HotchPotch

Peek a Boo...

2009-06-08T12:03:00.000-07:00

Its been very long since i have posted something on this... I am being very lazy these days being in my always attained heights of procrastination... I was supposed to write more about my Vermont trip.. The trip was 5 months back.. oh man!! Time sure flies..

I was being partial to my recipe blog, my latest "don't know how long will it lasts" passion.. I was so engrossed in that.. Its almost a year since we have landed in this US of A..and during this brief stint, i peeked my head into unknown number of pastimes and activities from painting to blogging to cooking to aerobics to blah blah blah..... but very few lasted long... Kishore has named this obsessive compulsive disorder of mine as "Aarambhashooratham"..

Today i was browsing through my blogger dashboard and i was taken aback by this number "35", which is the number of posts in my blog.. I couldn't remember the days i used to blog actively...it seemed like long back..

As I gaze through the window, i can see the leaves swaying to the tunes of the wind.. That reminds of a tamil film song "Nee katru njan maram..Enna sonnalum thalayattume" (I nod for whatever u says as i am the tree and you are the wind)..

Snowy vermont...

2009-03-27T11:24:00.000-07:00

On one of the snowy weekends of January 2009, we set out on a trip to Vermont.

The sight of dazzling snow by the sides of highways were spectacular. Our first stop was Basketville, a store in Putney famous for hand made baskets and wooven products. They have some eclectic collection of baskets at moderate prices.

We had booked a room at a nice B&B. It was a 19th century building converted to an inn. The citing of recent sightings of paranormal activities in the inn's website made the stay all the more exciting. During our stay, we did find something strange. All the other rooms on our floor was un-occupied... But through out the night we could hear two people murmuring...

The next day we went to a small country store near by. You could find a lot of yesteryear brands and curios here. The toys we used to play, old style candies, old brands of soaps...a tons of stuffs like that.. It was a refreshing memory trip down our childhood days..

The scenery was nice as we drove our way through the sides of the connecticut river. With the white frozen waters, hardly could we define the border of the river from the snow covered bank.

Next in our itinerary was a tour of the Harpoon brewery. Having reached there early we got enough time to browse through the store. The next one hour was a journey into the brewing of one of the worlds oldest beverages, from the picking of the malted barley and hops to the yeast which went till the fermention and storage of beer in large casks and afterwards followed by another hour of beer tasting ceremony...

With the early setting winter sun, we decided to get back to our room. On the way, the beauty of another exquisite small town forced us to stop for a little walk through its streets overlooking the white frosty mountain...

I will continue with the day 2 details and pics in another post.

Ramblings..

2009-03-23T06:53:00.000-07:00

He is holding her hands and comforting her. She can feel her heart bursting with joy as if that is the most awaited moment in her life. Is it a dream? No.. Hes standing right infront of her. She can see his smile. She close her eyes and shake her head so as to get out of the dream. Still he's smiling at her.

She was lost in thoughts all through the day. She had something to prove. Her mind was unsettled. She was contemplating her dream. She didnt know him or atleast she knew him, thats some thing positive. But she never talked to him. She was least interested in him. That would be more correct. He was one of those shabby boys in the class. She herself was not one of the popular gals in the class. But atleast shes not in the despicable group.

Then why did she had that dream. This was something that never crossed her mind. She remember her grandmother once saying we dream about what we wish in life. She wasnt very much convinced with that theory then. People have good and bad dreams. Bad dreams can never be something that they wish to happen in their life. So she was correct and now she has something to prove it. She attributed her dream to the busy schedule she was having for the past one week. Too much work can play tricks with your mind.

(to be contd..)

Slumdog Millionaire..

2009-01-23T11:00:00.000-08:00

This wouldnt be a new name to many of you out there at this point of time. To others, its the title of a movie by Danny Boyle about the slums of Mumbai, which managed to get 10 oscar nominations.

We watched the movie a month back and i shud say its really amazing.

It says the heart felt story of a slum dwelling chaiwala boy Jamal, who hits the jackpot by winning the indian version of "Who wants to be a millionaire". The movie starts with the police interrogating him to find any kind of cheating involved. The subsequent scenes in the movie depict how each day in the slumdog's life becomes the clue for each answer.

Special mention goes for A R Rahmans music, which is so emotionally intertwined with each and every scene, that it kind of gives a whole new life to the movie. You can rightly say that the music keeps the movie going.

The movie has successfully portrayed the serious issues facing our country like poverty, religious riots, child and women abuse, in a subtle manner and simultaneously bringing in a warmth of love and romance through out.

