Bombay belongs to?

The ever-crowded local trains,

Streets and pavements filled with people,

Crammed little boxes for homes,

And several homeless trying to survive,

Heavy rains and guaranteed floods,

Endless traffic and the resulting pollution,

MNS riots and Sena bandhs,

Terror attacks and bomb blasts,

...and yet something pulls you here.

Chai tapris and vada pavs,

The ever smiling chacha in irani hotels,

Needless to mention- their brun muska and chai,

The hardworking dabba wallahs,

making sure we get to eat on time,

Countless sea faces,

And the pani puri stalls on the shores,

Roadside chaat and chataai pav-bhaaji,

Dreams and desires in the eyes of people, 

The warmth in their smiles,

Religion-language-caste no bar,

Their welcoming nature,

That "Chalta hai" attitude,

A hand to hold and a shoulder to cry on,

Unity in calamity,

And, no matter WHAT,

...Bombay lives ON!

Bombay for Marathis, or Bombay for India? Neither!!

Bombay for everyone, Bombay for the world. :)


Image Courtesy: Shreyansh Mazumdar, and some Googled for.

10 things about me!

A tag after ages! Reema tagged me to do this one and honestly, it took a long time for me to think of ten things about myself! Strange how little we know about ourselves than we think we do. Okay, so here I go!

1. I have an odd quirk of counting all the numbers on my bus ticket as soon as I buy one. It was part of a game we used to play when we were 15. Ever since, I've not been able to break the habit; never felt the need to either!

2. I hate my hair. But, I've found a permanent solution to making it look good. Scared of change though.

3. I'm a hard core chai addict. Ever ready for Ginger chai!

4. I sing and dance when I'm alone or in a huge crowd (so that I know no one's watching! :D). Lately, I've started to LOVE dancing though owing to my Jive-Salsa-Waltz classes! :) Music and me are inseparable. :)

5. I like to read, write and paint!

6. I love my freedom too much. Stop me from doing something and you lose me then and there.

7. Not very expressive in person; shy of expression.

8. Twitter addict! :P

9. Love watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S, HIMYM, and plays! :)

10. Good conversations excite me. I can chatter away endlessly with some people, and can be very quiet with some.

Finally, I'm done. I could think of more things about myself towards the end, but I had reached the limit. :P I pass on this tag to Sakhi (my all-time favourite bakra :P), Nikhil (you really need to start blogging again!), Aditi & Scorpria (both of you as well!), Calvin (you're welcome! :P), Neha (my new Twitter fraand) and I guess that's about it!

Gmail's Buzzing!

Lately, there has been a lot of talk over whether the new Google Buzz will take over Twitter. Google has tried to ape something that may or may not work wonders. Well, Buzz does have its plus sides. We know that everyone who has an internet connection HAS a Gmail account. When one asks for an e-mail id these days, it's assumed that the person will give out his Gmail. Buzz gets enabled in your inbox automatically, and that gives easy access to it. You can link any number of sites to your Buzz, and it will automatically post updates from those sites onto your Buzz, so that people who follow you can see those. Your Google Talk chat status messages get updated there too (unless you remove that option from the list). It's a very useful social media tool. It can also help you discover a lot of people since almost all of us have Gmail accounts. People have started creating their Google profiles too, thanks to Buzz. A lot of them didn't even know a Google profile existed.

There are a lot of snags though. For one thing, it crams up your inbox. You get a mail for every Buzz that mentions you. If it weren't for Gmail filters, I'd have probably turned off Buzz and never used it again. Moreover, when Buzz is enabled for the first time, it automatically adds people to your follow list! So, if there's someone in your Gmail that you'd rather not have a conversation with, unfollowing him explicitly later makes him/her actually get the point! :D There is no "Reply" button. You have to type the person's email address in order to reply to him! And though Buzz posts my Twitter feeds, they aren't real time. So I had someone actually asking me why I was making pots somewhere in South Bombay at 3 am in the morning. It also does not post ALL of them. And, like it is on Facebook, you can only "like" an update, not "dislike" it.

