new phase AGAIN!

 

things happened so fast! I was about to get settled in the new house lifestyle, and i get a job offer. not one, two! after great discussions, thoughts, analysis and so on, i decide to take one of them. and then, i move out of the house! I come to the big bad city in the world- mumbai!!!!

of course, for the job. my family did not ask me to leave the house, nor did I elope :P. I work in such an industry, that every thing BIG is happening in Mumbai. the media hub is Mumbai. right from Bollywood, to ad world, to newspapers, to TV channels, to corporate communication- everything is in Mumbai. and well, the fact remains that Pune is way too close to Mumbai, so they will never build another office/branch in Pune, for the convenience's sake! So doing something considerably big in my field would mostly mean that I shift to Mumbai. which I did. I do work in this big TV channel now, (have a media card, might mean some privileges ) and generally get uber excited reactions from people.

I have not yet explored the city that much though. I mean c'mon, Mumbai is one of the most crowded, and most glamorous cities of the world. its been 25 days that I am here, and iI have not explored a single thing. the sightseeing places I am saying. well, otherwise I am exploring some things as listed below:

1. traveling through Mumbai locals is way damn cheap! although, it is injurious to health. best case scenario, you just sweat. (which you anyways do) you worst case scenario, you die. but trust me, never found anything cheaper, and faster than the fast local train in Mumbai! Of course, i am all ga-ga over it coz I dont have to travel too much. its just 3 stations for me. people who travel like 23 stations would swear that local train is the most dreadful thing that has happened to them!

2. this season- the month of September is better in Mumbai. the monsoon is slowly ending and the October heat has not yet started. you do sweat of course, that's the constant thing in Mumbai. but its better than rest of the year. you might even encounter a breeze! and i do, from the top floor of my office!

3. the sea looks awesome, even though it is filthy in reality. but you go there in the night, you get super cool breezes, and you experience the sheer vastness. you know what, many of Mumbai skylines look very beautiful because of the sea. as in, after some buildings, there is a big vast vacuum- the sky is not filled( coz sea is there!) but the emptiness of the sky adds up to the grandeur of the whole skyline. my office is quite close to sea. I directly get a glimpse from the top floor of the office. and in the night, it looks marvelous! :D

4. the grocery is priced pretty high, and the clothes, super cheap! linking road, hill road, colaba causeway, fashion street and Dadar- jai ho! esp at colaba causeway, you get a cheese tomato sandwich at 95 rs, and a white t shirt at 100 rs!! :)

5. people are helpful. they generally guide you about the routes, convenient buses or trains and other stuff. since everybody sails in the same boat where daily life is a hassle, you do help people i guess. I also suspect that many of mumbai men are sex starved ( the way they look at you) but about that, some other time.

I am sure by end of this year i will list at least 100 things. I have never been out of Pune for job/education. and i am sure it is going to teach me lot of things. my posts will continue, and i promise my blog frequency will improve! :) watch the space :P

moving to a new place- an introspection!

 


moving from one house to another is our favorite activity. For first 12 years of my life, we stayed in a big house. I moved from that at 12, then to another house at 13, then back to the original big one at 15, then the one bought newly at 16, then one more bought newly ( no 2) at 18 then back to the newly bought-I at 21 and now finally again another one bought newly (no 3) at 23 :D.
So you get the chaos. only it wasn't that chaotic. :) all the houses that we stayed in were really good to us, as were to them :) well, there were things like occasional infestations of cockroaches, and overflowing tap resulting into a water filled bedroom! but largely, the stays were as pleasant as it could get! :)

after looking at this record, you will realize that i never spent time more than 5 years at one place. In fact, my college was the place where i spent five years in a row! Its generally observed that the more time you spend at a place, the fonder you become. you grow close to that place itself, it becomes part of your identity. My grand mom stays in old city, for last 30 years, and now for me, the old part of pune has become synonymous to her! :) But nonetheless, I feel that i am extremely close to all the houses that i stayed in. especially the last 2. And then i think why did i grow so close to these?I know. . I was 'of age' when i stayed in these two. i basically remember all my stay, i was mature to understand the world, and you know, it was an age where maximum things happen to you-   your late teens and early twenties! (part-I. the part II is 24-30)

I went to college, i chose my courses, I participated in various things- right from volunteering for ugly occasions to winning  magnificent trophies,  I learned. I learned about how the world works, how big IS the world, how to deal with people. I closely understood human nature. I wrote. I made career choices. I made friends. I fought with some of them. I had lovely chats with parents. I had family occasions. I had family's worse moments- including surgical procedures, emotional lows and untimely deaths. I fell in love, started a happy relationship and eventually got engaged. So many things important to me happened in these 2 houses. I developed as a person. I grew up. And all these while these two houses were with me. I strongly believe that the house has an impact on you. positive-negative, whatever.  I am pretty emotional person. And hence, i did grow attached to these two houses. they have a big place in my heart :)