Overall i shud say its an excellent, must watch movie.

Today i happened to read an article about how the millionaires and film actors of India consider the film as being offensive for showing the dark secrets of the country.

Is there a problem in showing the truth to the world? I personally dont think any of the stuff shown in the movie is made out of thin air and I feel more of such movies shud be made to bring to light the real face of our country. Moreover, dont you think we had enough of rich millionaire extravaganzas with hours of song dance sequences shot in some foreign countries..

I am uploading some of my favorite songs from the movie..

For those soft, soothing music lovers, this one is for you..

Presidential Inaguration 2009

2009-01-20T08:03:00.001-08:00

After a break..

2009-01-16T11:49:00.000-08:00

Lately i have been scarce on writing something in my blog. I was too busy catching up with some thoughts, serials and sleep. And in between these days i became more wise, atleast in age.

Yeah!! It was my birthday last sunday.. it was a snowy one. Maybe a result of my obsession for snow!!

Kishore was keen on decorating the house. After a series of my pouting inside shaw's, i finally gave in. But balloon fights were fun.

We had invited some friends over. The midnight cake cutting became rambunctious when every one started creaming every other persons face. Even the carpets and walls were creamed!

In the snap that followed, you cant guess whose bday was it.. But all the bumps were aimed at one person..poor Mr. K!

After that, some of us managed to make a snowman in the freezing midnight hours.

Aint our snowman cute..

Our apt is on a hill which makes driving all the more messy during snow. But it also saves the trouble of going to a skiing area. We had a midnight snow mobiling as well..

Have a nice weekend..

NY christmas part 2

2009-01-02T12:19:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!!!

Let me continue with the day 2 of our NY trip. It started with a 2 mile on foot trip to eat the South Indian delicacy "Masala dosa". If it wasnt for that, i dont think we would have walked that much.

On the way we stopped at the Bryant Park. The shops inside the parks were still closed, probably after a busy saturday. The ice rink inside the park was bustling with people. Parents proudly capturing the shots of their children whirling over the ice was a lovely sight.

After brunch, we chose the subway as nobody was ready for another walk,. We had to change at the Grand Central Terminal. I felt it has a tad resemblance to London Victoria station.

There was a light show happening at the main hall of the station which was spectacular.
Our next stop was the Trinity Church.. We were drifted off to another world by the tranquility inside the church.

The glass work inside the church were magnificent.

Then a walk to NYSE building where the sparkling blue, red and white lights have relegated the fabric made country's flag.

It was pretty rough taming the Wallstreet bull to take a snap with us...

Time and cold didn't permit us to take a cruise to the liberty island. We had to be content with a long shot of the statue of liberty from the battery park. Or maybe the set of slabs playing musical notes, in the park, piqued our interest more.

Our last destination was Macys, the worlds largest store. We did window shopping for quite some time, till we started our trip back home.

NY Christmas..

2008-12-30T11:26:00.000-08:00

I am back to the blogging world after the holiday season. I hope everyone had a wonderful christmas. I had a lovely one with friends, food and travel.

We had an unplanned last minute trip to New York over the weekend. Got our new camera just before christmas to take some pretty good snaps. Though this was my second and Mr. K's third trip to NY, christmas fever has adorned the city and has given it a pretty different look.

The only thing in common was the crowd. We revelled in joining them to explore this most beautiful city in the world.

Walking through the buzzing streets hand in hand, exploring the upscale shops, we reached our main reason behind our trip, the 90 feet tall christmas tree infront of the Rockefeller center..

The top of the tree was embellished with the Swaroski crystal star.

The mammoth Rockefeller building has subdued the christmas tree in this picture..

The ice rink infront of the Rockefeller center. The fear of falling down prevented us from getting a hang of ice skating..
Another attraction was the dancing snowflakes infront of Saks and company building.
We actually forgot to take a video of the light show. But I managed to dig one from youtube that I am uploading below. The music is very sweet and lingers for long..

That was pretty much the day one of our trip. The day ended with the dinner at a steak house near the Times square. I had to be content with the salad as the steak was barely cooked.

I will be back with more of our day two adventures and photos.

Snow..

2008-12-22T11:16:00.000-08:00

Without doubt, its gonna be a white christmas for us.

The weekend passed by with perpetual snow. The whole place is now covered in a white blanket.

Eventhough there were some unwelcomed guests over the weekend -"sore throat and running nose", I managed to sneak out and take some snaps.

Our car dunk in snow.

The white crystal flakes had its fair share of disadvantages as well. It precluded our weekend trips. We were stuck at the house the whole weekend.

