Friday 3 August, 2007

TGIF & TGIA

Thank God Its Friday & Thank God Its August.

Lets welcome August. This is the start of Indian festivals season. As we round off with aadi we can look forward to all popular festivals one behind the other.

Actually I can't believe that 7 months are over since 2007 started.

Right now I am happy with the way this week has treated me. Be it my work, or friends, or my spirits, everything has been good.

Another week well spent... another reason to thank God :)

Monday 30 July, 2007

Weekend Jottings

Last weekend, I spent the first half of Saturday with my dad and mom. Second half saw me battling mosquitoes, as I sat for the movie Chennai - 600 028 in the outdoor theatre.

The movie had good music, youthful concept, it traced the trials and tribulations faced by a group of youngsters.

Sunday was really worth waiting for. My granny, uncle, cousin and myself went to visit a few temples. We went upto Thiruvallur. Each and every temple we visited, was unique its own aspects.

The first temple we saw was, dedicated to guardian god Muneeshwaran. The temple was small yet well maintained, protective, yet scary.. phew I was it felt creepy to see a black goat and a rooster toed to a tree.

Then we proceeded to the famous ancient temple "Veer Raghav Perumal Temple". The presiding deity was majestic and was in full glory. But I had my share of fun when I went to the 'goshala' or the cow shed... Three cute little calves were lying down in the shed. They were so soft to touch and I was pleading to my granny that she should get me one sooner or later.

We then went to 'Pancha Mukha Anjeyenar Temple". The journey wasn't easy cos we were driving around for a pretty long time and getting lost repeatedly. Then we finally spotted him - A majestic 30 plus feet of black stone sculpted with five different heads.

Our next stop was another Anjeyenar temple at Kakkalur. This tiny little temple was flooded with people and peppy bhajan music greeted us as we neared the temple gates. We were curious to know what was going on. Men of assorted age groups clad in saffron coloured dhotis took turns to brush themselves with what looked like a thick stick spitting out fire, as they tranced to the bhajan like music.

Our last stop was the "Angala Parameshwari temple" . OH GOSH ! I went through a mixed bag of emotions throughtout our 3 hours spent inside the temple.

Since it was the month of AADI and this is an AMMAN temple in the heart of a village, and it was a Sunday... in addition it was a full moon day. So needless to say, it was crowded. I am actually quite tired to narrate all that happened there (or maybe even lazy :P)

On the whole... yeah it was a jam packed outing. I reached home for hot coffee and snacks , courtesy, mom.

And I winded up my day by getting back in touch with a very dear friend. My day was made :)

Friday 27 July, 2007

TGIF - last weekend of july

This week has been quite hectic. But I have a few reasons to cheer up

  • Neo got his call at last!
  • I have started a new weight loss plan (Hope it works :-|)
  • I have been waking up pretty early this week
  • A very dear friend will get to proceed with his PG (A very good news indeed)
And something to expect this weekend...
  • This weekend I get two days off... yipee no work this Saturday. Will catch up with all those pending work
  • Will positively watch Chennai- 600 028 this Saturday (Ok ... I know that it is an old movie according to the average-movie-goer's standards.. you can consider me as several negative degrees below such a standard)
  • I guess these two plans will be enough for now... If any other plan crops up, I'll update that in my next post.
Cya

Have a great weekend

Wednesday 25 July, 2007

A 'Light' Dinner

Yesterday I was pretty concerned about my weightloss plans. More concerned than usual. I was already pissed off that I had missed my evening workout due to change in some plans. So I decided to cheer up by making dinner. My lil bro wanted something which tasted like Chinese ... a Manchurian if possible.

I used a weird combination of ingredients.

  • sprouts
  • tofu
  • soya chunks
  • cottage cheese
  • onion
  • tomato
  • ginger
  • garlic
  • chillies
  • chilli powder
  • salt
  • cornflour
  • soya sauce (????? what not on earth !!!!)

And all these 'collaborated' to yield a reddish brown gravy with these chunks of soya, tofu and cottage cheese in between and tasted like... well ummmmm.... indianised version of the Chinese Manchurian???? (Yeah , thats what it tasted like.. and yeah my brother liked it, but he still hates sprouts) Maybe I should name this - The ultimate protein manchurian :P

My mom was making chapathis. We finally settled down for dinner. I took out my mobile and sent a quick SMS (I told you SMS is an addiction for me) to Neo.

“Hi da. We are having Candlelight dinner “

“oh”

“Yeah because of powercut”

“ha ha ha”

I laughed to myself looking at his reply and continued with my dinner in the middle of a powercut thanks to the candlelight. Post dinner, I went to the balcony for some fresh air. I was overwhelmed by what I saw.

Soft Moonlight from the half-full moon.. And a gentle breeze was blowing. Wooow, what a treat for the senses.

