Through the looking glass

My salutations to my imaginary friend. Hi!

If you were here, we would talk about books that I should be reading. Well, I do manage to read a little but it wouldn't make you happy. You are not easy to please, are you? Anyways, lets pretend you are here. And this place is a cafe. You know the best hangout place has to be a cafe. I should tell you I have graduated from instant coffees to gourmet coffee! I now prefer Coffee Bean and Tea Leaves to Cafe Coffee Day. Linus finds it funny when I roll my eyes up looking out to the right corner.I just did it and it reminded me of him. I wish we spend more time together, sipping coffee and analyzing people- specially myself. Talking about the past, a life I once had. I feel like I have grown apart from my former self, so much that it makes me think that me six years ago was altogether a different person. Younger, rebellious and without makeup:)

I used to write a lot more than I do now. Last night I was talking to Linus's Prof's wife. We concluded that like they showed in the movie Rockstar, one does need to be affected to be able to write. How much can we feel through borrowed experiences, Mrs Sarin had said. Should I tell you, I wore a bottle green saree which had flaring orange flowers printed on it.  Orange reminds me of Annie. Again, she seems to belong to a far away world. It is the age of connection , social media is at its acme, yet I am distanced by mere geographical boundaries. But our connection my friend is not based on either. I think I always had you with me, as a part of growing up. May be I gave you different names at different times. I began early with writing a diary, which would begin with Dear God. As I grew up things changed. I enjoyed writing more to someone who would respond than poring it all to Dear God!
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Sorry, friend for having not kept in touch for so long. But I am back now... And I have lot to talk about. Like growing younger with every year. Growing more beautiful. And yes trying to make sense of myself , the one who is me now and the one who was me before. I wonder if i am still the 21 year old who wanted to take a peek of her future-the cliched 10 years from now.  And what seems to be today is it what she is actually looking through the magical looking glass. Will  she pull her head back in disbelief and this world of mine will melt into nothing but her giggles. Oh, yes, she giggles a lot. Should I say giggled?Guffawed? I should if today is actually the present and I am looking through the magic looking glass going back in time. Linus cringes at the very thought of looking back. What is gone is gone. Is it?  I think it is a life lived.

So much for now. I send you my love.

Will write again,

your loving friend

Vid

A bout of ...

She hurried to the toilet and doubled over the pot. She was sure that she was getting sick. But nothing came out of her mouth. She straightened herself looked at her reflection in the little mirror that hung on the opposite wall. Eyes stung from crying, hair a little dishevelled and the tip of her nose, it had gone a little red. It was an adorable nose. Beautiful by the definition of beauty in their caste. Sharp nose, curving ever so gently.

She wiped her tears, which had already dried .Had Avinash not been away for the last few months, she would have wondered if she had gotten pregnant. She crinkled her nose and smiled. It must be the chickpeas that she had for lunch. Not easy to stomach. Specially when you are eating alone. She tried to shoo away loneliness which had again descended in her little house. She hummed a song and moved about wondering when he will come back.

A rainbow

A little happy, a little sad. It's like a rainbow.

Sri had said something like that. On a cloudy day like this I wish there were a rainbow.

I wonder quite often, why we forget our past.... "Which place was that?" I read a friend's comment in face book. I try hard myself to figure where exactly the photo was taken. The photo has couple of girls laughing over nothing. It was us in the college days.

Those days... they end up being a sweet remembrance. Past is all but your memory. It is thus I get scared when my memory starts fading. Is it not in my memory that I still am with my past. I wonder why you tell me to live in the present. This moment now will also come back to me when it is past and tomorrow becomes today.

I feel happy to see that people I had loved are happy. But there is a twang of sadness when I see that their memories of me has faded! Do I never occur to you my friend? Have I just become a nice surprise in your inbox, who you would love to respond, amidst the hustle bustle of your present life. And you do end up sending two lines before you sign off for your weekend.

Such is life. You move on. You make new friends. But is it not the same cycle again. The present becomes the past. Newer friends like Sri... and then life goes by and by and takes away your friends. Is life like an ocean that sweeps your precious shells away from the beach in one wave...and yet in another bestows upon you with splendid new treasures!

