Realization is necessary !

When you are in the four walls of your home and living with your own people, everything seems good to you. You conclude that everyone is nice and caring in this world. Everyone thinks mostly alike on the major topics, or tend to agree in due time, living with each other and life is good!

But then when you go in the world outside, its different, a lot different. Definition of everything changes from person to person. You come to realize that its not the same world what you have learned about when you were in your home. You meet people who do not care about things that you care about.

And then you realize freshly about things, people, work, yourself, etc. What you thought about them is actually not what it is, it is a lot more or a lot less. What you thought is good is actually not good and vice-versa.

And such realizations are necessary. You at least get to know the true facts and come to face the reality !

Sisters...

I am blessed to have so many sisters. I have 6! And a long philosophical talk with them is really special. They have seen you grow, they know what you like, what you hate, what you actually are... and they can suggest you the best.
The elders one are there to tell you the goods and the bads, protect you and you can pamper the younger ones as much as you can and guide them. And once everyone is old enough, you can talk about anything to them, they wont judge you, never.

I had an amazing talk with my eldest sister who is 12 years elder to me... Both of us were choked, nothing serious, just the philosophy of life, how we should live our life, be happy and some stories around the world. And then I wrote a mail to my younger sister who is trying to make it through her challenges. I am thousand miles away from them but such talks and mails brings me so much close to them, I would do anything to not miss talking to them, they bring life into me, give me more energy.

Life with such relationships make it worthwhile!

Love you my six "sixers" and you all are precious!!! :-)

Cake time !

My first successful attempt of baking a cake in US, well actually second, this attempt being a better one. Thanks to my dear friend Anupama. It was her secret recipe to bake a cake without eggs.
Its amazingly cold outside, -18 C. I know, its cold! I saw some beautiful cakes on Food Network channel on TV and it was enough for my taste buds to crave for some chocolate cake. With the required raw materials at home, there comes a superb tasty cake ! You don't need a reason to relish a chocolate cake. Want some? :-)

Snow !

Its snowing outside, and the night looks like a beautiful dawn! Nothing can be more romantic than this... Only I wish I could go out and take a walk and some pictures, but its too cold.
Ok, time for some pictures that I could manage to take from my newly built patio... More Pictures

FRIENDS !

I read this and I burst out laughing... !
Please click the image and you will be directed to fuller version of the comic strip.

A week full of fun

I know I have not been here for over a month. That was not at all my plan when I started blogging... But was busy with lots of stuff last month. I wanted to write number of times on some random and weird things, but really could not. I will try to make that up this month. This post is a little personal, so might be a little boring also. :-)

I had been to India last week. I know, another trip to India, very short though just 10 days and 7 excluding the travel days. People tease me now, that I travel to India as if I travel Mumbai-Delhi. This was my 3rd India visit in last year, i.e from Nov 07 to Dec 08. Cool na... :D. And all these visits were actually not vacations, were family events/occasions/circumstances.

I arrived here in my Boulder home on Nov 30th, after 48 hours of travel. A huge con when you dont live in a city with International airport, in my case both the cities are without International airports. I was so frustrated at the end of my travel, I just felt like running back to my home in India.

Last three days in India were all about the Mumbai terrorist attacks. Keep watching the news, talk about it, mourn, get angry, frustrated, sad to see what is happening to India and what those idiots can do...

Then on tuesday, I saw Yuvraaj. And along with me, I took 13 people to see that movie in a nearby city, Sangli, which has multiplex theater, just coz one of my jiju does not like to see movies in my city, Ichalkaranji in those avg class theaters. Well, the movie was pathetic. Literally Pathetic. Everyone just screamed "Poonammm" during/after the movie. I am very good at sleeping in theaters, so I caught up with my pending sleep half hour in each half. :D. The best part was after that movie, we went to eat the street chats, sandwiches, juice, icecreams, dosas. Now thats what you miss being in US.

The main reason of my India travel was my first cousin, PD's wedding. PD is just seven days elder to me and we have lived 21 years together, together as in one house, one room in hostel, one class. So, a wedding which I really could not miss. We have had our best times and the worst worst (second worst in not by mistake, its intended) times together. We enjoyed a lot together - danced, ate, cried, fought, fought as in pulling hair fights also when we were very young. And then I also witnessed her love story. She got married to SK, our classmate in Pune. I always liked their couple, so I was always positive of they getting married and they had my support. This being a so called inter-caste wedding, and first of its kinds in our family. But glad that PD managed it all so well that our family didnt make it a big issue. Good to see my family being open now.

The wedding was fun. I enjoyed the most in this wedding compared to my other sister's wedding. Ate a lot, danced, laughed, skipped sleeping. All this time, I imagined how PD might be feeling. What is going on in her minds, her nervousness. The night before her actual wedding day, I just felt to tell her that its her last night in this house as a Dalya. But I passed that, coz I didnt want everyone to start crying. Oh yeah, those who are not aware, daughters still cry after the wedding - the so called Bidai.:-). And with her the whole family starts crying. And the males, the emotion hidders, keep shouting "why do you have to cry after having such a fabuolous wedding". They themselves feel a lot, but being men they cant shed tears. Sad for them ! :-)

I was even thinking of writing a blog on how an Indian girl feels when she is getting married. Even before the wedding, I kept thinking what would be PD going through now... its such a different thing... You are leaving your house and staying with some new people with new relations. Well, thats how it is... and looks like it has been good with everyone so far. :-)

So the wedding was lots of fun. I reached just a day before the wedding, everyone (I have a big joint family) was already in the mood of wedding, dancing, singing. Joined in the revelry the same night I reached there. I also made a short trip to Pune to attend PD's reception. Met my dear friends with their husbands for the first time. And I liked seeing them with their better halves. :-)

While on my way to Mumbai, I hopped over London. I had 12 hour lay over in London. So, I went around London a little, met a friend there. London was all decked up for Christmas, glittering with lights. I loved the lights !

And during this trip, I used my Canon quite a bit. Will upload the pictures today and update this post with a link !