Cry and the nature cries with you..

Walking through the streets of London, I could see that there was hustle and bustle everywhere. People walking up and down the road, trying to cross the busy road, running to catch the bus, zipping down the road in car. Rain doesn’t stop these people from moving on with their usual life. They are so busy that they cant sit in one place and eat their lunch peacefully. No wonder the take aways are very popular here in London. I was observing them very closely and I could catch different expressions on every face, some laughing away to glory, some too engrossed in their own thoughts, some of them telling their kids to behave while some arguing with their partner. Face is truly the index of mind. But how many of us can really portray the feeling inside, on our face. Its not that everyone is happy with their life. People with bad jobs, financial crisis, family trouble, break up issues. Every person walking next to you or opposite you has some problem or the other with his/her life. Just because he is smiling, you cant draw a conclusion that he is very happy with his life . But if our face starts reflecting whats on our mind then you’ll probably run into grumpy and gloomy face every day. It’s true that face is the index of mind but it’s also true that a smile on that face can hide all the grieves lying inside us. Crying is by far the most beautiful expression that god has given us. When you cry you feel you have released all the pent up emotions and feel all new to face what life has in store for you next. After all nature also uses this expression to show its grief by way of raining down on the earth.

Say a little prayer for you

Every morning we wake up praying that the day should go on well and at the end of the day we pray thanking for the day that just passed by and hoping that we live to see the beautiful tomorrow. Prayer keeps us in peace and helps us maintain a balance in life. We pray almost the whole day for little things we come across in our day to day life. when i hear an ambulance howling on a busy road, i pray that whoever is inside it should be fine. When i hear a fireengine roaring, i pray that whereever the fire has broken out,the people should be safe. We pray that we should'nt miss the bus, we pray before an interview,before an exam, we pray that india should win the match,we pray that sachin should take the catch, we pray that the share prices of infosys should go up, we pray that the budget should be fair enough. we pray that people who we love should not let us down, i pray that soon i should be able to get back home, we say little prayers when we walk alone on a deserted street. We pray for little silly things. we all pray dont we and thats the only way to communicate to god. That is something that keeps us connected to the almighty. In this cruel and matrialistic world where brutal and inhumanly activities are prevalent,we search for peaceand harmony. Thats exactly what prayer gives us. Prayer need not be in form of chanting the mantras or slogas. It can be in the form of meditation,yoga,pranayama. In our busy and stressul life we manage to say quicky little prayers before we step out of our home or get the glimpse of the god in a temple,church,mosque or gurudwara on our way to work.
When we dont pray, we fail to communicate with God. We fail to thank him for the wonderful things he has given us, we fail to seek courage from him when we are faced with a tough situation. We fail to instill peace and hope in us. Its the prayers that keeps us going and its the prayer that makes the world go around.

GURU of Indian Music

Jaage ai dher tak hame..
Kuch dher sone do...
Dhodi si raat aur hai..
Subah tho hone do...
adhe adhure khwab jo puree na ho sake..
ek baar phir se neend mein woh khwab bhone dho..

The above song is one of the finest masterpiece of the maestro A.R.Rehman. A song very well composed and sung exceptionally well by rehman himself. Rehman has a voice that awakens the inner soul. Dont know about others but two of his songs 'Vandemataram' from his album titled the same and 'yeh jo desh hai mera' from Swades has that something which has definitely tickled the patrotic bone in us. Another beautiful song composed and sung by Rehman along with Latha Mangeshkar is 'Luka chuppi' from Rang De basanti is a 'mamtha bhari' number. Rehman alsways does justice to the lyrics. Some of the songs have such beautiful lyrics which sometimes gets lost in the music but his composition makes the lyrics stand out so well. A song like 'yeh jo desh' is meant to be an jingoistic number and for a number like that the lyrics is very important and his music has definitely done justice. I also see a lot of Indian classical touch in his music.
Another song of Rehman which i love listening to is 'Newyork nagaram' from silunu oru kadhal'. the songs about how the husband had to travel to newyork on work and howmuch he misses his wife right from the time he wakes up in the morning and goes to bed in the nite. Lyrics is the life of the song and hence it has to stand out and thats exactly what Rehman has done. He has sung the song so soulfully that you can experience the feeling of the husband himself. I loved the way he has composed and sung the following lines...

pechellam thaalatu pola.. ennai uranga vaika nee illai..
dinamum oru muttham thanthu kaalai coffee koduka nee illai..
Vizhyil vizhum thoosi thannai.. eduka neeingu illai
manathil ezhum kuzhappam thannai theerka neeingu illaiii.
Naan inge neeyum ange..intha thanimai nimishangal varusham aanatheno
Vaan inge neelam ange intha uvamaiku iruvarum vizhakamanthu eno..

