count your blessings !!

A friend sent me loads of stuff from India and you won't believe how blessed I feel at this moment.

Even though she does not read my blog that often, I am going ahead and dedicating this post to her.

We have spent 4 years of undergraduate life as roommates, technically seeing each other through the thick and thin of college days, spent away from home. She was the perfect companion. She was always there, understanding, fighting, consoling, teasing, caring, and never giving up on me. We blended so well together that our parents never worried about us. They knew we were in safe (each other's) hands.

As hostelites we had planned to visit every one's hometown at least once during the four years. And this amazing girl bonded so well with all my relations, that they still remember her fondly. 

Her purity and innocence are so soothing, that just talking to her after a very bad day, puts a bright smile across your face.

I remember, we (a bunch of friends) lecturing her about how careless she was with her health and food habits. Now she lives alone in a big bad city independently, taking care of herself, eating the proper foods, exercising regularly and striking a balance with her workaholic ways. And at the end of the day she is a good daughter, a good sister, a good employee and a better friend. I could not have been more proud of anyone.

Call it luck but its a miracle to find people who love you for who you are at every turn of your life. There could not have been anything more miraculous in my life.

And today as I eat the Indian bhel poori (she sent me a bhel poori packet thinking I must be missing out on my favorite snack. Such thoughtfulness, I am touched beyond words..) I cannot stop myself from going down memory lane and getting nostalgic.

You rock girl !!

I loveeeeeee you :) :)

~nightflier

chronicle of the prince

Harry Potter will never cease to have a profound impact on me.

Check this.

And don't just be done by one preview. Watch all of them and relish, because the darkest tale of the series comes alive on the big screen.

More dark magic, betrayals, dark secrets, tough times and the dark lord himself. Life could not be grimmer. But wisdom does prevail, as harry gets ready for the final quest (and symbolically eternal quest for us) of his life. If there's just one movie remaining for the end of the series, then there could not have been a better and spectacular penultimate show.

My preparation has already started. I have taken the book for another round of reading, as I have plans to catch this one in theatre. Some things in life are worth spending bucks on and Harry Potter is one of them for sure. (OK, at least for me, I will not bully you into believing :P)

till then,

have a good one!

~nightflier

Springing into action

It is officially spring in the windy city.

After 6 months of chilly and windy weather, its a respite to see the sun and wind gods smiling on us mortals. 

I was so glad to see people without their n layers of winter gear. Roaming casually in shorts and floaters. Families with kids streaming towards the beach (yea yea.. the lake), teenagers on roller skates and cycles, parks filled with activities, football games at all playgrounds. Its such a welcome sight for the eyes. 

I just hope this is the official harbinger of increasing temperatures for at least 2 months to come. After all spring has finally sprung :) :)

And I also found this. Sharing it with you all :)

After all what do you want at the end of a day ..

To see a face
And wish for a smile...
To hear a voice
And let it linger awhile...
To ask some questions
And answer a few...
To revisit memories
And to create some anew...
To care and pamper
And spoil to the core...
To do routine small things
And yet not make them look like a chore...
To smile at all times
And have it be the energy...
To be the pillar of strength
A lighthouse in rough sea. 

~nightflier!!

milk-y way

I get up early in the morning and find to my dismay that my 2% reduced milk is over. Well no problemos, I can borrow it from my roomies'. 

Surprisingly, their cans are empty too. Now that's co-incidence or whatever. Since I have a busy day planned ahead, I decide to skip drinking milk for one day and buy it first thing in the evening.

So in this way I spend my early morning one hour thinking about no milk. I am suddenly restless, anxious, my brain has become super slow and its responses like that of an 8085. It is funny, because the more I think about not thinking, the more I think about it. Are you getting me? The urge to have a mug full of hot chocolate is so insatiable, that I get up and run to the store in my ugliest clothes. OK I do comb my hair.

So here I am. Another year ago if you asked for my 5 cents on drinking milk everyday, I would have given you the famous distasteful look, making you think 'omg, was it so offensive ?'

The same person, today, can not spend a morning without a mug of it. Astonishingly, milk has been one of those things I have been averted to since childhood. Again, I was not one of those over dramatic kids who would puke at the sight of it or pour it in the nearest potted plant or spill it deliberately or even barter it with siblings. But I was definitely one of those fussy kids who did not like the malaai (we call it saay in Marathi), the smell of it, or the prospect of having plain milk without any bournvita. Now we all know the nutritional values of milk, that it contains calcium which is essential for bones and blah blah blah. But its difficult to convince a stubborn ass who is hell bent on believing that the passage of milk from her mouth to her stomach makes it  go through a lot of chemical processes (I could have been really gross there, but I value you as my reader. Anything for few comments :P) reducing the nutritional value to zilch. I even avoided eating milky sweets for the same reasoning.

