Camera Critters

That's my bestie's neighborhood dog Jumpy, on one of her sick and gloomy days. Reflecting my current state in her own canine way. :)


(This post is my entry for this week's Camera Critters meme.)

Sick and Lonely

I had to title the post in such a desperate manner for the sheer lack of a better word. But it pretty much describes my current state of mind.

To be crisp and precise with the facts - I am sick. It all started with a fall two weeks ago - a knee injury and a sprained foot - in short, PAIN. The next woe to pay me a visit was an ear infection, bringing with it a lot more of unbearable pain. And to add finishing touches to the perfect spectacle of illness that I've been reduced to, I've also contracted a bad cold now.

I haven't paid so many visits to the medical fraternity my entire life as I've had to do over the past one week. ENT, general physician, orthopaedic - seen them all in quick succession. X-ray, MRI, ear-rape - had them all done. Allopathy, homeopathy, reiki healing - oral, external, spiritual - taking all sorts of treatment possible. To little avail as yet though. Hope to get better with time...this hope is my ultimate fall-back-upon.

But amidst all this hustle and bustle, I've been feeling lonely and cornered. Quarantined rather. Everyone's moving about with their lives at normal pace, thinking about their work, duties, how much they've studied, what all chores they're yet to finish, where to spend the weekend with friends - the works. But all I've had and still have on my mind is when I'm gonna get rid of this pain...when is my foot gonna be fit enough for me to be able to walk those two miles of my long-forgotten evening walks? When will I be able to start my swimming lessons? How and when will I visit the sites I've got to review for my freelance job? When will I finally stop being looked upon with sympathetic-cum-condescending glances for sitting around all day and hardly helping around the house? I have alluded to my issues with sickness earlier. I admit I had a prophetic approach to sickness at one time. But that was before I had been THIS sick for THIS long. Now it's mere torture, squatting around all day with pain everywhere and no enthusiasm to do any damned thing.

It kills my sanity to see people getting along in their lives, doing what they ought to do, passing by me with a word of sympathy or advice without really knowing what all goes on inside my head. They think all I'd want right now is to rest and get better and to be rid of the pain. Little does anyone know how it agonizes me to see my peers and friends wasting their holidays doing nothing, while I look at them with longing eyes thinking of all the ways in which I would have been making each day of my vacation more worthwhile than the last. It hurts in places I otherwise scarcely even know the existence of inside me. For a person as restless as I am, illness is a curse like none other.

I am but a loner. With already only about a handful of friends who I talk to on normal days, I tend to stay away even from them in such times. I don't know why. I just don't feel like anyone understands my state. Almost everyone thinks, however, that they do. They'll invariably give you expert advice on resting yourself infinitely, taking care while walking, not stepping out of doors, what medicines to take, what tests to get done and a hundred etc pieces of advice and motherly admonishes. And the ultimate "take care of yourself" and "don't worry, you'll be alright in a couple of days :)" certainly beat the hell out of me. Come on, if it were not for your telling me to, wouldn't I be taking care of myself? And when you don't even know half of what all is wrong with me, why bother to say encouraging stuff like THAT?

It outrages me to be asked about my health as a customary salutation by dear ones before their going on to recount all the stories of what an awesome day they had. It's like all that my life revolves around right now is my ill health, and that's all I am about to them. Pretty much the major reason why I keep away from society during such times. They make it harder rather than easier for you to hold on, cope. And then what would you think - they take it as a personal offense if the sick person keeps a distance from them! Then come jewels of words like "Fine, suit yourself. I am here for you and yet you choose to be alone. Don't blame me later, for you've chosen your loneliness and misery yourself". Classic!

Now, as it always happens, I started writing this post in a sad state of mind during another bout of loneliness. And it as usual ended up getting laced with all the bitterness I could muster. I am indeed bitter right now. And sad. And lonely. But I don't need pity or concern. I need respite. Some excitement, some unconditional loving and caring. A surprise maybe. I just don't wanna be alone. But I don't feel like talking either. So I guess this loneliness is gonna make itself a home in me for some time. But don't feel sorry for me! It might actually not have the desired effect. Just bear with me and my rants and keep dropping by to read up on me, I'll keep this space posted.

P.S. I just found out on the web that sick and lonely people die early. ISN'T THAT ME RIGHT NOW? Oh God save me, I want to live.

