That's the way it is

SO here I am sitting in middle of nite and trying to do some online ‘window’ shopping since last almost 1hr K

I say window because I still have not figured out what do I need to buy…rather do I need anything….and off all the choices I have what should I select

You see the fun of all these online sites is that I can shop any-time/where /day while enjoying the luxury of a Friday night with a cup of nice Coffey and awesome music

But after taking the pain of going through each and every item ….adding them in my cart ………. toiling and spending my precious weekend night…….I left the site without buying a single item   

So I don’t know how to explain to my already dead eyes on why I was exploiting them all this while instead of calling it a day and enjoy a peaceful…blissful sleep.

Now I am trying to put my thoughts together on why is it that even after numerous attempts I am not much of an online shopper (mother of all ironies isn’t it) so after a lot of contemplation I have concluded that it’s not about me being worried if that dress would/would not fit me or the shoe may not be of the right size………or the quality of goods can be bad….. But shopping for me all about experience ….I plan my day so that I can shop easily. I travel senselessly longish hours in local train to go that extreme end of city where you hardly have place to keep your one feet let alone walk so that I can buy those pair of earrings I like ……I can spend hours and hours roaming in those narrow lanes all by myself and go through shops of all kind and creed (well I will like to believe that it has an old world charm ..Shopping that way )

Its not that I don’t buy online , I do…..stuff for which I don’t want to waste my time example lenses , flour …oil/ghee etc  …they are all same I buy online or offline really doesn’t matter

So , I was attending this excellent sessions on innovation in digital …about what consumer wants ..how do we improvise on customer exp…et all….but then it stuck me what do we do about the digital adoption of customers? In a country like ours , though the digital adoption is increasing many folds but still there remains a significant population who as I call them are digitally challenged.

What companies are doing mostly is targeting the ones who are digitally acclimatized but what about those who are still averse completely or partially ….

Digital revolution is just started and not just in India but all over world…there is immense growth in technology ..multiple innovations are happening…there is a start-up in every nok-n-corner …ppl are trying different things…but is there a set parameter for success?

We have liked ourselves to believe that that’s the way it is , that’s where we are headed but has anyone questioned it, I would like to believe yes, considering the huge amount of investments done by multiple organizations, the zillion dollar valuation.

Every second-third week of month there is a sea of sale by these e-commerce companies but when I see the discounts that they offer on branded products it is nearly same as what I get retail stores.

Nevertheless..thats about itJ

I think I have written pretty much garbage considering the state of my mind and hour of day J

Movie Marathon

Very rare does it happen that you get to watch three good movies in a row. Last three weekend we  have been. …watching three delightful movies …so starting with the most Piku-li-year movie .

Soojit sarkar did something I have not seen in a long time ….directed a movie without any villain or useless..senseless item songs.

 Mr AB Sr. master’s the art of acting childlike or should I say that it is something which comes so naturally to him. He was mind-blogging as Auro in Paa, while as Piku’s father Mr. Bhaskor Banerjee he is mind-blowing.

As for Irrfan Khan he is such an effortless actor. This is his second movie which I have seen after lunchbox (that is if i ignore his miss-a-blink roles in Life of Pi , life in a metro et. al)and let me  admit I have started liking him . Somewhere as an audience I have been biased to the likes of SRK, HR etc etc and he never struck me appealing enough that I take the effort to watch his movies in theatre. But now it just appears as a perception, he may not be as charming as SRK or a greek god like HR yet there is something endearing, earthy about him which make you like him. He is like that underdog whom you want to root for……So thumps up for him!!!!

DPs….she is….should I say…in a very good company right now for she is doing movies like Finding Fanny , Ram leela …….improving with every movie….plus she has such a heart melting  childlike smile….making her a treat to watch.

The movie is swift as a breeze with some amazing dialogues like death and shit can come anytime anywhere (my ma laughed her heart out when I mentioned this dialogue to her)

So I would recommend this movie to someone who does not mind having a good laugh over potty jokes.

PS it is strictly advisable not to take anything in theatre to eat …who would certainly not feeling like eating while screen shows people discussing the nature of their shit.

I have one word for Kangana Ranut and that is brilliant. No one …read no one has acted double role with such an ease that it makes the two appear like two individuals rather than one person enacting them.

