Mood-off Therapy!

There would be times when you feel so tired and frustrated with almost everything under the sun. There might be a few insignificant insecurities which bother you for really no good reason. And you feel a constant prick. These sorts of things are very mundane in your work life. You might be irritated with your boss, colleagues, work etc. Are you expected to to just dullen your life? How many times on a day you utter - "I am so bored", "It is so boring"? Just because you are annoyed, the world would not change for you. So, you need to swim to the brim of the bottle all by yourself!!

The blog is not to pick all the crap that happens in life. It is more on how to kill it. During those times, some people might want to meet their friends, talk to their family, go for a drink, meet a psychiatrist etc. One of my therapies to loosen up yourself is to watch movies!! Not just any, specifically light ones. In fact, watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S also would do. One of the reasons why I started friends was this. Instead of thinking about any nonsense, I used to look forward to just go home, watch friends and have a few laughs. Check F.R.I.E.N.D.S out!

Now coming to movies, there are numerous which I like more because of the mood drift they brought in me while watching the same. To name a few, Polar express, Kung Fu Panda (1&2), The Holiday, The Proposal, If Only etc. They are after all just movies but the fact that they engross you to the extent that you feel positivity smoothly flowing in you is just so captivating. They might not have affected others the same way they did to you because circumstances matter the most. To me its a shift from bad mood to light one. By the way, the list is always on my hard-drive and I sometimes end up watching during office hours as well ;-) ;-)

On a different note, Retail therapy clicks as well. Delhi summer is just too killing to even think of any such but shopping alone works wonders. You don't have to comply with anyone's suggestions or make the other person agree with you. Hence you can just buy whatever you like at the very first sight . The best part being it is all for you!!

Did you ever feel happy when you have a delectable dish?? Yes, food is a blessing in disguise for me. If I am really sad, my Mom used to cook my favorite and I used to be all well instantly. Not always can you ask your Mom to do so but yes, good food is just awesome!! Try it!!

The monotonous stuff in life is unavoidable. You just can't expect to be on holiday everyday. At least I can't due to several constraints. There are 365days in a year and I intend to shun away from the routine for a minimum of 50days. I know this is an aggressive target and haven't ended up achieving till date. At any rate, what about the rest 300 odd days? Try all the ways to keep yourself happy. It will not do to be in the darkness of agony all the time... just search for the light.
They say that we could see light in the darkness as well, eventually :-) :-)
   

South-Indian Attributes??

Couple of years ago, it was surprising to learn how people know so less about four different states of India and how can they assume everything to be one. But now I am so used to it after facing several strange conversations about "South-Indian attributes". The following scenarios are just a few instances. Read and Enjoy :-)

Scenario 1: Recently I was talking to an acquaintance at cafeteria and came across this topic - "Idli".

Acquaint: So I assume you are going to order Idli? 

Me: I don't like Idli. I find it bland actually

Acquaint: Aren't you a South Indian?? How can you not like Idli?

Me (Surprised): Same way you don't like Karela (bitter melon)???

Scenario 2: I know that South Indian Idli/ Vada/ Dosas are very popular. Check out the conversation below:

Non-me: Tell me one thing? Do you guys eat only Idli and Dosa whole day?

Me: Why????

Non-me: I haven't heard any South-Indian eating anything else??

Me: You are just too illiterate to even start explaining (Pheww!!)

Scenario 3: Me being a Hyderabadi, my favorite all-time dish is biryani.

2nd Person: What is your favorite dish?

Me: Chicken Biryani :-D

2nd Person: But Biryani is not a South-Indian dish

Me: Biryani is so popular in Hyderabad and I just love it!

2nd Person: That is prepared by Muslims and not a South-Indian dish 

Me: Hyderabad is in Southern part of India and even I can cook biryani :-P

Scenario 4: All South-Indian languages are illegible for majority of Indians. Agreed. But....

Friend: Can you read what is this?

Me: No, I guess this is either Malayalam or Tamil

Friend: So why can't you read it?

Me: I can read and write Telugu and to some extent read Kanada. I have no clue about Tamil or Malayalam

Friend: But they all look like coils to me??!!! 

Me: Whewwww 

These are just a few to name. It used to be infuriating initially but now I guess it is just funny to see how people judge without cognizance. Once a colleague of mine started cursing Hyderabad and the unknown language which is spoken there. I heard everything and then simply said "I am from Hyderabad and I speak that strange language". You should see his face and it still reminds me how comical the situation was :-D :-D

You might not be able to change a few things when you hail from a place, such as: Accent, Habits, Customs, Mannerisms, Facial Features etc. But it is not appropriate to define how someone should be. For example, I love pizzas or burgers or sizzlers as much as I love dosas (or even more!). And I like Delhi just as much as I like Hyderabad. In the end, remember, it is.....

