Yeah call me old-fashioned but it sure feels nice to have the door opened for you, being allowed to enter first, the chair pulled for you, coffee brought for you, water (not wine, not yet;) poured into your glass first....

Chivalry is definitely "in" in Paris. No idea of the status in other countries, including India :)
(*Peace* if I have "unintentionally" ruffled a few feathers ;)

Bon Année , Happy New Year folks!

It seems like I have been here since ages.
In just a week, I have mastered the Paris metro system, marvelled at the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo,the Eiffel Tower, the Notre Dame, toured the Champs Elysees, eaten croissants, fromage crepes and other unpronouncable stuff, said Bonjour and Merci a hundred times, ascended and descended an equal number of elevators, borne the winter here, befriended a pakistani hotel owner; have had interesting conversations related to both countries, something I would never imagine doing back home. Distance makes the boundaries merge, ever so slightly.

I have also missed India like never before *sigh*. Home is home!!It takes a foreign sprint to realise this.

And blogging? This is just a snapshot. The full picture when I return.

P.S: I am working too ;)

Current Music: None. My broken yet beloved headphones lie in my office cabinet back in Pune *a double sigh*

Lady Luck where art thou
Why do thee elude me when I need thee most

Ever had the feeling that everything and everyone is conspiring against you?

Yesterday
1) The usual delay in processing of some documents needed for travelling
2)My mom sits on the only pair of specs I wear while driving
3)I bang my littlest toe against a wall. The wall is ok. My toe is at a degree of 30 from the one next to it. The toe is pushed back to normal position.
4) At night, while implementing a hot water therapy on the toe, the mobile falls into the water. It conks off, what scares me most, is not the loss of a beautiful piece, but the torrent and volley of screaming and firing which I will receive from my sister who gifted it. The mobile starts vibrating wierdly, I run the hairdryer over the whole thing.

Today
1) Documents still pending
2) Specs are stuck with some piece of tape. I dont care if the other bike riders notice it.
3) Toe is blue black. Hoping I have not fractured it.
4) Mobile is back in action. Miracle of miracles.

As I write, my headphones have fallen onto the floor.

Its like those essays we had to compose in school, "The day everything went wrong". Then, I made up stories, yesterday I could have won the first prize in essay writing.

The headphones are broken, what else can you expect, but usable all the same.

The only thing that is not broken or cracked right now is my resolve to enjoy myself come what may....

God knows when I will post next.
Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to ye all!!!

Bonjour Paris, here I come.....

Monday morning, I shall step out, (assuming the immigration procedures go smoothly and we are not hijacked and the pilot knows the way and the plane is not rammed into the Eiffl Twr and other such commonplace events), onto this place which they claim to be très romantic and très beautiful. Hmmmm........

Time to brush the dust off those stowed French books and revive the long-unused vocabulary.

Am I excited? You bet I am!!
And who knows, I might just bump into Asterix and Obelix, menhirs et al :))

Time shime ki baatein

Everything should be customisable. Including the number of hours in a day.
Suddenly, the number 24 sounds way tooo small.
But who said anything about not having time to squeeze in one tiny post. Some events are mutually exclusive :-)

Ever since I have started working, I have also begun to suffer from the Friday blues, a phenomenon one particular friend will identify with. The blues are of intensity greater than the Monday ones and have to do with the next two whole days gaping at you, wide open, bang in between the rest of the week that just seems to fly by.

Here I contradict one of my earlier posts where I crib about not having enough time on my hands to do this and that and that and this.

Split personality?

The Fri blues, I could almost compose a country folk song on these words with a guitar et al, but I havent found the time to join a class. Again I contradict myself.

Split personality?

This weekend will be a power-packed one but the Fri blues leave me nay. ( A little more effort, and the song will be ready. The album will hardly have any takers tho'. The few who will buy it, will probably be doing it out of fright. A gun pointing to your head is not veri funny you see)

Current Music: Goli maar bheje mein - Satya *dhiskwaan*

(Fri blues also invoke the dormant personalities in you. I have a 3-way split personality. One of them happens to be Garfield. The second me and the third, a gun-toting budding author and music composer)

The best time to enjoy an icecream is when the winter touches a crescendo, whilst you pull the jacket closer around your body, and the stinging wind adds the right shade of pink to your cheeks. Try the fresh strawberry at the Mapro farms in Panchgani at this time of the year.

