Happy Holidays :)

                                                                       

And its time again for people like me who live thousands of miles away from their family to get back home. Beg borrow and steal a few leaves from our busy lives, take 30 hour long flights just to get home. Oh yes! its holiday season again. Apart from the fact that a whole year has gone by without me doing anything that was really thought provoking or world changing ( holiday season is  definitely not a time for reality checks..) its time to be back home again. A time for family dinners, to spend hours decorating Christmas tree and hanging those silver bells and tiny trinkets and baubles on  it, a time to spend evenings chatting with friends who you have most probably  met after a year and in all probability will see again only after a year, a time when you love Christmas carols no matter if you actually know the words to them or not. You smile when you sing them, hear them, play them whistle them out or just even think about them. A time to believe in Santa again no matter how old you are or how many times you have seen your dad put presents under your pillow a decade back. For me its a time to interrogate all my friends take an inventory of the sweets that have made and then chalk up a schedule to go and hog on all those delicacies in record time. My personal favorites are little somethings called as rose hooks. No they don't look like hooks and nope they are not made up of rose petals but they make you take a trip to heaven every time you have one none the less.

Its also the season when you love putting on a few extra kilos from all the joy you share without being chastised for it.  A few extra cups of steaming sweet hot coffees/ chocolates that you get to have in the cool winters that are so loved and much appreciated by people in Mumbai where anything below 55 degrees  is winter. A time to watch all those Christmasy  movies you get to watch on TV where the north pole and thus Christmas is on the verge of extinction and is saved by that one naughty kid who would topped Santa's list had he not gone all out and saved the happy jolly man and his pack of reindeer s.

 Christmas is also a time for love. To spend time with those you love. A time to see smiles everywhere, brought on by little kids wearing Santa caps and running around or by millions of people that travel home through Jam packed airports and security lines that run miles long to hug and kiss those who come to get them at the airports. 

Christmas is also a time to thank someone up above for a wonderful year that has gone by. For all the things that went your way and all that did not. A season to forgive and learn to love again. A season to give and feel that warm tingly little feeling in your heart that tells you ' you did the right thing' by helping out someone or just doing that something you have been meaning to do for the past year but never really did it. 

Its also a time to see the town bathe in a new glow from all the decorations that are put up everywhere, a time to hope it snowed in Mumbai to see a white Christmas with your family. A time to hold on to your loved ones to make them stay just a little bit longer in the evening. A time for slay rides or just may be dream bout them. A time to hope that the Christmas magic exists, that all's good in the world and that dreams do come true. A time to hope life would be like movies and even if it doesn't its still a time to smile cause this might be the closest it will be. 

Cheers to all the Christmas joy and love. Merry Christmas to all my friends and hope you have the happiest of the holiday season :) 

PS : Pic of b-town bathing in the Christmasy glow and all the louuu or maybe i just have my Christmas glasses on.

Chicken soup for the lost soul...

What is this life if full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare..

  by WH Davis

A whole day at home working on things i get my self tangled into and then  complain about having no time what - so - ever for any of the things i would love to actually get myself tangled into.
It was a  lazy sunday evening when my  family was debating bout the best way to spend it. We crossed out the local markets and malls.. I was just in no mood to get myself back into closed air-conditioned rooms (even though they literally spell heaven in summers)It just gets really suffocating sometimes. My mom practically had a huge list ready that she absolutely had to get .. but there was no way she could blackmail me into tagging along today so i decided to blackmail them into coming tagging along with me instead.
Now I am going to be 'leaving on a jet plane' in a few month's time and hence my parents are in a very easily blackmail-able stage. So we three musketeers me, mom and dad decided we need to get some fresh air flowing through our veins and headed out to Bandra Bandstand.
We were just about to park when a blue exotic car (Since i don't speak car i don't know the make or the company  and plus it din't have a name behind in case your thinking i am blind not to read it). I am totally sure it belonged to some highty flighty celeb as so many people thronged bout to get a look at who ever that was there in that blue mystery car. The car turned into a nearby building and well the people just being curious about who's following , never know who we mite see attitude were all staring right into my car and at the back seat where i was sitting extremely confused and wondering which celeb did i just missed seeing. So well the people saw me in all my messed up glorry ,got disappointed and finally made way for our ordinary car to pass and park somewhere on the side. I stepped out of the car and the wind just hits you. The air faintly smells of fish and wet sea rocks. I realize that because thats where most of the small fishing boats were parked and where there are fishing boats there ought to be fishes ..dead alive dried something atleast. So we jump over the barrier and almost pull my mom on the other side even though its just barely 2 feet tall.. the Road is filled with families, dogs and their owners, lovers, friends and loads of frolicking children. I thought 'All these people just knew how best to spend a perfect sunday evening ..with people they love' We walked along the cost filled with ragged rocks.. the tide was low but the sea still looked beautiful. The lovers and the adventurous mavricks had made their way right down to the rocks that touched the waves and sat there either locked in each others arms or challenging their friends to stand on this rock or jump from that one. 

