Perspectives and perceptions

(This post was stuck in my drafts since 2008! Horrifying really. :) I haven't made any edits to the original post) I haven't attempted to talk about Kobe sizzlers there, it's hobe which is a form of the verb "to be" :) It's just been the end of a beautiful vacation right in the middle of hectic schedules and bang in the middle of a week! We left on tuesday evening and were back on saturday morning.. that's what i call a beautiful weekday trip! Breaking the monotony, experiencing a new city, and eating some different food! Bliss! We reached calcutta around 8 pm on tuesday and we (my friend and i) took a pre-paid taxi to gariahat bus stop. We just barely managed to cross the HUGE junction circle literally crossing one road at a time much like crossing a hexagon or an octagon! :D We had dinner at this Chinese place, had soup, momo's and the likes. Then we headed towards the host's home and we sat down to gel with him, his family and his ...

I always find the beginning of a post the hardest to write, and then I decide to just start writing and I bet by the time I'm done, I'll be the author of yet another loong post. :) This year has been fantastic in terms of my travel. Oh yes I've had some horrid experiences with transit visas but then I've learned a HELL lot from those experiences so that my next travels are a lot smoother. The US trip was special like that, because I researched and found and practically booked the flights and the hotels myself and ended up with a perfect trip. If you know me then you know that I'm jinxed when it comes to flights, tickets, dates and sometimes even online payments! But then, that's the challenge, and thankfully this time I managed to catch all my flights on time. Major win! After my Boston trip last year, this year was a totally different trip. I visited 4 cities for starters, San Francisco, Miami, New York and Boston. I think I didn't end up doing justice...

A few of us friends were just talking and discussing about the ways in which we all go about our trips! It's funny, I'm a control freak of a person most of the times, (lying), actually all the time, but thanks to my friends, I've grown to like the unexpectedness and the unplanned mode of all our trips! I've literally reached a point where I don't want to go on a planned trip because that'll be just too boring and too decided... that element of surprise which brings with it the happiness, the joy and the exposure is just too beautiful and as a friend rightly put it, it's liberating! Megha and I tend to plan our days so much, that those few days of just being and just existing and just doing things based on what we feel and what we want feel like we've broken out of some sort of chains and it just automatically calms us down. Like when we had gone to Goa for the first time. We didn't know what to expect, where to go, nothing. We just got off at an earl...

Recently I had gone for a trip with my mom and eldest sister to Saputara, a hill station in Gujarat. We had booked a car and a driver for the entire journey. From Saputara, we were going to go to Pune. The distance being approx. 280 kms. we estimated a 6 hour journey and thought that we'll reach around 4 pm in the evening considering we leave at 9.30 (taking a 30 min break for lunch) Little did we know we were going to be a solid three hours delayed! Having travelled in the same car for 3 days before the return journey, our patience of listening to the only CD in the car was exhausted. Desperate to buy new CDs, we scrounged for a CD shop in the lanes of Nashik. I found one and bought VCDs for Delhi - 6 and Luck By Chance and an audio CD of A R Rehman. The fancily equipped car had those LCD monitors on which you could watch a movie. Though it was a little difficult to follow the dialogues, overall it was an excellent experience. It took care of some great 3 hours of our journey. We ...

For a long time I've been thinking, there are so many little things that we notice each day. I'm going to start writing them down as each day goes by... Day 1 (Thursday) I'm on my way back from a meeting at Malad, and in the train, on one of the stations, a transgender walked in. Most of the times they're loud, garish and overtly obvious. She was different. I would call her 'she' because she was one. Graceful, beautiful and very feminine. Clad in a short kurta with pants and a duppatta, she was dressed like any tall big woman would be. Of course she didn't hold herself in the way women would, she was comfortable the way she was. I think that's what matters. Her eyes were the most striking feature of all, sharp, deep black, kind, tender and smiling. When a fellow passenger was attempting to get in, she was looking at her just like we would and she mildly reproached her. I think, with that small an interaction, not that I spoke to her, I was merely obser...

The Group Snap! Sitting (1st Row) (l - r) Cord, Malika, Rahul, Meera (in his lap), Meha Sitting (2nd Row) (l - r) Akhtar, Pradnya, Geeta, Aaji, Pramod, Priya, Arjun Standing (l - r) Sandeep, Lambert, Anuja, Sonali, Ayesha, Rupali, Uma, Jennifer, Gauri and Pankaj From all over the world, We all came together, at a lovely place, I'd like to call Kalewade! Three days of absolute bliss, we spent doing lots of things, from elaborate meals literally every two hours, to dances and games of cards, The stars were glittering all night, with all the performers shining bright, Sonali with her lovely voice, mesmerized all of us in sight, the kids put up a great show, Arjun at the helm and malika, rohan, rahul and meha in tow, and then suddenly, we had a spurt! where rohan completely stole the show! and soon opened the bag of stories, with everyone joining in to share their bits, anuja with her elephant memory won the bet, while I was completely awestruck with them! to imagine the pranks and the...