Emotional haircuts

Hello friends! Had a lazy weekend. Attended a Tyagaraja festival on Sat. morning. It was a rainy and cold day on Sat. morning.  The drive was long and tiring through the foggy weather. Watched the movie Kaipoche that night. Went for the last show. Believe it or not the theater was full! My friend and I had to sit in the front rows. All the 3 newcomers were really good. Tailor made for their part. Good movie. Parts of the movie reminded me of Lagaan and that is because this movie also had cricket as the backdrop. The movie was shot in Ahmedabad and had a certain flavor to it that was so real! Loved the picturization. The rawness of the characters worked very well in the movie. Apparently Chetan Bhagat, the author of the book "The three mistakes of my life" on which the movie was based, said that the movie was far better than his book. Now that is a welcome compliment, coming from the otherwise arrogant Mr. Bhagat! I spent , Sunday, for the most part, doing house chores, while listening to some old Hindi songs. I came across this melodious song from the movie Bahu Begum. Enjoy! Your drive will definitely be more enjoyable.

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Today, I went to get my hair layered. I came home and the good Hindu that I am, had a shampoo bath immediately. I was expecting something very spectacular, when I dried it. I thought I will look so different. Nothing like that happened. I looked the same old me, only with layered hair and $50.00 poorer. Really?  I had told some my friends that I was going to get a haircut today. I am now wondering what their reaction is going to be. Just to console myself and expecting that Shekar will say something nice, I showed the new hairstyle to him, and his reaction was, you look the same! That did it for me. I got so emotional, I started crying. It took me for ever to recover. What was so disturbing is that, this was not the first time that this had happened to me. I go through this every single time, I decide to have a haircut. I buy every single product that the hair dresser recommends, hoping that I will have gorgeous, frizz free, shiny hair, only to find out that my hair is so dry after every wash. I have come to the conclusion that, one has to be born with gorgeous hair. Lucky are those few people. The rest of them who sport silky hair in magazines and movies must be wearing wigs. I am still unhappy, but I will go to bed thinking that, the hair is growing to grow back slowly, very slowly in my case. I googled a cartoon for you. Shub Ratri.

 

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!