Pseudo-graduates.

So what happens at a College Farewell Dinner?

--You all pile on at one of your friends' houses (Jo's place in our case), make the most of the rare occasion to dress up - makeup and all.
--Hail a cab, carefully maneuver yourself in without unraveling your saree and sit in the horrible traffic for 30-45mins in order to get to college.
--Once you get there. Take LOTS of pictures.
--Admire all the beautiful colours and fall in love with sarees all over again and be amazed by how much variety there is!!
--Dance a little - as much as your saree will allow.
--Eat! Go first or you'll have to stand in a long line! Take lots on the first serving because by the time you're ready for seconds there won't be much food left.
--Take some more pictures.
--Collect your gift.
--Make a plan to go somewhere else after this because the night is still young and you're pseudo-graduates so you're allowed to do such things :P
--Have FUN!

The Psycho-Socio-Lit gang

So if we don't end up doing anything with all the education, these pics will definitely get us good husbands the old-fashioned Indian arranged marriage way, right? :P

So our "after-plan" was to go to Cafe Ivy and order a bottle of wine just like we did after the last night of K'scope. We had Peach flavoured wine! Lol. We couldn't really taste any Peach in there but it was good nonetheless and much cheaper than the other wines. Works good for us poor college going kids :P Isn't this such an awesome picture? Love the colours and the effect on the glass and Sharan's expression. Love it love it love it all!Lol. Doesn't Sonu look so peaceful in this pic?

One of those...

So it's that time of year again - OSCARS! Okay... I was never really that into it but then I met Sharan and her enthusiasm kind of rubs off on you! :P Anyway, the awesome thing about the Oscars is that you have a long list of movies to watch that are pretty much guaranteed to be good. Not always... sometimes you really wonder "what were they thinking?!" But anyway, so I hadn't watched a movie in a while and the mock exams ended yesterday - oh and have I mentioned that Mumbai University POSTPONED our final exams?! Yeah, way to go, MU. Way to go. So now my exams start on the 13th of April as opposed to the 8th and end on the 18th of May. How many exams do I have? SIX. Six exams for more than a month :/ Trust me if you saw my timetable, you'd be whining too.

Anyhoo, I guess it's a reminder that when you think you are in control of the universe - uh, think again.

Back to the Oscars! So yesterday Sharan gave me a couple of the Oscar films (I told her to give me the less depressing ones!) and I watched Up In The Air. Good movie! But then I watched The Blind Side. Awesome movie! It's not 'Best Movie of the Year' kind of good but it's just a leave you with a fuzzy-happy-feeling kind of movie. It's one of those movies like Amazing Grace that I know I will go back to again and again to watch my favourite bits when I feel down and out with the world.

It's based on the true story of Michael Oher - an American Football player. Don't know anything about "Football" (:P) but after watching this film... interested! :P Okay, not really. I'll admit there were parts of the film where they showed the games and I was going, "what on earth!?! what kind of a strange sport is this??" But then I imagine a lot of people think that about Cricket. Or Hockey. It's all relative, really. But it is interesting, and I'd be really happy to let someone explain the game to me!

But yeah, haven't recommended a film on the blog in a while because I haven't watched a movie in ages so I'm recommending The Blind Side. And do you know what's ridiculous? I haven't watched a hindi movie in like four months or something. The last one I watched was Rocket Singh before Christmas. That's just... ridiculous. I mean, I live in Bollywood pretty much :P

Anyway, that's all for now! Tonight we have our farewell dinner at college which means dressing up (!!) and eating... and fun! So pictures to come soon! :)

More (Flower) Power to us.

Looking to for the future...

These are sad days because they're the last few days of classes. As in, after Thursday I'm never going to sit through another class at Sophia's! :( SAD!

Anyway, so to cushion the blow, one fine day in the canteen Astrid and I thought, "let's have a dress code for each day of the last week. It'll be fun!!" And of course I was totally excited because I remember doing this in school too! The next day Astrid (who is our class rep) announced it to the rest of the class and so the Socio single major students and even our teachers (!!) are having a lot of fun this week ;)

Today was Flower Power/Hippy/Bohemian day...On Thursday we're going on a field trip (apparently) and then maybe lunch (?) with the class. Friday's a public holiday for some reason.. Never been so sad about a public holiday - this means one less day of college!! Tragic.

