The Best Of 2008

Remembering some of the good stuff of the year gone by:

Tag: The Photo Tag (July)

SMS: From Sharan "You're going to have a daughter, Tina." It was totally out of the blue and well, I hope so. (October)
Bloggers' Meet: With Nithya and Sharan(yan) in Coimbatore.

Movies: Amazing Grace and Mr. and Mrs. Iyer (October)
Shopping: MAX! In Bangalore, with Jo. (November)Event: The Jazz concert I went to at the NCPA. It was a treat from a junior from school - Neville. I will forever be grateful for that. It was magic. (January)

Blog Discovery: Confessions of a CF Husband

Dinner: At the Georges' with Sharan, Sonu, Jo and Antu (October)

Journey: To Ooty with some of best friends! (October)Eating Place: The American Express Bakery in Bandra - thanks to Jo! (July)

Book: Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. Oh, it blew me away. (November)
Re-union: With Niru in Bombay! I'm SO glad you came! (February)Realisation: Ooty is BEAUTIFUL and I will never get enough of it! Holiday: With family in Nagpur (December)
Photo: The mischievous school boys at Coimbatore bus-stand... (October)

Activity: Taking photos during K'SCOPE 2008 (September)

Sunset: Nagpur Sunsets are just gorgeous! Maybe because you can actually see it cause there are no tall buildings all over the place. I've really enjoyed sitting on the balcony at my uncle's place and watching the sun go down leaving behind breathtaking twilight colours. (December)

There's so much more but that could take a while.

Your mercies are new every morning, Lord.
I thank you...
For the abundant joy.
For lessons learnt.
For friends.
Family
2008.
You.

You humble me.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Another Re-union!

Today, I met up with Sakshi - a friend of mine from Hebron. We met after a little more than 2 whole years i.e. since we left school...
We had a good time catching up. We went to Coffee Day at first where we they enlightened us on their 'new' absolutely ridiculous 'season' menu on which you cannot order a plain cup of freaking coffee!! Either you have to eat something with it or buy some ridiculous CCD merchandise. I yelled at the waiter and told him how ridiculous it was that we can't drink a plain cup of coffee in a 'famed' coffee shop and then we left and I got on the back of Sakshi's scooty and went to her place where I had nice chicken paratha, cutlet and garam garam chaii!
We spent a couple of hours chatting and then Saksh showed me her college - Hislop College - and then I went back home...

I can't believe tomorrow is the last day of 2008! And my holiday is drawing to an end! :( Saksh, Me and her sister

I love meeting up with Hebronites!

Happy Last Day of 2008!

Roy Reunion!

As you maybe know, I'm in Nagpur having a gala time at the 'Roy Reunion' which is my mum's side of the family. My mom hails from a huge family of 4 brothers and 3 sisters and thankfully they all get along marvellously well which means a LOT of fun! Here are some photos to give you an idea...

Educating the seniors on some hard-core UNO!

Buddhist Temple on the outskirts of Nagpur
Picnic and boating at 'Khidsa' by the lakeKaraoke Korner

And there's a LOT of this... Laughter. Put together memories of seven siblings who apparently were very mischievous when they were young and you have your own family comedy show.
Oh yes, we've also been eating WAY more than we really should in 24 hours.Movie time! My cousin, the one who is setting up the laptop went to work in the US for about a year and came back with pretty much every electronic contraption you can think of - including an LCD projector! Roy Family Home Theatre! We watched two Bollywood movies - Ghajini and Fashion - and one home-made video, which was also my cousin's idea. That was nice!

Watching Fashion with my parents.
Lots and lots of more photos as and when...

Hope you're having HAPPY Holidays too :)

You Are Big.

Nagpur is so gloriously quiet and empty for miles and miles. It's shocking after Bombay where its hard to find an inch of empty space. This is my Christmas gift from God - Silence, Cool Weather and Sunshine, Family and Empty Spaces. Thank You.

“And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.” - Luke 16-20

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

"When Christ entered our world, He didn't come to brighten our Decembers, but to transform our lives."
- Rich Miller

A Little Perspective?

