Then and Now

    I think I was 12 years old, my friends and I were playing on our building terrace and suddenly time had stopped. We all froze, looking at these green starlike objects streaking in the sky. It felt like they were coming to get us, it was a meteor shower. I was scared yet I stood there in awe. It was the 90s, it was a time that my worries ranged from boys to school homework. It was a time without Facebook, a time without exposure to the cruelties of the world, a time of complete innocence.

    I liked myself when I was kid, I was cool. I was probably a little full of myself with all the attention I got but I remember I stood up for myself. I was the boss of me. Even though I hated my dad advising me all the time, his words hounded me. They protected me. Life was simple at that age then all hell broke lose at 16. The girls got meaner, boys got cocky and I succumbed to studies. It was the only thing that kept me sane and I got good at it.

    Fast Forward to a still of me looking at the full snow moon today and the venus that shines so bright. I was reminded of this amazing childhood memory that I wish I could share with my husband and baby. If I could tell my 12 year old self about how the future is going to be, I would say, We did Okay.

                                                                                                                                                    Content,

                                                                                                                                                    Me

P.S. Not that my 12 year old self cared, I was busy being AWWEE-SOME.

Swim, Skate and Ski

One might think, that if you can't swim and are thrown into a pool, you will drown. At least while skating you can still breathe when you tumble. But with skiing, if the ski doesn't get you, the ice will surely. So let us see how I performed the following activities with such vim and vigor :-

1. Ice skating
 The first time we went ice skating was with my Masters buddies in Syracuse. I managed to stay on my feet but I fell hard at one point. That didn't deter me from trying again. My second time was at Bryant park with my family. She told me she hadn't skated since she was 8. When asked, I boasted "yeah, I've done it a couple of times". As soon as we entered the rink, she went flying like a bird on ice, only short of a camel spin. I barely left the rim. Well, she forgot to mention that she learnt figure skating. The third time was with K-man. For a person who claims hasn't taken a class, he did awfully well. K-man, you are not fooling anyone. He tried so hard to teach me, risking his own butt to keep me afloat. I think I did better than okay for a person who didn't leave the rim last time.

2. Swimming 
 In case of ice skating, I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into. So it was all a gamble. It was a fun activity and no one cared if you didn't know it. But swimming, now that's a life skill you should have learnt when you were a kid. I remember my friends enrolling for swim class when I was 12 but I was too shy to wear swim wear. That was my major hurdle. Not water, not being scared if I drowned. But as I grew up, my inability to swim introduced the fear of water. My first swim class was nerve-wracking. But to my surprise, there were many others like me. The instructor had me do everything in the first class like doggy paddle, front float, back float, backstroke. I kept watching the time and hoping it would end. That was three months ago. Now, you are looking at a girl who completed courses from beginners to advanced in three months. Next stop English Channel.

3. Skiing

 While I was learning to swim, I got this newly found confidence in me. I could do anything, learn anything and excel at it. I was so wrong. I enrolled to learn how to ski. The instructor asked me do you play any sport? Hmm does galli cricket, midnight carrom, hand table tennis count? Instead I said I don't. It looked simple when he showed it but it's definitely not as simple as it looks. It's like you have extra long feet which make it difficult for you to walk and sloping ice does not make it easy either. I did not do well at all! While my fellow learners were ready to go down the mountain, I was still trying to get on the lift. And yes I fell down a lot. After coming down the mountain with great difficulty. "Can we go again.. please?" he asked. I said with almost tears in my eyes, If we don't leave right now I am going to sit down and cry. I guess that was good enough to convince him to leave. Will I be doing it again? Knowing K-man, the better question is When?

Honorary mention : K-man, Thank you for being present during all my classes, encouraging me and associating with me when I could barely swim, skate or ski. You know who you are. You are the best. 


                                  ***  Do one thing everyday that scares you - Eleanor Roosevelt  ***

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

So it's been a while since a blog post. What you gonna do? I got a birthday invite for my grandfather's 75th. It was a little before my birthday. I booked tickets right away. I've always driven to Canada through the Niagara falls. This was my first time taking a flight to Canada or was it? I was under that impression until the following happened. 