I am moving to a different house now. Its a bit far from this house- around 8 kms. The house is ready. furnished, painted and fitted. We started putting up the piled things at their own places. bits and pieces of things are halfway through. it is estimated that i will be there from 1st august. The house is superb, BIG, nicely located and still has nice view. I am definitely looking forward to the stay there. But its true that it will take me some time get adjusted over there, and grow attached to it. Also, I will have lot of new things happening in life while at that house. career shaping and marriage- important ones perhaps. And when i leave the house to go to my husbands place, i will be equally sad, i am sure. all in good time though.

so currently I am in movers and packers shoes. wish me good luck, and a happy stay and tons of fond memories in that place as well! adios! :)

an evening in pune

 
yesterday evening was nice. rather the day itself was nice and productive and sweet! why? couple of reasons.
one year anniversary of our engagement :D with no sign of marriage happening soon :D :D
and i made something in bits and pieces at my editing class. well, i go to my friend for it, and its not a big deal that i can do a little bit of  video editing- but still, a small yay! for my efforts :D


but apart from that, i walked down FC road yesterday evening, and saw a different so to say- flavor- of the road. its usually a colorful, busy, young and screeching road, with lot of attitude, lot of westernization, and lot of bubbling bursting multilingual heterogeneous youth. yesterday the road was still colorful, very busy, people rushing, but still, no westernization, no screeching, and attitude of a different kind. there were no vehicles on the road as they were being stopped and road was being vacated. people, most of them middle aged, traditional middle class or even lower middle class maharashtrians, were standing  all along the way in big mobs and bigger excitement. rather spiritual one, you could say. or, with devotion, you should say. the reason being the annual pandharichi wari has started, and the palakhi was going to pass from the road. 

well, i am not a newbie in pune, i have been witnessing this phenomenon for past 23 years- that is all my life. But i must say that every year i find deeper and deeper things in there and realize something that hasn't been understood till then. i saw the aam aadmi. the one who, despite the ever growing problems, doesnt change his old idols and the feelings. I saw the rich cultural hertage. i saw how can devotion change people. i saw the most unprivileged class of society walking all along till pandharpur. i saw that some of youth IS taking active part in waari and i also saw that doing video coverage of waari has become an 'in' thing. 

i saw the innocent faces of really young kids who were brought by the parents to see and if possible, touch the paalakhi. i saw people who were stuck in connecting lanes( WHO  MUST HAVE NOT WATCHED THE NEWSPAPER TO KNOW THAT THE ROAD IS GONNA BE CLOSED FOR SOME TIME) murmuring how all these processions should be banned. they destroy traffic. i saw lots of  'wanna be politicians' trying to shine it off. i saw the faces of politicians glaring from various hoardings wishing waari and all the devotees. 
I also saw a well known pune based young singer, who was walking on FC road, to catch a glimpse of waari, and i felt nice. i saw that at least sometimes, celebrities do act like normal humans. and once i passed this whole stretch of road, i also saw people who were oblivious to all these thing happening and burried in their coffees/ icecreams/earings shopping. well, they ofcourse do make an interesting element in all this. after all, the entire universe cannot be centred around any one thing. there gotta be some people like it. 

where was I? lets say, i was not a part of the real mob, nor did i wait there to watch paalakhi. but i walked down the road in those interesting 15 mins, in which i witnessed a world of feelings, concerns, emotions, people. in short, i became a common man in R K Laxman's cartoons. the one ho is present everywhere and the one who does not talk or act, but silently observe. and probably sings- an evening in Pune!!! 

you could not walk the ramp called life !

another day. another model committed a suicide.  why? why? why? apparently they could not cope up with the pressures life puts them under. hence they preferred to put a final full stop to it. whatever. my point is, does the name fame and money make you so weak??

model named viveka babaji hanged herself yesterday. that's third well known Indian model to have committed a suicide after nafisa joseph and kuljeet randhawa. what goes wrong? you work had to come in the industry. you start modeling from early age.  from early college days preferably. you struggle hard and harder. unending shoots, ramp walks, shows, assignments, fashion coordinators, agents, hotels, parties and socializing. what nex? where does the thing go wrong? 

