Private & Confidential!!

So I'm packing (again) and trying to figure out what to take and what not to take and just clearing up my cupboard and that's always fun because I have all this junk from school and lookie here what I found!

Lol. That was my diary in Std. 9 (or 10?) when I was at Hebron. Oh my word, what's inside is even funnier! I mean you can just imagine the things that worried a gawky teenager, right? Stupid crushes, "problems" with friends and just some other totally stupid things. Seriously, it's just hilarious. *wipes tear away from eyes* I'm finding it hard to believe that that was actually me writing in there! Here are some examples (and hey, don't judge okay? :P):

Dear Diary, (yeah LOL #1)
We were supposed to have extra swimming, but it rained so heavy it had to be cancelled. I got sooooo mad! I HATE rain!
(I absolutely LOVE rain now, btw!)

Dear Diary,
I hate English! I'm terrible at Poetry!
(I don't hate English now but I think if I still did Poetry I would be pretty terrible at it! :P)

Dear Diary,
It's June! It's the month we go Home!
(Sigh. I don't think I'll EVER get over the excitement of going home!)

Dear Diary,
Natasha's moving into the dorm this weekend. I can't believe it! Hopefully we'll be able to talk more... (Haha, I was actually talking to Tashu about this the other day. I had major jealousy issues when she wouldn't hang out with me. So funny! And so embarrassing when I think about it now. And we're still friends!)

Oh gosh, I could give you loads more but I think that's enough "LOL at Tina" for one day :P

School was such drama, don't you think? All those mad teenage hormones! I'm actually really glad I'm done with that!

Ok, let's see what other treasures are in the cupboard! ;)

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

Shine for you.

Guess who I saw yesterday?

TAZZO!Taz and me catching up on the couch at her aunt's place

She got leave for a couple days and came to Bangalore. I wasn't sure I'd get to see her because she left for Ooty the morning after I reached Bangalore and then had to fly back out to Delhi yesterday evening but then it worked out really neatly and I went over to her aunt's place in Kamanahalli and we got a couple of precious hours together!

I also got to see her mom and her little brother which was so great cause I haven't seen them in so long!

Taryn and her brother, Micah, who is one the sweetest 12 year old boys I have ever met!

Taryn is so very special to me. We started school together at Hebron almost 9 years ago and went through all the highs and lows that come in the life of a bunch of teenage girls together! So very glad I got to catch up with her and so excited for the awesome things that God is doing in her life right now! :) I'll get her to guest-write about that on the blog one of these days! ;)

Another long weekend...

Back to the grind tomorrow. Today is Dussera which is a pubilc holiday which is always good when it's a monday cause it means you get a long weekend. Weekends are the best because I get to sleep in but not really for any other other reason. I'm happy on weekdays cause I'm busy and I get to see my friends but anyway, this weekend has been full and interesting!

Today, Antu and I went to Sonu's place in Kandivli and watched Dirty Dancing as a sort of 'tribute' to Patrick Swayze. I remember watching this movie in Std. 12 and we were all pretty crazy about it. We would have dancing sessions in my room to Do You Love Me. Ah, those were the days! ;)

Yesterday I went to the Art Expo 2009 at the Nehru Centre in Worli. It was pretty awesome. It was basically like an exhibition of different art galleries from around India but there were some other exhibits too. There was this whole section on Jawaharlal Nehru with all these old photographs of the freedom struggle and Independence Day which was really fascinating. It was like walking through history and I learnt a whole lot.

I also met two fellow Hebronites there. Both of them graduated wayyy before me but thanks to Facebook... Anyway, so one of them happens to be a celebrity now (Kalki Koechlin, she acted in the film Dev D) and it was pretty interesting just listening to her talk about this world of Bollywood and modelling that I have pretty limited knowledge about. I kind of felt out of place but she was nice and she even gave me a lift after we left from there...

And then I took the long commute back home and had a nice long phone conversation with Taryn (in Delhi)and had a Skype date with Natasha (in the US) around midnight and wrote in my diary about how thankful I am to have such wonderful friends. Friends who are so good at listening and make you feel like you are as important to them as they are to you. Friends who have been there for 8 years...

And then I gave in to sleep. As I am about to do now.

Toodles.

A Lee Wedding!

