Sonia Gandhi.....hmmmm... I have a lot to say about her!

I personally have never been a big fan of Sonia Gandhi and I truly believe that a country like ours should be ruled by a person born and brought up in India. However, I have to admit that the current “office of profit” controversy dodging the Indian politics makes me wanna reevaluate my opinion about Ms. Gandhi. I thought of her to be a political green horn, who had come to helm just because she married into the Gandhi family. But by resigning from the Lok Shaba, as well as from National Advisory Council she has just managed to mum her detractors. I have to admire the way she has handled the whole issue. By giving up two major positions of power in last two years (first not becoming the PM and now this) she has certainly bought back congress into limelight. I think of this decision as rather strategic one aimed with bringing a wave in favor of congress.

Of course it is now a well known fact that power actually resides with Sonia Gandhi. Initially, by giving up the Prime ministership, she made headlines and gained sympathy of a large chunk of Indian population. However, even though we have Dr. Manmohan Singh at helm, the Indian cabinet is expected to read the signals from 10 Janpath (where Sonia resides) and act accordingly. Hence in making that very sacrifice which enhanced her status, she became a political big-wig.

Now with her resignation, she has again shown that she does know how to handle the political pawn very ably. With the chaos in Indian parliament regarding the proposed ordinance, her decision to resign not only saves her embarrassment but also allows her to gain political mileage again. Again, the whole country is hailing her resignation as “Yet another sacrifice”. However, I am surprised that very few actually think of this decision as one aimed to have an impact.

The bottom line is that Sonia Gandhi is adept at the political arena, and her strategic planning certainly deserves kudos. Whether or not it will help our country is a completely different issue….letz wait and watch!

In my own words...my story

I was thinking if I ever write a autobiography it may look very similar to this (have to say found it rather unlike my usual style of writing and amazingly boring when I read through it once):

A lil' bit of History

Here’s my imagined scenario of what might have happened on the fateful day of 16th July 1981 when I came to this earth wailing and screaming: “It’s a girl”, the nurse at Martha’s hospital, Bangalore, told my dad. My mom, held me tight, afraid of dropping me. Dad comes in, peers into my face and beams at mom. Both of them are ecstatic at becoming parents and fall in love with me as soon as they see me.

A few years down the lane, I become a pain in the ass demanding to have a sibling as everyone I knew, even those stupid girls “Sheena and meena” down the lane had one. And each day I cried, refused to come home, made a huge ruckus till Archana, my Sis, my joy came into this world.

Naughty like hell, crazier than anyone I knew, Archana became the one to complete our small family. We fought like dogs, pulled each other’s hair…..tried to show off who was better, but thankfully much to the relief of our parents grew up into “Nice” loving girls (or so I like to think).

I choose to pursue engineering, ECE . Stayed in hostel, made life long friends, freaked out, had fun….

Then came into USA to do MS in mechanical engineering, met some more people… made some more great friends. Somewhere in between all this met Shiva, fell in love and am all set to make our own “happily ever after” story.

Current Affairs

I seem to be having a torrid affair with both my masters and Shiva together. Masters seems to never end and right now am adding finishing touches to my work, and doing a lot of technical writing (GROAN, I hate it). Will finally (hopefully) defend my thesis and finish my masters in June. Right now looking forward to marrying "THE MAN OF MY DREAMS" and getting a job which satisfies and challenges me.

Futuristic Mode
The future looks bright and rosy with Shiva by my side. Am looking forward to setting up our house, learning to drive his “geared” Honda accord, cooking some terrible meals, fighting and making up, in general living life to itz fullest. Have ambitious plans of finally making some serious money, getting a job and shopping till I drop dead . With specialization in MEMS, getting a job in the same may prove to be a lil’ tricky. But hope prevails and who knows what lies in the future. Will be joining Shiva in NYC in June and start living the life of “Married but HOT couple”. We (rather I) do have plans of adopting a cute dumb looking BIG dog in 2-3 yrs. Hmm… the rest is undecided and we will take it one at a time…after all isn’t life about being “spontaneous” ?

