Happy New Year...

So the New Year is right at the door step…Can’t still digest the fact that 2010 is almost done and we are just about to get into another year…2011…what is the year coming with…Loads and loads of Happiness??? Or bunch of Miseries…we never know…as that is life…whatever horoscope or astrology you belive in…how much ever accurate the stars align themselves…still..the Mystery of Tomorrow can never be solved until and unless we live through it…

Every New Year, my only prayer was….Ha…hope the coming year is wonderful…better, much better than the passing year…As we go through the hard times, we feel, haaa, I have never gone thru such pain before…It is the same for happiness too..When we r too happy, we feel we r the most happiest at that moment…but still, we repeat the same thoughts every time such emotions strike us at the extremes…uhmm…

Am I being philosophical….Naaah…As I started typing this post down suddenly I felt sm sort of Uncertainity..about future.. as I type this down, my colleagues who are just behind me are discussing how monotonous life is in here…oh yes, they are talking about the job…As one guy sigh at the fact that “We need some motivation to work…” the other feel high of the Marketing Department who get to see the clients and so on… But what I felt was… That I don’t wanna say that the Grass is Green on the other side…Bcoz I know, the marketing department would be surely finding our department to be a thrilling department due to the security and confidentiality we need to hold while doing our job…uhmm…

Tomorrow is 31st…as for me, I love dancing my night out to welcome the New year…This year, too I would love to go smwhere where I can dance, dance and dance…but then doesn’t feel like leaving my son home and going just with my hubby…and unfortunately this country is not for Family entertainment New Year bashes…you have 101 options for Bachelors, Couples…but not for a full family package…or else, your purse should be really big, that a small hole wouldn’t matter much to u…Gosh, many of them really charge you a fortune for just entering the arena…Anyways, I with my family and two cousins and driving off to a Restaurant for a Buffet Dinner…and the Restaurant owner has promised us a free entry into the dance floor of another Bash for free…hehe!!! But then, will that crowd be good enough for us to enjoy also, is a big question…Anyways…we are all set to experiment ourselves…

And for days after that…I am starting the year with good hope…After years of all sort of freeze in your increments, promotions and bonus, the coming year, I hoping for, if not all, atleast some…hehe!!! There are rumours walking around in the office, that maybe we could expect some good news on those fronts by February-March…Maybe that is the reason why, our performances have been reviewed and an appraisal report has been send already…So hoping for the best…

Before I finish off my blabbering, I wanna share with you a funny New Year party…I had never been to a Disco or Night Clubs before my marriage..too orthodox was my family na…After marriage just once…that was on 31st December 2006, we went to a Disco to celebrate New Year…Lol..I still remember that night… As I left for the party, thinking of the inconvenience a purse could cause…I took nothing with me, apart from my mobile …But then, I did squeeze in one thing into my husband’s pocket…hehe!! Guess what was that…

A Quick Fix-Easy Glue…hehe!! That was a precaution…Was worried, if my Shoes got torn or broken in between the dance…heeh!!! And Guess what…my Sandals never gave me off…but somebody else’s did…As I went into the Toilet just before the clock struck 12…I saw a girl sitting there with her broken sandals…she was upset as she will not be able to dance further…

And then what…within seconds…Madam was there with help..hehe!!…The Easy Glue did come handy, if not for me, atleast for somebody else…Still remember her smile, as I helped her with that surprise…Rest of the night, we danced from two different ends of the dance floor…but occasionally giving each other a smile…lol!!! My hubby who had made fun of me when I took the Glue with me early that night, was surprised too…

As we left the dance floor that night…I had a stranger to say goodbye and show Ta…ta… to me!!! And as I too waved goodbye…She screamed at the top of her voice….Amidst the loud music, I could still hear her…

“Thanks Dear…and Wish you a Happy New Year...”

A Memorable Xmas...