I'm at home! The journey was pretty uneventful, except that I had to wake up and leave the house by 4:45am on Friday morning and it was strange being out so early! The airport was pretty chaotic. I actually flew OUT of Bombay for the first time in a long time so I was a little clueless about how it worked so I had to run around a little to get my bag x-rayed and also get myself to the right gate to get on my plane!

It is really good to be home though. I love this house (so much light and I don't feel like I'm stuck in a time-machine about fifty years ago...) and being with my parents!

Yesterday was pretty eventful. Independence Day for India (and S. Korea!) and I also went for a wedding in the evening! AJ's brother, Phillip got married to a wonderful Indian girl, Grace. AJ was my classmate at Hebron and still is a good friend so his mom kindly sent me an invitation to the wedding! I was not at all expecting to be able to make it because I am technically supposed to be in the middle of term in Bombay but thanks to the recent and unexpected turn of events I happen to be in Bangalore so I went! My lovely sister-in-law, D and another close friend from Hebron, Grace accompanied me and I am so grateful to them for coming!

I think you know Dinah, Grace and Me! The girl in the blue saree is Hanalee - AJ's big sister who lives a rather adventurous life in Iowa! She's a fellow-blogger too and a friend of another blogger friend - Kari in France.

I thought it would take us a long time to get to the venue cause it was pretty far out but by the time we started making our way there after I picked D up from her apartment it was around 3:20pm and we reached half-an-hour early (4:00pm) at the venue! But that was actually a good thing cause we got nice seats near the front.

L: Ruthie, Grace and Hannah
R:The newly-weds - Grace and Phillip who, as you can see, is a LOT taller than his bride! :D

The wedding ceremony was really beautiful. The couple was so incredibly happy it was heart warming! AJ's dad conducted the ceremony and spoke about love and significance of marriage and the 'Lee-ladies' were looking really pretty in ethnic Indian clothes!

AJ was the best-man and did a good job being of service to his brother so he was pretty busy throughout the evening and we didn't really get to talk to him much. He also gave a little speech about Phillip which was really funny and sweet!

Grace, D and I with the bride and bridegroom and AJ.

We enjoyed a yummy dinner and met with the Phil and Grace and the rest of AJ's family and then made our way back home around 8:30pm. I am really glad I got to experience this wedding. It was a long-shot for me to be in Bangalore this weekend but somehow things fell into place... :)

Both Grace and AJ are leaving early Wednesday morning. Grace will be going back to Korea after her long summer-break and AJ will be going back to Iowa but hopefully I'll be able to catch up with them once more before they leave.

More later,

Toodles!

How Great Thou Art.

I’ve had an awesome weekend! Usually, my weekend would start on Saturday but this week, it kick-started on Thursday morning as I went to pick Meg up from the station. She came from Hyderabad to stay with me for two nights…

Meg, was my roomie in our last year of school at Hebron! She went off to study at the University of Waterloo in Canada after school and though she’s been back in India it never quite worked out for us to see each other until this year. So I saw her after three whole years and it was so very cool!

The other cool thing that happened was that Orville also happened to arrive in Bombay that same day! We had no idea about this and thankfully he called me right after he landed so Meg also got to catch up with him…

So I’ve had a very Hebron-filled weekend! Orvi, Meg and I reminisced and laughed about our drama filled Hebron days and caught up on our lives since then! We chatted with Niru in Australia for almost an hour on Thursday. And we also talked to AJ this morning which was awesome because it was his birthday today! He’s down in Bangalore for two weeks to be with family and be a part of his brother’s wedding next weekend!

I am thanking God all over again for Hebron and all the wonderful people I met there and also for friendship and how time may go by and there’s a LOT of distance and uncertainty of when we’ll ever see each other again but when we come together it seems like the most natural thing in the world… :)

And I am also so grateful for the friends I’ve made here. I love how excited they also get when my Hebby friends come to visit me and how gracious, welcoming and lovely they always are! I love showing you guys off to my other friends! ;)

More later...

Gra[d-a}nniversary!

3 years out of school!

Here I go again...

So here I am, back in Mumbai on the brink of my last and final year of college! After that I will be a college-graduate! Doesn't that have a nice ring to it!? I am excited to be getting started with third year of college. Hopefully there will be lots to do...