The Hauz Khas Files - II

The previous post in this series covered the 'beauty' part of the Village. Now I come down to the other, more significant part - the 'eating' one. There are two major aspects to any place that make it really worth a visit – the food and the general ambiance. Hauz Khas Village scores pretty well in both. It is an urbanized village that boasts of designer boutiques, high-end restaurants and cafes and great nightlife. I did a thorough research on the various cafés and food joints in the village before visiting. We ended up hitting the two most popular yet completely contrasting joints it has on offer – The Kunzum Café and The Living Room. Why the contrast you wonder? Well, for starters, Kunzum Café doesn’t really charge you money while The Living Room (TLR) takes away even that last penny you had stashed up in your secret inner pocket.


1. Kunzum Café - The traveler's paradise

(Photograph courtesy Google Images)

It comes as a complete surprise to many people.

They don’t charge? What the hell dude, you’re screwing with me. :|

But it is true; their menu card doesn’t even have the rates printed! There is a small casket kept by the door; you may put in whatever you deem suitable for the food they serve. It’s supposedly a travel café – you come and sit here the whole day, hobnob with travelers that usually frequent it, share travel stories, read the many travel books and brochures stacked along the walls or simply hang out with friends – and no one is ever gonna ask you to get your lazy ass out of here. No elaborate food or beverages served; just simple coffee and cookies. But do remember, no outside food allowed – not even cakes. We were hoping to cut the birthday cake there, but were not permitted. So we left, not having even a taste of what they supposedly serve. But the comfortable low seating and well lit interiors did give me a good kind of vibe – I’d surely visit it again soon, maybe alone, with maybe a book to read or maybe something to write. As of now, Kunzum Café receives 3 stars from me. The place is easily located, though you can find sureshot help here.

2. The Living Room - Posh and perfect

The Living Room, located at the very start of the village, lies in total contrast to Kunzum. Occupying the second and third floors as well as terrace of a sufficiently big place, it has nice interiors, comfy seating (I almost sank into their plush sofa and snoozed) and good service. They serve all kinds of food at TLR – Italian, American, Indian, British et al – as well as alcohol from all around the world, quite literally too. We ordered a lot of starters and were almost full by the time we got to flipping through the main course section. The food was indeed quite expensive, which we conveniently noticed only when it was time for the birthday girl to shell out money at the end of the day. :P

(Photos courtesy Harshit Vishwakarma and his amazing camera)

Oh, and that's my other bestie. He'll certainly kill me if he sees his picture here.

The walls at TLR are all bright and sunny. There are well stocked racks of the best classics as well as contemporary books for readers to pore over, and you can also pick up one of the numerous board games that are kept stacked in a corner for your amusement. Not to forget a conspicuous peculiarity I observed - a ‘showerhead’ serves as the faucet in the washroom. Seriously!

The Living Room’s specialty lies in its very retro, very hip feel. The place has been done up with a careful ease – something I find missing at most restaurants. They’re either too laidback or else jumping at you for attention. However TLR instantly brightens you up while at the same time making you all relaxed and thoughtful. I’ll certainly give it 4 stars.

Do visit Hauz Khas Village once, that is if you haven't already. And if you have, be kind enough to share your experiences with me too! I'm all ears! :D

P.S. There are a number of other eating options at Hauz Khas Village, like the Flipside Café and yet another called "Gunpowder"! But since I haven't yet visited them, I'd leave it to the readers to research on them before trying out :)

P.P.S. Another post in the series coming up soon too..! :D

The Hauz Khas Files - I

Here's a dedication to my new found obsession - Hauz Khas Village. I’ve frequented this place a bit too much over these past few weeks. It all started with my search for an ideal place to organize my bestie Rose’s surprise birthday party last month. I went through every single happening place – mall, amusement park, bowling alley, quiet haven or pub – that I found worthy within the four walls of the city. Nothing seemed to fit, somehow, to my description of the ideal place. And then the idea to celebrate in Hauz Khas Village came to me. Well okay…I’m actually grateful to my sister for the suggestion. But to sum it all up, it was a hell of a day we had there, though it could certainly have been much, much better.


