Ready to bring in 2012 =) =)

Some Tamil songs I have been hearing lately

Azhagai Pookuthey  

This haunting melody in the Raga Kiravani from the movie Ninaithaale Inikkum has captured my heart in gentle essence. I cannot stop hearing it!

Idhu Varai Illatha Unarvukal

From the movie Goa, this one is very contemporary and stylish, yet extremely melodious!

Aval Appdi Onrum 

From the movie 'Angadi Theru'. Before I watched this movie, I was in total awe of the melody and lyrics and  it kept attracting me magically. The movie has a very raw content and it focusses on the lives of the employees in big textile showrooms in Chennai and how they are treated by the owners. Extremely heartwrenching story; I couldn't bear to watch it at one stretch. This song took on a whole new meaning for me after I watched the movie as I really immersed myself in the characters.

Kaatril Varum Geethame

It will surely be etched into my favourites for many many years to come by !

Do you have any favourite songs that you would like to share with me? I am waiting to read about it !

Tulip-o-mania ;)

Check out my tulip inspired Kolam :)

Unrelated but it fits in with my kolam theme ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania

Playing F.A.V.O.U.R.I.T.E.S

Linking in to the monthly party on Colours Dekor and very happily at that :)

The past holds a lot of importance to me as it has shaped me into what I am today. Good or bad; memories are something which most of us will carry in our hearts and minds till the very end, isn't it?  I dug up some old favourite pics and in the process; I rekindled a lot of memories as well. Of joyous laughter, of precious moments frozen in time and; amazingly, of days that I sometimes I wish I could rewind to.

It comes as no surprise to me; that in the list of my favourites - photographs are always at the top. I love going back to old albums be it digital or the good ol' prints; and I find myself being transported back into the very depth of those photographs. 

I am pleased to share here a few photographs of some priceless moments in my life; which carry within them a lot of meaning; and some feelings that I can never express well enough in words :)

Here I am below, enjoying some time with my mom and sister on a family holiday to Ooty in 1994-95 [me on the right]

....celebrating our 1st wedding anniversary :):) May 17th 2005

....a priceless photograph of my little baby boy - in November 2006




............Watching a beautiful sunrise in Madrid - September 2011

...the doorway leading to my home here in Abu Dhabi 

I clicked this photograph of my son in January 2010 - everything seems perfect in here; and I love this for its blatant innocence :)

...My favourite plant - a Tulsi :)

 My favourite avatar of the Almighty - Lord Ganesha who has respected our faith in Him and never let us down!

Music is an integral part of my life - no two ways about it! Here is my favourite song which I used to sing a lot as a child especially at competitions and I have won prizes for it too. It's 'Lakdi Ki Kathi' from the Hindi movie Masoom :)

And another one - this time in Tamil. 'Raasathi Unnai Kaanatha Nenju' from the movie 'Vaidehi Kaathirundhaal' - is an eternal favourite of mine. It always, always brings tears to my eyes whenever I hear it. There is a lot of hidden emotion in the melody and the lyrics that shakes me up like almost no other song can. Hear it to believe it. Even if you don't understand the lyrics; the song will rattle your senses.

And I sign off with a cute ant-elephant joke I just read and which will be a favourite one soon ;)

There was a football game between a team of elephants and a team of ants. An ant gets hold of the ball and runs to the goal line, but suddenly an elephant stands in front of the ant and crushes it. The crowds spring up and start booing the elephant . The referee said to the elephant, "Why did you crush that poor little ant?" The elephant said with tears in his eyes, "I only meant to foot trip him" !!!

I am sure you loved reading about my favourites - where's yours? I'm waiting :D

Okay so I really can't get enough of Mehndi, it is turning into a passion!!

Tiny little feet decorated by me :)

..And  my friend Sonal was visiting and she agreed to be my guest ;) here's her palm :D

Riot of Colours !

