This onez for the BP gang that i luuuv & miss soooooo much!!! :)

Of some of the most amaazing people i know... herez to a gang that made the US seem like a DrEaM!! :D Picked up the cartoon from here! :)

Girls-night-out... with gran! :)

My gran is a sweetheart! She is my maternal grandmom & doesn't let age of all things come in the way. She rode a rope-way car with a girlish grin while my mom ooooh-ed & aaaah-ed about T & me putting her mom in turmoil. I'm sure gran would love to sky-dive too! ;)

Anyways...my parents & gran had come over to stay at our place for a fortnight. For as long as i can remember, whenever gran was home, i snuggled next to her & we shared our secrets. The night T had to stay at work, I was just getting ready to snuggle in - my parents were already asleep - which was when a tiny creepy-crawly got in through the sink. There are snakes around in the green bordering our house & so me & my partner-in-crime decided to kill it. I think it was a tiny snake - it was black, shiny & slithery - but I am still not sure if it was a snake! So we'll just call it 'the thing'. I did not want to take a risk with the reptile using the now-familiar-route again! What if I was alone the next time, right?
So, we got ready... gran with poor eye-sight, without her glasses, armed with bathroom slippers & smacking away at the culprit. I did mention poor eye-sight & without glasses, right? - she hit every place around 'the thing' but never on - this went on for a few minutes with me whisper-screaming (ugh- whats that???!!!...i didn't want to wake up my parents who were already asleep - & so had to whisper my screams!) Did I forget to say that gran's hearing is bad at times? Well, this was one of those times! So with instructions from me that could not be of any help, my sweetheart gran finally nailed 'the thing'.

Ever heard of a snake's other half taking revenge? Well, i sure did! Wouldn't want to risk an angered mom's wrath, right? So we took it out to the balcony (by then it was around 01:00 AM) and lit it - gran thought that i was being superstitious ;) I am a bit(??!!) frazzled when I am sleepy which tends to make me loony too i guess! Got me thinking of the mom sniffing out the ashes & so ran in to drop a few camphor pills into the pyre. I added some sandal wood incense sticks for good measure. By now, the wariness had given way to feeling sorry for the victim (though, I had gone through all this only to ensure that none of us would be the victims). I fell asleep hugging my gran after much more ranting. And all this while, she bore all the craziness with a smile & sat through the mindless pyre set up without complaining! Even with a generation's gap, it is always an amazing girls-night-out of endless gibberish that i reel out with my gran! LUUUUVVVVVV u, amma!!! :)

A lil' green for my vase... :)

One of the best things about being in Vizag is the fresh veggie market, twice a week. Yup- thatz how interesting things get around here! ;)
Itz a haze of colors - all bright & fresh - green, orange, green, purple, green, white, red, green.. well, i just meant that the greens top them all ;) And all this being amazingly low priced. The 'amma' selling spring onions yelled out an offer of 3 fresh bundles for Rs.10. I didn't really need 3 bulky bundles & tried asking for 1 - but got a stiff response of 3 or none! Guess we screwed up with our confident local dialect. ;) To cut things short, the fresh green stalks & me fell in love & had to be brought home.. couldn't really bear the thought of crushing & suffocating them in the fridge & T suggested popping them into a vase - which is where they are resting & being sacrificed, as & when craved for by the flavor sucking kitchen. Uh-huh.. not a pretty thought.. but - don't they look pretty?... :)

Dream 'oracles'?.. ;)

Ever had one of these?...
A recurring dream from which u awaken tired & wasted! My frequent ones are falling into a dung-ditch at my gran's place. Though this has never happened in reality, (i did cross check with my gran if i'd fallen into it during my tot-years - which BTW was a no;) ), i seem to have the same dream again-n-again & wake up with the same alarming 'dhud' every time i fall in! But now, I'm like WTH & go right back to sleep, comforted that i don't have to wash off the stench. Though it does leave me a little hazed, it doesn't get anywhere near my sleep-runs or the sleep-fights. I have these never ending dream runs after which i wake up in the morning, tired. The fights are one-on-many. Me being the 'one'. Well, i obviously am the good guy & i still wonder what i fight for! ;) They have never reached completion though frequent fight haunts are some dark attic with great wood work. Sashes, swords & high ceiling jumps in fight robes. No bullets whizzing past! These dreams leave me frazzled & drained n ofcourse confused - though later during the day i have a faint smile building up!
T found all this amusing & wacky till one fine day, i woke up in the midst of a 'fight' and found my hands wrapped tightly around his neck. Guess who had the last laugh? ;)
P.S.: left me paranoid too.. but guess T felt worse! ;)
Do i wish for a dream-catcher?.. Naaaah...occasionally, these adrenaline-dream-rushes are way too much fun to be traded for a good night's sleep i guess! ;)
In the pik: a multi-exposure collage of some clothes on a drying line & an early morning click at Gopalswamy hills, Mysore.