As Xmas is fast approaching and I have no plans for Xmas…other than sit at home and sleep…grrr…I am not sure, if my Xmas was this bland and un happening ever, and never when I was in India…especially, my last Xmas in India before being transplanted from there to this place…Gosh…that was really a Xmas…ok guys, would tell you about that Xmas memory…

I would try to make you guy picturise my house those days…it was in a very narrow lane with almost 20-22 houses…and all the residents inside the lane knew each other so well from years…it was my mom’s ancestral house…and majority of other residents also were living in there for years…This lane had a dead end at one end and the other end opened to a road which was parallel to one of the busiest road in the city…So we were like, inside a calm place in a busy city…

That time, majority of the children in each house was almost aged between the range of 19-28…and somehow, we all had built a bond with occasional celebrations during festivals or the daily even Carroms game at my house’s Car Porch…As I and my cousins used to play daily evening, one by one, these Bhaiyyas and Chotte Bacchas started joining and soon it was like a Games Club daily evening having matches between different groups…It was fun…

Among these residents it was just one family who was a Christian…that year, an idea flew into one of us, to celebrate Xmas in a special way and make them feel special…Now, lemme tell u…among almost 20-25 Boys, I was the only girl who was standing right in the front for any such activities…Rest of the girls in the area acted they were shy or reserved…So, their help was taken only when it was really required…as for me, I was a pre-requisite for the Boys, as they knew, the families would take their ideas seriously only if I was with them..heehe!!!

Thus we planned for our Xmas celebration…First of all, the whole lane was decorated with Colour Papers, Balloons and what not…Right at the mid of the lane in the centre of the road, we hung a hugeeeeeee Star (which Madam myself made with long plywood pieces and strings and colour papers and gum…ohhh…wasn’t I smart….lol!!!) a bulb was inserted into this star and it could be seen even from the road…it was that big and colourful…Now, 10 of the guys also went out and made rounds in the city with one of the guy dressed up as a Santa Claus…and we were well equipped with hi-fi Music system and speakers…lol…a Handcart followed the group with the Music Player and Speakers…it was really a GRAND Santa Group…Anyways, unfortunately, Madam was restricted from going anywhere out of our area…So I sadly had to sit and wait for the guys to return daily night…

Finally the Xmas day…we invited every single residents of the lane…We celebrated the night with lots of songs, games, dance and fun…Ofcourse, don’t forget the tasty cake and the delicious dinner…By the by, the Dinner was sponsored by every single residents…They contributed towards the dinner…and we just fed them…haha!!! But the night turned out to be the most memorable for majority of my neighbours…One member of each house gave a speech on how they felt about the day…and hehe, guess what, Madam was being praised by each of them…I could hear very well the grunting and grouching in the background from the Boys team…I could hear my brother complaining, WE DID EVERYTHING AND SHE GOT THE COMPLIMENTS….hahaah!!! Afterall, Guys, I was the master mind and the organizer and the host (I am sure they would correct it as Ghost)…

Anyways, the Xmas night celebration was a great success…But do u guys know, what made it more memorable for me…hehe!!!

After the celebration, we were all tired..I started a very bad headache…and suddenly it started raining badly…remaining people at my Car Porch was some of the boys and myself…we were all safely inside the roof of the car-porch…and discussing the success of the day…I was sitting on the floor holding on to my breaking head…naturally, my mood was going off and off due to the head ache…at this point, one of the boy, apparently my best friend "A", felt it funny, when he saw me with the headache (I Suppose)…

He took a bottle of Ice water…and started threatening “I will pour it into your head now…”…Somehow, I dint feel it funny…I was a bit pissed off..and started warning him NOT TO…ELSE… he was still joking…and the situation went so worse that to test my patience maybe, he poured the water over my head…and I LOST IT…I just couldn’t control my temper…First thing, I sprung into my legs from the floor…I ran out into the corner of the Garage…there was an old bucket outside, which was dirty enough and had the rain water in it…

