Sunday, November 15, 2009

Hair

Every morning I wake up, I say to myself.. My day is n't good until my hair stops falling on my pillow.

I brush my fingers along my hair length and find my hair just slipping off my scalp.. I did not know how I developed so much obsession for beautiful hair. All I felt was, I had the most unwanted and less appreciable hair. I read a lot about healthy hair, maintenance, treatment etc. I stared at huge bill boards featuring models with thick, long, lush, straight beautiful hair. I started to initially observe and later envy all those girls with good hair... I have wasted countless of my precious time lusting for other women's hair... If I ever witness a crime, I won’t be able to offer much other than a complete description of somebody's hair texture, colour, style and length.

I never cared for my hair when it was thick & never had hair fall. I never gave ears to those open appreciation on my hair. Everything comes & goes.. We never realize until we experience it..

I started to believe that beauty lies in beautiful hair only.. When I was at this peak of my madness I happened to see a documentary on History channel called 'Ambras syndrome'... What is this??? People are sick of their hair. They just want to get rid of annoying body hair... This genetic syndrome with excess of hair on face, back, shoulder made me annoy myself for my silly worry of no worth.

Now every morning I wake up, I am happy that I had a sound sleep & have a good day ahead. My eyes don't go towards the pillow and my hands barely slide through the scalp lush.

"Happiness is a matter of one's most ordinary and everyday being busy and lively and unconcerned with self ''. This makes me more healthy and feel MOST beautiful..

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Puzzled Connections

One might think as to "What is puzzling and what's connecting?" Remember "The French Connection"! A person might get lost getting connected while traveling on complex Paris Underground Metro trains. We also had a similar fate in Kuala Lumpur recently, while driving, leading us into a "Puzzled mind" and appearance of Confused connecting roads.

My eyes sparkled with jinx of excitement when we moved out of Kuala Lumpur International airport (KLIA). Oh God! I sighed. The roads here are so wide & my neck had already begun to ache viewing the sky scrapers!!! Having stayed in Seychelles for some time, a small solitary nation with no tall buildings, slow single lane traffic, it made me muse at the KL city altogether.

I was so excited to drive on the busy lanes here in KL, while my hubby had always restricted me from driving on the narrow roads of Seychelles and also in my hometown Bangalore. With great excitement, and not wasting time... we got a car for us. Without wasting time we set ourselves to travel around KL, see the city, roam and freak out. Many friends spelled warning bells at us not to move to KL city center (down town) without knowing the proper way out. They feared that we might loose our way or get confused with roads!

Are we stoppable?? Nay ... With great zest, we held a google map printout in hand, began our mission towards Petronas tower. We took the first exit successfully according to map. We patted our back and laughed out. "How could anybody underestimate our enthusiasm??" and we drove ahead. We only realized our mission turning impossible when we could not find next exit. We got stuck on busy lanes, there was no time to realize, got blasted by fellow drivers for shifting lanes suddenly and finally got into the tunnel without option. This SMART tunnel was never ending. It was like "God had turned off the Light at the end of the tunnel". After travelling 8 kms in that tunnel, we came out and Alas! Petronas was there. The glorious tallest twin tower with beautiful lighting made us forget the hard way how we got there.

After spending rest of the evening wonderfully, we headed back home. We assumed getting back wouldn't be more problematic than driving there. With few memories of road names we followed our way back, but never realized that we would cross our home and go 30kms away out of KL. After knowing that we lost our way, took a U turn back with great hardship after traveling few more km looking for exit. With great difficulty we reached home. The journey which was supposed to be 15 minutes had taken 2 hours 15 minutes. The entire experience made us miss our Bangalore roads, where we could have asked anybody if missed the road or take a turn easily and come back.

Now with GPS facility in hand, KL city appear smaller & we keep discovering more tourist places around. Thanks to technology!!! Loosing way is a thing of the past now and we keep laughing at our Puzzled Connection adventure.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Enough is Enough

Noted literary & glitz Celebrity Shobha De uttered "Enough is Enough". The NDTV reporter Barkha Dutt quoted this and repeated N number of times... later lyricist Javed Akhtar roared at the screen saying "Enough is Enough!!!" All these happened during the early days of "Terror Attack on Mumbai". This phrase is for those militants who stromed buzling Mumbai, for those Terrorists who hurt the integrity & peace of the commercial capital of India. The phrase literaly means that we Mumbaikars (also read as Indians) would not just sleep on the blood spilled floor, would not just carry on with life as though nothing has happened and would not stay indoors as timorous chipmunks. It infact means that "we retaliate" and we cannot tollerate! Here we want to tell those militants that we are not scared and now better you be!

