Aakhir kab tak?

Namaskar friends. Today is such a gloomy day. My prayers to the families impacted by the twin blasts in Hyderabad. A sincere suggestion to the handlers of those terrorists is that you can achieve nothing through violence and by killing innocent people. Same happenings, same stories on news channels, same bhaga daudi, same statements from authorities nothing has changed. Everyone is busy in projecting self, no lessons from past, no new strategy. When is this madness going to stop? Lets keep a minute of silence for those innocent people. It was hard to see the gruesome images in the newspapers.
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Today, I am just going to post pictures of some beautiful flowers from my Mom's garden. Don't feel like writing anything else. Nature is so beautiful! I don't know the names of all the flowers. She has so many varieties. An excellent way of keeping oneself busy and happy is gardening. A great hobby to have. My parents spend a lot of time in their garden. My Mom says she even speaks to the plants and she feels they understand. Therapeutic to say the least!

 Hibiscus

 Jasmine

 Mogra

 Habbalige

 Pistia

 Mangana Bala (Monkey's Tail)

ShankaPushpa (Konch flower)

There are many more. I will post it some other day. It was not Rose season. Otherwise, my Mom has a gorgeous rose garden too! Shub ratri folks! Let peace prevail!

Kole Basava

Hi friends, Let me start with the Song of the day. I haven't watched filmfare awards yet. Did the movie Burfi deserve an award? In my opinion "No"! It was a dark story, narrated at a boring snail pace, with some over acting by Ranbir and PC. Nevertheless, I like the song below, from the movie. It's the liveliest part of the movie.

And the over rated Vidya Balan did not deserve to win for Kahaani. If walking with a fake stomach, wandering in the streets of Kolkata, looking for a dead husband is called acting, then I have my own doubts regarding the caliber of the deciding committee members. If anybody deserved an award, it was our very own Sallu Bhai. He was entertainment, entertainment, entertainment. Total paisa vasool! I did it again folks! When I was driving to work this morning, I overshot my destination and had to take a U turn to get back. There is so much road construction going on locally, it's hard to understand where the road starts and where it ends. I am not complaining, I am just saying this because, this is the third time it has happened to me in the past 2 weeks. Otherwise, had a fantastic weekend! We met with some friends on Sat. to celebrate a belated V-day. Had a good chat. On Sunday, we had a ladies night out. We went to watch this movie called Special 26. We picked this movie for the lack of anything better. So, I ahd no expectations. But it turned out to be a fantabulous movie. Superlative acting by Anupam Kher, Manoj Vajpai and in a  small role, my fav., Jimmy Shergil. I feel Jimmy is an under rated actor. I liked him as Zaheer in Munna Bhai MBBS too. A very good actor. We then had some yummy desi khana and came back home, with so many great ideas for more ladies night outs. It's always nice to be around like minded people.

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In India, people have novel ways of begging for money. Nothing wrong with that. I am thankful, that I was born in a middle calss family. By virtue of my birth, I am what I am today. I must have done something good in my past life. Anyway, the unlucky ones have to look for differents ways to make ends meet. On my visit to my parents house, a man came with his well adorned bull with his multi-coloured embellishments, in front of my Dad's house and started palying a wind instrument.

They are nomads who go from house to house blessing people in exchange for clothes or food.
The master demonstrates a trick. He asks questions to the kole basava and it nods it head to answer yes or no. Kole Basava has also become a synonym for a person who nods his head for everything in acceptance. hehe. See below for pictures. 

The jewlery  is striking isn't it? And look at the colors, so vibrant! Unfortunately, I could not video tape the event. For thsoe who are interested, just type "Kole Basava" on You Tube and you can watch some videos there. Shub Ratri folks!

HVD!

Whats up blog friends? Most of you must have thought HVD is the name of some kind of disease, like HIV. I wrote this on Facebook today and got people confused. All it means is Happy Valentine's day. Got you! Hope you all had an exciting Valentines day. I had a good day. Shekar surprised me with a pair of much needed running shoes. Don't we all love surprises? I was shocked to read about the blade runner. I am not a 100% convinced that he had a motive to kill. Must have been an accident. Let's wait and see. I will think twice before I go on a cruise again. Another sad story of the people on board of that ship that got burnt.

Joke of the day: "John who? I don't know that person" - Bipasha Basu. LOL!
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My perfect gift for V. day would have been a whole body massage. I was at the gorgeous Amsterdam airport sometime back and had a 4 hour! lay over. Beleive it or not the 4 hours flew by. This airport is a small world by itself. There is so much to do here. Apart from normal airport things like Restaurants, chocolates, bookstore etc., they had a theater, meditation room, Internet lounge (this was not free), Library,  and even a massage area. The seats in the Lounge were uniquely designed. Every seat had an inbuilt T.V. and the theater seats were like mini beds. I have never seen an open massage place with a full body pressure massage under water and get this! there was a fish tank in which you place  your feet and the fish eat the dead skin form your feet and give you, a pedicure. As grose as this sounds, its beneficial for both the fish and us. See pics. below.

 

 

 Branded purses and clothes. Whats new you say?

 Tulip Restaurant. So far so good. Right?

 Uniquely designed chair complete with a TV and head set. The TV is where the boy's head is resting.

 Contemporary sofa again with TV and headsets

 More unique sofas

 Comfy theater chair that is more like a mini bed. That's me resting during my 4 hour lay over.

 Theater

 Meditation room

 Surprise! Tulip shaped lamp in the Tulip house selling Tulips

 More Tulips. I love these flowers. Reminds me of my fav. movie Silsila.

 THE body massage machine

 I would be afraid to go inside that machine. But there was a brave man in there.

 The fish pedicure (btw, not my feet)

The bread shop that gets you all confused. So many varieties.

 



Same goes for the cheese shop. Say cheese!

Sanil made a funny remark today. He said" Mom, I don't want to go to bed. When I asked him why, he said because if I go to bed, then I have to wake up, and when I wake up, I have to go to school. LOL! I had to agree with him. I feel the same way sometimes. But I also know that we all need 8 hours of sleep. So sent him to bed and now, I am going too! So enjoy this romantic Song of the day from the movie Jurm. Shub Ratri.