Good bye 2008!!

So this is my last blog of 2008 people. My life this year has been like a roller coaster ride full of ups and downs. But i am just gonna think about the ups rite now. These sum good things that happened to me this year and i don't wanna 4 get them so we make the LIST.

1. I went to GOA with my own money. ( This was like a life long dream)
2. I don't hate USA anymore. Infact i am completely in luv with Seattle, can't wait to go bak.
3. I fell in luv with myself this year. Seriously no jokes. I luv myself infact i adore myself....lol! (This thing came up in my head sum time bak- I think i wud wanna be with sum1 who'll luv me like i luv myself. Narcissism at its best....i know. I think more comfortable and secure about who i am now than i hav ever been.
   
4. I traveled a lot this year compared to last year. (But not as much as i'd like to)
5. Reconnected with my bro and my massi who is just the nicest person i know.
6. My cuite pie Karaj was born this year. One of my fav memories this year is puttin Karaj to sleep on diwali by singing to him. I can't tell u how amazin that felt.
   
7. So I conquered my fears and not only did i sing but i also danced on stage for my college fest, Yippie!!
8. Finally managed to make sum friends in coll ( With my trust issues its really HUGE)
9. I got full in a presentation where the prof challenged the class he wudn't give any1 more than 5. And he like my presentation soooo much he included that in the syllabus AND he even asked it in the exam for 10 marks. Its a different thing that almost every1 was cursin me after the exam cos the the topic was sumthinh not evry1 cud understand.( I hav to be honest here and add that the prof has lil crush on me.The topic was Innovation in Pharma and i really worked hard on this one, imagine tryin to get people interested in sumthing u cudn't find interest in yourself in even though u studied it for 4 years)
10. I started photography this year and i am super proud of this. I am not that good but i am gonna get better.
11. OK so the whole bday party thingy made me realise that i'd just rather celebrate my bday with my family u know. I appreciate my friend for the whole party and all but i realized no matter how much i deny it i am just a complete family person at heart. And wat better day to accept sumthing like this than your Bday
    
12. Ok of all the stuff that i hav done this year this ones the biggest. I stopped drinkin my fav thing on this planet TEA. I was a huge teatotaller and was used to havin like 8-9 cups a day. But it started affectin my health and so i gave it up. I can't tell u how hard this has been i hav dreams where i am drinkin tea. I literally fantasize about havin tea. This has been worse than any break up for me. But i know this is only temporary i know the day when me and tea will be together once again isn't far away....

I am not really the kind to make resolutions but this year i hav mad one. I hav decided I am gonna try and be more trustin this year. I mean i hav to if i wanna live my life the way i want to then this is a must. Also when u travel u meet all sorts of people and u gotta let your gaurd down or else how will u get to know them better. So that it for 2008. Hope u guys hav a Happy New Year and also do me a favor just click on the ads at then end of my blog once in a while. I am supposed to get paid for that thing. I havn't made a penny of it yet....SEE YA & HAPPY NEW YEAR! and BE SAFE;-)

Bored to death!!

I can't tell u how bored I am rite now. I think i am just loosing my mind. Just 2 days bak i was thinkin man do i luv my life or wat! And now i just can't wait to get busy again. Can't believe how fast things change.The job hunt is still going on...i just can't seem to find sumthing i like. When i wasn't lookin the offers were pourin in and now that i am all those crappy steno types ( No offense to any1 ) are all that I am gettin. Also out of sheer laziness I havn't even gone to the library to get sum new books to read. I finsihed Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth sum time bak and i luved it. My fav one among the short stories were Only Goodness and Hema & Kaushik. I can't figure out i why none of her stories hav a happy endin. Infact lately none of the books that i hav read seem to hav a happy ending. Its almost as if people hav a thing against them. I mean i get it that u wanna be as close to reality as possible and if truth be told there are no happy endings in real life. But cum on..its a book for cryin out loud there's a reason why its called fiction cause its not real...

