Tucked in! :)

The best feeling in the world - being tucked in bed with a rajai early in the morning, not wanting to move at all - even to reach out to the AC remote to switch it off, listening to the rain outside.. The loud thunder, the gentle pitter patter of rain drops.. and the feeling that the weather outside is much better than it actually is, 'cos your room's cold :D Feels like heaven, doesn't it?

Just when you feel like you're in dream land, reality strikes - your alarm rings and you have to wake up and get ready for work. You'd rather go outside and get drenched in the rain!! It's high time the work from home option got introduced! Aah well. At least you had a beautiful start to the day! :)

Venmai..

In one of my previous posts, I had said that I would write about my Venmai experience.. I’m finally going to do it now, after two whole months! What I narrate now will definitely be in some way different from what I would have written in the midst of Venmai practice or just after it got over.. It’s been a while after BC and the excitement I had then is obviously not there anymore.. Anyway, I really don’t know where to begin.. coz planning for Venmai began last semester itself.. atleast for the ex-co.. Being the Hindustani Vocal Co-ordinator, one of the very first things was to find out from the members if they were interested in performing for BC and then to select a few from them, since the number of vocalists we could accommodate on stage was limited and even the Carnatic vocalists would be there. There are so many things to write, that if I wrote it all, it would take you ages to read.. and before that, ages for me to write it! So I’ll just list out some of my memories of Venmai.. It was a wonderful experience over-all, I learnt a lot and enjoyed myself as well; and I’m glad Venmai was a huge success :D

Some of my memories with the ex-co..
• The various meetings we had where we discussed all sorts of options for various things! And me trying to crack lame elephant jokes in the middle of them :P
• Gift shopping with a few members of the ex-co.. unforgettable experience..
• Replying to Kalpana, Anuja and LP’s mails with details about this and details about that.
• Selling tickets at canteens, temples, Kent Vale, etc.. giving out flyers, getting lectures on Gods of other religions in return.. :P
• Our rule that the person who came last for any ex-co meeting would buy everybody drinks. The rule that was never executed.
• The ex-co photoshoot.. where the girls took forever to get dressed..
• The chain of mails we had after Venmai was over.. where we congratulated and thanked each other.. brought out the good and bad points of Venmai.. this chain of mails was the best part coz we really pulled each other’s legs! Someone was called a fatherly guide and someone else was being hooked up with one of the female singers by us.. lol!
• The ex-co outing that we had after Venmai.. was supposed to be a dinner outing, but turned out to be a dinner cum late night movie outing!

Some memories about Venmai in general..
• Collecting and passing on food money to the respective people in PGP.. the biggest headache of all!!
• 4-5 hour long practices and the shifting of instruments before and after practices..
• Photocopying of notes for the performers..
• Messaging/Calling Thyagu Sir before every practice to remind him about it..
• Drinking hot water before Pibare in the initial few practices so that we could reach the high notes properly!
• Messaging/Calling/Missed calling(!) performers of my group when they didn’t turn up on time for practice.
• Managing CAs and practice sessions.. and studies in general..
• Having meal-plan food outside the practice theatre with other performers..
• Starting practice late almost everyday and cribbing about it..
• The bus rides back to PGP practice.. singing songs, cracking lame jokes and getting high on plain air!
• The times we ran to catch the last bus.. the times we stood on the pavement undecided whether to take the a1 or just wait for the a2.
• The times when we walked back to PGP or simply cabbed it or when Raj Sir dropped us in his car coz we missed the last bus!
• My joy when I heard that there would be no practice on my birthday! :P
• During the practice days, singing BC songs or humming BC tunes unintentionally at various times of the day! Just an indication of how much we had praticed!
• On the day of the performance, the excitement we felt on stage 15 mins before the concert began when we heard the voices of people who had come in.
• The empty feeling on 22nd March, and even the next few days.. the feeling that something really big was missing..

My birthdays in the past years..

All kids are excited abour their birthdays - your birthday is one day you can do whatever you want, and no one will stop you. You get lottttts of cute gifts from your friends, you are the centre of attraction, and you get to eat looooads of cake and chocolates. [And thanks to your friends, your clothes, face and hair get to taste cake too!]