Stocking-ed flowers...

Made these flowers using stocking cloth. A colleague taught me the yellow ones & i experimented with the red ones the day i saw something similar at a fair... ;)
Taped a stick from a coconut frond & used it as the stem for the red flowers.

Coconut / Palm sepals décor... ;)

Coconut sepals have always fascinated me...From the time we were little & rolled baby coconuts beneath our feet lightly till the sepal came off as a bowl and were used to serve soup(ahem.. muddy water ;)) when we played guests...the removed coconut, with a stick poked through wound up as tender-coconuts being served... :D

I always thought that they would make amazing decorative pieces. But got to really using them only recently. Dried open sepals from a coconut can be varnished and stuck up in a vase. You could paint them too!
Palms trees have similar sepals - much larger - thatz what i have used here. Herez what i used them for - candle holders! :)Pick up the dried ones (u'll find a lot of these beneath coconut/palm trees) - clean with a dry brush/cloth and splash on some paint. I used enamel paint that you use on gates, windows etc - works out real cheap & has a glossy finish. For the bigger 'flowers', i used broader scented candles & tealight candles for the smaller ones. Works great for any festival or a cozy candle-light dinner too!... Reuse as many times as you like, changing colors if you need to match up your surroundings.
Need some change? Splash some color at the core, paste this 'flower' to a stick & pop it in a vase. I used the aerial roots of a Banyan tree to mount the 'flowers'. :)

My Snow Capped Camry...

Miss driving my Camry on cattle-n-people free roads! :)
In a weird way, miss the snow shovelin' @ 5:15AM for the 6 O'clock shift! Snow cleared, frozen sheets of ice broken, numb fingers, heater on n desperately wishin' 2 b warmly tucked in bed! The Scotsman-song on d radio did cheer me up! ;)

Vancouver - the best ever! :)

Clicks by Vishu... my possessions, though! :D

Looks like the signz got somebody thinkin'! ;)

Ganesh Chathurthi

Made modaks & 2 Coorg festive delicacies. The worse half was punished with an hour of 'no TV remote' for not helping! ;)
See the Vibhuti in the pik? Was flicked from Vishu! ;)

Jack-o'-lantern...

The Jack-o'-lantern that I carved out of a pumpkin for Halloween,'09. Thanks to Meenu! :)

Innovative dustbins!

@Kailashgiri, Vizag.

Windows to the rescue!

Anytime we travelled by public transport, Tims and me would always vie for the window-seat. That was until I gave him some logical reasoning...'Window' seats belong to 'Software Engineers'. The Mech guy now just makes way and moves away silently... and like always, the better half wins!! ;)

4340...

Clicked from my bedroom window on a wintry morn. Bennington Pond, Groveport.

En route Enlightenments!!

When counting sheep doesn’t seem to help and I end up staying awake throughout my 80km journey to work, here is a peek into the stuff I get to see…
- A dog pees like a man…standing on hind legs!
- A woman in a half sari does that too… balancing a basket on her head. Wonder how though!!
- I see little chicks that grow up into well fed hens and disappear one fine day, only to be replaced by little chicks again in the coop.
- Fully blown pictures of young gals dressed in all finery put up in villages to celebrate their first period! A feast follows and the picture is left to the mercy of the winds – probably till the fact that the little girl has ‘come of age’ is etched in every villager’s memory.
- Irrespective of the number of people boarding the college bus, there is not one person standing when the bus is on the move. Thanks to flexible bases and accommodating laps.
- Seats that I choose or begin to think are comfy get occupied when I just start thinking of the seat as ‘mine’!
- Saw some people bidding goodbyes to their dead, sitting by the road(!) and performing the last rites.
- Veggies being transported – some fall almost into the gutter but as long as they are retrievable, they are hauled back into the cart! Makes me wash veggies n times more!!! Ugh!!
- Stuff that blocks the gutter – plastic and the like is fished out and deposited by the side of the pavement in a heap. Only to be spread out on the road by scurrying feet/ the ever flowing vehicles. Heavy rains and they all go back into the gutter and the cycle continues. Ahem – atleast somebody has a job. So what if it is redundant? Huh!
- People spit out/blow their noses (double yuck!!!) out of windows, oblivious to others in the bus.
- This year, I knew the birthdays of high rung Telgu actors. Thanks to the innumerous wishes flashed in almost every village! Those guys must be shivering with so many ‘fans’ following. ;)
- Ice blocks are put in sacks and beaten up to be broken to be used in ‘on-the-move’ foodie carts. I sit back and hope with fervor that this is not followed elsewhere!
- All the weird little boards that are spelt wrong! Makes me want to go on a correcting spree with a bucket of paint & brush in hand! But on second thoughts, the struggle to decipher what it means and the smile that breaks out once you have it figured out … well, I guess it is worth the mistake!
- Love the green..Green and GREEN – the route that our bus takes!! But fellow travelers think that the city route is better since you get to check out lots of babes.. guess I’m growing old!!! – not that I’d prefer checking out babes anyways! ;)
- And yeah! It is beyond my comprehension as to how a village nested in the folds of the Simhachalam hill range can be HOT!!!
- Potters at their wheel – an everyday reminder that this is something I have to learn. Hmmnn.. got to learn enough Telgu to ask them to let me try my hand at it.
- Dads/friends/husbands/kids who come to drop off their dear ones… Kids waving byes to their mommies even after the bus moves on… awwww!! Makes me miss home!!
- Old beady eyed women dragging on their ‘sutta’ – an epitome of bliss!
- The never ending rows of lorries waiting for ore – the drivers caked in dust and soot, snoring under the shade of their vehicles, waiting for their turn.
- The whiff of freshly roasted cashews… makes me forgive and forget the dung and hen coop stenches that we just passed by.
...Counting on more sleepless rides!! :)

