SIMPLY POSITIVE

I have no idea how to start this one, to be honest. I think I restarted this blog at least thrice and still I have no clue how to go on so, I’ll just ramble. My nanu was one of the first people to hold me when I was born. He was my first teacher, friend, philosopher and guide. When I was 2, he used to drop me off at preschool but god, I was stubborn. I just wouldn’t leave his hand, no matter what. So, he used to sit with me in the play area and hold my hand until I stopped bawling my eyes out. Then he would encourage me to go inside, he used to tell me I was a brave little girl, a Sherni and reminded me he was right outside. And he would actually sit there for all 3 hours just in case I needed him! Whenever I lost a competition, he would be the first person to call me to tell me he was proud of me. When I flunked a test, he was right beside me, working with me through my mistakes no matter the time of the day. I can proudly declare that I was the only person he ever missed his nigh...

When I was a kid, I loved listening to the tales from Ramayan and Mahabharat (after I learnt to pronounce them). I am pretty sure my grandparents had started inventing details along the way, ‘cause there is no way Nani knew if Sita was wearing a pink lehenga or a red one! I think I was around 10 when I learnt what happened after Ram ji rescued Sita Mata. They didn’t jump on a unicorn and ride off into the sunset. I guess I was too young to understand  the aftermath.  But I do know that I did not take up reading Ramayana again, on my own, till  recently when  I was gifted " The Forests of Enchantments " by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni or, as she and  I like to call it- the Sitayan. The book showed Sita in a new light. Ever since I had originally listened to  Ramayan (Grandparents version), and though my memory is  musty, Sita came across as the neighbourhood’s Sharma ji’s perfect daughter, beautiful, obedient “ sanskari”. But, this book described her as a...

So remember when I told you that my mom would eventually get tired of seeing my face around the house? Yeah well, that happened barely 4 days after my break ( post exams) commenced.  So much for a staycation, amirite? And so that’s how I started my internship at Sharada Trust as an elocution teacher. For the uninitiated, Sharda Trust a Arvind Group Initiative, based out of Ahmedabad and works for upliftment of urban poor in the areas of Basic Infrastructure, Health care and Education, inter alia.   I always thought that teaching was a demanding profession but, holy cow! on the very first day, I was tasked  with  shortlisting  students to teach elocution which triggered memories of my own school days when we used to get all excited and pumped up whenever teacher informed us about some inter house / inter school competition and became super competitive during its selection. It tested already fragile friendships and well, some survived most didn’t (I might hav...

ये जो नज़र आते हैं ये वो तो है नहीं , शिबाबा देखो इन्हे गौर से तो दिखेंगे ये और कोई , जुबान से ओह माय माय कितने प्यारे है, दिलों में यू डोंट know वो अंगारे है, sophistication इनकी सरनेम है, hypocrisy में जीते ये सारे हैं एक पल में बनती है, पल में बिगड़ती है यू काँट say when, how or why साराभाई vs साराभाई  Yup, this blog is about the evergreen show which aired before i was even born (made you feel old, didn't i) and is surprisingly very progressive. First of all, I couldn’t believe that this was an Indian show. Like why and when did we shift from this  to Saas bahu soap operas! I mean this show too had the saas bahu angle but it didn’t have science defying death scenes, 5 divorces, 6 remarriages and a conservative and overly jealous saas decked head to toe in tacky jewelry. Okay, I might have been a littleee aggressive but my grandparents watch a number of these shows and I am sick and tired of this kind of TV.  I am sure they would have enjoyed Uska Pati Sirf Mera Hai, if ...

Hey, I am back peeps!  So the past two years have been a roller coaster ride but at last, I am off that and likely heading for another one. So I guess this blog  is going to be a rant about my ahem thrilling, sleep deprived and bumpy experience. You know, after 10th, when you are riding high due to excellent performance in  boards and thinking that  cracking PCM  for engineering will be a piece  of cake? Yeah well if I had a Time Ma chine, I would have gone back to  naive 15 year old self and shook her hard like what were you thinking girl !?  See the journey started deceptively well  with  kinematics and mole concept. Then we hit rotational motion and advanced trigonometry. And it gets better! From there on it was a mainly downhill  with redox  reactions, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics and then a rollercoaster experience with organic chemistry and coordinate geometry to top it all off.   Thereafter  it was a bl...

Sooo watched any movies lately? I (ahem with my extremely busy schedule) recently watched Rani Mukherjee’s Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway and as you might have guessed, this blog is about a very mature ( unlike me !)  topic of Norway’s welfare system and differences in culture. For the unversed, the movie is mainly about children being snatched away (literally) from their parents by the social services of Norway for a variety of reasons that were twisted and false. The movie is about how a mother fights an entire country's system  to get her children back and is based on the real life of Sagarika Chakraborty.  The movie is a tear jerker and has  made its audience very emotional by the time it ends. Norway is a developed country with high standard of living, education and social development. It is also one of the highest ranked country on the world happiness index but is it really that happy? Sagarika Chakraborty’s case has raised eyebrows at Barnevernet, its welfare system...