I was studying for my Masters in SU and decided to take a trip to India before I had to start looking for jobs. I attended the travel seminar and filled out the necessary documentation. While I was booking the tickets there was an option that looked the cheapest. It was flying from Syracuse-Canada-Mumbai. I was happy, I saved about $200. My dad being the skeptic that he is, asked me if I needed a visa to make such a travel. I asked at the student center and my brother looked through the website. There was no sign of what I need to do if I'm in transit. So I decided to just take the flight. Ignorance is not bliss.

On the day of the flight, I boarded without any hassles. Furthermore, the flight crew looked very inviting until I reached the immigration desk on the Canadian side. She looked at my passport twice trying to find a visa. I said I don't have one. At this point, I had a pretty good idea of the fix I was in. 

She pointed me to a small room.  I had exactly one hour until my next flight plus security. I went in the room. It looked like it was for special cases. The police officer stared me down through the glass window. My voice was shaking as I started to explain how I was a student and I didn't know I needed a visa since I was in transit. He asked me to take a seat. He went in to discuss with other officers while I was constantly checking my watch. My dad's suspicions were running over and over in my head. After very difficult 15 minutes, the officer called me and said you have two options. One is to pay $200 and get a Canadian visa. I was thinking the second one is obviously jail. There goes my $200 which I'm not sure I have at this point. And he continues, the second one is to sign on this document stating you will be leaving the country within 24 hours. And he smiles. Well, it must have been my lucky day since it's very rare to find anyone behind a glass window smile. I signed and ran like bolt and made it for my flight.

No, this is not the end of story. The next time I drove to Canada, the officer asked me at the border, if I've visited before. I could tell by his face he knew my dirty little secret. I explained the story and he nodded as if matching my answer to the information written on his screen. I still had to park and go to the small room on the side of the road. One would think it was the end of my misery and I had undone everything wrong I did. Until this time while visiting Canada for my grandfathers birthday party, I was still given the small room treatment. They are never going to let me forget I entered their country without a visa. I thought I had washed away all my sins and forget.

But who wants to forget, I got a great story out of it. It's high up there with my other gems. Even though it was a wee bit traumatizing. 

I'm over it until the next visit to the small room,

PARAB JANHAVI K

P.S. My grandfather's birthday was a great success. I met four generations of PARABs, including my parents.

No Blogposts Posts vs Complaining about Why No Blogposts

At this moment, I sit on my couch cozily, legs folded, looking into my computer. I pause and look up to see the dishes not done, half a cup of coffee still on the table, clothes hanging from weird corners and no cooked dinner. I ignore it all since I know that if I don't put this down right now, another month might pass by too quickly.
It doesn't sound like me to live in a house this untidy. But, there are things that have suddenly taken priority over my clean humble abode.

#1 The Husband: Yes, this is what I said last December, when my Husband asked me to marry him on the Brooklyn Bridge at 12/12/12 12:12 am. We had a beautiful wedding ceremony in the presence of family and friends.
This brings us to today, we are adjusting to each other's quirks, but loving each other more every passing day. K-man I love you but I'm glad you are on-call tonight since I need to write this blog.

#2 The Gym: Yes, it is possible to use Janhavi & Gym in the same sentence. Even though I am in my late twenties (not that late), I have never had a gym membership. K-man and I joined YMCA a month ago. It's the best thing that happened to me since the time in ninth grade, a friend made fun of my sense of fashion. So here is my schedule:
Monday: Zumba
Tuesday: Swimming
Wednesday: Belly Dancing
Thursday: Zumba & Bollywood Dancing
Friday: You crazy, I go four times a week. What have you done lately?

#3 The Social Butterfly: Yes, with marriage comes great responsibility. No, power doesn't have a patent on it. They say you don't marry the boy, you marry his family. But, in case of K-man, I married his family, childhood friends, school friends, high school friends, under-grad friends, interns and other fellow residents. I love them, they are all nice people. Given the pool full of people, chances are someone is getting married, coming to town, leaving town, catching-up, having a baby, birthdays, festivals you get my drift?  Plus one everything.

#4 The WFH: Yes, People complain a lot about work & travel, I would say in that regard I'm blessed. I try to start work at 8 am. and end promptly at 5 pm. The only reason it is so prompt and perfect is because my team-mate has to leave at 5 to pick her daughter up from DayCare. I set my computer to Hibernate and I'm free as a bird. No hassles of traveling, no nothing. I'm at your disposal.
But if one more person tells me I can manage chores better since I work from home, will be hit with pan on the head and across the face.

