Everything comes with an expiry date.

Someone once said that there is always a first time in life and some firsts. You first day at school, your first best friend, your first kiss, your first date, your first fight with your mates, your first trip abroad. These are some of the things that make up your memories, memories that last you a life time, moments that rekindle hope in your life, times that you feel alive when the whole world backs out on you.
There are also times when you find it hard to let go of these memories, even if they impede your way to move on. No matter how precious things are, after a certain point you have to let go of them. People will either leave you and move on into their own lives or you would have to leave them. Other materialistic things will also come of age, maybe you will feel the same way about them, maybe not. Some things will break with time, while you would want to break some other things. You might just start to feel differently about people, things and emotions.
Every relation in this world is time bound, with people, with things and even with your own thought process.
Its always a matter of choice about what you want to keep with you and what you have to let go of. Because things and people that you care the most about are the hardest to let go of, Especially if they are deeply embedded in your mind as memories. The ones that you want to let go of are both the best and the worst times that you have had. After a while they both become too much of a pain to keep inside your head. The good ones because we know that they might not come back again, the bad ones, because they make you weak in your knees and you want to go back in time and undo every trace of it.
We do live in the present and work for our future, but its the our memories that make us the people that we are. Other people might call it "Experience".

goodbye part 2

So in my previous blog I wrote how painful the word "goodbye" is for me. This one is just a little reminder to myself that no matter how much you hate things, you cant really hide from them.

In the last 2 months, i said goodbye to Aru (my adopted baby sister) who left for college to a bigger, messier and complicated city, Anupma (my pool mate) who also flew into the big apple of India to pursue her ambition of flying high as a air-hostess, Anu (my car pool pal)who also quit her working career to pursue something more worhtwhile in terms of a career, to Sherry (my other adopted sibling) who just moved half way across the globe to pursue his life, his music, to Sam (my ex-boss and a good friend) who moved on a new posting to Europe.

It was tough to co-op with so many people departing and in a span of a short time, 2 months precicely but with time again, you have a connection, you can choose to run with it but not hold it.
One new thing that I read recently and agreed with is - every relationship hasits own time limit. I guess my permitted time with all these people is over, or at least will never be the same again but like I said in my earlier page, there is little that you can do but say a prayer in your heart for you loved ones, wish them love and luck and move on in search of a new realm in life.

Music makes me happy.

There have been many things that I have read in all these years of my life, a few things I remember and a lot I choose to forget. Some I wish I could retain in the think tank called mind and still a lot more I wish I could adopt as a way of life. Today I decided to look back on things that I actually tried to adapt in my life and their final outcome (and finally one of those blogs which is actually about ME!!!!!)


1. Always speak the truth - I tried and I tried very hard, but always got into trouble for it. Got a good beating from mum when I spoke the truth about spiling ink on her favourite outfit, a miserable cold shoulder from dad when I told him that I was the reason for that broken tail light of his car and a room with two different beds when I admitted that I ruined my sister's project report for school. After being chased by my neighbour's dog for admitting that I stole the mangoes from her orchard, I decided...... what the heck....... and now I'm being me and I hope I'm doing it just fine.


2. Travel to one new place every year - This was one thing that Dalai Lama said and I so much wanted to adopt it. Of course I insisted my dad to follow it the most and he took it pretty well. So instead of taking me to a new place every year, he took me to a new place every month. of course these new places were well within the reaches of the city and they included a trip to the oldest sabzi mandi in town, the next month was a new place called the city "junk yard" and trust me a visit to these new places was not even half as exciting as I thought it would be.


3. Dont be reckless with other people's hearts and dont put up with people who are reckless with yours - I have a long story to say about this but to cut it short, you have no choice when the class romeo hits on you pretty badly or for that matter when you and your best friend land up having a serious kinda crush on the same guy. Phew...... there goes another philosophical bit in the bin.


4. Say " Please" and " Thank you" a lot - Man this one surely got me the title of being so " uncool" along with tons of suggestions to just "chill out". Trust me, in most cases, it was so not worth it.

I may have a hundred other odd experiences to write about my life but I think on a public forum life this, cant let it be a source of entertainment for others.