By sunday evening we had hit the ultimate boredom that we decided to crash on to our friends place.

Now the much delayed task..Digging the car out of the snow abyss. Couple of hours of slogging with the shovel and scraper and "Mission Pontiac" turned out successful. By that time we were all wet and frozen. Time for me to get a new leather glove!

At the pit stop..

Apparently, the snow shower hadn't stopped and throughout the drive, our visibility was reduced by the falling flakes on the rear.

Christmas is all around me..

2008-12-18T10:45:00.000-08:00

"I feel it in my fingers,

I feel it in my toes,
Christmas is all around me,
And so the feeling grows"

What do you like most about christmas? For me, its the christmas tree. I have a great liking for christmas trees. You can attribute this fascination to my growing up in India. There, christmas trees were not among the must have items for christmas. Christmas stars and cribs have snatched the number one positions. Moreover, evergreen trees are rare in our part.

We used to have flower arrangement competitions in school during Onam (a festival of Kerala). But never ever we had a christmas tree decoration contest at the time of christmas. Now i wonder, being a convent school, why they didnt have that! That would have been fun. I would have loved to participate. The story was almost the same at work place.

This year, by sheer luck, i got the opportunity to decorate our friend's christmas tree. I was very excited, i revelled in adorning the tree with the gleaming ornaments and the tinkling bells.

It was one of a glittering moment for me. Some of the snaps below.

I digress. See the weather forecast for our place tommorrow.

Waiting for a chilly friday and hoping to have a white christmas.

xoxo,
Yours truly

Panthera Leo..

2008-12-16T11:07:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, at the gym, i happened to watch a program where they were trying to feed the lions in Africa. The lions were ferociously jumping after the meat tied to a tree branch. That wouldnt have caught my interest a week back.

Last week i saw the movie "The Ghost and the Darkness", another movie which Mr. K can take the credit for picking. It was adventurous, thrilling and all the more based on the true story of two man eating lions in africa that killed around 130 people.

In the movie, Val Kilmer plays the role of Colonel Patterson who is sent to Kenya with the job of completing the construction of a bridge. Patterson, who has been hankering to visit africa, on the other hand, were greeted by the man eating lions which the natives call as 'The Ghost' and 'The Darkness'. Numerous attempts by the colonel to trap them goes in vain. He then gets the help of the famous hunter Remington played by Michael Douglas. The story takes a new turn when they discover that the lions were doing this for pleasure.

My probing into this took me to this picture of the man-eaters kept on display in the Field museum of Natural history in Chicago.. The actual man eaters were the maneless variety where as for the movie they have used less ferocious ones with mane.

Weekend update..

2008-12-15T10:45:00.001-08:00

Yet another weekend passed by. This one was supposed to be a socializing weekend for us. It was the christmas celebration of the malayalee association. We met lots of Keralites but hardly made any new acquaintances. Or are we tad too cautious after the temple incident? The person whom we met, had a nice chat and exchanged phone numbers at the temple finally turned out to be someone canvassing for network marketing.. Too late to escape. But we managed.

The attraction of the show was the "Akkarakazchakal" fame George achayan and Girigiri. For those who are unfamiliar with this show, Akkarakazchakal is a sitcom based on american malayalees which is extremely farcical and funny and is a popular pick in youtube. You can watch the episodes from here.

The other events of the evening included skits, nativity plays, dance, music and finally a sumptuous dinner. Some snaps posted below.

Other major happenings of the weekend were, sunday Mr. K was on a spending spree. He splurged on a new camera, ordered the Canon powershot SX10IS. Hoping it to arrive in time to take some christmas snaps.

The Da Vinci code re-visited

2008-12-11T07:00:00.000-08:00

My "once lost" reader instinct pushed me to take the DVD from the library last week. I was thrilled to watch it again. Dan Brown is one of my fav authors and this is one of my favourite books.

In fact, i didnt quite like the movie the first time. It was the first movie i watched, adapted from a novel i have read. I was so familiar with the book that my waiting of the subsequent scene from the book was greeted by some other scenes. I know it is difficult to wad all the scenes in the book into a two and a half hour movie. My expectations were rather high i suppose. It wasnt very exhillarating to watch the movie, with the unveiled plot, all the cracked codes and clues lying infront of me.

But still, i opted to watch it a second time. The book did make a significant mark on me.