the movie 'fashion' tried to portray the early rise to the top and then the fall and loneliness of a model. personally, i couldnt understand what exactly went wrong in all their lives. probably the director didnt show, or i couldnt grasp. anyways, thats not the point. the point is that why the hell would somebody turn so lonely, antisocial, and depressed after a hell lot of a fame and money? 

i know money cant buy you happiness. well, frankly, nothing can. the ones who do not have money, crave for it, thinking they can buy everything that akes them happy. the problem is that happiness does not exist. you can not touch, feel or see it. let alone buy. your heart decides that it is happy, and then you are happy with whatever frugal things you have. and if it decides not to, the palaces cant make you happy. 

now, if its this way, how will our heart feel that it is happy? no idea. no answer. it just comes from within i guess. its probably a horrible irony of life. the have nots thinking that money buys them happiness and the super haves spending money in search of happiness and still not finding it. you know what, somewhere i feel it is better to be poor and not famous in a way. why? becausee then your hope and your dreams do not leave you. when you have everything, the hope and the dreams die. when you have everything, there is no thrill, excitement and dreams in life. and life, becomes void. thats probably the only explanation of why do rich and famous do it. the lack of dreams. 

folks, even if we all become super rich and famous, i wish that our hope and our dreams do not die. that's probably the only way to keep your sanity, and walk the ramp called life gracefully!

the break

so! Its been a while since i wrote- i have stopped getting comments by the day..and i am very very angry about it! no interaction..no talk..no feedback!

anyways, the point is that i am on a break. It has been 3 months since i left my job, and sat at home( well not practically, but yes, for conversational terms, yes) and i have been enjoying the break. i do not remember a time in which a did not have a routine. I had internships in my University holidays, and other activities like German class in my college holidays. yes, all the entrances in my post final year holiday. so, in many ways, this was a unique break for me. this is just one of them.

secondly, and more importantly, i had a twist given to my personal and professional life. well,personal ,not so much. I am still engaged to the same guy :P  but  professional? whoa! a good one though. I studies for GRE till april end and appeared and got a good score. now kahaani mein twist. I have decided to stay back in India, not go to the US( which made me get frustrated over leaving my job, and mugging all those thousand horrible words for GRE). but i am happy. it is a well informed decision, anyways. i spoke to some friends, some colleagues from media and some professors. after a string of long chats, i have decided that i am staying in india ( ye mera India..i love my India) and let my career prosper!!! yay! :)  the discussions, the brainstorming and other things took too much of mental space sometime, but it is OK. you have to be cool with the criss-cross lines of thoughts and occasional mood swings :P 

I also swam. went swimming after a really long time. after 10 years probably. went on the tank for an entire month. regularly, without fail. and i discovered that swimming is one of the best cardio workouts. better, coz you do not sweat. the blue water actually drags you inside it..and the moment you get in water, all your worries, headaches, fatigue, tensions..gone! vanish!

i managed the house and other functions for some days..in absence of rest of the family members who were abroad. i bought new clothes. i made new discoveries about myself. i wrote letters. i went to friends' surprise bday parties. and even if i did not have anything much to do, i did not fight much..so i learned anger management :P

i got busy with the shifting of house, and now the rains are here!!! i love it!!

well, the break was really refreshing. i enjoyed it, and moreover, i have got a feeling that the break was well spent. I have started looking for new jobs( kabhi sabse bada rupaiyya) and hope my new job will be good as well. then i can positively say that the break ended on a good note :)

dental health= mental health

 


I just carved out a maxim, didn't I ?  like health is wealth or knowledge is power- (or magic is might- all Harry Potter fans :P )  dental health= mental health. and it does suit me to greatest possible extent, if nobody else. Well, i am sure most people would silently agree with me- or even openly- all those who have almost lost their sanity for this cause!!!  Here is how i got on the verge of losing my mental health:

 I always had bad teeth. And you know whats worse? i have beautiful teeth. (and that's why i give a thousand watt smile in every picture.!) just that they are too bad inside. That's definitely worse, right?  so, from the day i remember, i always had some or the other dental issue. Well, i never had an inclination towards chocolate, even as a kid, (which is again a bit unnatural) but somehow germs were so desperate to find me, that they fought their way on through various methods, and entered my teeth successfully. since then, they use this place as their vacation house. :/

 I visited my current dentist 7 years ago. before that i already had 2 root canals, and some fillings here and there. i brushed regularly, i ate very less sweets, but oh-so-persevering germs! they stayed, and enjoyed. in last 7 years, I have had 2 more root canals, and i have lost the count of the no. of fillings that i have had. I am now just so used to all that atmosphere on a dentist's chair, the tools, the drill (and the most soothing sound of it :( ) The X rays, The pills, the lotions, the nausea of eating sweets, all is very positively ingrained in my system now.  The receptionist at his clinic looks at me with the most  patient and sympathetic smile on her face.