Tanu weds manu is movie where the supporting cast does an excellent job !! After Queen she has proved herself to master the art of versatility

I was waiting to watch DDD for quite some time….and don’t get me wrong the movie is really really nice….but somehow I excepted something more… cant pinpoint what else I wanted more but something more….may be its not laud like the usual indian family melodrama . But yes Ranveer singh was a revelation in the movie so was anil kapoor .

Nevertheless it’s a light hearted movie with excellent songs and cinematography!!!

So back to whats going on….ma papa are in US to be with didu….so I get to chat with them and sis and jijoo more often than the weekend chat we usually have…hearing to laddu antics  every day…which is fun

last couple of weeks I have been experimenting  significantly  in cooking and mostly getting it ok….today I am planning to make khandvi which is a Guju dish and has a marwari equivalent (almost) called as pithod….and let me tell u not many get pithod right so hopefully I should get it right (may be in next (4-5) times …so lets wait and watch.

Hubby has been busy due to his training and is suffering from severe back pain …hopefully by next weekend he should be free from both.

That’s all about it !!!

Happy Weekend J

US(in)A part - 2

Continued from where I left

Hubby reminded me that i have not captured a LOT about our US trip in my blog so I should write another one..so here it goes

1. The snow searching trip

Since my childhood I have this fixation with snow, snow clad mountain…… snow clad house and what not. During my stint in UK I was able to see snow but never the fall. luckily (for me and not them) my Didi and Jijoo (D-J) stay in one of those area which has , lets put this way “its share of decent amount of snow every winter & much longer “.

In this trip they took upon themselves the task to make me experience my most cherished and beloved dream of dancing in a snow fall. Preparations were made…..research was done …weather forecast was consulted and a place was identified for me to visit….  To top it up they also planned a day full of skiing.

Moment we landed in Chicago I went completely berserk seeing all the whitey-dovey surroundings, post a night stay and my brothers house and meeting him and SIL …having a good time with them we headed straight for our snow-searching trip .

While on road the weather started becoming quite – gloomy, D-J assured me that snow was on its way as we could see some flurries around us. So with my heart full of hope and optimism I waited for the next day to start, but as my already rotten luck would had it there was no snow that night and on the contrary it snowed a LOT that night in the area where my sis lives!!!

With a heavy heart and my dreams crashed I started for the next day for our skiing lessons. Sis off course could not participate and was merely watching each one us as we took our plunges (quite literally). EVERYONE except me offcourse was able to ski well  infact they became so confident of their skiing skills that they decided to take up a really steep slope and that is when I decided to call it quits.

While returning god showed me some mercy and we came across the frozen Mississippi river and trust me it was such a beautiful site that I got all over with the distress of missing my beloved snow-fall.

2. Eating-all-the way

While my sister has always been an experimenter when it comes to food I prefer to stick to basics….so while we were there D-J ensured that we tried food of different variety. Hubby had a blast because he got to eat oriental food which I absolutely detest, as he had good company from D-J. But let me admit I did enjoy eating food of such variety. Hoped that I shall keep my spirit up and continue food experimenting routine back home as well. But to his utter disappointment I am back to my usually boring self K

3. Meltdown of the pants

So it happened one night that SIL was trying to change Anshi the great to his night dress and he resisted her efforts. We were also sitting there and were quite stumped on what was wrong with anshi, as he had ate his food properly , had watched his favourite cartoon (any guesses!!) and even had a good round of his nocturnal antiques with kishu so technically he should have had exhausted all his energies and should be ready to sleep but he still he got a bit cranky. We all waited for him to exhaust the remaining ounces of energy left in him ….and we all waited for another hour…still he was not ready to change. Then by nature of force and a bit of motherly cajoling SIL got baby anshi’s pants changed!!! But what happened post that was a BIG outburst from a 2 year baby infront of his mother…..his just rattled in the language best known to him but err…..implication of all that was on how could his mother do such a thing…changing him when everyone was in the room. His expression were something like “How could you do this mumma” “ Don’t you know the word privacy” “You just got me nagu pangu infront of mama-mami” “Oh I am gonna be so emabrrased about this when I grow up …don’t you just love me anymore”

With endless amount of effort from our end not to laugh at the already offended kid we bid him a good night and left it to SIL to pacify anshi

4.  Woes of stomach  

When we landed in Chicago ..all was well till the time we reached bro’s home . After all initial greetings we all settled down. Little did I had realized that how much toll all the eating in plane had taken on my ach. And for the next 2 hours it seemed I was more inside the bathroom than outside. Finally realizing gravity of situation and the amount of travelling we had to do next day D-J decided that they give me some meds. You see it was a room full of people who were either doctors or related to them . D-J are both doctors , my father-in-law is a doctor and so is my tau-papa. So everyone came up with their own medicines to recommend and after much of debate I finally decided to go with what seemed the most safe bet with didi and jijoo. After the meds finally I had a peaceful night of sleep.

