Time is a funny thing...

See the resemblance? :) One year old --> 7 or 8 yrs old --> 16.

I like going through old photos, especially when they're in albums - REAL photos and not just a bunch of pixels on the monitor. So I try to get my digital photos printed even now because I like to imagine my own kids/grand-kids sitting down and flipping through a pile of photo albums and asking me questions about the people in them. Anyway, I'm getting a little ahead of myself there!

I've been a sort of "quasi-nomad" for the past 8 years. Living at home for a few months and then going back to school/college in another city/town so I only get to look through these albums when I'm on holiday at home so I decided to convert a couple of them into soft-copies so that I can look through them (thanks to the internet) even when I'm not at home. At first I took digital photos of the old photos but not all of them came out clear. So last night I used the scanner at Dada and D's place and added a whole bunch more... Ah! Technology, that double edged sword!

Scanning is a lot of fun actually! After I finished scanning the 20-odd photos that I took with me to my bro's place, I started scanning stuff from my wallet! He he :D Here's some from my wallet...

Taryn, Me and Grace, Bangalore:. This one is actually a TINY little sticker stuck on the back of the photo below. We took this in one of Korean(?) photo-sticker machine thingys outside a bowling alley in Bangalore. Anyone know what I'm talking about? I have no idea what those machines are called... Don't remember exactly when it was taken...

Freesia and Me, Ooty, 2004 (i think): This one was taken in one of those passport photo-booths in Ooty. I love this machine! Sadly, the people at the photo shop saw how much we enjoyed this and stopped allowing more than one person going into the booth at a time! Thankfully we got to it before that happened!

And now for some fun with Photoshop! That's the three of us vegetating on the couch, watching the first innings of the IPL finals (while D Facebook-ed on the laptop!) just before we got down to eating some of that Lasagne my sis-in-law is famous for! ;)

Birthday Blueberry Cheesecake!

Sonu and I had a joint birthday 'party'. She turned 20 on the 4th of February and I turned 21 on the 13th of February. So on the 13th we took our best friends from college out to "Dips and Desserts" at a great little restaurant called Moshes in South Mumbai. The place is a little pricey for a bunch of regular, non-earning college girls so we decided not to do proper lunch and concentrate on desserts because desserts are often too expensive for us to buy one for each!
So we ordered hummus, harissa and tapenade with some pita bread. Some mocktails, tea for Sharan and then then dove into the desserts - blueberry cheesecake, philadelphia baked cheesecake, tiramisu and chocolate mudpiee. Mmmmmdelicious!

Vini, Jo and Tina

Sonu and Gauri

bong babes :P

out with the old!

Our desserts

pile on! :)

oooh! a goodie bag! I got:
- new chappals
- a new diary for the 21st year of my life!
- lots of stationery!
- a gorgeous desi bag
- a poem from Vini
- a card made by Sharan

yummy dips!

dreaming of my blueberry cheesecake (caught by Sharan)

Chips, Dips and Love Letters!

Yesterday Sonu was 20 yrs and 2 days old and because that's more than a good enough reason to call for a celebration, we - ALL seven of us - went to the ridiculously priced little restaurant (Under The Banyan Tree a.k.a UTBT) right under the nose of our college and ordered 'Chips and Dips' which was one of the cheaper items on their menu (Rs. 45) and it turned out to be delicious so we ordered a second plate.
Before that Sonu and I, in our search for an ATM near college found a little Archie's store (cards, gits, etc) and thanks to fast-approaching Valentines Day we had some good entertainment, examining all the mushy stuff and the cards! Oh the cards!! That was a sight to behold. They had a whole lot of 'singing' cards with songs ranging from Time Of My Life to Doori... Oh we all but fell over laughing - it was so much fun! Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Valentine's Day or think it's 'evil' (unlike the Shiv Sena or the 'King of Morals' down south - Mutalik) but seriously some of these cards are really funny :)
Anyway we came back to UTBT and ate our chips and dips and then we were reading out letters from the book Love Letters that Sharan found at the BCL. Letters written by John Keats, Lewis Carroll, Oscar Wilde, etc, etc. Basically love-crazed men and women from a very very long time ago. Some were shocking, some were hilarious ("Yours, Beaver"...!?!!?), some were oozing with romanticism and some were crazy ("Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella......."), some didn't make much sense (well, at least to US!) but it made for some fun reading anyway!

