Paani puri ke side effects

I am finally done with attending all the weddings. I was supposed to go to Pune to attend my friend's reception, but health finally gave up. Bad throat and cough thanks to the food and drinks I had for the past one week!

Now, I am highly allergic to mint. This is the reason I cannot have any food item which has mint. We do not use mint in most recipes, so I do not miss much; but one of my most favourite chats - Pani Puri or Golgappa - it has mint. And I cannot eat that :(

I usually have good control over my taste buds, but this time around, when you have 5-6 bhukkad friends around you, it's difficult to control!

For each of the three weddings and various functions that I attended, I had a group of friends around me. We were hogging onto the starters as if we had not eaten for years! Whatever was coming our way, we were eating that in HUGE quantity! Be it some mughlai starter or a chinese one, regular veg koftas to juices-mocktails-soft drinks name it and you see us having it!

And Lunch! One poor guy took Basundi at least four times; each time he was unsuccessful in even tasting a drop! Someone or the other was taking away the bowl the moment he refilled! Reason - just for fun!

Then there was Paani Puri counter! We went there, thinking we would simply taste one or two! It started flowing in and without realizing, we had quite a few of them.

I got an upset stomach and bad throat thanks to all the hogging that we did over a period of four days! And thanks to that, I could not attend my close friend's reception at Pune! Ah, missed one hogging party!

I am off to MP tonight. A mini vacation I deserve. And it may sound strange, but this is my first ever vacation of my own money! So far, family sponsored the vacations even though I was earning. But this time around, it's different. It's going to be a budget trip - not because it's my own money, but because that's the fun part of the trip according to me and three other friends who are accompanying me. We are going to travel by train and stay in non star hotels! I am very much looking forward to it. Those on my facebook will see the pictures soon. Those who read me may be disappointed a bit as I am pathetic at writing travelogues. Nevertheless, if I come across interesting people on the tour, they will surely be blogged about!

So, until next week, ciao!

PS: For my convenience, I have removed comment moderation. So be careful while posting any love messages :P

Weddings!

It's wedding season all around us. Each day, there is some or the other wedding happening. First, people spend money to get married, then they spend money to raise the reason behind the marriage. Some times, the reasons are more than one! 

Don't get me wrong. I love kids. I am very fond of them; but when I see the ever exploding population, my mind tells me to give gyaan to all those who are yet to know the meaning of family planning and who strongly believe in "hum do, humare do. zyada ho to phek do". Isn't it better if one plans for one kid only so as to do one's bit to control the population a bit?

Anyway, this post is not about the gyaan on population either. I have to attend a few weddings and receptions in this week. I went for a very close friend's Mahendi function today and applied mahendi on both the hands! I love it. It always make me feel very happy. I love the smell and the look of it on hands. Here is a pic for you!

Isn't it lovely? :)

Now, a typical Indian wedding has many advantages - good food, happy and cheerful people around you, mahendi, meeting old friends and such. But the worst part of it - shaadi.com! A few aunties are always ready with numerous proposals for you even before you open your mouth to say that you are already married! Prospective brides and grooms will be bestowed upon you the moment you enter the wedding hall (hole if it is a gujju wedding!)

I have to attend such weddings in this week! And I am planning to carry a board with me which says - Not available for shaadi.com! Hope it works!

PS: Busy time ahead. After attending 2 weddings and 4 functions, I am going on a mini vacation I truly deserve. I will be back before the new year and another outstation business trip to a hill station awaits in the first week of January. I will try to be as regular as possible on this space as I miss blogging so much!

PPS: It was my birthday on the 14th of this month. But I am still accepting belated wishes (even advance ones for the next year for that matter!). 

Mother's "Love"

Don't we all love our mothers? 

But most of us get scared when our mothers express their love for us in the form of food, pampering in public, praising us in front of "marriageable prospects", choosing clothes for us - the list is quite long!

I get scared too sometimes when my mom starts talking about my qualification in front of those perpetually gossiping aunties. She even mentions the courses I left mid way or still pursuing. Ah it does get embarrassing some times as it's not a big deal to be a double graduate and double post graduate; is it? :P

Luckily for me, her habit of stuffing my stomach till it bursts is no problem at all as I am blessed with high metabolism (thank god!) and thin/fat kind of things don't matter to me much. But it does make me very much lazy! Like I have this typical gujju habit of taking a nap in the noon. Since I have my own firm and my work is not time bound, I can do that. But such a habit proves tricky when I have a client meet or a visit to retainer clients.

These days, she has made a Saturday night schedule for me. She oils my hair each Saturday. There is some home made oil she has got from somewhere. She empties at least 200 grams of it in my hair and makes me a champu! No matter at what time I return home, I have to become champu once a week! Poor me!!

And those stories of their times about how they listened to their mothers and never cribbed about the quantity of food, or the oil in hair, or even the gossip part for that matter. Ah, talk of the times 30 years back and now. But I do not mention that out of fear of starving myself for an hour! After that, she is my mother and she will give me food anyway :P

And that's the most beautiful thing about her and all the mothers. Whatever they do, they do for us. Unconditionally. Since the time we are born, they make us their priority. They make us cry but cry for us too, they sacrifice their career, lifestyle, social circle, outings and many more things just to give us a perfect upbringing.

