One World, Many Lives.

This is a very strange and difficult situation to be in. Life is far from normal right now. I haven't been to college for two days not because I am ill, or its raining too or simply because I couldn't wake up on time but because my city is almost in a state of war. War is a more appropriate term because when you say terrorist attack, you think bomb blasts or planes crashing into buildings. It happens for a few unbelievable minutes and then you have to move on to recovery. But this is different, its been more than 36 hours of shooting, grenade bombs and holding hostages. They have enough ammunition to last them for days.

Since the first time I blogged about this, the death toll has almost tripled and the injured have doubled. I didn't even mention anything about hostages -most of home were unsuspecting tourists- or how the chief of the Anti-Terrorist Squad is dead. How the General Manager of the Taj Hotel's entire family died in the mayhem.

And yet. And yet, life is going on as normal for most of the world. What's going on in Bombay might only be tucked in to some corner of the global news page of your daily newspaper along with all the other atrocities that are happening in the world today. People are just hearing about what is happening in my city. People are celebrating Thanksgiving. People are partying. People are working. People are going on with the mundane chores and duties of life.

There is no reason that you should not go on with your normal lives because it is possible. But its hard to have to accept and understand this skewed world sometimes. It happens all the time - people die when others are celebrating new life. People win, while there is a loser. Countries live in peace and security while others are ravaged by war and famine and illness...

I don't know how God does it. To be with you in your joy while He is also with us in our sorrow. I don't know how He does it, but I know He does and I am glad that He does.

And this may be a very long and dark night for Bombay, but joy will come in the morning. That is the essence of hope. And I refuse not to have hope.

Bombay Blues.

I hate this. I hate the fact that I must sit at home today because the choice of going to college has been taken away from me because of a bunch of assholes who think they are doing something noble and great by killing innocent people and destroying Bombay's heritage.

When will it stop?

The Taj hotel at the Gateway of India in Colaba taken 9 months ago when Niru came to visit.

The 'Best' For The Last?

I guess we knew it was coming.

Bombay has been attacked. Blasts, shooting, fire and they're still at it, it seems. It's 1:36am and the carnage is still going on in South Mumbai. I don't feel a thing here. It is as if nothing has happened and I probably would have finally pulled myself away from my laptop, turned off Grey's and gone to sleep so I can wake up in time to get to college. The milk van has come and delivered his milk to the distributor's who live across from our house. As usual. Oh the normality of it. Well nothing's normal.

At least 50 dead and hundreds injured. So far. God knows what will await us tomorrow morning if I ever do get to sleep.

I am angry. I am sad. I am frustrated. I've cried all those tears that I have held back for several months. One frustration over the other... all repressed in some corner of my mind.

Mostly I am pleading with God. Pleading with Him to let it stop. Pleading with Him to save us from ourselves.

Bombay. My Bombay, I cry with you this night. I pray for you this night.

Max-ed Out!

What happens when girls go shopping...Food is eaten - for energy. Must be highly calorific, preferably with chocolate... In this case the choice was doughnuts from the Donut Baker...photos are taken...
clothes are tried on...more photos are taken of all possible outfits and poses...and some more...there may be some squealing and utter excitement!!... And then we decide we don't really like all of them (but really we can't afford them but it just hurts less to say we don't like them!!) and end up buying like two out of the ten we tried out......but at least we have pictures ;) :D ;) :D

(these photos were taken in the changing room at MAX - a clothes shop in Bangalore while Jo was visiting during the holidays... I've been dying to post them for ages but due to technical difficulties, couldn't. So here they are now. If it's not obvious enough, we had a BLAST!)

Third Culture Kids.

Today is one of those bad internet days. My stupid usb modem is acting up and won’t let me do anything so if you can see this: yay!

Well, I’m back. In Bombay.

The train journey turned out to be a lot of fun for me cause I made friends with a bunch of IB students studying in a boarding school just outside of Pune. At first it was kind of sad because it reminded me SO MUCH of us, back in school on the train, creating havoc and lots of noise on one of our school trips or relief projects. It all just looked so familiar – an improbable mix of people from all around the world. There was one girl from Spain, one from Norway, one guy from Denmark, one from S. Korea and the rest of the guys were Indian but had all at one point lived abroad like in the US, Canada, etc… So basically a whole bunch of TCKs (Third Culture Kids: If you don't know what it means, check out a pretty rough description here) and being one myself, I got on pretty well with them. They were a crazy bunch and I had a good laugh listening to their stories. They were just going back to school after a week of ‘working’ with an NGO in Bangalore. We also all read out one sentence each from Emile’s (the Danish guy) copy of the Da Vinci Code in… well, Danish. That was hilarious!

