Once Overs!!

I have always felt that a girl checks out another girl more than a guy does. Have you ever felt being checked out from toe to head before a girl replies to your "HI" or responds to the introduction being made by another friend. The situation is worse if you are introduced by a male friend / colleague to his girl friend :)You hold your breath while the gaze of the girl moves from your sandals to your legs to your dress, hair and then oh-so-finally to your face and then to your extended hand, in case you have extended your hand. The response also depends on if she liked what she checked out or she didn't. Now, this can be a tricky one! There can be the following options:

1. She responds warmly:
a. She has a good heart and she just likes checking other women (Blah!)
b. She is faking the warmth, she absolutely hates you for looking so gorgeous. The warmth is just a facade and the teeth & nails will come out the moment the guy leaves you both alone.
c. She hates your dressing sense and thinks you no competition.

2. She is weird in her response:
a. She definitely thinks of you as competition and would do anything to take her guy away
b. She is a B**** and is generally weird with every other girl

Then there are another variety, who are difficult to decode. They would be all sweetness in your girls - only time but as soon as they have some company, generally your boyfriend or hers, they would start putting you down..."Oh! the color of that watch strap is so bright", "Why did you cut your hair?", "That yellow is so tough on my eye". Now, you would want to instantly throttle this girl but would have to do with a diplomatic answer which you hope doesn't offend your friend and still makes the girl stop passing such rude remarks. These are mostly the intelligent but insecure types. In the insecure type, there is also a dumb variety, who will pass ignorant, illogical comments to put you down, which make for a very fun reading...something that I heard recently was "Your skin glows because you drink so much!"

Anyway, these once-overs as I call it can have two effects on the checkee(the one who is being checked out, the checker being the one who is checking out):
1. You feel super confident and have an instant glow as you think she loves your outfit and hates it that it's not with her
2. You are a lil shy and you blush
3. You feel rickety thinking is your fly open or your strap showing or something is torn, etc..etc..

Whatever, the cause and effect might be, the important thing is we have all had our own experiences of once-overs, being the checkee or even the checker. How many times have we not sat with our girl friends and checked out passers by and judged them by their shoes or clothes. Oh no, I am suddenly feeling very nostalgic and missing my besties..

Well, it will be fun to read some weird insecure lines or your experiences of getting or giving once -overs. I guess it will make a nice book! So, looking forward to hearing from you guys..

Till then, Happy Once - overs :)

My favourite vacation spot - Palolem

We tend to take a vacation almost every 3-4 months to get away from the hustle - bustle of the city, which means we have visited a few places in and around the city. However, my favourite vacation spot, till date, remains Palolem. Palolem is an unspoiled, picturesque beach in South Goa, in the Canacona district. It is approximately equidistant from Margao in Goa and Karwar in Karnataka.

Palolem is not known by too many tourists so it's still quite uncrowded as compared to the other beaches in goa. The tourists are mostly foreigners and some Indians who know about the beach. Thus, you have less prying eyes and everybody just seems to be having a good time.

My favourite activity in Palolem is just lazing around. The world seems to have come to a stand still. There is no hurry, no rush, nobody has a long list of things-to-do. Everybody is just sprawled all around. I love this place called Ciarans in Palolem. It looks lovely, has a great restaurant with yummy food, a library and a good sun-deck. I have never stayed there but the bamboo huts sure look inviting, though a little expensive compared to other shacks.

My first trip to Palolem was on valentine's Day in 2008 with my fiancee and another friend. We had a good time, the majority of which was me sprawled in the hammock with coconut water / breezer (depending on my mood at that time of the day) and a book in hand, while the guys played snookers. I remember taking a ferry and going to a nearby island to watch the sun set. Amazing view, I must say!

The second trip was made with my husband, sister and brother-in-law in April this year. We had a candle-lit dinner with good music. Most of the shacks put the tables outside on the beach with candles. We hopped a few shacks, had yummy dinner in one and took a leisurely stroll by the beach.

One of the shacks was closing down and the owner's family had thrown a party for that. They had Karaoke going on. My sis, who is a pretty good singer also sang a song there. We were all in rapture.

The next day, we had a good filling breakfast in Ciarans and then played in water for some good hours. After freshening up, we again went to Ciarans' sun-deck and had our lazy lunch. When I ordered for a cup of tea, the kitchen was already closed to be open only around 6 pm. We were just hanging around there, chatting, experimenting with my hubby's latest love, the new Nikon SLR. We didn't know how the time flew by and I was served my evening tea. There is no greater joy for me than getting a fresh, steaming cup of tea in the evening and what better than enjoying the lovely view of sunset along with it! I never knew doing nothing could be so wonderful and Palolem is just the place to be doing nothing!

So, take a break, do nothing and please share your stories of your perfect vacation spot and what made it so memorable.

Till then,

Love..