I feel like i am trapped here sumtimes. The world's just waitin to be discovered and I am wasting my time sittin on my butt. But then where is the money to do that u know....Now this is going to sound weird but lately all the guys i meet sum how remind me of my brother. I can't explain it but they just do. I don't know maybe its cos i miss Karan so much. U know stuff like thats my brothers fav brand or his fav cricketer. My sister's just gettin on my nerves now that i am spending way too much time at home. Hav u ever wondered wats the deal with how we are supposed to be according to society. According to our so called society we should get married at a suitable age and have children and its only then that u hav had a happy life. But wat if i don't want that. Does that mean that i am not happy or not content with my life. But then is it just society or is it my own head that keeps tellin me that this wat you should want from life. Why do we hav all these rules as to how our lives should or shouldn't be like. According to people around me I should find a suitable boy and settle down. But wat if i don't want that from life. Besides wats the whole deal with settling down. I don't think i ever want to settle down. If that means giving up on your own dreams and fulfilling your so called worldly obligations. I think my only obligation to this world is to live the best life that i can and be the best possible person i can be. Sumtimes i do wish that if only i wanted the same things things for myself as my parents do for me then life wud be so much easier and they'd be so much happier. But i don't wanna lie to myself - and deep down i know that i don't atleast not rite now. Maybe its just the rebel in me which refuses to listen to others. Haven't quite figured that out yet.

So who's the new guy in your life? - well thats the question almost every1 who knew me when i was datin my ex has asked me when i bumped into them after the break up (which was like ages bak) and they still do. And i just find it completely derogatory. Why do i have have a guy in my life. So just because i dated sumbody who's always datin sum1 or another does it mean that I am like that was well. I mean is that the kinda impression people got of me bak then......of sumbody who always needs to be in sum relationship. (The last time sum1 asked me this question i got so pissed off i gave the guy a piece of my mind. And he was lucky that he met me online or else i wud hav chewed his head off .) If that is the case then its pathetic cos there is so much more to me than that. And sumwhere i am to be blamed cos i hav always been a very closed person. But still u can't define people by their relationships.....and if u do then that person must have a really sad existence. I don't ever want to be known as sum1's girlfriend or wife or anything for that matter. I want people to me for ME not cos of sum1 else. I just pray to God that i always maintain my own individuality and don't loose myself ever again. There's so much more to and i'd rather be known for stuff like- sum1 who likes photography, sum1 likes to travel, sum1 who like food, sum1 who's obsessed with pink, etc... etc.. But never in my life do i want a relationship to define who i am.

One of my biggest regrets in life is that i din't go to a good B-school. Ya i know that whole u shudn't have any regrets in life crap but cum on who are we all kiddin sum where we all do. But seriously not just for the good placements but just to be around people who inspire u and help u be the best u can be. Not like i don't give my best now but i know for sure that it wud hav made a huge difference. There cums a time in our lives where we choose one option over the other and then when we look bak we always wonder how things wud hav been had we taken the other road. I do hav sum of those " wat ifs" in my life as well and sum times i do wonder how different my life wud hav been had i chosen the other road.

1. After my 12th i decided to take Arts and din't tell my parents. But i was such a wuss i ended up taking pharmacy cos i didn't wanna tell my parents. And i can't tell u how often i wonder how different things wud hav been had i just gone and told my parents about wat i really wanted to study.

2. There was a time when i packed my bags and moved to the US. But things didn't go as planned and we had to cum bak. My parents didn't really know wat to do then so i had to take a call and i obviously choose to cum bak. But i do sumtimes try to imagine how my life wud hav been had i chosen to stay bak.

3. This guy who i hav known since i was a fat kid in school met me like a year bak and confessed that he's had a thing for me ever since. I kinda knew bak then but i was kinda shocked to find out that he felt the same way even now. I almost had rebound with him but then i think sumthing inside me just told me that i was makin the same mistake again and i distanced myself from the whole situation. I don't really regret this one but i do wonder how things wud hav been.....

