1/1/'11

exactly my plan for coming year. NO!! it's not any obvious hint towards running away or something as idiotic. 
What am I? 15??
I just want to travel more! See more places, find the peace, bring in more creativity and joy.

1/1/'11 is here finally!

 As for new year wishes,

Not much to say, 'cept wish everyone a happy, happy, REALLY happy year ahead.I never was much into ceremonies. I'm unceremonious even in the required times.
Which is why new years do't mean much, neither do resolutions.But sometimes you totally have to promise yourself some stuff.

My resolution #1 [and the only one really] as regards my blog: Less comebacks and more posts. 

Yes! Cheer for me so that I don't end up breaking this word!

***
What was 2010 for me?
Apart from being extremely busy, over-straining myself and breaking down in the process;
I went places,
Learnt more stuff,
Have gotten much more patient [or so methinks]
and watched tonnes of Korean stuff.

The good:

1. Samsung died on me and I switched to Nokia ExpressMusic.
2. Had several meetups with the Girlfriends-of-the-{add several, several} millenia. Last one was yesterday. Awesome!
3. Uncle's housewarming.
4. Subscribed to the awesomest Indian magazine out there-The Tehelka.
5. Almost forgot- lots happening for The Downtroddence [will post on them soon. real soon!]!!

Sad things?

1. More people got married and drifting away
2. Friends and friends' family getting abused, cheated upon and divorced. =(
3. Read lesser books cos of lack of time SLASH lack of time management.
4. And another favorite girlfriend moves out o town. =( But she's doing really fine, so- w00t!
5. .Deaths, suicides.
6. Most of my Eids and my Christmas this year were ruined thanks to effing-aptly timed exams. Dang!
7. The kitten I saw getting killed by some stray dog. Could do absolutely nothing to save it. Had to watch it die.

Another to-do for 2011-
Meet at least ONE blogger buddy. We'll see how that turns out. =/




PS- and don't forget! 2010 was The year of Rajni! ynna rascala...! ;) I don't know about you, but I think he's one of the humblest actors out there in all of Indian tinseltown

and thus the long awaited brother-sister road trip finally happened

Everything else took a back seat for these past 7 days.

Yes, all you jealous ppl, I had a fantastic brother-sister-road-trip-of-sorts. The destination wasn't fancy by any means, but there was a comfy house tucked away in a suburb of Tamil Nadu. my uncle's place. our favorite vacation retreat.

My favorite parts from the trip?
*EVERYTHING! EVERY SINGLE MOMENT!

*the lure of the train. [you know i love them!There's a gypsy in me that LOVES roads,wheels,winds,traveling and the whole package about road trips]

*my favorite cousin/brother for company.

*sharing the music [Than ta naaaa!!!!!!!!{kaminey} for one]

*Kite Runner. [my choice for on-the-move read. Bro had "The Broker"-John Grisham] i swear i almost cried thru several parts of it.

*making acquaintances on the train. i chose not to ask their names though, what's the fun if you can't add some imagination to all those friendships you made?!

*all those late-night movies and laughing at tacky old Tamil movies. [no offense meant!]and throw in the bits where we fought over the remote like we were kids.[never mind that we are both way past the age to fight like kids!!]

*and add to that the fact that we two bought a whole box of chocolates to go with the tv watching. munch,munch,munch.

*THE Shopping. ohhhhhhhh, the shop-all-day at Coimbatore!

*Uncle lent me a book of his, the one which he hadn't parted with in all of the 20 odd years of owning it, yet. And I'm the lucky girl who gets her hands on it. The book?
Between Ourselves: letters between mothers and daughters.
*Him saying that I was going to be his heiress. No, not money. But to his VAST collection of books. Think of every masterpiece, memorable books and all those good books- he's got 'em all in his shelves.
And I'm going to inherit them all!!!!!!!
-------------
I don't care if I don't actually get those books. Just the idea that he thought me important enough to leave his precious books with... that's the best part of it.

*The food. We dined out virtually every day. Went to many of the well known South Indian restaurants around there.And I have tasted some of the best veg food, plus discovered how spicy the "dragon chicken" dish was. Yum!

And the best-best part of all? That bonding time. With the best uncle in the world and my aunt and,most importantly-
with the best cousin in the whole wide world.

Beyond sharing music,books,movies,chocolates and some sizable portions of good television watching [which would include NDTV, Nat Geo as well-IF you're wondering what i meant by good television watching]
and some dumb fights,
and 'fessing up on past relationships [read-ruined relationships],
our shady records of shady vices,sins and our dealings with:
Stuff-considered-taboo-in-our-family;

i know I have a wonderful brother of a lifetime.
He's always been so good; despite me being one big jerk of a sister to him. :D





The part I didn't like-

*Eating prior to long journeys makes me queasy, for some mysterious reason. On the other hand, when I travel on an almost empty stomach, I'm so good!

Maybe I'm just being psycho.


-this shot taken from Flickr

25 unexpected things about me

...which I don't think you will EVER comprehend. But still, you ought to know, since I was tagged to do this list long time back.
[See Jean? i keep promises, even if I do delay them by years at times!]

Shall we begin?

1. I believe in "15 till I die!"[doesn't make much sense since I'm no more even a teen]

2. I bought a cell phone only this January. It's weird that I have been phone-less for so long when everyone 13+ now seems to have a phone to boot.