 Does this topic even need introduction. The Title’s pretty much self explanatory. I mean I grew up watching it ( although now really understanding every nuance). It is  my and mom’s favourite show although it seems to be slowly slipping from her favourites’ list. I suspect my demands to make exquisite dishes at home has something to do with it! Can you blame me though? Why eat Kichdi when you have some mouthwatering, hard to pronounce dish in front of you! Especially when show's timing coincides with my dinner timing.😓 I honestly thought I wouldn’t be able to watch this season what with the board exams and all, but fortunately, I was able to keep up,  albeit missing a few episodes. Let’s start with the judges. My mom is a big fan of Chef Ranveer’s recipes from biryanis to dal makhni, everything is made by referring to his recipes. Chef Vikas became a household name through MasterChef while i really didn’t know much about chef Garima. But, like she is so cool though, one...

Sup peeps! I know, I know it’s been a while since my last blog but with one exam and the other coming up, I have barely got time to breathe.You guessed it right, this blog is about the nightmare for 15 year old Indian high school students, the class XTH boards! I didn’t mention 17 year olds because they have other nightmares coming up like JEE  and NEET which will be my reality in 2 years. Yeah, that’s definitely the start of my villain arc😈. Anyways, back to boards. Honestly until I started Xth, they seemed to be a huge deal. I almost wanted to fail Ninth class just so that I would have another year before facing 10th, assuming social science didn’t kill me. At the start of the school year, everyone was like ‘iss saal boards dene hai,this and that’. I hadn’t even opened any of my textbooks and I was already stressing. But frankly, the year was pretty normal. Lemme tell you none of the common misconceptions that ‘all extracurricular activities are cancelled’ and ‘extra remedial cl...

Vacation. The time of the year children's (especially students) mental health is at it’s best. The time when the appearance of ward ( From parental perspective) in bed before 3am and out of bed before 12pm would give you heart attack!. . Ahh…the joy of not having to wake up to that god so annoying alarm! ⏰ Ram-ram readers (side effects of UP)! Hope you all are enjoying your vacations and if you are an adult, not having summer break, too bad! So in the last of vacays, I went to…drumroll…Gurgaon-Meerut! Kinda weird combination but almost all of my family members are in North India, spread out from Delhi to Lucknow..  I was visiting them for the 1st time. I was so exciteddd and nervous as this was a solo trip!. . When it came to packing, Instead of mom, it was me who was wearing out our carpet by pacing to & fro . ‘I have kept that right?’’ will I need this’ and so on... Given my lack of athletic prowess, even mom was surprised to see me so hyper! 🏃‍♀️ Did I mention that this was...

Hola folks! During the last 2 years - you-know-what years, all our physical activities were  on hold and the only exercise we are getting was in form of  household chores. So, to bring my sporty spirit form again (if I even have one), my parents introduced me tooo (drumroll) gym! I think everyone knows what a gym is. For those who don’t, it is basically a place to get together and have a nice little gossip on the cycles, show off muscles and abs under the guise  of working out. Exercise? Never heard of it. I mean, the only thing missing in the entire scene are ‘chai & samosa’! Let me give a brief insight  on so called gym enthusiasts to all who haven’t yet had the opportunity to  make a pilgrimage  1. The Selfie Addict- there will always be that one person who will spend their time in front of the mirror with their phones out, clicking pictures of each and every  equipment and posting them on Insta.  2. The Majboor Log :  Those who have b...

Heyo readers! How have you been? Missed me? Now, now don’t shy away, I know you did! Recently, our school organised a talk on gender sensitivity. This got me thinking about how ignorant I had been on such a crucial topic. I guess I was ignorant because I was one of the lucky ones who was brought up in a supportive environment (too supportive, phew..). It got me thinking about why  men were ( and in many cases still are)  considered as the heads of the family and women as playing second fiddle.  If you ask me, it’s women who rule the house but fine, I don’t want to hurt anyone’s ego🤘. I was called during the program to make impromptu speech on gender equality.    I tried my best but as I came offstage, my one-of-a-kind-limited-edition brain 🧠 revved up thoughts of what else I could have spoken  .Ughh why doesn’t my brain work when I actually need it to. Back to the topic, I thought of writing these thoughts in my diary butttt why write when you can type? W...

