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For records, this is the new url - http://thewhiterain.wordpress.com/
Finally the day has come, for the little girl to grow a wee bit older!!!
Here’s wishing Meira a very very happy birthday. May you get more of everything this year and in all the years to come by!!
More love, more kisses, more $#%.
Lot more parties and even more holidays.
More beer and more egg rolls.
More fun and more money
More happiness and more contentment!!!
And let the joy in the “happy hours” grow many many fold!!!
And on your (what 21st it is??) birthday, here is a small gift from my side!!
A Channel bag and a Dolce and Gabbana Dress!!!

Image Curtesy - Channel and D&G
Hop over at Monika’s to have some cake and then at Pixie’s to raise a toast and then at Swaram’s for some goodies!!
So the last post was a total bouncer. Here is the background:
Was speaking to my bestest friend on Saturday night. It was close to 9:30 and I hadn’t written a post. It was frustrating. I wasn’t getting any ideas. I didn’t want to write a weekend update (I never do that), neither a book nor a movie review (again, I have never done that as well.) Time was ticking and in that I made my frustration way too vocal.
And the sweetheart that she is, keeping my best interest in mind, did this. Love you so much for it.
And then I slept over it all weekend. And the stubborn person that I am, decided to get back to it. Lets not stop this thing we started!!!
She might kill me after all. But maybe she loves me enough to understand. Or maybe she would contribute by writing a few more posts for me!!
Rules are a little different though. I would be skipping the weekend. And that’s because I will be out of Bangalore. So people, we are back to where we started!!
I remember Iya telling me that when she is sitting under a truckload of work, no time to breathe, and all damn milestones were to be met yesterday, she feels an urge to blog. This is not because she wants to run away from work, but because it is her biggest (well almost) stress buster. So in her busiest of days when she did not have time to come out for a cup of coffee, I could see an update in the mail that thewhiterain has updated her blog.
By now you all would have understood this is not Iya writing this post. I am Iya’s friend (I hope this stays after she reads this), and no other description is important. (Because if you don’t like what I am going to write here, I don’t want the curses to be directed to me :))
So people, this stress buster is fast converting into a stress in itself. What was a pleasure before and came straight from the heart, is on the todo list now. EOD for us in this industry meant before next morning and if required one stretches at night, but this milestone is stringent. Clock strikes twelve and you have missed an important deadline. And Iya wants to be home early on weekend nights, which are our biggest unwinding time of the week, to complete what she has started. Someone remember Julie and Julia?
So here I am writing this post (I have hacked her account, easily guessed her password, will pay a price soon) to make an announcement that Iya will be discontinuing NaBloPoMo. This does not mean much to anyone of us except her sadly. Because we love to read her “straight from the heart” posts and it does not matter to us if they come once a day or once a week. We do NOT want her to blog if it means stress and formality. So Iya, kudos for the heroic attempt :D but stop it now and get back to your usual self. And go back to freaking out on your weekends.. movies, dinners, and Naturals.. and sleep! Take care. Love you!
An evening well spent, browsing books, and then picking up a few. A couple of Jodi Picoult and one Shashi Tharoor to be precise.
Nothing works more to lift my spirits more than buying books {Well actually a few other things do too} but lets concentrate on books for the sake of this post.
So Mon and I met over coffee, browsed books, picked a few, ambled around the beautiful Indra Nagar, hogged on some delicious rolls at this quaint little eatery and spoke and spoke a lot.
And then it suddenly struck me, about bloggers, blogs and their personalities. For in Monika, you get what you read. No pretence what so ever. I have met a few other people too with whom I have interacted over blogs. Some have been a personification of their writings or rather I should say that their blogs are part of their personalities.
And then again there are people whose blog’s reek of something way too artificial. They choose to be anonymous and the picture they present is clearly of a wannabe. There are many such examples all around and since I don’t believe in conflicts I won’t mention them here.
So what drives such people? And don’t they get confused between being themselves and impersonating an image? In the longer run does the “real them” and “the put up them” gets intermingled? I won’t call all this a lie. Its aspiration I guess. And nothing wrong in aspiring, right?
Some of you who read me, know me from before. Some have come to know me after reading me. So guys, do you think there is a match between me and my blog? Honesty will help!!
And no its not the Sunfeast 10K kinds, the one that a dear friend recently took and I am so proud of her. This one is more intellectual (ahhmmm..) in nature. It’s the blog Marathon.
I have decided to get onto the blogging Marathon. And no I haven’t taken the break that I was planning to. So you might wonder what gave me this gigantic idea?? Even I don’t know.
Taking this up is like adding a bit more to my already crazy days. But then what’s life without challenges.
Also, my regularity on blog has been highly sporadic so what better than a marathon to get me all writing, eh?
Monika had done this earlier and I was highly impressed. So its now time to impress myself with some consistency. She is doing it again this month along with a few other folks so I decided to join the party!!
So guys, motivate me, leave comments, and be nice. It’s no mean feat, so I need all the good wishes.
On that note ready steady go!!!
Primarily work which kept me super busy. Then some travelling, first to Delhi and Punjab and then to Ranchi. A wedding in between and then some more trips to Singapore and Thailand.
And in between all this there were some brave decisions taken as well. Some doors were knowingly closed with the hope that there will be opportunities in the future as well. At the same time knowing very well that such things don’t happen too often in life.
But for love, everything seems worth while. Such moments make the bond all the more stronger.
I am visiting my blog after ages today. Thanks to all those who checked on me while I was gone. While I didn’t write anything for the past so many months, I also gave reading my favorite blogs a skip. And yes I missed it.
And so it happened. Without too much planning. Without going to and fro. One ping, followed by one suggestion on place and time. And lo behold, we met.
Who you may ask – our very own Monika, I say. And what a meeting it was. It was a weekday so I rushed straight from office. And was there dot on time, only to see the Red Cedia parked already. I obviously had no issues in spotting her in the crowded coffee shop. We hugged as if we were some long lost friends catching up over cup of coffee. And conversation just flew. Not even for a second there was an uncomfortable silence. Not even for a second were we stuck on what to say next. Least to say, it was delightful. The first peek at the watch shocked me no end. 2 hours had gone by and we hadn’t realized.
After meeting her yesterday, I am still wondering why it took so long. I should have met her ages back.
This was the first time I had met someone from the Blog World. I had major plans of meeting Mampi and Pinku when I had ventured to Delhi and Punjab earlier this year and unfortunately no plans materialized, thanks to the exhaustive wedding preparations from which I couldn’t pull myself away even for a few hours. I even planned meeting Mumbai Diva when I was in Bombay in May but even that didn’t work due to last minute flight changes.
Thinking about 10 years back, I would have been so closed on interacting with strangers. I would have died before following someone I didn’t know (reference to twitter). Chat and emails to people I haven’t met or didn’t know would be out of question. But now I see myself so open to these things. When I started blogging I hardly did interact with anyone. I used to sms Aman and my friend Anu and would tell them that the blog has been updated and that they should go read it. Then, almost a year back things changed, not sure how, but yeah I started opening up as a blogger. And now there are these real people most of whom I didn’t know before they left that comment or before I stumbled into their spaces. This is a world in itself and it’s a delightful place.

