GOING PAPERLESS

WENT A LITTLE MORE PAPERLESS TODAY - CONVERTED ALL MY CREDIT CARD HARD COPIES TO E-STATEMENTS THIS MONTH ON. LONG OVERDUE.

Not been able to write.... too fragmented and fractionated with stuff right now...!

God's plans...

Sitting in front of my TV, waiting for the Ayodhya verdict, I was wondering about God's plans... I often do...

I was born to be a mother! I have a few extra strands of the 'nurturer' DNA in my genetic make-up, people close to me say, and I have been good with kids from when I was slightly more than one myself! 


Obviously, it was simply a matter of time!

Growing up - like everyone else - I thought my life would follow the everyday path - major in Eng lit (like my Mom)... a job with my ad agency of choice Lintas,  topped up by a picture perfect marriage (but naturally) with a corporate honcho and then the two kids (ideally a girl and a boy)! 


A life, complete with the veritable white picket fences was mine for the taking! 


Ivory towered ignorance reigned supreme when I majored as planned, got the job I wanted and then the marriage that I thought I wanted.... but it turned out, life was doing her own thinking or rather God was having fun! (not that I am complaining)

Things didn't quite turn the way I thought it would - apparently everyone knew that, but me! But that experience was priceless - it taught me so much and made me a more tempered person (or so I would like to think)! It also taught me to respect what I have and count my blessings! And most importantly, it made me self reliant and finally, I grew up!


(Mind you I have no heinous tales to tell about the ex - we were just from two distant libraries from different countries altogether, when it came to the idea of what married life should be all about,  yes ma-in-law tales I have - aplenty, which amused my friends endless, but she was not responsible for any of what panned out!) 


I left advertising, worked with an US based NGO, headed marketing with a dotcom set-up, headed a celebrity management outfit and dabbled with consultancies of varied kinds - me, the same person who thought she would live and breathe and die advertising! Right now I am busy chasing dreams that peeped in and made their presence felt along the way. The picket fence firmly on the back-burner for the moment! 


In the mean, my friends' kids of varying age groups, fill my universe - and with most of them I share relationships which I cherish! 


But the one who will be a tad bit more special than most has to be Sana - an adorable bundle, my girlfriend Anju's daughter - the first new born baby I held in my arms ever - minutes after she was born! I don't have words to describe that moment - its beyond beyond! Sad though that I can't see her grow right in front of my eyes, thanks to transatlantic distances, but every time I see her updated pics I am filled with wonder and my eyes fill up a bit!

As they say, woman proposes while God sits up there and laughs, because he has other plans for you that you have no clue about... but in the end, its all good! 

Meal diary

MORNING


water + vitamins
green tea + dark choc thins
blueberry pancakes + black coffee


MID MORNING
Nothing mad day again - domestic madness


LUNCH
Chicken kebabs (the thing of cooking for one person things never get over) 
spinach pepper and beans salad


TEA
Tea
pan grilled green moong dal pakora (oil free)


PRE-DINNER
Nimbu paani


DINNER
Egg white wraps filled with minced chicken




PS: its a movie night - so some popcorn will find its way too.... 

Standing and staring...

I love the pastoral... the rural.... the country...I would be lost without....


When I travel - I always mix up the city lights with gorgeous splashes of town and country, much to everyone's amusement.


Being a city girl - country to me is Utopian - there's something so soothing... so calm... so unspoilt as it were, about it! I am filled with joyous delight, drinking in the gorgeous scenery... soaking in the crisp sweet sun... breathing in the clean clean air... as I stare at the triple rainbows painted across the horizon or sit by a pond feeding swans and ducks. 


Being a city girl again - I can't do with out the frenetic pace of a Mumbai, New York or London for too long, but a Stratford-on-Avon, Kendal or Trent is like a balm to my senses, that heals me and sends me forth for a few more rounds of dynamic mad city life!


Country is where I stand and stare... without the rush to be somewhere else...


As Henry Davies once said:
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare


And the cycle continues.... 

Life...

I have been agitating about this shipment I ordered from Barnes & Noble, USA - a bunch of dvds and  a book - about 8 weeks back. Their normal delivery timeline is about a month. In the mean they even delivered one dvd which I hadn't even ordered, but no sight of the stuff I'd actually asked for!


Today just as I cribbed on twitter - my doorbell rang and it was the shipment!!!!!


Does this tell me something about life? Sure does.... agitating is pointless - things happen in their own time - I just have to keep doing my bit.... 


Someone up there knocks on my head gently!

Meal diary

Brekky
green tea


black coffee
granola with yogurt and blueberry


mid morning
domestic strife - no snack


lunch
mediterranean chicken and couscous salad 


afternoon snack
green tea + a small piece of dark chocolate


evening
tea + lavash w/tahini


dinner
chicken shammi kabab + salad