When O when.

Saturday, December 30, 2006

One more day to go. Urgh. Can’t wait for this year to end. One more day and I’ll be free! Yeay!

My plans for New Years? Well, nothing, really. Most probably I’ll be reading something, listening to music or simply be asleep at midnight. Well, what else do you expect? No, I don’t write down resolutions. I don’t need a new year to resolve to do something or refrain from doing something. I do that everyday. Lessons are taken everyday :)

How was 2006? Frustrating would be the best word. I did, however, learn a couple of things and unlearned some others. Well, I did have my good, bad and ugly this year as well. It wasn't really “bad” as such, but not even a good year to remember. Oh, I read all of Linda’s astro related books a gazillion times this year. Woo hoo!! I started listening to a different genre of music which I am so very in love with now. What else did I do this year? Hmm. I can’t seem to remember. Well, lets let this year just pass. Whew. It’s over and I am happy that I am done with it. Almost done. Whatever.

Hope the next year is good for all of you! Well, I guess it should be, since lucky Jupiter is returning to its own house of Sag after like 12 years. So, that’s good. Do whatever “you’ve always wanted to do” this year. It should be a good time to make changes too. :)

Happy New Year.

P.s.- Yes yes, I KNOW I am not some astrologer or anyone, but hey, any normal person who knows even a teeny-weeny bit about the star signs would know what Jup in Sag means in general!

It's been long week!

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

NOTE: None of the beach pictures have been photoshopped or edited in any way (apart from being resized). The others have only been edited to adjust the contrast and lighting. That is it. They are REAL pictures. The beach pictures are straight from the cam! Enjoy!


I am back, folks! I am back! Okay, calm down, take a deep breath. Hmm. Yes. Better.

The trip was great and the reunion was pure fun. Whenever I was in the middle of something exciting, I would keep thinking- “I just HAVE to blog about this. This is crazy fun!”. Now, however, I am almost at a loss of words. I don’t quite know what all to say. There’s just so much that it would be unfair to say some and leave some. Saying it ALL isn’t feasible, considering the condition of my fingers after eating 75 billion hot-hot-fried-in-ghee-samosas and playing 11342 carrom matches and infinite rounds of Bluff and Rummy and eating cotton candy at the beach after eons and what not. So I’ll just post some pictures and say something about them. Fair enough or what?

Panchlingeshwar

Credit: Me and only me :)

This is 'Panchlingeshwar' which is about 1.5 hours from Balasore. This temple-type-thing is up on the rocks of a certain hill. We lost our way while driving to this spot and spent about 45 minutes going round and round in some tiny villages. That was.. erm... some experience. The walk up the hill was enjoyable though. It felt a lot like Manali. Dad and I were quite fit (hey! I do pilates, okay?) and could walk up without getting very worn out, but S and Mom were, *ahem* a little slow and resembled zombies by the time we reached the actual spot.




Credit: S, edited by me

This is a shot of the hillside taken by S while we were on our way down. Pretty, isn't it?

Khi Ching



Credit: S (or Dad.. don't remember!), edited by me

This is the Khi Ching Temple which is about 5 hours from Balasore. So that day, we travelled for about 11 hours (including breaks) by car and spent about 40 minutes at the actual place. It was worth it though. We did see some interesting sites.



Credit: S, edited by me

This is the top most part of a buried temple. Why aren't they excavating and digging this place up?! Ridiculous! A temple is buried right there and no one bothers to unearth it. Shame on the Archaelogy Department.

There was a heavy metal (no, this isn't the 'heavy metal' effect. heh) rod out there. Folklore has it that it belonged to Bhima and has been there since ages and if you pick it up and take 3 rounds around the temple-top then your wishes are fulfilled. Dad and I did that together and gosh that was fun! It was back-breakingly heavy (if at all there is such an expression), but then again, I had my pilates techniques of pulling belly button to spine and activating the power-house working for me!


