The best kind of Christmas

The best kind of christmas is a christmas at home! After living away from home for three years it was so good to be back home during my favourite season and month of the year. I decorated the christmas tree with my mum like we always used to, baked cakes and helped with all the cooking, and just to be present at home with my family this season itself is a gift by itself.

December is the time my home looks the best. My mum who (according to me, and a couple of other credible sources) is one hell of an interior decorator, should be given credit on this aspect. Her choice of home decor is impeccable. I’m always amazed when she finds the perfect …anything that just attributes to the whole idea of our home. And what about all those books!? You ain’t seen nothing yet! There’s plenty more all over the house… whenever I ask my dad roughly how many books he owns, he always says “5000… guess more”, he said that to me when I was 6 or 7, and he still says that. I’m 22 now. It must’ve doubled from then, at least, I feel. They add their own charm.. everything just fits.

Towards Christmas, along with making sure there’s wine and cakes around, one other thing my mum usually always incorporates is a traditional roast, a recipe handed down to her by my grandmother, and ohgoodgod, this roast (see image) according to me is the best roast I’ve ever had that I can remember! So, so good. I could not stop praising her!

Now, some more details, with a touch of the holiday spirit:

I hope everyone’s had an amazing Christmas and may you all have a wonderful life ahead!

This is my last post of the year, and as always, I end by saying how grateful I am for everything in my life, and for this year… let’s all have an amazing 2015 now! Peaaaace.

13 lessons learned

#1. Expect a little less and give a little more. Truthfully.

#2. If you don’t want something, you don’t need to have it. And if you don’t want to do something, it’s simple, don’t.

#3. The world is all open and ready for you. There’s no “right” time. The time is now, and always, any day.

#4. Don’t lie. Never lie. (unless it’s for a terribly good cause and you have no other option, what? I’m just being human.)

#5. Seat belts always on. You might not get a chance to explain yourself.

#6. I understand life is so rapid and possibly unjust and crappy at times, and I don’t mean to sound cheesy saying this- but it turns around.

And some fashion tips for ya:

#7. Bad hair day: Wear a beret, a hat, a cap (if you can pull that off) (and yes, even in India, especially in India).

#8. Haircut. Enough said.

#9. Keep your nails neat and filed! It makes so much of a difference.

#10. Be sure to drink plenty, plenty water.

#11. Read more, lots more. And less technology. Much much less.

#12. I got this off somewhere, but I think it’s so true- “you must always have a signature dish. Even if it’s your only one.”

#13. SMILE AT THE WORLD CAUSE YOU’RE HERE NOW. I love that one.

New-ish, slightly more developed thoughts (since my last post)

1. Paulo Coelho is my absolute favourite author at the moment. I’ve read 6 of his books now. Five in one week, so you can only imagine the kind of impact they seem to have had on me.

2. T.V has just become an empty blank box in my life right now. I catch a few episodes of Masterchef Australia but that’s about it. (Crazy talented people, those!!)

3. The realization that it is so, so important to live in the present… We’re constantly thinking about either what we did, or about what we’re going to get ourselves into…completely wasting this moment that’s going to pass us. (Thanks Paulo Coelho, for bringing that thought to surface.) Give ‘Veronika decides to die’ a read.

4. Conflicts, sometimes are unnecessary. I’m understanding how to let things just be.

5. I worked for about 3 weeks with a designer, and let’s just call it a learning experience of many sorts.

6. I realized after reading a quote or a sentence that I too am an old soul. I guess I knew it all along (as an old soul would say).

7. I visited this library that my grandfather had founded, and I walked the streets where he grew up, just because I wanted a feel of him. I never got to meet him so it was important. The feeling I got when I got hold of his diaries from the 1930s was- well, just really, really amazing. I live for that kind of stuff.

8. I visited Kuttanad. A beautiful place in Kerala that I’d been dying to visit, a place that always felt familiar to me, in a weirdly nostalgic way. Travelled around on a houseboat, tasted their famous ‘toddy’ and ate duck roast (kerala style). Culturally (and tummy) satisfying trip.