To be frank, i really enjoyed the movie this time around. I lived over the thrilling adventurous tryst i had with the book two years back. I had almost forgotten the plot. As you know, for a person who hasnt read the book, the movie is like solving a jigsaw puzzle of an unknown image. But for me, I had the "once read but forgotten" advantage. Each scene in the movie made me recollect and connect with other events in the book and everything fell into place. On the whole, it was indeed a great experience. I am eagerly waiting for the movie adaptation of his other novel "Angels and demons" which is due for release next year.

A beautiful song..

2008-12-09T08:24:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share another song with you. Once upon a time I used to hear this song 24/7. Either from youtube or from Mr. K's mouth. I tried giving subtle implications of how much he aberrates from the actual music. That didnt work.

On the contrary it favoured in arousing his interest furthermore. But I guess my comments piqued him. Otherwise why did he dare to learn guitar and play the same song just the way that guy sings and that too in a year. Is that a warning! a warning not to banter him in future..

Meanwhile the unexpected happened. I developed a penchant for the same song which made me to ponder and grab the lyrics and learn that. I started humming the song around the house. After that it seems like Mr. K has shunned that song altogether. I havnt heard him singing or listening to that song. Hes afraid that i might sing along!! haha.. the counter attack worked.

I am not sure of whether he still holds that challenge. Or has my cacophony worked his magic on that as well..

Now about the song. Its "Hey there delilah.." by Plain White T's. Its posted below. Lyrics on the sidebar..

How do i look?

2008-12-05T11:06:00.000-08:00

My blog looks different.. isnt it? Yesterday afternoon i was indulged in embellishing my blog. I made it a three column template, more use of the real estate available, though i had to edit the HTML code. Thanks to Mr. K for his HTML tips. But it may seem to you that other than the 3 columns, everything else remains almost the same the images, colour, font and all.

I tried many permutations and combinations of colors and fonts. But nothing seemed perfect to my eyes or the apt way to say is that my eyes were glued to the blog's previous look. So is the case for me with all other stuffs even the silliest, one example being changing the furniture arrangements in our room. I was quite against it when Mr. K put forward the idea.

All of these prove one thing. I am very much resistant to changes. Long time back i happened to read the book "Who moved my cheese" by Spencer Johnson. The book describes about the changes that can happen in life and work and how we need to embrace and enjoy it. He conveys the message through the story of two mice and two people and their hunt for cheese. I read it twice. But i guess i wasnt permeable to the message in that. Or maybe i was.. Though I fret over the changes, there is a point at which i get used to and start loving it.

Love your comments on the nouveau look. Suggestions always welcome.

Thanksgiving eve..

2008-12-03T11:57:00.000-08:00

The holiday season have begun with the Thanksgiving day last thursday. I wanted to have a proper thanksgiving meal with turkey roast, mashed potatoes, sweet pies and apple cider. No luck this time! I just had the apple cider for this thanksgiving.

We intially had grandiose plans of baking a turkey or atleast a chicken on thanksgiving. But Mr. K's exam fever made us stuck at home the days before thanksgiving thus impeding our poultry shopping. More over his exam was on the thanksgiving eve. But we took advantage of that by spending the thanksgiving eve in Boston. Good that the exam center was close to boston. Gosh!!I love these exams especially when im not the one who is writing.

After the exam we all went for a stroll in the nearby Davis square. It was a busy square with lots of shops, cafes and restaurants. It had my favourite food joint Chipotle as well. One of the many things i liked here was that there were statues of people placed at different points in the square. Their postures were unbelievably real that at times we mistook them for real people.

Then we headed off to Boston downtown..

It was our third trip to Boston, the previous ones being in July when our family visited. This time we decided to climb the Prudential tower to view the stunning skyline of Boston. It has got an observation deck on its 50th floor which is open to the public. The building has got a total of 52 floors and 52th was i guess for dining.

Eventhough we crossed the same bridge in different directions several times, our GPS finally managed to take us to the Prudential tower. But to my disappointment the observation deck was roofed and completely covered with glass not even a window or an opening very unlike the experience i had at the empire state building at NY. So no good pictures of the boston skyline to post here. We then traipsed through the upscale shops in the base floor. The whole place was basking in christmas spirits.

By this time everone was hungry and so we decided to hit an Ethiopian restaurant. That was my idea! But unfortunately our poor GPS with an old map, took us to an empty space by the street and claimed in its familiar voice "You have reached the destination". Luckily across the street there was a TGIF, we had dinner from there and called it a night.

Pianist in me..

2008-12-01T10:26:00.000-08:00

Don't you think the title is somewhat misleading. Yes totally!! I dont know to play piano. But i have a strong desire to learn how to play this exquisite musical instrument. I know bits and pieces of violin. After studying violin for a little more than 2 years shouldnt i know more than that. I used to but now its almost 3 or 4 years since i have played my violin.