Credit: S, edited by me

There was this little museum at there where we saw this very fascinating statue. Prosthetic legs are nice :) Khi Ching was built in 940 A.D. out of pure granite rock (I suppose).
Why were our ancestors so fascinated by busty ladies? I saw them in every carving I saw on every temple! Our culture... sigh! (srcoll down and check the Updates for more!)




Credit: S, edited by me

Another one. All very pretty and intricate work, but even more intewesting poses.

Chandipur



Credit: S

Sunrise. Shot taken from our room. Absolutely NO photoshopping. It was really this wonderful.



Credit: Dad

The blue sky and the waters. This is a gem of a picture. One rarely finds such clean, blue water in India.

Puri Beach- My favourite beach in India.



Credit: S

Fishermen! We saw many interesting sights at 6 in the morning at our very own beach. The beach, the Jagannath temple and the swing in the second floor of my grandma's place are the regulars where all of us hung out when we were little.



Credit: S



Credit: Cousin

Isn't this place just awesome? (did you notice how clean the water is?)

My ipod(s)!!!



Credit: Me and me!!

Yes! I now have not one, not two, but THREE ipods (2 gifted by my aunt(mami))!! Isn't that just the ultimate? Well, i listened to a lot of music on my trip and even found a topic to talk about with my younger cousin (bro)- Floyd and psychedelic rock in general :) He plays the guitar, the sitar and what not. AND he's got this awesome hair which fascinated all the other cousins :) Yea, we cousins and uncles and aunts had truckloads of fun this time.



Credit: Me

I just could NOT leave out the lovely sarees that my aunt(masi) got for S and me. They have special Lucknowi work done and the colours are the most beautiful ones!


We even went to the Sun Temple, Konark. I thought everyone must already be knowing about it and would've seen pictures and blah blah, so didn't post anything on that.

Well, anyway, that was MY holiday. One helluva week. Loved every bit of it.


UPDATE!!!!

So yes, on being asked by S, I am doing this update.

1) The statue up there has 'prosthetic legs' because this legendary person called 'Kala Pahad' (which literally means black mountain) had gone all over Orissa destroying the famous heritage sites. So the 'legs' have been put to support the statue.

2) So, okay I WILL after all this fuss post some pictures from Konark since S believes her photography at it's best has been manifested perfectly in those pictures. Right-ho.
So here they are.



Credit: Dear old S

(FYI, none of them out there are family)



Credit: The Missy (S)

This is a shot of the marvellous carvings on the temple. These carvings depict the various poses in some Indian Dance. I am not sure if it was Odissi or Bharatnatyam... er.. but yea it's one of the two!



Credit: The Sag. S.

This is a shot of one of the wheels of the chariot which is also a sundial. It was very interesting to watch the guide tell us the exact time using this sundial. There are little beads which tell you the EXACT minute. How cool is that?



North-Indian or South-Indian, Monty? + News

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

It was a class joke.

“He asked her whether she was North-Indian or South-Indian and she said she was East-Indian!! I mean, is there even such a thing in existence?!”

The ‘he’ was the class clown, AB (no, it wasn’t a Bachchan) and ‘she’ was good old me. Those were the glorious days when kids found AB spoofing on me and V vrooming off to some zumba-land and doing the zumba dance funny and derived entertainment from such things (yes, I(and everyone else) used to get teased with every random person and elaborate tales were concocted based on such ludicrous ideas which in turn provided great 12yearold-type joke-fodder). The above line was one which remained a much quoted line for about 3 days (which is a very long time for such things). I still don’t understand what is so absurd in my being an Easty and saying that I am indeed one. You can’t categorise all Indians as Northies or Southies. Where will the Bongs, Oriyas, Gujjus, Assamese people go?

And I can’t even begin to recount all my monikers. Everyone had them. Everyone’s surname was made fun of and it was distorted to something that sounded silly and generally was silly. I was called ---

>Mohan Aunty

V still calls me aunty!!

>Monica

God alone knows how this came into being.

>Mona darling

The cheesiest of them all. This, I assume (and I may be wrong), was a derivative of Monica.

