Pinku-Enchanted Life

The office decided it needed to give us massive targets to achieve, for the current financial year and so it took us on an offsite seminar to a 600 year old fort called Neemrana in Rajasthan. The trip was actually the sugar coating on a bitter pill, as we got to know while sitting through the day in a stuffy seminar room, as figure after figure were rattled off…..the good, the better and the ugly they called them. What were these? Basically the revenue for last year, the figure by which we exceeded the target and the money yet to be collected…in that order. And then came the ugliest…huge targets for the ongoing year. We sat through two beautiful days cooped up in a small room….as nature and history stayed richly displayed outside…..can you believe, it actually rained in Rajasthan in May and we didn’t enjoy it at all? The fort is nice, though through so much refurbishing and recreating its now difficult to make out which is the modern installation versus the original. In the distanc...

The café was half filled with chatting couples. She glanced again at the entrance, the guy was late, she felt ready to bolt. Her long felt irritation at arranged marriages surfacing yet again. She spotted him before he saw her. The guy was the kind the girls would have discussed over giggles. Just as he identified her and started her way, a man blocked his way. He looked over the fast chattering guy’s shoulder and sent a non verbal plea her way. She nodded and shrugged. Her dad’s sms came asking if they had met up. She answered back with an ‘yes, will call in a couple of hours’. He finally shook off the chatterbox and came to her table. ‘Hi! I am Puneet’s colleague; he was unable to come and asked me to convey the message since I was coming this way to meet my wife.’

Its been two years since I started blogging. Like with many others it started with visiting a friend’s blog http://sundary.blogspot.com and her insisting that I have one of my own. I mulled over the idea for some time, thought it a bit disturbing to actually share my ideas with strangers and infact even having acquaintances read some of them felt uncomfortable. But then I did take the plunge, and have not regretted it since. In the beginning the blog was my way of sharing my thoughts which for paucity of time and opportunity I couldn’t share with someone who mattered a lot in my life. Later as a few bloggers did visit at random and left messages the temptation to write for a wider audience grew. Much later I felt comfortable enough to share it with close friends and many of them continue to visit the blog and though they don’t comment on the blog, at times their mails mention something I have said in a post and I know they have been reading too. It’s a lovely feeling to be connected i...

There is a blogger friend who wants to have a baby. A baby of her own. She is not married, no she doesn’t even have a boyfriend. Infact she doesn’t like boys, she prefers girls. There is another friend, she was married for five years before she was able to conceive after many, many visits to doctors. In her own words ‘she hungered for a child’. Someone, whom I have come to know well, wants a family, wants to get married and have a place of her own. She is a successful professional, has a retinue of friends and yet she yearns for a family. After years of resistance she is even willing to settle down with someone her parents choose. Another friend told me categorically that she won’t give birth in India and she would ensure her daughter would grow up in a safer society without discrimination. She was adamant she would have a girl and that was when we were in college and she didn’t even have a boyfriend. Me, I had the opportunity a long time back to have children, that time I passed the ...

Remember the village scene from Sholay when the dacoits are about to come a lively village turns into a deserted one? That’s the feeling we got once we stepped of the bus. Hardly anyone on the streets, most shops closed, nay padlocked except for a few solitary ones that looked ready to pull the shutter any moment.It was a strange sight especially since all the other settlements we had crossed on the way had a lively bustle. Infact at a few the bus passengers had been made targets of water balloons to the complete glee of the children. We walked up to one of the shopkeepers and asked him what was up and more importantly what could we do about accommodation since unlike the main road in most other hill stations this didn’t seem to have any hotels. The man explained that the town shuts down for two days for holi and that’s what we were witnessing. We were taken aback, holidays in schools and offices was one thing but the entire town shutting shop for Holi that seemed something very uniqu...

Its that time of the year again, when Delhi is in bloom. A slight nip remains in the air in the early morning though the days are getting pretty hot. The scorching summers will be here soon and you desperately want to linger in this moment just a bit more. To add to the flowers, the festival of colours also comes along around this time. That magical festival which binds people from all walks of life, filmstars to rickshawpullers, politicians to school children to even grandmas who lose their permanent frowns for just this day. since no deity worship is required, nor any rituals to be followed Holi is almost secular in nature allowing other communities to also join in the fun. All my life I have been in Delhi during this festival apart from two occassions when I was in Kolkata and Mumbai. This year the plan was to escape to the remote hills and see a different version. Since its the end of the month and not to mention end of the financial year, the plan was to do a SSB trip, i.e. a Shoe...

Have you come to my blog recently and gone away since there has been no new update? I am sorry, I apologize for disappointing you. But know what I have been really busy the past few weeks. Busy doing what you ask? Why busy living of course ….living the way I have always wanted to. Sharing my life with someone who thinks my ideas worth listening to and my moods worth a penny or two. This new sunrise in my life feels like bliss and I am enjoying it so do forgive the delay.