Google Buzz vs. Twitter

I'd say Twitter rules any day. Google Buzz lacks a lot of features: Retweets (re-posting updates that you like so your followers can read them), lists(categorising people you follow so that you can keep a track of their updates better), direct messages (private messages, but here you've got Gmail too so it's okay), Favorites (you can "like" an update but you can't sort those updates you liked), a "Reply" button (:D), attractive profile backgrounds and a lot more.

So, Buzz still has a long way to go if it has to match Twitter. But yes, great job Google! Atleast we have more people using Buzz than Wave.

Buzzing OFF now! :P

Happy Buzzing, Tweeting, Waving, Facebook-ing ..gosh, so much to keep track of now!

P.S: My first "tech" review post :P

Pottery, Paintings, Photography, Play and PaniPuri !! :D

The Kala Ghoda Art Festival is into it's tenth year. This festival is a blend of all forms of art. Creativity under one roof! There are street plays, short films, dance performances, art exhibits, literature and photography workshops, colourful stalls with creative products on sale..ALL this together. So, as soon as I found out my lectures had been cancelled for the day, I was thrilled. I took print outs of the Kala Ghoda Art Fest Programme guide and decided to go there a little early.

After a quick cup of chai at VT station (I can't get myself to calling it "CST" no matter WHAT!!), I headed to Kala Ghoda. The cab took a lot of time to reach owing to the traffic on the road. Fest-effect I'm guessing. As soon as I got there, I saw two huge elephant statues outside, on either side of the Black Horse statue. And one of the them looked so real, I was too careful before going close to it to click it's photograph:

As I saw the crowd, the street art displayed outside and the colourful childrens' festival going on in full zest, I couldn't wait to enter!

The sad part of the festival is, there is such a lot going on there that you can't possibly attend everything even though you want to, and you can't decide which one's better- everything's just so great! The first thing I noticed there was the potter near the entrance. People had crowded up around him, he was letting them mould a pot on his wheel and take the pot home at only 30 bucks! I wanted to mould one too, but decided I'd wait for Neeraj so that it could be recorded!

I saw the other exhibits meanwhile. There were a lot of exhibits centered around the "Save the Earth" theme. Exhibits on "Banning Plastic", "Recycling", "Saving on Electricity", "Global Warming" etc. were some.




What amazed me the most was the "Blind With Camera" section. It had a lot of photographs captured by the blind. I got a chance to hear what Satvir Yogi, a blind student of St. Xavier's college had to say. When asked how he manages to capture images so well without sight, he says he has a picture of them in his mind. He is familiar with what's around him and uses senses to capture them in his mind first. His humility and talent had everyone in awe of him! There were many other photographs displayed there captured by a lot of other visually impaired students.

The photographers

I took a walk down the street, entering each stall and clicking pictures wherever it was allowed. I saw little kids performing "Jai Ho" at the Amphitheatre. I saw a tattoo section where people were getting themselves tattooed; I sometimes wonder how painful that must be (the worst pain I know is what I went through today, thanks to my muscle spasm.). I hung around a lot at all the pottery stalls; somehow they caught my fascination. When I was a child, I had once dreamed of being a potter :D



And just then, I got a call from Neeraj saying he was standing somewhere under the big bell. I dragged him to the potter as soon as I saw him!! :D I gave him my camera, and sat down next to the potter, and started off with moulding my pot! Here's the complete video of it:

I was so proud of my disfigured pot, I carried it with me all along (also, it hadn't dried completely). That's me posing with the horse (made fully of twigs by the way) carrying my pot!!



We took a walk outside, there was a lot of street art: potrait sketchers, charcoal painters, name-on-rice, a man making objects such as a cycle out of just wires etc. There was a plant section too, and we spotted some beautiful Bonsai flowers.