After the epiosode in Chicago, all went  well till second last day. You see Hubby is quite particular about not eating guacamole for the way it reacts to his body. He already had twice such episodes on his other trips to US hence was overly cautious when selecting food. On out second last day he ordered a sandwich after verifying the ingredients . But as luck would have been he forgot to check the sauces and there it was pieces of guacamole floating inside his stomach and causing a mini earth-quake. Poor him had a terrible night but after numerous trips to bathroom he was ok when all the traces of guacamole were gone from his body he felt much better.

So with this ends the trip to US(in)A J

US(in)A - Part 1

Recently i was reading an article on 20 things to do before you are thirty out of those one was -Keep a journal because  “You WILL forget more of your precious memories that you’ll remember, - Quora user "

What this user said is so true, the prime reason i started blogging was because me wanted to write down all small… big memories of my day to day life so that one day when i will be an old  cranky granny i could read my blog and remember the gone times all over again.

Its been months that i have updated my blog (the usual sad sorry) but nevertheless better late than never!!

PS: Hubby and BIL were able to ‘plan’ and execute Goa trip well

Finally..the eagerly anticipated …… …… much awaited trip to my sister and sister-in-law (SIL) was executed by hubby and me.  We met our nieces after very loooongish time, who btw have changed soo soo much. This trip was special all the more because we met our nephew for the very first time!!!

It was short and sweet trip with me and hubby taking whopish 16days of leave of absence from our respective offices.

This trip was special for one more reason -I had been warned, samjaofyed , advised, requested and god knows what that I should NOT fight with my elder sis. Well it took a great deal of determination that I subdued my will to NOT fight with her. Which btw is a miracle in 30yrs of my existence with her as we can manage to fight while having most polite of conversations. Ma has always been baffled that on what things we could fight.

Sample this ::::

A very long time ago (indeed) when my sis use to be a little girl and I was a little more little than her, me and she use to fight about anything and everything. So when ma got us a pair of “identical” trousers, she heard us fighting ….bewildered she asked me what the matter was as trousers were identical. Errrr..i said they were “almost identical” as one had a bird imprinted on the pocket (didu’s) while the other  had a horse that looked more like a donkey was given to me. And the explanation given to me by my sis (which still has ma in splits) was that because ma thinks I am a donkey she has given it to me!!!!!

So you can imagine my mom’s worry (along with my papa, BIL and hubby) of what would happen when me and sis meet after such along time .But as I said with great determination and super support from jijoo and hubby I did manage to be with my sis for a week without a single fight!!

There is one more reason I tend to avoid fight with her these days which is the fact that she has an undue…..unfair advantage over me – SHE HAS MY LADDU. She is as possessive about her mother as I use to be (am) possessive about my sister. So I am assured that my sister is in safe hands with my laddu with her.

Talking about laddu …she is all grownup…in-que teenager…and what not!! She is no longer my chotu baby and likes to be addressed as a kid. While I was there my sis asked me to help laddu have a bath….during which she asked me a Question “Masi why do you love me so much?” I laughed off her question saying that because she is MY laddu . But then can I help not loving her !!

i just cannot!! She is and will always be my bachuu….my bebu….So while I was there for some days she tolerated my coo-cooing over her but one day when things got over her threshold she was like masi can you please not do that I am not a baby anymore and you are all over me …and trust me she was extremely irritated!! So with a hell lot of restraint I tried my best not to overdo.

This was also the first time I spent this amount of time with my jijoo and what a blast I had!!!!!! . We had this daily “coffey with jijoo” routine where he use to give us pearls of his wisdom. Basically I had anger management sessions with him and hubby use to have sessions on how to irritate your wife (more).