The curse of chubbiness

I have never been thin.... from the time my gynecologist helped my mom to bring me to this earth I have been struggling with a constant dose of chubbiness. Thankfully with time not only did I grow older, but also grew in height. Today at 5 feet 8 inches I like to think that I can comfortably carry off some extra weight. Ever since I remember I have always been meaning to but never really grown that “model thin”. I would love to have a 36-28-36 figure. Alas! That seems to be beyond my reach. Every morning, as I get into my jeans, I swear to myself –“no cheese, no fat, and a lot of exercise. However, long before the day is over I find myself easily breaking each of these promises. I can’t help being engulfed in that cozy warmth of laziness… hmmm… heavenly abode! I think I have the curse of “Chubbiness”, but sometimes once in a while I manage to hoodwink myself into thinking I am “Sexy, Voluptuous female” (Olalla). Those are the days when for a change I wear my heels, lipstick and eyeliner and feel really hot, sexy and good looking. Of course, these rare days usually occur when I am with “HIM” and that’s good ain’t it? I have colossal plans of joining aerobics and gym after marriage (whilst I am looking for a job) and turning into this female having a great figure!! Well, a lotta of my friends advice me to pre-pone plans and become so before the actual marriage ceremony (The idea is to have the guy salivating, or so I have been told) But, well I want to reduce for myself, and not for someone else. So I refuse to combat with my Chubbiness as of now and as far as tempting the guy is concerned… I am already secure in the fact that I am wanted and I am sexy in the eyes of the one who matters!
So today, at this point in my life, I proclaim my honest and sincere intention to fight and win against my cursed chubbiness ………………..eventually :)

Suggestions needed for wedding invitations

So here I am sitting and looking through the wedding cards. Hmmm…..idea is to design an e-wedding card. But well, my brilliance n' creativity seem to have deserted me and frankly nothing on the net really catches my fancy. You may wonder why an e-wedding invitation when a nice paper wedding card looks so much more elegant. The reason for it is simple, this way I am sure not to forget inviting people I know (they would just be a click away). But it turns out to be a lot tougher than I imagined it to be. I just don’t like anything and being an illiterate in graphic designing doesn’t help much either. I like a few wordings, but nothing I am really crazy about! Some wordings that I read are so downright boring that it just amazes me.

At this point, I am open to any suggestions on wedding invitations ……so if u happen to read this… gimme ideas about wording and designing card…. I need them!

A bend around the corner ......

Life takes a strange turn at times and sometimes when it does you wonder to your self “Why me?”. But with time you realize that that turn, that bend around the corner actually did good things for you.

Long time ago, when my mom (being a typical Indian mom) started harping me about getting married I had to give in and tell her “Ok do whatever you want”. And with that one sentence began the search for the eligible bachelor. With arranged marriages prevalent in India this was not something out of ordinary, and I was resigned to being with someone who was my parent’s choice. I was requested (rather asked) to speak to one guy whose family my parents liked a lot. Well, he turned out to be such a major jerk that I was left wondering about the Indian guys in general. I just spoke to him once, but that once was enough to shatter my illusions about “Nice, good-family Boys” Every minute I had spend talking to him felt like I was attending some interview. Blah! With each growing minute I wanted to strangle that neck of his!

At that point in my life, I was sure I would end up with some jerk or with someone who would not share my ideologies. I am ashamed to admit it, but I was prepared to face disappointment and make the best of what I had.

But after this episode ……when one of my very good friends admitted to having affections for me, I decided (unlike the other times) to explore this further. I thought to myself “Here is someone I genuinely like, admire and already care for, why not see if he makes things roll for me?” and now I am going to get married to this person in a months time. I am the happiest I have ever been. He has turned out to be everything I could ever ask for in a guy. And he does make my world brighter, more colorful. I admit initially when we started dating, I wasn’t sure and was certainly not in love with him. I had previously never believed in mixing friendship with dating. For me it started out rather casually, I didn’t want to get married so soon, I wanted to just date and see how things went. However fate had something planned for me already….. The more I got to know him, the more I like him and before I knew it I was deeply involved. April 30th is when I am getting married and believe me when I say “I can’t wait to be with him”.