And then I took a good view of the city from the balcony of our 8th floor apartment. Suddenly I felt so good. I had forgotten about the power cut which is usually irritating. Probably it was the after effects of my 'light' dinner :P


Saturday 21 July, 2007

I deserve a treat

Yesterday evening, I was winding up for the day.. when I got a call.

*"SanNeo" calling*

"Hi da sollu... "

"Akka.. guess what... I got mail from Wipro"



Yipeee.... that calls for a celebration I thought. But my face slightly dropped when he said he is leaving for training on Aug 24th :(

I was looking forward that he'll be in station until the end of August.. for some reason.. but it's ok, I am happy that his mail had finally arrived. Anyways he'll be back 3 months later. Good news to rejoice. That guy better treat me before he leaves.

Catch him at Metamorphosis . Splendid collection of short stories that he had written. All the best to you da.

You will deliver what you have promised me.

Friday 20 July, 2007

TGIF .. He is coming

This was probably the most boring week in July(except for that funny Wednesday birthday dinner). So what if it's Friday today. But its Saturday tomorrow (and I am working.. sigh !).

The final installment from the quills of Ms. J.K. Rowling... did I overdo it?... ok.. the seventh book of the Harry Potter series is due for a worldwide release tomorrow. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the much awaited book of the year which has kept fans guessing over, whats going to happen to the boy-wizard. Who's gonna take charge of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? Is Harry going to survive? Will Harry and Ginny get back? What's gonna happen to Snape?

Well this book is going to answer all these magical questions that maybe running inside millions of 'muggle' heads.

I started reading Harry Potter pretty late after it became famous. Maybe three years back ! But I am now, a fan of Ms. Rowling who has kindled the imagination of millions.. probably billions and billions of people world over. I didn't get a chance to attend any of the previous mega book releases held in the various book stores. I had been waiting to attend the last and final release, which is gonna happen tomorrow, July 21st, 2007. Wow ! It's going to be a magical moment.

Major bookstores are going to look like Mini Hogwarts with kids and adults masquerading like characters from 'the magical world'. Celebrations are going to start from 5 am. Wish I can be a part of it. I am still keeping my fingers crossed. I have been nagging my mom about this release for the past ten.. no.. twenty..umm no... for many days.

But as my luck could have it, tomorrow I am working, and in the evening I have to attend an important family gathering. Maybe if lucky, my dad might drive me straight into a bookstore before we attend the gathering.

*Taking a deep breath* Things can certainly brighten up. Hoping for that.

Have a great weekend !

Thursday 19 July, 2007

Girls' day out can be a dangerous affair

I am not kidding !

I am damn serious about this statement. Yesterday I met up with my buddies for a birthday dinner and we nearly got killed.

Who's the culprit? It's we ourselves. Right from the time we met at the restaurant gates till we bid each other bye , we had laughed continuously. Hey.. no.. don't jump to conclusions. There's nothing wrong with us, nor are we prospective inmates of KMH. We were meeting after a couple of months, and every sentence spoken, to even the tiniest of gestures, had some funny connotation behind it that could be understood only by people with funny bones the size of a woolly mammoth.

Well there are some reasonably funny situations where the birthday girl says: "AG.. come on lets order soup"

And she waves to the steward who comes upto take the order. My other friend and myself were quite ready to place the order as we had already seen the menu. The steward comes to our table and is poised to jot down the order on his notepad... and the birthday gal says: "Can I have the Menu Card please"

My other friend and myself would have burst out laughing immediately.. but the steward ... (oh bless the sweet guy) he smiled and calmly pointed down to the table... to the placemat. Yeah the extensive menu was there right under our nose on the paper placemat.

The steward calmly walked away. Thanks God he did so. As soon as he turned his back, we laughed till the birthday girl pleaded to stop. The reason was, she had laughed too much till eyes started watering and messing her eyeliner.

Similarly a lot of funny instances filled the evening. Of course I gotta maintain some censorship here at this juncture, since its too personal to be put on a blog. (Actually I wanna save my skin, incase the girls read this !)

Well... ok... stop frowning... if you are really curious about what we girls might have discussed during the dinner.. hmm .... logistics, HR policies, manuals, presentations, demergers, acquisitions, inductions, high tea, shifts, editing, events, travelling, shuttling, content management, workplace politics.. oh yes, God promise we discussed all these in between a sprinkling of intellectual talk on people we knew (yeah .. u read that right intellectual !!)

At the end of the day, we were a quite tired of laughing too much and our cheeks were hurting. Not only the cheeks. But it was paining from head to toe. We had got a secluded table at the retaurant, so we had all the freedom to be ourselves, to be kids again :-)

I was a very happy person when I came home. I came back home with a smile on my face, and the day's events still running in my mind, and I began to smile to myself again... and there started my trouble ... My mom... she thought I had gone nuts. She still feels something is gone wrong with her daughter. Believe me I am beginning to grin as I put down all this, praying hard that she doesnt notice me :D

Okies, let me cut this here, hope you had a nice time reading this. Next time if you come across a gang of girls laughing mad, take a closer look, it might be us !