After a lot of photography, we went back in. I saw a stall header that read: "Your own wax sculpture in 20 minutes". I considered getting my own wax sculpture made, but Neeraj mentioned how scary it would be, and the thought scared me too! :D I mused a while over why we get scared of our own sculptures! We saw a small Bharat Natyam performance at the Amphitheatre.


Our next destination was BNHS; there was a short film going on there. We managed to catch the last five minutes of the short film followed by a discussion with it's directors. They had shot the film under a budget of just Rs. 1000/- !!

We quickly made our way out to go to NGMA. A play ("The Diary") was about to start in the next fifteen minutes. We reached five minutes before time, and saw a long queue waiting outside. Hoping we'd get seating space, we joined it! We got to sit right in front- in clear view of the stage! And the play began...

It starred Sagvik Mukherjee as writer Shekhar Gupta and Supriya Gokarn as his wife Meera. Biswamitra Ray was Meera's elder brother, Sanket Mhatre played the role of the younger Shekhar, while Mehak Jaini was the younger version of Meera. The play centered around a married couple (Shekhar and Meera) madly in love with each other. The marriage faces a lot of pitfalls, and the couple separates eventually. Shekhar finishes his novel after the separation, and dies three days later, in an accident. Meera finds his diary and then later ends up reading his novel, and discovers that he loved her till the very end; his novel was based on his undying love for her.

The crew

Meera and Shekhar's narration of the diary's pages and Meera's remarkable acting is notable. The younger version of the couple did a great job too. I loved Sanket Mhatre's (younger Shekhar's) role a lot. Reminded me of "Ted" from "How I met your mother". :D Meera's elder brother (Biswamitra Ray) did very well too. The humour was properly timed, and the storyline was smooth. The lighting effects, and the music added to the success of the play. An hour's time was truly well spent!


We were really hungry by the time the play got over and went to one of the chocolate stalls at Kala Ghoda. After having strawberries dipped in that dark chocolate fountain down there, we rushed to have two plates of pani-puri! To top that, I had a large glass of sugarcane juice (Neeraj had a JUMBO! :O).

The Dark Chocolate Fountain

I reached home at around 10, feeling great! I'm planning to go there again, you should visit too! It's ON till the 14th of February, and you can download the programme guide from http://www.kalaghodaassociation.com. You can follow them on Twitter here: @Kala_Ghoda.

Hope to see you there then, tada! :)

A great weekend in a great city! :)

And so, finally, in the midst of working freelance, coding an application for dad, thinking of a plot for a short-story I aspire to write, fixing my cousin's God forsaken PC, photo-copying all possible notes for my university exams next month, organizing my data in my computer, attending Yoga and jive classes, I've had the time to blog! About my two wonderful days at Ahmedabad. :)


I visited the city for the second time this year, and saw more of it than I had last. Enjoyed to the fullest. :) I reached Ahmedabad on Friday (the 29th of January) night and stayed over at my blog friend Sakhi's place this time too, and surprisingly she looked more feminine with slightly longer locks that complemented her face very well (I'm sure she'll be delighted to read this! :D). We reached her place in twenty minutes or so. Houses in Ahmedabad are humongous; it takes longer to walk from one room to the next than it takes here to go to the last house in my building! :D I was in total awe of the place. 


On Saturday, I left for IIM in the morning. Their cultural fest Chaos was going on in full zest. I met my friend Nissim who studies there, he introduced me to his cousin who had come down for the fest as well. He then took us to a hotel nearby where his family had been staying for the past couple of days. I had a sumptuous lunch with his family at Pakvaan. The food was too sweet though and for the first time, I gulped the buttermilk with great relish since it was the only thing that wasn't sweet and successfully removed the sweet residue from my mouth left behind by the thaali. Followed by that was a trip to Sabarmati Ashram. It didn't even strike me that it was the 30th of January (Gandhiji's death anniversary!). And so, I happened to be there at the right time :) Clicked a lot of photographs in the Ashram and at Sabarmati river, bought his autobiography at the bookstore there and even attended the Timeless Mahatma exhibition that was held especially for that day.