And since my mother was (she still is) a firm believer in human rights (I owe it to you mommy), she never ever encouraged/scolded/forced me to change my habits or thinking.

Now I am one of those persons, whose day can not start without a mug of milk. Someone who needs a cup of coffee to take care of those long tired evenings. Someone whose reaction to an empty milk can has changed from that of pleasure to horrified disbelief. Have I really become so health conscious or is it just the laziness to eat something else and have a mug of hot chocolate which is easy to make instead ? I think its both. 

So here I am, a 24 year old, addicted to milk. (I know my mother is going to be sooo proud.) 

Sheesh.. I feel so wasted. 

But its fun to walk the milk-y way. I am doing things I thought I would never do or like doing :) 

~nightflier :)

buzzzzzz

Number of drafts : 25

Number of half written posts : 10

Number of posts without a title : 5

Number of posts which will never get published : 5

Level of writing energy in the air : -5

I feel stupidly wedged. Can not come out or don't want to come out??
Time shall tell.

~nightflier!!!

The Minimalist

So Mark Bittman it is!!

Thank you NYTimes, I am hooked to a cookery show after eons.

In his own words, cooking is a way you can be creative on a daily basis. How many things do you innovate on such basis? Plus you get to know what's going inside your tummy. Totally agree! There is a raw touch to the way he handles his dishes, prepares them. And he is global. Tuscan, French, Mayan, you ask for it and it's on your platter. Add some drama to the presentation and I think its perfect! I mean which dude in leather jacket and glares, enters the kitchen to transform some herbs in  a delicious seasoning?

About Mark, his cooking style is Minimalist. Quite a contrary word to use with food. But that's how it is. Minimum cooking time, least number of ingredients, very less complications and voila!!

I have found some amazing salsa, salad and chicken recipes there. 

If I was given one chance to abandon everything and just indulge, then it would definitely be cooking. Such is the pleasure. 

I am in a hurry so cannot give you the link. NYTimes will be a help there.

If you are going to have 3 meals a day, then why not make it interesting ?

On this note, have a great day ahead !!

~nightflier :)

Serial killer

So what do you do when you have to take meals alone, a routine you despise and not used to ?

Call up people ? Well with yours truly in a land across seven seas where 99% of her friends, family did not choose to reside (of course, she was the one who moved out), and the expenses of frequent long distance calling, let us rule this one out.

Don't think about being alone over a meal and invite over some imaginary friends for lunch and dinner ? Again yours truly is not as stupid as she looks. Drop this!

Better still, join unknown people over for meals or invite them over to join you ? Umm.. She is too lazy to randomly talk to anyone. If they don't like what's in her tiffin and sneer at her for eating stuff which they think is full of hocus pocus, she wont like it.

So missy devised a way out of this uncomforting situation. She found the 'n'th usefulness of a television. She started watching television series, soaps, serials, etc to keep the humanly cycles going. On the flip side she does not worry about being alone for lunch or dinner. She looks forward to it. On the down side, she gets addicted to everything she watches. Gets totally hooked on to stupid stuff for that instant. 

So delving into the matter more and even deeper, I was a person of principles once. I never watched any serials/soaps/series back home on principle. I used to find most of the serials stupid and senseless, unless they had some backstabbing, revenge or reincarnation involved. You got to believe that it needs extraordinary imagination to think up something like that. 

Now as I had prohibited myself from following any Indian serials, I could not watch any English series either. This did depreciate my sense of humor amongst friends when they would be cracking famous jokes from friends, referring to characters from ER, heroes or OC. When they would be busy rofling I would be left wondering if they needed any serious medical help. This also affected my ability to start conversations on any damn topic with most of my female friends at hostel. Girls used to follow all 9-11 shows on star plus even after coming away from home by taking updates on phone everyday. I used to be the only loser who knew nothing from that particular area of research of the female psyche. 

(I hereby admit that I have followed one particularly uninteresting serial for my roomies' sake, given mom company while watching the longest running serial in Indian television's history and watched a few episodes of friends and x-files with my brother as a kid.)