An afterthought: Its so cold these days, that the temperature is just about perfect to turn you into a cassatta

When do 10km feel like 20km?

When your brakes snap, *kat*, just like that, out of the blue, and you are hanging onto dear life by applying the front brakes as gently as possible
(yeah its still my old bike, and its feeling jealous of its new sibling thats coming along any day now)
Everytime something whoozed past me, I could hear God saying "Pooja (He is one of those near-extinction ones who still calls me by this name), I need you here"

And when finally we, (my wobbly-disabled-one-limb-hanging-loose bike and me), reached a mechanic after a harrowing 25 minutes, I looked up to Him, and said "Naah, not tonight, maybe some other day?"

Current Music: Kuch Tho Hua Hai : KHNH

A string of words worth quoting

A good section in the Sunday TOI is the one on quotes, some of them very meaningful, the one on your left below the bloggers list is from one such edition. Most of them have to do with connecting, introspecting, exploring oneself spiritually, making sense of your emotions. And isn't the mental satisfaction of connecting to people or to things you like doing best, such as music or painting or writing to name a few, that which matters most at the end of the day?

I have always wondered what it takes to write a quote, a pinch of drama, a repositioning of words, figures of speech, I go to school wouldnt be a quote, but To school, I go could sound like one.

Here's my first try at writing one, a such-one-Sunday like quote

'Tis an unfortunate man who falls in love and yet, acknowledges not, the depth of this descent

Current Music: Jaane - Chameli, one of the most beautiful songs I have heard till now

Everything I write may or may not apply to me, but at times imagination and reality can be so enmeshed, so intertwined, difficult it would be, to differentiate one from the other

A turmoil within, like a storm whipped sea
The waves strong enough to weaken the ship's sail
On the outside, serenity, feigned tranquility
The expression strong enough to mask the storm

Its surprising what can serve as fodder for a blog. Thought of the following lines when I had to sign a cheque for a new motoscooter (as the company likes to call it)

The hands shaky, not used to such procedures yet, the 10-yr old scribbles his initials with as much importance as he could muster, letters as huge as he could make them, his first ever signature on that piece of paper for a class trip

Meticulously, very carefully, cross-checking the name, date of birth, and the board exams center, he signs off at the bottom of the page, using a brand new fountain pen specially bought for this purpose

A huge sense of relief, a medical graduate, it was hard to believe he was a free man now, no classes to attend, no exams,umm, it wasn't all that nice, there would be no girls to woo, no more canteen romances, a careless, illegible scrawl as he collects his degree certificate

His first personalised chequebook, glossy pages, his name neatly printed at the bottom. His first cheque, at a department store, gifts for his family, proud they would be, of him

The Day. Getting married to his sweetheart, the registrar's office, a huge sense of responsibility seeping in, the bride, her bangles tinkling sweetly as she daintily signs next to his promises of companionship till death do them part

Something wasn't right with his patient. The heartbeats growing faint by the minute, breathing irregular, frantic pumping by the doctors, realisation, furtive attempts to wipe off the tears, the core of his being shaken as he certifies the demise, wondering how many more such certificates would come his way

Family life, the roses and the thorns, countless signatures, house loans, car loans, telephone, electricity, credit remittances, the proud signature on his child's kindergarten form, speculating as he signs off on an obscene amount for coaching classses and graduate college fees

On the other side of 70. The lawyer's office, reading, re-reading the will, his hands shaking, the grip wasn't firm now, the cold further stiffening the bones, peering closely into the legal papers, signing next to the cross sign, the letters as huge as he could make them, mixed emotions, of having lived life to the fullest and of accepting that death would come knocking any day, at the same time, joking that they would make him sign on the gatepass at heaven's door too.