Being excited about your birthday a few days before it is pretty normal. But in my case, believe it or not, my countdown would start almost 150 days in advance!!
!!!
Yes, it's true.. :D

Now that doesn't mean that I would actually count days to my birthday everyday, starting from 5 months in advance. It's just that I would start thinking about my birthday and my birthday party from October onwards! [My birthday falls in March.. and according to some weird people, in May! Those who don't know the story, ignore the last sentence! :P] Atleast once a fortnight I would remind my parents how many days were left to my birthday.

I was equally excited about my birthday parties and I would invite all my friends to it. We used to have the usual - games, cake cutting, birthday bumps, the khoyi bag and 'return gifts!' when I was small. [In case you don't know what the Khoyi Bag is, it is a nicely wrapped cardboard box filled with goodies and tied high up where the children can't reach it. The birthday girl/boy punctures a hole in the box, and all the goodies fall down. You should see how the children jump over each other to collect the maximum amount of goodies!]

I specifically rememeber the first of March many years ago, when I woke up, screamed "Yay! it's March!!" and hugged my mom!

When I grew older, I started planning my birthday parties.. In one, we had a game in which I showed all my friends a video of 'baby me' and then I had a quiz on it!! In another, we had a vegetable-jewellery competition and it was amazing to see the creativity with which my friends made their jewellery! In one, we had a beauty paegent sort of a thing - we had to walk the way models walk on a ramp, and we had prizes for 'Miss beautiful smile' , 'Miss beautiful hair', etc.. The best part was that my cousin brother Rishub won the prize for the best smile, but all the sashes I had made were titled 'Miss', and you should have seen him blush when I put the 'Miss beautiful smile' sash on him!! :D

When I was in the 11th standard, my friends gave me a surprise birthday party for my 16th birthday.. They had planned the whole thing with my mom days in advance, and I had a feeling something was up. At times I was sure that they were planning something, and sometimes my mom would say something that would indicate that there was nothing special being planned for my birthday! Not until the very day of my birthday did I get to know the truth! My friends got home before me, hid their slippers n stuff and did all they could to prevent me from knowing that they were there.. but they forgot one very important thing - my friend left her scooty outside my house!! But it was great fun all the same, and all of us had a wonderful time.
When I was in the 12th, my boards and going on in March and I had my biology exam on my birthday! And in my first year at NUS, my friends surprised me and we had a cute little celebration in my cluster kitchen!!

Even now I am very excited about my birthdays, but obviously not the kind of excitement when I was a kid. And before you start thinking stuff, no, that's not the reason why I'm blogging about my birthday in december itself :P

National Day!

I just read and commented on Macho girl and Clueless's posts on our national day outing. They've written about our entire experience, complete with pictures and stuff. So I thought, why should I write about the same thing again? So I'm just writing here what I had commented on their posts!

We sure did have an awesome time.. right from showing off to our friends that we were all dressed in red and white [being the patriotic people that we are :P]; to enjoying the food, fireworks, stupid couplets and lame jokes [With CS around, you are bound to have those!], piranhas swimming in the water :P,the beautiful moon, the endless list of places we had to visit in Singapore - including the revolving restaurant,our hunt for handsome hunks :P,imitations of bikes racing with my grunt,lol, wondering how a mermaid actually pees,lol, taking some amazing pictures,and loads of other amazing memories.. :)
We rock! :D :D

Summer Vacations :)

Three longgg months.. with nothing much to do.. that was my summer this year! And I guess it was pretty much the same with most of us.. I just felt like writing about all that I did these vacations, now that I have only one day of it to go.. :(

My vacation started off in Delhi.. My first cousin was getting married.I had a nice time at the wedding, and met most of my relatives there. I spent just a couple of days in Delhi, after which my parents and me went to Vaishnodevi. We took a train to Jammu,then a taxi to Katra and finally went up the mountain on horseback! [We were too lazy to walk up! And even if we did, it would have taken us ages to cover a 14 km trek! :P] After this, we had a relaxing 2 day stay at Patnitop.. which is just a small hill station with a few gardens.We then went back to Jammu and took a train from there to Delhi. At the Jammu station, some cop told my mom that there was a bomb scare at the station.. [Well, we all know about J & K's terrorist attacks and stuff..] Only I know how scared I was!!!Thankfully, it was a hoax, and nothing happened! :)

I got back to Chennai in the second week of May, and initially I was absolutely clueless about how I would spend the rest of the vacation.. but I managed to do quite a lot of things, and so I had a fun time altogether.