One love, one heart, one destiny

Color.. Color!

Did you play the game... "Color Color, what color do you want?". It is a group game in which you have to spot the color uttered by the leader. It was a silly childhood game played generally when you don't have the power which makes it a little complicated to recognize the colors followed by too many arguments justifying your assumption of the color for a color which was actually not the color to be spotted.

Recently, I came across this picture and it simply looked very confusing yet so full. It has an alliance of colors which made it look so magnificently rich in its thoughts. Although it is so abstract, I just tried to understand what it could mean: free-mind, intense, disorderliness, creative, obscure, crazy, trance, bliss etc. Such a variance of emotions captured in one picture is simply amazing! Also, colors are not just for wall- paintings, it has religious, cultural, political and social influences. They vary symbolically and emotionally from culture to culture and person to person.

In our English literature, colors have got very profound substance than the VIBGYOR and its combinations. And each color in turn can have various implications. For instance, Red - Passion, Love, Anger, Danger, Violence, Christmas etc. Of-late our usage has become "I am Blue", "She is so Green", "His ideas are so Pink", "He is already turning Gray" etc. Colors in the form of adjectives, which is a transformation from being nouns.

There is a significant study on colors to improvise your life style. Be it how to decorate your house to impress your guests or how to glorify your website which can increase your viewer hits or package your products to attract consumers. The reason this happens is because we all react intuitively to colors (Psychology subject) and there is nothing we can do about this. A few believe that colors are powers and that colored stones are powerful.

Imagination is all colors. Have you ever dreamt of a place that you would want to go to before you kick your bucket? Wasn't that place full of colors? (If not, you are already in vegetation :-D) I don't think words can ever fulfill anyone's Utopia! To give a simple snapshot of what we would be without colors, check out the image below.

In short, if your life currently is all gray.... add colors of joy to it by doing anything and everything... because everything literally is just colorful with a pinch of open-mindedness.   

Confusion Tickled the Cat!

Time and again you see the great preachers using the proverb... "Curiosity Killed the cat!" which means this and introduced by Shakespeare in the days of yore. Of-late I am noway curious but just confused most of the times. Now you see, don't think that I was born confused. Its just that the changes I have been going through for the past five months proved me a few things which I would not have learnt otherwise. So comes the self-quoted - "Confusion Tickled the Cat!". Let me put it in the point format which might make it easier for the readers:

• I got married and yes it does sound heavy! Not only that but to a Punju guy. To be frank, before shaadi it was just "the guy" but now its the "Punju Husband". Not that anything is wrong with anything at all. But yes, it is definitely confusing to face the new culture, customs, formalities, relatives etc. I am glad to say that I am gradually recovering from the confused state and able to justify what is what, but this is essentially one of the vital reasons for getting tickled in the past few months.
• I moved from Hyderabad to New Delhi. I did my MBA from Delhi. However, it is altogether a different thing settling in Delhi. Its more planned than Hyderabad and I took close to 3-4months to understand how to go from C4 to C2 in a C Block. In West Delhi, every block has a small market and you need to mug up directions to and from the market to reach your house. Before I forget, these markets have anything and everything - Eat-outs, chemist, grocery, fruits, veggies etc. It was confusing initially but now its rather a convenience!
• Language is not as such a barrier to me but the bullet-train-speeding-spoken-Hindi in Delhi is never my cup of tea. Obscure!! I am not sure if ever I will outgrow of this illiteracy to understand it but I have managed to SMILE appropriately whenever I can't comprehend a thing. You see this can have a few negative implications as well. For instance, I was smiling at something which was about how someone cooks. And apparently, I was supposed to say "No you cook well". But with a smile I rather agreed that she really cooks awful. But trust me this is very rare and I can give an allocation of about 20% so its a shield for me even if inefficient.
• I quit my old job and moved to new job in Delhi. Newness is baffling always. On a real positive note, people here are nice to mingle with. But while in my previous job I was the youngest of the lot even when two batches came after me, here I am really an old goat. Although it was quite annoying to accept the fact initially, I have eventually come to terms. More so, the conversations that I keep hearing around have made me realize that I am so damn grown!!! For example, it confuses me when people discuss if they are really asking me to explain or are they kidding? Yo-yo Honey Singh (Rap singer - so they call) is cool or disgusting with his lyrics??I can never fathom and have given up on even trying... They are young and out of hands now :-D
• Cooking!! I used to chuckle earlier. Cooking was a chapter which was totally unexplored by me
  
  5months ago. But now, I am a cook who can serve hot Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani! I can now understand the ingredients of a dish just with a spoonful and make a mental note of the same. This has actually bewildered my Mom and just amused me!! :-D

Life changes... It might surprise or confuse you. Either ways you have to get up, get on and get going.... And these temporary phases, which are inevitable, can just tickle you. Laugh it away! :-)

The French Connection!

