After all the pollen and blossoms, something called spring went and summer came.. With a bang

Bright sun light and cold outside. Perceptions can be misleading. This is what happens here every winter. And then summer came this year.. With a bang bang.. Or shall I say bang?? No spring.. Just sultry and sexy summer..two weeks back it was cold and suddenly you want to crank up AC.. Trees outside were bare.. Wondering if they should wear their green clothes or just bask in sun naked for a while and get tanned or maybe they were confused. But spring forgot to come and just sent her flowers and pollen and luscious new and delicate parrot green verdure...summer in here finally.. A month and 1/2 later we will be in a furnace called India.. The thought itself evokes chill.. I mean trickle of sweat down my spine;)

Welcome summer, the lady of leisure and her gym welcomes u😜

Another memoir: color dress

"Color dress tomorrow." the words itself would bring tickles, warm fuzzy feelings for me. Like all the schools in India, mine too had uniform. Being a convent school, we had fewer occasions to wear color dress and doll around maybe or is the situation in other schools as well , I don't know. But seeing the schools in US where children go all decked up in school. Where comparisons galore, brands , style and social alignment and conforming to group all depends on kind of clothes and shoes you wear. I will always prefer and run back to "color dress" or charter school for my pilla if we manage to stay here longer.

Somehow the sense of color dress fazed off eventually when we no longer had to wear uniform. But even now sometimes when I sit down and think, color dress evokes fond memories in me. Blame it on uniform system or the frugality and unavailability at that time, we had few dresses to go out in. The ones short or old were used at home. Maybe that is still ingrained and my pilla ( who does not understand much about fashion ) and me (old habits die hard) end up using the clothes till they are in no condition to hold us. Charity be damned. Coming to think of it, we wore color dress only 4 times a  day in school. Once for some feast ( remember I told you that I was in convent school) that came in month of June. Once of children's day, once for Christmas and on for the house feast. And of course birthday. Which a few privileged had during exams ( my sister and I) or during vacations, never wore.. Due to this and ever " bad hat baccha" phenomenon, we got shall I say, 2-3 dresses a year. Not that we minded it. Our tailor ( who was whining, perpetually late types) was our brand and fashion designer. Somehow less was more then. 

Maybe our generation has become more indulgent or maybe we have more means to an end.. We seem to be indulging our kids more and more. But aren't we making them shallow and fragile? Where they are measured and they measure a person solely on clothes?? My mind fails or maybe refuses to answer and my another self still revels in the memory of "color dress"

One more movie from all time watch: wazir

Saturday afternoon. 2 hour gap before my better(?) half turned virat kohli went for his afternoon kirkit ( read cricket)  match. Eating my head to watch some movie on einthusan. Wazir seemed like safe bet.

 Intrigue, shispens ( suspense) and quality acting as well as story. Zero glamour and songs which express situation emotion and not extras fluttering around.

 A dejected ATS officer. A desperate but determined handicapped father. A depressed and angry wife. A hard core and real villain who talks with his pure malicious smirk. Nice combination indeed.

A collage of love story , snapshots in a song ( wow...thanks for not wasting a lot of time) that ends tragically. A seemingly innocent entry of a disabled octogenarian chess player. A seemingly innocent friendship of two individuals, who have loved and lost everything precious. Entry of the villain and his role. Murder of one, vengeance of another. What seems so simple is definitely not that. An intricate web of deception , innocence is that which was camouflage to something more hidden, more calculated.

Each and every scene was linked to another, each dialogue used. Melodious songs and awesome performance by main characters .

For me, wazir can be watched, again and again... Just for sheer pleasure.

Of birthdays and birthday bashes

One of the things that I always wonder about are birthdays and when did the affair get just so complicated. Am I ancient or just forgot to keep track of the things? Same way as simple weddings gave way to extravaganza. A traditional wedding followed by lunch for near and dear ones in "pangat" followed by few times evening reception of vanilla ice cream or aerated drinks. When did life become complicated...

Maybe I am frugal, maybe I am environmentally conscious ( much to my better (?) half's chagrin) or maybe both. But I hate wasting money, energy and doing things only because other people do. But I am slowly learning to live with it... Excellent.. I digressed a bit too much.

So I was talking about birthdays. Where a birthday part meant calling few friends ( mostly from the building where we lived.. Rarely school friends) cake was got from monginis or at times from mervans (THE bakery in Andheri west where we stayed which sold many more goodies and cakes were just some of them.. But equally on higher price range.. Mainly because of quality of ingredients used) , potato wafers ( from transparent bag and definitely didn't know lays then), some home treat like a samosa, kachori or some such thing and a chocolate or two. Return gifts if any were maybe pencils or erasers or books. I remember only two return gifts I got in my attanedance in these parties and that were mr clean erasers ( does that brand even exist now?) I had 2 lemon design and yellow color transparent teeny weeny erasers and a book called "tales of hitopdesa". Concept of return gifts didn't exist then and more of calling whole family for dinner. Birthday party meant only kids, a snack plate, gift giving ( which had limited choices like books, coloring box, tiffin boxes, pencil cases etc) a game or two and back home before dinner.

School was simpler. My sister and I both hated our birthdays as the fell during unit tests. But rare occasion when they didn't, we like many others distributed sweets or hard boiled confectionary. Most common fare included parle chocolates (spherical, different colored and semi transperant wrapped) or ravalgaon  which had an additional covering of silver ( which made whistle type noise when held in front of mouth and air blown). A treat meant catburys eclairs or melody chocolates. One chocolate per person was unsaid rule. But if the giver and or family were generous enough that became two chocolates per person rule. Then the teachers were distributed chocolates. That was one of rare days when birthday person wore a color dress aka no uniform. The birthday person chose someone( generally her friend) to go around and give chocolates to the teachers.

Hmm... Look how far a simple birthday affair came. A mini event in itself. An attempt to fit in than to celebrate the event it self.