9. A friend and I boarded this bus the other day when I was in Bangalore, I was under the impression I was carrying enough money for the both of us but turns out I wasn’t (kind of forgot we splurged on necessary meals up until then), the bus conductor had already given me the receipt and I was short of 30 bucks (INR), and I was trying to convince him that I’m at fault and we’ll just get off the bus, he, I suppose was arguing with me insisting I pay full amount (I didn’t understand how) …and at that very moment, this girl our age who was standing nearby offered to chip in “whatever the amount left is”, and we could see she genuinely wanted to help, and she went on to explain that it’s a mistake that we all make sometimes, that sometimes we board the bus in a rush and realize we don’t have enough for the ticket only afterwards… Honestly, I believe that there’s a lot of good out there, a lot of good thoughts, good people, but I rarely come across experiences such as this, as, in today’s world everybody is so engrossed in technology and so shut off from people, eyes on their mobile phones and ears plugged in. So I was touched. I smiled, thanked her of course, and told her God bless her. Faith in humanity restored? More like faith in humanity GREW :]. [Do you believe in angels? Hmm? Just a thought for the night.]

Ooooh, and I discovered Instagram (I suppose you can tell from the pictures I’ve uploaded on this post). I don’t do hashtags though. Waaay too mainstream for my liking.

I stumbled along the way a few times, got appreciated a bunch more times and I found inspiration in places I never thought of. I attended a wedding, a funeral, birthdays, concert… all of which made an impact in some way or the other. As life goes on, the experiences that we go through and the people we come across help us find what’s deep within us, identify our “mess” and we can choose to take the route to make our lives better… and this circle goes on and on. I can never stop saying how beautiful our world that we live in is, it is beautifully messed up too, but still, beautiful.

I usually end or start almost every post by mentioning how I really should blog more often, or that I will, but this time, I’m just saying goodnight.

The unplanned love for a city

Wow, long… long time and no posts.

So much has happened. I’m officially a Fashion Design graduate now… yep I did it. Our final year graduation fashion show was an amazing experience, and after that we had a couple more weeks wherein we completed our portfolios. It has been the biggest experience in my life so far, studying and living in Bombay. It’s a place filled with raw reality. The one that’s often hidden from you on purpose. The one that you go searching for desperately yet not everybody gets a glimpse of it.

I feel like I’ve gotten something very important from life. I’ll always have a bit of Bombay in me. And I’d always go back. The streets, the people, the lifestyle, marine drive… I can’t say what it is exactly, but it’s a city that’s got everything. Right from A-Z. It’s the beauty from within. You see, when you enter Bombay, you’d be noticing the pollution, the certain hard-earned stink that parts of bombay carry, maybe the insane floods if it’s monsoon season (that’s literally what I first walked into!)…and maybe the traffic and all the people and the life bustling around you will drive you nuts, but once you start living the bombay life… it all somehow adds up. You notice how anything and everything can be done here… you may (like me) feel safe to take long walks at night around bandra and feel absolutely amazing, dodging all the people around you if you will, in fact they don’t even bother you anymore…  You realize how important life is, how important it is to understand people. How important it is to be nice, and how easy it is. I remember sitting by bandstand and I saw this whole family come up with this plastic basin filled with used utensils and a huge bucket of clothes to wash by the sea. First I noticed the mother washing the dishes and the daughter helping her, then I saw the dad washing the pile of clothes, and the daughter went back and forth between the two of them. They were there for at least an hour. So was I. Watching them. Feeling helpless. Those were some of the times I’d try to get it in my head to be grateful for my life. And to believe that what I think is hard in my life might really not be so, and there’s far more going on in the world and the importance of being aware is severe. I’m not saying they’re leading miserable lives, just hard lives. The more I visited bandstand the more I witnessed this. Amongst other things in other places. This is just one among the many experiences that Bombay has given me. People would always say “life passes you by when you’re in bombay”…”it’s so fast-paced!”…but really? Pay attention to life here then you won’t ever say that. You can watch life HD if you like, living in Bombay. It’s that vivid.

On a much lighter note, the other day my friend called me while he was waiting in line to get his hair cut at the local barbers’ at

muhammad Ali road… at 1.oo am! He was 5th in line for a haircut at 1.00 am. And again I thought… no. place. like. Bombay. With a huge smile on my face.

I initially started this post thinking I’ll post all about my fashion show, WHICH IS A HUGE DEAL! …but then I got all nostalgic about Bombay, so I guess a whole other post will be coming up about my show.