It's good to be back in college. Antu and I went stationery shopping after we left from college and my new notebooks are just dying to be written in ;)

I know I've passed in 5 of the exams I gave last Semester. Econ was a real shocker - I was seriously not expecting to do anything near to good. So I'm happy! YAY! We'll get the rest of the results tomorrow.

I have many other things to say but I'm really tired and I think I'd like to just curl up in bed and read my book (Jeffrey Archer's A Prisoner Of Birth).

Toodles!

Go With Me

Ten Things I will miss about Home:

• The TV automatically starting up on my favourites - the Hallmark channel.
• Turning on the TV. Fullstop.
• Broadband Internet.
• Mummy's food. (Even though I grumble about the fish curry sometimes, no one in the world can satisfy my taste-buds like ma does. I am confident about this)
• Free cold meat. (All thanks to a kind man I taught a little german to so he could go to Germany and learn how to make sausages.)
• Hot Showers thanks to solar power.
• Not having to use public transport.
• Candlelight conversations. (thanks to power-cuts)
• Having all the time in the world to read.
• No routine.
• Just staying home all day.
• Not going to the ATM or handling money at all.
• Grocery shopping at SPAR.
• T-shirt shopping at MAX!
• Experimenting with baking/cooking. (Thanks to family that will polish off anything I cook whether it tastes good or not!)
• Family.

Okay, so more than 10.

I thank God for these things.

Leaving for Bombay this evening on the Udyan Express train. Will reach tomorrow evening. And college starts Monday morning. Back to the grind.

My prayer is this: Send me anywhere Lord, just go with me.

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..."

Dark Days

We’ve been having a lot of power-cuts recently. At least 7 hours a day. The government in Karnataka is rubbish. They don’t have an idea about a thing. And I do. Of course. :P
Anyway, so I haven’t been spending all that much time online which is actually a good thing cause I’m getting more reading done. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier is fabulous. But more on that later when I’m done with reading it... I vamped my ichoose bags a little. And dark evenings lend themselves beautifully to great conversation.
I just spent the last hour listening to my dad telling me stories about the grandfather I never met and countless other relatives that make up the history of my family. It’s all so fascinating really. All those stories. Real stories.
Sometimes I wish I could’ve been there.
I think I would’ve gotten on well with my grandfather. He was also keen on photography and books like I am. In fact he used to develop his own photographs and I’ve seen so many of them and also an ancient camera he used to use – ordered from the UK.
It’s just so crazy to imagine these days – when the British were still in India and the population was tiny. Back when your relatives were your friends and your friends were related to you…

Lulu-times!

I present to you --- LULU!

Yesterday we went to the in-laws' place (no, I'm not married; my brother's in-laws) and had a great time... I had my first own tiny glass of Bailey's Irish Cream and it was delicious!! And we also got to see Lulu!

My brother, D and Lulu

We got Lulu as a tiny little puppy last year when I was living in Bangalore for a couple of months and she used to pee everywhere and eat cerelac and then she moved to D's parents place... She's absolutely adorable!!

D's mom and Lulu
My momsy and I

And last but not the least -- Yours truly and Lulu!

Once, Once, Once

I watched it FINALLY! Once is such a beautiful, simple, non-exaggerated, real movie. And what a brilliant soundtrack. Watch it, if you haven't already. You simply must.

I've finished reading Nineteen Minutes and it is now second on my favourite JodiPicoultList. Yup, it has bumped off Salem Falls. I finally found the PicoultTwist like at the end of My Sister's Keeper again. YAY!

Whenever I finish a book though, it takes a while to get into a new one so I've been watching movie's instead:
Bowling For Columbine: A documentary made by Michael Moore trying to figure out why things like the shooting at Columbine High School happen in America.
A Room With A View: Based on the book by the same name by E.M. Forster. Ah, brilliant!
August Rush: It has the cute little kid who playes Peter in Finding Neverland. And the hot guy from Bend It Like Bekham - Jonathon Rhys Meyer. The movie is not technical genius or anything like that but its a beautiful tale with a beautiful soundtrack with a happy ending. The best kinda feel-good movie! ;)
Definitely, Maybe: Again movie with cute kid - this time, the brilliant girl from Little Miss Sunshine. I really liked this movie.
Stolen Summer: This was really interesting. Its about two kids; one from a Jewish family and one from an Irish Catholic family. Sometimes, I think that we like to think that we know all the answers but really we don't know squat - we ought to be more like children...
Once: Haven't I said enough about this already? Just watch it!