Just a week after I got to Chennai,I started driving classes. That kept me busy as I would parctise after my class also. Soon after I started my driving classes, I met Sachin! That was a truly wonderful experience..After this I started blogging, because so many people asked me about my Sachin experience, that I decided to write about it, and told them to read it! Apart from this, I also started orkutting and in a few days I realised that orkut was very addictive indeed!!

In the last week of May, my dad's sister [whose daughter got married in May] came over to Chennai for a couple of weeks and I had a great time taking her around.

I watched loads of movies these holidays.. newly released ones as well as older ones I had missed out on. I also read a few books, and these two things kept me busy when I had nothing else to do!

I went to my dad's office for a week, and he taught me a bit about accounts and stuff.. But I only went for a week, and only for half a day each day, so I don't know how much I remember now!! [:P]

I met my close school friends a lot of times, and we re-lived our school days..none of us have changed beyond a teeny-weeny bit, if at all. Since I was very jobless, my friends asked me to organise a re-union of our batch. So I started contacting people and managed to organise one in the last week of June.Not too many people turned up, since exams had just gotten over n stuff, but we had a nice time.

Just before the re-union at school, we got the good news that my second cousin in Bangalore got engaged! So I had a sudden and unexpected trip to bangalore, to attend the engagement. I enjoyed with all my cousins there.I stayed only for 3-4 days as I wanted to be back for the re-union.

After this I was waiting for my parents' wedding anniversary and my mom's birthday, which fall on consecutive days.. We went out for dinner for their anniversary, [during the day Macho girl, Prina and me had had a nice salt-container experience!] and for mom's birthday, my friends came over for lunch. We cut a cake in the evening with my cousins who live in Chennai.

The next day, I left for Calcutta.. I had intended to go to Cal from the beginning and it wasn't a sudden plan or anything. I have my nanibadi [Mom's parents and their family] in Cal.. I ate so much in Cal that everyday I felt I had an upset stomach!! But I didn't really care.. coz Cal is famous for its food.. and I knew I wouldn't get very appetising food in Singapore! I watched a few movies there also. I was there for around 8-9 days.

After I got back to Chennai, I was just busy meeting my friends once again, and doing a bit of last minute shopping.. And today, I can't believe how three months have just flown by. Initially, I really didn't know what I would do in the hols and thought I would be jobless most of the time, but with my parents, and my friends,I didn't realise how time flew!

I had a nice time, and a good break from Singapore! I did miss Singapore and my NUS friends at times, but we kept in touch through orkut, mails, messaging, calls and missed calls! [We would give each other missed calls whenever we missed each other, or generally to imply Hey! Hope u're good.. I'm fine too!! Lol!!]

I have a day of my holidays to go.. and I'm going to spend it packing!! Now I can't wait to get to Singapore.. but I know I will really miss home.. my parents.. but it's ok, coz december isn't far away! :)

I can drive!! Yipeeeeeee :D

One useful thing I've done these holidays is that I've learnt how to drive!! Just a week after I got back to Chennai, I enrolled myself in a driving school and got my LLR [Learner's Licence]. My dad told me to choose the 9 a.m. class so that I would wake up while it was morning during the holidays!! Lol.. otherwise, I'm sure I would have snored away till noon... or may be even later than that..! So I used to wake up with the help of alarm clocks everyday at around 8 30 and go for class.. A maruti 800 was what I learnt in.. It was good fun.. I can never forget the day of my first class.. I was so excited that I drove!! Even though I drove only on the first gear, or occasionally the second!! I was dancing and shouting around the entire house 'coz I drove for the first time!!!

The classes continued for almost a month.. because I used to have classes only 5 days a week.. so 20 classes in all.. But I was obviously practising at home also.. I started taking my car on the main roads and crowded places as well. But I never took the care alone.. either the driver or dad or mom used to sit next to me.

It used to be really very funny when my driver would pull the hand break to avoid a collision, even though I would be 5 feet away! Precaution... Hmmmm... lol..