Ah, there is no special occasion today. I just felt like sharing something emotional, thus this post. What does irritate you in a nice way about your mother or father? Do share it in the comment box :)

Once a Sydenhamite, Always a Sydenhamite!

Disclaimer: This post is about my College and my love for it - Sydenham. You must have already read some part of it on my blog if you read me regularly. For the others, it may be boring and dragging. You can simply skip to read it. It does not have a single sarcastic statement about you!

I hate it when I don't have time to do nothing. It is very important for me to waste at least half an hour to an hour a day doing nothing, but it's not happening these days. Before I realize, I already have a backlog for many things. There are so many posts I have not read, so many people I have not spoken with, so many documents pending for review, so many queries unanswered, so much so that I feel I need more than 24 hours a day. Next month is going to be the same for me with teaching deadlines to meet as the exams are approaching, then I will be busy with my Masters exams. PHEW!!

But what disturbs me the most is that I do not find time to blog. And it's not only about writing, but reading too. It disturbs me when I don't even find half an hour each day to do something I have a passion for. Ah, I hope some restless people don't attack me again for this post :P

Coming back to the title of this post - my regular readers know (and already bored and irritated by now) about my love for Sydenham college and Tea centre. Since my lectures are at South Mumbai, I do get a bit of time to take a walk on my favourite roads there. Now, I happened to take a walk on B road where Sydenham is located. Ah, the memories, the time, the people - nostalgia all over again! Nostalgia is a kind of feeling that makes you happy and sad at the same time, and you want to share your experience with people who are associated with that place or memory you are feeling nostalgic about.

I did the same thing. I uploaded a status on facebook. And to my greatest surprise, at least 15-18 sydenhamites commented and liked the status. We all could relate to what I mentioned there. We all got nostalgic and remember our time spent there.

For most Sydenhamites, Sydenham was our first home. We reached there at 8 in the morning and left not before 8 or 9. We spent most of our times either in our society rooms, or common rooms or canteen. Likes like me even spent hours sitting on car bumpers. Morning started with a yell of "JK, chai lao" in the first year. Then the names kept changing from Lancy to Nagesh, to Manju to chotu. I loved to interact with the canteen people. They always had interesting stories to share. I so wish I was blogging at that time. I could have preserved all those memories then.

For commerce students, college is five years of pure fun. For us, it's not a big deal to score minimum passing marks, percentile matters only in the last year and one week study is more than enough to score a first class. This was the reason we indulged more into other activities like organizing festivals and various events, taking part in script/skit writing, discussing guys (lol) and any other activity which could help us stay in college from morning to evening.

I have very fond memories of Sydenham. I remember watching so many cricket matches in Canteen, staring at S who used to be a football player and crush of most of us :P, having 7-8 cups of chai (that's quite normal, during exams, I never even counted the number of cups!), solving crosswords, preparing posters and doing so many other useful and useless things.

Sydenham canteen is very famous for the Chinese food we get there; typical Indian Chinese (which tastes a lot better than an authentic one!). Every single day I survived on Schezwan rice or veg/chicken chilly dry with bread slices. Even students and professors from other colleges came to Sydenham canteen to eat. For years and years down the line and even today, the taste still remains the same.

Today, I teach students. When I come across a Sydenhamite, I cannot stop myself from asking that student questions about the college, canteen, people, events, festivals, alumnis, magazines and ten other things. This is not the case only with me. Pick any Sydenhamite from my list, and you will see them going crazy about it the same way! We are too connected with it. Maybe everyone is with one's college; but Sydenhamites are a bit crazier than others. You can get anything done from them in the name of Sydenham and they will do that with a broad smile on their face. And it will not be considered foolish :)

We all use this tag-line for ourselves - Once a Sydenhamite, always a Sydenhamite!

PS: I can in fact write 10 posts on my love for Sydenham and not get tired. But I will spare you guys. :)

What's in a name?

No I am not a Shakespeare junkie like many people close to me are. I never even tried to read him. I can be too biased at times. Or maybe I am biased when it comes to Shakespeare as his statement "What's in a name" according to me is not a wise thing to say :P

I have my own reasons to believe so. My name is way too common. You call out Neha and 6 out of 10 girls will turn around. Out of remaining four, three will be Poojas! In my phone book, I have 8 Nehas stored. I sometimes get confused too about their identity. I forget their faces and cannot recollect them when they call me. I have to talk to them for 5 minutes to actually recognize which Neha called me! I am sure this must be happening with you as well.

Worst thing: When someone does not have my number stored and I happen to call up that person, I literally have to remind them about my past encounters with them as unfortunately, my surname is too common as well! My college had 3 Nehas with the same surname.

I so feel like whacking the person whoever says what's in a name. Damn, have my name and you will know what's in a name. The only advantage I have with my name is that every second client I meet has a daughter/sister/mother/wife/niece/any other relative whose name is Neha. I usually crack that deal. But I am capable enough to crack it otherwise too people! It is not a "wow" thing for me when you say that I am your xyz's namesake!

I know people who love this name. My neighbour Uncle is very fond of me. He named his Russian daughter in law Neha because of that reason. She is the 4th one in my building!

But one thing is there. After seeing the image below, Shakespeare would have changed his statement for sure!