All for a good deed ...

Back in school days, I remember having a book where we wrote down - "a good deed" or lets say we were supposed to write a good deed. ( I am sure you remember this Vittal :D )
Now when I think of it, I guess it was to encourage us to do a random act of kindness or at least do some effort to be good being completely aware of it.
When I joined this school in std 5, I -like other s in my class got the impression that the book was supposed to have a list of different good things and no 2 days should be similar.(now I wonder, who the hell put that idea into our heads). From the nerds to the morons everyone had a set thumb rule regarding this.
So the beginning of the academic year saw a real conscious act like
" I helped my mother wash dishes "
" I polished my brother s shoes"
" I took the dog for a walk"
or " I helped dad wash his bike"

Now slowly after a few weeks, there will be a mixture of fact and fiction.
remember our stupid thumb rule? Now, how many varieties of real good deed can a child below 10 years of age do, that too in a world where computers, mobile phones and Internet were as far off as going to Alaska for most of us now.I imagine the kids today may write a " I helped my grand ma open a GMail account" or " I watered my friends virtual farm in Facebook!! "haha...

Anyway, back to where I stopped about us, we ended up with a 'mixed- feeling' good deeds in the lines of -
" I picked fruits from our garden" which leaves a series of question if the child in question lives in a apartment unit on the 3rd floor and the whole class knows it ;)
So in this statement may be the kid's mum had left a bag of fruits in the common garden area @ ground level and the child picked it up for her.. quite possible, eh?
Giving the benefit of doubt, lets move on.
:)

then the stereotype " I helped my grandma find her specs" might cause a bit of doubt when you have already heard the story about her being in the US with uncle 'so and so' a hundred times , So may be the 'helping-grandma' bit was done 2 months earlier when she was actually around!hehe.. late confessions of a good deed!!
Soon some of us forget to write the deeds even though we are really good children and the book just travels to and fro from home along with us.
But the real f(p)un starts when it is nearing to half the term, means along with mid term exams, sometimes the teacher will check the deeds book.
Now there is a mad rush to fill it with deeds, sorry GOOD deeds! now the tiny minds and their imagination have no boundaries!

" I plucked apples from the garden" ( sure, please let us know how you manage to go to Coorg everyday, travelling 4 hours one way, cause that s the nearest place to Mangalore where one can grow apples in the garden and then pluck them! )

or

" I saved our cow from a snake " sounds errr more like a story worth a bravery award!

All started in a honest way, can go to these extremes if one does not ensure the person/child knows the thought behind it.
It was definitely done very innocently and I am not sure if it should be held against us.I mean,we would have done a good thing repeatedly everyday, It is just we thought it should be a "special" one each day and came up with stories in the end! :)

All for a 'good-deed'!!

gotch me!!

As I dug into banana Halwa, my mum had sent this time from home, I felt a wave of nostalgia sweeping through me. Moreover, reading through the childhood (read as not- so -childlike) episodes from avi's blog made me go back to my childhood too.

Speaking of which, though I am his cousin.. I was known to be errrr...calm (* people who know me from the later years, please refrain yourself from falling off your chairs and laughing aloud like lunatics in office. Stay calm..) , yes I said CALM, sensible, ideal kid who dint indulge in devilish acts like her famous cousins.(I swear, Ask my parents, poor souls! little did they know the devil behind the angelic child, Anyway.)So I have a handful of my mischief bhare karname( mischievous stories) which I or anyone can recall from the golden times.

It so happened that one fine day my Mum and my grandma decided to make this yummy halwa. After boiling it to the right cosistency, they poured it into a plate for cooling off and left it on the table. Mum later left for work while granny went about her other chores. It was all during our summer holidays, so my neighbor cum assistant(ahem!) cum friend cum cousin Ms.R ( a reputed mischief maker of the area) and A-again our cousin cum friend cum visitor and finally, yours truly were already having a post breakfast,pre-bath playing time on the swing and riding cycles all along the road. We kept walking into the house to have a drink of water and continued playing till we heard “Can we have all of you here?"

That was my grandmother, standing at the doorway with raised eyebrows which in other words meant “we are in trouble".