Later!

thank you bombay!

The quarter life crisis

Once you’re in your twenties is when… you start realizing you’re no longer a kid, not even close- you learn how to deal with all sorts of people, all sorts of situations. You realize you need to prioritize. You realize you need to make decisions now, you’re no longer following anybody else. You learn things about yourself that you might even hate… but you’ll just eventually learn to forgive yourself. You learn to forgive others too, slowly.

You’re in the most confused state. You try to understand how to even behave with people. You start to realize people have certain expectations. It gets pretty scary. This is the period of your life where you question all your thoughts a million times- ask yourself the same damn thing, play a single thought over and over again, you’re not personally satisfied with anything- you’re afraid of disappointing people now that you’ve finally gotten them to listen to you. Nobody gets you, nobody tries to get you either. You’re freaking frustrated.

Relationships become a huge cloud- you don’t understand what is going on with anyone, you don’t know who is your friend and who isn’t. And then… you start letting go of all the blocks that stood in your way all this time… eventually or they just fade away themselves because that was the time period meant for them… “Start your twenties with a lot of friends and leave with a few good ones. What happened? People faded away into their careers and relationships. Fights were had and never resolved. Shit happens.” Truly, Mr. O’Connell.

Of course there is a whole lot of good factors upon hitting the twenties. We get a sense of freedom within ourselves, we start to accept that this is who we are and start to understand our strengths and weaknesses to the greatest extent- school taught us all the other things anyway (I’m not talking about just pure academics here). We’re mostly past all the “phases” and are finally our “real self”. We’re no longer so much told what to do all the time. And as always, sometimes being an “adult” has its advantages. You know what I’m talking about. No, not that you become legal to drink, drive. But that you’re suddenly given a whole lot of importance, people actually start to take your word for things and for people who’ve always tried to show they’re responsible- finally gets the due credit. Life may get good or it may not, the way you deal with in your twenties is important as this is where you decide what to become. And that goes for the rest of your lives.

You know what’s the way of getting through life? When all else fails, just wing it. Always wing it.

That time of the year again…

I have not been blogging regularly which sucks, but what can I do when all that’s happening in my life revolves around meeting deadlines, and more deadlines. Always meeting deadlines. Five more months and then I’m going to do some serious chilling for a bit. (sure, blogging too.)

I feel quite exhausted with my current lifestyle, and naturally around this time of the year you start to wonder about the kind of changes you wanna make for the next year, i.e new year resolutions. Honestly I never thought so much of resolutions because I deemed it silly, nevertheless, I’m giving myself very valuable TIPS or say, resolutions as you might like to call it, to improve this insane-ish lifestyle.

1. Get more sleep. I’m pretty tired of thinking that this is just not possible. 8 hours a day sounds like a dream, but I’ll genuinely work on it. More sleep means less stress, or so I’ve heard, and yeeeesss I want that!

2. Breakfast. Not a fan, but it’s about time I sorted out my messed up eating habits. I need to differentiate between lunch and dinner, instead of combining the two and having one weirdly satisfying meal.

3. Meditate. Maybe it sounds silly to some others, but I can see it working out. Peace is all I seek. It’s all about controlling emotions (these last 5 months of my course- things are going to get extremely messy, I’m definitely going to need to learn how to stay calm).

4. Exercise (because thankfully I do really enjoy it!). I’m teaching myself some exercises from the internet because I ain’t got no time for gym. Cost cutting applies, also.

5.SMIIIIILLLLEEEEEEE. Believe it or not, this actually makes a difference to our state of happiness, and others for that matter.

None of that “I’m gonna be a better person” crap. 2013 has been such a roller coaster ride, and more. I hardly felt the months go by, it’s been my busiest year so far. I’ve learned that you will come across so many scary, difficult situations, where you can’t think of a way out, where all you want to do is give up- but I can say that, in these 21 years, I never gave up. There’s always a way… always a solution, or a helping hand or two to grab onto, always an answer and always, with the right people by your side (eliminate the ones that do you no good already), and the right attitude, we can find a way to tackle those scary situations. Besides, once you get through some of those difficult situations, you will feel absolutely satisfied. Who doesn’t love that?

Here’s to 2014, let’s all have a spectacular one! Cheers.