There are many bad things about having friends who live, literally, in every corner of the world (US, Canada, UK, Sweden, S.Korea, Australia, Africa)

• Sending Christmas cards becomes a freaking expensive affair!
• I don't get to meet them very often (if at all).
• Time differences (Alva invariably wakes me up from deep sleep whenever she calls, I love you still :P)
  
• Its hard to always keep up with their lives.
  

But, on the flipside there are also good things:

• They send presents! (Sushi sent me cow socks and stuffy animal!!)
• They bring chocolates! (They just don't make good chocolate in India, except the home-made stuff from Ooty... mmmmdelicious!)
• You get to show-off how your post always has colourful stamps from different countries! :P
• International phone calls (receiving, not making -- too expensive for me and we're not yet that advanced in the fancy cheap phonecard business yet.)
• Perspective.

Yesterday, I went out to coffee and dinner with a good school-friend (Orville) who studies in Warrick University in the UK. I met him almost exactly after a year and it was so great catching up (and he brought chocolates and gifts from Sushi, another friend who lives in London)! Anyway, so we talked about a lot of things, caught up on what's been happening in our lives and I spent a lot of time complaining about the many many difficult things we have to face in Bombay every single day. You see, the last month has probably been the most difficult for us. It started with the terror-attacks on the 26th of last month which obviously shook us up and brought many many many questions to the forefront. Why did it happen? Why did it go on for so long? Why do our leaders seem so apathetic? Why were we not better prepared for this sort of thing?
Questions we've definitely asked before but after this it all sort of came gushing out, you know?
Anyway, so here I was complaining about all this to poor Orville who's just come for a few days holiday and then he says, "Well you know, no place is perfect, I mean every country has its problems."
Oh, I was almost... offended? Don't compare INDIA'S problems to the UK's!!! We have sooo many problems that you don't even know where to start, you have no IDEA!
And then he says, okay, so India might win in number of problems but there still ARE problems in other developed countries and he gives me some examples... Drug issues, Night crime, People who get PAID to go to school and yet the govt. struggles to actually get these people to go because they're simply not interested, Kids who have parents above 60 and 70 years old and no siblings and feel no emotional connection towards them or anyone really, Obesity.
I was stumped. Ok, so maybe the problems are not so obvious but they are there. But why? The problem is not with any particular type of government or corruption or whatever... Yes, they are part of the problem, but really the problems lies in mankind itself. Our own hearts. What else remains common between human beings all across the world? The manifestations of evil simply change with time, society, context, etc...
So maybe its time to stop complaining and pointing the finger. Maybe its time to introspect. Maybe its time to admit that there might in fact be a problem with ME and how I think about right/wrong, the purpose of life, and, dare I say it, God.

Perspective. I'd like to know what you think.

P.s. Am travelling to Nagpur today to spend the 10-day break at an uncle's place. Please pray for my dad, he fell down the stairs and hurt his foot and is now in a cast. He has to travel (to Nagpur from B'lore) on the 25th so he could really do with some prayer.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Following That Star...

The three wise men are on their way...
Matthew 2:10-11 (NLT)
"When they saw the star, they were filled with joy! They entered the house and saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh."

Oooh, I love the Christmas story. A King born in a smelly stable. Mighty God becoming man to be among us, to transform our lives. Predictions and years of waiting coming to fulfillment in the form of a screaming, helpless baby.

Trust God to cook up a story that no one could've imagined.

We're expecting pomp and glory and He gives us a barn, complete with barn-yard animals. We're expecting a warrior-King and He gives us a servant who washes the feet of His own disciples. We're expecting Him to kill all the bad people and He dies on the cross - the ultimate sacrifice.

But He lives. So that you and I, also, may live.

We may not always understand God and the strange things He does but He is good. I believe that.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

P.s. A Baby In a Barn. Brilliant!

The Legacy of Light

MNCs in my backyard.

Mirror, mirror on the wall.

put on your dancing shoes.

Just some photos that I took over two years ago and forgot about. I just found them on my flickr account. They were all taken in Bangalore.