Anyway, we walked to her and assembled decently. After all, our experience had taught us "atleast pretend to be innocent till proven guilty ";)

Granny (with unusually calm voice) - 'who touched the halwa?"

Us (shaking our heads) - "not me"

G:" are you sure?"

Us: "yes"

G (pointing to me) - “how about you? "

Me ( looking down) - *silent…. then... softly "yes"

Rest of them with eyes wide open" how did you know granny?"

Granny (with a tiny smile) just walked in and I could hear her laughing over the phone talking to mum.

Are you curious to know what happened?

Well... me - the smart person -had walked in, seen the halwa which was almost cooled, so tried to cut it like a cake but with a blunt butter knife, hence could not. So I started itching out shapes and doodles onto the halwa and satisfied also wrote "S" before running out..: P : P

Of-course, I got caught! :)

What s in a name did you say? 'A Whole Post' I'd say!!

My blog friend Swaram complimented on my blog name *thanks once again for that and then I told her it is in "ಕನ್ನಡ " (Kannada) which many would not have realised.For which she said that she did,In fact she was confused about Swathy(me) writing about "Anu's World".

Fair enough reason to write a post on,I thought, to tell you a little more about how I got to having a blog.The reason has been quite simple.

When I moved here to this island continent [post wedding] I like every-other- bird- leaving-its -nest was emotionally,socially and to certain extent even economically thrown apart.We had to first find accommodation , then find jobs[ as my husband was a student with a part time job earlier ] and basically settle ( as everyone says).
Well, luckily by god s grace (in this case it was like a miracle for us in every instance than a natural event,hence we always mention 'god s grace' ) we managed to get a accommodation, found small time jobs[not what we are meant to do as per our qualifications,but still] and started our married life.We still had some loans,had to hunt for proper jobs and more than all that I missed my home,my country. And even to this day,I hate ranting about all this as it brings a chill down my spine,but I have braved it now because "this was why I took the solace of blog world."
I wanted to spill out, write about my weird, scary, funny, new experiences I was having every new day of my life.but did I?
I did not dare write because I was scared people will ridicule me or worst ignore me , hence I would quietly visit blogs, read and log off unnoticed.I slowly got into the flow of time as months rolled by and I had found a "field job" in an architecture firm and felt I was "back in action".


I forgot all about blogs I was reading earlier for a while and it was only when one of my close friends mentioned about blogs.I logged in again to see my blog with no posts, just the heading " Anu'la Samsara" staring back at me.



Then the rest is history.


Though its true,I can go missing for months together [ a lazy bum I am as it is ]without a single post, Now I can dare writing thanks to a lot of encouragement from all my blog friends and polite reminders from few and of course my dear hubby who does not read but definitely gave me some topic to write like here and here and here :P . I guess this is the small story behind





"ANU'LA SAMSARA" .


p.s.: oh,yes regarding who is Anu?
As many might know,we have a tradition in G.S.B community weddings,where a new bride is given a new name and accepted into her husband s house hold.The new name represents a new identity as a wife and a daughter in law for the bride but it also means she is like a new-born child into the family.So she adorns a new name given by her new family.
Hence Swathy also became Anumita :) or you very own "ANU"
Mystery solved!


P.P.S: Again I ve thrown in some random pictures.[just for you shwetz]First one was clicked by me on my first chopper ride along the "great ocean road". Find me in the second doing "peek-a-boo" !! :D

good, old days

I ll do this tag that she has written about.Here,I tag myself..[*imagine a tag like a suitcase tag getting fixed to my wrist :P] .I have written many a posts about memories of the good old days here .

Still there are so many in the old barrel to be pulled out.

1) Birthdays

The first one i remember was being 5 year old and dressed in deep green silk skirt and blouse, jasmine arranged traditionally on my hair like here..[ya, imagine a 5 year old!! :D]

with loads of relatives around me.That was the last of the birthday s that was celebrated at such a scale.

Then it was just a sweet dish, wishes, blessing and of course cards and calls from my best friends all throughout school ,but the day still thrilled me :) .