I just took it and threw the entire water into his face…he was shocked and more shocked was rest of the boys…Now, Shouldn’t I be stopping it there…NO…I couldn’t, as my anger was not yet reduced…Especially, when I saw him pouncing back to attack me with more water…I could see some of the boys holding him back..and some of them including my brother holding me back…But then, it couldn’t stop me, maybe…I got hold of the Foot Mat that was on the steps near my car porch and threw it at him, as he was not near by to hit him…and then I calmed down…

Haaaaaaa….After that it was utter silence in the group… “A” was shocked, but I think he felt Insulted… He knew, it was not just my mistake…but still..afterall, he was aboy…He left the scene immediately…My brother was asking me in soft voice, “Why u did that much..he was just joking…”… For some reason, I was in no mood to take that joke that day…uhmmm…Slowly, one by one, rest of the boys also dispersed from the scene…None spoke anything…

Uhmm…Pheww…Now that was really a Memorable Xmas, isn’t it….

Merry Christmas to each one of you...

NB: All the boys joined me in the Carroms match even the next day…some spoke about the fight and some dint…Some felt “A” shouldn’t have provoked me especially when I was having a headache…and some felt, I might have over reacted…Uhmm…even I felt so…but the pride dint allow me to admit it…. “A” too was regularly coming over for the matches but we never spoke to each othr for quite some time…We did patch up after few months…uhmmmmmm….Whoever, may forget that night, but neither I nor “A” would ever forget the fight with the Water Splash…hahaha!!!

Mom…That day, you were so mean…

All of a sudden, today I thought of some of the classy incidents of my life…lol…one thing that really sprung up from the memory book was the “First Time I tasted Dad’s Spanking…”… Lol…it is indeed an interesting story…Here it goes like this…

As I have told u before…me and my brother were the best kids in the world, when dad was around..and we knew about some Untold Rules that dad wouldn’t like us to break…

1. Never call him from behind when he is going out…
2. When he is at home, NO CRYING or SHOUTING or FIGHTING…atleast he doesn’t wanna hear it…
3. Absolute NO for any of this IF he is all set to go for WORK…
4. No standing with a broom when he is off to anywhere…

So what ever we had to do against the above list...DO IT IN SILENCE....lol!!! And many such rules…majority of them were formed in him due to Superstitious beliefs…ofcourse, now ,after years…he is out of all that….but then, those days, he was too much into all that…and little could any of us even think of what could happen to us, if we broke his limits…lol!!!

So I was 11 or 12 years then…thankfully, unlike my brother, I never gave a reason for Dad to practice his Spanking skills on me..atleast till that day…lol!!!

So…it so happened that the day before…I had a Dentist appointment…and the Dentist didn’t like the look of one of my tooth to my right side…He was pretty sure that keeping my tooth for himself would be a better idea than keeping it with me within in my mouth…So the Cruel Dentist pulled out my sweet little tooth and that reduced me and that left with a numb feeling mixed with variant types of other emotions…The prick of Anaestasia did pain…but then there was some sort of an ache which was just on the way to transform itself into pain…for that moment, pain was not the issue…

But by evening, pain started walking in slowly, from a corner of my mouth to my ears, to my head and so on…the big bunch of cotton still sat there, exactly where the doctor had kept it…I still couldn’t feel my cheeks much and I felt there was a big swelling in there…very often, I looked at myself on the mirror to see, if in real my cheek has grown any size bigger than normal…uhmm…not much…just a bump due the cotton ball…

As the ache turned to pain, I bit hard into the cotton ball trying in vain to control the pain…uhm…its didn’t help much, but still, it was a relief…through the whole night, I was continuously biting against the cotton ball…which I had replaced with a fresh set…I knew, tomorrow, the day would be better with a painless mouth cavity and ache-less head…Little did I know…

The alarm rang the next day…I jumped out of my bed and I knew it…the numbness was gone…the swelling was gone…butttttttttt….WHAT THE HELL…my whole mouth was having a tangy pain…as if a pinch of salt on a fresh wound…grrr…I placed myself in front of the mirror again and inspected my mouth….Gosh…what did I dooooooooooooooo….the right side of my tongue was almost red with wounds…with pieces of flesh cut into pieces here and there…the bleeding had stopped some time in the night I suppose…but the pain had started once the sedatives and Anastasia left me….