My newest addiction

I have always been addicted to shoes and always am on a lookout for a funky pair. However, my latest addiction is for hair accessories. I just got an asymetrical bob cut done and I love dressing it up with colorful clips and hair bands. Here are a few pairs that I bought.

Hair clip cum brooch - Vero Moda

I am in love with this clip cum brooch. I think it's very stylish and love the way it shifts from a sober brooch look to a funky party look with the clip.

I picked this one on my latest trip to Baby Shop. I know it's funny but they seriously have some great girly clips and it's up to us to choose the ones that don't look too kiddish but at the same time are colorful and cute. I found this quite summery.

There are a few gifted by my Mommy on my birthday. They are pretty colorful and cute and provide cheer to anything I wear. They are also a great option on bad hair days. :)

These are a few hair bands that I picked up from my latest shopping expedition to Lifestyle and Central.

I absolutely love the colour and bow detail on this one!

Love the stone work on this one. Goes with any LBD and party-wear.

Gifted by my girl-friend from Dubai. I love this star fish and it goes with absolutely anything that I wear :)







Till my next post on my new addiction, happy accessorizing!

Love
S

Latest disease in corporate circles

There is a new disease in the corporate circle and it's contagious!!

Name of the Disease: Pre Increment Syndrome aka PIS

Symptoms:
1. A gnawing feeling in the pit of the stomach like butterflies flying

2. Constant mood swings - One moment you feel confident, the other down in the dumps and finally, 'I don't give a damn' or the 'negative indifferent' attitude as one of my not-so-good friend likes to call it.

It passes on from one employee to another, so the more you share your usefulness or uselessness with others, the better are the chances of the other being affected by PIS.

PIS generally starts in the month of March, when the HR mails the appraisal forms to the employees. The discussions begin and every employee starts writing a eulogy of all the work done / not done by him/her in the past year. The D-Day arrives when the meeting is scheduled for appraisal discussion with bosses. Best dressed you with a photocopy of the summary of entire year's work enter the room oozing with confidence and soon issues that you din't know existed start cropping up in the discussion, your explanations are questioned, questions that have no answers..

Boss: (Avoiding the topic of your achievement of targets, in case you have achieved it)Well, you were hired to come up with new ideas..I don't see anything happening..
You: But, i have over achieved my targets
Boss: Well, that's your KRA, but what about the special project that you were assigned?
You: ahem..there has been no support from other departments, I ran the problem through you, but...
Boss: You are not hired to come up with problems, you should give solutions, instead..

And, the cliched line makes a kill. The over zealous employee who entered the room oozing confidence comes back confused and depressed. The next few days go in questioning oneself and then blaming the company. Then, in a month's time when all is back to normalcy, there are rumours of increment letters being on the way.

And, the cycle starts again. The confidence, the self-questioning, the blame-the-company, depression, sharing one's fear with colleagues and transferring PIS. If the colleague, at the end of the discussion, still looks confident and is not empathising with you, don't worry, he is just as scared as you, the chances are he has mastered the art of "showcasing indifference".

Wish all the best to all the employees for their increments and may all of us learn to nail PIS... :)

A new form of Adventure Sport

I have discovered a new form of adventure sports lately. It gives me the required adrenalin rush, makes me scream and pray to God for the safe landing as well. No, it isn't scuba diving, bungee jumping, not even zip lining, as I said it's new...it's riding my bike on the Indian bylanes. Now, i know most of the bike riders in India would have enjoyed this sport and would agree with me when I categorise it in the adventure sport section.

First, you get out of the house with your safety gear; helmet, preferably shoes with good grip (without too much of heels) and dark, easy to wash clothes. Then, you get on to this bylane which is kind of a blind turn which people will knowingly want to take a turn on without honking. Once, you have avoided the collission, you get onto the road; which is not exactly capable of being called a road; try manouvering your vehicle on the various speed bumps, deliberately and sometimes incidentally created.

Once, the art of braking on the exact bumps and memorising their position is mastered, you move onto Obstacle course 2 - the art of dealing with the deaf and stubborn variety of people. As they say in the famous ad - Roads are full of idiots. This variety is indigenously trained to ignore the honks, forget moving aside they won't even pretend to acknowledge your bike's existence on the road. And, God forbid, if you happen to brush past them, you would be hurled with such a multilingual variety of abuses that your day would be made. So, the only way to master Obstacle 2 is to wait for these people to move on the side or learn the tactics of going past them without brushing them on that narrow 2 -way lane, full of bumps( refer to obstacle 1).

After we have mastered obstacle 2, we move on to the 3rd and very important obstacle, we categorise them as animals. They can be of any variety, goats, cows or dogs. Sometimes, when the difficulty level of the sport is easy, this obstacle will ignore you and move on to the side once you have honked. In moderate difficulty level, they won't move on to the side but stand right in between and won't budge and the only way out is to get down and find a way past them without irritating them. Under tough conditions, this obstacle will sit on the side making you think that it's an easy day but as soon as you press the accelerator, it will come running in the middle of the road causing you to brake suddenly and lose your balance or knock somebody / vehicle on the lane. The key is to keep the accelerator under control and never to assume that one has mastered Obstacle 3.