BTW hubby has had too much of gyan from jijoo going by the course that he is behaving. He is no longer my sweet hubby L

So when one week was done and it was time for our next stoppage a.k.a SIL. I met kishu after a very very long time. And my-oh-my !!! what a 180 degree change…..she is no longer the tomboy that she use to be but now a very girly-girly gal. But one thing that has not changed about her is her energy. Moment she is in house you would know. I use to call her kishimishi and for some reason she started calling me that and so has ansh. As my sis-in-law says that I should forget about hearing “Mami” from both of them. But then who minds  (:

 I can never forget how upset she was when it was time for us to pack her bags...even though we are to meet again in June K

This trip was also the very first time kishu and Laddu spoke to each other over facetime and managed to behave “goofy” (in their own words) ..Because both are so different I would just love to see them together and i  really hope one day I do get to see that.

Now coming on to Anshi the great!!! Well he is such a “Mickey  Mouse” (in hubby’s words) . He is on the stage where is grapping words and learning to talk in sentences. Me and hubby use to teach him quite a few sentences, much to the dismay of SIL (No parent would want to hear Atta maji satakli , “Ullu“ from their 2 year toddler .

Coming on to mickey mouse, ansh must be his “biggest” fan trust me when I say that.  SIL has to store all episodes of the cartoon on all TV sets in her house as ansh only watches those. When we were thinking of buying gift for ansh ……..dont know how many shops me and hubby visited and everyone said the same thing “Sir aajkal kaun  bachaa mickey mouse ke cartoon dekhta hai “

The biggest worry SIL has while she travels to india that if during the super long flight to India if ansh “demands” to see his “Mikka” what will she do. As a result sof this she has decided to store all mikka cartoons in her ipad to pacify anshi.

He and Kishu have this particular time in night when they are in “high spirits” (quite literally)  so much so that it was easier for me to digest all my food as the result of all hahahah hehehehe that use to happen post dinner…..

To be continued.....

Fears and resolutions!!

“The only way to conquer your fears is to face them”

Being a typical cancerian I have this strange fascination with sea ( one day I will blog on the stories related to my fascination with the word sea) and always wanted to venture in the sea without any fear like a free bird (or a fish) …..but the only tiny- miny problem was that I have this huge fear of depths and heights  …….so making up my mind to learn swimming was a big challenge. So for this year I have decided on to two resolutions (which do seem achievable)

One , Thou shall learn to swim and fall free in the depths of sea

Two , Thou shall learn to drive to take my beat baby for a ride J

Finally… with heaps and heaps of moral support from hubby dearest I decided to take the plunge (quite literally).  And started my swimming lessons…..let me admit I was quite thrilled and overjoyed while being in water. As my classes are over weekend hence it will be quite a challenge to remain regular (I have already missed two classes) and considering I have loads of travel in upcoming weekends lined up..i am sure to miss quite some classes.  …hopefully at the end of it I shall be able to make it to my dream of floating freely

In next few days me and hubby shall complete 5 years of our married life…………..and it feels like yesterday when celebrated our first anniversary  so 5 years of  living it up with his super crazy moody wifey calls for conferring hubby with a gold medal J

They say that after some years of marriage husband and wife change their personalities……I have seen that in case of my parents…when me and didu were kids ma use to be such an easy parent…someone without any baggage of worries  other hand papa was complete opposite Once me and didu came late from school by almost 2-3 hrs as there was some issue with our bus but mom was not perturbed and all parents were quite surprised while now she doesn’t need any reason to get worried….as she is worrying all the time!!!

Some samples of your conversions

Mom -: Rinku why are your hands cold..beta tu tabiyaat ka dhyaan nahi rakti

Mom-: Rinku why are your hands warm……tu tabiyaat ka dhyanaan nahi rakhti

If you call her in morning she will be worried…..ke subha subha kyu phone aaya….aare ma aapko miss kar rahi thi…beta subha subha phone maat kia kar tension hoti hai

In case of me and hubby………. we are complete opposites of each other ……..infact I joke that there is nothing common between me and him ….no trait …no hobby….even our eating habits are very different ……..so it will be very interesting see what happens when we come to the interchanging part !!

Talking about family ….we have this biiiiiiig family get-together planned (in a pretext of attending a wedding) where I shall be meeting all my family and I am pretty excited about it as i also shall be visiting the city of my childhood after 25 years!!!!

It’s the city which I associate my childhood wit…… memories of which still linger down my memory lane….and I always wanted to go there with hubby during this time of year when everything is so bright colorful weather is at its best !!

So hopefully we shall have a good time and enjoy !!

That reminds me hubby and my brother-in-law have ‘planned’ this so called trip to goa and I am very ‘excited’ (all sarcasm intended) to see how it goes as usually both of them have a habit of planning in the air!

So lets see who the weekend unfolds!!!