Little Joys.

I was re-reading Taryn's post on my blog this summer and was reminded of this note that I'd sent out on Facebook asking people to write down 5 of their favourite things:

Little things that make me happy:

1. Walking on grass/sand/mud barefeet
2. Watching the stars
3. Dancing (salsa!)
4. Wedding photos
5. Afternoon naps (especially during exam-time ;))

What about you?

List five things that make you happy and pass it on.

I went back to read it and it's so uplifting! Here are some of my favourites from what people wrote:

• Looking at pictures of my childhood (Ribhu)
• Letters from friends - I re-read them (Sushi)
• Coloured straws. They're so bright and colourful how can you not be happy when drinking with them? Or... at the thought of drinking with them... YAY pink straws! :P (Alisha)
• Movies like Breakfast at Tiffany's (Sharan)
• Eating pani puri (Siddharth)
• Finding old photographs in the most unexpected places (Adrian)
• Babies/baby pictures (Sonu)
• The way my hair smells after the shower (Alva)
• Fresh laundry (Abi)
• Long car rides with good company and familiar music playing (Taryn)
• The weather before a HEAVY downpour - crazy winds (Dinah)

So what about you?

Do tell! (If you answered on Facebook, I'm sure you can still think of another five!)

I'm adding one more: Converse Shoes.

Photo credits:
1. summer: my barefeet in the grass, 2. Toesies 2, 3. Untitled, 4. Up Where They Play, 5. Would you like to dance salsa?, 6. Day One Hundred, 7. Pani Puri Lunch! (365-126), 8. Omaggio a Audrey Hepburn semplicemente divina!, 9. Wash Day, 10. Guitar, 11. Baby C in the Teacup, 12. - Mail Day!! -, 13. Candy straws, 14. Congratulations Missy and Charlie!, 15. Day 90/365

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.

Atticus.

Love, Love, Love this film.

At the American Centre they screen movies on Fridays and Saturdays. Today I went to return a book (The Time Traveler's Wife - Excellent book btw!) and found out that they were screening To Kill A Mockingbird. I've read the book and watched the movie once before but it was a Saturday afternoon, had nothing to do and their auditorium is really nice so I thought what the heck!

And I'm glad too. Atticus Finch, I have decided is my favourite book/movie character ever. Have you ever seen such a level-headed, patient, persevering, wise, kind man?

Please watch this film if you haven't. Better yet, read the book by the same name by Harper Lee.

Red Tape Alert.

Wow, today was pretty exhausting. Besides the usual – horrible weather and all the other ‘perks’ of living in Mumbai – we had to fill out our examination application forms in college.

Alert! Red Tape Ahead!

Bureaucracy and I don’t get along very well. He/she/it has been pretty nasty to me in the past (ask me about the passport incident) and so I like to avoid it as much as I can. But today was pretty unavoidable. Generally I’m never available to fill out forms and one of my wonderful friends does it for me while I’ve escaped home. Today we had to fill out our University Examination Forms which is a pretty serious thing because it’s the University and you have to be perfect because they are far from it so you can’t give them any chance to find fault because they will and then you’re pretty much in a pickle.

[Enter frustration.] It was pretty unorganized and I thought we’d get some sort of spoken instructions but that didn’t really happen and it was confusing and chaos.

I guess this was a unique experience for me in a sense. I’ve never had to fill out a form for an Indian exam before and this will be the first time I will ever give an Indian board examination. So picking centres and filling out codes and all that is new. (We all picked South Bombay centres because we’ve heard horror stories about some of the centres in the suburbs...)

Everything was different for me because my school mark-sheets don’t have a lot of things that my friends’ do. For one, I have two mark-sheets for my final year of school because my German exam was Edexcel and not Cambridge. Secondly, my mark-sheet has my name on it. That’s it. Not father’s name/mother’s name or anything else. Priyanka Nandi. That’s it. So I had a bit of a dilemma in the part that asks,

Father’s/Husband’s First Name:
Mother’s Name:

(Yeah, let’s not even start on the ‘husband’s name’ part.)

Because apparently what you put in here is what you get on your degree and I’m Priyanka Nandi everywhere. My passport, all previous exams, probably my birth certificate… (except maybe my driver’s license but that’s a joke anyway) So I decided not to fill out that part at all so I am just Priyanka Nandi.

Anyway, it’s done. (And now we just have to hope they don’t find some other nitpicky problem with anything...)

..and to wash away all the stress, Antu and I went and had a refreshing plate of Pani Puri each once we reached Andheri. Works like magic, I tell you ;)

Mercy.

Its raining!!!!

Only if you live in Bombay, will you know how much of a relief this is.

In the last two weeks or so, Bombay has turned into one big oven.

It's

SO

freaking

HOT!

Today after we were done with classes, Sharan and I took a bus to go to the American Centre Library and we were pretty much roasting in there and coming back home in the afternoon is the most dreadful part of the day. For one, you never get cabs willing to go to the station for some mysterious reason and buses are so crowded that there are people literally hanging out of them. Ok, so somehow we finally make it to the station and if we're really lucky we might get a place to sit and if we're just lucky then you might get a place to stand. It baffles me sometimes. How? How are there just SO MANY PEOPLE in this city? And how am I still alive? :)

Alive and kicking.

Thank God for new mercies every morning.

(Commute with me?)

As the rain and the snow

come down from heaven,

and do not return to it

without watering the earth

and making it bud and flourish,

so that it yields seed for the sower

and bread for the eater.

So is my word that goes out from my mouth:

It will not return to me empty,

but will accomplish what I desire

and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

-- Isaiah 55:10-11

the curious incident...

... of the missing seat on the local train to borivili.

No joke. We got on the train and a seat was missing!

Ah, all in a day of Bombay-life!

Haribo!

Haribo macht kinder froeh und erwachsene ebenso!

Ja! Aber sind wir kinder oder erwachsene?! :P

(Sonu sharing her goodies from Germany)

Just a glimpse...

I know I promised to put up photos last week but in my defense, I have laptop issues! So here's a teaser from Jo's dance performance last weekend! :D

I wish...

... that camera belonged to me :P

The Good and the Bad.

:) I enjoyed another awesome theatre experience yesterday. Jo and I went to the NCPA to watch Ismat Apaa Ke Naam (II); another production by Naseerudin Shah’s theatre group – Motley. It was brilliant, albeit a little difficult to understand because it was in Urdu which is quite similar to hindi but not the same. The play is basically three short stories written by Ismat Chugtai which has been converted into a play form by Shah.

:( I have a 7am class tomorrow and we had almost four hours of non-stop classes this afternoon. so. tiring

:) Thanks to all the extra classes there seems to be some hope of a short break in October after all. Nothing is confirmed yet, but there is hope…

:) I came home and found a surprise! My darling friend Niru who lives in Melbourne sent me flowers and a box of chocolates… just like that. Because she loves me. Isn’t that sweet? Totally made my day.

:( My laptop is acting funny again… more signs of its imminent death... :(

:) Tomorrow is the last day of my internet bill cycle.

:) I actually had time to go to the American Centre Library this week and return my book. It was a few days late but the nice librarian didn't penalize me for it and I got two new books to read: the curious incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon and Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. This library is actually one of my favourite places in the city and I can't believe I only got to take advantage of it in my last (hopefully? maybe? who knows?) year in Bombay. The paranoid security on the outside can be a turn-off but once you get inside, it's just wonderful. I can spend hours at this place...

:( I need to be off and write notes on Talcott Parsons and Robert Merton...

Toodles!