Meeting V...

Its been a while since I caught up with my friends from college. So we decided to meet this weekend for lunch and then a movie. As usual it was so much fun and loads of catch-up stories to hear from everyone. It was definitely a good break for all of us from our hectic work life. And we were happy that we finally made this happen. So much for a get-together, I can hear you say. Definitely. Nobody has time to even run their own life, so its definitely a big deal to fix a common time and venue. Some of us had to even travel from other states. But it was all worth it. So after lunch we headed to Satyam Cinemas.(For my non-chennai, non-Indian readers, Satyam Cinemas is the best cinema theatre in Chennai, the city I grew up back in India).

So after spending almost a day together, we all kissed good bye to each other and parted in our own ways and I walked down the street to the nearby bus stop.

As I was walking I saw someone waving at me with a nice bright smile. And I quickly recognized the face and waved back immediately. That was V, my old school friend. Its been ages since I met her. We've been in touch through Facebook and chat. But that's it. Dint meet her even once after we finished high school. So it was nice to see her in after all these years.  She was still the same V whom I remembered from school. No big change. She was as beautiful and glowing as ever. Nobody can tell that she was married. I learnt from FB that she was back into modelling again and saw her pictures from couple of her shows. She looked like a pro. 'Hey look that's my old school friend', I used to proudly tell my husband. 

Coming back to V. Both of us were equally surprised and had a quick chat about our whereabouts and she offered to drop me back home. So we went back to her car in a parking lot nearby where her dad and sister were waiting for her. V's little sis has grown up to be a very charming young girl and it was good to see her too. V was staying in her parents' place as her husband was on a business trip, I came to know. 

And we continued our chat after getting into the car. 'V, I recently saw your fashion show pictures on FB and you looked super hot and stunning. Good that you are back modelling', I told her. Her father gave me a very suspicious look and turned to V and asked her angrily, 'Whats going on V. What is it that I am hearing?'. V's sister already had her hands on her forehead after hearing what I said and V was having this 'God save me' look. Then V's sister whispered to me that their dad still dint that she was into modelling again. And then I remembered that V initially quit modelling coz her dad dint like her doing it. But now after her marriage, with her husband's consent she started modelling again. I was totally sorry for what I just uttered and V gave me this 'I'll handle him' look. Then she told him something in her mother tongue and he calmed down. There was total silence in the car for ten more minutes and there came my house and I was more than happy to jump out of the car. V came out with me and I apologized for what I did. But V thanked me, coz she anyways wanted to tell this to her dad. I was relieved now. Then I asked her what she told to convince him. 

Before she began to reply, I heard someone opening the door.

My house door???

No.

That was my bedroom door here in the US. My husband was getting ready for work and had just flung it open to rush to the bathroom.

No post in July... Ooops.. Here it is !! :)

Yah yah... I've become all too lazy and certainly no inspiration to blog these days. But then I was just looking at my page and suddenly realized that there were no posts for the month of July. Omigosh !!! How can I let that happen. For July is my most favorite month of the year. I can hear you asking me why. It goes like this. I joined highschool (my dear VV) in the month of July.  One of the best schools I've ever attended. Perfect location for a school (in the midst of a calm and dense forest), lovely teachers, great friends and perfect school timing (7.50 AM to 2.10 PM). I've always enjoyed that 15 min bicycle ride to and from school, with a little chit chat with friends. So thats that. And then I entered college in July and there was no looking back. I have had the most wonderful time of my life there. And it so happened that I joined work, my first job, in July. Met some really lovely people there. Fell in love with technology for the first time of my life. No kidding here !!! Then, I met my guy in July :) Hoz that !! And of course I am July born. So does that tell you why I love this month so much ???!!! :)

So is there a favorite month for you ?? And why ??

It was a lovely Weekend!!!

It was the most awaited weekend I should say. A very dear friend and her husband visited and spent this weekend with us. We have been planning to meet for a long time, but either of us would be busy and hence end up postponing the trip. But finally, it was destined to meet each other this week. So they decided to work from home on friday and landed here on thursday night. So my weekend actually started then. 