Today on the train ride back home, one of our teachers was on the same train and she asked us how we were coping up with "the end of college" and I said, "it comes and goes" and well, it hadn't come all day and then it came with an added realisation.. So far, I've been sad about leaving and saying goodbye to friends and going to college everyday and then it hit me that I'm going to miss the teachers too! And it's been such a blessing that we actually have a pretty awesome rapport with our teachers! And I am going to miss them! Ack!

Also I've been thinking about how I've made it through three years of being in an all-girls institute for the first time in my life. And let me tell you, it's been AWESOME. To be honest when I started off, I was a little like "ummmmmmm" just because I've always been in co-ed... but I haven't had a single day of thinking "I wish Sophia was co-ed." Not that I don't like boys, it's just that people often have this notion (like I did!) about all-girls being "boring" but trust me, I've had the most fun three years ever. And being in India, it's even more special because let's face it, we still have this socially backward notion that "boys are better than girls". Families still rejoice when a BOY is born. No fire crackers are burst on the birth of a GIRL, in fact sometimes we do everything we can to get rid of the girl! It's sad but it's true (don't argue with me, I studied 'Gender and Society' :P). So to be in a girls college like Sophia which is one of the best colleges in Bombay and especially being a part of one of Bombay's biggest college festivals (Kaleidoscope)... it's been an honour. And I am glad that Sophia has not and hopefully will not (ever) give in to the pressure of going co-ed. And one day girls will be celebrated as much as boys are in our country!

More power to us! :)

For my February-girl!

Today has been a long long day. We had our final presentation for the Research project we had to conduct as a requirement for our course. It went off beautifully and I'm so glad because we really did put in a lot of work and it's been so much fun! The whole thing started months ago and besides learning a whole lot, we've become closer friends! It's really been awesome and I loved all the busyness it brought into my life... getting questionnaires filled out by random strangers, brainstorming, tabulating and analyzing data, etc, etc. Not to mention all the crazy heated debates and late evenings at Monisha's place (mostly). Oh yes, and all the food! :) It hasn't quite hit me yet, but I can't believe it's over. That's so... sad. I'm really going to miss this!The busyness is not over though... We have a massive load of assignments due in in the next few days and a test on Monday... I'm actually dreading when it'll all STOP. When the classes are over and I don't have to go to college everyday, survive on 5-6 hours of sleep and canteen food. When I have to just stay at home and study. Yikes! Go slow, time! :(
On a less depressing note, it was Sonu's birthday today! She's my February-girl! :) And also the very first person I talked to on my very first day of college! Gosh, seems like aaaages ago now but I remember it so clearly and we've been pretty fast friends ever since! Since the last few days have been so crazy busy we never got around to planning anything at all for her birthday and weren't even sure we'd get to see her today but after we finished our presentation, Jo and Antu nipped out to a bakery close by and bought some cake and then we 'embarrassed' Sonu and made her cut it after class! And then we went out to Mocha (a very yummy but annoyingly pricey cafe in Churchgate) and stuffed our faces and did the usual - talked and laughed! I love that I can always count on laughing out loud with my girlfriends! What am I going to do without you guys?
Anyway, here are some pictures!

As if we needed an excuse...

It's been a while since I updated, right? Not that there hasn't been anything to write about (and there are plenty of photos too)... There's actually been so much going on that the last two weeks of my being back in Bombay is kind of a hazy blur in my head. And time... Time is just flying! It's kind of scary. We're already into the last week of January and while I'm happy that that means February is just around the corner (it's my favourite month, don't you know? :P) I find myself actually thinking sometimes, "gosh time, slow down a little!!" :P

But yeah, I'll leave the details of what's been going on to later. For now, here are some pictures! :)

Today was the day we had to take our "class photos" and so it was an excuse to sort of dress up and an excuse for some manic *clicking* not that we ever require an excuse for that... But yeah, it was fun... until it got a little tiring! Lol.