(currently reading Catalina, Somerset Maugham...that might explain the melancholy, which is accentuated by the European weather...and no new mails :) )

Alone

Sitting alone in my room, I wonder or rather ponder. What exactly being alone means. Does loneliness manifest in the movement of my eyes at the sound of foot steps, anticipating your home coming? Or is it the telltale vacant side of the double bed which seems so ghastly as the night progresses?

Not long ago, I had told somebody that my love is like a wine, rather like a red red wine. It reminds me of the poem, My love is like a red red rose by a Scottish poet, Robert Burns. An aquaintence once remarked, that I should trying falling in love in order to arouse my literary stirrings. It is strange that I recollect that yet another aquaintence a few years ago had hoped that the literary stirrings were purely literal! As I try to not miss you, I wonder if we are actually scared of recieving love? Loving someone is not really hard. All you need to do is forget yourself. Like Radha's love for Krishna. The divine love seeks nothing. It only revels in the company of the beloved. And when the loved one plays hide and seek, the divine love gets intensified.

Love that we often speak of as in between a man and a woman is apparently quite different from divine love. That is what 'they' tell us. What is divine love? Is it not the same foolish emotional devotion that a teenage girl professes for her recent crush? How is it different? That moment, that one moment, it is pure surrender. Hmm, now we are losing the essence of love in the web of words. Words like purity and surrender! Love perhaps is a habit. When my sister had left home for higher studies , it took me several nights before I could adjust to her absence. We used to share a king size double bed. WHen she moved out, I rolled over to her side of the bed. Perhaps in an attempt to fill up the vaccuum.

Is love sweet nothings then? The twitters of love birds that I hear in the morning ( I like to believe they are love birds :-)). Is it why I meaninglessly call you for the umpteenth time, half afraid that I might be annoying you. Love cannot be too big or too complex. It must be simple. It must be a red rose, or a yellow one or just pink. It could be a green leaf, it could be rain.... it could be the coffee I make for you. It could be the integration sums that dad taught me. It could be learning to live life. It could be the strength to look ahead. It could be the sheer creativity to innovate a smilometer to capture your day's smiles!

Missing you Linus,

vid

I want to be a ...

how would life be, if I were a log! Hmm... I would lie the whole day in bright sun. I wouldn't care if the air conditioner were on or not... I would not sweat!!

If I were a log, I wouldn't fall in love. A log afterl all is a fallen tree! How could that which is already fallen still fall further!!!

Sometimes the devil pokes out its head. My lazy mind doesn't even bother to shoo it away. I ask him, what is it that you want. Mischief!, he says with a gleam in his eyes.

What if I transport you back in time, when you were still young and fancied falling in love? The devil asks.

I look at him unfazed. With time definition of love has changed, dear devil (no resemblance with IPL's dare devils, mind you!). What once kept me preoccupied has become a different philosophy. If I go back to the time, I see a young reckless driver, talking to an illusive lover while driving her car alone.... With the fast change in time, I see the driver in me has disappeared. I avoid driving. I do not enjoy it anymore. Is there any correlation between driving and being in love? Or any covariance..hee hee

Glossary:
std deviation of x X standar deviation of y X correlation xy= Covariance

Adding some spice

Tadka laga!!

Hmmm.. as JB (my once upon a pal in Switzerland) used to say, a majestic marriage has made Vid quite unimaginative. So, I took stock of my life today and realized that it needed a tadka! So, here is a little imaginative story... ;-)

What's a life without heartaches, at least it is quite boring for a budding writer. Heartaches give you immense material for creativity, trust me! When the tummy is comfortably full, all one can do is doze away! Well, to feel the pangs the tummy needs to be empty... a contended heart can write no poems...

