For this had to be written

A decade has ended and another has begun. The decade that saw me leaving my teenage behind and entering my twenties, a decade where I transitioned from a student into a professional. I finished education, got a degree, started working and became financially independent. I lived in 4 cities through this time. It was during this decade that I met A, we became best friends and god knows when fell in love and then got married as well. A decade where a young girl left her hometown in pursuit of bigger things in life. To find her true self. And I think I have done pretty well on that.

This decade could easily be classified as the growth decade. A decade of personal, professional, financial and emotional growth. Of happiness and fun I never imagined existed. And of grief and feelings I wasn’t aware of. All in all, a very fulfilling time. The beautiful twenties of my life. Of Love, pleasure, travelling, living to the fullest. Of losing some friends and making some more. And of realizing which of these will stay forever.

It is never possible to say with certainty of how the time to come by will mould itself. But something that I can foresee is that this new decade will be the decade of nurturing the growth that took place previously. A solid foundation to life has been laid and ground work has been done. It’s time to set the blocks soaring.

I wish all of you a very happy new year. I wish for all of your wishes to be fulfilled and your hearts to be filled with contentment and joy. Be healthy, spend time with family, laugh out loud, spend money, travel, read. Be Good!!

Dance baby dance

I admit! I am a sucker for dance based reality shows. Yeah, laugh now. I don’t care!!

Every time I see these non dancers shake that leg it makes me all dreamy. How I see myself doing just that. And why I say this today is coz’ yet another season of Jhalak Dikh La Ja premiered yesterday. 

My association with dance is pretty old, just like that of any other kid. I have very vivid memories of dancing as a child and I remember being told how good I was at it. This trend continued till my teenage years with number of house parties, for in a town like Ranchi discs were unheard of. But that was then. Gradually the dancer in me retired and now what is left is a girl who can barely shake a leg in the crowded disc and do some vague bhangara steps, thanks to the never ending weddings. But that’s no dance, that’s just moving to the beats.

What I want to learn is proper dance. Salsa, Rumba, Hip-Hop, Fusion, Bollywood. I really do. And this urge becomes strong each time I watch these dance shows. I see myself dancing like the stars.

In fact about 6 months back I even joined a dance school and went for exactly 4 classes. Then work played spoil sport and dance was forgotten along with the fee. But one thing that came out clearly in those 4 classes was how Pathetic I was. I don’t know how and when I will ever manage to get back to learning, but this is surely one thing I want to try, maybe I will suck at it or might be good too. 

Till then let me day dream and see myself participating in one of these shows. What about you, do you dance?

Shoes, dont we love thee!

Since I have been talking about shopping and shopping I thought it would be a good idea to give you, my esteemed readers, a sneak peek into my shoe rack. Featured below are only the shoes, of the high heel types, acquired very recently. A little context here will help: I have a self declared shoe obsession. And I buy, whenever I get a chance. Whilst I was moving to Singapore, there was only as much I could bring along. So I gave some to my sister and packed some home. There were still too many left. So I donated, all of 30 plus pairs. Yeah, I didn’t have too much choice, with Aman threatening me and Dad coaxing me, I gave in.

This only means the need to refurbish the depleted collection. Posting some pictures below, because you wanted to see it!!

To go with the new brown dress!

The Comfy ones

The essential ones

These are a shade of Grey, dunno why they look Cream.

Love these,

These look awesome with skirts.

Peep toes!

This happens only in Singapore..

This happened 2 days back, it was pretty late by the time we got out of office. Late enough to throw out of the window, the idea of going home and cooking. So we decided to finish mundane responsibilities like feeding ourselves till we burst and then heading home to crash on the super comfortable new mattress we just bought. Ah the mattress, I tell you, is like a sucker of all aches and stress. I actually wake up fresh as a daisy. The old one that the land lady gave us was like that inflated bouncer children play on. Can’t say what we went through with that!!! But I digress.

Coming back to what happened two days back. We decided to have dinner and choose this cute little bistro right below my office. The weather was good, quite unlike Singapore, so we decided to sit out. We placed our order, food came, the server left us alone and we ate and ate and ate. And then we got up, got into a cab and left. Pretty normal, if you ask me? Ha, only one slight deviation. We forgot to pay the bill in fact we even forgot to call for the bill. This we realized only after we had reached home and had settled on the said comfortable mattress.

Now like any other  responsible people, we should have gone back and paid them first thing next day, which we wanted to do, but we didn’t, because we were super busy, after all the Singapore economy will crumble down if we get late to work.  And then we forgot about it. Till today when we sat in a café right next to the said bistro sipping the high on calorie cappuccino. And then this server came to us. I had visions of her calling the cops and handcuffing us. But, ladies and gentleman, before we could start apologizing, she started saying sorry, first for interrupting our coffee and then for asking us for her truly deserved money. I almost fell of my chair. She relentlessly kept saying she was sorry and I kept saying the same. In the end no one knew who the guilty was.  Matter ended peacefully!! I am so going back to this place; this time will pay up at the start of the meal though!

The great Singapore Sale

The great Singapore Sale, where art thou? Come soon and rescue me, for there is a compulsive need to shop and some discounts would do no harm! Yeah, so it’s not like I have landed in Singapore from some god forsaken village which didn’t have the variety or the choice to offer. Bangalore is pretty decent and throw in a couple of trips to Australia, Delhi and Bangkok (remember?? GRIN!!!!!! in between and you can get all you want!!