Spread the Love :)

And to be cont'd... :P

Experience With Me.

AlLast week my friend Grace who studied with me for five years in school at Hebron came to visit me in Bombay. She brought along her friend Onyou who studies in Bangalore and we had a whole lot of fun. I showed them around South Bombay a little - which is where all these old and beautiful buildings from the time of the British Raj stand and of course there is also the Taj Palace Hotel. We ate a delicious breakfast at Leopold's Cafe at Colaba Causeway. It was quite strange because almost everywhere I took them was one of the places that had been attacked during the 26/11 terrorist strike. The Taj palace is still closed but from the outside it is still as magnificent as ever. Leopold's has, perhaps deliberately, still left the mirrors and the display glass with the bullet holes the way they are.

We also went to Juhu beach the evening they arrived and strolled around trying to be inconspicuous but didn't really achieve that. When you're a foreigner in India you attract vendors, perverts, transvestites and beggars like a magnet. I suppose you attract attention as a foreigner in any country really.

Also if you come from any south-east Asian country, you MUST BE Chinese! Many vendors in Bandra made that presumption. First of all there was that annoying brat of boy who constantly kept singing "From Chandni Chowk To Chinaaaaa..." every time we passed by which is a) the worst song I have heard in a long time b) belongs to one of those terrible movies out of a thousand that Bollywood churns out every year and c) just plain grate-on-your-nerves ANNOYING! I had every mind to go punch him in the nose or worse but Onyou saw me grinding my teeth and getting ready to hurt him and sternly led me away...

Anyway, we all cooled down on some good old 'Mineral Water Gola' from the Gogola stand!

Onyou's first reaction was "It's salty!". Lol. It is, a little.

Grace LOVED it!

Well, so far I've got two visitors to try out Gola. When are YOU coming to visit me!? :)

Grace like rain...

... falls down on me. (lyrics from the "Grace Like Rain" by Todd Agnew)

I feel really blessed.

After school (Hebron), I tried really hard to get out of India. I wanted to study anywhere but here mainly because I had many stereotypical notions about the education system here and frankly I was terrified of living here and never getting out. I don't feel the same way anymore (well, most of the time, I have a good dose of "I-hate-living-in-India" days but doesn't everybody?) I feel like I have a purpose in this country. Heck, I know there is a purpose. Nevertheless, it was difficult, especially because practically ALL my friends live/study abroad and I wanted to be closer to them (although that's barely possible since they live in all the corners of the world and therefore there would have to be atleast 10 of me to be close to my closest friends.) But God, in His infinite wisdom had other plans. He literally closed all doors, windows, cracks, holes, etc of my leaving India. I'm serious. I think He hinted at it many times - like complications with my passport, but I wouldn't listen and I pushed and tirelessly fought for it so finally to get through my thick skull He had to make it pretty obvious where He wanted me (In India, more specifically in Bombay living with my grand-mom) and honestly, today I could not be more thankful.

I don’t know how to explain it but when you’re in the centre of His will, everything falls into place and because He loves you He will provide and ‘make up’ for all the things that you think you are missing out on in ways that you could never have imagined, in ways that are so much more meaningful…

Friends. The friends I made at Hebron are so so precious to me and it kills me that I have to be so far from them but over the last two-and-a-half years I have had the chance to meet
- Orville, two times.
- Niru, two times.
- Taryn, three or four times.
- Grace, many times because we both lived in Bangalore for a while after school.
- Jonny, two times.
- Sakshi, once.
- Tashu, once.
…amongst other Hebronites. I’ve been able to have great phone conversations with so many others. I get letters :)

And to top it all off, I’ve also made the most special bunch of friends in Bombay too. You know who you are! Honestly, I wouldn’t have survived without you :)

The last few years out of school have been bumpy learning curves and living in Bombay with my granny - well, it ain't easy by any stretch of the word - but I wouldn’t exchange this for anything because I know that I am where I am meant to be and there’s no better knowledge than that.

