Bucket List: #Birthday

Since my birthday is coming up, I decided to make a list of all the experience  I would like to go through on my birthday once in my lifetime (which does not mean this time necessarily).

A surprise birthday party which is Actually a Surprise! Without any Orange cake or Pink curtains.

Singing "Happy Birthday" in another language, something like Spanish and NOT Hindi,with an acoustic Guitar.

A different location, not some a boring hotel or any closed space for that matter- open sky, meadow, beach, woods or any other wacky place!

Well-thought-of birthday cards with personalized messages.

Some crazy fun games to get through the day which are needless to say, not organized by me. :P

Scrumptious cute-shaped and cute-looking food which does belonging to different cuisines.

Specially customized play-list with great songs and tunes. 

Chance to meet Roger Federer  or Siddharth Malhotra. :P

Most importantly, great companions to get through the day!

Notes and a Good Friend

A little while back I had a different kind of experience with one of my good friends. It was different not in the sense that it was something out-of-the-world sort of but it was different in the sense that it was totally unexpected and it kinda moved the ground beneath my feet. The Friend whom i thought to be a real, good, genuine friend lied, lied and lied to me just so that i wouldn't get the notes to study and complete before our examinations begun. I could have never possibly thought of the idea myself, it's so umm... Cheap! It left me shaken for a while to even believe that what happened was true! I mean the last thing I would expect from a good friend rather Any Friend was surely not this.

So how does this thing work? I score better than you so you try and score more than me by hurting me and depriving me of crucial information sometime before the examination? I don't really think that is Success or even Competition in the right terms, it's Deceit. If you really want to beat me at anything the only way you can is by improving yourself. What about the friendship? All that was all fake too? When I trsut someone, I trust with no limitations or discrimination, but when they break it, I love myself enough to let go of people I don't need.

This incident set me thinking, how could anyone possibly be sure of who the real person behind the Garb of Goodness was? Was it like everyone lived in these garbs and so didn't take a long time figuring out how the garb-thing operates? Or was I too blind to see the evident signs that lay before me to which I did not pay attention? Well, I don't know.

The one thing I can say surely is that I'm definitely going to be more careful about my friends. We don't really get to choose our parents or relatives or even neighbors, but then there are friends whom you can choose and treasure for the rest of your life. Well yes, everyone errs but what makes it a mistake is the refusal to correct it. I do have some awesome friends who can light up the entire city with just their silly jokes (and they have 'never' been cheap). Old is gold, right? I'm not certain how I'm going to trust new people or maybe it's just better that I don't! Thanks  my ex-good friend!
After all people might take away the notes again. ;)

The Tremors

I had no intention of dedicating a post to this topic, I'm not much of a Geography-Geology enthusiast. But. what happened back yesterday deserves a post!

As all my class-mates already know, it's summer-vacation-time and we have our exams the very first day our educational institution re-opens. So yup, we are supposed to study this whole vacation for the tests! Not that I dislike the vacation study part, I personally take a lot of time to understand a single lesson, sometimes even four to five days (yes, that's abnormal I know) and am usually crammed for time to finish all my lessons. My speed, no wonder. So I'm really glad about the vacations. 
Yesterday I wasn't reading any lesson, I had decided to take a Two-Day-Long-Break to just, you know, rewind and refresh (ya, I know that's abnormal too :P ). So I was lying down on my bed wondering about the various ways our new Prime Minister-in-Waiting could change the country within the next sixty months, when my cell phone rang. It was my cousin and we soon began to babble about a melange of issues. After we finished all we could think of talking at that time, I handed over the cell to my sister who had just walked into the room.
I went out to the drawing room to catch up on IPL. Barely had I sat down on the sofa, when I felt the ground trembling. For a moment I felt I was imagining and feeling things that weren't even real.I told dad that I felt the ground shaking, expecting my statement to elicit a roar of laughter from everyone in the room, but thankfully it didn't. Dad said he felt it too. It suddenly struck me that it could be An Earthquake and within no time my mind flashed images of the moving tectonic plates, just like the ones i had drawn in my geography test back in eighth grade.

Without even a moment's thought I yelled "RUN!" and just as soon as I said it there was a second round of shake and this one was way more stronger. I bellowed out to my sister who was on the phone to run out and I dashed out of the house. Almost immediately my sister and parents followed. My neighbors too, rushed down the apartment,all in their night-suits (it was around 10 in the night, what do you expect?). Everyone began asking if everyone else was fine and related things. some of my neighbors who live on one of the higher floors said they saw their furniture moving. My mother was of the same opinion about our house.
After about 15 minutes of a desperate wait for nature's fury to stop all of us decided to go back in. As usual, I was the first one in. I entered my room to check if everything was alright, what hit was another sudden realization- I was shivering.
I don't know since when I had been shivering or for that matter 'why' I was shivering. I blame adrenaline now (fight-or-flight, remember?) . Soon everyone was home and we dined quietly and retired to our beds after having thanked god.

When I think of it now, I'm just so glad to have gone through this experience. It was such a different zone altogether. It makes me think how assured we are about our lives, of  how a slight tremor gets people rushing out of their homes. It makes me wonder about how guaranteed we take Nature and her laws, of how small and insignificant we, as humans, are compared to her.In all the chaos of the earthquake and the subsequent effects it had on people, one thing is crystal clear- The Earth does not belong to the Humans, Humans belong to the Earth.

How To Read Khaled Hosseini

Well isn't a set of hard and fast rules you need to follow in order to read Khaled Hosseini's books, this post might just help you read and understand him and his books better.

1. Khaled Hosseini books are ALWAYS an emotional roller-coaster:

 Be mentally prepared to face a lot of ups and downs in his books. There is a twist here, and then, a turn there. There are even dramatic revelations when you least expect them. Like in The Kite Runner the Truth about Hassan is so dramatic that it took me a while to put the story back together and join all the pieces together. There are moments of elation, even universal happiness if I may so, and within a few pages you might already start feeling sorry for that high you felt.

2.Try To Start Reading On a Weekend:


 This one might not apply for every reader, but it did for most of my friends. They started reading on a week day and they soon found themselves unable to work, play or concentrate on something else wholeheartedly. Their mind kept reeling back to the book, it's story, its characters and what would happen next. That is the Power of a Khaled Hosseini book, it's addictive and it has something for everyone. So try to begin reading when you have enough time to spare. It can be a weekend or a vacation or whenever you feel you'll be able to read the book at a stretch without neglecting your work or play.

3. Keep a Tissue Nearby:

  If you cry at the sad scenes in the movies or at despairing and sorrowful parts in books, it's better to keep a tissue handy. Khaled Hosseini's books are filled with Lilliputian details which might at times get the better of your emotions. and before you know it tears will be coursing down your cheeks. Also at times, the book will get you're adrenaline running, the tissue might help with the sweat too.

4.  Be Ready for Some Farsi and Urdu Words:


  Needless to mention there are word directly from Farsi and rarely even Urdu. they don't fill the entire text up, and it is not like you will not understand the book if you don't know their meaning. Mostly, Hosseini gives the meaning of the words in the context they are being said very soon after they've been used, sometimes it's the immediate next thing after the word. However, in order to get what I call The Feel of The Book, try to get the meanings of the words and find out under what circumstances they are usually used.

5. Let the Story Flow:


 Numerous themes are there in Hosseini books, all interwoven beautifully. Try your best not to abandon the book before it's over. The story might get slow at times but Do Not give up. Don't try to think of alternative tracks for the novel till you finish it, after all the writer put it all there after considerable thought. So, basically just let it Flow.