Which means that there has to be a divine power at play here? Did I sleep too close to the Sophie Kinsella’s confession of a shopaholic? I guess not. So why my lord why, am I behaving like this? I am buying like I am on a vacation to Singapore and will never ever get a chance again in this life time. And it doesn’t help to have ones office at a stone’s throw from the main shopping area. But the madness needs to end, so, today, on this blog I make a promise, 2 more pairs of shoes and no more shopping till Christmas!! Heehaw!!!!!!!!!

And in another news, I loved Guzarish. Period!! Stop complaining people and stop being overly critical. It’s a good movie and Hrithik is awesome. We have become a race of complainers. We need to complain no matter what. Its not perfection that we are looking for, its just the sad pleasure we get in putting things down! Ah, anyways, that’s a lot of gyan from Prof Malhotra!So, did ya watch Guzarish yet?

From Where We Left

The baby has been ignored way too much. I have been a very bad girl. And no excuses this time. There is so much happening in life that I can write a book, let alone a blog post. But then, when there is way too much happening in life, something’s do take a beating. And in my case it was my once cherished blog. So no more saying I will be regular, it’s rather I be regular and say later.

Settling-in in Singapore has been far easier than I ever imagined. Things have fallen into place pretty smoothly. The home, office and the works!! So good so far.

Have been doing a lot of “exploring the city” kinda stuff over the weekends. Shopping is at an all time high and I really need to put a stop on that. This retail therapy will soon put me into forced financial therapy. The holes in the pockets are getting bigger by the day but the temptation seems to outdo any sane thinking. But there is one thing that I am sorely missing and that’s my book shopping. Not that there are no book stores here, there are and in plenty. What I miss is reading Indian Authors, which in the last few years meant reading beyond Salman Rushdie and Vikram Seth. Those gems are unfortunately not available. So my respite is Amazon but you see the feel is missing.

These few initial months in Singapore have also led to some realizations. A very close friend always said that cooking for her acts like a stress buster, so even after a very hectic day at work, she would get back and cook and feel fresh. I never understood that while I was in India. But strangely, here in Singapore, I have started to enjoy cooking. Although we still eat out a lot even on weekdays, yet I have started to look forward to doing my bit in the kitchen. Like I say, we are always learning more about ourselves and this is the latest self discovery! Aman is busy basking in this new found interest of mine; let me see how many weeks will this last.

So how has life been with you all? Let me be really good and open my Google Reader now!!

I miss my black beauty...

…really, really do.

With all the silver linings that Singapore as our new home is offering us, there is still this big big gap to fill. The absence of a car in our lives. How much I am missing my car which we dutifully sold off before coming here. And whoever you are, who has bought it, better take care of it!

So now I use public transport to commute to work each day. A train to be precise. My complaining won’t be justified as the MRT system here is super comfortable. We have taken a house next to the MRT station and in Singapore that’s the biggest achievement one can boast off. And then there are busses. And for weekends there are cabs, in abundance!

But still, I miss my car. I miss driving. I miss the comfort. I miss the sense of ownership.

My colleagues who have been here for a while, tell me that this is just a phase and sooner than later I will be more than happy about not having the hassle to drive, park etc. Owning a car here is not as easy as having one in India or any other country for that matter. First the government is not too excited by the idea of people using private transport, so taxes are really huge. So is parking and then the cost of car. About 65% people use the public transport on a daily basis. So yeah now I am part of the majority.

But having said all that the crux of the matter is that I terribly miss the black beauty which we sold off before coming here. It was our first car, bought in the first year of our marriage. Ah so many memories, so many trips. The least I can hope is that the new owner cherishes it as much as I did.

Of This and That

I feel the need to do another Blog Marathon. Only then will I be regular here. Truthfully I miss this place. But life is just running past me, while I huff and pant and try to catch up. It’s fun, it’s stressful, it’s confusing, but it’s worth every bit.

Yeah so coming to the Marathon bit, anyone ready to join??

Moved to Singapore and settling in. Found a flat and shifted in last week as well. It still looks alien, the kitchen, the bedroom, the living area. It’s all mine and yet nothing belongs to me. But what’s fun is the settling in part. It’s just like the good old days when Aman and I were just married and were building our lives together. The place is pretty comfortable, furnished with all the essentials. So we are basically saved from the hassle of buying a lot of stuff. Now the hunt for a maid has started. Hopefully I shall be blessed soon.

It wasn’t easy to give up a well settled comfortable life back in Bangalore and come to this not so far land. It had its own set of uncertainties, its own sets of odds. But we took the plunge. And so far it’s been good.

We attended a barbecue party a couple of days after we had landed here. It was predominated by Indians and most of the women present there were non-working mums. And never before have I been in the company of so many non working mums. Therefore the generalization I am trying to draw here might be completely off track and for that don’t bite me please. Yeah, so coming to this group, there was just 1 bachelor amongst them and all these women were trying to convince him to get married. And the entire spiel was around how he could get good food and ironed clothes. How he didn’t need to bother about maid and cleaning once he got a wife. I mean, it was appalling!! How could they speak like that?? And being women at that!!! My better sense prevailed and before I could break a few skulls and I quietly slipped out and joined the men where they were discussing cricket and beer. Ha, so yeah, Singapore is no different from India!!