when "d" became "D"

Yesterday, as I saw D (my husband, whom I will refer to as D from now on) through the metal grill, which separates the ladies and gents compartments in  Bombay local trains, he came across as the most handsome man in my range of vision. Having told you where I was, you can just imagine the sheer number of mankind there was in this field of view. Now, handsome is not how one can describe my husband usually. Sure, he has a boyish charm and a cute smile but I cant be as unfair as to say that girls will go weak in the knees by just looking at him. He has an endearing personality but you have to know him to like him. He is definitely no M&B man. But yesterday he looked practically dashing! This phenomenon puzzled me and I started to think as to how and when did this happen. This also reminded me why I chose to spend my life with him rather than my previous love interests. And it started looking like a story that I could tell here.
I have grown up in an all girls' convent school and did not have any mention-able interaction with the opposite sex till I was 18. In college, I went through a series of relationships (potential post alert) without much time interval between two. This, I regret. D was my friend for two years before I realized that I cared for him more than a "just friend" would. One day. we were returning after watching a  rom-com and predictably I was thinking about how the couple in the movie were perfect for each other and how similar D and I were to those characters. I just blurted out that "you better get married to me". This worked like a bucket of cold water on his head and he clammed up. I, on the other hand, was slapping myself in my head and thinking just why did I say what I said. After half an hour of a pregnant pause,( if you can call that long a pause a pause), he said to me that he adored me since the last two years and never had the guts to say it to me. He said he couldn't believe his ears and then thought that maybe I was joking as always. Then we both sat in silence and decided that I wasn't joking and this "us" was a good possibility. This is how we started a bit shakily but gradually to fall for each other and after 5 years still haven't touched ground yet.
Now, coming to the sudden improvement in his looks, I feel that since I have been pregnant and since he has realized that he will be a father soon, the boy in him has grown up in leaps and bounds and the man shines through more often. Of course, he is just 28 right now and accepts that it does feel a tad too soon but he also feels that it will be better in the long run for both us and the kid.
I also have this nagging feeling that nature, automatically, makes the father more attractive to the expectant mother and vice versa so that they make safe voyage through this, more or less, sexless time in their relationship. Whatever be the reason but yesterday I felt immensely in love with my man. 

It applies to Diwali too....

Jim, the amazing, has started this great movement against people having to work on Thanksgiving. He, very rightly, says that this malpractice continues because of us, the customers. If we as a group decide to boycott all shops and markets, the owners of these shops will not find it viable to keep their shutters up.
The same principle applies to Diwali. Shops selling sweets, gifts, lanterns, and other such Diwali related, or not related, stuff keep business running till quite late even on Diwali night. This means that their employees too keep working at a time when everybody is enjoying with their families.
Lets decide to not support businesses on a festival eve. In fact, lets ask all the neighboring shops in our respective areas, before hand, to give an early off to their workers. Every little change in the attitude of every single person will eventually change the society as a whole.

Iv got nothing to read!!!

People, suddenly all my favorite blog writers have suddenly gotten terribly busy and that means that their usual a-post-a-day-or-in-two-days schedule has been broken. Now I cant claim to be a regular writer and not that anybody minds, including me, but these people have serious readership. Heck, the first thing I do when I get to office is check my blogger dashboard and read the latest posts. This makes me feel like a regular in blogger world. Since the past three days I've seen no new posts and the teeny-tiny voice of my conscience has been nagging me, "how can you expect people to be regular if you aren't ! They have lives too!" then it gets distracted by the psychedelic colors of my desktop wallpaper, but not for long, and starts again. "Why don't you come up with something to say once in a while? Wasn't that the whole point of starting this exercise?" Now I've heard people talk about the voice in their heads as if its a physical sound, like a song playing in their own private radio station, but this "voice" in my head doesn't sound like anything. Its just written words which pop up at the back of my mind. 

Anyways, so here I am writing about people NOT writing. It does seem like a desperate attempt of a post but I am taking this process one step at a time. Lets see, maybe one day I will awaken to the stories around me that could be told and maybe some people will look forward to my posts as I do for others'. 

P.S. - Check my list of favorite writers and tell me they are not worth waiting for! 

Drifter

I have lived through three different states in India through my life of 29 years, Delhi (10 years), Maharashtra ( 18 years) and Gujarat (1 year). I have lived, worked and studied in two of the largest cities in the world, Delhi and Bombay. My parents belong to Uttar Pradesh, another different state. That means I have grown up in a predominantly North Indian (Hindu) environment inside the house and exposed to something else outside. For my non-Indian friends, I would like to explain that cultures in different states of India are shockingly different. Both linguistically as well as way of life. Festivals brought this out quite sharply in my childhood days as we didn't live in a metropolitan city.
I grew up in a small town in Maharashtra. Even though it resulted in a good exposure to a variety of food, religious practices and languages, I always felt like an outsider as a kid. All my relatives were back in my native state and we met only once a year or less. This meant that most of my days were spent with school friends and neighbors. School was always a great equalizer but the real tussle was with neighbors. I was always made fun of because of the way I spoke Hindi (too correct) or because of the way I couldn't laugh to other kids' jokes (she just wont get it). Frankly, I didn't mind. Never enjoying a large group of friends I was okay with it. Plus, I had a great younger sister for company.
As I grew up, I noticed that people have these separate fallback groups. Childhood friends from school, friends from places they have spent all their lives in, friends as kids from parents' friends, etc. I, on the other hand, having drifted from one house to another even within a city couldn't boast of any lasting relationships with other children. This also developed my nature of letting go of people who I didn't see everyday. Today, I don't have a single friend who I want to connect to or meet up just to have a good time. I enjoy the company of my closest family or just me.
This doesn't mean that I am not jealous of people who have this amazing network of relationships which act as support groups for both them and their parents in old age. I do miss that "strength in numbers" feeling once in a while. Sometimes I wonder is it because I was always a loner at heart or is this a natural progression in behavior because of the "circumstances", as my sister is quite the opposite.
Do share if you have similar experiences.
P.S.: I have realized that I am really bad at giving titles. Plain simple numbers from here on, I guess. 

Coming soon...

Its been almost a month since my last post. I'm going to post soon and it will be about migration, feeling rootless and the all the good and bad that go with it. The idea came to me when Jim, the amazing, told me about the Latvian shot in His Wife's blood. Do drop in guys because I will need responses on this one. I need to know whether you have similar or not stories to tell.
Stick around.

The one in which Europe and America dissolve their differences and join forces to make the day of an unknown Indian girl.(The title will have more alphabets than the post today)

I know I will lose the little readership I had today but IT STILL FASCINATES ME!
I promise my next post will not feature the world map. 

US rules....(my page) !!!

I hope I have better things to write about. But right now I am taken up with the stats! I check the stats page everyday. Its fascinating when people far off read you and you get to know their location. The latest news is that.......

US of A wins....!!!!!

Thanks you ...(tears of joy and gratitude streaming my down my face). I hope that didn't sound sarcastic. I was merely exaggerating.