.Guess i'll never know how my life wud hav turned out had chosen a different path......

Books I Liked

The job hunt is on in full swing. Lets see how things go. The thing is that wat i wanna do is not really gonna pay me much and I kinda need the money. But at the same time i don't wanna do sumthing that i won't enjoy. Also I am not sure if i shud play the waiting game or shud i just take up wat cums first. As always i am super confused. Things with my friend aren't really improving as i had thot they wud. I mean we talk and all but i just don't feelin i can tell her wats on my mind without thinking twice any more. I feel like i hav to think and speak cos sum where i feel like she judgin me. My day start at around 2 pm these days. I think i can make sum sort of a record for sleepin for the maximum no. of hours.

I read Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies last week and surprisingly i liked it. I generally don't like the award winning types. I think she sticks to wat she knows best i.e. Bengali culture, Calcutta and Boston. Most of her stories revolve around them. But the thing with reading short stories is sum how i kinda find them incomplete. They just end abruptly and i end up wondering wat happens to the characters after this.

I have just finished reading Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan's You are Here. I just wanted to read sumthing that wasn't very serious and lil chick flick like. Ok so the thing is i've read her column a couple of times in Mumbai Mirror. And honestly i kinda felt that they weren't very original. It felt like she was trying to do the Indian version of Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the city. I just felt like it was very wannabeish. But i thot the book was nice, not bad at all. Infact sum parts from the book are hilarious. I absolutely loved the part about underwire bras. I just cudn't stop laughing when i read that bit. The twenty -five year Arshi is very easy to relate to. I think she kinda goes thru the same crisis we all do when we are twenty sumthing and we hav no clue where our life is heading. I personally cud really relate to the whole no boyfriend no job and in my case still writing blogs about your ex bit. I really like these lines from the book..

We need to move, to grow, and if we’re lucky the people we luv are moving and growing too, at sum point in the future we’ll find ourselves rite bak at the start.

Ok thats it for now see ya later..

An illusion Of Luv

Today i saw Rab ne bana di jodi and it just reminded me of the old me. You know the one who was dreamy eyed, believed almost anything u told her, a romantic to the core and loved like there was no tomorrow. I miss her sumtimes......cos the new me is just too practical and thinks romance exists only in books & movies and i might as well add bitchy & selfish. I think the old me had to go cos she was just too naive, she wudn't hav been able to survive in the world that we live in today. I don't know why but the movie just got me in a mood reminiscing about the past. I was just thinkin , i think i was the happiest when i believed i was in love and there was no relationship at all. There was this feeling of unconditional love and honestly no expectations watsoever. And yet i felt so content within. That was a nice feelin. It was actuallly better than goin around I don't know why i ever did that in the first place. The dude didn't even like me (luv to dur ki baat hai). Sumtimes i felt like he cudn't even stand me. I guess he just wanted a girlfriend and i was there so he must hav thot might as well. I don't understand why do guys do this? If u know that the person is not the one then why waste her time. Let that person move forward why hold her bak. I mean guys hav no issues but girls hav a lota other stuff goin on u know ( family pressure to get married, biological clock,etc.). Honestly everythin is forgivable but wat about the time that is lost? No matter wat u can't get the time u've lost bak ever.

I wrote this blog sumtime bak about three types of love and as i wrote it i wondered wat was it in my case. And as usual i ended up figuring out the answer in my sleep. It turns out it was none cos the person that i was in luv with just existed in my head. You know how we hav this image of the person we'd wanna be with in our head. I think i just ended up projecting that image of the person in my head on the first guy i got close to. When i think of it everything good about the relationship had just existed in my head. He was never that person and he never really changed either. I think as time passed i just started seeing him for wat he actually was and he was nuthin like the person in my head. No wonder i was so confused throughout the whole relationship. But i did try to love the real him, i really did. I guess it just didn't happen. So basically it was just an illusion of luv. I think when we are young we so desperately wanna fall in luv that we end up goin for the first person that cums along without even knowing them well enough.
I heard this sumwhere that luv is always stupid and u end up doin the stupidest things in love no matter at wat age it happens......i know i am contradicting myself but sumtimes u just don't know wat to believe.

