There are some real life anecdotes which I know for a fact I will narrate to my kids and my grandchildren. The following is one such. The story of bravery and sheer stupidity. One that never fails to amuse the listener and the narrator.

Not so long ago, five girls and two boys decided to take a break from event management and take off to Goa for 3 days. A tight budgeted affair as it was, allowed us to experience Goa on the Rocks. Right from the second-class train journey to the long wait on the Pune railway station shivering, just waiting for it to strike 8, so that we could take the bus back to the hills.

Having reached Goa and found cheap accommodation on Anjuna beach, our battle was half won. It was now for us to take off on our real adventure. At this point I have to tell you that I and my other friends belong to the east coast. And the Arabian Sea is something completely new to us.

And so when we see a huge water body, all we think of is ‘sunrise’. So the brave girls that we are, two of us woke up around 4, and proceeded towards the beach for the sunrise which we did not want to miss. With gingerly steps, we walked through a narrow, dingy lane that led to the beach fearing for our dear lives. All said and done, this was Anjuna, the very same Scarlet Keeling-Anjuna. Anything could happen, and nobody would ever get to know to come save us. But in all our bravery, we also took some precautions, on the beach we sat in the shadow of a small hoarding and while we sat there we scanned the whole beach for any hint movement and were ready to run, in case of a threat to dear life.

We sat in perfect attention for a long time, before we became a part of the environment of the beach and we no longer felt any threat. Slowly the beach started buzzing with activity. Men who came to do yoga, a couple who came for their morning walk, a man who came to drain his shop of the water that inundated his shack. They were all engaged in their business while we waited for the sun to rise from beyond the blue-green waves.

And wait we did.

The day only got brighter and there was no sight of the sun. It was 6. 00 am by now. That’s when realisation struck me, this was the West coast! And there are only sunsets here, not sunrises. With the sun behind us, we made phone calls to share the story of our bravery and stupidity, that was when my friend's father told her 'keep it low'.

Keep it low?! This was a story that would live on, a story of two girls finding sunrise in Goa. A closely guarded and well kept secret is now in the public forum.

This is a long overdue post.

No matter what has transpired in the past, I have to accept that you may not be too bad.

With every festival comes a list of mandatory purchases, gifts to be given away and a wishlist that is more gratifying than the last year. But all of it is not that easy to basket, since every family has to work around constraints, some budgetary allocations under which the wants are prioritised. Every family waits for this celebration, praying for prosperity and hoping that the next festival is better than the pervious.

A.Shabiroun (60), a housewife defines Ramzan as a festival of giving. ‘All that I want to do is help students who can’t afford to fund their schooling and give the poor clothes on the occasion of Ramzan. If one has not donated on the occasion of Ramzan, the essence of the festival is lost,’ she says. While her husband Mr Abdullah says that this festival is like paying tax to the poor.

But even Shabiroun who believes in giving than celebrating says she can’t afford to give to her heart’s content. ‘My husband goes out to shop for wheat, rice to be given at the Mosque without me so that he can travel by bus and not auto,’ she says, regretting being a burden on her husband rather than a helping hand. A mother of three daughters and two sons, who are all settled now, Shabiroun does not make anything special for her Eid lunch, just idly with khurma.

‘It is only sacrifice and prayer that make a person humane and successful, I needed a cataract surgery on both my eyes recently, but just after the operation on my right eye was completed, my servant maid needed money to get her daughter married, I sacrificed the surgery on my left eye and gave the money to her,’ she says recounting her sacrifice.

Shabiroun only hopes that she can make Ramzan more memorable for others by helping them tide over their troubles, but for a tight budgeted condition like hers, it is at the cost of an eye.

I know that my blogpost title is the most abused headline, but it is so apt, I can't but abuse it again.
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To my dearest Mosquito Bat,

I love you swing you around like my Gadha (as in Gadha-Dhari-Bheem). You are the best thing that happened to me. I love to see mosquitoes writhe as life ebbs out of them. You have made me experience violence in the most useful manner. Mosquitoes were never meant to be. You, my weapon, are going to gain 'punya' by serving this mission to exterminate the most useless insect ever.

To you my mosquito bat, I owe my deep slumber.

love

S

I have been dormant for too long, and its never too good to not write. So I this is me returning to blogosphere.

I have always felt that it is important to be able to laugh at yourself and lighten situations with a pinch of humor. But now, it is becoming tough to laugh at the effects of metdown or share a joke about work with friends.

Ah well, now that it is over, I can say it was fun.
Now that I am legally unemployed, I can say I hate this.
Now I am the one up on a hill saying goodbyes to family and living alone in an empty room, I can say 'you don't understand what this feels like'.
Now that everybody is gone, I can say mess food just got better.
Now that my coffee shop friends have left, the Coffee man decided to shut shop.
Now that the hills of Lavale which was buzzing a week ago is empty, all I can hear is the echoing silence.
Now that the lights in most hostel rooms are shut, I can count the inhabitants of Lavale and we are jobless.
Now that we are the victims of recession, I want to vote for a good government.
Now I can't meet many people for a long time, I will watch them all on TV when I miss them.