Leaving home doesn't get much easier apparently but I'm trying to be positive. This is life and I am just so grateful for an awesome summer holiday. Here are some of the highlights:

- Trip to Kerala (esp. the elephant ride in Kerala!)
- Trip to Ooty with D
- Catching up with Hebronites in Ooty
- Salsa classes (although I never did get around to going to a salsa party!!)
- Spending time with Doris
- Catching up with Tripti
- Going through old stuff and photos
- Time and access to broadband to post stuff that I can't easily do in Mumbai
- Movies (and I've brought many more on my laptop to keep me occupied till October!)
- Trying out new recipes
- Earth Hour India 2009 (so glad my parents were enthusiastic about this as well...)
- Free summer afternoons...
- Voting and then watching the drama unfold in the news with my parents...
- Discovering that cross-stitching is a lot of fun!
- Grocery-shopping with my parents at Spar (I don't know why I love doing this so much, but I just do.)
- Sleeping over at my brother's place
- Discovering new artists (Brooke Fraser is my current favourite!)
- Bangalore weather (heaven, compared to Mumbai!)
- The "micro-mini Hebron Class of 2006 reunions"
- Cubbies* with Taryn and Grace
- My "fun-aunt" visiting from Calcutta (she always has hilarious stories to tell!)

See what I mean? It's been a fabulous holiday and I'm glad that I did most of what I planned to do at the beginning of the holiday... Except I kind of lost all my gusto with the Hindi and German half-way through. Oops! Oh well, I'm sure Vini will get me going with my hindi again once college starts and I brought some German resources as well but I'm not going to get too ambitious with that right now... There's a time for everything under the sun!

*Cubbies is what we used to call Sleepovers at Hebron. I have no idea why!

Ever Ever After

Yesterday was another fabulous day! It was the three of us again - Grace, me and Taryn-, catching up after two years!
Just the three of us...*
11:30am -- lunching at a Chettinad restaurant,
1:30pm -- feasting on blackforest ice-cream at the Fudge Factory,
2-5:00pm -- napping/reading/chatting while Grace went for a class
5:45pm -- drinking tea/chatting/reminiscing about Hebron/eating fish-strings from Thailand!7:00pm -- started making dinner with my "happy helpers!" (Pasta and Lemon Pie for dessert!) while Taryn played some tunes on my neglected guitar/chatting
11:00pm -- my happy helpers helped me put out the clothes from the washing machine to dry and then we sat up on the roof and watched the clouds do their little dance in the wind...
11:30pm --YouTubeing Taryn! (see here and here), listening to music, chatting some more, listening to some more of Taryn on the guitar (she's really fabulous!)...
and time just went by and we were starting to think about going to sleep at about 2:00am when the day just got better...
Tashu* - who is in St. Louis came online and convinced me to finally download Skype so we waited for that to download and install on my dear laptop and finally at 2:30am we started video conferencing with Tashu!! It was so fabulous! We chatted for an hour on Skype and then finally went to sleep like very happy and... well, very sleepy not-so-little-girls!!!

Ahhhh, it's been a good summer! Back to Mumbai tomorrow...

*I've known these girls from when I joined Hebron in 2001.

Oh-Happy-Day!

Yesterday was lovely. Really really lovely. It started off with my fun-aunt arriving from Calcutta to stay with us for a week and then after "breakfast" I headed off braving the hot sun, dusty and ridiculously crowded Bangalore streets to get to Brigade road for the "mico-mini re-union"!Like Taryn said, there was Cha, Jonny and us two and it was just so fabulous catching up! We ordered our drinks and Jonny and I had waffles with ice-cream and there was non-stop chatter... Jonny's just back from a year abroad in Egypt where he's been learning arabic so he had lots of interesting stories to tell and we (the girls) proceeded to make him jealous about the fact that we're already through (Taz and Cha) or almost through (just 1 more year for me!!) with college while he still has 2 more years to go! Muahahaha! :PAnyway, after about 2-3 hours of that, we finally paid up, got a little camera-happy -especially me, I took about a million with Jonny's Nikon D-SLR! Nothing special, I was just getting such a kick out of messing around with the settings and just hearing the sound of that *click*!- and then headed to pick up some subs from Subway before Jonny got on his way up to Ooty...

