The year that was... 2009!

**Right, I've been thinking about this post for like a month now. I think this might turn out to be one of my favourite posts to do on the blog every year! Anyway, so I started making little mental notes around the time my exams were going on last month and have been putting it together for the past couple of days, trying very hard to stop myself from posting it before the 31st because that was the plan but now if I keep letting it stew in my "drafts" I'll keep adding stuff and then it'll get intolerably long so I think I'll just publish it now! :P**

Another year gone by! It hasn't been all good. I mean, this year was a year of crazy things - the strike, swine flu, etc... but you know, even though some things seem terrible while you're actually going through it, when you look back, in retrospect, it's amazing... like all these threads just come together into a beautiful tapestry. It may not even come together just yet but I know that one day I will look back at some things that just didn't make much sense at the time and think, "ohhhh, that's why that happened!!"

But anyway, last year I made a list of some of the best moments of 2008 on the blog and I loved doing that because it was so great to just look back and remember! And so here are some of the best moments of 2009. Obviously this list is not at all comprehensive - that would go on for pages and pages!

Grace's visit to Bombay! (Jan)

Two beautiful weddings (Jan and August)

Chrissy and Anna (and friends) stopping through Bombay (Feb) Getting my glasses. I actually dislike wearing them, but they do help me to see clearly so I guess should be thankful for that! (Feb)

Turning 21, Kala Ghoda Festival 2009, meeting Coco! (Feb)

Antu and Coco (her cousin's daughter) at the Kala Ghoda festival 2009

Finishing off my second year of college and the after-party at Sharan's! (March)

At Sharan's place right after we finished our 2nd Year final exams! Vini and I went in the pool and made the rest jealous and they all promptly signed up for classes that summer! :P

My first Earth Hour (March)

Exercising my right to vote for the first time!! (April)
Taking D up to Ooty, Easter in Ooty, bumping into some wonderful Hebronites in Ooty... just OOTY! (April)

Club Mahindra Holiday in Thekkady with the parentals! Especially the elephant-ride! (April)

The elephant called "Chandramukhi" who kindly let us take a ride on her back! This is her "blessing" me! Sweet! April. Thekkady, Kerala.

Learning cross stitching :) (May)

Georgia and Gina - my first completed project of cross-stitching! ;)

Re-union with Taryn and Grace! And Skypeing with Tashu in the wee hours of the morning... (June)

Another reunion with Taz, Jonny and Chandni! (June)

At Coffee World, Brigade Road, Bangalore.

Random and amazing conversation with the Librarian lady who was cross-stitching on an Andheri local train (June)

Becoming a member of the American Center Library. One of the 'happy places' I love to escape to in Mumbai! (June)

Watching two plays by Naseerudhin Shah's theatre group - Waiting for Godot and Ismat Apaa Ke Naam (II). (July and September)

The infamous "Teachers' Strike". Yeah, I'm actually being thankful for this... now. In itself it was terrible and at the time, I was fuming and whining. It taught me a lot and lead to a lot of amazing things. (August)

Meg's visit to Bombay and the unplanned rendezvous with Orville! (August)

Being "photographer" at Jo's performance in Chitrangada at the Nehru Centre ;) (September)
Planning and executing Surprise Birthday Parties. We're the best at it ;) (September, November, December)

Sharan's birthday at her place, Antu's birthday cake - the one where they wrote her name as "Anutu"!, Jo's birthday at her place!

Lunch on Antu's birthday at 'Something Fishy', Andheri, Mumbai. 30th Nov, 2009

Going for Arundhati Roy's book launch of "Listening to Grasshoppers" at the Townhall. She is one amazing woman and made me think about a lot of things... (October)

Carrying out our Research Project on Foreigners' Perspective on Hospitality in Mumbai! (November)

Tabulating the data we collected at Monisha's place, Nariman Point, Mumbai.

Kaleidoscope 2009!! Best ever! (November)

The final day of K'scope

Late night, drinking wine and fabulous conversation with my favourite girls in Bombay at Cafe Ivy. (November)

Me at Cafe Ivy. We ordered a bottle of wine, two plates of french fries and made excited conversation!

Christmas Breakfast with Radiance (December)

Christmas Breakfast at Danny's place, Banaswadi, Bangalore. 25th Dec, 2009!

Lambu (Arjun Durr), another friend from Hebron came to visit in Bangalore (December)

Being Home. Because of the strike and other various circumstances, coming home for holidays all of this year has been so unpredictable but thank God, I got my holidays! And even extra days sometimes! :) (Summer, August, Diwali, Christmas)

Our beautiful house in Bangalore one summery sunset... :)

...Phew! See what I mean? It's been a gooooooood year! :) And next year will be even better, I know it! It will be a year of BIG changes and it will be kind of scary because, hey let's face it, change is NOT easy. But it can be exciting and I can't wait to see what God has been planning all along! He never fails to surprise!

Here's hoping that He makes all things new for you this coming year!

Happy New Year! :D

Just so you know...

I'm having a really awesome Christmas break at home! ;)

D and I on Christmas eve at the Leela Palace doing some last-minute gift hunting! :P

Sayo and her youngest son, John, conspiring on what present to choose at the Christmas breakfast with Radiance! I just love this picture!

Me (in a saree after a pretty long time!!) and the parentals all set to head out for a scrumptious Christmas Dinner and D's folks' place...

Dada and me on Christmas night...

Good friend and fellow Hebronite, Arjun Durr came to visit for a day! 'Twas a good time!

Hope ya'll are also enjoying the last few days of 2009! :D

A King is born!

