My free spirits

#UAEMemories #10YearsAgo this Alfredo Pasta topped with tangy sauce, was all that I wanted to cook. (Please ignore the picture quality and the quantity of alfredo sauce in it) 😅 Things were fine then... No restrictions. No ifs-n-buts,  No one to guide and no one to blame , No COVID, and No work-from-home.  Then  - I enjoyed the roller-coaster ride. It felt like I was on top of the world with the wind rushing through my hair, the freedom pumping through my veins, and a scream escaping from the very depths of my soul! Although there were troubles on the way, now when I think about them, they make me feel nostalgic. Not just that #dry pasta, but life then, made me feel excited.  NOW -  Watching life on a roller-coaster ride is now a bit scary. Stepping out is scary. Meeting someone in person is scary. Knowing about someone else's health condition is scary. Not even this pasta can solve this problem. Life now is quite disturbed. Not only mine but almost everyone's....

Every woman carries her responsibility differently. Please don’t compare . A woman wakes up early and gets ready. She prepares her kids for school. She makes breakfast for the entire family. Serves breakfast. She prepares lunch and dinner. She makes her kids do homework. She manages household chores like dusting, watering plants, washing clothes and ironing them. Makes sure, her house is clean all the time. A woman, a housewife has a lot of things to do. No need to count them. No one can count them either. On the contrary, there is another woman, who is not a homemaker, but a working mum. She wakes up. Makes food for everyone. She sends her kids to school. Leaves for work leaving some household chores, which she does anyway after coming back. Now here, don’t you feel she needs some rest? Don’t you feel she needs some help? Domestic help? Why calling her husband or someone from the family for help is considered to be deplorable? I agree with the fact that eve...

So…This is to everyone reading this post. I hope there are days when your coffee tastes little magical, your playlist makes you dance, night sky touches your soul and strangers make you smile…. But few people around you aren’t friendly enough. They may perhaps make you feel uncomfortable. They may perhaps make you feel guilty of something which you haven’t done yet. Yes, I am talking about sexual assault. I feel happy to be a part of a society where people cannot talk about sexual abuse but can express their feelings when hashtag # starts trending. In this tech-era, people opt for twitter and other social media to express their feelings. Thanks to the Indian constitution for granting ‘freedom of speech and expression’. Well, coming to the topic. Who will actually, define what sexual assault is?      Touching someone without consent?      Abusing, yet letting you feel nothing went wrong?      Brainstorming someone to do s...

Hi, Dadda! For me, every day is a Father's Day. I wanted you to know, how much I care. These 23weeks have been so lovely, Mumma and you never made me feel lonely. But while I wait, I have to wonder which features I have alike you both. Do I have your eyes & lips? And mumma’s nose and ears? Will you teach me all the things I need to know? Like letters and numbers and how to throw? Will we go to the park and play ball? Will you pick me up when I fall? Will I grow handsome/beautiful and tall? Next year on this day, we will be together, Whether we're at the park on the swings, Or reading a storybook on the chair. Whatever we do, I know for sure, We will make one very special pair        Love you dadda.  From, Rihaansh's Pen...

A woman usually has to face what almost all brown and healthy women go through - being reproved for the colour of the skin or the size she is …and being told that she is too tall, too short, too fat or too dark. The #TOO part of every word is bizarre, I feel. Here in this post, I am sharing few experiences of my friends who went through or are still going through such illogical ideologies of our so called society… My friend’s aunt would keep asking her mum to do ‘ubtan’ - a home remedy with home ingredients including chickpea flour, curd etc. to ‘lighten’ my friend's skin tone. A lot of face packs, several parlor sittings, face washes etc and comments were a part and parcel of her growing up years.   WHY? I don’t get the point that why a girl always has to be white or wheaty? Isn’t she beautiful when dusky or dark? Isn’t she a golden hearted? Another friend of mine was asked to eat sprouts for her breakfast, 2 rotis and 1 bowl dal for lunch and salad f...

Birthdays are always special... And so is yours… You have been my favorite since you were born...13 years ago. Cousin is not a word for you... You are  beyond that to me. From watching Doreamon with you, buying Doreamon wala rakhi for you,   Cartoon wala school bag for   you to searching Tiffin box having Doreamon picture on it… There are so many memories with you… Cheers to your 13 th birthday my brother… Make the best use of every opportunity life will give to you at this beautiful age of yours. As you age older our love for you grows more, never forget to always be the good little Chikoo for me, that you have always been. Into your teens, nd to conquer your fears, Be brave, Be bold and be the person you want to see in this world.  I look forward to you creating your own life.  Happy ThirTEEEEEENth Birthday Tanishq. Wishing you health, prosperity and endless joy. We all love you.