The moral of the story is what Baz Luhrman describes the best - " sometimes you are ahead, sometimes you are behind........ the race is long, and in the end, its only with your ownself."

Until the next blog...... ciao.

Goodbye..............

Au revoir in French, Auf Wiedersehen in German, Joi wooi in Cantonese, Addio in Italian.

If there is one word I hate to use, it is "Goodbye". To me it symbolises the end of an era, the time that you have actually spent with someone, an end to the memories that symbolise the time that you shared with a person.

They say "Sorry" is the hardest thing to say, but I am of the opinion that "Goodbye" is the hardest word to say. It attaches a lot of emotions to it. If you have ever see teary-eyed people at the airports, railway stations and highways, you will understand the gravity of the word "Goodbye".

Even though you wish love, luck and best wishes to your loved ones and wish they succeed at every step in life, a part of you still wants this moment to freeze and maybe even go back.

Goodbye to me means a whole bundle of emotions in the heart and tears in my eyes and a mental movie of old times flashing before my eyes, an unknown fear of a void that will be created which may or may not be filled in someone's absence and even if it does, it will take a very long time. A feeling of insecurity and lonliness, a feeling of leaving someone you depend on for whatever reason.

The only time I made a complete fool of myself at a public place was when my friend was leaving for her hometown after finishing college, it was just too painful for me to see her leave. For the first time and perhaps the last time..... I cried in public.

Goodbye to me seems like a chapter of life has come to an end, and in some cases the begining of a new one because when you say goodbye to someone, its for the new begining of a new phase, a new career or a new life for either you or them. And like most things in life, its a never ending story.

People come and people go, you want some people to stay in your life and you hope for some others to walk out, but you or me do not control the reins of time, rather its the time that determines when, how and to whom you say "goodbye".

Baby's day out.

One of the most exciting thing that keeps me glued to my job is that there is always something new happening in the office. New Year raffles, Christmas parties, Diwali Pooja in the Indian style, Hamukkah, the Chinese New Year, charity programs, the French Bastille day and each month has its own exclusive agenda to look forward to.

Another initiative taken by the top bosses was the "Bring your children to work" day since most collegues have children and there schools had closed for summer break. The idea was to inculcate a sense of respect and belongingness among the children and also to let the parents spend some more "quality time" with the parents. Good intention but bad out come.

Here is how it all started......... my workplace has a majority of women staff (much to the envy of men) and mostly married working mothers with children aging from 3 month old babies to 17 year old teenagers. The youngest ones did not stop howling in an attempt to adjust with the new envoironment that they were thrown into, the kindergarten students were busy trying to prove the fact that their mothers were the most loving mothers or that their dads were stronger than Spiderman. The 10 year olds were looked as they had just landed from the outer planet and had endless questions begining and ending with "what, when, why and how".

And then there were the most curious of them all - the 13-15 year olds who could neither be classified as kids because they were'nt and neither were they the big enough to talk global warming and new playstation about. This lot somehow came well prepared with a whole bag ful of Nancy Drews and Hardy Boys and Enid Blytons, since there was no escape.

Finally there were three 17 year olds who had that confident look of being "almost there", the most annoyed of the lot. They spoke of new things and new issues and in each sentence tried to convince me that they knew a lot more on every topic including a software that I had been using since long. They seemed to be in a hurry to grow up and were facsinated by every object around that had anything to do remotely related to physics and it made some kind of a noise, which includes the paper shredder.

Eight and a half hours later with a day full of babies screaming, children pulling my stole to grab my attnetion and losing all my stationary to the little "angels", when every parent leaves with the apple of their eyes, some single and young people liek me are left behind and forced to volunteer to clean up, clean up all the baby food that the little monsters threw up when the mothers were forcing it into their mouths somewhere in the middle of trying to finish an assessment report, clean up the crayon and colour stains that the budding painters and artists left behind on the carpets and walls. Arrange all the books and maps on the shelves, throw away all the paper craft works which the 10-13 year old army had left behind in their quest to know and learn more and try to arrange all the furniture which was ransacked by the still older generation. The elder ones in order to prove their extensive and newly acquired knowledge about MS and the world on their fingertips with the internet had left 2 systems with viruses downloaded straight from the internet and 3 broken mouses, I was forced to change my perception about "quality time".

