bites!!!

At times, I admit that I can be highly opinionated of someone or something. On many occasions, I've also been accused of being a "hater" :-)

One of my so called "hate victims" happens to be a well known Bollywood celebrity (I don't want to name her though). I don't really have anything against her personally but I hate women who sexually objectify themselves to the extreme. What is more weird are the men who fantasize such fake women! A male counterpart told me that she has a perfect body and if a woman has such perfect features, all males could go crazy and out of their minds. Well, I would say, any woman could look perfect if she could buy her body parts just like that celebrity did (surgery) :-) There is a saying which has struck me ever since I heard it - "real girls aren't perfect and perfect girls aren't real". Its so weird and sometimes seems funny when certain guys more or less worship women with fake hair, fake nails, fake eyelashes, face all caked up with make-up and then say that women are too fake - what the hell!!!! This confuses a lot of souls and therefore its no surprise that certain women reject their natural features to fit into this so called fad.

But, let me also tell you that there are fake dudes too, men who do not keep it real! These fake dudes invest a lot of money and show-off a lot. I have seen that such men attract fake women instantly because looking perfect sure doesn't come cheap!!! Such people are just caught up in a world of superficial glitter and glamour and try to emulate the fantasy world that the entertainment industry creates. 

I have grown to realize that a man who is true to himself wants a woman who is true to herself. I have been fortunate to have friends who do not overrate such fake women. Don't get me wrong...I am yet to meet a guy who doesn't want an attractive woman :-) 

For those who like to fake their outer beauty in order to make people go out of their minds.........Keep it real guys!!

Growing up too soon?

I came across a kid's profile ( he is 10 years old ) on one of the social networking sites. The first surprise was that he had a profile on a social networking site and the next surprise was the description in the "About Me" section. It said "I am sexy, flirtatious, trendy, athletic and cool" :-) Another friend of mine who has a kid of the age 11 years says sometimes his son comes home and says "Yo Dad"! and that for his next birthday he wants an ipod.

We usually associate such behavior to adolescence or the starting of it. I find that kids these days are more independent. They select their own clothes, shop a lot of stuff by themselves. For kids, I think adulthood is all about breaking free from parents's care and from the conventional ways of the society. There seems to be a lot of friction between the parents and their kids these days in terms of understanding each other.

Can we consider this as a natural journey of a kid towards adulthood? Is 10 the new 15? Are kids these days growing up too fast?? I am not an expert to be able to give answers to any of these questions. But all I can say is that this goes a long way in shaping the kids for what they become in the future.

Reminiscing about childhood and friends :-)

Whenever I reminisce about my childhood, I often wonder what happened to my friends from school and college. As we grow old, it is human nature to leave memories and people behind. In the past, it was easy to loose track of friends and you could drift away easily unless you wrote to them regularly or telephoned them.

But now, thanks to Facebook, I had the opportunity to reconnect with so many of my friends recently. It is amazing how wonderful you feel when you connect with someone whom you have not spoken for like 10 odd years and yet it feels like yesterday when you last saw them at school!!

Life and choices take people to different directions. But fate does have a way of making us go around in circles :-) It is amazing how people change during this time. Some changes are quite drastic. It reminds us how different we were then and now. Whatever it might be, when you get back together and remember all those things that had happened in the school and college, the good and the bad, it always brings a smile on your face.