Hauz Khas Village is a heaven of a place hidden within the heart of the city. I was expecting it to be a small dirty lake, all dried up because of the scorching heat. But ooh la laa! What meets the eye instead is a BEAUTIFUL, HUGE lake, surrounded by lush greenery and overlooked by some awesome-looking monuments. I was awestruck – rather love struck - my love for everything medieval and beautiful not in the least unknown to my readers. The lake is not even a lake in fact. It was actually a tank built way back in the 13th century to supply water to the surrounding settlements. Funny, medieval people got their washing and bathing water supply from such exquisite water bodies! One of those times when I wish I was born a few centuries earlier.

I had much better shots taken from my friend's DSLR. Alas, I still haven't got them. I'll upload as soon as I catch hold of them. Till then this is all I have!

We hardly felt the heat while at this place. Its huge canopied trees and the water of the lake keep the area cool even while everything's melting outside. And the serenity of the water and the reflected green and blue shades on its surface...I was really in heaven throughout. The place exudes pure, unadulterated magic. So much so that I am desperately waiting for the summers to subside and the monsoon to announce its arrival. Because that will be the ideal time to visit the village again and soak in its real beauty.

The how-to-reach part is usually the only one where first-timers err. The village is a short auto ride (or a 15 minute walk) away from the Green Park Metro station. Although Hauz Khas station is almost at the same distance, I won't recommend reaching the village from there for reasons I cannot exactly explain convincingly. Just that the path goes through the high-traffic Ring Road and usually takes more time, while that from Green Park is more convenient. I leave it to the visitor's discretion.

P.S. This is however just one part of the story!
Another post in the same series - The Hauz Khas Files II - coming up sooner than you'd expect. And maybe another one to follow...so keep your eyes and ears open!

Heart of Ice

I fall down every time
And I stand up again,
Looking into Destiny's eyes
I strengthen my resolve.
But I weep inside
Hiding from the world
I'm losing myself again
Can't see where I am.


Seasons change
But my winter refuses to melt
A heart set in ice takes
More than just love to break.

Just when I see the light
The wick runs out
And I try to endure
But fail to fill the hole within.
Seeing my power seep away
I've lost that flame
That kept me glowing
Fed my faith.

But the ashes live on
A faint hope remains
That my winters will melt
And the ice will break..

Image courtesy: happytea.deviantart.com

Of Meets and Surprises...

I never really happened to write about the Indiblogger meets, did I? Tch tch. Keeping busy has just too many drawbacks for me to even keep track of. Anyhow, here I am now, with a brief report on the Sunday that I’m not gonna forget for a long long time to come.

10th June, 2012 – The Park Hotel, Connaught Place, New Delhi
I don’t know what it is between Indiblogger and The Park. It is such a depressing little place, almost like an office building. Even the DLF commercial tower across the road looks like a real hotel in front of the Park. Anyhow, the meets are always fun, so I’m not complaining! So there were two meets scheduled within one single day – something I haven’t ever experienced before and which came as a pleasant surprise when it was first announced.


The first one by Dove was a meet only for women bloggers, and needless to say, it saw lesser number of attendees. To cut the long story short, hair care experts were invited, extensive talks were held on common hair problems, their causes and prevention and the audience’s woes were heard and addressed. A TV ad model Shivani was also called to give a short speech/lecture/talk/whatever. I still haven’t been able to figure out what it was exactly that she wanted to bring across through that half-hour long string of non-coherent short anecdotes about her single status and her mother’s giving her a piece of her mind everyday and her ugly frizzy hair etc etc. I chose to ignore after a while, concentrating more on chatting and hobnobbing with the few friends I had made out there.



Need I mention that like all the Indiblogger meets, this one too had fun stuff being handed out to random people for no rhyme or reason just to promote Dove products? Though for a change this time I was a recipient of them too. Yay! I got a Dove gift hamper just for sporting streaked hair (seriously LAME, I know :P) and a voucher for online shopping worth rupees 1000 only because I was the only person till then to have said “thank you” at the end of my introduction. See, I told you – they need no rhyme or reason to give out goodies, just pure whim! At the end of the meet each participant got to take away a customized hamper containing a shampoo and a conditioner from the Dove product line that suits their hair the best. Oh, and a white Dove-Indiblogger t-shirt too. Thereafter we had a scrumptious lunch where I actually overate. I couldn’t help myself, it was just so good!!



