Europe Trip - Live,love, laugh and travel !

Written around 25th June, 2013,


A week after my return to India , I sit and write down one of the wonderful experiences of my life in the Europe trip.You hear stories, some good some bad, some over-hyped and some understated, but the real picture shapes up when you actually see it.

Paris:

The first stop.
Four days in Paris seemed little too much,initially, for a city .But the charm of the city didn't fail to mesmerize us.The architecture, the sense of space, the so called 'tower' and the ladies for their beauty and dressing sense.A sense of sophistication adds to the city's charm.
Along with covering the major spots like Notre Dame, Versailles, Louvre we did keep aside a day strolling  around Montmarte. Eiffel tower which just seemed a mere tower visible from almost all parts of the city didn't turn out to be so.Seeing it lit and spreading it's charm around just around the midnight with the music and the breeze enhancing the effect, was wonderful.
One memory that remains closest to  my heart is the visit to the church in Versailles palace. They had choir singing and playing music and which totally took my breath away.

Paris offers a different experience on a night stroll to Notre Dame-> Try it out! :)

Eiffel  Tower

Wengen, Switzerland

First day in Switzerland and I thought this was it, there couldn't be anything more beautiful than this.But with each passing day I could see myself repeating the line - I was awestruck  with the beauty this place had to offer.Beautiful would be too small a word for it - Alluring,splendid it was!
Schilthon - the ice clad mountains, the wind, the sunny weather all at once! We happened to encounter  two parallel rainbows - a perfect semi circle, starting from behind the snow clad mountain and ending behind a artistic red house.
The Edelwesis guest house was a perfect deal for us with an awesome view and the chap made a perfect host!
                     

                                              



Venice,Italy

If you want to see water instead of streets - Venice is the place! The lives of people of Venice- makes me smile, wonder and excites at the same time.St Mark's square was the highlight with pigeons all over the floor and amazing architecture all around you. I wasn't allowed inside the chapel because of my bare shoulders :(
Our hotel,bartolomio, was very close to the Rialato bridge so we had an additional advantage of experiencing the crazy crowd and exploring the Venice market. We helped ourselves with a Venice mask claimed to be authentic, we had no way of figuring out how !
One day ferry trip to Burano and Murano to experience the variety of colors of houses under the blue sky was just a perfect idea.

Colorful houses in the Burano Island!

                        


Rome,Italy

Cautious and alert that we were all through the trip, faded by the time we reached Rome.
The first entry to the metro to start our exploration of this place and we lost our wallet. Tip of the time, be very careful with the money you are carrying, there are small kids who look innocent but might play on you.
Colloseum and Roman forum had full history embedded in them but the Sun made it a bit difficult and tiring.
It happened to be a Wednesday with pope visiting St. peters Basilica, seemed like entire world had accumulated there.The Basilica was beautiful with intricate beauty and finesse.

Positano, Italy

On the Mediterranean sea, this place is magical.A bunch of white houses bang on beach and the perfect blue water.The tiny restaurants catering to tourists offer food with all warmth and make you feel at home. A little expensive and yet a 'must visit'.The town's bus service is good and the place is best explored on a bus that makes a loop of the entire city in an hour or two. Your hotel could be a  bit of  slope/stair walk from the busstop, choose it wisely!

This 18 day trip was a bundle of joy -> I am gonna live with plenty of memories which will last a lifetime!

-The happy soul :)

Hindi-for a change!

Chale jaa rahe hain hum ye zindagi liye,
Sawaal kayi chupaye hue.
Jab samay mila tab dhoondenge
In ankahe lafzon ke sire..

Shaam dhal jaati hai, dil ke armaan sath liye,
Nayi subah aati hai, nayi umang fir liye.
Hum khamosh hai, lekin hulchal hain kahin na kahin,
Ye zindagi kya dikhlayegi, asamanjas me hai dil kahin.

Sath kab tak ka hai, dagar kitni lambi hai..
Socho to hazaar, naa socho to wahi ek manzil hai .
Raaste to hazaar hai, par chalna tere sath hai,
Khwahish dil ki bass socho to itni hai.

.....

Death- It seems to show up periodically to remind us of it's cruelty and monopoly in our lives.
The fear which we try to suppress all through by keeping ourselves occupied comes to haunt us over and  over again and shake our ground beyond imagination.

I know not why but it seems awkward to me as to why these aspirations and dreams try hard to compete with Death because ultimately it is the death that takes a win no matter how much they try.

Another son has lost his mother, I know not how to grieve on this.Life hits you and it hits you hard, suddenly.
I just hope that this friend of mine gets strength to move on in life and may the mother's soul rest in peace.

Aunty: I will remember the last conversation with you regarding Rohit's marriage.I don't know how to console this boy of yours but I am  sure the beautiful soul that you have nurtured will make you proud always.

Rohit's  Mom sinks into oblivion
30 April 2013

The Hon-K-ing

Yeah! The King I am referring to here is the autowala that happened to be my charioteer this morning.
Thirty minutes of this ride turned out to be  a continuous horn testing session.
Honk test on truck, on bus, on cars, on bikes, on bicycles, on humans, on stray dogs and for that matter of fact even on empty roads with not even a single ant in 600m distance. Even after getting out of this half an hour honking session , entire day my brain had this honking illusions...

