There's more.

“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”

― Arundhati Roy, The Cost of Living

Khan Academy

Aurora Borealis

I'm learning to be kind again.


Category: Beautiful Bordeaux

Only the best of friends can tell you that you're a size 6 for clothes when you've forgotten.
:D

Category:<3>

Q) Was it worth it?
A) Every bit of it so far.

Category: Beautiful Bordeaux

My mushroom filled savoury 'crepes' although really yummy, taste an awful lot like chapatis...


Category: Kitchen superstardom

I've forgotten

What it feels like to just go to bed and read before falling asleep
What it is to sleep without waking up from bad dreams
To wake up and not worry that I'm going to fail



Category: Malaise

Jane Eyre


Category: How we love our period British novels

Winter has come.

Kitchen Superstardom

Today has just been lovely.
I started off with waking up late, racing to class with Almina (my best friend here) and no breakfast, only to find out that the professor was half an hour late and had forgotten to inform us.
After 6 hours of class, (a breeze for me after being accustomed to working 8 1/2 hours everyday, including Saturday), I decide that it's time to display my culinary prowess in the kitchen...or  what passes for a kitchen in my tiny apartment.
I start off with a simple cabbage only I somehow manage to burn it (I mean, how difficult can it be to cook a cabbage??) and set the smoke alarm off in the mean time.
One would imagine that I'd learned my lesson by then but no... I proceed, in the spirit of Christmas, to make kul kuls for our Christmas party tomorrow. Yes, that's right. As it turns out, the kul kuls that I started out making are nothing close to kul kuls. What they ended up being are bite sized pancakes :/ On the bright side though, they were mistaken for traditional Moroccan AND Russian food and were were gone in sixty seconds at the Christmas party.

Category: Master chef Bordeaux

Giving feedback is an artform.

I love.


Category: As much as I am capable of

I have a plan.
It's called, give up and get fat.


-
Her Royal Fatness
:(

A bit of a surprise but I absolutely love my own cooking. Who would have thought.
:D

Bordeaux is beautiful.

Food before infidelity issues.
Who's with me :)??

Every morning when I wake up, as I'm lying around in bed, I tell myself, 'Get up, go out. Don't miss the day.'

Category 1: Beautiful Bangalore
Category 2: The best weather in the world

The best kind of shopping.

Category: Book Shopping

Loss.

There is so much pleasure in being in love.

A resounding no.

Presumptuous and proud.

A pox be upon you!

What next?

I can only be grateful that my head does and always did work even when nothing else did.

Offended

It looks like they're burning money.
I find offensive, the ignorance connected to the evolution of convenience.
I wonder how they plan on destroying online banking transactions. Can't burn that.

Existential Crisis

My friend goes through them often because of the stage he's ended up acting on.
I've caught it. Like an illness. And because I have, it's becoming harder and harder to care about anything at all.

Beggars- the weaker species will die out
Empathy- some evolutionary trait
Patterns- We seem to admire things on repeat.
Sex education, condoms & moral science- everything, every single thing we do, pushes us towards the survival of the race. Like any other insect or animal. Like anthills, beehives, plants or parasites.

The only thing that lies between here and death is gratification (of self). Romanticised in all its glory.

Category 1: What's the story?
Category 2: Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory

Climbing makes you feel better about life.

Time flies whether or not you're having fun.

Every time they called his name, they called the name of God.

:)

Category 1: Strategy

Category 2: Shreeram

Donkey Kong?

Funniest picture we took all day :)

It's been a year.
I'm still not used to going into work on Saturday and I still get depressed every Friday.


Category: Cheers to the freakin' weekend

My mother's come up with his brilliant new strategy to wake everybody up.

Playing loud Hindi music (with song interpretation) early in the morning.
:/

Here's one gem from today:
If you want to see something, look.
If you want to touch something, touch it.
If you want to smell something, smell it.
Enjoy the experience but know that it's not forever. If it's a flower, for example, it's going to die.
It's not nice, but it's reality.

So don't get attached.

Category: 6 AM

I love the silence that ensues after I tell someone who wanted to be my 'friend', that I'm 32 and nearly twice their age :D.

If only everything else in life was this easy.