After that, Taryn and I walked to Commercial St. in search of embroidery thread (Taz wanted it for making friendship bands and I wanted them to continue my cross-stitching madness!) and after a little asking around, there we were, in Thread-Heaven disguised as a tiny little shop tucked away in some obscure little alleyway. Seriously, you should have seen this place, they had drawers after drawers of threads! Each drawer had various shades of a single colour and we pretty much gasped and squealed every time he opened the next drawer!

We came back home (Taz stayed over) and visited D and Dada for a little while and then came home, blogged, ate dinner(Ma's biriyani!) and dessert (Gooey brownies with Ice-cream!) and then proceeded to sleep-deprive ourselves by staying up till 2:30am - so much to talk about, so little time!!

Yep, so yesterday was pretty much perfect :) Even though Taz and I generally only get to catch up once a year despite living in the same country, it's so easy to just pick up where we left off! Taz and I joined Hebron the same year, were the two new girls in our room, went through home sickness together for the first few weeks, even devised master "escape plans" while lying on the trampoline together at night and talking about our "dream-guys" :P.... I can't believe it's been almost 8 years since then!!

Life is cool.

Thank YOU for this gift - life in abundance!!

Surprised (once again) By Joy

Okay, so since Taryn did such a great job with blogging the last time, and she's staying over, I thought I'd get her to do it again!

So I'll let her take over now...
TARRRRRYNNNNNNNN!

Oh right, she's right next to me... :P

Hello, Friends-of-Tina-who-are-therefore-automatically-friends-of-mine! Has it been as beautiful a day for you as it has been for me? My cup overflows.

A few days ago, I posted on one of Tina's Facebook notes, "The little joys...", with a list of five things (out of the many *insert big number* things) that bring me joy. Monday the first of June, of the year 2009, folks, would get four out of five stars.

2. meeting an old friend after ages and realising that they are still special to you and you to them.

*check!* Today I met Jonny, and Chandni, and Tina, childhood friends. I've known them for eight years! That's the majority of my remember-able life. I left Hebron five years ago, and yet our worlds are bound together by ties that do not seem to be getting weaker.

3. rain. full-force, whole-hearted, water-splashing-everywhere

-with-refreshing-abandon. rain.

It didn't rain today, which is probably a good thing, since Tina and I did an urban echo of the Duke of Edinburgh trek which we completed together six years ago - we bought Subway sandwiches and walked from Brigade Road to Commercial Street munching them happily.

4. mango milk shakes! (i'm a delhi girl, none of these vanilla lattes, Bibi! ;))

*check.* Since I'm not in Delhi, and good mango milkshakes aren't available in Coffee World, I had a Butterscotch Macchiato instead. I now declare Butterscotch Macchiatos a satisfactory substitute. :)

5. long car rides with good company and familiar music playing.

*check!* I went on a lovely evening ride with Tina and her family this evening, with Radio Indigo playing U2, K.T. Tunstall, and even Toploader's 'Dancing in the Moonlight' , and conversation drifting easily from Brooke Fraser to life in Delhi to the state of Bangalore's water table. Joy.

1. the word 'freedom', and all that it signifies.

*check!* I haven't done a jot of work today. I haven't had anyone tell me "do this" or "do that". I have finished school, I have finished undergraduate studies, I am summer-vacationing like I have never summer-vacationed before. But that's not why I'm free. This evening, I read for the first time the C.S. Lewis quote from which the title of this blog is taken:

"But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape?The words compelle intrare, compel them to come in, have been so abused by wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understood they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our Liberation.”

There it is! That word! Or at least a synonym of it: "Liberation". How deep is the truth of that last sentence! How I wish I could grasp that truth, even embrace it, for more than a few minutes at a time, that I might understand better this immense freedom God has bought for me. "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." (John 8:36) It's true.

love,
Taz

Ooty, how I love thee (Pt. 2) and the bus disaster!

Blogger now has mobile posting. How crazy is that?

It's HOT! But I shouldn't really complain cause apparently they're hitting the 40s in Mumbai? Yikes!