3. I'm the mastermind who comes up with the zaniest and most impractical plans for my group. Never mind that we never try to actually work them out.

4. I'm insanely in love with, and proud of my pet name. You probably could only find people who are ashamed of their pet names. Not me!

5. And I love my real name just as much.

6. I like my blogger name too! [okay, that's it. I'm gonna stop gushing over my own names. makes me look like I have a totally inflated ego]

7. I STILL fantasize that I have this long-lost twin brother/elder brother whose name matches mine-Azhar! Now all I gotta do is find him,maybe he's in S.Korea? Or Spain? Papua New Guinea?

8. I'm sliiightly claustrophobic. I can bear closed spaces but they freak me out. Like, I could be sitting in the aircraft, and all that I can think of is that I'm stuck in here, can't simply walk out of this craft, what if it crashes, etc etc... Which is why I TOTALLY heart the desi autorickshaws. Yeah! completely desi girl!

9. I'm having a non-stop craving for pani-puris which aren't available anywhere within 1000 miles of where I live. Will anyone ship them to me??

10. I hate Roadies and Splitsvilla. Roadies used to be okay until the fourth season, then they lost it. Splitsvilla? you watch it, and I have a valid reason ow to hate you. Ugh!

11. I'm not exactly ur idea of healthy girl. in fact, i look positively anorexic. and i'm not interested enuf to eat a lot. but it ain't bcos I wanna stay skinny. it's just that i never was a foodie.

12. i enjoy cartoons much more than my kid sis. she likes hindi serials [OMG!] ...nah, just kidding!

13. I'm messy. And my mom's a cleanliness-freak.

14. I'm friggingly awesome at annoying people. My guru who kick started that passion in me is Alden Nusser whose book "French Fries Up your Nose" inspired me and has changed me into a "better" person forever. Hats off to you dude, you are the ultimate star!

15. have got wild, untameably curly hair. but i still love it sooo much!

16. I don't sweat much, even if i do, i don't turn on the fan. it's all about conserving energy bud.

17. my IDEAL PLAN FOR THE MOMENT is, save up money, hire an RV-trailer sort of bus/van[the kind rock stars travel in during tours], and go on the trip of a life-time across India with my Offbeat girlfriends,all the other People-I-Love. W.o.w! We'll have a video-cam and I'll keep on blogging to let you into the details.

18. I'm an obsessive kind of person. I get crushes and obsessions quickie.

19. I never had cable tv ever at my home. The first time came now, for this 2 month vaca. We are DD Direct DTH subscribers.

20. I smell my food before eating it. If it smells right, it tastes right!

21. I'm downright obsessed with the Korean channel on my DD DTH network. So much that I'm a complete die-hard fan of South Korean pop culture and now I know more about South Korean stars than I ever was interested in Bolly stars.

22. In fact, the reason WHY I'm a cable tv subscriber now is because DD DTH has removed my Korean channel from the network.

23. Even now I hound Korean entertainment blogs and websites for the latest info about what's going on there. I'm a major fan of South Korean music nowadays.

24. My choice of speaking vocab is plain weird and outta-this-world.

25. My former obsessions include F.R.I.E.N.D.S [sane enuf], Rajeev Khandelwal [bored now], Harry Potter [I even have HP game cards and a Marauder's map of my college i created myself], and there are obsessions that still prevail, like brothers, Keira Knightley etc. I'm guessing my craziest obsession to date must be This S.Korean one though.

My current celebrity crushes are two Korean stars, Lee Minho and Kang Ji Hwan. Two very wow personalities.


I tag anyone who is interested enough.

Happiness and some sadness too

Cool times, this.
Not just the weather, the whole sit. is quite fun!
Watching a suspense-thriller late-night stretching into early morning with my favourite cousin and then gabbing with her literally into the morning. My! I thought it was time to check the time and what do you guess? We had talked 4hours straight to 4am! Way too good! But the one bad thing was that we were looking like a pair of zombies just landed hereabouts, by the time it was morning.

That day was packed with mixed feelings.
For starters, my cousin gets a 93% for his xii-th! So obviously I was on cloud number 9 with pride and joy.
On the other side, another cousin flunked the same exam. Felt too sorry for that.

I finished the latest of Chetan Bhagat- The 3 mistake of my life. Nice one. The religious tensions, small town scenario.. I'm not saying much. Youjust read and tell me. Stars? 4 on 5? Mayyybeee.
But One night @ the Call Center? C'mon now! D'you think anything's left to say? Damn good!
I felt so blown away by the last page!

Apart from books and cousin's exam results, I was watching the cartoons in the evening.
Winni the Pooh! Sheesh, they are so nice and happy. This episode was on how everyone tries to "pin down" Tigger [my favourite-favourite!! I swear am half madly in love with the bouncy creature!], and tries to glue him to places or something. Then I had to leave for a while, by then which things had moved on. The animals were huddled together in the woods scared of a something. Well, they saw a white something; which was actually a scared Piglet in white pillow cover. It was just so funny and hilarious that in five minutes I was laughing, no, I was guffawing !!Mom was irritated at my undignified response to a cartoon. Who's bothered? I was having a happy time!
And in between more happy news. My cousin has got a cool rank in the entrance exams as well!

I have a wedding coming up this weekend. So, meet ya after that!
Ciao!

Plus, it's raining half the days of the week which staightaway corresponds to an increase in power cuts in my place. *I'm feeling soo grouchy about that.