Rulers stride through the world with bodyguards, fanfare, and flashing jewelry. In contrast, God’s visit to earth took place in a shelter for animals, with no attendants present and nowhere to lay the newborn King but a feed trough. Indeed, the event that divided history into two parts may have had more animal than human witnesses. As Phillips Brooks put it:

How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
the blessings of His heaven.

-- Phillip Yancey

"And man shall live forevermore,

Because of Christmas Day."

Amazed again by Your humble glory.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

picture from here.

Bon Appetit!

Julie and Julia.

Finally! I first read about this movie in a magazine at the American Library in Bombay like months ago and I didn't even notice when it whizzed through the cinemas in Bombay but thank God for friends! (Shout out to Antu!) I just watched the movie on my laptop right now and wow, I LOVED it! Here are some reasons:

• Meryl Streep. She's not human, I'm telling you! Gosh, what an inspiring performance.

• It's about cooking...

• And blogging...(!!!) about cooking! :D

• It's about happily married couples. People don't run off and have affairs. Sure, they have fights but the only couples that don't fight are dead ones. The point is, you don't bail! Bailing is not an option! And I absolutely love it when you see that in movies!

• Oh yeah, I'm also totally a fan of Amy Adams! (Enchanted, anyone?)

So yeah, for those and many other reasons that I can't really get my brain to articulate at this insane hour, please watch this film! Totally awesome!

And now, I'm off to bed. Big day tomorrow, but more about that later! :D

Toodles!

For Sharan :)

**Okay, so I wrote this like about a week ago!! But thanks to my stupid laptop freaking out on me I haven't had a chance to log on to blogger so this is kinda old, but I just HAD to post it**

How/Where to start?

So, as you probably gathered from Fbook/here, our exams ended on the 9^th. Let's not even talk about how they went. The important thing is that they are now OVER and thankfully they don't count and if their only purpose was to at least get me started on studying if I'm counting on graduating in 2010, well they served their purpose :) and I will.

But moving on...

So my friends and I apparently get at our creative best during exam time. Seriously, you should read some of the smses sent between us on our study leave/exam days. They are hilarious albeit often absolutely nonsensical (For eg. From me to Jo: La la la la la la la la... Reply from Jo to me: La la dikchik dikchik la la la... (that's the remix version) You see what I mean?) And please please ask Vini to blog about the crazy things she does during exam-time :P

And one of the things we love to do is to plan what to do after exams. I mean, we have to have something to look forward to, right? (And it's definitely not the results :P) so when we're taking a break between studying (or perhaps more often, taking a break from taking a break :P) we'll be on the phone making plans...

This time though, we left Sharan out of the planning. Lol. Not because we don't love her (goodness knows we do!) but because it was her birthday on the 10^th and so we wanted to do something monumental and make it a surprise for her. A two-in-one 'after exams and birthday partay'! So we got to talking and somehow decided on turning up at her place on the night of the 9^th so we could be at her door wishing her 'Happy Birthday' at midnight and then we'd all just crash at her place for the night. Sounds pretty normal, right?

Sure. If she lives next door. But to really understand how freaking crazy this plan was you have to understand the dynamics between Bombay and New Bombay a little bit (see map). You see, Sharan lives in Vashi which is quite literally on another island. Sure, she comes to college from there everyday (I have so much admiration for the fact that you actually do that, btw) but we're talking going over to another island late at night. 5 girls and we have to figure out what to do with ourselves till midnight!

Anyway, so we coordinated with Sharan's mom (who is such a sweetheart!) and decided that we'd plan on reaching Vashi by around 9pm and then hang out and have dinner at one of the malls there (whichever one stayed open till at least 11pm!) and then head towards their apartment around 11:30pm.

To cut a long story short, it went off so beautifully! Words cannot fully describe...

We stayed up till almost 5am just talking, listening to music, laughing, moon-gazing from the balcony (they live on the 10^th floor, so awesome!!) and then finally we all sort of collapsed in the wee hours of the morning.

Only to wake up again to some awesome homemade filter coffee! :D And then we all went swimming in the pool in their complex. That was so awesome! The last time we stayed over at Sharan's place, it was just me and Vini in the pool because the rest didn't know how to swim/didn't have their swimming costume but then the summer holidays happened and somehow everyone got themselves enrolled in swimming classes and so we were all together in the pool this time! So awesome!!

...ate delicious idlis for breakfast, showered and then headed out to a delicious lunch at Basilico in Bandra.

Man, talk about life... in abundance!!

We do the darndest things.

It's 3:30am.

We're listening to Abba on Antu's Ipod and supercool speakers.

Exams are overrrrrrr :)

We're having a slumber partyyyy at Sharan's place.

(Sharan had no idea about it.)

I officially declare that we're the best in the business of surprise parties :P

And we just do the darndest things in the world. (More about that later)

I can't even BEGIN to describe how blessed and grateful I feel right about now.

Happy 20th Sharan!! :D

Getting closer...

Four down, two more to go!! Yayayaya!!

Lol. I JUST came out of the fourth exam and am in the computer lab because I'm having blogger withdrawal symptoms and my stupid laptop has decided to go mad on me again. Actually not my laptop. Windows. Argh! Ubuntu is my baby. So thankfully, I'm not completely computer-less, I just can't boot up Windows for some reason and therefore can't use the internet at home.

Anyway, just thought I'd update y'all, dear blogger-friends.

*I can't wait till next Wednesday! (When the exams will be over)
*I'm so psyched that it's December!
*I'm looking forward to 2010. I have a feeling it's going to be a good year! This year has been really good too but next year will be better. I can feel it :D
*I'm currently crazy about Michael Buble's new album: Crazy Love. Especially this song called Baby (You've Got What It Takes) ft. Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings. Love it!
*The weather is pleasantly cold in the nights and mornings nowadays. Loving it!

Happy Weekend All! :D