Fly

Airports & Train Stations

This year's holiday, wonderful as it was had entirely too many airport and train station intervals if you ask me.
That's probably what happens when I plan my own trips, I suppose.

Kempagowda Airport: I forgot my flight ticket. Fortunately, they let me board with just my passport
Muscat Airport: I bump into my best friend and we hang while we wait for our flights
Paris CDG: Laura, my sister, arrives to pick me up, convinced that I'd get lost the metro ride from the airport to the apartment. :)

Paris CDG: Lufthansa is automating everything, right from getting your boarding pass, by simply scanning your passport, to checking in your luggage, by scanning your boarding pass. It's wonderful, although I can't but help think about the loss of jobs.
Munich Airport: I lied at the ticket counter saying I was traveling with a group when I wasn't (to get a cheaper ticket). As I feared, I got caught.
Munich station: Uneventful (Don't shop at the Hbh station. Shop at the airport supermarket instead, it's cheaper)
Paris metro: A man helps me with my heavy suitcase; two older gentlemen help me again when it gets stuck at the gate. I make it to the airport with no further incidences.
Muscat Airport: I bump into two friends heading back. We're on the same flight. We meet at the grubby section reserved for grubby Indians for grubby flights to India.
Kempagowda Airport: I worry that my suitcase is not on the carousel because I've been caught for not declaring all that cheese and that 1 tulip bulb that I brought back. What really happened was that I'd forgotten which suitcase I was carrying and was looking out for the wrong one.


This summary makes me fear for myself :/


Category: Help!

Keep your shoulders back and back straight.
Seriously.

It supports your neck and will stop you from damaging your neck and back while you're spending hours and hours in front of the computer.

Category: Advice
Type: Free

Grieving?

Secret Ballot

I don't tell people who I voted for.
I tell some people I applaud the idea of anti corruption.
Others, the idea of economic growth
And still others, that I support the idea of a secular state.

When I did press that button though, it was with a clear mind and a certain amount of trepidation. 

There's something about exercise that makes you feel better about life.

The Boyfriend

There I was all shaggy browed and mustachioed. Far behind on my 'social maintenance'.
He looks at me. Slightly proud of his entry into dangerous unchartered territory.
'You look different. You've done your eyebrows haven't you?' He beams.

Nope, eyebrows not done, upper lip as hairy as ever. No makeup (which was actually what it was).

I laughed as I thought about how love is blind, just like stereotypical males when it come to women and beauty regimes.
The best kind to be with.

Like a sour lemon ><

For India

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

-
Rabindranath Tagore

People function better when appreciated.

Everybody should dance!

I'm happy but my head hurts like anything.


Category: The after effects of good news

Wondering how someone can be so detached is like looking in the mirror.


Category: Welcome home Spock

Visas

I'm filling up the visa form. Slowly. In stages. I'm 3/4 done. It's taken me two attempts. The same as it did to get my first passport.

For someone who loves traveling, I absolutely hate the process.


Category: Why can't we just get on a boat and go?

:)

I've decided.
Next year, I'm going to be happy. Sunny places and sunny people.
Yey!

Three things made me exceedingly happy today.
1) The concept of the pump
2) The fact that the internet exists
3) The quick response to the answer to the following question:
A monk starts at 6AM at the bottom of the mountain and climbing at a random page and resting randomly, he reaches the summit at 6PM. The following morning, he starts descent, along the same path, at 6AM and reaches the base at 6PM. Prove that there was a time on both days, when he was at the exact same spot on the mountain, regardless of how fast or slow he walked. Prove that it is inevitable.

A fool and his money are soon parted.

I've slipped into an addictive sort of lifestyle that's terribly unhealthy. The worst part, like all addictions; I'm enjoying it.
I want to crochet, watch house, study French, learn that French song, sort out production and marketing for Boho Chic- an interesting project for me, read- fiction and non.
Why is this unhealthy? An 81/2 hour work day (not counting traveling), six days a week, doesn't give me enough time to do it all. Sleep compromise, naturally follows. If sleep is compromised, I don't wake up to exercise, no exercise, no sun, I don't meet people. I'm tired all the time and my body hurts, my bones are stiff.

I told my father today, I was going to die an early death.

He called me a hypochondriac.