Yes, it is exactly what it looks like it is. A wastepaper basket ! :D I volunteer at my son's school once a week and I took this picture on one of my days there. We were cutting up some craft paper to make a project for the display board; and I could not resist clicking this one. Beautiful, isn't it? :D

Festive season translates into lots of Mehndi ! :D

Did you enjoy the designs? Don't forget to leave a comment! :)

We drove up to Jebel Hafeet :)

We drove up to Jebel Hafeet this weekend; here are some snippets :)

You can read more about Jebel Hafeet here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jebel_Hafeet

Viewing Al Ain from high up there :)

Breathtaking!

We loved it !

I rarely ever post travel pics on this blog but now on I will. Stay tuned!! Hope all of you are having a lovely October!

Shubh Deepavali !!

दीपाना दिपितम इती, पा अल्नेना पलितम,आयुर्दायाकम, वाल्नना अर्जितमलययोगेना ईप्सितम इती दीपावली

दीपावली प्रकाश्येता खलु सर्वं!!

The translation runs as:
May the Deepawali (Diwali) take the humanity towards Eternal Light! This light is the physical light created by the earthen Lamp, for seeing around, where I do exist. May it lead me to Eternal flame and to provide me meaningful Long life, the higher Yoga of Supreme realization and grant me the boon of Spiritual illumination!

All the phonemes of the word Deepawali have been explained in the Sanskrit Sloka. The first three lines are the sound structures of the term Deepawali, signifying the quintessence of the effulgence of the clay lamps ,The fourth line of the Shloka is prayer for all.

[Ref: http://sanskritvoice.com/2007/11/08/the-essense-of-deepavali/]

With this beautiful prayer, I hereby herald the beginning of Diwali this year :-) Today is the first day of Diwali and it's Dhanteras, the auspicious day that falls two days before Diwali, when Hindus buy gold/silver or anything to signify wealth/Lakshmi.

First things first though! Shopo Diwali fever is on and I have a secret little wish list :-) 

This one by Varnam stole my heart !! I'm in awe of the beautiful brocade design !!

And this one too from by Mish Mash Design!! The colour combination is so soothing on this one, and though this shade of blue may not be a festive colour, it sure wins my heart!

....and I save my most favourite one for the last

Could there be anything more beautiful than this lamp by The People's Project? It brings back precious memories of my times spent at my grandmother's home and it reminds me of the beautiful antique silver lamps she possessed and I secretly admired !!

Thank you Shopo and ColoursDekor for announcing this contest and I sure hope I am one of the lucky ones!! Shubh Deepavali to one and all !! :)

Being proud of who we are

In the end of September, we got back from a lovely week spent in Spain. I loved everything about that country; especially the greenery, the architecture and the best of all - the carefree, bindaas attitude that floats around in the air. It is that feeling of freedom, of being uninhibited without any stressful thoughts meandering about in the mind.

Yet, there was something else that struck me, it was in conformance to most of the other stories that I had heard from friends and family about the natives in European countries. About how they would not speak to a visitor in English even if they did know the language in bits and pieces. It's just that we experienced it first hand! All around us, we saw that roadside signs, boards, notices, warnings, directions in metro stations etc were all in Spanish. There was no way that a person who did not know the language would ever feel comfortable exploring by themselves.

We managed very well because we did have a broken knowledge of Spanish and we were able to throw in phrases combined with hand gestures that managed to communicate what we wanted.

Cut to India. It is so obvious that English has permeated in every single city, trickling into small towns and villages too. It is very easy for the non-Indian visitors to our country to navigate around without any help [at the risk of getting fleeced by touts though] but still, it is not that they will not understand where they are going.

I am yet to understand why we need to give English so much importance in our country?

Imagine what would happen if we were to politely greet a non-Indian tourist by saying 'Maaf kijiye behenji/bhaisaab; par hum Angrezi nahi bolte'.

They would be surprised for sure, but then they'd make sure they walk around with a Hindi phrase book so as to get around without hassles. By the way it is the same case in the Middle East where I live. Everyone here speaks lots of English/Hindi/Urdu so we don't ever feel that we need to learn Arabic to survive.