Coming back to piano... Lately i happened to hear a song or to be more precise Mr. K introduced me to this song which rekindled my passion for this musical instrument. It is titled "She is always a women to me" by the artist Billy Joel. I fell in love with this song the first time I heard it. The music is awesome and so are the lyrics. I am not a lyrics-centric person. What facinates me is the "A majors" and "B minors" of the song. This one i happened to hear the "sing along" version in youtube and the lyrics kind of impressed me. Its a love song. But what makes this one different is that unlike the usual ones which is right from the heart, this one is so true and blatant, right from the brain. I am posting the video below. It is one of Mr. K's favourites as well.

Feel free to comment on how you felt about this song..

First Day Out..

2008-11-27T17:40:00.001-08:00

Monday i had my first day out alone in the mall. It wasnt a pre planned trip. While having lunch the idea of Mr K dropping me at the mall on his way to the exam striked me. He wasnt against it as long as one condition was met. i shud get ready in 5 mins which I did and there we took off, Mr. K for the exam and me for a few hours out in mall. It was a welcome change for me as compared to the usual monday afternoons spent with the laptop on the couch.

My intial plan was to spend the time in Borders where i could grab a book and read it while sipping a coffee from the Seattle's best coffee. But i was not in a mood to settle down and read. So i roamed around the mall carefree. I relived my days in London where this kind of lonely outing was a routine. I was open to the people advertising for their eye shadows and manicure kit unlike the other times when Mr.K will be dragging me away from all those. But Mr. K is always ready to accompany me to the malls eventhough he hates to do clothes shopping with me. I guess most of the men are not into shopping. Are men born like this or is this a change that happen to them once they become husbands. Still unclear to me.

After an hours wandering in the mall i went to Borders and sat down with the book "New England Rediscovered" which had more than 100 uniquely captured shots of the New England states consisting of Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachussets, New Hampshire and Vermont. But within a few minutes there came the call from Mr. K that his exam is over..

Movie time..

2008-11-25T15:24:00.000-08:00

Mr. K was shouting "Look!!! the movie Vaaranam aayiram has come on videoduniya". That news didnt impress me much. Hey, dont get me wrong here. I am a big fan of Surya and I wanted to watch that movie. But not the "shaking and laterally shifted" version of the movie retaken at some theatre. I had to give in finally when Mr. K came up with a moderate quality print of the film.

The movie is kind of a narration by the main character played by none other than Surya, a narration of his own life much influenced by his father. Other than some scenes, the whole movie was quite dragging and i was waiting for it to be over. I read some where that the movie is inspired from the directors life and 70% of the movie shows what actually happened in his real life. But to me most of the incidents in the movie seemed far too dramatic to happen in somebodys real life. I restrain pinpointing them here since its a new movie and i dont want to spoil for those who havnt watched the movie yet.

Forgot to mention one thing.. Mr. K really enjoyed watching the movie. Yeah..Our tastes do differ sometimes!

Weekend special..

2008-11-24T15:28:00.000-08:00

Contrary to the title, there was nothing special about this weekend. Mr. K's exam and the freezing cold thwarted our weekend day out. But saturday i managed to get him out of his pretentious studying a.k.a internet browsing. We decided to have lunch from the otherwise eschewed indian restaurants. We avoid them mainly bcoz of the exorbitant prices and secondly our inclination to try other cuisines. We recently found out that for the same dish, the price in the dinner menu is twice that in the lunch menu. That was the inspiration behind the saturday lunch.

But at the restaurant we were greeted by the ubiquitous expensive dinner menu which had relegated the lunch menu becoz of the vegetarian buffet menu on saturdays and sundays! By the time we understood that we needed to order from the dinner menu, we were all settled down at our table and the only way out of the restaurant seemed quite out of the way.

On the way back, we happened to pass by one of the entrances of Brown University, an Ivy League college, and god knows what instigated us to take a self guided walking tour of the university at minus 7 degree celsius. The sight of the ivy league college might have rekindled our passion to learn. Anyways our tour got over in 20 minutes coz of the heavy wind blowing right into our face which was the only exposed part of our body.

Just like that..