College brought out a new dimension with mid night parties, cake smashing on face and head,surprise gifts,special calls[:)] from far away friends from school and not to ever- forget the "budday bumps"!!(For those who don't know what it is.. its just you being held by 6-8-10 people[depending on how heavy you are! ;)] by your hands and legs and hurled up in the air and then left at the mercy of gravity and caught when you are about to hit the floor..)

And at present, I am happy with a quite birthday with just the few close friends wishes..

dining out and no cake please..think about all those calories!! :P

2) Books and reading

As a 6 year old,I was like that enthusiastic puppy[;)] around my neighbour's kids lets call them Y & Z.Both older than me by quite a few years, they used to take me to school and back, play with me..[rather keep a watch on me] and I adored them,followed them,thought them to be my sisters.

Their dad and mum were both into literature,hence both the girls were very good readers for their age and even wrote poetry and short stories.

I was first taken by them to the local government library and helped choose a book and thus began a life time affair for me.

I started with huge lettered picture books and soon within a year graduated to whatever X and Y would pick for me.They moved to another town within a year after that,but by then I was addicted to books.I explored the world of Enid Blyton,graduated to short stories and fables from all around the world, digested lives of famous personalities and basically whatever the library could offer to a a high school student was read by me over and over again by the time I was 12.

Every day of the vacation except Monday-the weekly off for the library began with me running/cycling to the library at sharp 10A.M when the place opened, read a magazine or the latest book there borrow books and then come home for lunch, read a little more,play with friends for an hour,then read again till night.yes, I was that crazy!!

My cousin A who used to come over to stay with us for the holidays hated this habit of mine because he could never imagine why should I be reading over the vacations.. :) :)instead of playing the whole day.

Hmmmmm..back to present! :)

Anyway,though I miss the good old days, I cannot imagine rewinding it.It is much better the way it is now.. for good or worse.. I like this..

Signing back again.

This is what I had written long back in a yahoo group.The topic was about signatures..Which makes me realise.. I definitely need to hunt for topics.[or someone should be constantly giving me one... or else my blog s gonna die a slow death..:P

My late grandfather who was a civil engineer and had obviously loads of British influence had a beautiful italics writing..and his calligraphic sort of sign is still a pleasure to look at,It almost spoke all his experience in life and his wisdom to me.Since childhood I always associated all his talk and words of knowledge to his signature..I would imagine him signing documents with his "firang" boss Mr.andrew or whoever..

anyway..Some people are very innovative with their signatures..Like I had seen one of my mum s boss's signature looking like ganesha's idol and if u look closely one could tell his initials carefully moulded to form his 'aradhay devata'(favourite god)Ganesha.

Another funny incident involves my sister who was I think was in Std 1 or 2 then.As any kid she was extremely fascinated when she was told that they had to sign for something as a part of some class activity agreement.Though now I think the activity only meant to make kids aware of signatures n so still..as per the teacher s explanation ,a 'budding fashion conscious' sis of mine spent almost all her play time the previous evening trying n re-trying his signature..pestering me ,another "enthu batani "to check her improvements. .the d-day arrived and went off and she came home a little low..when asked she showed her signature which was a scrawly "Shru" written.Madam was soooooooooooooooo excited that it seems she could not even finish her signature ..so much for the practice..she s still teased by me even now for that 'shru' incident. :D(though now she truly has one of the most beautiful writing i ve ever seen.)

well....as about me,I always failed to have a decent lettering all my life n still regret it as in my Field we learn it as a part of our studies.Good lettering on a building construction or architectural design sheet is like "icing on a cake".and sadly speaking my cake would be good but sometimes i felt i should not have bothered putting icing on it..(I am giving this so that u guys get a clearer picture)but am I sad?.no way..I proudly display my lack of integrity amongst the letters i throw on paper in my signature too..so skinny looking n scribbled one with a line below complete with two dots at the end!!(can anyone interpret something regarding this??)For better explanation, put it this way,As all my loved one s opinion even if anyone wants to.. they would be disgusted to forge my sign.. he he...For which i am ever grateful to god that he s thrown me into an era where e-signatures exist!!