Soon I was pretty confident of my driving, and started taking my family around.. I would want to go out just because I would get a chance to drive!! My parents kept giving me tips.. though I must say that my mom used to get irriatated [and scared!] very qucikly!! But my dad was very patient with me.. and I owe most of what I've learnt to him..and of course, to my driving school as well..

One month later.. I took my driving test.. but it was a cake walk.. 'coz they hardly asked us to do anything at all!! I just drove around 100 metres! Lol.. Around 8 of us took the test in 10 mins, so what could one expect!! Haha.. So here I am, really excited and happy, that I finally can drive, and for a couple of days now, I've been taking the car alone...and..well,all I can say is... I am reallllllllly happy!!! :D Thank you God! And thanks to everyone else who has been part of my learning process!This post is for you! :D

Sachin !!!!

Sometimes luck reallllllly favours you… and this was one of those situations… this post is all about how I met Sachin Tendulkar when he came down to Chennai.

Already the opportunity to meet such celebrities comes very rarely, and now that I’m studying in Singapore, chances become even more remote… haha..

So when I came to know that Sachin’s in Chennai, I did not want to miss the opportunity.We were going out for dinner on Wednesday (17th May)…to a place close to Hotel Taj, where Sachin was staying.So I told mom that I wanted to try my luck at the hotel.So off we went - my mom, my cousin Radhika and me.We entered the lobby and went to the reception and asked about Sachin.But as expected, the receptionist said that he didn’t know whether Sachin was back or not.We asked him what time Sachin generally returned, to which we didn’t get any satisfactory reply either.I know the hotel people are told to do so for security reasons, but we didn’t look like any terrorists either!!!! Haha.. I don’t know about my mom and cousin, but I was feeling really stupid standing there asking the receptionist about Sachin. No other crazy fans like me seemed to be there. Hehe…

The receptionist however, told us that we could leave him a written message and he would have it delivered to Sachin’s room.I really didn’t feel like writing anything because I didn’t think they would even send it to him.But because we had taken the trouble to go all the way to Taj, I thought I might as well write the message, I didn’t lose anything!!

So I started writing… I said that I was a great fan of his… And that I study in Singapore… So it’s such a coincidence that he’s here in Chennai when I’ve come down too for my hols…And I requested him for a snap with me.I was wondering how he would reply to this message (If at all they sent it to him and he even read it!!!) So I left my name and cell number.

My dad was waiting for us at the club so my mom said let’s go.We asked the watchman though, whether Sachin had returned from practice.And he told us that he had come back forty minutes ago!!! We were all excited all over again… So mom went back to the receptionist… but he said that even if Sachin came back 40 mins ago, he might have gone out again.. So mom just made him send the message to Sachin’s room, which he surprisingly did. I had absolutely NIL hopes… I made up my mind to camp in MRF the next day…(!!!) and do whatever to get Sachin’s autograph…

We went to the club and started having our dinner. However faint my hopes were, I constantly kept looking at my cell…Hoping against hope that a miracle would happen.. Haha..But it seemed very stupid to expect Sachin to even pay any attention to my message, leave alone responding to it!!! He must be getting loads of fan mail.. My dad kept saying that it isn’t possible to go to a hotel and expect to get a famous personality’s autograph… But what kept coming to my mind was that once when the Indian cricket team was saying in the same hotel Taj, my friend Sinduri went with her family and got the entire team’s autograph… I then happened to look up at the sky and I saw one single star up there… just one… So I told mom, dad and Radhika jokingly that that star was a ray of hope… and so something would definitely happen…hehe…

Almost half an hour had passed since we had left Sachin that message.. Then suddenly my phone rang… and it was an unknown number… local Chennai number… and my heart started beating faster… I still didn’t expect it to be him or someone from the hotel, but I still felt..."What if??"

I answered the call and the voice on the other side asked me if I was Arushi. And the next thing he said was “This is Sachin here. You wanted a picture with me right?” I was like ooooooooooh myyyyyy gooooooodddd… I simply couldn’t believe my ears… was it really him? I started jumping with surprise and joy… and all the people around me were wondering what was wrong with me…but I didn’t care !! I was speaking to the master-blaster on my phone!! And he had called me up!! Something truly unbelievable!!! He then went on to say that I could meet him the next morning at 9 a.m., at the lower lobby, Taj, next to the gym. I said “Thank you soooooooooooo much” and then continued jumping around. I’m sure the others must have found an 18 year old jumping around very funny… but I couldn’t help it!!!