The evening was spent at IIM. I met a Twitterer Jaideep (@jdshah) outside the campus and had a cup of elaichi chai (which, needless to mention, was sweet too!). We couldn't really talk much, since I had to go back to the campus for a concert that was going to start shortly. But it turned out that I still had an hour with me. I caught up with Bhalchandra- the guy I am doing a project with. Met him in person for the first time, he sure is different than what I had imagined him to be. His witty comments at the concert later had me giggling!!


The concert rocked! I got a front row pass (thanks to Nissim! :)) and I could easily pass through the barricade courtesy my height and width :D. The concert started off with a perfomance by Kavita Seth. She is a Sufi singer, more popular by "Iktara", her latest song from the movie "Wake up Sid". Loved her performance and was amazed by the Sufi dancer on stage who kept spinning around continuously while dancing and still managed to gain full control of himself once the song got over. I listened to a lot of Sufi songs. Shruti Pathak took over then ("Mar Jawa" singer from the movie "Fashion"). She sang a few Bollywood songs ("Mar Jawa", "Dance pe Chance Maar Le", "Beedi Jalayle"). After a lot of impatient noises and whines from the crowd (which was desperately waiting for Sonu), Sonu Niigaam finally arrived at 9:15 and performed for 3 hours straight!! He sang everything - Bollywood songs, songs from his own album, and surprisingly, "Stayin Alive" by the Bee Gees- in their own voice!! Sadly, I couldn't record that number. Hope to get that from some friend now. He entertained the crowd all throughout and had them with him. Here are some short recordings from my camera (sorry about the poor video quality!):

And so, after a well spent day, Nissim dropped me to Sakhi's place a little after midnight. The next day (Sunday), we went to her new house that was still getting designed. I then shopped at The Body Shop and availed of their discount offer by buying an amazing Japanese Cherry Blossom shower gel which, by the way, is much relaxing and smells great !! :D We had lunch at her place, and this time, it was way too tasty. Not too sweet, not too spicy! She had cooked my favourite vegetable (bhindi - Lady Finger) and I licked the plate clean. :)


In the evening, we took an auto to Kankaria lake. She had taught me to read the meter over lunch and tested me when we got off. And I have to mention, the auto-wallahs in Ahmedabad can no longer cheat me! :D Kankaria lake was awesome. It's one place where you've got everything- right from an aquarium, to a zoo, to adventure rides, to a park, to a laser and musical fountain show that takes place every evening, to boat rides, to chaat and other eateries, to countless wonderful birds flying together, to a beautiful lake and a beautiful sunset !!! :) We did a lot of photography, went for a ride in the boat, had a pizza and a cup of awesome WaghBakri chai (which was not sweet at all and had just the right amount of ginger), saw the laser & musical fountain show, had a lovely time photographing and making faces at the fish in the aquarium and then left happily having candy floss on our way home! :)

After playing a bit with her daughter, and then having some Maggi at 1 a.m. in the morning, she dropped me to the station for my 2:15 a.m. train! It was my first time in a night-train. I was a little scared of getting fleeced so I tried hard not to sleep at first, killing my time on Twitter on my phone, but unfortunately I had been given the middle berth and there was no way I could sit there even for a minute and eventually, whilst lying in that position, fell asleep. And how I slept! I woke up directly in the morning to the sound of babies wailing, and was shocked to see my face all swollen. I had slept a little too heavily :D I looked out and saw Vasai Road going by and knew Bombay was nearing. I got that strange soothing feeling that I always get when I come back to Bombay and in no time, the train halted at Bandra Terminus. I stepped out carrying my luggage, feeling at home and happy to be back. :)


P.S: Please watch ALL the videos. It took too long to get them here! :P

What Women Want

This has always been the most unresolved mysteries of all time, because it involves the supposedly "inexplicable" brain of a woman. So, I decided to do a bit of research. Of course, it helps when you're a woman yourself! :P


So, what do we really want when it comes to a man, a relationship, a long-term commitment? At the end of the day, all a woman wants is someone kind and considerate with the persona of a gentleman but that's not enough to get noticed! It takes a lot more than just that! 