>Monty, full-monty, half-monty and other crap related to ‘monty’

Well, a lot many people there couldn’t pronounce ‘Mohanty’ and ended up calling me ‘Monty’ which was damn irritating. Plus, I wasn’t the only Sneha around. There were 3 other Snehas and one(or may be more, of whom I am not aware) Snehal which made it ever the more confusing.

>Matinee

Since I am the ‘Mumbai Girl’ here and there was this movie called ‘Mumbai Matinee’ which had released some 3 years back, people in my new school decided to call me ‘Mumbai Matinee’, which in due course of time became only ‘Matinee’. So yes, I am Matinee.

There were many more names which I can’t remember (old age is taking its toll). However, there weren’t any that I don’t want to remember. I love all of them!

Sigh! Those were the days of innocence.

I have been spending the last 10 days sleeping, eating and not really doing much work. So, this is a Public Declaration that I shall get working and be more productive in the remaining days of 2006 which, by the way, wasn’t a great year for me. It was frustrating and a year wasted. I didn’t learn much, I didn’t read much, I didn’t do anything that would make this year special (apart from reading some valuable metaphysical stuff from Linda’s books, but hey, I have been doing that every year since the past 3 or 4 years). I am so glad this year is ending and 2007 is beginning. 2007 is my number 3 year! Yay!

I’ll be off for a 9-day long break to my Dad’s place (the place where he’s posted. It’s supposed to be a tourist-y place too) and then to Puri (where my granpa and granma live) where we’re having this family reunion after 17 years (ie. After 17 years everyone will be under one roof. This hadn’t happened in the past 2 decades minus 3 years since we couldn’t coordinate our time of home-visit). Then there are other family type plans happening so this Christmas should be fun (more people around->more gifts).

Happy holidays and I hope you have a magical year ahead!



P.s.- Yes, I have grown extremely fond of writing cocktail posts.

Strange Events, Events and a Poll

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Author of This Blog (ATB) (yes, I am no longer the BO since S(sister) gets to censor my posts pretty frequently) has been exhibiting such strange behaviour over the past couple of days that she herself cannot explain her actions (which happens very rarely since ATB is rather good at explaining things, no matter how ridiculous the reasons may seem, she still HAS a theory on almost eveyrthing).

This inability to explain such behaviour is again, one of the many anomalies that seem to have taken over her life. However, thanks to the planets, TC and Abhu are still weird and normal (ie. being weird is normal for them). So, she’s most thankful for that.

Firstly, she no longer eats every 5 hours. She can now do with one breakfast, one lunch and one dinner (Yes, it’s important to mention the ‘one’s in there).

Secondly, she has been having tea (which is very mild of course. It’s only have half teaspoon leaves per cup) and has not been suffering from insomnia and anxiety due to that. So, that’s a positive.

Thirdly, she has forgotten to have lunch or has not felt hungry at the right time 3 times in a single week. This is rather peculiar. Hmm.

Fourthly, she has been sleeping for 4-5 hours a night and has been okay (rather great) with that. THIS is the biggest shocker of them all! ATB is a self proclaimed kumbhkaran and this particular point is disturbing her the most.

Fifthly, she has been getting late at whatever she’s doing. For instance, she was late by an hour for her physics class and this has NEVER happened (until now) to this punctual Libran.

Sixthly, she has been turning out trashier than the trashiest trashy posts (like this one).

Seventhly, she doesn’t even care about all the above ABS (Aberrant Behaviour Syndrome) symptoms!

Now, time for some news.

1) New group blog has been launched. Warning- it’s orange.

2) Poetry written by Raghu on the manual scavengers (rather it’s the voice of one).

3) I am starting to wonder if my blog needs a fresh look. Iam too indecisive a Libran to actually decide. So help, won’t you?




Should I go template-hunting or html-css-learning to give my blog a fresh look?
Yes. This one's stale and it stinks big time.
Yes. This one isn't bad, but a fresh look would be good.
No. This one's totally FAB!
I am a Libran. Don't ask me to vote in this ridiculous poll.
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