Today, I face the possibility of my defense and hence my graduation being postponed by another month. And somewhere deep down in my heart I believe (have to believe) that this may be just another bend around the corner ………………………………

Friend and emotions!

Today after a long time, I chatted with a friend who was once closest to me. There was a time not long ago when he was the one I turned to when I was low or when I needed a friend. But somewhere down the lane I seem to have moved on. Having one serious relationship seems to leave me with no energy to maintain another intense friendship. I sometimes feel ashamed of myself at having let go of something which I had valued so much. I am amazed at my capacity to get over a person so easily. This trait of mine scares me a little. But if I think of it, I think the reason why I take no effort to keep the closeness of this friendship lies in the fact that I had been hurt a lot once or twice. And that just perhaps broke my heart then a little and now I am scared of getting hurt. I still care a lot for this person (care doesn’t go away …it lingers on) but I just can’t take it to being hurt.

My dad has always called me “a sensitive, emotional girl” and I have to confess I am that and more. I cannot go half hearted into any relationship, be it friendship or love. For me when I care... I care deeply. I had been accused once of being “aloof” by an acquaintance, but I call it “self-preservation”. I have some wonderful friends and each one of them is almost like a family to me. When someone getz a job, to me it feels like I have one…when someone graduates I am delighted (a lil’ wistful abt my graduation I admit, but truly delighted for my friend)….for me each of my close friend is a extension of myself. And when a friend like that hurts me a lot I just have to break the thread for my self-preservation.

I know I am going to get back to being friends with this person I chatted today ‘coz I have been healed. He no longer has the power to hurt me and having my love (rather dramatic) by my side has made me grown as well. But as I write this I think to myself “I take my time to make truly close friends, I am a pain in the ass sometimes myself, I throw tantrums but I really hope I never hurt anyone I love so deeply that they feel the need to stay away from me!!” I pray for this and prayers said from within the heart have a way of being heard (at least that’s what has been told to me).

Man, Woman....and Mardi Gras

Whats with men and boobs? I have always known that men have a major fascination for boobs and the extent of it just became rather evident to me when I went for Mardi Gras in New Orleans. There were men drooling over some rather sagging breasts and woman flashing for beads.Of course, I won’t deny it… it was fun to begin with, but I just got bored after a while. I had heard so much about the (in)famous Bourbon street and had been determined to visit it in itz full glory before I left Louisiana. But I have to say it fell rather short of my expectations. Being an Indian gal, I expected it to shock me, embarrass me. However, to my surprise I was neither, rather I found myself amused at the bumbling efforts of men in general to get a look at “those mounts” which they don’t have. I thought to myself “hmmm… Men get high pretty fast” and also wondered about the equation of men being so enthralled by breasts and woman no so much with the dicks. May be there is something wrong with me, but I personally never had an utmost desire to see strange men’s member. I admit seeing that would have probably offended my senses. And thankfully I got to see none of that in Mardi Gras.


All said and done, after a series of collecting beads (possible even without flashing), exhausted, bored and tired of the rather mundane scenes surrounding me, I finally ventured into a club. The music was good, some GNR, some BA, some Aerosmith….shook a leg and then “BOOM” one of the ladies (close to 40) decided to undress. And man she had some for her age, even I had my eyes popped out and was rather fascinated by the fact. I was like “WOW” check them out and thought to myself “Gosh! Hope I look like that when I am that old!!”.

It was then that the realization dawned onto me. Mardi Gras is not only for men who want to see boobs, it is more for women who take pride in themselves. Woman, who make things happen, woman who have the right to show whatever they want to. It is one fest where woman gets to shed her inhibitions and say to whole world “look at how gorgeous I am”. Yeah! Definitely it is more that just showing ur assets, more than just collecting beads and getting drunk. For a woman it is/could be a place to build and boost the confidence in having the capacity to bring the world and men (literally) at her feet!!!!