Anyway, so this is Ooty Day Two (Saturday, 11th April, 2009)...After I showed D around Selborne we headed down the hill to The Dhaba Express which used to be one of the really good restaurants in Ooty but it was quite a disappointment this time - the food I mean, the company was excellent! There was Miss Smith (top left corner) who is a maths teacher and a fascinating woman :) The Georges -Mr and Mrs and their son, Stephen and his Mrs., Nisha! (You can see Mr. George vaguely in the other picture on the top. He's the one a little blinded by the sun! And Mrs. George, Stephen and Nisha in the second row.) Then there was me and Dinah (surely you know us?!), John Vaz or I should say DR. John Vaz (bottom left corner) who is also an ex-Hebron student whose parents live in Ooty and he is doing medicine stuff in the US. He got a very short break for two weeks and it was nice to bump into him again in Ooty. We never actually were in school at the same time, he's from the class of '99 and I'm '06 so I kinda missed him by a couple of years but I met him first in school when he'd come to visit and then again in Bangalore once through some other friends and then again last year while I did a short stint volunteering at Mizpah Home and he was IG-ing at Hebron. John's parents also joined us for lunch (you can see his dad next to Mr. George). Miss Mangaldoss (next to John), who used to teach us chemistry is another amazing woman who now lives in Pune. Niru and I had stayed at her place in Pune when she came to visit me in 2008. And Miss Morris who was also a staff-member at Hebron for a long time.

Phew! Sorry if that was a little confusing!

After lunch we parted ways and D and I headed to the Bee Museum which was just brilliant. The tickets are a measly 20 bucks and they show you a 40 minute documentary which was very tastefully made about the Kurumbas who are a tribe of people in the Nilgiris whose main and daring occupation is honey-gathering. I say daring because these people do not use protective gear and hang precariously from cliffs to do their stuff and it was really quite fascinating!

After that we went to Ooty lake which was horribly crowded and messy. We checked out the thread garden.

And then walked walked walked walked to find an auto. I actually enjoyed that but it would have been a good idea not to be wearing non-grip chappals!

On the way we met these three charming little girls who enthusiastically ran up to us to say hello and asked us to take a photo of them and then they just got back to their playing! So sweet.

Anyway, we finally did find an auto but we decided that they'd really taken us for ride for the past day and a half and that we wouldn't cave until they agreed to our price (they don't have fixed prices for autos in Ooty) but they didn't cave! So we had to keep walking... Eventually we did find an auto and we headed to Coffee Day to put back on all the calories we lost in all the walking :)

The next morning we left for the bus stand by around 9:15am and waited for our bus to take us back to Bangalore. The journey was going pretty okay although it seemed much longer than the ride up... Little did we know that that was not even close to the worst part!

About 10-15kms from Bangalore city our bus came to a jerking halt and there was utter confusion. Eventually we figured out that we had actually been in an accident. Our bus driver had hit down a motorcyclist and... he RAN AWAY. Yes, our bus drivers just abandoned a bus-full of people, a half-dying man on the road that HE had hit down and ran to save his own life.

Anyway, thankfully the man wasn't dead on the spot and the ambulances arrived surprisingly fast by India's sorry standards in such things and also the police managed to keep the mob violence-free. After more confusion, we finally all got our luggage and off the bus and stood on the side of road trying to figure out what to do. Obviously no help would come for us (this is India!) and the useless cops tried and failed to stop a couple of local buses to take us the rest of the way. They even failed to stop a bus driver to stop and move OUR bus off the road so that the traffic could continue flowing.

Well, we did finally get on a local bus which took us to the city where we got off and hopped onto an auto to take us home.

That was, needless to say, quite a night! I went from utter confusion to ANGER to sorrow to gratefulness and just utter lethargy in those few hours. What else can I say?

Ooty, how I love thee! (Pt. 1)

So we're back from Ooty and the ride back was quite something but that story is for another day!

We reached Ooty early Friday morning after an extremely bumpy and sleepless night on the bus. We unfortunately got seats at the back of the bus and for some reason that I will someday find out, it's really much bumpier at the back. Anyway, we reached Ooty and took an auto to the guest house where we were staying - Mountaban - and freshened up and then left at around 10am to get something to eat at Cafe Coffee Day.

After that we headed over to Hebron so I could show D around and meet the Georges (vice-principal of Hebron and also one of the Hebron families that I am really close to). School was closed for the mid-term break unfortunately but I still got to meet a few teachers so that was good. Once again I surprised Mr. Reid (principal) who got a little suspicious seeing D (a stranger to him) intently taking photos of school!