So why am I telling you all this? Well, its just sort of been a recurring theme in my life at the moment. And this verse keeps coming back to me: “For I know the plans that I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future…” (Jer 29:11) and I thought I’d share that with you…

I’ve had the most special one-and-a-half days with Grace and her friend, Onyou. They’re both South Koreans and live in Bangalore. Grace and I have been friends for almost 8 years; we started our journey at Hebron together in 2000. She studies in S. Korea and came back to India for a short holiday with her family and paid me a short and extremely sweet visit in Bombay. Oh, and she brought Kim Chi, LOTS of it :) But more on all that later. For now, a few pictures…

computer-time.Shopping in Bandra.Mitzi (Orville's younger sister) and Grace at home.Grace, telling us about a Korean book she read.All of us just before they headed out to the train station. Onyou, Mitzi, Grace and Tina.

Grace like rain falls down on me. Have a great weekend!

And the list goes on...

The good things in life consist of these:

• An hour-long conversation with my bum-chum from Zambia yesterday. We (literally) grew up together and we always have such great conversation! Thanks for calling, Shaon!
• Letters, letters, letters! The ones that come in snail-mail. They make my day!
• Indian food. (mmm, paneer makhani, dal fry and jeera rice with a little pickle on the side in college canteen!)
  
• Knowing that love is alive and kicking. I see it all around me, even in the direst of situations.
• Good books. I'm reading The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom at the moment.
• Hoping in a God who keeps His promises.
• Blogs. (Sonu has joined us!)
• Just being in college.
• Weddings - the kind that are just brimming over with love, everlasting love!
• Grace - coming to visit me and this big old crazy city in two days! (More on that later)
• Fun Movies. I think I'm going to go watch Enchanted now - again! - and write my movie review on it, while I'm at it.
  

Toodles!

Only In India (Part 3)

Would you believe that I haven't FELT like blogging for the past couple of days! I am like a compulsive blogger type person, so this is strange. I have actually been spending a LOT of time on the net, though. Half of it was to research for a project so that doesn't count. The other half? Well, when I'm not writing a blog, I'm reading blogs. Nothing new. :)

Anyway, so I thought I'd tell you about Golas today. I know that half of you who might be reading my blog already know about golas but personally I find it quite fascinating. I had my first gola with my parents at Juhu beach two years ago when I came to Bombay for college admissions. So I went ahead and googled it and it turns out there's not really much information on it (Sonu, Vini, Sharan, maybe you could write a paper on this! hee hee! :P) but here's what I found on the great Wikipedia that has random information on EVERYTHING.

The vendor places a big lump of ice on a machine, churns it into crushed ice and gathers it into an oval ball with his hand. A proficient poke with the wooden gola stick, a dash of the purplish-black syrup (known as the Kala khatta syrup) from one of the colourful bottles, a squeeze of some lime and a pinch of masala (a mixture of black salt, pepper and common salt) and there you are all ready to slurp the Kala Khatta. The Kala Khatta syrup is made from a fruit, called Jamun or Jambul. Its scientific name is syzygium cumini and is also called the Indian blackberry or the Java plum.

...a pretty comprehensive description, I would say. Except it doesn't tell you what you have to do with it so here's a picture of us to illustrate!

Sonu and Tina at the Gogola stand in Bandra

SLLLLLLUUUUUUUURRRRRRPPPPPPPP!

And there are many many more flavours besides kalakhatta (which is actually the best!). We ordered one kalakhatta and one watermelon. You get the idea. Basically its a desi version of ice-lollies except its highly unhygienic - they use their hands to compact the ice, you have no idea what water the ice is made up of, they stick a piece of wood in to hold it together (you don't know where that's come from either!) and even the syrups look highly questionable. But in India, the dirtier the cheaper and the tastier! And honestly after a while you just get immune to the bugs!

I still highly recommend gola to any of you that decide to come visit me from abroad (*hint hint*) and I'll take you to the Gogola stand on linking road in Bandra - they (profess to) use mineral water ice! And they use gloves and uber hygienic (but not eco-friendly) plastic 'sticks' and while you get a gola for 10 bucks on Juhu beach, they'll charge you 30 here but hey, you can't have everything!!

Sonu and me outside the salon/parlour in Dadar last Friday. I cut my hair, she dyed hers!