The Exile

I am feeling a little vulnerable rite now. A lot of things are happening all at once and i am not sure if am ready for all these changes yet. My best friend is going to meet a guy this weekend ( for marriage ) and i think i am more nervous than she is. I don't think i am ready to share her with sum1 yet...its too soon. I know i cudn't be more egocentric rite now.... but well thats how i am feelin. I hav literally grown up with her and i think her family has been just amazin to me and i luv them like they are my own. And now that she is gettin ready to go into another family all i can think is that God i'll hav to adjust with them just like she wud hav to. I am always hanging out at her place, infact when things aren't goin rite at home thats the place where i go to seek solace and in sum time she won't be there. When we were young we'd talk about how we'd want our wedding dress to be, how we'd be there for each other even when we get married. I just can't believe its already happening. I think i was so preoccupied with my own mess during Shaista's weddin but now when Neha is about to go down that road i am just completely freaking out....

I think one of the reasons that i had been writtin more often was cos i was just drifting apart from a very dear friend of mine and i just ended up blogging about stuff that i wud usually share with her. Generally when things go wrong with my friends i am always the 1st one to work things out but sum how i just didn't feel like it this time. Also i just cudn't figure out why we were driftin apart, maybe it was the lack of time or maybe we just didn't feel like sharin stuff anymore. But a couple of weeks bak i realised sumthing which i just had to share with her and no one else. That i think helped break the ice between us, hopefully things will get better between us now..

I think i am completing my MBA in the worse possible time ever. The market is just goin down the drain and there are no jobs available. Infact the market has never been hit this badly since the Great Depression which happened in 1929.....talk about havin bad luck. I am takin things a bit easy now cos my exams just got over but soon i'll hav to start lookin 4 a job. I hav made sum plans and they are so not goin to materialize if i don't get a job . So people wish me luck and pray for me.

I was just wonderin how cum when we are young all we want to do is just get away and discover the world. But once we are out there we can't wait to get bak home. I am no different but i do know that i am never goin to luv a place like the way i luv Mumbai. But then a part of me just wants to go away, see the world, experience new cultures, live a completely different life. Does this make me look like an unpatriotic person? I don't know, sumtimes i feel a lil guilty but then u can't change the way u feel.