When we go partying, to a club or just about anywhere, we like to see men who stand out. Be it the stand-up comedian performing on stage, the bartender juggling his cocktails, the guitarist strumming the chords of "Hotel California", we get easily attracted to men who are "different" from the rest.

For most of us, "confidence" is the key. If you've got it, you've got us. "Over-confidence" is a big turn-off !! You'd rather be shaky than be more than what you should be. A man who is sure of himself, surely knows how to take care of his lady and that speaks a lot in itself.

Romance is important, and there is more to romance than just candies and flowers. We love and appreciate it more when a guy does something for us. More than just materialistic gifts, we like it when you sing for us, write about us, or if you're an artist- paint us a portrait! It's not only flattering, but the love that goes along with so much of effort shows. We can easily tell when it's done from the heart. It need not be all perfect. We like it when you goof up whilst trying to be romantic! :D 


We love unpredictability and spontaneity as well. Almost all of us have seen and laughed at the Hero Honda commercial where the guy drives to his girlfriend's house to wish her "Goodnight" in the middle of the night! It may look like the guy's out of his mind and that in real life, he's sure to get slapped but that's not so. We like it when guys are spontaneous- taking us out on an unplanned road-trip to a place you really like is a HIT! :) However, this should be done only when you've met the girl a good number of times, else you'll end up freaking her out!


Intelligence is a turn ON as well. I'm not very sure about geeks and nerds, but witty intelligence is sure to attract! Funny one-liners at the right time and good humour show how clever you are and we totally fall for that! 


Looks aren't as important as presentability. It's enough if you can carry yourself well. (No offence to the new Mens' fairness cream product manufacturers! :D)


Violence is a big NO. Although we like guys who fight (defend) for us, we despise hooligans who unnecessarily call a fight on themselves to "impress". 


Possessing one or more of these qualities is enough to get women to notice you and fall for you. 


By the way, for all you F.R.I.E.N.D.S. fans (me included), Chandler's got ALMOST all of these traits !! He does lack confidence (he is insecure when it comes to marriage), but he's got romance (remember the candle-light theme when he proposes Monica for marriage?) and unpredictability (remember how he runs away from home on the day of his wedding? :D okay, that episode does not really account for his unpredictability in a way that we want to mention here, but there have been a lot of times when he's been totally unpredictable- sex on a hospital bed is one of those!) and wit (do I even need to state an example?). He totally rocks! :D


For a relationship, of course, trust, body chemistry and a few other factors would matter. 


And as I mentioned before, for a long-term commitment, a woman looks for someone who respects her and loves her just the same. Yes, someone who would hold the door out for her when she walks into a room; someone who would kiss her forehead and tell her she looks beautiful even after she's just up and looks sloshed. Though it sounds too commonplace, it's true! 


Lastly, be yourself. That's more important than anything else. Honesty (also to yourself) needs to be maintained through all phases of any relationship. It's a #WIN. :P

Before I end this, a link for all you ladies- 7 types of guys you should not date: http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-dating-donts-the-do-not-date-list/ (via @ideasmithy)
Happy reading! :)


P.S: Ladies, let me know if there's anything else that I've missed out on, or if there's anything specific that YOU look for!

One Helluva Week !

Okay.. so I've been upto a LOT! All in a week's time! 

For one thing, I finally enrolled for a dance class. It's a package of Salsa, Jive and Waltz and my first Jive session rocked this Sunday. I am born with two left feet and rarely shake a leg at parties, so you see, taking up these classes and dancing with everyone there was a Herculean task for me! But, I did it! And I'm glad! :) I don't aspire to be a great dancer someday but I do want to stop feeling self-conscious when I'm dancing and I'm hoping these sessions serve that purpose! :D  

The session began with a small 10-minute warm up session followed by basic Jive positions, feet-tapping, bending and styling! By the end of the class, we were able to dance a bit to the tunes of "Tricky Tricky". Needless to mention, after my class got over and I came home, my friends poked me with one question: "So, who's your partner?" ;) I too was secretly hoping to jive with a cutie :P but we have to keep changing partners for every step so that we get to know everyone in class! Everyone's a beginner there and the instructors are really patient with us- atleast they were on the first day!