Mile stones

5 th std:

changed school

new faces

random shift

travel to school

crossing the bridge

to city across

7th Std :

dance competition

team is being selected

a heart s broken

(seating) places changed

next to a stranger then

now a friend for life

10 th std:

teenager

mood swings

confused or worried???

had learnt to 'learn'

dreamt of future

of buildings n design

12th std:

exams and preparation

tight schedules

bitten nails over results

pain of farewell

a tear shed

soon to be forgotten

Under garduation:

hostel life

unbearable to live

later unbearable to leave..

project submitted

at the college gate

stood young architects

working life:

single,independent

an interview given

routine starts

submission

ssite visits

movies at night

later:

proposal,

engagement,

married to a friend

new country

new job

the same old me...

something mushy!!

I was just sitting in the train this morning and remembering my ventures on this day..zomming back to my college, high school and primary school days..

Feb 14th
Primary School:
It was a big thing for me! Which kid won’t be excited to get to eat Sheera in the morning(yummy!!) and doodpak(kheer) during supper??
I would just rush off, get ready to school in a hurry,plonk a kiss each on my anama n ajja(Granny n grandpa)'s cheeks, shake hands grandly with my dad, hug my mum and in a chores(with my sis!!) shout "Happy Anniversary!!"
Yup, co-incidentally our bhatmam(family priest! just like you have a family doctor)decided that my grandparents were to be married on feb 14th decades ago and exactly 30 years later again made a(romantic guy eh!!!) decision of my parents wedding date..
resulting in me and my lil sis hogging on twice the amount of goddies on this day!!
In return, I remember making very shabby looking (if u see them now!!) cards and presenting it grandly to them..
And then when I was almost a Teenager..(12 years,13 'running'!!Why cant it be 13 walking or swimming or flying..i dont get it!!)I read about Valentine s story in my favourite magazine 'Gokulam'.I still remember trying to give my parents n the grand ones the "gyan" about valentines and how fortunate they were(???!!) to be married on that day.I was mesmerized by the bhatmam's far-fetched wisdom..probably he knew it that in western countries, they celebrate valentines ..or my crazy imagination went wild as I explained to my parents that he must have had close association to st valentines in some Janam(speak of creativity plus spiritual touch plus humour(SAD???!!)all in one talk given by me!!hah!!
They did the thing they were best at when they always wanted to shut me up without asking me to..IGNORED me!!
GROWN-UP s huh!!

High School time!!
With all the harmonal"chemical loocha" happening, what could one expect..But NO!!
My bunch would walk to the school and out with a stern look on their face as if any time some lallu -pallu could pounce on us to catch us as "valentine"duh!!who want s a bunch of nerdies???!!!You see though I was an 'above -average' (as my mum put it across to relatives dying to know whether I am better then thier precious daughters..)I used to hang around with a bunch of smart brains..(But most of them are still in touch and I just love them for what they are!!) and was pretty petrified at the thought of any silly boy trying to get my attention..Yikes!!

College days..
It was like some festival..
Totally glamorized..filmy n ouch..stinging at times!!
Not only Valentines but every occasion in the college like Fests n parties were treated in a "valentin"y fashion..
red roses, friendship ribbons(er.. try to get this theorey.. tie one red band:let s be friends..;tie two bands- its something more than that???!!er..I dint get it.. does two red bands signify love??oh!!)
n then there would be dedications of songs(which was kind aa cute) and some rich bloke showing off his gurl to the whole world dedicating the same song over n over again some 10 times..
well.
All s well that ll end well is it??

Feb 14 -25 years after my parents were married(last year)
I almost got married on this date, but unfortunately our horoscopes dint permit us..So aj n me tied knots a week later..

over n out!!I meant..
zooooooom out!!