Anyways, let me try to add some spice, for my dear readers. Yesterday evening I looked in the corner of my heart. I shuffled about to see if there remained the love that I had stashed away a loooong time ago. Hmm.. the telephone wire lay ripped apart...the connection is gone, the poet sadly realized. Ah! those were the days when the lover in me would behold the world in tears and promise that this love shall last me a life time. And when the spring has come, and I make an attempt to clean the kabad I find broken records! I am not a great listener of music, but there was a time when life seemed to be a beautiful song. Young and reckless, the heart would keep falling in and out of love. But now like a wine in cellar, my love is resting undisturbed, maturing day by day... Ah, Linus don't you feel lucky!! Hmm..

So, despite myself...despite the mellowed, and matured.... yet sensuous and subtle , I pick up a shred of what seems a broken heart and examine it. The love seems to have seeped away from the shattered piece. Should I let him know, I muse. Imagine calling your ex beau to tell him, that there is no connection anymore. Who would do it? Someone, who would dream of going bungee jumping, or a bored writer who has no other spice to stir up a delicious story! No, cooking up stories mind you!

As soon as I flipped open my 3 year old Moto razer, I realized I had not fed the number corresponding with that broken heart. Hmmm...

"hellooooooooo"

"hmmm...., tune mera number feed kar rakha hai?"

"kaun bol raha hai???"


ooops...wrong number!!

I hang up hurriedly and decide to take up culinary classes in stead of giving writing a shot. Mom calls me in the kitchen and asks tadka daal or plain daal..

Since I have a sore throat you know what happens to the tadka!

Handwriting

Handwritings!

When I was a kid, I did not think too high of my handwriting. I wrote distinct letters without joining them. During primary school, a teacher came and asked us if we wrote in 'joined' handwriting. Since she had looked down at those as lesser mortals, I joined the bandwagon of joined alphabet writing. It was not all, I tried giving the n's and the h's a nice curve that my sis had excelled in. Well, as a kiddo I looked upon my sis as a whizkid. Well, she was a sort of crazy kid- she woke up early for her school, did her homework, covered her books with brown paper and never tore them,and wrote poetry which she kept a bigtime secret from a little scoundrel called ME :)

After sometime the handwriting business took a nice turn. I had pen pals. Writing to them was a great achievement. I boasted to those who would care to listen that I had penpals from Canada and South Africa. Tracey was from S. Africa while there were other two girls from canada. Although I do not remember their names, I still have their letters stashed up in a drawer in my home in Nepal..

Few friends however never wrote letters. That is because there was email. I wish there weren't any sometimes...so that i could see the paper and wonder what made my pal write on that sheet. A no nonsense A4 paper picked up in a hurry from a nearby stack in a printer... a hurried scrawl... If one pauses and looks at a letter there is more than the content...not necessarily reading between the lines but touching the paper ....sweeping your glance through the curve of letters...and wondering how your pal looks like...

well... to keep in the mood of this blabber...let me post a random mail (email) that i picked to read.... Its lovely as well -

listen to a language you dont know, and try and imagine what would the thing
you dont understand mean. read the wackiest things on wikipedia. read
shaayari. do poetry. do humor. try and make a joke on which many
people will actually laugh. plan your next prank. try and remember old
jokes, and laugh. remember childhood, and your 5th b'day. and maybe
the 7th too...:p also think about the next exam.

No Comments but Compliments!

Compliments are always nice and they make your day!


After having read somewhere that giving a compliment to a stranger (like a bank teller who you are interacting with in a bank, a salesperson in a boutique etc),was not considered uncivil but was rather one of the good things you could do in life. I actually do that once in a while. If I find someone with beautiful hair, I walk to that person and tell her. She is astonished at first, breaks into a smile and then perhaps gets slightly suspicious until I disappear!! It however leaves a nice finish, a lingering feeling of joy or rather, a joy out of doing yet another‘weird’ thing.

All that aside, I am now developing an ease at complimenting people who I 'know'.Be it D's lovely kurta or G's white shirt with nice black vertical stripes or M's beautiful eyes! Most often, we just don’t do that. Can you remember when were you last given a compliment? And when did you give one!

Every individual, specially women, crave for compliment. Be it on their dress, looks, hair, smile, eyes, or the curry they cooked last night! One thrives on such attention or the rare adulation.Though women are known to be checking out other women. But when it comes to compliments, all women are the same, they really need one, and they hardly give one!!