2008-11-21T09:05:00.000-08:00

The other day, we went to Walmart to buy some bread. Since I am not much into cart pushing, we thot like we will take the bread last. So we went to the auto area from where Mr. K wanted to buy something. On the way we came across some tubelights. These days its getting dark very early here. The sun sets at around 4.15-4.30. So most of our time is spent in the yellow lights of our drawing room. Mr. K is not a very big fan of the yellow light. He thinks sitting in the yellow light makes him moody. So he wanted to buy that white tubelight. I took this occasion to push him to buy a weighing scale. Why they dont have one scale at our gym!! We went to buy a $2 bread and finally we ended spending $25. After reaching home we realized that we forgot to take the bread for which we went there in the first place. Nothing to worry. Mr. K got his white light and i got my scale.

Yesterday a trip again to Walmart. This time to return Mr.K's favourite tubelight and my weighing scale. That tube didnt had enuf wattage to bring light to our drawing room and the new scale was showing 4 pounds less for both me and kishore! But this time we didnt miss to buy the bread.

License to drive..

2008-11-20T09:30:00.000-08:00

Last week was my road test and thank god i came out with flying colors. To be true, this was my second road test. I pathetically failed my first one. But i think i can rationalize my first failure. There was a last minute change of location for my road test and therefore i wasnt familiar with any of the roads and I was a bit tensed. I wasnt as confident as i am now and the instructor asked me to take reverse very fast which i did even after crossing the yellow line ;). Overall outcome: I didnt get the license.

This time it was different. I was beaming with confidence. When the instructor asked me to take the car i started off like a professional which induced a tinge of pride in Mr. K(he was my US driving tutor). I drove carefully following all the signs and rules and within the speed limit. Overall outcome: I got my license.

Back in india i had a license and i used to drive once in a while. My father was my teacher then. We used to go for driving practices early mornings on saturdays and sundays. Most of our trips were to Kovalam. My mom used to accompany us. She was kind of a peacemaker between us, whenever my father got irritated by my driving. Here also Mr. K and I used to go for driving practices during weekends. Initially he was a tad reluctant in giving the car to drive. But after my first failure, he himself forced me to drive the car all the time. Not to mention that he attributes some new born noises in the car to my driving. But i think that is becoz of the normal wear and tear of the car.

Thanks to their support. Now i have got driving license in two countries.

Weather-mania

2008-11-19T08:47:00.000-08:00

Today the first site i opened after switching on my lappie was weather.com. Thanks to Mr.K for making me a weather maniac like him! Initially i used to make fun of his obsession for weather. Now it has become more of a daily routine for both of us.

These days our visits to the weather sites are mostly to check when the first snow is gonna hit our place. We both had our share of first snow last year. Mine was in london. It snowed twice while I was there. The first one was kind of a surprise. When i woke up, the whole place was covered with pristine snow. Both the times the snow melted away by the time i came back from work, not giving me enuf time to make my snowman. That pretty much explains my fascination for snow. Mr K's was in chicago and it was a hard one. He used to catch the morning 6:30 AM train to office in the hard cold -20 degree celsius weather. I wonder why snow still excites him! Lets hope he enjoys his first snow shoveling as well.

Some pics of my last years snow posted below. BTW the current temperature here is -3 degree celsius and still waiting for my first snow this year.

Outside our apt in Croydon

My Fav place..

2008-11-18T10:42:00.000-08:00

If someone ask me whats my favourite place on earth, i would say Fort William in Scotland. Last year abt the same time i got the opportunity to visit this picturesque place. It was on our trip to explore the highlands of Scotland. It is a town surrounded by lochs and glens. Loch means lake and Glen means valley in Scot. The town of Fort William lies on the shores of Loch Linnhe and is very close to the Ben Nevis which is the highest moutain in the British Isles.

More than its beauty, there was something quite different about this place which attracted me. As a kid, there's one picture which i used to draw always. It had a moutain, a setting sun, a lake, birds flying and boats floating on the lakes. I was so obsessed with this image that i dont know how many times and how many ways i have painted this picture. It never ocurred to me that such an image would actually exist. That may be why i was awed when I had this breathtaking view from the high streets of Fort William. I am not sure of how long I stood there gazing in the freezing cold.

I dont think my camera has done justice to this fantabulous place..

Monday Blues...

2008-11-17T08:46:00.000-08:00

After a long break, i made Sambar today,a south indian curry which requires a lot of efforts and perseverance. In the last stage of the curry, i had a discovery that some insects were enjoying a comfortable stay in one of my spices jar. Phew!!! I had used that spice in my curry.

Plan B in action.

The phone was ringing and finally Mr K answered.

Me: Are you ready to have some veg curry with some unharmful insects in it for your lunch??

K: No!!!