Time to get my head out of the computer again. It's my turn to do the dishes.

Overwhelmed but Coping,
House Wife

The Art of Letting go

Letting go seem like harsh words that resonate in my head, each time telling me to leave people, things, memories behind. When can one truly say that they are unattached. Along the course of our life, we accumulate all these things that we think are so awesome, amazing, beautiful, brilliant. But then as we move along and grow up, we only remember how amazing we felt when we first received them. And only and only because of that feeling that lasted 10 seconds may be, we keep things for 10 years. No, I am not exaggerating. I still have or should I say had clothes I wore during my school days. No kidding that was 10 years ago.

I'm trying to make a point here. While I was ranting about how much stuff I have to pack before my move  to the Big Apple, my friend suggested this exercise. I still don't know how it made sense to him, since he can probably pack all his things in one car and go trippin, but here goes.

Each day for one week, both of us will get rid of one thing that is dear to us. 

Day 1:  Junk Jewelry. This is the day when you tell yourself, ok this is something that wont kill ya to get rid of...cheat a lil.

Day 2: Stuffed Toys. This is when it starts to hit you to take this exercise a lil seriously and get rid of things that once made you really happy. Even if it came out of your brother's first salary.

 Day 3: Shoes. Ok S%^$ just got real. This was hard. I mean a girl can never have enough shoes. But when you have another 30 pair of shoes waiting for you some of them just don't cut it.

 Day 4,5,6: Moving Sale. Let's just say this accounts for the whole week. After day 3, things got a little easier.

 Day 7: Collection of random things. Things you hand pick out of the lot are hard to let go... ok I'll admit I kept a few out of these. But I still got rid of the rest.

And now the final test of it all. How do you prove to yourself that you are unattached? In my case, fate did it's wonders. My Nikon DLR camera slips off his hand and goes right into water fountain under the CN Tower. What do I do? Start laughing and not feel a thing. Now that to me people is one successful experiment. 

Girl Meets World

I'm losing all faith in the Sherlock Holmes series. I die a little more inside when I see an update. But I'm reminded that it's going to come out only in Fall this year. Elementary is airing fewer episodes than I would like it to be. But I don't blame them. Each one is equally gripping than the previous one. It'll be interesting to see how the story turns, now that Irene Adler is introduced.

I am left with no choice but to take my head out of my near to perfect life and face the music. It all started with the Boston marathon bombings news delivered to me by my fiance. Note: I don't own a TV which is why it's so easy to cut off from the world. Whatever happened in boston is pretty horrific. I especially agree with the prez when he says that it's difficult to detect terrorism when it's done by self radicalized individuals. 

Anyway my point being that this news has consumed a big part of me. I am constantly looking for updates on the case and trying to picture it in my head about how it all went down. I mean the news already talks a lot but just trying to get my head around what each one of the involved individuals must be going through. 

My Sherlock Holmes obsession had not completely died down, when Amanda Knox was back on the radar. After completely reading her case or whatever tidbits that are shared online, I have to agree I felt like I'm Watson. He sometimes has good insights in the case but who are we kidding. We know Sherlock Holmes is the man. 

Well the funny thing about that is, in real life there is no Sherlock Holmes. This is not a script nor is it a 1 hour episode in which you feel satisfied when you find out about the killer. When will there be an end to the news? I call Never. It's ever evolving... the boston bombings and Amanda Knox stories are now replaced by Jodi Arias trial and Cleveland kidnappings. But one thing is for sure.... I'm happy to meet the real world even though it's full of lies, sick individuals, murderers and bombers.

Just trying to not get too consumed with everyone else's stories. Working hard to keep it real. 

Sincerely,

The real me

P.S I suggest to get the Flipboard app. It's letting me stay on top of things.

SH

In an unfortunate incident if I happen to be murdered, I want Sherlock Holmes on the case. One may think it's disturbing to think this way, but I finished watching Sherlock Holmes (British), Elementary and The Mentalist. It has messed up my brain a little. Ideally, I see my self as a happy person, trying to right the wrong and make efforts to keep everyone happy. So I think my only chances are to fall prey to a psychopath, who has urges towards curly haired curvy women.  In any case, I want Sherlock Holmes on the job. And not just any... only Benedict Cumberbatch.