We(blog)

We talked about blogging in our Mass Comm(unication) class today - to my utter delight! :) I was introduced to the wonderful world of blogging just before I left school when AJ told me about his sister's blog. I checked it out, was totally enthused by the idea and the rest is... archives.

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If you thought you'd seen the last of all my Ooty Trip photos, well you were wrong! ;) I took this one at a guest house called Brooklands in Coonoor. Pretty cool, no? I suppose it would've been nicer if that flower bud had bloomed in all its glory.

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5 days to go!

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Today morning I was standing by the entrance of my fast train to college and whining to God about all the things that I want (D-SLR, Laptop) and all the places I want to see (Australia, France, US, Egypt, Kashmir, and the list goes on... and on...) and all the things I want to do (get married, travel the world and take photos, work for National Geographic maybe or at least subscribe to it, have kids - not in that order, don't worry!) and then the train stopped in its tracks somewhere between Bandra and Dadar and just stood there for a minute or two, probably because the tracks were not clear and they were waiting for the green signal but anyhoo... the point is that it stopped. And it stopped at a place where I could see men bathing on the sides of the tracks, women washing clothes on a dirty rock by the side, children playing and blue tarpaulin hanging in a tent-formation over the boundary walls constituting the only shelter this harsh city can afford them and suddenly all my whining seemed almost... ridiculous.

I wonder what these people want... Enough earning that day to buy their next meal? A moment of peace and silence so that their every chore isn't done to the rhythm of the noisy passing trains? A little enclosed area so that they can bathe in privacy?

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For Dada and D

Give Thanks...
- For phonecalls from the US: One from my aunt and cousin in Philly and the other from one of my best friends Tashu who studies at Taylor University in Indiana.
- For the Christmas break fast approaching: 8 days to go!
- For good music.
- Good teachers
- Green Tea and McVities Digestive biscuits!
- For my brother and sis-in-law in Bangalore (Dada and D) who are celebrating their 2nd Anniversary today. I can't believe how fast time flies! I wish you many many many many more years together filled with joy, understanding, forgiveness, patience, humility, trust, truth and all those other things that constitute love. Happy Anniversary!

1 Corinthians 13: 4-8
Love is patient, love is kind, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

A Conspiration...

Today I had my photos exhibited for the first time and I am on top of the world! I’ve always been crazy about photography and so when a friend of mine told me about this exhibition being organized by the Bachelor of Mass Media Dept (BMM) in my college, I jumped at the opportunity and submitted twelve of my favourite snaps two weeks ago. She called me back last Thursday and told me she needed the high resolution images so they could print them before Saturday (today). The dept. selected six!Anyway, it was short-notice and due to technical difficulties they couldn’t seem to download the high resolution photos that I had Jo send them by email (thank you!). I got a call at 3pm last afternoon while my friends and I were at the theatre for Shah Rukh Khan’s new movie from one of the BMM students telling me, “we can’t download your photos, anyway can you get them printed yourself?” So I rushed back to Andheri as soon as the movie was over at 5:30 and pleaded with the guy at the photo shop to give me 8 by 12 inch copies of my photos in matt print by that night. Luckily, I’ve become a frequent visitor at his shop in the last week (another photography competition and making Christmas cards) so he agreed with a smile, wrote “very urgent” on my slip and told me to come and collect them at 8pm.

Sure enough they were ready at 8pm and I went to help set up the exhibition this morning in college. It’s such a great feeling! There were three other students whose photos were also exhibited and they had amazing stuff! I actually felt a little overshadowed by their work but then again they are actually photography students and have better cameras and getting selected at all is big enough an achievement for me for now. It’s a start.

None of this would have been possible without Joyee who let’s me indulge with her beautiful Sony Cybershot camera. And Sonu, Gauri, Antu, Vini and Sharan for always encouraging and helping me.

Dadu - my dad's dad. He was also a keen photographer in his day; he used to develop them himself and there are hundreds of them. I often open up the drawers and take out the musty photos to admire. If there is a gene for photography, I think I got it from him. I wish I could have met him…

And God, who "conspires to overcome apparent problems and connects us to the right source at the appropriate time." (Thanks Papa)

This was our reward after helping out in a Scavenger Hunt called 'Khoj' organised by the NSS (national service scheme) cell in college...

