If you had an inflow of Rs. 50,000 per day, for the rest of your life, and you earned this money without lifting a single finger - Would you still work?

My first reaction was that I would immediately resign and spend the rest of my life in contented idleness - sleeping late, shopping, reading, watching movies, partying, traveling etc etc etc. You get the basic idea.

My second reaction was that I would get utterly butterly bored within a week with such a lifestyle. I know for sure that I am the kind of person who cannot loll around 24/7. I guess I would probably buy myself a full booksho[p and then devote myself to some altruistic purpose like working with pro bono with some NGO or something along these lines. I would also defintely take a year off and go for a round-the-world trip :)

What would you do?

Love or family?

What would you choose if you had to make a choice between the two?

Would you sacrifice your love for family or family for love?

A difficult choice indeed..a.and whatever road you choose to travel will be full of obstacles. A tough choice indeed.

And whatever choice you make, I stand by you as a friend

New Shoes New Shoes

"New shoes new shoes
Tell me what would you choose
If they let us buy

Red shoes pink shoes
Pretty pointy bow shoes
Tell me what would you choose
If they let us buy

But, flat shoes fat shoes
Stamp-along-like-that shoes
This is what they would choose
When they let us buy"

I confess...I LOVE SHOES. I love buying shoes - be it comfy practical black sandals or that pair in blue to match that blue top or the sexy strappy pencil heels or the V slippers or chappals from Janpath or sneakers from Nike or just cuz I fell in love with THAT pair and oh look they have it in my size or there is a sale in my favourite shop and if I don't buy, their poor kid is going to go hungry :P

I love my shoes......
Right from my Nike oh-so-comfortable-floaters (my vote for the most comfy pair of stamp-along-like-that shoes definitely goes to them)
To my Bata chappals (I am a staunch Bata loyalist when it comes to bathroom slippers...right now I have the prettiest pair of white slippers with flowers on the V strap)
To my golden-coloured sandals (both of them)
To my silver sandals (with coins on the V strap)
To my black sandals (all 5 pairs of them. You see I am a sucker for black sandals - my logic being I wear black n white six days a week so I need lotsa pairs in black in all shapes n sized n heights)
To my white wedge heels (when I wear them my grandmom wonders how I manage to retain my balance walking on stilts)
To all my tie-up sandals (Oh they look so sexy, so comfy, so 'In', so chic, so cool, well I can go o and on and on like that Duracell battery)
To all my Osho chappals (I loved you all)
To all my jootis and the ghungrus on them(I loved them so much that I buried them in the back gardens of my PG in Pune...May you all rest in peace)
To my Power shoes (Pointy slingbacks - one pair in black n one in brown)
To my chappals picked up n he beaches of Goa (I can never go wrong in these)
To THAT pair of red sandals that I saw n the shop window the other day (Oh yes you are going to be residing in my wardrobe one day soooooon)
To all the future pairs of sandals to be residing in my wardrobe

Yes I love shoes...and yes Arjun will hit the roof when he sees me walk in with a huuge smile on my face and another shoe box in my hand....

These last couple of weeks don't seem to be going too good for me...I feel like I can't do one thing right, like whatever I do is wrong, like I forget the most basic of things, like I am letting down everyone time after time, like I am the stupidest person on earth and am the scum of the earth.

Spare the Rod and.... ??

As school kids, we used to have major competition amongst ourselves to see who got the most raps on the knuckle for not doing homework or who stood the most number of classes being an 'outstanding' student (pun intended) or who had the most number of lines to do for playing pranks in class or who had to rum more rounds of the school for being too 'active' (read unruly) in class or whose parents got called more number of times to school or who had more notes in the diary to be signed by the parents or who had more demerits or who was made to sit out a P.T. period for wearing wrong shoes or who had to walk around the most number of times in a month for wearing wrong shoes or who was made to unhem her extremely short skirt (which meant an inch and a half above the knees).

I don't think any of us suffered physically or mentally by being disciplined. Our parents too do it at home. Which parent has never scolded his/her child or punished the child in some way or the other.

In fact, I would say that we all benefitted from this (at least we knew which teacher gave the most severe punishments and the level of pranks to play in each class). I clearly remember the time we were caught reading an MB (yes people a MILLS & BOON) in class by the teacher and our book was confiscated. We had to beg for ages for the book to be returned. I remember the number of times girls would be called out of the assemble line and were handed a safety pin for unhemming their skirts (this would then not make it obscenely short any more, as in it would cover your knees). I remember the time we got pulled up for talking in Hindi in class or the time we got pulled up for talking English during our Hindi class.I remember the time we got called to Sister Gracia's office for singing HINDI MOVIE SONGS in class (I was in Class II at that time).

Of course, we were lucky that we didn't have extremists or sadists who shoved electric rods up our ass or made us stand in the sun for hours on end or molest any of us or beat any of us to death.

However, if the new policy of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights does get implemented, the teacher will have no way to discipline the child. As children we were always told that our school was our second home and that our teacher was like our other parent, and she had all rights to scold us or tick us off. If this new policy comes into being, the teacher won't be able to even verbally tick off a student for playing the fool in the class. Besides by encouraging parents to file FIRs against teachers, the very idea goes against the concept of teaching being a noble profession. By encouraging parents to file FIRs, there will defintely arise several cases where such power would be misused by the students and parents, maybe where the student gets less marks, they file an FIR allegeing bias against the student. What is there to stop soemone from filing such a complaint? In any case, most Indian mothers are firmly of the opinion that their son can do no wrong, even if he is the gunda of the class. One remark from the teacher and parents will go filing complaints against the teachers. And what about those spoilt rich brats who need to be put in place? What is some student files a complaint stating that their fundamental rights are being infringed by being made to wear school uniforms? What if some student who did not do well in an exam and is too scared to tell his parents that, goes and says the tacher scolded him?