There was a one-hour break before the Spice Mobiles meet. And we obviously utilized it in maaroing a round of apna CP (in the scorching sun) followed by an all-girls photo session in the hotel lobby ('coz as they say - girls will be girls!) Before the meet started we had this awesome conversation with one of the popular veteran bloggers on the Indian blogsphere – Mr. Arvind Passey – a lovely man with an amazing sense of humor and also the brand ambassador for Samsung. Cool eh? But the real fun began when the meet began and the host for the evening appeared. Guess who?? Rajiv Makhni, our very own NDTV Gadget Guru-cum-hottie-cum-house of talent! Okay I am totally drooling now. But the man really is a hell lot of fun. He cracked jokes, made sarcastic comments on anything and everything without anyone at all minding and had us all in splits throughout the meet and on the edge of our chairs by the end of the evening.





He gave out pen drives and Spice mobiles to participants, sometimes on whim and sometimes on their actually achieving certain feats. But the real surprise of the evening for ME came when I actually won a phone myself. Oh yes, I DID. And not even for nothing. The guy had announced that he would hand out phones to five people who introduced themselves in the best way, or those who could reproduce at the meet something that they blog about (muffins or cookies for instance). So I went out there in full josh, introduced myself, and offered to sing. Oh yeah, you all know I write about music too. Now the audience was suddenly excited and Rajiv taken aback for a second. But then he declared that if I satisfy the audience with my song, the phone is all mine. And so I sang a few lines from the one song that came to my mind at the moment – Celine Dion’s That’s The Way It Is. Here I stopped singing and there the place resounded with applause (or at least that’s what I like to believe). And I won myself a Spice Flo mobile! :D



Well, that was the crescendo of the meet for me at least. Rest everything I cannot seem to recall even half as clearly. There was this debate on something like how safe is our private information today, given the superb hacking technology available and no dearth of identity thieves all around us on the internet. It was interesting and boring in turns, nothing really worth being reproduced here. Another highlight of the evening was an AMAZING magic/mind-reading show put up by a budding mind reader (or magician?) Karan Singh that completely had each one of us gaping in astonishment. It was great! Then there was this speech by some boring tech guy from Spice, and that was when we decided it was time for our much needed pilgrimage to the ladies room. :P Following that was another delicious meal that was supposed to be tea but got converted into dinner, God knows how. The evening ended with a nerve wrecking quiz conducted by the oh-so-adorable Rajiv and lots and lots of phones being given out. I was really amazed to see such good general knowledge in people of stuff that I hardly had any idea about. It seriously made me feel ashamed of myself. :/



Anyhow the day was a super tiring but fulfilling one for me. Back home everyone kept gushing about all the goodies I seemed to have hoarded in a single day. I got at least five people laying claim on that phone I had won. What made them think I would actually part with something I had just bagged with such elan? Bleh.

The day ended with a tired me going off to sleep with a smile on my face (and a whole lot of hair care products on the shelf). The best part of the day was that I made some fabulous new friends in the blogging world and met some of those I had only met online yet never seen before. It was enriching, exciting and needless to say, a memorable experience. Look forward to many more such meets and treats!



A whole lot of pictures there on my FB page: here!

Jump, JUMP!

This post was gonna be about something else. Something totally different, trust me. But then I started listening to this particular song on loop and it is stuck in my head just so bad that I have to share it with you all before I can proceed further to more important stuff in the following posts.

Jump jump.. Kriss Kross will make ya.. Jump, JUMP!

Does it strike a chord somewhere? Oh yeah it is the 1990s superhit song Jump, by the American rapper duo Kriss Kross comprising of those two kids with similar names that were sort of reversible. The duo's trademark was the fact that they wore their over sized clothes backwards (Beat that Eminem!)


This song is just so addictive, I've literally been listening to it on continuous loop for like ever now. Okay, maybe just about half an hour. But it makes me wanna go all hip-hop and start dancing on the bed. THAT good. Check it out.



Doesn't it make you wanna jump too? And the fact that it's just two little boys singing it makes it so much more fun! Though everyone certainly might not like it. I'm just weird sometimes in my choice of songs. But it's a complete party song. The Mac Dad will make ya, Jump JUMP! :D

(Download the mp3 here if you like it)

Know of any more such songs that make you wanna jump? Let me know!