Then, there are the new and unique obstacles per day, which cannot be defined. Some days, it might be - a garbage collector vehicle right ahead of you, spilling all the garbage on the 'just-bathed' you and your 'freshly-washed' vehicle and
- other days, it just might be a construction truck or a water tanker
- or some idiot who gets irritated because you being a girl have overtaken him and he didn't like the whole idea,
- water clogging on the already broken road or
- just a local festivity for which they decide to put a stage in the middle of the road alongwith some speakers and decide to dance
- some confused soul who was going right all the time and suddenly decided to turn left and when you glare at him, he would start his indicator.

The key is to keep your calm, not underestimate any obstacle and try to be innovative in avoiding these obstacles. Hurling abuses generally don't help, however, can be tried on a case to case basis.
Whatever, the case may be, this sport is sure to give an adrenalin rush and teach you new things every day.

So, Happy Riding and enjoy the sport!!!

Loved you - Hated you

Hi YOU, UP THERE!

Hope you are well settled and are having a much greater time than you could have down here. I know it's a little too late to write to you but then I have lately been thinking a lot about you and how when you were here, I never wrote to you or gifted you anything.

I don't know if I was ever too close to you but I always felt that when i would visit the house, I would find you in the kitchen, that once you find me there you will try to extract some gossip from me and would make my favourite dish of dal tadka and parotha. I always thought you were a gossip and was a little wary of you. I also thought you were a little OCD, not touching the telephone, not using the same bathroom as others, not letting us touch any utensils, etc.etc. However, I loved your welcoming nature and warm heartedness. You always treated me as your own and did those little things which young people at my age forget to appreciate.

I never missed you much while I was away. I guess, I knew that I would find you in that kitchen, no matter what. But now, I don't like visiting the house and I hate entering that kitchen. i still hope that you will be there, waiting for me, cooking that dish. The last person you expected maybe, but I miss you a lot. I can't stop thinking of you. Every time I am alone and can't sleep, I close my eyes and the first person that makes a grand entry is YOU! I still can't figure out why of all people who loved you so much more, have you chosen me. I have stopped crying and now your grand entry in my dreams is more comforting than distraught.

So, wherever you are, may you be at peace and I hope you are proud of both the kids.

Love YOU!

Girl's day out and a slice of childhood!

Our group of friends have a ritualistic get-together and it has been named as "Talli Day", as people get drunk, pull each other's legs and the idea is to catch up and have loads of fun. Half of the gang is in Bangalore and the other half in Chennai. This time the venue of Talli Day was Chennai. However, with Lent going on, half the population was not drinking or eating non-veg. Also, with the World Cup fever on, we girls knew that most of the time will go in front of the TV. Thus, we decided to let the guys be and we left for Besant Nagar Beach.

The beach was quite a relief to the stifling weather of Chennai. It was breezy and we could feel the wind in our hair and in our steps. We had Mango dolly and chocolate ice-cream, the moment we reached the beach. We sat on the sand and gossiped. One of us, spotted the balloon vendors and all of us went crazy. I spotted the "chakhri wallah". It reminded me of my childhood days when my grandfather used to take me to the nearby park and buy those chakhris for me. What fun i used to have running in the wind with the chakhri rotating! We also aimed and shot some balloons. My friend M has superior aim, while the 3 of us struggled with the gun, she would shoot any balloon that we chose for her. We then bought a whistle, which we call Pi-Pi, because of the sound it makes. In a state of bliss after the shopping, we attacked a Fruit Junction, where M and V had passion fruits juice and Chikoo milk shake.

In general banter, we placed a bet on whose husband would be the first one to miss his wife as none of us had still got any calls or messages from our respective husbands. The guys, i guess, were more than happy to get rid of us so that they could watch the match in peace. We were expecting another couple to reach the venue soon. So, I told the girls to wait and watch as we would get a call as soon as the couple arrives as there would be a girl in the house and the guys wouldn't know how to entertain her and would want us back to take care of the situation. V was the first one to get a message from her darling hubby. We started teasing her and came to a conclusion that she owes us all a treat. Soon, M's hubby called me as she was driving and started enquiring about our location. My prediction came true, the couple had arrived and the guys wanted to know when were we coming back.

We reached home with all our shopping of pi-pi, chakri and the balloon. Soon, there was madness in the house with us blowing pi-pi and waving chakri after every wicket of South Africa that India took. At the end, India lost the match but we still had so much fun cheering. To kill the disappointment, Tunir took to the guitar and V's hubby started singing. We all joined in with our tuneless singing!! We played pictionary and dumb charades afterwards.

Most of the T-Days follow the same format but this one was more sober with lesser people drinking. However, it was nice and different because of the girls day out and the way we relived our childhood. Cheers to many more of such Talli-Days!!