Day Twelve

Today's happiness came from going for a movie with one of my best friends. As we later observed, we have been friends for 13 years now and not once have we fought. Aah, those lovely childhood friendships. I call her Gosu, short for Gosudasvenoy, short for Komitet Gosudasvenoy Besopasnosty.

Gosu and I went for a hindi movie called 'Queen'. It was about a timid girl from Rajori, Delhi whose family is all set to get her married when her pragmatic fiance calls off the wedding. Overcome with grief and disbelief, she decides to use her flight ticket and go on her honeymoon to Paris and Amsterdam all by herself. There, she's initially lost not knowing her whereabouts or the language. However, she's befriended by a single-mom-socialite maid who works at the hotel she's staying in (and who coincidentally shares her fiance's name). She now has a tour guide and ends up having a great time with her. A few days later, she says a highly sentimental goodbye to her new-found friend and boards a train to Amsterdam.
Intermission
In Amsterdam, she finds herself at a hostel where she's forced to share a room with three other guys (1 Russian, 1 French and 1 Japanese). After ignoring them and refusing to sleep in the same room for the first couple of days, she warms up to them and begins to unwind her uptight little heinie. Her three roommates turn out to be sweet and fun- resulting in overnight deep bonds of friendship between them all. They spend their days traveling on a budget and discovering Amsterdam. OOOH ze blossomings of ze foreign friendships ooooooh. There's an small love angle with a cute Italian cook who talks passionately about food, who challenges her to make money by selling Indian food at a fair. So she makes pani puri which sells like popcorn. Her good-for-nothing fiance shows up and tries to win her back, but she's too busy having fun with her friends to pay him any attention. It's soon time to part ways and more sentimental goodbyes are said.
She goes back to India, returns her engagement ring to said fiance and walks away happily toward her home to upload pictures on facebook from her adventures.

I forgot to mention that her name is Rani, which translates to Queen in English.

Even though this story sounds silly and sad, it was well shot, had some interesting dialogue and a steady stream of sad jokes and good music. Gosu and I were besides ourselves with laughter and had all of the tiny cinema hall straining their heads to look for the source of this incessant barrage of cackling.

My picture for today are the seats we sat in.
(Did I mention we bought the cheapest tickets and sat right up front?)

Day Eleven

Today I was reunited with a group 'selfie' with two of my most idiotic college friends. I could easily write paragraphs of emotional lines about how crazy I am about these two water buffaloes, but they would be received with nothing but rolling eyes and bubbling laughter. This picture made me laugh out loud when I saw it. It pretty much sums up our friendship over the last two years and just how much we mean to each other.

BUGEYEZZZZ.

Day Ten

For the past year and a half, I've been the photographer for a band called Groove Gully. A good friend of mine is the lead singer and pianist. When my vacations started, I thought of learning to play the piano or keyboard. I innocently asked him if he'd be so kind as to give me keyboard lessons. He enthusiastically responded to my request and so, I had my first class today!

Being his first ever student, he was nervous about teaching me; although I cannot imagine why. My first lesson was brilliant. I was taught patiently and thoroughly. We started out with the extreme basics and moved into the notes, how to represent them on paper, which notes corresponded to which keys, how to position my hand over the keys, how to move my fingers from one note to the next and how to play within an octave. He showed me the C-major scale and made me practice it- with first the right and then the left hand. (Rather, on the treble clef and then the bass clef.) (Look at me! I know the words!)
I loved today's class. Even though I was being taught by a friend who I usually end up talking to endlessly once I start, we were serious and kept our focus on what we were doing. I was worried about whether learning from a friend meant compromising on actual learning, but it turned out to be quite the contrary. I was at complete liberty to ask questions and he taught me well at my own pace. It ended up being a very productive session.

My picture for today (isn't one of an adorable little lab puppy with its mother being walked right outside my friend's house) is of some notes we made during today's class. I can finally scratch one thing off my Holiday-To-Do-List. Learn how to play the keyboard- check! Okay, I don't know how to yet, but at least I'm on my way.

Day Nine

I have this friend. Let's call her Hotpants.

Hotpants stays in Baroda but has come to Bombay to study. Although we were in the same class during our first year, our currently wonderful friendship sprouted and took root only this year. She is a talented, intelligent, funny, imaginative woman with several exclamation points following her always. We share a lot more than common interests. We share a locker for our books, we share an early-and-hasty breakfast between our first two lectures, we share butter pav bhaji, we share links from the internet, we share classes and professors. We share a common dream for ten years from today. We share the belief that we make two bumbling fools. But most importantly, we share a treasure trove of memories from this year. Memories that we will treasure for several years to come. Times when we aimlessly set out from college when we had no practicals. Times when we roamed in Crawford market. Times we spent sprawled on the library floor between the stacks, reading until our tummies ached with hunger. Times that we spent in the canteen gushing about life, dreams and food. Times we spent passing notes during boring chemistry lectures. Times when we were creative and made bangles and dream catchers. Times spent blowing balloons for the farewell party. Times we spent cramming for our exams. I couldn't count our memories on my fingers and toes.