Left to right: Antu, Joyee, Gauri, Sonu

This Day in History

1750

Tipu Sultan, ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore is born.

1817
Mississippi is admitted to the Union, becoming the 20th U.S. state.

1868
The first traffic lights are installed outside the Palace of Westminister in London. Resembling railway signals, they use semaphore arms and are illuminated at night by red and green gas lamps.

1902
Women are given the right to vote in Tasmania.

1920
The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson for his work in ending the First World War and creating the League of Nations.

1948
The United Nations General Assembly adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (Today is also International Human Rights Day)

1955
Jacquelyn Mitchard, American novelist is born. (Remember the book - Cage of Stars?)

1961
Albert Luthuli, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for trying to end apartheid.

1983
President Raúl Alfonsín begins his Presidency in Argentina. Democracy is restored.

1989
Sharanya Murali is born.

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And am I glad that you were. Thank you for making Bombay that much more lovable for me and understanding the things that I often fail to make others understand or at least to listen :)

Love you lots,
Always,
Tina

Bad Movie, Fun Day.

We (Sonu, Jo, Antu and I) went to watch a hindi movie called Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye! today. We had a holiday for Bakri-Id (although most Muslims in the city didn't celebrate it in a big way this year round because of the terror attacks...).

The movie was terrible. Nothing really happened. We spent the first half of the movie eating popcorn (cheese and caramel) and waiting for something to happen and the second half much in the same way - except that we ran out of popcorn and then bought samosas and nachos to get us through the rest of the movie. 120 precious Rupees + cost of extra food needed to sustain you through a bad film and I'm already seriously broke. Oh crap!

Anyway, after the movie we spent about 15 minutes standing outside the theatre trying to decide where to go for lunch (this was at 3pm) and then finally proceeded to the bus stop (still not decided on where to go for lunch) and then we headed to China Valley. We reached there around 4pm only to find the 'closed' sign hanging on the door (go figure - who serves lunch at a proper restaurant at 4pm you silly girls!). So we finally settled for pizzas at U.S. Pizza which was quite expensive and not enough to satiate 4 hungry girls so we ended up ordering more. Another 200 Rupees.

Anyway, the point is that even though we watched a terrible film and spent a lot of money on food, the company was great and the food was good so basically, I had a fun day!

And tomorrow, its back to the grind (college).

14 days till the Christmas break. Yay!

P.s. I wonder whose birthday it is tomorrow... (to be cont'd)

"There's a way to be good again..."

I just watched "The Kite Runner" based on that amazing book by the same name by Khaled Hosseini and contrary to opinions that I have heard about the movie - I liked it. Yes, it doesn't stick to the book all the time, but I thought that in fact it did stick to the book more often than not. You have to consider that when you make a movie from a book, you cannot show everything. If you haven't read the book - well, you must.

Anyway, while watching the movie I was reminded of the horrors of having rulers who offer you no choice - be it the communist regime of Russia or the Taliban or the Nazis. No self-appointed government does anything good for the people. Their ideals eventually only serve their own purpose. (Remember 'Animal Farm' by George Orwell?)

Living in Bombay in these times is interesting. Anger is apparent and there are in this city now three types of people:
-- Those who are cynical and believe that no matter what we do, things like the attacks on 26/11 will keep happening.
-- Those who are completely ignorant of the seriousness of the matter and dismiss it with the wave of a hand or saying things like, "Areh, ha, woh shooting vooting hua, nah?"
-- Those who are filled with a fire and dying to do something.

Everyone has their reasons to be in whatever category they wish to be in and I am not judging. I like to think that I am in the last category but I am also terrified of the fact that I am dangerously close to the first category and not sure how long this fire to do something will continue to rage within me and whether I can actually do anything constructive with it...