I read this book called The Exile by Navtej Sarna a couple of days bak. I think its one the best books i hav ever read. This book is about the last king of Punjab Maharaja Duleep Singh. Now one of the reasons why i wanted to read this book was cos i had heard a lot about Maharaja Ranjeet Singh, Duleep Singh's father when i was growin up. My Dad wud tell me all these stories about him and i wud just be mesmerized. The thing about readin books related to history is that u already know the ending. So the writer has to really make the story interesting for you to actually have the curiosity to continue readin till the end. Maharaja Ranjeet Singh by the way is one of the greatest Kings that this country had ever seen. No u'll be surprised to know that this man who people literally idolized was short, thin and cud only see with one eye. One of the reason's why his people luved him so much cos was a very fair person. After he died his son Kharak Singh took over as the King. But a lot of deaths due to greed and power hungry wazirs led to Duleep Singh becoming the King of Punjab when he was just 5 years old. Now Duleep was the son of Ranjeet Singh's youngest queen Jindan Kaur and he wasn't even in line to becum the king. So imagine how canniving the wazirs must hav been. Now Duleep was just a proxy king all the decisions were taken by the wazirs and sum by his mother, he was just 5 wat did u expect? The inhouse fighting continued in Punjab and the Britishers took advantage of the situation and took over Punjab. Now i hav to admit that after readin this book i kinda started hatin them. They made poor Duleep a ward of the British government and send Rani Jindan to jail. Now she being a sardarni wasn't obviously goin to stay like that so she escaped and later got asylum in the Kingdom of Nepal. Jindan kaur was very young ( in her twenties) when Duleep was made the king and she made sum wrong choices which didn't really help the kingdom. Anyways the Britisher's raised Duleep in a Christian household and in order to please the family that he was livin with Duleep decided to becum a Christian when he was eleven. He was just a child and he just wanted to fit in i guess. By the time he was 16 the Britisher's sent him to England where he became a puppet in Queen Victoria's court. As he grew up he realized what the Britishers had taken away from him and started questioning them about his rights and the terms of the treaty which they had signed when they took over Punjab . They allowed him to cum to India to meet his mother after 14 years of separation but only for a short while. He spent the rest of his life trying to fight the Britsihers and in the hope of justice and literally struggled to get bak to India. But at every step the Britisher's were ahead of him and finally he died in Paris. Its just sad how the British deceived poor Duleep when he was so young and seriously after readin the book i felt those asses shud give us the Kohinoor bak. They took it from a child talk about bein fair. Now the interesting thing is Duleep had 8 children and not one of them had a child. Its said that the queen of England ordered them not to hav any children cos they didn't want any heirs to the throne of Punjab. But i read this in the paper sumtime bak that a Britisher had found out that his great grand mother worked in a house where Duleep Singh lived and it turns out that his grandfather was Duleep Singh's son. Now i am tryin to find more info on this cos its gotten me all curious. Back to the book i think its very well written not like the borin autobiographies. After readin this book i realized i want to find more about the history of Punjab ( ok so me being a sardarni does kinda make a lil biased). Anyways that it for now see ya..

If I were a boy!!

I really like the lyrics of this track by Beyonce Knowles

If I were a boy
Even just for a day
I'd roll outta bed in the morning
And throw on what I wanted then go
Drink beer with the guys
And chase after girls
I'd kick it with who I wanted
And I'd never get confronted for it.
Cause they'd stick up for me.

If I were a boy
I think I could understand
How it feels to love a girl
I swear I'd be a better man.
I'd listen to her
Cause I know how it hurts
When you lose the one you wanted
Cause he's taken you for granted
And everything you had got destroyed

If I were a boy
I would turn off my phone
Tell everyone it's broken
So they'd think that I was sleepin' alone
I'd put myself first
And make the rules as I go
Cause I know that she'd be faithful
Waitin' for me to come home


It's a little too late for you to come back
Say it's just a mistake
Think I'd forgive you like that
If you thought I would wait for you
You thought wrong


But you're just a boy
You don't understand
Yeah you don't understand
How it feels to love a girl someday
You wish you were a better man
You don't listen to her
You don't care how it hurts
Until you lose the one you wanted
Cause you've taken her for granted
And everything you have got destroyed
But you're just a boy

Life goes on...

Oh God so much has happened since i last wrote where do i even start. For starters my exams are over (finally!! they went on for a whole month) and I officially hav nuthin 2 do so will obviously be writtin more often. My exams were just ok not that gr8. I think these exams made me realize that i am not sure if i want to study further, i mean after my MBA. Don't get me wrong i luv studin and readin i just hate the whole concept of exams man. Just because I can't vomit the stuff that i read in those three hours doesn't make me any less smart or less intelligent, as long as I understand and apply wat i read. Also i stink when it cums to thinkin under pressure so i end up screwin the application based questions in the exam. I mean i can think of how to apply those stupid fundas infact i do it all the time for my projects but u don't sit and decide to think u know, this stuff jus cums to me when i am walkin home from coll or gettin ready to sleep or when i am sleepin (a lota stuff cums to me when i am sleepin) Ok so maybe i will study ahead but definetly not sumthin where i hav to give these stupid exams...