The most happening place

Whats your ideal idea for a perfect weekend? Are you a regular visitor to the dance clubs and discoes in your city?????? May be you go there to take your girlfriend out in style, maybe thats just your idea for having fun or do you like to enjoy the look on the faces of otherwise decent and cultured faces of the society going nuts on the dance floor after a couple of drinks and some rocking music or are you just a big fan of dancing and the groovy beats.

Whatever the reason be, whatever your idea be to spend your night out in a crowded, dark and smogy atmosphere, most people certainly miss out on the real action in these so called happening places. Any guesses where the most "happening" corner of these colourful nights is....... the washrooms. Trust me when I say that.

Like most young people my age who look for fun things to do after work hours and to spend time with friends, I went to this place called "Bottles & Chimmney" in the sub-urban area of Hyderabad. The ambience was good, drinks were free for women ( and we made the most of it), the crowd was grooving and the music was just right, the DJ was awesome and the bouncers alert (they looked like grumpy men who were denied their share of booze for the day).

Anyway, so after a couple of drinks we set out the dance floor to remind ourselves of the college acts that we learnt and did so well, and the drinks were going along too.
Suddenly my friend decided that she is not in a position to handle her drinks and rushed to the washroom. For the sake of courtesy, I decided to accompany my friend (who was now rather drunk and could not even walk properly).

While she was busy throwing up in the washroom and I'm was cursing the moment when I decided to miss out on all the fun and accompany her. One rather skimplily clad girl walks in, bangs her head against the mirror and starts to cry. The hidden angel inside me wakes up and I decided to comfort her. When I asked her the reason for her sudden outburst, she said her boyfriend (now ex I'm sure) was eyeing other girls and she was upset about it.
I simply gave a piece of advise that he is so not worth it and then she walked out. The last I saw of her was she sitting right next to the bar .
I had barely taken a sigh of relief when another heavily drunk woman walks in and starts howling, her reason was that her ex-boyfriend (who she had walked out on) was out there dancing with another girl. (WOW!!! so much to my amazement).
I had not even finished up with her when a couple of girls walk in and start to strip...... excuse me.... was my first reaction. Oh, one of them said, these girls had bunked school and were now changing back to their school uniforms to be able to go back home.

Even though I took my own moment to digest what was going on around me, I decided that I've had enough of a pleasent evening at this "Happening" place and it was time for me to drive back home my friend who was really out of her wits by now and others who were tired after exhibiting their dancing skills.

But yeah the moral of the story is that if you are the kind of a person who wants to know more about other people, you know where to head for.

Crazy is the word.

What is that one thing that Jayalalita, Paris Hilton, Sarah Jessica Parker,Celina Jaitely, Dia Mirza, Aishwarya Rai and my next door neighbour have in common........... they are all crazy about one thing........ SHOES.

What is it about the strange passion that makes each one of them (and a hundred million other women) go to a shoe store and spend the last penny in their wallets for a new pair of shoes.

Stilletoes, boots, slip-ons, keds, slippers, flip-flops, sandles, cow-boy cuts and a few hundred other designs and colours ranging from the basic black to unimaginable purples, blues, reds and even bright yellows, women want it all. This one for work, the other one for a camping trip, this one for a party at the boss's, that one for a girls day out, the reasons for buying shoes are countless and as ridiculous as " oh I just saw them, liked them and bought them."

The other day I heard a woman sitting with her girl-friends in an upmarket restaurant planning her 25th birthday party and asking her friends to buy her a pair of high heels, the new Vercace designs and so on and so forth for each one of them, since her husband was now sick of her buying them on her own. I found this too much to digest for my sensibilites.

Strangely enough, it appears to me that the "infection" for buying shoes among women has assumed mounting proportions since I often hear my carpenter that he is extremely busy these days desining glass cabinets for shoes and that orders are pouring in from women all across the city.

I was taken aback when I went to use the rest-room in a friend's place only to discover shoe shower curtains, a shoe coaster, a shoe shaped dustbin and catalogues only for shoes. My friend took the last breath out of me when she showed me her newly acquired much talked about possession.............. a shoe shaped, diamond studded necklace.