We watched Raavanan on friday and came back with disappointment. It was not the typical Mani Ratnam movie. All his movies, so far, were unique and outstanding. But this one had nothing new. The director told the whole story in the second half, which left a story-less first half. There was no on screen chemistry between the hero(s) and the heroine. And I pitied Priya Mani. I mean, why does the girl always gets roles like this? She likes someone and when she almost come to the 'Happily ever after' part, there comes a twist in the story and she is teared down by raving men and the girl commits suicide. That was sad. There were some pluses to the movie too. The locations were simply beautiful and photography was good. Of Course ARR's music added a little spice to the otherwise bland movie. Overall, the movie was not up to the expectation and definitely not worth the wait. 

The highlight of the weekend was our day at Six Flags America. It is one of the best theme parks here. As expected we had loads of fun in all those thrill rides. The rides were simply nerve rattling. The rides we most enjoyed were the Batwing and the Superman rides. We were happy that we covered almost all the rides. We were so excited and thrilled and were really running around like small kids the whole day. We also did a little rock climbing there and yes, we reached the top, though after a lot of struggle finding our way. It was scary and adventurous. Jumping down the rock was really cool and I enjoyed it. At the end of the day we were all so tired and exhausted. And a fine Thai dinner completed our day!! :)


We were planning to go to DC on Sunday, but none of has had the energy to get up early the next day. So we dropped that plan and decided to relax at home and spend time talking with each other. The weekend just flew away so quickly leaving behind loads of good times to remember.


So how was the weekend for you guys??

Its Soccer time baby !!!

FIFA world championship tournament is nearing and I am super excited. The previous world cup tournament in 2006, I clearly remember, I was in Pollachi. I had just passed out of college and joined work. We were given a fast track training for 20 days in Pollachi Mahalingam Engineering College. I had made new friends and had new room mates and everything seemed so fresh and lovely. FIFA world cup was on that time and we weren't suppose to watch TV after 9.00 PM. So we all signed a letter to our hostel warden and asked her to permit us to watch atleast the finals. And she couldn't say no :) And we all gathered in that TV hall to see the finals between Italy and France. Man, that was one fantastic game I should say. I wasn't a football fanatic, really. But I became one after watching this game. The penalty shootout which declared the winning team was one nail-biting moment of that final game. So this year I have decided to follow the tournament right from the first match. And yesterday my friend sent me this amazing world cup calender and I really wanted to share with you guys. Check this out and keep track of your matches. My most favorite teams are Italy, France and Germany. 

So what are yours and whom are you supporting ?? 

Back from my hibernation !!:)

Ahhh... it feels so good to be back... Been a while since I posted something in this space... Well all of a sudden I became too busy. We had some friends visiting us last few weekends and so all that made me jump to a vacation mood and hence became too lazy to think of something to blog :P. So this is what I did all these days.

The first weekend we went went to the historic Colonial Willamsburg and Virgina beach. Colonial Williamsburg has buildings dating from the 1700s. It is an interpretation of the Colonial American era and has exhibits of both authentic and renovated colonial houses, restaurants, workshops, postal office, grocery stores, tailoring shops and more. 

They were either renovated or recreated to give us the picture of the colonial lifestyle. There were people dressed up like they did those days. So for the major part of the day we roamed around these colonial buildings. Then we headed to Virginia beach later that evening. We took a nice walk in the boardwalk, played silly shooting games in the stalls on what seemed like a city carnival. After a while we rented a bicycle each and rode our souls out :) It had been ages since i took a ride in a bicycle. Took me back to my school days!!! We roamed till we were dead tired and headed straight to a restaurant and there ends our day!! :)

One of our friends extended his weekend visit and stayed back to explore DC a bit and I joined him. As DC is known for its museums and monuments, we had a great time "Awww"ing and "oohhh"ing at the exhibts in the museums. I seriously felt Museums are a great idea to know the past and history better. Even though there are lots of information and facts piled up on the internet, seeing things and knowing them has a definite impact. We become kids all over again and try to imagine how things were back then. And that way, information stays better and longer. Don't you guys agree? 

Hmmm, so what else did I do??. Yeah, I saw this amazing book "Martha Stewart's Cookies" while I was browsing the library book shelves. The cookie picture in the cover page made be grab it immediately and I started drooling as I turned the pages. She had listed recipes for almost 175 cookies of different types. Light and delicate, soft and chewy, crumbly and sandy, chunky and nutty, cakey and tender, crisp and tender, rich and dense. Trust me, her pictures inspired me to bake them and I tried Oatmeal Raisin cookies. And it turned out awesome. It was nice and crisp, just like the ones that we get from the confectioners. And Im telling you, baking is not that difficult actually. You just need the right ingredients in the right measures and voila, you are ready to bake. I strongly recommend this book for any one to start baking cookies or to become an expert in the same. 