Radhika and me just kept saying one thing… “He acccccccccccccccctually called!!!!” I was so excited that I called up my friend Rishabh (my senior at NUS – another of Sachin’s greatest fans) and told him about it. He couldn’t believe my luck!! I told him he could join as well, and he was more than happy. The next thing was to call up Radhika’s younger brother Rishab ( Ooops, same name… haha…well, one difference though – This Rishab doesn’t have an “h” in the end!!) and tell him the good news. He was shocked… and I heard later that he was jumping around the whole house too!!

All of us were only discussing one thing that night… That Sachin was a very sweeeeeeeet and humble person. Truly great – as a cricketer as well as a person. And of course, Radhu and me kept adding our little line “He acccccccccccccccctually called!!!!” Haha… I thought I woudn’t be able to sleep that night… (But I did manage to sleep quite soundly.. hehe..).. I kept thinking about the fact that he actually called me back!! I thought of the various things I could have said to him over the phone…But you know, when you suddenly get a call and the person says, “Hi, this is Sachin”, how well can your brain actually function?? Haha..

Well, so we all got dressed next morning, got our autograph books and cameras ready and set off to Taj to meet the World’s greatest batsman!! RishabH said that his uncle would also be coming along. So the five of us reached Taj way ahead of time and went down to the lower lobby. RishabH had brought a bouquet for Sachin. While we were waiting near the gym, the hotel’s security staff came up to us and told us to wait at the Main lobby and not at the lower lobby. We tried telling him that Sachin himself had asked us to wait there, but he did not listen.So we went up the stairs and waited at the landing. We thought that if we went to the Main lobby, we would definitely miss Sachin. Then at around 9 o clock, we peeped down and saw Sachin standing right there!!! But by the time we went down, he had gone for breakfast. I started to wonder if we would even be able to meet him…We started cooking up filmy dialogues like “Sachin, tumne hamein dhoka diya hai”!!! Lol.. We then went outside the place where he was having breakfast, and his security guards told us that he would be going to the gym after breakfast. And so, once again we were asked to wait at the lower lobby (which faced the gym).Luckily for us, this time nobody told us to clear the place!! So we waited patiently for Sachin to finish his breakfast... we were wondering how much he would actually eat, for he was going gymming after that!! After five mintues, the guards told us that he was coming!!! Oooooooh... As he was walking towards us, wearing a cool red coloured tee shirt and black shorts,carrying a big green plastic ball,all of us gaped with our mouths open, not believing our very eyes.. To say the truth, Sachin was looking really smart – much better than in photos!!

RishabH gave him the bouquet wishing him a speedy recovery, while the rest of us started clicking snaps.All of us wanted a snap with Sachin alone… So poor Sachin posed patiently till all of us finished. He then started signing autographs for us. He was very serious throughout.. and smiled only once for the photo. The only words that came out of my mouth were “Autograph please”!!! For the rest of the time, my mouth was wide open in awe… haha!!It all happened very quickly – we took snaps and autographs and then he took leave. He started walking towards the gym, and I continued watching him till he opened the door and disappeared!!!

It all happened very quickly… but these memories are going to last a lifetime…

The next thing I had to do was to tell all my friends and put up the pictures as my display picture on MSN, orkut, etc… Most of my friends didn’t believe me, especially that fact that Sachin “acccccccccccccccctually called” me up!! But when they heard the excitement in my voice, and saw the snaps, they finally believed me. Throughout the day I kept getting scraps on orkut asking me whether I had used Photoshop or done something fishy with the photo !! Lol…Well, even if I was in their place, I wouldn’t believe it!! And people kept asking me how I got his number… And I had to explain the same thing to each one… that I left my number… and he was the one who called!!!

Well, whether people believe it or not, the fact remains that Sachin did call me up… and we did meet him!!!! Yay!! Oh my god… dreams do come true!!!

The Little Master!