I had no idea what marriage entails. Marriage, like everything else in life, cannot be taught or understood before it is lived. It needs to be felt. Sometimes it feels joyous, sometimes it hurts. There are married couples who claim they are still madly in love. For them, marriage doesn’t require major adjustments or sacrifices. They naturally know how to keep each other happy, how to live a perfectly balanced and harmonious life. But for us, we struggled with such concept of a perfectly harmonious marriage because ours’ was far different from it. I even thought something was dreadfully wrong with our marriage by comparing our relationship to other people’s. I thought we were an anomaly. We used to swim through turbulent waters ineptly. We even survived a few tsunamis together. Despite such accidents, we swam gawkily and rose above the surface.  It’s certainly not the prettiest picture of marriage but perhaps the most realistic, the one that helps marriages last a lif...

The campaign with the sole intention to bring administration and citizen closer, named as “Lok Suraj Abhiyaan” was launched in the year 2005. Earlier it was “Gram Suraj” which was a village-centric campaign later it evolved into urban pockets as “Nagar Suraj”. It has now covered rural and urban areas. Hence it developed and took shape of “Lok Suraj”. Talking about the impact of this campaign started by Chattisgarh government, it has played a vital role in spiraling public’s undeterred faith in government. As the name states, “Lok Suraj”, the good governance for the people, Chattisgarh chief minister Dr. Raman Singh took initiative in developing remote areas of Chattisgarh by getting closer to the villagers and other residents. The government wanted every citizen to make use of this campaign; hence it organizes this campaign mostly during summers. When kids have their vacations, farmers are home and women slightly relieved from the load of work. This gave a platform to the peopl...

The emerging trend in interior designing shows how India is moving forward. Earlier, we used to have ample of space to build a house perfectly fit for a huge joint family also. But now-a-days as we see, people are opting for apartments where they get less space but interior designing makes that small space look even better. Institutes of Interior designing train their pupils how to utilize the space, how to create designs to make a small area look bigger, better and practical. ID as a career Well, it would be better if we change the phrase “scope of ID in India is huge” to “there is a huge scarcity of finest interior designers in India”.  No doubt there are best designers in India but we need few more designers to complete the demand over the time. If you have that caliber to understand interior needs and have the idea to fill up empty spaces or to give small spaces the best utility, you can surely opt for interior designing courses. In Chandigarh, there are some instit...

Mother’s Day... Holds a special place in my own heart because of the little one who made me a mum. I love to get up every morning seeing his face. I can't thank God enough for gifting me 'motherhood'. This day reminds me of my mum... an amazing mother who dedicated her life to her two daughters. She is selfless, hardworking, strong and the most beautiful woman I know. Every year as Mother’s Day gets close, I get a little nostalgic. I used to trouble my mum a lot. I have been rude to her many times. I could not apologize directly but always wanted to. I could not thank her for everything but always wanted to. So today I wanted to sit down and blog a little letter for my mum thanking her for every single thing she has done for me and also to share some of the challenges I’ve experienced as a mom. As a quick side note, when I started writing this post it was all about the joy of motherhood. But when I thought about all the strong moms around me, it didn’t take me long...

She had just started conversing fluently. She wanted to play with dolls. She had recently started schooling. Her parents were dreaming about her future. And now she is in the hospital fighting for her own life. Humanity? Is that what we crave for? Does it even exist? Every other day a woman is raped in this country. A few days back, a girl was gangraped in a moving bus. You and I just eventually forgot that incident and moved on with our lives. Within a few days, another incident happened. The whole world was celebrating New years Eve and residents of India’s capital were praying god protesting against those several rapes. Matter of shame is around 393 cases of rape have been reported between January 1 and March 31. And now in this month- April 2013- Near by 4 cases of rape have been registered. - A two-and-half year girl was raped by a 25-year-old man in west Delhi's Najafgarh on April 18. - Another five-year-old girl, studying in lower kindergarten, was sodomized by her tea...

After so many Ups and Downs in the year 2012, here I welcome 2013 in Dubai. Yeah. Second winters here and hating it. It wasn't this freezy last year but this time…May be because I am getting out of my house daily for my office. These are the few things about winters which I really reallyyyy hate. - Winter mornings?? Getting up early for daily routine is really horrible. Ppl plz suggest some tricks to stay @ home 24*7. I don’t wanna get up early for office now. How about work from home? - It’s dark all the time- it’s dark at 5pm now that really scares me. - Cold shower? Naah!- It takes forever for my shower water to warm up. Excuse me? Who likes cold shower? - This dry air- makes for some miserable dry skin and chapped lips ;) It probably has to do with that super hot shower. Yeah…I know. - Wind chill- In the summer, you WANT the wind to blow. And in winters, it makes terrible weather ever more terrible. Now this year m gonna face all extreme cold wind in Dubai. Hottest pla...