So…it so happened that, it was in real my very own Tongue that I was biting hard the whole night…I was assuming it to be the cotton ball…due the numb feeling, I couldn’t even realize it wasn’t the damn cotton but my tongue that I was crunching off like a cow chewing its grass…which left me with bruises all over my tongue…

Now, the real story happened after this…to let u people know…I was slim like a pencil and could easily be used for a measuring scale…My mom very regularly got a good dose of advices from relatives for not taking care of me…She was often blamed for me not putting on some flesh into my thin body…Naturally, mom was upset..and just the previous day, my aunt had showered a good amount of advice on the importance of breakfast and milk and so on…

So, that destined day…Mom was adamant…she was adamant that she would make me eat the breakfast…and that too CHAPPATHI and CHICKEN CURRY…to add it up…the chicken curry was spicyyyyyyyyyy… I couldn’t even imagine putting anything spicy into my mouth…let alone chew it…I protested… “NO…I DON’T WANT BREAKFAST….”…Think mom was more serious in what she said…She started shouting at me for not having food properly and growing thin and so on…and to my bad luck…that was exactly when my dad was coming down the stairs all set to go to his office…grrr…

Dad, did hear the commotion…and he was damn upset…and due his anger, he shouted at me… “EAT THE FOOD…NOW” ..I was shocked…and was shivering…I sat in front of that Chappathi and took it to my mouth…the first strip…and the first tear from my eye fell into the chappathi…and what I heard next was not less than any roaring from any lion…I heard my dad saying… “What are u crying for…did your father die…” and then what happened was something like in one of those Sci-fi movie…I was running around the dining table and dad behind me spanking me hither and thither…I could hear nothing that he was screaming..nor could I understand what mom was telling while pulling him back… He acted as if he has lost it…and I ran as if my life depended on that…

This ‘run and chase’ continued for almost 5-6 minutes, if not more…but suddenly he stopped as he hit his hand against one of the chair and think he sprained his finger…I was pushed into one of the bedroom by my mom…and I could hear dad shouting at my mom too, for creating a scene when he was going out…and then heard his car leaving the car porch and out into the road…

I was in my bed…crying, sobbing…I was still in my uniform…uhmm…so today NO SCHOOL…afterall, that is what happened when my brother got his spanking..he was not allowed to go to school…I slowly removed my Tie…and that is when mom came into the room… “What are you doing…Go to School…”…she screamed… "No, Why…I don’t wanna go to school..after all, bro was also not allowed to go to school the other day…I am also not going..”…to my horror…Mom replied… “No…you ARE going to the school…get dressed and come out in 5 minutes…”…

Now…even today, I try to understand or realise…what was it that actually hurted me that day…Was it my torn tongue…or my Dad’s spanking…or Was it my Mom’s insensitiveness in forcing me to go to school even when I was expecting some sympathy for the show-down…

What do you think, guys…Wasn’t it mean…after all, I needed to be at home and mom should have let me spend the day crying and feeling bad for what happened….Uhmm…

“Mommmm…That day, you were so mean…”

The Old Resolution in a New Bottle…

So, December is here….ALREADY!!! I am surprised…and shocked…and above that I feel guilty and ashamed of myself…Its going to be one whole year soon, when I made that resolution inside me that I really wanted to follow….and DID I do any justice to that…NO…that proves how bad am I at following a timetabled life…uhmm..Its been always so…whenever I made prior plans and decisions to do anything..be it anything…I could write it down then and there that nothing would happen anything like I had wanted it to happen…great na…

Ok, now last year around same time…I was almost over with most of the financial liabilities I had taken up into my head for the sake of others…Ok, now that is a big story, which is not worthwhile discussing now…Anyways, for ur understanding…I had taken it as my duty or responsibility to clear up so many financial liabilities that some closed ones had made due to their stupidity… I was sort of a guarantee for others to squeeze the money out…if the real person couldn’t pay back, catch hold of the sacrificial cow…I was in somewhat similar situation till then…last December, I was finally off all such stuff…Now all that I owed was to the dear Bank where my salary went every month… So, I dint have much to think about…As soon as the salary reached them, they took a fair share out of it….