Celebrity houses lined up on the other side of the road which my dad kept wondering aloud and guessing which one belonged to whom.
We finally found a nice spot with loads of wind and no extra snugly couples in our direct line of sight..(Watching that, with your parents watching you is so devastatingly embarrassing even though you aren't doin a thing..:Strange but true..)
The sun set at almost the same time as we settled down ..It kinda dissolved into mist that settles just above the surface of the see and far away at the horizon ..So it appears that the sun just vanished mid air befor it could actually touch the sea and be like extinguished..poof..but being summer there was enough light to see clearly all around..The lights started coming on at the far corners of the coast.. Roads lit up. Who said the sunsets in a busy city with blinding lights aren't as beautiful as seen from some precarious cliff or a point 5000ft high and surrounded by the jungle.. I saw one just as beautiful at half an hour drive from home..

We sat there dangling our feet above the rocks , our shoes kept safely behind us and feeling the cool wind run between our toes talking bout things that somehow don't seem to creep up in normal conversations at home. Dad talking bout nostalgic moments can be weired at times.. Well we sat that way till it got too dark to tell if our chappals were still in place and not stolen .. .and walked back to car.. Naturally we forgot how the place where we parked the car at looked like.. And plus being dark was all the more distracting.. Just as we thought it was towed away and would need a search mission we found it phew parked a few meters ahead of our wandering point...
That wasn't the end of our adventures though, We  couldn't even find the road that connects bandra to the highway.. i cant believe after living 20 years in the same city this would be possible.. but yeah so we ended up driving the longer route home .. and just as if preplanned our favorite Chinese place shows up.. and we decide to take a break and complete our journey with some chicken soup for the soul.. In our case for the lost souls.. Yummiest soup ever..

Footnote: Pic Taken at Bandra bandstand inspired by 'wake up Sid' and yes those are my dear feet.

To do before i die...

I resigned. Wow what a feeling..well but this post aint about how i resigned and how relieved i feel now that i have(It feels awesome) nor am i going to go rambling bout my bosses and their bosses.. Lord knows they all are made of the same gooey stuff.

This is about the point in time when i had to submit my resignation. Just one click on that deadly 'Send' button and a lot of things in life would change. It took me 10 minutes to just get my fingers to move enough to accept that i was ready to close that chapter in my life and start a new one and just 'click'.

I did finally, and  realized that this was one of my 1st of many times that i would resign from a company and just like that a thought crossed over my mind..Gosh one life and its just ticking away... 10 minutes to click a send.. when am i going to do those 100's of things that i  totally absolutely desperately need to do before i die???

So here i go .. i have decided to make a list of things that i  need to and just insanely want to do before i die..
I may cross out things later or add more.. its just my personal compilation so that i am inspired to take that one step when i absolutely need to to change the chapter in my life turn over the page and start a new one.

1 - .Go dancing in the rain.
2 - Learn to ballroom dancing (i'm deadly bad at that)
3 - Be able to finish marathon in respectable time
4 - Attend a prom night(No prom's in my country :(  )
5 - Sleep on the beach under the sky and where i can hear the waves.
6 - Drive at 100m/h on a straight road with the top down and music turned to full
7 - Fall completely totally insanely madly desperately blindly in love. (the kind where there is no living without)
8 - Learn to surf.
9 - Learn a foreign language and use it with a native.
10 - Kiss someone impulsively.
11 - Go on a blind date.
12  - Sing at a kareoke bar.
13 - Go on a impromptu trip.
14 - Go on a around - the - world tour.
15 - swim in the sea at night.
16 - Dance till i drop.Till i have to take a day off just for me to feel my legs again.
17 - Learn to play the guitar really well.
18 - Learn to play the violin.
19 - Get married on a beach(no guests required).
20 - learn to love myself minus the numbers(weight, age,etc etc..)
21 - Bungee jump.
22 - swim with dolphins.
23 - have a pet dog
24 - spoil someone.
25 - take up photography professionally.
26 - Own a motorbike and learn to drive it really well.
27 - Go on a cruise for a week at least.
28 - Witness a miracle
29 - get a tattoo
30 - sky-dive
31 - go one a dinner and waltz date on a pier



Will keep updating... i have so many more.. just all jumbled up in my mind somewhere right now.