Men and compliments must come in a package. Specially when they are courting their sweethearts. They are apt at giving you that look and telling you, that you look great! Great!! that word sums it up. A woman's compliment to another speaks volumes- the compliment albeit a rare one, has more texture and depth than just GREAT! Is it the women's eye to detail that the compliments are rare, or is it the adulation of men that complimenting the women is easier for them!

Well, compliments are not recieved everyday. You want to make someone's day then give a genuine compliment. And for you all is not lost,you have yourself- to compliment! But again, you should be able to compliment honestly! As in, look in to the mirror, when you have taken care to dress up and smile …GOSh, that female in the mirror is looking pretty!! Well, in case you smile you are bound to look pretty! So, said my class teacher, all girls look beautiful with a smile on!

Now this deserves a comment if not a compliment!

iPhone!

Apple with Aplomb?

The much hyped debutant in this June, iPhone has been called, ‘game changer’, ‘magic’ and a ‘revolutionary phone’. The New York Times says, ‘The creation, the iPhone, priced at $499 or $599, will not be for everyone.’ But this creation is set to change the operating paradigm for the music and mobile industry. Like iPod changed the way we listen to portable music, is iPhone going to change the way we say ‘hello’ or is it going to create a whole new mobile web experience?

Steve Job introduced this revolutionary phone at MacWorld 2007, as an iPod, a phone and Internet communicator. ‘A product that is way smart and way easy to use.’
The buzz word has been the revolutionary user interface. With a giant screen and the best pointing device: the finger, Apple has set the shift to a paradigm of touch screen interface.

The revolution is not as much in the seamless integration as is in the simplicity of use. The ‘button less’ experience clearly announces the departure from technology oriented experience that only makes it difficult for the user to operate the phone to an amazingly pleasurable user experience. In other words, the hours of poring into the user manual to get going with one’s smart phones are going to be a matter of past with iPhone. The mobile industry will now shift to an iClone axis so that they are in same position as the iPhone, way smart and way easy.

Music and social networking will certainly see a change with an iPod and a phone together. The discussion below tries to sum up the changes that iPhone can bring in the music and mobile industry.

Changes in Mobile music Industry:
Mobile phones already are equipped with music player. However they are all lacking what a music listener needs. Be it a constraint like storage capacity (64 MB – 128 MB are standard flash card memory) or overpriced songs. No wonder phone users use their phone to listen to music. Today they use iPod.

Changes in mobile industry

User Interface (UI)
Like we have transcended from command line to icon based user interface in PC computing, mobile UI will shift from the ‘button - key’ interface to touch interface. This will change the high tech mobiles into a handy gadget.

Better Software
Jobs pointed out in his key notes, buttons and controls can’t change. But now we are equipped with a UI that gives immense room for improvisation of gadgets in few clicks (or rather finger taps). It might be as simple as a downloadable ‘update’ in the phone that can access the Internet. With iPhone 5 years ahead of any phone, we will see a spur of phones with better software.

Visual appeal
More over, with the slick design of the iPhone, we have stepped onto a generation of truly good looking phones. Handsets will not just deliver functional requirements. They will strive to fulfill the emotional desire of the users.

Simple and precise mobile services
Visual non linear voice mail : iPhone does away with listening to voice mail linearly, one can now jump to the important voice mails without going through a myriad of other voice mails.

Content Industry in Mobile
Mobile advertising will become more aggressive thanks to giant sized pocketable screens, which will give a bigger platform for the viewable information. We might also see a departure from the expensive ring tones to music tracks downloaded through iTune.

Apple’s Strategy
iPod to iPhone ?
In a way iPhone might be all poised to cannibalize its own sibling before the competition does. With your phone and your iPod (both integral to users today) together, you are carrying one device less with you and you will listen to music on your phone.

Apple must be looking at pocketable computing power, social communication network and music all in one in the future. There may be another leapfrog from iPhone to a more futuristic yet simple device.