This post is particularly dedicated to a friend who is 1000s of miles away from me and who still cares and prays for me. Someone who never judges me for the way I am but just accepted me in those three months that we were in France - Ritchell.

I was going through a confused path for a week and the reasons are unknown to me. I know the solution is simple as long as I identified it. And after several days, I just pinged and asked her if she had time for me and we instantly got on call, listed out confusions, pros and cons and what I want in life. So here I am with a clear head and the strength that I am sure blessed upon just by opening up myself to her. May be its time I turn  the clock and go back in time to France (something which I will cherish for life).

I went to CERAM (now SKEMA) through an exchange program. First day was dull, somber and sad. I always hated first days. First day when I was in LKG, Primary school, graduation, post graduation and also at CERAM. May be I just don't like too many new things to face!

I met a few people that day. I am really happy to meet two specific people, Ritchell and Chris (who would be visiting my wedding in Delhi too). My life in France would not be so eventful without them. Not that we think alike, in fact, we are so very different. But we like the way we are :-)

My first trip out of Antibes was to Nice. I still feel that Nice had the best sky-blue beach of all the beaches in French Riviera. Also made a visit to Cannes with a friend of mine and had long walks on a bright sunny day. I had a special feeling that I had been to Cannes but on a whole its just the same! At least from the scenic point of view.

The place that was quite different was Grasse. Quite a day that was! It was a School-Nice-Grasse-Cannes-Home trip. We did not have any plan and it was drizzling continuously. It seemed like Indian hill station. I loved the scenery and the scent of whole place with perfumeries. It was a small country-side with beautiful houses and lawns. The flash of the place still reminds how amazingly green it was :-)

Lyon was another trip where I spent valentine weekend (without one)! It is the biggest city in France after Paris. But the very new experience I had there was feeling the snow, literally from the sky! I remember looking at the sky to figure out the source but ended up accumulating snow on my face! Ritchell was with me. It was one of the best moments in my life when I actually felt and saw the ice-capped roads and lakes. So white and so peaceful.

There are so many more trips and lot many memories with the place. Have you ever felt that you, yourself can be the best companion? I had such serene experiences which are difficult to put in words. But those were the times when I was smiling at myself. I thought the evening rays on my skin made me more beautiful and the rays onto my eyes exuded the happiness out of my eyes as a reflection!

Europe has always been a childhood fantasy to me and I have cherished every aspect of my French trip. Next stop is Italy and hoping for the same warmth :-)

Her Thoughts :-)

It’s the season of marriages. More so arranged ones. I know at least 4 of my friends in the same team getting hitched before the year end. I see them on the phones all the while… chatting/ talking with all the blushes and grins, texting furiously with all the lively expressions… Courtship before the wedding is the best phase in arranged marriages… which made me think about my life so far….

It’s been more than 4years of relationship with the Furobiker. There have been many ups and very few lows (we are yet to be married ;-)). 4years is old compared to 4 weeks but I am glad for the memorable moments that I had during the course. May be its good to describe a few in the point format as below: (Note that “him” refers to “the Furobiker”)

• The time when we moved ahead from “seeing each other” to “in a relationship”     
•  Loved the fighting spirit against his bosses whenever I dreaded to see him right away
•  All the gluttonous luncheons that we had outside the IIFT hostel and the innumerable visits to Andhra Bhavan!
•  All the trips outside Delhi and the escapades around those
• I remember the day we walked by the road, hand-in-hand, in chilly Delhi winters when we knew that I would be gone to France and he to Johannesburg and would not be able to see each other for a few months
• I remember the day when I had to move back to Hyderabad and he had to go on his ordeal to Romania alone
•  And when he came back from Romania for a week and spent a stretch of sleepless nights to spend 15hours of together-talks in Hyderabad. Tears of Joy!
• The long distance relationships, desperately looking forward to meet next time and the warmth of “I miss you”s
• The moment when he told the truth to his parents
• The moment when I told the truth to my parents
• When we got hooked up officially and cribbed later on for missing out on meeting privately ;-)
• The happiness at every step

I can’t imagine a smoother and lovelier path than the one I am journeying on presently. Perhaps, it’s one of the best decisions to have him as a partner for the rest of my life. I don’t judge which is better, arranged or love marriages, but I can tell you that when you are with the best companion, life is worth enjoying forever. And I am ready to enter the next phase of my life with him and his family J

Public Transport

It's been sometime since I traveled by public transport as I regularly take my company's cab. Today while I was travelling I noticed that the general transport has found alternative sources to extract money! Below is the pic that I clicked this morning. It started propagating ads on how-to-improve-your-quality-of-hair! Open to interpretations!