I went to see off Mona at the airport that evening. She has gone to Delhi for her training at Indigo Airlines, and this post that I had written sometime back was actually meant for her! I'm missing her already, just hoping she settles soon!

I also met a LOT of people this week!

 

The Chai Tweetup last Friday was awesome. Kudos to Mihir for organising it! :)

Wagh Bakri Tea Lounge at Vile Parle (E) was the venue and more people turned up than we expected adding to the fun. 

Mona and I entered at first, not knowing where everyone else was seated. We couldn't spot anyone we knew and rushed outside to call Mihir. He was still on his way there and forced us to go back in and start talking to the others. And so, we went back in. After about 30 minutes of awkwardness and two cups of Adhrak Chai, we started jabbering away and ended up meeting some really awesome people there!

 Photo Courtesy: Sanjeev Sarma

Thanks to Neeraj for flicking the little notebook which had the names and handles of all those who came! :D He smartly put them all up here.  

(More pics of Chai Tweetup here, here and here)

We had an amazing time and all of us spammed the Twitter timeline with #chai tweetup tweets once we got back home! 

I met up with friends from my old workplace the next day. A lot had changed with respect to weight and hairstyles (Calvin looks really different without his beard!!) but we had just as much fun as we always used to have when we were together. The best part is, even after I met up with them after more than a month, I went back home with cheeks that hurt by laughing too much. There is some thing about certain people that never lets any amount of time cause a distance to crop up between them, and I hope it always stays that way. :)

I met up with college friends a day later and they said I had pulled down. Have I? It's not really a good thing because I am already underweight. Moreover, I thought I'd have gained a lot of it considering I spend most part of the day at home (this week being an exception!). 

A day after that, a few of us met up with our friend Oscar who was back in India after a year and was going back to the States on Sunday. We had a great time hogging at Mondy's (that waiter has taken a dislike towards me only for the fact that the place seemed to be out of all that I ordered for!! :D) and walking down the streets of South Bombay talking, laughing and commenting on every little object of amusement. 

So, it's rightly said that there are some things money can never buy. :-)

There is ONE thing that it CAN though- a cellphone!!!

If you've been following my tweets, you'd know my cellphone got confiscated by a professor in college today only because it vibrated on the table that I had kept it on. It was on silent mode. Can you believe that? And she refused to give it back to me until tomorrow, but I highly doubt she'll let me have it back that easily. I just hope I don't have to pay a fine, I didn't really "use" it, it vibrated by itself! :(

In a way, I did need a break after a long week, and no cellphone means not having to attend useless calls from network providers and insurance companies (those are usually the ones who miss me the most :P) so I guess it's okay.  

Now, I need to start giving more attention than I did to work and my books :)  

Okay now I'm out of here.. have a superb weekend!

Will come back and scribble some more later! :P

Bon Voyage and All the Best!

I don't know what's happening. Or what I'm afraid of. Things are getting pretty better with me now, but it's maybe because I've been spending a lot of time with someone I trust and that 'someone' is going away tomorrow. I'm going to miss her!

I never thought I would, honestly. But lately, now that things were getting back to what they were, I really would have loved to have you around. I'm sorry about whatever happened last year but deep down, I knew we'd be back together the way we were eventually, cuz I guess we need each other, we're just meant to be that close and have stuck together for more than seven years now. Yes, it's really been that long. Time flies I know! I am not very expressive in person so thought I'd say it here- I'll miss you.

