Chocolate - a Sinful Bliss!

I keep trying to weigh the pros and cons of chocolate and would always end up with pros weighing more than cons with just the word "Bliss". I loved chocolate, probably since birth :) .... well I feel that way :)! Chocolate has always been my way of celebrating, or my way of relieving stress. Its probably another kind of addiction to people like me! Once you get addicted to chocolate and you are around it, it haunts you, you would want to avoid eye contact with it, or try to avoid it even hearing the word from someones mouth and you could be secretly praying for the bowl to be empty soon, but it keeps calling out to you and when there are only a few left, it would whisper out to you silently to come and get a taste of it. Its too tempting! So I decided to take a strong oath once to be away from it - for a year.. umm... no its too long, ok 6 months... still too long how about 3months... oh what the heck .. max one week, then again its party time over the weekend and chocolate cake...and I think you might have guessed already.

Then the scale on my weighing machine goes on a roller-coaster ride and guess who is to be blamed - my beloved chocolate. Then again some strong resolutions to burn some calories and to turn my back on chocolate for a while! This was my only chance to take the blame off my sweet little chocolate's back. Those were the most depressing days of my life! Then one fine day I would feel much lighter and would be ready to reunite with the love of my life - my dear chocolate (no offense to you my dear husband ;))!  And then this viscous circle of calories and chocolate continues! Thus chocolate remains a Sinful Bliss in my life!

Childhood now and then!

Do kids these days have as much fun as we did when we were children? This is probably something that came across everyone's mind some or the other time. Just the thought of it brings back so many memories from my childhood - watching Door Darshan, playing cricket in the streets, climbing trees, eating ice-cream from street vendors, eating corn in the beach, the first time I tried riding a bicycle and went straight into a dumpster, He-Man the master of the Universe, waiting every weekend eagerly to watch Chitralahari, going for a drive on  the "Lambi" scooter with my parents and brother, eating hot hot jelebi from the sweets store at the corner of the street, going to school in a rickshaw(I think it was a waste of money, we never sat in the rickshaw always used to push it from behind, when the rickshaw driver used to pull the empty rickshaw :)... fun ...fun!).............. Well I can go on like this. They are endless!

The life that our kids are experiencing is quite different from ours. The very cities that we used to live once are much more advanced now and you can hardly find a tree to climb or a playground or a park to play in and its not safe to play on the streets anymore. They do have other activities like swimming, football, basketball etc, but are they not missing this whole concept of playing what ever you really want to play? Indian kids living in foreign countries are probably missing this even more. To play outside they either go to a park or during winter they go to the mall to play in some confined play areas. I guess they are content in what they have and probably are having fun, but I feel like they are missing out a lot of things.

One more thing that comes to mind is spending summer holidays with cousins. My brother and I have a lot of cousins and we are very close to them now and that is probably because we had so much fun when we were kids. All the games that we played together, all the fights that we got into, all the horror movies we watched together, all the pranks we did on each other and got in trouble with our parents and all the weddings that we attended and had a lot of fun. Those are all wonderful memories now! Now everyone is settled in different countries and hardly get a chance to meet, but still we are in contact with each other and share a lot of things via phones and emails. However our kids are away from their cousins and hardly know them. They don't get to meet them as often as we did. This way they would never know the importance of cousins in their lives. They will never know how much fun they can have with their Aunts and Uncles at family gatherings. Once they are old enough they would either long for all this or would think its boring to talk to their Indian cousins or relatives - who knows! I think they should experience all this at an early age, so they could  also build some beautiful memories over the years which they can cherish forever! This is just my point of view!

Music + Love + Life a tasteful combination

A big HELLO to all the music lovers out there! This is my first blog and I simply got inspired in writing a blog just by reading a couple of blogs.

I wanted to get a hobby to make my life more exciting than it already is with my lovely 18month old :). He does keep me busy for the most part, so i do need some time for myself and I thought that blogging is probably the best way to spend my time, but I was not sure what I should blog about.... and then music was the first thing that came to my mind, and that got me really excited.....!

I guess music was first introduced to me right after i was born, through the lullabies sung by my mother and probably even my Dad. I am sure thats how everybody gets introduced to music :) ! My Mom & Dad always had a passion for music. Although neither of them had any training in music, they did enjoy listening to songs. My Dad does have a good voice and sings well.  Probably that was the reason why they decided to get me some formal training in Carnatic music and joined me in music classes when i was 6years old.

I still remember my first music teacher, she used to play sitar holding it in the style of a veena. My mom used to drag me to the music class and make me practice at home. I was probably a typical child who would rather play cricket with the boys in the street, than bash her thigh hard to do the talam while singing. Oh by the way I used to call talam - keys in english and my mom used to laugh at me :)!


It all seems funny now, but I am really grateful to my mother for introducing Carnatic music to me. I realized the greatness of music and the difference it made in my life only after my mother passed away a couple of years ago. She always said I had a good voice and asked me never to stop learning music and singing.

I never really got continuous training for music because we had been moving from place to place and had been changing teachers and all of them wanted me to start from the very beginning. Then I had gone to college and never got a chance to learn music till i got married. My husband's interest in music encouraged me to learn music again.

Now my son loves music and I love singing to him. I love music in any form. We listen to rocking music when my son and I are in the car and when my husband is in the car its always old melodies :).


Happy Blogging!