Just my thoughts today. But definitely fodder for the mind. Think about it :)

Happy Vijayadashmi - Dusshera to all !! :-)

Heralding the festive month of October :)

Wishing one and all lots of happiness and love this festive season!

Short Film Review: 'Meals Ready' - Short Film in Malayalam- By Nithuna Dinesh

All the people who have commented below the video, wrote about how sad the video is. I agree it is sad, but I am speechless at the grandpa's strong sense of self respect. It teaches us about what is more important in life and at the end of each day - money or a sense of intrinsic happiness. The way he sees it, at least the food he is eating will be what he has earned respectfully, regardless of whatever job he does. And I think that is the lesson for all of us here, sticking to our values and upholding our self-respect no matter what.

Even though grandpa and grandma live alone and they have no family, they are happy and they will sleep peacefully because they have each other. After watching the video, instead of feeling sad, this video gave me a good feeling. You will wonder how?

Despite the fact that the restaurant owner is ill treating the grandpa, still grandpa has no hard feelings towards him. Neither does he lose his cool nor curse him. Grandpa treats it like any other job on this planet which is thankless. It is so obvious here that in every manner he is richer than that restaurant owner, even though he is monetarily poorer. Money does give us a lot of opportunities and opens up a new world to us, but the lack of it does not mean the end of happiness.

Another thing I noted was that the restaurant owner was sulky faced the whole day but this grandpa had a smile at the end of the day - because no matter how tough his day is, at the end of the afternoon he had his life partner at home to share his food and happiness. Even if the restaurant owner had all riches in this world, he may have been ridden with guilt for not even offering the old man a drink of water.

Somehow I thought the director of this video was giving the viewers two choices. Either we lament about how sad life is for the two old people who have no family to care for them or provide for them - or, we take away valuable life lessons :) I choose the latter and I am sure most of us will :)

Homemade quickie Banana cake

Ingredients :

Self-raising flour - 1 cup

Castor sugar - 1 cup

Baking powder - 1 tsp

Eggs - 2

Butter - 100 gms

Fresh Bananas - 2, pureed thickly

Vanilla Essence - 2 tsp

How:

Melt the butter in the microwave on medium-high for 1 minute. Whisk it together when warm and mix the sugar into it. Break eggs into this mix and whisk together very very well until well blended. Now add the banana puree to this and mix together. This is the forming of the batter.

Add the baking powder to the flour and mix. Now add this to the wet batter, in parts so that it does not form any lumps. Mix the whole batter very well now, it needs to be well constituted.

Invert a tea-saucer on your microwave turntable. Grease a microwave deep dish with a bit of oil/butter. Now pour the batter into this deep dish. Place the dish on top of the saucer that you have inverted on the turn-table, and microwave on high for about 6 minutes. Stop, and insert a fork into it - if the fork comes out clean, your cake is done. Else you need to bake it again for a minute or two.

Tip : While the cake is baking, don't ever leave it alone, keep an eye on the smell and go by your instinct. Enjoy!!

I baked it for my mother's birthday early in Sep this year and it was such a grand success!! Try it and I guarantee you the same!

Sacred Spaces

It gives me great happiness to join in Patty's Creative Spaces linky party for this month of September :)

Let me tell you a bit about my creative space - it's a small square spot in a cozy corner of my bedroom and it is where I create most of my crafts :)

Cozy spaces attract me immensely, I feel more at ease and it helps my creativity to freely flow out :)

This drawer is where I store all my craft supplies, paints, brushes, scissors and other accessories.

My mantra is 'go green', so you'll be looking a lot of cartons, discarded boxes, and other tins when you sneak a peek into my workspace :)

Nothing gives me more peace than spending time crafting and creating some art :) Those are the hours in which I am truly content, a blissful experience :)

Do you like my space? Don't forget to leave me a comment! :)