we all meet some of our relatives only occasionally.the germs strike the timing so beautifully that i ALWAYS  have some or the other problem going on whenever i meet some of my relatives. i meet them only after some months, and really, their has been no window of more than six months, when i did not have a dental problem.  I recently had a RC to an already capped tooth! imagine putting a hole in that metal cap, and then doing all that work with an excruciating pain hitting you all the while :D. AND ON THE TOP OF IT,  a week after my new RC, the gums are sensitive again :D
HURRAY!!!

do you see the maniacal laughter? :P now you see the slow but steady way to losing your mental health? after all this ordeal, i bet you would lose at least 10% of the mental health! I suggest that they obligatorily put up a counselor or a psychiatrist at every dental clinic. Poor counselors will also have a job, and moreover, poor deranged like me will have a helping hand! I also suggest that we combine the dental health day (whenever it is) with the mental health day(Oct 15). spend a lot on the advertising, and let every other kid know about it. ultimately, it is one of the solutions to better mental health, isn't it?

take care of your dental health dears! mental health will be alright all by itself! :D

The green and the green

 


Hello Hello...its been too long since i was visible/discernible in this space. I was busy  in doing a comparaitively useless task named GRE. But now i am happily outta it, resumed  my fav task :)

well, the things which make me smile are not much right now. It is arid, hot, burning, sultry..whatever! Pune is *&*&^%^%$^%$%#**&^%*$# HOT! go out in the sun for ten mins and all you become is drowsy and parched. I know, the heat wave is particularly fierce in this regions of the country, but to add to the misery, Pune is losing most of its green cover. Here are some things i  noticed/came across/heard in last 10 days

1. when the 'oh so prestigious' CYG happened in pune in 2008, 119 trees- Big-ghane ped- like banyan and peepal- were cut down  on baner-balewadi road. Isn't this an outrageous no? have we ever thought how much of human and natural effort was wasted in several hours? How many years would a tree need to become a big one like the original? We needed just a day to cut them down. AND even that would have been ok if the trees were replanted. I perfectly understand the desire of our politicians to showcase pune's roads as the big, smooth, international standard types. so it is given that the trees have to go. How else would the road look like that? but did anyone bother to replant these trees anywhere else? well, it is not a secret that the tree can be dug out with its roots intact and then planted elsewhere..why did not they do it? We just see the roads widened..did we ever think where are all these trees?

2. i stay on FC road. I observed that in last few months- especially after the one way was implemented, road has lost some small trees- not the big ones- but there were some small trees all along the road- the are gone!!! where? who did cut them down? and when??? and what can we do about it???

3. The area which is the backside of wakdewadi- there is a major cut down happening. It was all over the newspapers a couple of weeks ago. As expected, this was done for some construction purposes. XYZ builder did it. it turns out that nobody had granted him permission to cut the trees down. still, right under everybody's nose, in open sunlight, he cut them down. nobody pays any attention, and n no of such cases keep on happening. And now i cant even look out of my balcony  in the afternoon, so can't many people, as it is just so blazing! you cant look out because of the sun! WHY don't we realize that this is the result of the decreasing green?  Pune used to be covered with green- if not like konkan- at least some green cover was definitely existing. Please tell me areas apart from University, model colony, koregaon park , which have thick green cover. Look at baner. balewadi, hadapsar, Satar road, Kalyaninagar, Yerawda, pune-mumbai highway- do you realize that there is so less presence of green???

WHY? WHY?? WHY??

its obviously because of the other green. The money, honey! Cut the trees down, build houses so that people who need housing eternally will buy them. Cut trees down, and widen the roads, so that some more fund from the taxpayers could be used under the pretext of improving the infrastructure of the city. Cut more of them down, and build malls, which is where the moolah rules. Oh yes, and dont ever plant them again. If we plant them again, we ourselves are wasting the efforts now, aren't we? forget about the natural green. Be happy with this brighter, shinier and more useful green. be blind to the increasing heat. be blind to the environmental change. Be blind to everything concerned with our own environment. ignore it, if possible. Show me the money- its all about money honey!
and then what next?

I perfectly agree with this mall verse i read in Singapore( which is pretty green country btw):
only after the last tree has been cut down
only after the lat river has been poisoned
only after the last fish has been caught

man will realize
MONEY CAN NOT BE EATEN.

best of luck, you all. choose the green wisely!