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

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! ;)

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!

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!

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.

...

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.

...

5 days to go!

...

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?

...
...

The Last of Them (Ooty Trip Part 7)

These are the last of them. i promise ;)

my dear friends caught in the forbidden act of plucking flowers in the botanical gardens in ooty.

the tree-shot gone wrong.

blue skies, green fields!

plucking invisible apples from a not-apple tree.
posing for a photo in the middle of the road while almost getting run-over while our bus's tire got punctured on the way back to bangalore from ooty. gosh. women. :P
but it is a brilliant photo, don't you think? thanks to sonu! :)"oh right, cars drive on this road..."