A Happy New Year to All

Snowflake/Union Jack…

Christmas is now behind us and the New Year looms threatening to arrive whether or not we may be ready for its arrival. The year in review post this year will require some more thought..I’m not sure what exactly this year has left me with other than lasting imprints…the kind you carry with you and fortunately for me an equal mix of life’s positives and negatives 🙂

Meanwhile I’ve had some house guests…meet the birdies!

The blue one is the boy bird and the yellow one is the female and trust me his humbled stoop is not an act. This is definitely one female who rules her roost!

An outing to Ikea (one of my favourite places to shop – must be the domestic side in me which gets so thrilled at the sight of Tupperware and linens!) produced stow-away’s. We caught them hiding away in my sister’s purse. She was compelled to bring them to work with her where they keep her rat company…

Last but not least I attempted to draw snowflakes on my toes as my interpretation for Christmas this year but fell short of the mark when they ended up looking like the Union Jack…sigh sigh!

Enjoy the last weekend of 2007!

Contemplations

Its the season for me to sit and think about life…my life. Another year is coming to an end and i’ve finally discovered Mitch Albom on my road to ‘Conversations with God’.

There’s a few things i already knew and was doing, a few things i thought i should work on and realised i needed to work on for sure after reading the books, and a few things i hadn’t even thought about.

The combined effect is making me feel very contemplative and a little down. A visit with my crazy cousins yesterday managed to lift my mood some and so did some insights from “Tuesdays with Morrie”. This is my moment to be sad…i’m sharing it with the world but i’m optimistic that something along my travels today will give me pause and make me smile and that will be my moment to be happy.

A good weekend to all and i hope you all spend it doing something you love which gives meaning to your lives with the people whom you love.

“Love is when you are as concerned about someone else’s situation as you are about your own” – Mitch Albom, ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’.

Norwegian Wood, Melancholy Whores and Brothers…

For those of you who may have been looking for some titillation please stop reading now. This is a book review post and not the intro to a weird porno. For those of you who actually like books…please continue reading 🙂

Norwegian Wood – Haruki Murakami

I read this bestseller right after finishing Desai’s “The Inheritance of Loss”. The stark differences in style captivated me from the first page. Where Desai forced me to form my own attachment to the characters Murakami’s prose drew me into the lives of Toru, Naoko, and Midori. Toru Watanabe for me kept drawing the parallel of Sisyphus in his daily struggle and his continued efforts where those around him gave in to the depths of despair and sought to end their existence. The flawed characters provide a wonderful literary balance of enabling you to identify with them either through their flaws or redeeming qualities and leave you feeling quite bereft with their exits from the narrative.

On the whole this is a book I would wholly recommend but with the warning that it may leave you feeling quite depressed with how it turns out especially if you are an emotional reader like me.

Memories of My Melancholy Whores – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Now having prepared myself for angst and melancholy with Murakami I was all prepared to ride out the despair with this book. I was brought up short. Marquez’s charm lies in his subtlety, in as much what he doesn’t say as what he does and as such I did this book injustice as i continued to hunt out greater emotions and did not give it the fair reading that was its due.

The book begins and ends on a whisper as a man contemplating death on his 90th birthday instead finds a renewed vigour and zest when he finds and falls in love for the first time.

A book i will definitely revisit.

Brothers – Da Chen

This book i picked up on a whim from the library and found it a very engaging read. The story revolves around 2 brothers – one legitimate and born to a life of privilege and the other a bastard whose struggles at various points shapes his life to come. The story is set against the backdrop of China’s cultural revolution. The lives of the brothers overlap at many different points but each remains ignorant of the other as they grow up. The many interesting and historic changes that marked the annals of Chinese history are seamed into the story effortlessly and bring this dynamic saga to life.

A must read if you like epic movies and have an appreciation for dramatics.

Lunch @ GetIT – Hyderabadi Briyani

My office is a fairly relaxed environment and as we are a small group of people who genuinely like each other most of the time we developed a tradition of lunching together from time to time. Needless to say much fun and laughter resonates in these lunches with everyone displaying their quirkiest best!

The hilarity at the last lunch began with Santo poring over the menu with a puzzled frown. After a few moments he looked up and asked if the menu was in Arabic…it was in English – for stylistic enhancement they had used a cursive script!

The other menu boo-boo occurred with AB looking at the design on the cover and wondering why they would advertise the use of lots of garlic in Hyderabadi food since it wasn’t famous for that…it was a string of pearls. The picture below says it all.

One interesting peak we got of the restaurant was the mass frying of papads (or papadums) as we were the first patrons and the staff was still in the midst of prep for the lunch rush.

To pass the time between the papad appetisers and our luscious main course Khayne tried some fancy photography.

Soon after this shot the main stars of lunch appeared…our briyani and tandoori chicken! I think the lovely pic says it all.

The guys rounded off lunch with the smokers indulging in their own form of digestive. AB insisted, in all his male vanity, that i take a second shot since he wasn’t looking his best in the first 😉

Till the next GetIT get-together….

Have you ever

Have you ever wanted to scream, scream, scream

But no sound would come out.

Have you ever wanted to cry, cry, cry

But the tears which burn behind closed lids refused to fall.

Have you ever asked why, Why, WHY

Only to be faced with deafening silence and unanswered questions.

Have you ever felt the agony of a thousand little deaths,

So sure you are unable to carry on

Only to wake and face a new day…

Preet-O in pink

Cheesy title yes…but the absence from blogging due to personal and professional reasons has left me with a rusty creative side. A throat infection threatening to make its presence felt is also not helping much.

So whats new…lots and lots…but for now i only have time for a teaser. A family wedding 2 weeks ago prompted some forays into nail art. The return of my sis from her vacation in Hanoi bearing nail art related presents (she found these really cute polishes which came with a fine tip brush) also helped and armed with new tools i whipped up a simple 2 min display of artistry.

Enjoy your week ahead and the countdown to Christmas and 2008 begins!