References
http://www.webdirections.org/2007/06/11/iphonesafari-is-the-mosaic-of-the-mobile-web/
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/mwsf07/
http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/7407.html

http://gigaom.com/2007/06/29/iphone-music/

Poorani Jeans aur...

Nostalgia, is it?

Last night I was driving my same old car. After more than a year, driving 4842 had been slightly difficult. But last night I was driving alone . It brought back memories. Memories of those old days, driving home in the evening. Almost dark. Driving alone. Yet not so alone. I remember so well talking to myself or was it talking to someone else. There was a someone who used to occupy my solitude. My thoughts of a faraway lover, an invisible beloved. Who was not there, yet was there. 'So much in love with the idea of love', my friend would tease me. I even had a poster which read, I am already fallen in love and now I am waiting for some one to fall in love with me. It was cute poster, showing a teddy fallen in a nicely lit well.

One fine day the invisible beloved would become visible. 'And he will do pattar pattar (prattle) in Hindi sitting next to you', Annie would comment as our gang would sipping coffee in one of the cafes in town. We would slyly exchange that knowing smile. I couldn't share my fantasy of an invisible lover to all, could I?

Such is youth. Love fills your heart to the brim . My ride last night revived those crazy old days, and I realized I have become wiser, (should you read OLDER!).

This is an aimless post, let me link it to Milan's jumbled love poemto make some sense out of nonsense!

Of Morning Walks

Random thoughts

He tells me, Kolkata's biggest business is food business, during our 15 minutes jog. The beautiful monument, Victoria Memorial, bathed in the early sunlight gives me a sense of gazing at Taj mahal. I quicken my pace and my steps fall along with his. 'Why?' I enquire. And he smiles as he looks ahead.

My recent stint to morning walk cum jog has made me observe certain things. And while jogging I wonder if there is going to be a next Chetan Bhagat style book on Victoria Memorial in the morning. I mean it is amazing: the fresh air, the greenery, so many people, some laughter club ( an 'attahas' (Hindi word, Sanskrit origin, would be more apt rather than calling it laughter), yogas, Ramdev Babas tummy in tummy out...(kapalbhaanti, i remember), men and women of all ages, of all shapes and sizes, in different attire.

I tell him, it is such a melting pot :
half pants,
full pants..
he adds and dhotis too!

While the women are dressed in sarees with running shoes, salwar kameez, track pants.

Of the variety of size, kyaa kehna. He justifies why food business is such a rage here. People don't think twice, they eat while they are thinking. And guilt about food is something to ponder later and of course an incentive to start on morning walks.

I know this post isn't as interesting as my daily visit to the garden is. The in between statues of different men who were conferred Knighthood during the English Regime, the stray dogs, few ducks, the sparkling water in the pond, the lover duos scattered here and there, the lined cars, the Rs 4 blue ticket, the pigeons, the horses outside the gate, men playing volleyball across the garden.

It is a stimulating scene. It is like a start of the day. So much of acitivity. And sweat, I realise this as I pat my face dry with my towel during my run.

Candle

Poetry for a change! Wish I knew some Urdu, to pen few stray thoughts that come in idle hours. Do leave your wah wah any case!

Candle
I try and build a huge wall
To keep the winds away
Lest they touch my soul
And the flame will dance and sway

When in the confines of such solitude
Who am I to blame
When it is my own breath
That flickers the flame

Reliance Web World

I am in Reliance web world. I wonder if it should evoke few memories. Memories like talking to people from home who would be chatting in the air conditioned comfort of RBB. Well, it evokes one long lost marketer's feeling, who ever said a product without an experience with it can work in today's market! Well, you might not know I just am back from Central Bank. The sight of the bank and the officials make me wonder that such an institution is also running. We have come to the age of net banking (though most of us are still jogging our memories to remember THE PASSWORD).

Passbooks to passwords!

Well, sitting at the other end, or rather with the tables turned, as I experience the web surfing experience of RBB, I have nothing much to complain except this 'hard to push down' keyboard. ANd yes though I may still blush at the thought of writing a love mail or chatting with a special one from such a public domain, I see such an immense market for teen hangouts in the virtual world. Of course it has been tapped. To make things better there is webcam at help, to give e-dates a touch of life, with shared cakes and coffees (images only!) along with glowing smiles.