Today as I was reading,Listening to the radio and thinking(speak of multi-tasking!!)I was smiling (in my mind!!of course.If i smile at myself in a train.. then I am definetly 'out of my mind!!") at the various emotions this dat brought out of me.. As I heard the r.j. s helping ppl ove the radio send 'surprise!!'flowers,choclates and notes..
I thought of my silly dream since my high school days, that every morning on Feb 14th I used to secretly wish that someone would give me a big bunch of red roses..
(Dint matter who then.. it was just the flowers that matter man...)
Smiling at this (this time.. Khule aam..Janta se Samne..)I traced my way to my office, logged onto my system..
11.00 a.m.
Knock on the door!!I dint bother looking up..
n there s this sweet old lady with a small bucket of flowers..reading out "sweadi"(aussie accent!!samjha karo yaar)..
I was like"Whoa...!!!"* smile...*stop!!! *grin.hehe..*(cant stop smiling!!it s like stuck to my lips pulling it apart towards my ears!!)
Will post the pics of my bunch of red roses n lilies(after they bloom I can tell the colour..probably tomorrow)
My wish came true!!plus It s not some "era-gera nattu phera" but aj..would sent me..
*geeee* (A special ‘grinnish’ smile to you darling!!)

FRIENDS - season 1

No.. No..
I did not mean F.R.I.E.N.D.S.
I am speaking of friends..yours n mine..
these people come across as mere strangers..come closer to you..
Some remain close to you during some course of time in our lives..Some stick around a little more..and some are destined to be friends for a long long time!!
Sometimes I feel,making friends is a life -time process!
Like I remember my grandpa had a few little friends he had made during his last few years of life.They would wave to him,smile,whenever they met him walking down the road and he in turn would chat to them for a short while n then continue walking.I never knew how they were friends,But they were always there somewhere on his way..calling him various names from "vag ajjo"(tiger-grand dad!!haha) to dodda mama(big uncle!) and he having a big laugh n sometimes buying them a lil chocolate or a few groundnuts..
Where as my granny still has her gang of young lads(I call them her 'army'!!)from the neighbourhood and they call out her when they walk by, run errands for her,share their joys n sorrows.Heart-breaks to career,cricket to Indian economy,movies to political scenarios what not are discussed !She gives them goodies at times,scolds them more and every time I go home, her gang seems to be growing and growing!!
And she ll have a few interesting bits to tell me, complaints about some 'useless fellow',praises about some 'good kid'!!
And speaking about Life-long friends and keeping it alive..
My grand parents are live examples..
Anama(that's how I call my Grand ma) have had these 2 other Bapama s(Grand aunt s as we Call them!) as friends all life..One of them G was her classmate till metric(that's 10th std)in Coorg and they used to be in touch with letters,cards(till phone s became a part of our daily lives!).My granny who loves travelling(I think she passed that "travel-o-bug" to me!!) actually went to many places to visit her as her husband kept getting posted to various places in India and saw a fair bit of India when the concept of travel meant only thirat yatras(visiting holy places!) or was only for the rich and the famous!
Just the two of them explored loads of places then around the town where G stayed..
Anama n G were part of each others every mode n chapter of life..children,their education,weddings n their grand ones(us!!:)
During her last days,G was aware that something was wrong(though she dint know she was suffering from some life-taking thing)and my grand ma was informed of it by her family..
N I ll never ever forget that last meeting!
It was so heart-touching,Heart breaking for the rest of us..But when I and her daughter who was there started talking.. I felt that we ll be always linked to each other..even though we seldom met..It was like a light of hope in me.. some solace..
Anama s other friend is S bapama.Now S and anama s pair can do "sabki chutti"(beat anyone!!) with their enthusiasm ..its like 'Age no Bar!" when they both decide to do something together(Sometimes I feel if they decide to climb Mt.Everest,they ll just do it.. who cares if they are in their 70 something!!)umaar hui humari.. woh dono to abhi bhi jawaan hai..(if anyone s grown old, its us, they are still young(at heart!!)
These two have got this whole "family friends"thingy..
They had their spouses be friends..
kids were friends..
now I have her grand daughter as a good friend since my childhood n she s a sweetheart!!
and today we are still in touch with each other(thanks to easy to access e-world we have now)
keeping our inheritance 'friendship' alive!!
as about the two friends anama n S bapama they might be hatching some wonderful to-do-plan now.. to celebrate diamond jubilee of their friendship now..