I want you to be happy and occupied with the best of things around you. I hope things work out well for you but I want you to know that you can be happy wherever you want to be. Just believe in this and someday, you'll know. It can be very hard to feel happy sometimes; I have trouble with it myself but you know what, it's not something you look for, it's something you are. It's only when you're sad again that you realise you were happy. Okay, I don't want to go ahead with another philosophy lecture or try to promote "The Secret" again! :P Just take care of yourself. Work, tweet, chat, click photos, read, watch as many movies as you can, listen to music and have a hot cuppa ginger chai every evening - and you'll never feel away from home :) I know it's easier said than done but when it gets harder, you know you're just one call away. So, take care again. Muaah. Lots of Love.

I guess I'm back to being alone now. Everyone takes leave sooner or later. Going back to finding myself now. It's all a big question mark. There were a lot of things that I had lost and I got them back but there's one part of my life I would never want to return to. I don't know when or if I'd even open myself to it. It's scary and I'm not ready yet. Maybe I never will be.

That Oddly Different Feeling!

Ever met an online friend in real life and felt you were meeting a completely different person - an impostor? This happens almost 9 out of 10 times with friends you meet off the net or phone and we are never able to explain to ourselves why we feel oddly different when it's the same person. Even though you've seen his/her pictures, you feel different. This also ends up ruining the friendship sometimes. We feel guilty for feeling that way and are not able to understand why.

Last night, I was talking to a friend about how friendships develop and how we have sets of friends- college friends, work friends, bus friends, train friends, phone friends, chat friends, blog friends etc. This led to a whole different discussion about how different phone friends or chat friends can be in real life.

We gave it a lot of thought (one of the consequences of having a lot of free time- starting random discussions and then attempting at drawing conclusions out of them! :P) and figured why we feel this way. When we talk to someone on the phone or online, we make a mental picture of them- a mental image of their personality . We unknowingly create a definition of the person's image. We might have seen the person in photos but we tend to create a different image of his/her personality. This image becomes stronger as we talk to the person more and more. So, when we finally meet the person in real life, and if the looks of the person don't match our imagination of his/her personality, we feel disappointed. We feel like we've met an impostor. It all happens because we don't get what we think we will. We don't feel the same attachment to the person and that makes us feel guilty.

It also happens when we've just been introduced to someone in person once or twice but the friendship has developed fully through some other media.

It's just like going to watch a movie based on the novel after having read the novel. Most of the time, we end up feeling dissatisfied with the movie- why? It's not only because the movie misses out on most of the details. It's mainly because when we read a novel, we build up our own characters, give them their unique personalities and that fits well in the story. When we don't get the same on screen, we feel disheartened. (Not talking about "3 Idiots" and "FPS" here- I strongly believe they cannot be compared as they have two completely different storylines!)


Generally, if we become friends with someone first in person, and then chat online or on the phone, it does not make much of a difference because the image of that person has already been created by us through whatever we've seen and experienced.

I discussed the same with Priyanka (@priyankawriting) on Twitter today. She said that if we accept people for what they are, such differences would not arise. It takes time though, for people to accept others for who they are especially when they've created a different picture of them altogether. Not meeting at all might retain the friendship but that usually doesn't happen. If you know the person well, over time, you automatically feel like you should meet him/her in real life in order to spend more time together. That's when you should be prepared for anything. Never decide what you're going to expect. And never feel guilty- sometimes, even when we go prepared, we subconsciously have some notions and expectations about the person! It's human, and it's okay! :)

P.S. Couldn't think of an appropriate title for this post. :(

Happy New Year!

A Very Happy New Year to all my readers and friends! :) Hope you had a blast last night and have recovered from your hangovers :P

This year, I don't have any resolutions except for living each day to the fullest and being as happy & worry-free as I can this year!

Nissim just passed on this video to me the other day and I loved it. It gives good insight on how to live life- you're sure to love this one too! Follow it for a great year ahead..

You can alternatively watch it here with English subtitles ON: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfq_A8nXMsQ

Happy New Year to All once again! Good luck with your resolutions! :D