Today, Hotpants is to leave for Baroda until college resumes after summer. I had set out from home to meet her when she called me and said that she wasn't done packing and she needed help. So she picked me up at the station and took me to her home. Her home is a large-ish room where she's staying as a paying guest. When I walked in after her, I beheld a room that had been struck by a tornado. There were clothes strewn everywhere, books scattered about, loose papers spread on the floor and little packets of food everywhere. I now knew why she needed help to pack. There are two beds in that room. When I first entered, both of them were piled high with clothes and etceteras. When she told me that only one of those piles belonged to her and the other to her roommate, I heaved a sigh of relief. We got down to packing. We spent the next couple of hours stuffing clothes into bags, holding our breath as we held them shut, yapping away and popping chocolate into our mouths. Two hours, 6 bags and several dusty books later, we were all packed. (Or she was, rather.) We had cleared up the place beautifully. Hotpants' bed was clear of all its mess and we looked at it with swollen chests.

My picture for today shows off the packed bags. I had a whole lot of fun with Hotpants. And today wasn't nostalgic or saddening for I know I'll be meeting this bubbly girl in a couple of months again and will be spending another brilliant year with her. (And many more to come.)

This one's for you, Hotpants!

 

Day Eight

I almost can't remember when today began. It was sometime earlier than usual for a holiday and I was as chirpy as a sparrow who caught the worm. I spent the morning chasing my mother around the house, hounding her with terrible jokes and wisecracks. I was ultimately sent off to my room with a stuff toy and was told to harass it instead.

The evening was a lot more fun. I went out (surprisingly, for the first time since my vacations started two days ago.) with a friend who needed to get some shopping done for his trip to Hampi, Kerala. It was funny to be dragged around as a shopping assistant to a boy. (I did have my fun, though. Asking someone to try on pink shorts has never been more hilarious.)

Today's picture is of three pairs of socks I picked up during this entertaining adventure. Or, as my mom so rightly says, 6 socks. I present to you, Mili, my sporting-and-half-asleep cat who most willingly modeled these socks for me. They are beautiful. Aah new socks. My toes tingle in delight. As I tossed them into my sock bag, the other socks glared in envy. As I closed my cupboard, I could almost hear their old voices whisper, "She's going to de-pair and up-stink you tomorrow.", followed by croaking squeals of sadistic laughter. Perhaps I ought to give my old socks more love.

Day Seven

Nothing much happened today. I woke up, took a nice dump, brushed my teeth and ate food. (Maybe I shouldn't have put all those things in the same sentence.)
Anyway, in the evening after Ilina came home from school, we were both very hungry. So we ordered from McDonald's and I shamelessly asked for a Large Masala Grill Meal with Piri-Piri fries. Keeping to their trusty promise of delivering within 29minutes, our food arrived soon after. We distributed the contents.

She walked hastily to her room, her hands full of delicious edibles. The tops of the fries popping out of their cover teased her arm as she walked. She set down the glass of coke, burger, fries and masala on the little cupboard by her window. There, in the afternoon light filtering in through the curtains, her food gleamed in yellow splendor. She emptied her fries into a paper bag, adding the intended masala generously and then gave it a good shake. She shook the little paper bag to an unknown beat, listening to the fries bump against each other and the walls of the bag. She could almost hear the crunch as the aroma from the spices seemed to penetrate from the paper to her nose. She opened the bag to expose slender, gorgeous french fries, each covered uniformly in red spices. She took a long piece and bit into it. An explosion of flavour spread over her tastebuds like hyacinth over a still lake.

My picture for today is that greasy, fattening, over-filling, indulgent meal.
(My stomach still complains.)

Day Six

Today was my first day of summer vacation. So I was lazy.

I sat at my laptop and watched Sherlock. I watched the second episode from season three. To say that I was fangirling from start to finish would be an understatement. That episode, just like every other one and even more so, was full of sharp, witty dialogue that flew between Holmes and Watson at lightening speed. The plot, the direction, the acting, the production, the cinematography are nothing short of brilliant. I drooled onto my laptop watching that show's sensuous personality.

To top it all, I had a bowl full of Maggi and a whole lot of banana chips to help make use of all the saliva I was generating.

Presenting the stunning Holmes. Pum Pa-raaa!

Day Five

Ilina and I decided to give each other a project to do during a moment of acute boredom. I told her that she must write about M*A*S*H and she agreed provided I write about Phineas And Ferb. We then set out to make full fledged projects of it and got caught up in cut outs and ideas and brain storming. These projects are due to each other in two days as per our agreement.

Today's picture is of our cover pages. It's so much fun to be unpretentious and silly.