Well, this much for now. I am irked at the keyboard, but I am open to writing!!! Hmm well this makes me write you a closing note too. Writing does need an environment. I miss the desk back home in Kathmandu, I miss that chair, and that mirror hanging opposite to my working area. Now I realize I have my mirror opposite to my desk exactly the same way here in Kolkata too. So do I SEE ideas flowing!!!

Irrelevant details from life

'Bonjour', said the man behind the huge flat pan as he saw me meditating over his crepes. I was almost enchanted at the way he circled out a thin crepe over the huge pan. The crepe of the same diameter as that of the pan, which was three times the normal dosas I have seen back home. I had been looking intently at how he poured the batter, flattened the batter into a nice circle with the help of a flat wooden rod with a stick in its centre. Moving that equipment, clockwise first and anticlockwise next. Then flipping the crepe up, sprinkling sugar and caramel and folding it neatly like a thin handkerchief or a napkin.

I looked up completely startled by his 'Bonjour' and was more puzzled to see his enquiring eyes. Ah! I just smiled dumbly and walked away. Linus had a good laugh. He said I was staring so hard, it had probably unnerved the fella. All I could explain to him - it was such a lovely sight. He said, you must be hungry. And we headed to Mc. D.

There is little choice for food for vegetarians. Even the cheese is not really vegetarian. It has something from the calf's stomach. When I had enquired for a vegetarian cheese, I recieved a puzzled and amazed look. Fromage (cheese in French), it is Fromage! Period. Can cheese be non vegetarian!!

Well, a vegetarian by birth, I often wonder why people are non vegetarian. And people, my friends tell me, 'what possibly can you eat! just grass and flowers!' 'Is it because of religion', J had enquired during a dinner hosted by us. No, it just runs into our family. And what if your children want to eat, Mc Chicken! Hmm, I smile and imagine a dozen brats, eating Mc. Chicken. I can only tell them to brush their teeth, I tell J. He smiles, oh just brush the teeth. That sounds reasonable.

Children, ah! I must be quite old by now, to even comprehend the thought that 'kid' can be someone else other than me. Hmm, children, what strange creatures they are. Half your size and they make you run around like crazy. The other day, a little girl about 5 had come to my apartment with her mother. I had to divide my attention while talking to the mother and rushing in between to save my laptop on which she was pounding her hands madly and rescue the remote which she hurled in air while in an excited stupor of having discovered 'tom and jerry channel'.

Sometimes I think children have this perfect world of freedom. Unadulterated by thougths of shame, or concept of nudity. I have read that one of the most common dreams that people have is, where they find themselves in company without an appropriate attire. While that little girl feels absolutely nothing as she runs around with her bare bottom.

While I look for freedom of expressions among women wearing what they want, mini skirts and halter necks, or random muses posted in internet, I see those naughty pair of eyes looking back at me with a quizzical look. Mocking at me, saying FREEDOM COMES From a wild spirit!! Perhaps I am imagining those eyes quizzing me. She just must be wondering when will I give her the chocolate that she has earned after having recited all the rhymes and telling me her name, father's name and all telephone numbers at her momma's prodding. 'Smart girl naa', the momma shining with pride exclaims.

I wonder if having a child would make it a different world for a woman. 'Having kids is a full time job', the exasperated mom had exclaimed while I was glowering at the little one for behaving like THIS. At her statement I just wondered, it must mean: No more afternoons filled with silence or just the noises from the street. No more the loneliness punctuated by the incessant chirps of sparrows or staring at the arch of a gate of a villa just by the lake. And looking at the water through that arch.

Proabably I could just have a Siamese Cat, and name it Kathmandu. It would be a less than full time job, I smile at myself.

A cat or a baby... oh both are such a chore. But a baby will grow up. And if I believe what A had said, will cease to be a family. A is an English lady. The cat (she had a Siamese cat called Kathmandu), will be hard to handle. If you are traveling or working, you can't leave them alone for long. They get anxiety or bouts of loneliness and feel sick.