Was it autowala's frustration of riding whole day in busy roads / horrible traffic which he was taking out by honking unnecessarily or the the boredom made him do so or  is it just that our rules are too flexible to let people do what they want to.For the former reason, the frustration is obvious.The thirty minutes of my commute makes me irritated to the core even though I am travelling by car most of the times, happily shutting noise through the raised glasses.What life do these people have who are on the road amidst pollution,noise,dirt for two-third of their day just to earn the money that barely suffices their basic needs.They strive hard to get some extra bucks from their passengers, jump lights to cover more rides in the same time, smoke to lighten their stress and the once who are sensible enough make the best use of their earned bits to send their kids to school.

Be it our honda city or SUV's, looking outside through our glasses the life seen is full of struggle.Thirty minutes on road and it shows you the poverty status of this country.Not just the autowala it is the common story of all the people who work for us- the maid, the sweeper, the doodhwala, the presswala, the labours.. each one. We turn a blind eye because we are too busy  in our lives enjoying the comforts that money brings to us.

I wanted to rebuke this Hon-K-ing but my anger gradually waned. Life can be tough and harsh and unbelievably miserable.

The CoConut chutney

The Mum's south Indian shtylleeee Coconut chutney which tastes yum with dosa/idly.
So here goes the recipe of the nariyal chutney...


Ingredients:
-----------
1 cup of freshly grated coconut
Chana daal [1 tbsp]
1 green chilly [May be half ]
Mustard seeds
Curry leaves [meethi neem]
Garlic [6-7 leaves]
Ginger
Mint leaves [Pudeena]  optional
Coriander
Oil
1 red chilly, make it into 2 pieces




1. Roast chana daal in little oil until red.
2. Put coconut,garlic,ginger,coriander,green chilly,mint leaves,chana daal in the grinder.Add salt to taste.Add liitle water and grind them properly.
3.In a pan, prepare 'tadka' by heating little oil and adding mustard seeds,curry leaves and  red chilly to it. Pour this tadka to the grinded mixture.

Post wedding post!

Nearing to 3 months of wedlock... and nearly 3 years of acquaintance with Mr. hubby.
Yes, its different, no doubt, before and after marriage.
Your definition of love changes gradually and as they say your love grows at platonic level.. True it is !

With the big decision of life comes in an entire  set of responsibilities.A new family, a new home and a new life style.You aren't sure of so many things but the solutions keep unfolding with time.

Cooking with all the available expertise,sneaking into recipe sites to make sure that somehow end results of the cooking are good.Discussing recipes over office lunch or calling up aunts to confirm some recipe, isn't your part of the world till you are married...   Experiments aren't successful every time though- like the pudina chutney disaster  the other day plus there is no guarantee,too, that the thing cooked well last time is going to be equally good the 2nd time too.

Long hours aren't spent any more on laptop.The telephone bills have come down by a drastic amount.The long book reading sessions have almost come to an end...Minimal telephone usage......No frequest escapes for tea/coffee/masala dosa.... No time to think over 'time pass' options. :) No wedding shopping discussions... No dance practice sessions.... No cribbing for the unwashed clothes and no hour long washing them by hand...[yay, I have a washing machine now.] .... Looks like my world has turned topsy-turvy..

Yaa, but the real pleasures of life lies here.Cooking, sipping coffee together,candle light dinners, setting up home, buying plants, irritating each other - the real fun lies here. Real pleasures of life indeed lie in small things!
The joy of being called someone's wife, having someone to dote on for little things, seeing someone smile at me with all the love and dancing to the tunes of togetherness is what I am enjoying these days....

Wishing for it to stay here forever :)

Hoping to write consistently... marriage makes you busy , you know !! :P

From Chacha Choudhary to Alchemist...

Just done reading with Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.. The utter disaster! After reading the last page I was trying to recollect if even a single thing I could carry forward and there was nothing... Disappointing indeed ! All I could remember were 2 sayings.... "Death doesn't change anything" and "If you want anything, entire universe conspires to help you get that".... which obviously is the English version of a dialogue from some crap Hindi movie..... Nevertheless, I feel I at least gave Paulo the second chance after the Brida to impress me with his writing.But he failed- Alchemist was equally letting down  with its' out of the world talks.

Remembering my childhood days when reading books never involved a risk since we always picked our favourite ones and which no doubt had to be entertaining.Be it chacha chaudharys' conversations with sabu and bhagyawaan or pinki's cute acts.... nagraj's deadly blows or  champak's morals...  Biloo's cricket fever or nandan's short stories, the characters never failed to charm us. The uninterrupted reading, finishing a book in 2 hours, what a pleasure it used to be.Engrossed in the world of comic characters and a sudden background interruption by mum to finish the school lessons.... Ohhhh!!!! what pain in the ass it used to be, to get back to the syllabus books.Lost,still, in the Pinky's cunning acts and chacha's computer dimaag, the mind continued to race  to find a way to get next comic while holding the school lessons in hand..... We read and enjoyed these books, never realizing that these were inadvertently instilling in us lot many things that will be part of our  being always.They happily and in simplest of terms taught us so many things.


Today, we have grown older, our reading has become mature.We research over books on Amazon, read reviews and after a full fledged satisfaction order one.We have money to spend, we pay big to read someone's autobiography or to learn best of the managerial skills.But the happiness that these non-existent characters gave us is incomparable.


We have grown older for these characters but these characters will never grow up.They are ready to make us laugh any time.Then, why not try out the next one as chacha choudhary or Pinki and recall the old times rather then picking up some complex stuff which worsens our already baffled state!


P.S. Just saw one at Flipkart  "Pinki and Kalandar" just Rs 20/. I am good to order it online! :)