Not much of a post... I was reading all of my old posts and just laughed and laughed. I'm so glad that I did this blog, because it was so nice to go back and relive those memories! Thanks to Rashmi I'm hoping I'll feel inspired now to keep it up again. Well…who knows??? Housewife is a Profession too! Honestly speaking…I am finally getting a handle on my life. I'll tell you depression can take a toll and sometimes you don't even realize it. It can creep up on you and turn you into someone you never knew you could be. Maggi is no more a part of lunch/dinner for me. Maggi was a part of my life b4 marriage. Sharing maggi with co-workers @ lunch time and njoying it with my family is the bestEST moment ever in my life... Though...Meal is now all about a perfect plate of rice/dal/curry/yoghurt/salad n all... I'm not a perfect house keeper. I try to keep it clean. I sweep, vacuum and dust almost every day, but it doesn't look like a museum either ;) Bu...

Life is such now. Either live to the fullest or Die completely... Once more into the fray Into the last good fight I'll ever know Live or die on this day Live or die on this day After 'Mission Impossible-Ghost Protocol', I watched The Grey. Well, for me, MI-GP was not at all worth watching. Liam Neeson played a very good role in this movie. This story, The Grey- actually revolves around a handful of oil-rig workers who survive a disastrous plane crash. Lead actor, Liam has the knowledge and the guts to lead his companion in their urge to stay alive without food, water, or shelter, surrounded by hungry and threatening wolves. There are so many scary moments involving wolf attacks, and the way the guys strived for their lives and for food n all... Those scary and glowing eyes of hungry wolves were really spooky. Well...the soft corner for their beloved ones had a space in this movie. In the mean while, each man spoke about their family. It was actually a surviv...

Vriksh ho bade bhale,ho ghane ho bhale, Ek Patra chhah bhi mang mat, mang mat, mang mat, Agnipath, Agnipath Agnipath; Tu na thakega kabhi tu na thakega kabhi tu na mudega kabhi, Kar shapath, Kar shapath, Kar shapath, Agnipath, Agnipath, Agnipath. Ye Mahan Drushya hain, Chal raha Manushya hain, Ashru, Sweth, Rakta se Latpat Latpat Latpat.. Agnipath, Agnipath, Agnipath. A famous poem by Shri Harivansh Rai Bacchhan...had a lot to say in this movie AGNEEPATH. Loved it:) Well...We all know that Agneepath 2012 is a remake of the most popular Bollywood movie of Agneepath 1990. The most renowned character - Vijay Deenanath Chauhan (played by Amitabh ji) is again live by Hrithik Roshan. Agneepath 2012 is the tribute of the original one. It is based on the purely revenge with high pitch of emotion, forceful action and entertainment. You can say that theme of Agneepath 2012 movie is based on the uncomplicated story of revenge. The very thing I loved in the entire movie was the way em...

Who says, a friend is one who helps you always being near you? Upasana, being away from my sight, was close to my heart sharing and caring. I do feel that penpalling is almost a sort of therapy for people like me which helps cope up with life’s problems. It is a very good feeling of having a pen pal. Listening to pal’s worries has helped me learn how life is. Also it improved me in every means. It is such a wonderful vehicle for friendship and mutual understanding in this diverse world. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Day 1- It was a Sunday morning when I woke up suddenly. I had a bad dream. Got ready as quick as possible and went away without informing my mom a word about where was I going and what for. I went to Smt. G.S high school almost 9 kms away from my home just to see whether ‘She’ was there or not. Day 2- I and my mom went shopping. There was a fair, beautiful and tall girl standing besides my mom with long brown hair....

The vicious sound of the alarm clock woke me up with a start. Two three huge yawns later I pushed myself out of the bed with very li'l effort caz I couldn't sleep all night. I looked into the bathroom mirror. A ghost with baggy eyes stared back at me. Scccaarry...No one, believe me no one could wake me up this early in the morning. My granny tried to wake me up during my exams, but no way...I woke up but slept behind my books...hahaha...Well it was for my loving husband whom I got to pick up early morning from the airport. I finally got ready within half an hour and stood near the door waiting for the driver to come. He was late…  We rushed to the air port, my eyes were searching for him with excitement. There….There he was…I found him and ran towards him n gave a huuuugeee hug. After a really very long time, I could see him finally. It was a planned trip to Vaishnav mata. It's said you can visit Devi maa only when her bulawa comes. Truly said. I tried to visit Devi tw...