Plan B failed. What to do!!! My last resort. Feed the whole curry to the kitchen sink!!! It did work and my sink seems happy.

Reader's Block...

2008-11-14T09:31:00.001-08:00

I presume im having a Reader's block. I have a problem with finishing the books i start to read. I was an avid reader once mainly during school and college days. Even after joining work, i used to read once in a while. Now its almost a year and a half since i read a book. During this period i started reading many books but wasnt successful in completing them. On our trip to US(that was almost six months ago), i started reading Jeffrey Archers "The prisoner of birth" and still im on the 80th page! Can I blame my laptop for this? I think i can!! coz most of my time are now spent with my laptop.

As others, i started my reading with the usual mystery series like secret seven, Nancy drew, Hardy boys, Fear street. Then there was the girls stuff like the Sweet Valley high and the Enid blyton's Malory towers. There was a short mushy romantic mills and boons period. But got bored of those soon since the stories were always the same. Then i happened to read "The windmills of God" by Sidney Sheldon. It was a grt experience and so i started reading his novels.. Meanwhile read the Eric Segal's "The class" and Jeffrey Archer's "Kane and abel" which took me to yet another magical world of fiction and suddenly i had so many authors and so many books to get hold of and within a short span of time i finished reading almost all the books of these three authors. My favourites of Eric segals are "The class", "Doctors" and "Acts of Faith" and that of Jeffrey Archers are "Kane and abel", "Not a penny more,not a penny less", "First among equals", "Sons of fortune" and "Shall we tell the president". In between read a lots of books of various authors like Dan Brown, Tagore, Paulo Coelho, Chetan Bhagat, John Grisham, Arundhati Roy and some new writers. Dan brown's "Angels and demons" is my yet another favourite.

Seeing my reading pattern and my favourite authors and favourite books, if you know any book or any author which can bring me back to the world of reading, please scribble that as your comment.

Do i miss work?

2008-11-13T10:58:00.001-08:00

Now its almost 6 months since i started my leave. When Kishore got an assignment here, i didnt have any option other than taking an extended leave. I didnt have anything in mind of what i will do at home all day. Moreover the trip came so fast that I didnt get even a second to wander my thoughts in that way.

These days whenever i meet up with or call someone, the usual question to me will be "Dont you get bored? Dont you miss your work?"

Am i getting bored? Sometimes yeah... But there are different ways to fight that. My own ways of fighting boredom are browsing, cooking, reading, watching serials rarely and some ephemeral hobbies like drawing, painting, crafting, aerobics, dancing and ofcourse the recent one - blogging. In the middle of all these do i really miss my work?? Lemme think!!! Definitely I miss going to the office where i can meet people. Nowadays the number of people i meet or talk to daily are less since most of the time i am at home. I miss all those teeny tiny fun and the tensions i used to have at work. I sometimes miss the bday cakes we used to have and i always miss coming back from office with the feeling that "now i can rest after a heavy days work". So i guess i dont miss work as such..but i miss other stuffs that come along with it..

The Right to Read..

2008-11-12T11:48:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we decided to spend some good time in the Woonsocket public library. Usually our trips to the library are very short. It will be mostly on our way to the gym. So hardly we spend 10 mins in the library. That too, in the dvd section, me searching for some comedy/drama movies and kishore searching for some action/thriller/oscar movies and finally the argument between us on which movie to take. But ystrday we went on to explore the books section. I was passing through the teens section and there it was - all the series of Fear Street, Sweet valley High neatly stacked in the shelves. There were multiple copies as well. That reminded me of my childhood days when this sight would have been a dream come true moment for me.

I used to read a lot during my school and college days. For me or anyone like me from Kerala(not sure abt other states), the only source of these books were the lending libraries. Even there we didnt have the luxury of multiple copies. I also had joined one, where i had to pay a deposit of 500 bucks to get the membership plus 10% of the book's price for each book i was lending. Once they even charged me with the full price of the book coz the last page of the book was missing. Not to mention that the last page had stuffs like other novels of the writer or other books he/she is planning to write in the future..definitely a must read page!!!

After seeing how readily the books are available here and thinking of how hard it was for me to pursue my hobby of reading, i really feel like as a child i was denied my right to read. I am sure that any child would love to have such a vast collection of books to read. So we should do something so that atleast the future generation of Kerala have free access to these books.. not the e-ones, but the actual hard bind ones.. Let them enjoy their right to read!

Carpe Diem!: What do you like for breakfast?

2008-11-11T17:58:00.000-08:00

Carpe Diem!: What do you like for breakfast?

Window Shopping...