So much has happened in Mumbai in the last couple of days that i just dont hav words to desciribe it..
I think i am jus completely heart broken cos no matter wat we do it just keeps happenin over and over again. We all know that we gotta change sumthing - is it our own attitude, is it the system, is it the politicians. Honestly i don't really know. But WE HAV TO DO SUMTHING cos if we don't then one of these days its gonna be one of us or sum1 we luv who'll loose their lives in this war. I don't think i hav ever watched so much news in my entire life. You know that thot - wat if one our luved ones was out there, wat if sum1 we knew was hurt. The fear of not knowin wats happennin and wat will happen just gets to u sooner or later. And this fear is exactly wat our enemies are trying to create with such actions. My only question is why ? wat are these people gonna get out of this? Those were innocent people who died out there and yes right now everybody's tryin to say that we care. But within a couple of days this government of ours and our so called leaders are gonna 4get about the whole thing and for them life will be back to normal. Even in situations like these the political parties can't stop from maligning each other and the blame game has already begun. The other day i was cumin bak from college and i saw this hoardin of a party which had pictures of the martyrs and said that we won't let their sacrifice go to waste. I mean this is how low they can fall to get attention, alteast leave the dead alone. I can only imagine how people who live in Jammu and kashmir must be feelin. Its impossible to live in an environment where these kind of things are happening around u all the time. Eventually the fear and paranoia will just get to u. Honestly i hate politics i always hav and i always will. And even in a situation like this i just can't get myself to be interested .....

I read Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho yesterday. I kinda came across this book sumtime bak but i kinda felt like readin about a prostitute and her life is just not my thing. Then this friends of mine put up sum amazin extracts from the book and that kinda changed my mind. I luved the Alchemist written by Paulo Coelho as well so kinda had really high expectations from this book. But when i read it i just didn't feel i cud relate to any of it at all. I liked the first half of the book but then the 2nd half was a complete drag. It felt like i was readin one of those Mills & Boons novels. I think sum where we all want to go out and discover the world, experience true love and have our happy ending just like the protagonist of the book Maria. But the the choices she makes on her way to find true love and in the name of adventure are just plain stupid. I just cudn't relate to it. Also sumwhere after she lands in Switzerland the writer just fails to make the story more interesting. The story kinda gets very predictable and the reader is left with no curiosity watsoever. Now the thing is Paulo Coelho isn't the kinda writer who gives out messages like those self help books, he expects the reader to find them hidden within the story. But i just cudn't, i think maybe i just missed sumthing there. I think this book is for those die hard romantics and i am just not one of them. What i did like in the book are the parts from Maria's Dairy. I really liked the story about the women and the bird. Also there's this question that I hav had at the bak of my mind and after readin this book it just kinda resurfaced. How important is it to hav a physical realtionship with the person you are in luv with ? Is physical intimacy the end it all of expressin how u feel for a person? Personally i don't think so. But then i am sure most men wud disagree with me. Besides how do u know that its love and not just plain old lust as is seen in most cases. I think if u luv a persons mind and heart then thats more than enough to make a relationship work. I am not a very traditional person actually but i think one of the reasons i feel this way is cos wat if u hav a physical relationship with a person u r in luv with and things don't work out, u just end up feelin dirty and impure then. Besides for most people doin it is not a big deal these days. And guys as we all know wud say just about anything to get in a girls pants. Just because sumbody says "I luv u" doesn't mean that they actually do. Bolne mein kya jata hai...Personally i feel that u give yourself to a person whom u feel u wanna commit to and u r sure this is the person u wanna spend the rest of your life with, make babies with and grow old together . Call me old fashioned if u like but thats how i feel. I hav decided that i think i'll tell my parents if i see anybody now, i don't really wanna do the whole lying thing any more. I am 24 and i don't wanna behave like a school girl whose afraid of her parents. Been there done that....