Now it get's more disturbing so you can stop reading. Ok fine if you insist. As Sherlock Holmes walks around of what he sees is my dead body. He starts deducing what might have happened. She was getting back home late at night, I can tell since the makeup is all worn out.  She was intervened with this big man who barged in her house as she was opening the door. Look at this bent in the house key and slight blood on the side of the door. She was cut by the wood protruding from the side of the door. There are marks only her neck and no bruises, the house looks untouched and I see no struggle which suggests she was drugged and put to sleep. When she woke up, he slit her wrists and legs and let the blood drain out. He waited for her to wake up since killers like to see the fear in the victims eyes. They get off on it. Come on Come on think he says. This kind of murder resembles the same ones made in 2004, 2007 and 2010. The victim had curly hair and a curvy body. But this is different, this time there is a note. And it's signed M. Sherlock Holmes slowly whispers Moriarty.

Signed,
The Victim

Pinterest changed my life

Phew made it back just in the nick of time. I almost believed I was done writing. But here I am, back after 15 paintings, a well decorated house, funky shades of nail color, and a status change. I can go on and on about how wonderful the journey has been, but I'll save the details for later.

For current events, here's what's going on. I am in love with Pinterest. It has changed my way of life. It has helped me to become this person that I have always aspired to be. It all started with the DIY section where you use things that you might otherwise throw away and turn it into something beautiful. I then turned my attention to the Hair and Beauty section. Even though the models in the pictures make you feel ugly as hell. It teaches you to do your own makeup and look even more ugly in the process. But it didn't end there. After a bad choice of nail color I thought I'll just stick to the basics so I moved on to the health section. Now here is what I am proud of.. one Sunday afternoon, I removed everything from my refrigerator that was unhealthy and expired. Basically, all of it. And made a list of stuff that I can buy with the help of Pinterest. I now have nice healthy snacks stored in the fridge, so by default I can only pick something healthy. I not only feel healthy I look healthy too. My skin is getting better and no it's not coz of Proactive. Ok may be it is but I'm certain it has little to do with the new drink Boathouse Green Goodness.

What is next one may ask. Here I am writing again, aren't I?

New and Impoved,
Me

A pat on my back

Each day is a brand new day... some days are like most days. But today is that OTHER day. Even though it started off as a normal day... I put together a perfectly nice outfit for work and felt good about my new yellow shoes. It was just the pop of color I needed in my routine day.

I got off work early and decided to do some chores. I was running low on windshield fluid.. so I bought a bottle from Walmart. Today is the first time I popped the hood of my car. Yeah yeah ... I've done more complicated things like changing the car battery which is in the trunk..show off. So I located the windshield sign and the job was wonderfully done. <standing ovation please>

I even bought myself an awesome GE toaster. It is no ordinary toaster... you can decide the level of browness in your bread. Now that's beautiful.. I'm living life in color!

I rewarded myself by going to Panera Bread. I picked the most expensive item that sounded good as well. Guess what..it tasted better. Sometimes the expensive things in life are better..whoever thought otherwise. 

This is me, not only getting excited about my little accomplishment's but patting myself on the back once in a while. It's important to do that sometimes... you need to give yourself the credit you deserve. 

Colorful and Proud,

Me

P.S. Checked off eating by myself in a restaurant without feeling awkward at all.

Art is What?

Filled with smoothie in my fancy wine glass and a feeling of accomplishment of preparing a great salad..I'm writing away. The art of making a great salad lies in it's ingredients. But the best part of about it is.. that it gives you the liberty to choose what you love eating.
It's kinda like abstract art .. something I see myself doing a lot these days. You mix together things that YOU think go well .. and continue until you think it's time to stop. It's a feeling I can't describe... but if I have to .. it's freedom. The same pleasure is not found in paintings of scenic beauty or cooking by the book.
Art is everywhere... it's in everything you do..because it's the way YOU do it. My life's become poetic .. I'm thinking in colors and drowning in art. I feel beyond my physical self yet subjected to utter self dependence. In famous words... I am a part of all that I've met. The more I look within..the more I feel stronger. With me..it was never about conquering the world. It was always about conquering myself to be a better human.
Art is what ? Art is Y.O.U.

I am an Artist, That's what I am.