Somewhere till 2013, I was thus related to the bank…closely and lovingly…I dint mind…as long as I had a job, I was fine…but I had a very big dream of myself…like any other NRIs…I too dreamt of the same common dream…a Home…a house to call “My Home…”… Relatives back home, very often blamed me that I was too stupid that I didn’t invest into that dream much before…even if they knew WHY DIDN’T I…still, every time they spoke to me on phone or met me back home…their repetitive advice was… “Why don’t you get yourself an apartment atleast now…”…

Anyways, last year, same time…I planned or decided…from next month…I would deposit XXXXX every month…may whatever happen…I WOULD DEPOSIT that amount…and then also calculated the extra amount that I would be getting as part of ticket allowance and so on…I was sure, I would make it to reach the decent amount of X,00,000.00 by end of the year…that is NOW…which was good enough for me to pay the initial amount for a good apartment/villa back home…It was all well planned and fixed…I told none about my plan…

January came…we had to shift…grrrrrr…First month budget went overboard…(U can click on the link to read what happened then...) which took 2 months to get back to normal…03rd month was annual festival time for temple back home…the amount went out as charity and for temple offerings…and then the 4th month I transferred the first set of planned amount…and the 5th month, we had visitors from back home…which again jeopardized my budget..uhmm…Good going…06th month salary helped me to rectify the budget back to normal….

07th month, I got the expected extra amount of ticket allowance…I had to send the amount…but not for my dream…but, I was travelling the next month…so naturally I needed money back home...plus had a big list of shopping for your loved ones back home…08th month I was back home, spending the amount I send earlier…plus adding up my credit card and reducing my account balance…great…I was back in the 09th month…Now was my time to start repaying my installments for the Credit Card…

10th month…two different friends asked for loan..uhm…couldn’t say NO…afterall, I too have gone thru that…so No deposit for My Home Project….grrr…11th month the exchange rate became sooo dull that I didn’t even feel like transferring any money…uhmmm…to add up the New Specialist for my Son’s allergy took up quite a big amount…Gosh…waiting for the Insurance guys to return me my money….and now I am here…it’s the 12th month…

All I am left with is a very meagre bank balance here and a still smaller one back home…I am happy that, atleast due some instinct I have been depositing money for my son…I could never even think of touching them or shall never would…If not for that…Now, I would have felt more depressed and stupid than anything...Uh??? “My Home” project again came to a halt…grrr….

But hey….I really doesn’t want to remember the hefty reasons to spend money next year…Afterall, quite a few marriages are on the way…nothing can replace money when it comes to giving gifts to closed ones…As of now there is one marriage in April of my first cousin and two more to follow…including my own brother and another cousin…Gifts, Clothes, Accessories and don’t forget the Air Ticket rates…Lol…and that means…Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

Anyways…Past is Past….I don’t wanna cry over the Spilt Milk now…Future Is Future…I will forget my past and face the future as it comes…As of now…I wanna welcome the coming year…After all, here is a new year coming right in front of me in a few more days…all Fresh and New…I have decided to revive and renew my Project…I want to change my belief that IF I PLAN, IT WOULDN’T HAPPEN…I want to tell you all next year same time, that, I DID IT… I have indeed fulfilled my dream…I did indeed stick to my resolution…Hurray….three cheers to me…and wish me luck, guys…

I am ready for the New year…hehe!!! Ofcourse, much in advance with my New Year Resolution…

The Old Resolution in a New Bottle…

NB: I have linked some of my old posts with this post just for flash back...heheh!!! You can click on the blue words if you wanna read them...Another warning is that seeing the above pic, don't imagine that is me...I look nowhere near her...hehe!!! But then, what she said wouldn't suit anyone else better..."Screw that, I am moving forward..."