Sharan and Jo at the marble stairs...
Our list of "Places we have to eat at before we leave Bombay" :D
My girls! :) Vini, Sharan, Jo, Antu, Sonu and Gauri - I don't even want to imagine what Bombay would have been like if it weren't for you lovely people!
Jo trying to be superman?
Socio buddies ;)
Fluoresce! Our Research group!
Vini and Antu.
Me, Gauri and Sonu
Astrid and Antu at the Central lawn...
Jo and Molu - our Student Body President! :)
Some of the girls in our Socio class with our teachers...

Something New.

So today there was a Blood Donation Drive organised by the Tata Memorial Hospital in college and I didn't really have any intention on donating. Not because I'm scared of needles because I'm really not but because I always hear these freak stories of how people have gotten infected with some scary disease and blah blah so I was planning to skip it even though there was really nothing to worry about. But then I went to the venue because Antu was going to donate and I saw everything and how it's organised and clean and I was like, hmmmmm... I think I should do it. So I did. I was still kind of paranoid for a long time and was observing everything and saw that they were using disposable needles and everything so I filled out a form and they checked my blood pressure, hemoglobin, weight, etc and I passed!

After a lot of waiting around, Antu and I finally got our chance and it was pretty cool. The needle is scary, I'll give you that... but you don't actually feel anything because they give you a local anesthetic and well you just sort of sit there and 300ml (I think) of your blood flows into a bag that will hopefully save someone's life. Now that's cool, isn't it? I think it is.

After you're done they compulsorily send you to the "Blood Donation Cafe"... Lol. Okay, well that's what I christened it! :P Basically you have to go sit down and drink some coffee and eat some biscuits. I felt kind of woozy because I guess my body suddenly missed it's blood or something. Haha. But then they made me lie down for a while and the doctor was like, "what are you feeling?" and I was like, "Ummm, I don't know! I can't explain it!" Yup, that's me. I'm so terrible at describing my symptoms but yeah the lying down helped and I'm all fine now... except for the little puncture in my arm. Seriously. BIG needle!!

So yeah, Tina did something new today... and I'd do it again.

First Day Back :)

So you know this project that I had to write over the holidays? Well I finished it finally and it’s all handed in and signed for and DONE! Oh, that’s a good feeling. I thoroughly enjoyed writing it. Like seriously.

Besides the fact that I learnt about a lot of things that I probably wouldn’t have read up on otherwise, I also learnt that I am a procrastinator of the worst kind! I mean, I always knew this but I really shocked myself this time! :O I don’t know what it is; maybe I work better under pressure? Or I’m just plain lazy? It’s not lack of interest because like I said, I loved my project. I wrote about two Nobel peace laureates – Aung San Suu Kyi and Shirin Ebadi and I have so much respect for both these women and it was so fascinating just reading up into the histories of Burma and Iran. Once I got into the groove, I was pretty much hooked on it and I loved finding out to my utter delight that I can write. I mean who am I to judge whether I write well or not but I liked the fact that it’s something that I really enjoy doing even if it is for something other than my blog! :P

The problem is just the getting into the groove part. I mean it’s like almost... painful. To discipline myself to just shut up (in my head I mean, there’s always chatter in my head) and WRITE! I stayed up really late on most of my last week home (oh yeah, that’s another thing that I learnt… apparently I think best in the wee hours of the morning!) because once I started writing I was too scared to stop cause I’d have to go through the whole process again. It’s so weird. What is wrong with me!? Lol.

Anyway, so that’s that! I hope my teacher enjoys reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

First day back was really great. You want to know a secret? For all my grumbling about coming back to Bombay, I actually do love my life here in a lot of ways. (Not in every way, but hey, who can say they have a perfect life?) It was so great to see everyone in college! My friends (like I keep saying) are just fabulous and you should just hear some of the conversations that we have in the canteen... Today, we somehow went from a description of the Lit conference that happened last weekend to a heated debate on Kashmir!! It was so bizarre-cool. I mean, how on earth? And it didn’t even really get anywhere except to the realisation (well, at least for me) that I actually know shamefully little about this complex situation and I ought to read up on it...

In fact, I think I might go and do that right now.

Happy Monday all! :)

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