So I abstained from all these 'things' on principle.

As torturously explained at the beginning you know how things happened for me. 

Not having a TV was not a deterring factor here. Thanks to broad bands and wi-fi networks here, things work like a stroke of a magic wand. Online viewing is so fun. I make my plate ready and in the mean time shows get streamed. I enjoy my food laughing about stupid things, situations, funny friends, there lives, secrets, and many such trivialities. I am happy about good things happening to them, sad about their stupid fights, and admire their human qualities.

I have finished watching FRIENDS, Heroes, How I met your mother (which is still on btw), Sa re ga ma pa - little champs (I have still stuck to my principle in a way, if reality talent show is considered a series).

Right now I am watching House MD (he deserves a special tribute and a dedicated post!!). I am totally addicted to this one. House's character being inspired from Sherlock Holmes (my childhood hero) is one of the reasons. But House is unique in himself. His arrogance and sarcasm is incorrigible. And so is his medical knowledge and diagnosis. I think I should control my feelings about House in this post.

So moral of the story is, this is the purrfect case of Majboori ka naam Gandhiji (When in discomfort you do something, you least expect yourself to do). But I am not complaining. I plan to shoot down every wee-bit interesting serial available on the net. If you have any suggestions drop in a comment or mail me. In return you get a free meal with an awesome company (me !! duh..) in your side of the world (I take the pleasure of thanking people personally) and have a nice chat about the series you suggested (unless the series you suggested completely revolted me :P) .

Now you know why the misleading title ;)

~nightflier :)

money bound

I filed my returns for the fiscal year 2008-09. Both state and federal.

I hope that makes me a responsible person and tells the demon named recession that we are being good and sensible by helping the government. He better watch out his next move!!

OK  I know it sounds like a 7 year old's complaint to good old almighty. But if recession has plans to settle down then we better not make it feel like at home. With GM and chrysler also joining the bandwagon (on the verge more like) it feels like an end of an era. They never changed their thinking. May be we can. And by that I seriously don't know what I mean. :-/

Tax filing in India was not much of an overhead. The 2 years I worked there, my taxes were filed by a company appointed agent. I never cared about investing any money, even after mom's pursual. So my work used to be done in a matter of few hours. Here I attended workshops, went through the whole process of whys, how's and whens. I know I was careless in India, but here I was unusually attentive and sincere, interested in every single penny I earned. Strange, incidents are teaching me to be careful with money. Not that I was reckless but I never gave importance to it. These days I often find myself planning my finances, thinking ahead. Stranger...

Someone please take care of this bully. It's changing happy go lucky people like me. :-/ :-/

And my supervisor at library just waved at me. Reminds me I had come here to study :D Also reminds me that I used the precious lappy battery for blogger :-/

The girl in front of me looks super nice, she smiled at me and asked if I need any help. I did not give her any impression of being a novice though. :-/

The racks of books look inviting. So I am taking a plunge in the sea. 

laterzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

~nightflier :)

To my grandfather..

He was a good man.

He was a great father.

He was a greater father-in-law.

He stuck to his principles till the end.

His self reliance was exemplary.

He rests in peace today.

My grandfather passed away this morning. I feel shaken to the core.

I owe many things to him. Reading, writing, good handwriting, love for music and a mind of my own.

My mom always encouraged me to write small letters during the yearly Rakhi ritual. This cultivated into a love for letter writing, which caught momentum when I went away from home for studies. My grandfather always wrote long replies to my small ones. We kept the love for writing in each other alive. I was known as the girl 'who's-grandfather-wrote-her-letters' during my hostel days.

Dear Aajoba, your letters are still a guiding light for me. I carry them wherever I go. You have given me the heritage of a lifetime.

I always wanted my kids to know you, to write to you. Alas..

He was a voracious reader too. He would also recommend me books, if I showed interest in what he was reading. He also loved classical singing. Every diwali he would give us money to buy gifts. I fondly remember how eagerly I looked forward to that time of the year. There are so many fond memories when he used to scold us for mischiefs. The time I met him before coming here, he was eager for my return, even before my departure. He was eager to listen to my experiences and I had said that someday he will fly to meet me. :( :(

It's co-incidence may be, that yesterday I read all his old letters to get out of a pang of homesickness. And as I re-read his letters for the n-th time today, I can feel the void forming inside me. I just wish I was there by my mom and dad's side to give them a comforting hug, an understanding pat.

I am very sad today.

~nightflier :(