How Lola led me to Kitty

Lola

Kitty

So today morning my Mom finally convinces me to go shopping with her. After a hot walk we reach the store. And I see this cute dog outside. I couldn't resist and asked the lady with her if I could snap her pic. We spent a few minutes playing with Lola. As we were going inside, the lady told us she had found an abandoned kitten and if we could find her a home. And when I saw her, I was a goner! But I couldnt possibly keep her due to lack of space at my place, and have therefore managed to find her a home after much guilt causing, cajoling, and tugging at heartstrings! :) I have even threatened my friend (who finally agreed) that I would sell his kidney if he sells Kitty! What a day!!

Khonoma was beautiful...

Hey everyone!! So here comes a post after a really really long time! Hope you enjoy it :)
 

So a few months back, I accompanied my Mom to Nagaland. Kohima to be precise. And after a week of work Mom, and Aunty M were ready to take a break. A friendly guy we met at Calcutta airport (News flash: there are no direct flights to Nagaland. You have to go through Calcutta), had told us about this village called Khonoma ,which was famous because it was an eco village.

  

On Sunday when everyone had a day off, we booked a cab and started off for Khonoma. The plan was to go there in the cab (an Omni), walk around in the village, and come back in the car. A normal day. No craziness involved. But we all forgot something. Where Mom and I are concerned, there is no normalness, and certainly no sanity.

Our car, stuck in a ditch

It’s a twenty kilometre journey. We are 10 kms away from Khonoma. And our car gets stuck in a ditch filled with muddy water. There’s a few cars behind us, and the men get down to help us push our car out. It’s quite a comical site. The men look at us in amusement when we start pushing, but realise that we’re just as strong as them. Yours truly is right behind the back wheel, and when the driver starts the car, I get a taste of the lovely, chocolate brown water.

That problem sorted, we get back in and start off again. Only to stop a little further. We started rolling up our sleeves thinking it was another car stuck in a ditch. But no this was something  even worse. The road had been blocked by a landslide.

 

A spider web 

The unknown

 The men called up the church and asked them to send a vehicle. The group going to church were going to cross the mud covered road to the other side and then go on to the church in the vehicle they would send. We had two choices. Either we sat in a car (like normal people) and went to Khonoma and back, or (like us abnormal people) trek.

My backpack was emptied of everything except two bottles of water, Cola (for the caffeine kick), lunch and my Mom’s purse (what good that was going to do in the wilderness, I still have no clue). I carried my camera, with an extra battery. And of course got some good snaps! We went about 7 kms before deciding to come back.

My once white and blue shoe,after
the trek

The locals start clearing the
landslide after Church

Therefore, in conclusion we actually didn’t get to see Khonoma at all. And the next time you see my Mom and me telling each other “Khonoma was beautiful”, with a cheeky smile, you now know exactly why we’re saying that. ;)

Goa to Bombay (2)

The day after the next, we hired a WagonR and started off for Kolhapur.
The journey was fun; with the driver playing just the one CD he had on loop. By the time we stopped for lunch, I knew all the Kishore Kumar songs on that CD by heart.

We passed through some scenic points, which were like all tourist spots crowded. The crowd spoilt the view really with their insane chatter, when they should have been staring at the horizon peacefully. Breathing in the smells of the forest that lay below us.

By the time we reached the Goa-Maharashtra border it was 1. We stopped at a small roadside restaurant for lunch. They said the food would only be coming at 1.15. This idea of food being bought form home to a ‘restaurant’ was quite novel to me.

It was delicious! Piping hot, home cooked and very different from what I usually have back home.

By four that evening we had reached Kolhapur.
Getting to the hotel proved to be quite exciting. No one seemed to have a clue about where it was located. The locals would point to the right and say go to the left and vice versa. We went round in circles for over half an hour before finally finding the hotel.

 To my delight the hotel we were staying in had a Baskin Robins store right in the lobby. We made plans to go to the Mahalakshmi temple the next day.

And the wings unfurl...

The child stares out of the window, at the leaves and farther away at the hills. He can hear sounds from the highway. They’re comforting, soothing even though they’re far away. The teacher’s voice cuts through.  Staring out the window is not going to fetch you marks, she reprimands, snottily.  Tyrant, he silently curses her, wistfully lowering his head and staring at his book.

The letters soon start playing Tag. The PD chases the I trying to find the W. The numbers start doing the foxtrot. The child smiles happily as they jump out of the book and use his desk as a dance floor. The teacher interrupts again.

The child has wings but he does not know. Each day they get clipped just as Flavius wished Caesar’s would. With every sharp word, with every angry red cross, the wings lose a feather.

The child is crippled. Wounded. He starts taking his anger out by going home and playing the violin till his finger tips are raw.

One morning, she hears him. There is music coming out of an empty classroom. She peeks in to see the child playing at a furious  pace. Gradually, he slows down and a peaceful smile lights up his  face.
She takes him as her student. Slowly, steadily, the feathers grow back. The wings grow, fuller and lighter, than before.

The PD still chases the I, but the child knows that anytime he wishes, he can unfurl his wings, and fly to the distant hill, once just a dream.

Goa to Bombay (1)

My first trip this summer. And it was to Goa, from where we had to get to Mumbai. With pit stops of course!

The bougainvillea

We reached Margaon, Goa at 10 in the morning. Getting into a taxi, the feel of a small lazy town soon drifted to us. Our hotel ‘La Flor’ was a small place, in a rundown area with a railway track opposite the hotel. Imagine waking up at midnight because of a train horn!
Of course the first task was to find a good place for lunch. Asking a taxi driver where we would find local food, we set off asking locals for the directions. At Khamat we had a delightful ‘thali’.

A truck on a train!

The hotel was lovely. Small but you could sit out front under a mango tree. The fusion of bougainvillea, mangoes, cats, trains and shouts of children enjoying the summer accompanied by a gentle breeze was enthralling.

In the evening, impatient to shoot a sunset at a beach, I dragged my parents out asking an auto to take us to the closest beach.
We soon reached Colva, which was your typical tourist beach. Cafes, roadside shops selling beach dresses and water sports. A lot of people were parachute sailing, others using jet skis. Frolicking in the surf was fun. After which I settled onto the sand getting some spectacular snaps of the sunset.

Dinner was cold pizza, and cola at a small café by the sea.

Passport to Sam's heart

The channel, Travel and Living (now, TLC.) used to be one of my favorites. Samantha Brown, peppy, funny and full of life, took me almost all over the world. This poem, written when I was 10, is dedicated to her.

Oh Samantha, you stole our hearts

With passports to different places

You travelled to China, Latin America

And travelled straight into our  hearts

You hosted great hotels,

Went on a cruise

Had fun in Disney Land,didn’t you?

Oh Samantha you made us laugh

With all your funny comments

Oh Samantha, we wish we could

Find a passport to your heart

Oh wouldn’t it be great,

If we could say

We have the passport to Samantha’s heart!

Does this make sense to you?

What follows is a nonsense poem. Inspired by one friend who wanted me to write a love poem and another who thought I could add elements of the subjects we studied, this was the outcome.

O darling,

How much I miss thee

Without you I’m a butterfly without a flower

A song with no lyrics

A river with no water

Cola with no caffeine

A ZMR Karizma without fuel injection

Blood without plasma

Pressure without force

Mole without molecule

Network connection with no device

Algebra without variables

World War 2 without Hitler

Past tense with no past participle