2008-11-10T10:59:00.000-08:00

Now its almost 6 months since we landed in this small state of Rhode Island. After almost two months stay here, we were running short of places to go on weekends. We had covered almost all the nearby attractions, all the parks and all the malls by then. To top that up, my attitude was "y a visit to malls if you dont have anything to buy". So I turned my nose up when kishore first suggested the idea of window shopping. But ultimately with nothing much to do,we would always end up window shopping most of the time. Intially it was a strenuous task setting my mind to the idea that you are at the shop just to browse and not to buy. But with my better half always by my side, i have become a successful window shopper :D

Nowadays i really enjoy this little hobby of ours and I assume i am now in a position to give some tips for window shopping.

Tips :

Ideal places for window shopping are big malls where u have lots of retailers to hop in and hop off.
Dont go to those shops where there arent any customers or where the sales person is eagerly waiting to help u. Believe me, u really dont need any help for window shopping.
We mostly do window shopping for clothes and they are the best stuff to go window shopping for (in my opinion).
Dont do window shopping continuosly for more than 2-2.5hrs. You will get bored. You can take a break in between and continue if you feel so.
During your shopping (window), have a good look at the price, design, style and quality of the stuff so that when you actually need to buy something, you know which shop to go. This is actually a great advantage of window shopping.
And last but not the least, dont end up buying all the stuffs that you see in the shop.

It is highly likely that during your window shopping, you may stumble upon a dress or a design you have been yearning for a long time and in such scenarios theres no harm in turning your window shopping to an actually shopping :)

Modern Art..

2008-11-07T06:17:00.000-08:00

I was always curious about Modern art paintings. maybe becoz till recently, i have seen modern arts only in some malayalam movies :D. In those movies modern art is either shown as a mixture of some colors or some imprintation of the hands or some inexplicable combination of these two. So i wasnt sure whether thats the real modern art or were they making fun of that!! So when we went to washington dc, i insisted on visiting the art gallery to see some real modern art paintings. There we saw this painting, five rectangles painted in five different colors..and the name given to this painting was "Tiger"!! I tried to find some description about the painting which relates this to the animal tiger or which inspired the painter to name it as tiger. but unfortunately there wasnt any. I shud have taken the audio tour for the details..

Is this really the modern art..or am I too conventional to enjoy a work of modern art.

A bitter experience - Part One

2008-11-06T11:09:00.000-08:00

In my previous blog i have mentioned about my experiences in UK. Reading that, one of my friends suggested to me that i should write in detail about those.. So here is one...a bitter one though.

The story is set in Croydon,UK and the time frame of the story is 2 weeks after i landed.I had great difficulty in getting an acco there..After my frantic searches i got one which i shared with 3 other indian roommates.I started enjoying the place since my acco problems were all sorted out.

After nearly 3 weeks of stay we got a call from our landlord saying he wants us to vaccate the place since he fears that the smell from our kitchen(indian foods smell) will stick to the carpets in the room and will destroy that. Not to mention that our landlord himself is an asian. We were astonished by his behaviour and asked him for one month time to get a new apt.But his reply was kinda of warning which conveyed the message that if we did not leave the apt in 1 week, we would end up paying twice the rent for each day we were staying...

So our next search for the apts began and luckily we were able to get one nearby. We liked the new place even though it was a bit old and more over we were pressed for time. So the moving out date was decided and conveyed to the landlord. We made the apt impeccably clean since we had our intial deposit money entirely under our landlord's mercy and the amount at stake was 1000 GBP.. (1000 * 85 = 85000 Rs)..No wonder I cleaned the apt like i never did before,not even my home..

Missing UK..

2008-11-06T08:19:00.000-08:00

As part of my job i was in UK for some 14 months. Initially when i was asked to travel onsite i was very sad.. It was really hard for me to leave my family and friends. And even while i was there i badly wanted to come back home. But now when i think of my days in UK, i think i had a great time there... and i kinda miss those.One thing i miss a lot is the train journeys which i had every morning and evening.Inorder to reach my work i had to take a tram and a train.The train journey was kinda short. some 15 -20 minutes.But it was so peaceful sitting near the window and watching the train pass through the countryside.The other good thing is that the experiences i got from the trip. Thats invaluable - and i think i have become a new person, a new improved one after all that.

Introduction

2008-11-06T08:18:00.001-08:00

Today its Nov 4th Tuesday...My first blog born on this day at 11.09 am...I dunno what i had in my mind when i created this blog...I am not even sure whther i will be active in this.. Lets hope i come out of my writers block and do some scribbling....