Take your socks off

I've caught myself wondering if life is like a series of Sylvia Plath moments. Not happy. Neither unhappy. A perfect shade of dissatisfied. Things are about 99% right. That 1% like a grain of sand in your sock.


Category: Where have the unicorns gone?

Being absolutely right about something, doesn't mean a thing if you put it across wrong.

Category 1: The path of least resistance
Category 2: The smartest path of all

Summer is surely upon us.

Category: Bleh

The one thing I never thought I'd be accused of having; ample cleavage!

Category: Seriously?!

Isn't there?

There's always some kind of relief with the ending of a relationship.

Apathy Kills

Knowing someone just like you is liberating but sad at the same time.

Are people really entitled to their views?


Category: :)

Bohemian rhapsody - The Hindu

Bohemian rhapsody - The Hindu

Part 1
I'm trying to open myself to the idea of being unethical.
While I don't think I'd ever actually be that way, I'm exploring redefining the definition.

1) Who decides what's right and wrong?
A) You, obviously. (or for the those that can't think for themselves, your priest or religious leader)

2) On what basis do you decide?
a) What's best for you? b) What's best for the greatest number? c) What's best for the underdog?

There's no such thing. You make it up as you go along. :)

 Part 2
Yesterday I watched 12 years a slave. A difficult movie to watch for me. The atrocities leave me outraged.
A few things from the movie stuck.

- A large enough people thought that slavery was alright.
- There were enough who believed otherwise.

 To more good people


Part 3
I was thinking about this.
- The Pharaohs had their slaves
- The Feudal lords had their serfs
- The large corporations have us

Am I a slave? Do I mind? Have the corporations got the balance right? What about the Pharaohs and the Feudal lords? 

Part 4
I watched a documentary on Karl Marx yesterday and while I didn't necessarily agree with his purported ideas, he left me inspired.
  
Part 5
In the Mahabharatha, as Draupadi was being stripped, blame was accorded 3 ways and with different weightage. 50% blame on the offender, 25% on the accomplice and 25% on the one who stands by and does nothing.


Part6
So far, there has only been one ideology I've come across that is so encompassing, succinct and ironic at the same time; it fits everything.
Jo jeeta, woh hi sikandar

I'm going through a period of apathy. The only thing that can save me is my books.

If we have chosen the position in life in which we can most of all work for mankind, no burdens can bow us down, because they are sacrifices for the benefit of all; then we shall experience no petty, limited, selfish joy, but our happiness will belong to millions, our deeds will live on quietly but perpetually at work, and over our ashes will be shed the hot tears of noble people.

- Karl Marx
Reflections of a Young Man on The Choice of a Profession

Let's not get started on the books

A Better India, A Better World
Bal Thakeray & The Rise Of The Shiv Sena

Magpie

I suddenly can't get enough of it all. I want these. For my best friends and me.

Red Onyx Maang Tikka

 

 Chandbali Emerald Earrings

 

 

 Turquoise Inlay Silver Ring

Under Pressure

How much outrage this faced. But I can't get over how brilliant it is :)

On another note, there's a movie. Mona Lisa smile. In it, this girl who is full of potential chooses to be a wife and mother over an education and career.

And finally, a happy man eats when he wants, sleeps when he wants... you get the drift

I wonder why, given their nature, they would agree to living in a space half the size of what they were accustomed to.
For the cut. That's why.

Category: The division of family

This one guy, with pride stated that he could cut off any friendship if he wanted to; just like that. What a special guy.

And this other guy similarly seemed to think he was something extraordinary because he seemed just about capable of pulling off basic manners.

Category: Throw a stone, you'll hit an idiot

Losing it

The truth is, I don't exactly remember what I did on my birthday. I just know it was good.


Category: Memory or Mind

I looked at a pair of shoes that this girl had put up on this #100daysofhappiness thing that's floating around Facebook. How can a pair of shoes make someone so happy?

Category: How?

How has it come to pass that I don't have time to read anymore?

So tonight that I might see
- Mazzy Star

32

Already?? :)

Category: The best birthday

Do

If you do something repeatedly, it gets easier.

I didn't think I'd see it in this lifetime. I'll certainly be voting this National  Elections.

Category: Fingers crossed