Days have passed and many changes are seen politically, socially & in economic fronts. Now the mood dosen't seem to be much in rage. Life assumes to be back on heals and people are forgetting the retaliate or "Enough" word. Time assume to have been lost in information gathering, debates, pointing fingers, denying the allegations, mounting verbal charges etc. Masses appear to have accepted the timid way of life and bearing attitude. The attitude of living life in fear, suspecting each other and protected lifestyle is openly seen.

The rage of "Enough is Enough" is now seen as a giggling laugh by the terror groups. It appears that the militants have achieved what they wanted. They have instilled fear in us. All this is obviously seen around and everywhere. Going to a temple, a shopping mall, airport, fairs, historical monuments, tourist destinations is all a different experience these days. Visitors are screened, scanned, frisked, questioned and seen with suspicious attitude. At each and every place one has to prove deligently that he/she is not a terrorist and has to come clean. We are now in a fort of security and protecting ourselves from terror.

Recently in the Jammu airport we were screened & scanned 6 times. Our own police men & military personnel appeared as aliens and forced strictness on us. The passengers were not allowed to come out after security check and no refreshment provided. The Military didnt believe in police, the police didnt believe airport security and they didnt have belief in airline staff. The strictness of these security provision has made the life go falter.

The Militants might not have dared to take lives, but they have shattered the peace and made some parts of out life inert. They appear to be smiling at us when we switch off the mobiles and keep away before entering temples, when we remove shoe, belt, jacket & wallet at airports, when we have to produce a medical certificate of metal implant when the metal detector senses, when we have to just keep 100 ml of liquids in cabinet baggage, when we have to bite & eat the food of cabin baggage in front of airport security personnel, when we have to enter a mall at one door & exit at other, when our car is searched for explosives 6-8 times on the same day at different places, when we cannot just sit on the lazy pavement in front of the mall, when we have to empty a bottle of home made pickles at the airport, when we are not allowed to take pictures inside a monument ................ So the list goes on and tolerance build on.


We still stand up to say "Enough is Enough !"








Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Eternly heavy luggage... Aura ends!!!!!!

Every Indian feels pride in carrying extra luggage and sweats out while shifting huge & heavy baggage, that is when we feel we have traveled. Traveling light was not in any Indians' dictionary especially females who carry half of their homes along.



India is going modern trying to copy all the culture & style of any westerner. Like wise to be in competition we also try to impersonate them. Similarly we the couple thought, "Lets travel light n experience"; not by leaving back the things in Seychelles but to send the heavy necessities by cargo transport to Bangalore (India). We just wanted to avoid dragging a fully-laden case up slopes or across bumpy surfaces when traveling between stations, airports, taxis and hotels which can be incredibly tiring.

Traveling light turned out to be real awesome experience as we expected...... Disaster started booming only later when I along with my hubby went to cargo office to collect our already sent baggage.
The new Bangalore International airport seem to have put enough efforts to satisfy every customer. Yet the helpless customer continues to be harassed and made to run from pillars to posts to several counters. We were made to go from counters to 3rd floor, then 2nd floor and again to ground floor & the ground floor officer reluctantly lifts his heavy arm and points to the next building to get even petty things done in this unorganized office. On a different side, wrong information & delays makes us expedite all over. All this running around took more than half day. We had sweated out proportionate to 10days in gym. "No exaggerations" Still the baggage were not yet handed over. When asked the officer, says " Let me complete bit of formalities"... Oh!!! If this is A "BIT". What is their big one????


We were taken to a big room, All bags were just dumped and looked alike. I was shocked to find most of the baggage were damaged and dirty - notably, there were broken teeth on the zippers, scratches to the nylon surface, scratches to the plastic surface and dirty wheels (not just dusty, but looked like someone rolled them around on the street). My nervous system became very nervous and failed to recognize our own bag. The watchman was kind enough to give my bag checking every number on the slip. The moment I got the luggage, I wanted to escape sooner the better. They made us open all the baggage and checked them like a rag picker going through the dump! Whooph they found nothing "Objectionable"

Nope.. not yet over...Another major problem came now. I was forced to park car in basement and carry the heavy bags all the way till there.

Traveling light was sweet only momentary, We had totally exhausted all our reserved energy by end of the day. Also some good amount of money for pockets, ware house charges, Airline charges, parking charges and what not.


Its then we decided " To travel light but not to use this Cargo transport ANYTIME!!"