I should be feeling like Kathmandu sometime. I must investigate if I have those bouts of loneliness. Or perhaps, it must be different, some other poetic melancholy, that is essential to churn out a good post!

Face lifting!!

Hmm, Jo Bhi tells me my blog needs face lifting. Well a writer isn't a writer if she cannot take a critique without a pinch of salt...err is it sugar JB?

Now that JB has been featured in my blog, I am sure he has already thanked lady luck et al, I should respond to the face lift!

Once-upon-a-time (it was how I was tempted to start today's rambling, however..) I had had good thoughts on weight lifting. Those cushioned dumb bells for the females in form. Argh.. had it not been for the feministic flame in me, I would have probably goaded MOM into buying me those dainty things. But as I was, I did attempt some lifting of what was left of my uncle's not so once-upon-a-time gymming equipments. Now since I did not fracture even the tiniest bone of the little finger, it isn't worthy enough to be mentioned here (JB take cue, you have been featured and bestowed an honour you barely deserve or rather rarely deserve!!!)

Ok, so that was about the weights in the lifting. Next to that was my obsession for lifts themselves... I mean elevators. Brought up in a country where people still believe we ride bullock carts, elevators are hard to imagine. No wonder during my trips to Indian metros, we would devise games to get out of the tiny apartments and take lifts in the lift! The liftman would let the kids in vacation a few trips up and down!!

This is not really touching any nerve at all, this meaning my ramble. It ain't so far humorous nor the emotional bit that perhaps VID has the penchant for (ahem ahem). Very well to raise the sagging spirits, there must be a lift... So I lift a passage or rather an excerpt from what one reader had to say some time back..

**************************************************
i occassionally visit your blog to read it! it is interesting! the loss of form (and all else) is visible, but its very interesting... i'd rather suggest you should write... i wish you come back to form... ofcourse if you wish to, and if you are still passionate about it... you are just lovely in your writings...:D ok ok... otherwise too, i'm sure...

****************************************************

Now I hope that works super. Makes this post nice...with a 'hat ke' flavor. And perhaps answers few idiots who dared to tattle 'if Reena's ramble (wish I were taller and prettier, see The empty pram) were a candid confession.

So, yes a little up lifting would not do harm to this lovely writer. Now for a change why don't you readers do your bit. And throw in your bouquets!! in words.

Comments won't hurt, neither you...nor me (ouch!!)

Travel time!

My cousin has come over for 2 weeks to stay with us travel Suisse. My aunt had warned me I would have to stay full time in Kitchen as the kid comes famished from the US of A. Apart from the daily doses of his engineering and economics lessons he has survived on coke and chips. However the kid seems to have developed an appetite of traveling than eating! Hmm, so you can imagine we have been up and running! And of course the burner in the kitchen has so far obliged to churn out some goodies for our survival.

Well, after a long day today- traveling through Glaciers, literally amid snow fall, I sit down to reflect. What comes immediately to my mind are the few expressions we used during our travel, while marvelling at the lovely landscape"

* The trees look like soldiers clad in white fur
* The top of the churches on the ways reminded me of the 'sorting hat' of Harry Potter's fame
* The rhine gorge and rafting had us defining a river, a lake and a gorge. Linus remarked he had learnt and forgotton all. The scene however will never be forgotton I mused.
*We all wait for the sun together, the attendent in the Glacier Express remarked when few travellers commented on the cloudy day!
*I can't open my eyes: it is just too white.... we all said in chorus when the train emerged from a tunnel and snaked through land clad in shimmering white snow everywhere, on trees, on mounts and house tops!

Well let me sum up by just another few words:

dream like
the red toy train
a lesson in Geography
a returnable trip from heaven (this one from my cousin at his wittiest best!)

Few beautiful words

Sparkle
Twinkle
Smile
Home
Mommy
Sweetie
Wonderful
Lovely
Babies
Mirror
Nostalgia
Dreamy eyes
Coy