Being Acrophobic...

Was at a dinner when I noticed a tall mom lifting up her tiny tot. The height at which the kid was swaying in mid-air would probably ensure that he would never be acrophobic. Got me thinking if this was the reason why I need to pull myself together to get a peek from heights. My manufacturers are not the model-tall type which was probably why I got used to being at a comfortable height ;) ..just a thought. Not that my fear has stopped me from being adventurous...I can walk on a high ledge with a little quiver- but walk nonetheless.
And now, I am in search of an acrophobic person with tall parents who did carry him/her around as a kid.. :) I hope not to find one.. lest my theory fails!! ;)

A random Q!

Tims, my worse half, works with Ships. The guys had a camp in the desert. It got me thinking as to why people associated with the seas had a camp in a desert. I got my answer the next day when he told me that they rode camels :D
Hmmn.. Looks like these guys are mastering all the SHIPS! ~the ship of the desert included! ;) :D

'The' sign!

There is this funeral home a little further from office. They have a board put up at the entrance that reads- ‘One Way’. Every time I pass by I can’t help but wonder if people who ‘got in there’ really need that! :O

Location: Groveport, Columbus.

d taste or d memories!!?...

Had cranberries for the first time ... & it tasted something like I had never expected it to!! Does the taste cranberries give a cocktail, come from this stuff??!!! :o// .. & now when I think back to what I expected it to taste like, I don't have any answer!!

When Iwas just about to pop one, Snig told me that it tasted like tamarind(Incidentally, we ate them a lil' before they were ripe ;)).. I ate my first carnberry with childhood memories of filling up sacks of tamarind in the estate... a helper would climb the tree to pluck them & I would happily contribute my share by picking the fallen ones while munching on a pod- with looks of glee & little shreiks when the tartness hit my taste buds...

I told myself that I would surely like the crans & wasn't disappointed... :) I sometimes wonder if it is the taste that I actually like or the memories that go with it...

I luv neem leaves too...When we eat neem & jaggery for Ugadi(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugadi), I always end up with more than the quantity one would need to have as per the custom... & yes, they are real bitter... but I still luv them...It brings back memories of granpa- me settled on his lap, out on the portico, telling me stories & making this bitter stuff go down my throat with ease!!.. Granpa passed away when I was at an age that didn't make me realise what 'passing away' really meant... many memories that left a mark... lots of stuff that trigger those memories.. Though I don't usually talk much about him, with every phase of life, I stop & say to myself- "Granpa would have been real hapy bout tis!!"..

Hmmn.. do I really luv the tartness of cranberries?... do I luv the bitterness of neem?... Or- is it the kindled memories that make me luv them?..

Want v/s Need ;)

Vishu was asking me if I'd like to get something from India since somebody was coming over... lotsa things came to my mind at once... I tried shortening the list and realized that there was nothing I really needed & all that had been listed were wants!!! So I ended up telling him that there was nothing I needed(If Pa,Ma & Poon could have been valid on the list, they would be right on top!! :D)
I've been subconsciously using this for quite sometime if I've had to decide something... & it works!!!! :)
But then- Helllpppppp!!!! dunno why I'm blogging this!!! Hope I don't end up in self-realization classes!!! :o//