There will be atleast one new artist introduced by rehman in his movies and thats something worth applauding. He gives opportunites to the young upcoming singers who are talented and whose talent may not be recognised otherwise. not just that this morning i saw NDTV and was proud to see that Rehman has invited the physically challenged people to sing for his composition and has given them awards recognising their talent. I can go on and on about him for pages and list out the songs that he has given us which has not failed to sit well right under our lips. A song for every occassion, for every generation thats A.R.Rehman. There can never be another Rehman and he definitely is a proud possession of India. So go on Guru, play on coz the show has just begun aur yeh dil maange more...

Mama Mia here i go again....

Winter is over and spring is almost here. Spring is definitely a beautiful season but i miss winter for a lot of reasons. I like dressing up for winter. I miss that smoke that comes out of our mouth when we talk of even breathe. I miss it because i know summer is going to be here soon and i hate summers. How many of us do? we hate the heat,sweat, the tan. While we indians do all possible stuff to avoid the sun, here in london people eat their lunch under sun. They apply cream to get tanned and they have special tanning treatments here in the parlours. Talking about indians and brits i remembered the much talked and publicised Hurley-Arun wedding. I thought Arun Nayyar is a malayalee ('nayyar' sounds like 'nair' and i thought he has cngd the spelling due to some numerology reasons) and wondered why the hell is he marrying in punjabi style in Jodhpur. Then i came to know that its not the mallu 'nair' but punjabi 'nayyar'. Hurley-Arun's wedding rights is said to be sold to the hello magazine for $100 million dollars. Now that what i call 'a million dollar wedding' and they call it 'a big not so fat indian wedding' and not just that her wedding trousseau is supposed to be designed by Tarun tehlani and Rohit Bhal. Well with so much hype and hoopla , iam sure the bachan wedding is goin to be as grand and pompous as this one.

Talking about Bachans i heard that Shweta Nanda Bachan is hosting a show on NDTV where she will be interviewing young indian achievers and guess who the first one she is goin to interview the Krazy not so Kool 'Karan Johar' Applause applause. That takes us to one hyped tv show Koffee with Karan. The rule of the show is
# the first guest of the show has to be shah rukh,kajol and rani.
#he has every right to ask any god damn question to his guests and his guests never get offended in his show which they would generally if otherwise.
#The hamper he gives away is equivalent to oscar award (damn the oscar i can give my life to win the hamper)
#His rapid fire questions can be as ridiculous as hell, and every question has to have somethng about his movie KANK,SRK,Kajol and Rani. If you havent noticed it then start doing it right away.
I hope he doesn come up with season 3 where he will probably get SRK's son and Kajol's daugter talk abt their parents.By then iam sure ash-abhi ke bhi baache ho jaayenge aur hopefully karan ki shaadi ho jayegi..Kafi hai karan...please....

last weekend i punished myself and my husband by watching 'Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd'. Never seen a movie as bizarre and rot like this one. While salaam-e-ishq tries to wove the 6 couples stories together i dont understand what this is trying to do. One of the actress (name not used intentionally) who always failed to give one hit movie (well almost all the heroines in the movie have only given flops so u actualy wont identify which one iam talking about). she says that this movie is very original and has a lot of sensibility in it. Ya right one couple turns out to be super hero-super lady while two heros are gays. Now is that what u meant by sensibility. If that is sense of humor then for gods sake you all need a class on humor. Honeymoon travles makes no sense to me and its the worst movie of the year.

I throughly enjoy watching SRK host KBC. His humor and class has taken KBC to a different dimension all together. big B was good no doubt but SRK's KBC has a new color,youthness attached to it. Its really funny when he says 'aap mujse haath milake,ya mujse ghale lagake ya mera ghala dhabhake jaa sakthe hai.' SRK you truly rock KBC.

This years Budget has been another disappointment and hopefully world cup doesn turn out to be one either.

Thats all from me here and i will be back with more reviews and more news from this part of the worldand from our very own hindustan. Until then jai Hind...

The G Factor

' you look so much like your dad' 'you look just like your mom'. many of us have faced this statement whenever our long lost relative bumps on to us one fine day after almost a decade. Every little thing you do is being compared to your parents. 'you know when your dad was young he was as naughty and stubborn like you' ya right... Thanks to the genes. It seems there are some 24000 genes in nearly everyone of our cells. Iam not here to talk about the scientific meaning of gene or about the human genome project. Iam amazed and awed by the four letter science word. Its not just the looks but the behavioural pattern also is guided by the gene it seems. Things like being an alcoholic, robbery, sometimes your voice can also be so much like somone in your family. On movies when they show that the dad and the son are the double role of the same hero i used to think what crap like they both can look the same. but you know what they can look so much like each other. I cant quote a better example than the Bachans. Look at abhishek he looks and behaves so much like his dad. look at Hrithik and you can easily say he is Rakesh Roshan's son.
My brother has striking resemblance to his 2 uncles(mum's brothers) and his cousin brother (mum's sister's son). They all look so much like each other and their actions and behaviour matches with each other so much. Last week i went to my husband's cousin's house and i was awed to see her son who looks exactly like his mum's brother. Similarly one more cousin of my husband looks exactly like his mum's brother. More and more guys are identical to their materal uncle. Now that amazes me. is'nt that power of gene incredibly. If you look like your mum or dad its kinda beleivable but uncle and grandma's looks..wow...
I dont know why i wrote this blog but i was completely awed by this factor of science and iam sure you all would have noticed it or atleast start noticing it from now on and will understand the G factor..