After we had our fill of photographing (D went a little crazy with the flowers!!) around school, we headed up to the Georges flat where we met Mrs. George and her son, Stephen, and his wife, Nisha, who are both lovely people. And then we all headed (with a few more teachers) to St. Stephen's Church for the Good Friday service which went on for 3 long hours which seemed even longer for D and I who were seriously sleep-deprived but we managed to stay awake with the help of popping some mints ;). The sermon was on the seven last words spoken by Jesus on the cross and each word was taken care of by a different speaker which really added some variety to the service and it was very interesting.
Anyway, so after that we all gathered around for some hot cross buns (seriously! I thought you only got those in kiddies books!) and coffee and caught up with some more Hebron people and made up a plan to meet for lunch the next day... It was almost 4pm and we hadn't had lunch so John Vaz (another ex-student of Hebron, seven years senior to me!), Don Foster (teacher from America), D and I headed to Nahar Garden restaurant for some dosa.

...which we really enjoyed! (the bigger one, which is called a Cheese Paper Dosa was D's :P)

In the evening D and I hit the town! :) Well, we went and bought a lot of that delicious home-made chocolate from Modern Stores (favourite store in Ooty!) and also to a book sale where I actually found two books that I wanted to read just for Rs. 95 each! And I bought a little something to eat; D was still full from above mentioned dosa, and then headed back for some sound sleep at the guesthouse. The next morning we went to the Rose Garden that Ooty is famous for but it was quite a disappointment because Ooty hasn't had any rain yet so the garden wasn't blooming as yet. Anyway, we did see some roses and were amused by some of the funny names and also a funny quote!

After that we headed to Selborne which is the girls' boarding campus of Hebron (the boys live on the main campus) and we caught up with Miss Smith (who is the most awesome maths teacher in the world!) and she showed us her famous map of India which she has cross-stitched and updates with a record (a cross-stitched record!) every time she travels to a new place and she's travelled a LOT!! From Leh to Shillong to Mumbai to Kanyakumari - everywhere! I wish I had taken a photo but I figured that's hers' to share with the world. But if you ever go up to Ooty and meet Miss Smith ask her to show you her map! :) We also chatted with the Azariahs who were my first dorm parents (think warden, but much nicer!) when I joined Hebron in Std. 9.

and then... lunch with a bunch of Hebronites and the Bee Museum which I'm too tired to continue now so that's all for now!

"Queen of Hill Stations"

So this evening at precisely 9:03 pm (seriously, that's what the bus ticket says) D and I will be leaving on a bus for our the oh-so-long-9-hour journey to Ooty. You know that "hill" which stands 2,240m (approx 7400ft) above sea level where I went to school for five beautiful years and just can't get enough of? We decided to take advantage of the long weekend (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) for Easter and head up to Ooty for some girl-time!

Here are some quick Ooty-facts for you:

- Ooty is situated in the Nilgiris (which means Blue Mountains) of the state of Tamil Nadu.

- The Tamil name for Ooty is Udagamandalam.

- It was described as and "Queen of Hill Stations" by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (who was the first prime minister of independent India).

- The Niligiris were part of the Kingdom of Mysore of Tipu Sultan (Fernhill Palace was the erstwhile summer residence of the Maharaja) before he surrendered it to the British in the 18th century.

- Ooty was first brought to the public eye by John Sullivan, Collector of Coimbatore district in 1819 and was used as a popular summer and weekend getaway for the Britishers in the colonial days.

- The only route to the Nilgiris from Coimbatore until 1932 was a bridle path up the hill which took a period of 2 years to complete starting 1821.

- The first Coonoor ghat road was laid in 1932 thanks to the then Governor S.R. Lushington (does that name ring a bell Hebronites? Lushington Hall is the name of Hebron's main campus).

- The British took up the monumental task of connecting Mettupalyam (a.k.a. Metty) to Ooty by rail in 1880. The work was completed in 1899 (which is also the year that Hebron School, then Lushington Boys' School, was established!) The railway track STILL exists and is functional even today, more than a hundred years later.

- The Government Botanical Gardens in Ooty was laid out in 1847 by John Sullivan and covers about 22 hectares.

- The rose garden situated in Ooty has (apparently) the largest collection of roses in the country.

Sources: Ooty.com and Wikipedia!