that time of the year again...........

So, I've done the senti post.... I've also done the total recall post....all i can say now is... Damn!! where did one more year fly by? Were we flying at each other's throats, or having so much fun that we didn't notice?? Whatever it was.... it was damn good!! So my darling K (I will spare you the indignity of squirming from all the mush), whatever hit me on my head that i realized, in that one moment, of having known you all those years, that i wanted to spend my life with you, i just wish it had hit me earlier! Love you Sweetheart... Happy Anniversary!

for the love of solitude.....

is it karma? when you reach into your supply of incense sticks and of the many you have, the one bunch you pull out is lemon scented?

do you know it will be a long lonely evening and the extra chai you brewed will come in handy?

do you wonder who's calling the landline everyone knows you never answer when its ringing.... like right now?

do you think you have spent too much time alone when you begin to think everything is a blogpost?

do you cringe when you know cringe when you know company is on its way?? :(

liar liar

with all the social networking and updates on multiple sites....with networks of friends, acquaintances, colleagues and everyone else spilling into every sphere of your life... is is getting difficult to filter information??
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as an aside, i am watching pati patni aur woh on tv right now .... its time for the teenagers...and for once, the teenagers are more ridiculous than the "celebrities"..... oh and btw,....that babe juhi parmar is giving a whole new take to obnoxious......

domestic help

for those of us who need all the help we get to run our homes...and if you arent the kind of person who has to cherry pick every tomato you slice, if you rely mostly on the vegetable racks in the supermarkets and if your bitter half groans at the thought of weekly vegetable buying chores, here's some good news. especially for those who live in hyderabad / secunderabad, here's an online service that delivers fresh vegetables to your door step. i have been using their service for the last 2 months. i have been disappointed only once with the quality of tomatoes (!) they are very receptive to feedback and immediately replaced them. Just login to getthebest.com they accept all credit and debit cards, you can also pay cash on delivery. there's a pretty wide range of vegetables and they're going to add fruit very soon. they deliver the same day if the order is placed before 4 pm, and they're not anal about leaving the vegetables with the chowkidar/ maids. you can leave instructions about where they can leave the stuff incase they come by and you arent at home!!

Ever since this helpful pamphlet landed in my hands one fateful sunday morning with the newspaper, i realised how easy it had just become!! also with a lot of supermarkets offering home delivery for groceries ordered either online or on the phone, i am so so happy. it curbs my spending to what i can list down, since i dont saunter down the aisles picking up rubbish that wasnt on my list to begin with. Not to mention the convenience. Of course, if you would rather do it yourself..... then by all mean!!

So the next time you are feeling lazy about going veggie shopping and are thinking of cooking rajma again!! just log on.... its really cool!!

I've ordered again today and hence thought of posting this... will update this with a picture of the vegetables as soon as they get delivered.

mid blog crisis

Seems like i am not alone in my mid blog crisis. a lot of bloggers out there are expressing similar thoughts. So what is this mid blog crisis? Most bloggers start writing for many reasons, a platform to express themselves, to keep a diary, as a platform to update friends and family about their lives. Whatever the reason, we see ourselves here... we give this space a personality that reflects our own....we feel happy when someone visits and comments....atleast i do....

i started this blog a little over two years ago, i didnt think anyone would read it....a little later, i started Escapades as my recipe journal.... this was before the social media revolution with twitter and fb took over the world. I love it when people read escapades, cos that was essentially for the world to see what i was cooking up... Random Thoughts however remained more personal... i came here to rant, to bitch and to talk occasionally about stuff that was important to me....

there are two things on my mind about my two blogs (actually i have more... but well, we'll talk about just two)

the cooking blog, gave me a lot of stress.... is my writing up to the mark, are the recipes i post blog worthy, are the pictures better than sex... so on and so forth... this is just about appearance.... then there is the great blogging clique... the popularity contests... who's commenting on who's blog, who's getting friendly with who... which entries get the maximum appreciation and praise,  the hit counter... that little numerical widget that counts the number of visitors you have had....and ofcourse the various badges that tell you what your ranking is.....I started the blog because i wanted to.... i will write there as my mood pleases.... i've had several "well meaning" friends tell me how to increase my stats, get more visitors, leave a trail and make money out of my blog. To say that this has made me aghast on several occasions is putting it mildly... sure you blog the way you want to... but please stop from telling me what to do.... it gets competitive, it gets silly... it gets too serious for its own good and the joy that came out of blogging is buried deep within the posts.... A lot of the cooking blogs i followed initially have disappeared. Some bloggers dont post anymore and increasingly the ones that do have spoken about the same things i have just now.....Call me stubborn... but i am sticking to my guns... or shall i say posts and pictures that please me!!

Then there is the delicate question of what and how much to reveal on the personal blog... i know for sure, that over time a lot of people i didnt think would, started reading the blog. so even if i was in a bad mood, wanted to write about my work or the lack of it, stuff that bothers me, like the incessant "advise" i get about having a child, the reasons i dont want to, or stuff that i just want to vent about,.... will send people who matter up the wall.... and worry for my mental and physical well being., or interpret what i wrote and why...so over time, i have come here less, kept to the mundane and pondered over writing anonymously....

Then there is this larger than life image that we all try to portray through any social media that we are a part of, not just blogging... you know, the kind of FB updates that tell the world that we "love adventure".. i wonder if the same love for adventure would exist if there was no FB to update a status on..... so we cultivate an image... of larger than life, of exclusivity, or style or whatever the else.... i have met a lot of bloggers offline in the last two years.... there have been only two results... either the person behind the personna is better than what they appear on the blog.... or they are such a let down that i dont even want to read their blogs again cos they are so effing fake in real life.... yeah!! there i said it!!

So after 2+ years of blogging, i admit, i still dont know how to "optimise" or "monetise" or make sense of all of this any better than i was doing earlier.... i think my head is in the right place, cos i am saying "to each his own"

of all the faces i have

of all the faces i have, i find the one i that is really me, the most difficult to wear.....increasingly i am watching my step and minding my temper, speaking the way i think everyone wants to be spoken to....and realising that it doesnt serve any effing purpose in life....

after spending the last few weeks hiding from myself, i am done... with being politically correct, with being docile and accepting even when i know the choices i and the people around me make are wrong....if you dont like what you see, please keep away, i am not going to make excuses for who i am or the choices i make, simply because, i may not agree with you but i respect what you choose.

am on an upsurge...and this time i hope there will be no crutches....