Definitely not a home away from home

The saying, Grass is greener on the other end and Value of something is not felt until you miss it, holds good to me. I always used to wonder how would it be to live in a country outside india. Many of my friends got married and moved to US,UAE,UK and so on. The enthusiasm of getting married i guess is doubled for them because they are going to another country. I have seen them shop for clothes that are to be worn in the US coz these indian outfits are unfit to be worn there. I never found all these weird and i wanted to be part of this joy of being married to an NRI. Hence i used to mention this criteria when i was doin a prospective groom search on matrimonial portal and was flabbergasted to look at the flamboyant men posing in front of tower bridge london or the eiffel tower or right next to a porsche. I would think that the life out there must be thrilling and exciting. It used to give me kicks when i used to think that when i vist India, i would tell people that iam settled in Newyork with that NY look all over me and that tinge of the accent on my tongue. A whole lot of american perfumes,cosmetics, sporting that trendy haircut with highlighted hair. When i met my husband for the first time he told me that he is based in Bangalore but travels outside India often. Bingo!! can't ask for more. After our wedding we didnt really travel at all. We were in Bangalore for almost 5 months and one fine day my husband had to travel to Uk for official purpose and i saw my long seen dream come alive. When i quit my work as we had to move out, my colleagues and my customers would ask me why and i would say "we are moving to london" with that twinkle in my eyes and glee in my voice.
We are in london since december and i have never missed India more like i do now. Before coming to UK, i used to ask my husband how the life was in these countries and he used to say nothing like india and i was like "how boring". But he was right, nothing like India. When i see indians in London i get elated. I hear someone speak in tamil or hindi iam moved. Back in india when i go to temple i just pray and come back but here in london when i go to a Hindu temple i find my religious appetite hit an all time high. The other day when i went to the swami Narayan Temple in Naesden i felt so proud to see such a huge beautiful hindu temple in london. we clicked a lot of fotos in front of the holy shrine. I was spellbound to see the beautiful workmanship inside the temple and the way the idol has been dressed up (trust me i have seen much more such beautiful temples in India but never felt this way). There was this exhibition on hinduism which i must say was an enlightenment. While the other brits were goin through the work and readings about hinduism i walk with my heads up proud like "hey iam an Indian born in the land which introduced zero,geometry,surgery, where the indus valley civilisation gave way to Hinduism and Vedas"..Oh what a feeling it was.
I do agree that the kind of life and comforts we get here cannot be found in India but trust me i miss my country and iam counting days to get back home and so is many indians settled here and many in the US. staying away from your family is not worth a penny you earn in this part of the world and trust me people here must be earning more but the family bond that we have there back in india is missing here. Indians who have been living here for a very long time become like the britts in due course and start speaking like them. Start celebrating christmas, eat pudding,honey ham and turkey on xmas. highlight their hairs,spike them up. Kids start growing up like a brit kid and they dont know a word of their mothertongue.
For me all the excitement died the moment i started missing home, the dhoodhwala's ring in the morning,the sabjiwala's shout, chatting with my maid, hearing kids scream inside the compound in the evenings, Window talk with my neighbour, my walk to the nearest kiraiwala, listening to radio mirchi,waking up to the birds chirp,waiting for the weekend to come to grab a movie,go to the nearest chat corner to eat ghol gappa. I know that day will come and when it does it will last forever...

Awesome threesome

She can fill my heart with tears
She can make me get rid of my fears
She will console me when iam down
She will smile even if i frown
She peps me up, she guides me through
An angel,an inspiration,my best friend,my mother.

He has his principles and his own rules
He has his way of living life to the full
He tells whats right for me and whats not
If i dont listen to him then he gets really red hot
Hard working he is,he works for his family
A great philosopher, a teacher, my guide,my dad.

Cool and composed, freaky and funny
He knows what he wants and thats him honey
A passion for music,a gadgeteer, an animator
Popular among friends, a great adventurer
My idyllic, enthusiatic, lovable brother.

Unspoken feelings expressed in words

A beautiful feeling within my soul
An expression left untold
If not for you life would be a desert
Isolated and parched, desolated and dead
Waking up beside you,it all seems like a dream
Crazy little things you do make me want to scream
Your intense love overrides your annoying habits
The care you show makes me want you more
If there ever is a day when i dont wake up beside you
I'd rather sleep forever and never wakeup to a life without you...