 Helloooo lovelies!!   Enemy has been slayed !. Yes that one time of the year..... my final exams are over! Are bhaiyaa all is well? Cause I am in Saturday Saturday mood. Oh forget, that was  me trying   to bring out the non existent humour in me ! This blog  is based on a book and is unlike my previous blogs which were more about actual experience with some tadka !. A book review like this actually requires  one to read the book in old fashioned  way at the expense of social media time.. Don’t look so surprised, some kids do like reading! So, I recently laid my hands on a political thriller, the President’s Daughter written by James Patterson in collaboration with Bill Clinton.  The grief and longing of a father for his kidnapped daughter. The distress , guilt and despair of a mother hiding a  secret. The dirty world of politics. Brain washed, ruthless, stone hearted  criminals. The hidden war between two super powers. A forme...

Readers, hello and welcome to Shark tank  shark tank blog. Yes, yes ,yes this blog is going to be about the reality show which recently completed one season #sharktankindia . You guys were able to engage a fickle minded teenager to this show.  Take a bow please . 👏🏽. It kinda turned into a family show for us, you know? All three of us, my dad, mom and me watched each and every episode of it. Few times even my  Nana  and Nani joined us.   A standing ovation to the person who pitched the idea of bringing out a S.T. India version. Like seriously, you guys made a 14 year old (cough me cough) talk in shark lingo which is so different from  millennial lingo.  No, really, now whenever my mother asks us whether she should make khichadi or Dalia, I say and I quote “ I am not able to connect with either of your items, so for that reason I am out” or when she tells me to study I say “I don’t have any expertise in this field , so I am afraid I am out.” 🤟🏼...

  BUON ANNO, fellow countrymen. Lend me your ears! I stand(or write in my case) in front of you to wish you a belated happy New Year! Before you think that I have gone nuts, BUON ANNO means happy new year in Italian. As per Know it all Google, m ost historians believe Babylonians  were the first to make New Year's  resolutions   as we do today, although this famed ancient city held its New Year celebration in March, not January, in accordance with an agricultural year.    During this religious festival, Babylonians either crowned a new king or proc laimed their loyalty to the existing king.   Citizens also swore to pay off debts to their gods, and promised to return borrowed goods. Those promises and declarations are thought to be the first New Year's resolutions. This begets the question as to why we keep new year resolutions ?. T o sum up my extensive research, a New Year gives a new beginning to us, a blank slate to turn a new leaf. Again, this...

The next morning, (day 4 in Rajasthan) We went to explore the wonders of the tent resort. Yeah, the wonders of like 22 tents!  and a common courtyard.  After playing ‘Dora the Explorer’ 🧐 with mandatory photoshoots, we all went for breakfast. Our checkout time was 10:30am and we had breakfast at 9:45. By the time we were ready, it was 11:00 am ...(As usual, we are never punctual except at airports) .   After checking out and piling into the tempo traveler we made our way to Kuldhara village which has a fascinating but painful history attached to it. There is  something about the mysterious air surrounding the once thriving place that just makes you sad and sentimental. .  We saw a number of ruins there.  There are many myths relating to the the history of it's abandonment but the one which was told to us ample number of times was of this minister that lived there (I forgot the guy's name).  It was said that he fell in love with an orphan girl at ...

Second day in Jodhpur...  I was dragged out of bed because my mom and aunt wanted to go for a walk and god knows why they wanted to take me along! They could have considered papa or Mausa ji as suitable candidates but nooo, they had to choose me, muttering something about girl gang. They really need to act their age! 😳What a marvelous start to the day!!! After a thousand morning photo shoots, all around and in every nook and cranny of Hotel, we met up with the others at the dining hall and did justice to delicious breakfast spread and commenced the journey to Jaisalmer. We had hired a tempo traveller... On the way, we visited Umaid Bhavan Palace museum and got acquainted with its history dating back 1925 or so... As is the norm, we clicked some 100 pictures once outside the museum ... NO BLUFFING. I don’t joke about phone storage 📱. After that, we spent like 6 hours travelling to Jaisalmer. 6 damn hours!  Enroute, my grandparents, aunt and parents stopped to visit Sanchiya M...

Ghani Khamma.Ahh! the scorching sun, majestic forts, breath taking lakes, delectable dishes and witheringly cold nights, do not do justice to an  experience that is "Rajasthan". My trip was a welcome getaway from  routine after a long time..💆🏻‍♀️  Sleeping past midnight and getting up at 5:00 AM to get ready for 9:00 AM flight is what I did.  Waking up four hours before flight was necessary with four persons sharing two bathrooms and I needing half an hour of extensive beauty time. What, a girl needs to live!  Once everyone was done, we booked a cab. I might have made a rookie mistake of booking one hatchback for four travelers with heavy luggage! And let me tell you, it's no fun being cramped with three other family members on the backseat with mom glaring at me all the way to airport.😩😩 We reached  the airport early and had to wait nearly one hour for the  flight after the security check. and now it was my turn to glare at mom for waking up so ea...