Teachers, as we know, mould the young minds - for which they may even require to pull up the young minds. This policy is rather extreme, in my humble opinion. If they have the right and duty to love and praise, conversely then they also have the right to criticise and scold. Taking punitive exemplary action against the sadists as mentioned earlier is defintely called for. However, taking such an extreme policy is definitely uncalled for.

Spare the rod and spoil the child or use the rod and beat the child????

What is your take?

Rail Gaadi

Kooo chuk chuk chuk....

Train journeys were so much fun as kids - it meant traveling to a new place, be it for a vacation or because of another transfer. After a certain point, my train journeys meant mostly the Pune-Cal route on our old faithful Azad Hind Express.

It brings back so many wonderful memories - of Mom coming to drop me to Pune the first time, of so many bags scared that I'd left that blue top behind and what if I wanted to wear it suddenly, let aside the fact that I hadn't worn it in the past 2 years, but 'what if' I suddenly wanted to.If I could, I would have probably packed up my entire room, complete with my huge cupboard and Hrithik Roshan posters and my knick-knacks, including that sunset scene painted waaaaaaaaaaay back in class III.

It brings back memories of Mom packing my favourite train ka khana - pasta for dinner and chicken and roti for next day. A 36 hour journey, which more often than not became 40 meant that we'd sleep like there was no tomorrow, prompting other passengers to wake us up to ask if we were feeling okay or needed some medicine. It meant that while leaving Pune, I'd pack noodles and chicken lollipops for the night and for the rest of the journey, we would survive on boiled eggs and coffee and chips and pepsi and other such junk. It meant the yells of joy afetr crossing jamshedpur cuz we were just anthr 3 hours away from home, the jhalmuriwalas boardign from jamshedpur and we talking about how cheap Cal is as compared to Pune, it meant the guys (and some of the gals too) smoking their last fags for sometime and disposing off the bottles, seeing the howrah bridge and crowding onto the door to yell and wave to the parents and family. It meant meeting so many interesting people with whom I might not have otherwise had the chance to speak to - like the trade union leader, the construction worker, the hawker, the old lady who'd walked the dandi march alongwith gandhiji, the young dude all nervous for his interview, the students like us who'd be all broke and ready to run errands for the older passengers so long as they fed us something. It meant hours of adda with friends, hours of antakshari and dumb charades, chatting up that cute guy from Wadia's in the next coupe, it meant endless hours of card games, it meant waiting for Manmad to ahve chinese for dinner and rourkela to have boiled eggs, it meant having poori and alu ki sabzi (radha-pallabi) at khragpur, it meant having that awful coffee at Nagpur (I still say they used the mud outside the station and nto coffee powder) and the last vada pav for sometime at Jalgaon. It meant making sure you had that bag full of khaana and mithai for the hostel failing which one would not be allowed entry. It meants hours of sitting by the window and watching the countyside go by. It meant the time we were nearly 12 hours late cuz we were stranded outside Jamshedpur since a tree had fallen on the tracks. It meant calling home and telling Mom, don't come to the station since we don't know what time we are going to reach Cal (the whole journey is actually an entirely different story and I shall do justice to it in another post sometime). It meant 10 people and 3 tickets, it emant spending the entire journey sitting near the toilets since we didn't have enough seats. In first year it meant breaking the ice with seniors and actually talking to them, not being oveawed byt he fact that they were in their 4th year. It meant the time I came home in third year w/o informing anyone simply cuz I wanted to be with my first Valentine - my Dad. It meant Mom freaking out when she realized that i'd travelled along. Till 2nd year, it meant going home for prep leave. It also meant that in final year going to the station bidding our final adiue to friends (who were my family in Pune) and to my second home - Pune. It meant taking 5 years of my life back to square one.

It meant going from one home to the other.

JAI HO PRATIBHA DEVI KI !!!!

Pratibha Patil - the first Woman President of India. Despite that there is no sense of pride or joy when I say this.

When we say The President of India, it should inpire awe, respect, pride, patriotism - sadly this lady inspires nothing but a feeling of shame that we have a person (I shall not insult myself by calling her a lady anymore) who has allegedly conspired protected her brother who has a murder charge hanging on his head, someone who swindled funds from a trust fund set up for poor students, someone who claims to talk to godmen long dead and gone, someone who has not cleared debts to the public exchequer, someone who is not aware of the history of the country of which she is the President, someone who has been reported guilty of financial mismanagement of her family bank and financial irregularities in repayment of loans by the Cooperative sugar mills run by the Patil family.... Nope this is not the person I want to represent my country at the international level.

Till June 2007, noone even knew who Pratibha Pail is. She was the last choice for th post of the President....

On the flip side, I'm sure alot of other politicians would however appreciate her being in the same boat as them. Alot of our present day politicans have been accused of murder and have even served time in the jail n such charges. Alot of politicians' families have availed of various benefits using their connections (Remember the petrol pump scam). Politicians in Maharashtra think it is their birthright in fact to misuse loans granted to sugar mills. Well then, I guess our new President is just upholding the national tradition.

Long live Pratibha Patil....Long live our new President

Pratibha Devi ki jai ho jai ho jai ho...........