On Wednesday, I went (with Antu and Gauri) for a... HUGE gathering of people near the Gateway of India and in and around Colaba. It was supposed to be a "Peace March" but I'm not calling it that because it was far from being peaceful. Honestly, it was utter chaos which was to be expected (but I didn't expect it) because there were THOUSANDS of people there and it was actually quite spontaneous - the word spread around thanks to Social Networking Sites and SMS - and it was between 6-9pm which is when people are heading back home from office so the roads were jam-packed with traffic trying to head home and people walking in the opposite direction, snaking between the cars. There was no security and a mass of that number gathering is in fact a massive security threat. And the most disappointing part was that there were hoards of people screaming anti-Pakistan slogans one minute and singing Vande Mataram the next (you can't be the greater person, while pointing the finger at your neighbour). There were people who were angry and screaming against Politcians with slogans like "No Votes, No Taxes", etc.

So, I was not impressed. But, I don't regret having gone either, because just sitting around complaining, blaming and analyzing amongst ourselves is not exactly a better option than doing nothing at all. The fact is that all the people there were middle-class Indians who for the first time (finally) actually felt a need to come onto the streets and say enough is enough! Yes, a third of those people had no clue of what they were saying (do they know what will be the consequences of declaring war on Pakistan!?!), the other third just wanted to be on TV/see celebrities ("maine suna, Juhi Chawla bhi ayi hain, yaar!") but the other third just want change and want to be an active part of that change..."No More Blame, We want Change!"

India's most apathetic lot - the middle class, educated lot - are out on the streets, would you believe it?Where were we after the train blasts in 2006? Where were we a few months ago when Christians were being slaughtered in Orissa? And would we really have come out of hibernating if this very same thing happened in oh, I dunno, Dharavi and not Taj/Oberoi/Marine Drive/Colaba areas? (I admit, that I am a part of this lot and I wish I hadn't been sleeping for so long)

Yesterday, we had a "Inter-Faith Public Meeting" at the Bhabha Hall in college. Sister Anila Varghese (Historian and the Dean of our college), Rahul Bose, Shabana Azmi, Gerson Da Cunha (Founder of an NGO called Agni)talked to us and gave us their opinions on what we can DO and Roopkumar Rathod with his wife (singers) sang a beautiful song for us as well leading us in singing the national anthem at the end. There were many other things in the programme too including reciting of two poems written by a young 15-yr-old, reading from the Bible, Koran, and Upanishads.

All in all, the programme was brilliant and constructive (I think). Rahul Bose and Shabana Azmi besides being brilliant actors (who don't always do brilliant movies, but nevertheless) are both social activists and great speakers so it didn't at all seem trivial for them to speak to us about the terror attacks. Gerson Da Cunha reminded us (and shamed me, personally) about the importance of voting, making your vote count and generally being an active citizen of this country - not just taking, but giving too.

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I'm sorry if this post is seeming very scattered. I haven't had personal access to internet for several days now (virus issues) and there's been so much to say and so much that has gone on, I'm not really sure how to put it all down. And now, I've forgotten my point...

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I think the point is still that we should not forget and go back to being sleeping citizens of India - because if we do, we don't really have a right to complain about anything... It's been barely a week since the attacks, we've had several talks, walks, TV shows, articles about the issue but come one more week, one month, will the fire still be there? More importantly, will it turn into constructive ACTION??

Responsible Journalism?

I think not.
Small Change
I don't have much time but if you go to the above-mentioned link, it's pretty self-explanatory.
Please sign the petition. Everybody is a little responsible for what happened in Mumbai last week, not just the politicians. And even us, as citizens of this country. Why have we been sleeping for so long?!?!
We all need to help to change the state of affairs as they are now, because this is just not on.

Normality?

Yes, we're back to college, work, school, etc. We're back to talking. We're back to hanging out in the canteen. We're back to commuting on overcrowded trains and buses. We're back to walking on the streets. We're back to joking and laughing. We're back to celebrating life and birthday's (Antu turned 19 on the 30th Nov). We're back to 'normal'.

But I haven't forgotten and I won't forget because things haven't changed. A man can walk into CST with a gun and nobody will notice. It's true.

Bombay: City of Dreams. City of Nightmares.

Bombay: 26-28th November, 2008. I won't forget.

Dutch Truffle!

Happy Birthday Antu!!!