And the same day we made pizzas. Yeah, home made Pizzas. Doesn't that sound good :) It was my friend Terry's idea. And she had looked up so many recipes and finally found that the one listed in vahrehvah.com was the most easiest of all. We had loads of fun that day shopping the ingredients for the pizza and cookies, and preparing it together. And the joy you get out of cooking is immeasurable. I always love it when I cook with someone else. Its so much fun cooking, gossiping and giggling :) So at end of the day we played pool having pizza and cookies. That was a perfect weekend eve :) So these were the major (not so major, I know) updates that I wanted to tell you guys.

So what are you guys upto?? Whats happening out there in the blogosphere??

The House hunt !!!

Ufff... The whole week was quiet hectic for me. Ask me why. We received a mail from our apartment management reminding us that our apartment lease is ending in a couple of months and we had to decide on either extending the lease or vacating the apartment. And that if we choose to vacate we'll have to give them a 60 day notice so that they'll start advertising for the apartment and other stuff. And it looked like our rents are increased if we choose to extend. And we had only four days left before we finally decide on this. So we thought we'll look for options outside. And the house hunting job fell on me. So the first thing I do, after packing B (my hubby) to work, is to log into all the apartment rental sites and start my search. I had to keep in mind the rent, the reviews about the community, the amenities that are available, easy access to all transits, this, that, foo, faa.... And finally listed down some apartments that we thought will be comfortable for us. And I started taking apartment tours on each of them. Some days I had to check out more that three apartments, come back home note down the things like rent, available facilities, hidden charges etc., in an excel sheet and discuss it with B at the end of the day. After all this, we somehow weren't satisfied with the apartments that I checked. And the D-Day came. Today we had to tell the management about our decision. It was definitely tough to move out of an apartment that we enjoyed staying so long. We had everything we needed. It was a wonderful community. We had nothing to complain about so far. Right from library to grocery to shopping malls, everything is at walkable distance. Moreover I had developed an intimate bond with my desi neighbor. And so we finally decided to extend the lease in our same apartment, even though we had to compromise on the hiked rent. So I went down to the leasing office to tell our decision. Before that we wanted to ask if there are any other apartments that is currently vacant for us to move in. And it so happened that, there was one vacant on the same building but a few floor high above. And the best part is, it comes with more space and less rent. Hoz that :) I was like yaayyyyy !!! And yes, we obviously opted to move into that apartment. After all this house hunting we ended up moving into an apartment in the very same building. But I totally have nothing to regret. This whole house search was a new experience for me and definitely worth it. I got to know what exactly property mangers do every other day and understood the whole rent manipulation that is being done when an apartment is vacant. Baaahhhh. Whatever, we finally found a house and we definitely like it :)

Women's dignity really saved by a Burqua Ban?

I hope most of you must have known about the Burqua ban in Belgium. Belgium claims to be the first European country to enforce this ban to wear over face coverings in public places, with exceptions like motorcyclists. The main intention is to target Muslim women who wear this traditional garb. The committee says that they cannot allow someone to claim the right to see others without being seen, and that wearing Burqua doesn't seem compatible with an open, liberal, tolerant society. Similar measures are taken in France also. The French president boasts that wearing Burqua is contradicting to the dignity of Women. And he says the only answer to this is to ban it. But statistics show that there are over 5,00,000 muslim women living in Belgium. But not all of them wear Burquas. Some really choose to wear it in order to express their religious faith. A month ago when France was seriously debating on this issue, there were so many blogs and articles popping up on this concern. I found that so many comments from Muslim women. They really wear the Burqua or the Hijab, only because they choose to wear it. Nobody forces them to do so. At least here in the west, nobody does, they say. I really don't get the point of guarding the dignity of women by banning the Burqua. I don't even see security issues here. When Muslim women go for a security check they very well co-operate and reveal their identity. So where is this getting to? When women don't get to choose what they wear, where is the whole idea of freedom and liberalism? And for heaven's sake, seven days jail for wearing a burqua?? God save this world !!!


 Image Courtesy