Back to the ghetto

It's not what you think...

The Ghetto is an alternative hangout where Mumbai's arty, theater types go to write profound thoughts on the walls.

Errr mainly meaning graffiti...

Beer is served by the pitcher and there is a pool table around to keep a whole bunch busy.

There are no private corners to get away from the loud, old rock music.

Precisely why I love the Ghetto

For some unknown reason I stopped being a regular at the Ghetto

But tonight I went back after ages

And I still enjoyed every moment

An uncrowded wednesday night

Some great conversation

And pitchers of beer

Its past midnight and I haven't turned into a pumpkin yet

Its time for bed

What do you think I am dreaming of?

I'm in a Paris state of mind

All day today I have been listening to French music and dreaming of sitting at a little cafe and sipping red wine while eating croissants...

I am in a Paris state of mind

Come with me...



















A bottle of white
A bottle of red
Perhaps a bottle of rose instead
I'll get a table near the street
In the old familiar place
You and I face to face

Hmmm

A bottle of red
A bottle of white
It all depends upon your appetite
I'll meet you anytime you want
In our Paris restaurant

Come and Go

This has been a weekend of come and go

But then thats all a part of life I know

Hey that rhymed - it was not intentional I promise

My friend from St Martin who came into town six weeks go left to go back yesterday












I walked her down the aisle less than two years ago

Last year when we met in New York, I wobbled her down the streets a full eight months pregnant

And this time I carried her seven month old son in my arms while she shopped

If I make it to St Martin in August who knows what she will have in store for me...

Other than that, Mr Friend took off to Europe for two weeks on saturday night

But good ol' blogger pal Harjee came into town over the weekend

So, to announce his arrival into the city there was dinner for five

Followed by a night of dancing and singing

Well the girls danced

I jived

Kicked my feet up in the air












And let myself have fun

And today Harjee left too

But my boss has given me a great gift this afternoon

Enough and more work to keep me busy till I leave for my vacation at the end of July







I wanna kick my feet up in the air again

Choices

We all make choices in our lives

Choices that sometimes impact just that tiny micro-second or sometimes impact the whole day or maybe even our whole lifetimes

We make these choices imagining that we ourselves know what is best for us and based on the premise that we know what we need and when and how we need it

But is that really so?

Have I made all the right choices in my life?

Would I be living in some parallel superior universe right now had I made made another choice and walked down the other path

I don't know

I really don't know

But its 6:45 pm on a saturday evening and all I have accomplished the whole day is the following
- Some random work that needed to happen on a saturday morning
- Finished watching 'Entourage' season 2 on DVD
- Went for my manicure, pedicure and hair
- Caught up with blog reading
and now here I am introspecting before I go out to watch football tonight
















What if I never went to Australia to complete my education
Would I ever have gotten a great job?

What if I never learnt how to be independent and live alone
Would I have become so pig headed or bowed down to a man?

What if I never worked to become financially independent
Would I have learnt the value of money?

What if I said yes and married that man so many years ago
Would I have been happy?

The list can go on forever

Life gives us options and we pick one

I wish sometimes I could see my life in the parallel universe and see what it could have been had I jumped onto the other side of the fence

But then this is getting a bit heavy for a saturday night blog

So if there was one time you would have chosen differently from your life what would that be? Tell me...

Six wierd things about me

Melody tagged me to write six wierd things about me

Now come on, would Noojes be wierd - seriously...

I am drawing a complete blank with this wierdness especially considering I have already done '100 things about me' and the 'A to Z about me'

So, what new thing can I say about myself that would fall in the wierd category?

Hmm...thinking thinking thinking

Ok I'll give it a shot

One - I don't like cutting my own nails
As far as possible I go for a professional manicure and pedicure unless a nail breaks and I just have to file it myself

Two - I see spirits from time to time
Don't freak out - I seriously do lol

Three - I put on an accent on the phone depending on who is calling
I have no idea why I do this - its a habit and comes natually

Four - I always put my right foot on the ground first
Wierd eh?

Five - I am obsessed with pictures and delete or tear pictures of me that I don't like
Very very critical of myself in pictures

and last but not least

Six - I always drink water after drinking coffee
and the water better be chilled with no ice

So there you have it - Six wierd things about me

Now each one of you have to comment one wierd thing about you to entertain me...

Go on...

The Orange Sky

Orange sky
Orange sky
I could not stop staring at the orange orange sky

Most people in this city would have or should have taken moments out of their busy schedules to stare at the orange sky yesterday

The orange sky that made me smile

It was as orange as an orange at certain parts with the clouds adding a hint of blue and white

Sometimes the universe just conspires to make you smile

You have to just wait and look for the signs

The child smiling on the street

The happy couple walking arm in arm

A lonesome red balloon in the sky

Pink and yellow umbrellas side by side

A child splashing in a rain puddle

But the orange sky had another way to make me smile

A long distance call just to say a few words

"AJ - You're beautiful"

Books, French Toast, Joey and Gelatos

It would be unfair to start this post without thanking all my wonderful friends in the universe - some who I have never met or seen - that have stood by me at this trying time of my life...

So Thank You...

I have been irregular with my blog of late and for that I apologise - but at times when I am down and out I deem it unfair to send out negative energy into the universe - hence my "uplift" post...

I also have not been too good with reading and commenting on everyones blogs lately but I promise to be back with a bang and catch up on my reading.

Talking of my reading, I got a new bookshelf for my room today - a huge bookshelf and I am amazed that its full with the books I already own - kinda makes me wonder where I had been storing all these books all this time...hmmm

I have been eating alot of comforting food lately No wait - I have been doing alot of the 'comforting things' in my life the last couple of days

Like - reading...singing to myself...alot of Harry Belafonte came to my mind...Day O Daaaayy O...Till I come and me want go home...Day...Me say day me say day me say daaayyy ohhhh....AND and and not sure if you remember this one...
There's a hole in the bucket dear Lisa dear Lisa there's a hole in the bucket dear Lisa a hole...

Ahh the joys of music

Other than that, I locked myself up on saturday and watched back to back episodes of 'Joey' on DVD - Only to leave the house for gelatos on saturday night...There was one scoop of 'After Eight' and one scoop of 'Tiramisu' only for ME :) Sometimes the simple things in life can make you happy

And then there you decide to push yourself a bit further and go to Nando's for Extra Hot Peri Peri Chicken - Mmmmm

And stop on the way home to buy stuff to make yourself feel better - Like face wash and moisturiser

And here I am now eating the one thing that always makes me feel good - French Toast

That to me is the ultimate in Comfort food - makes me feel like a child all over again...









Giggle giggle

Uplift

I found these images uplifting

The universe needs some serious positive energy and upliftment right now

Hope I contributed by uplifting your life a tiny bit today

Snatched

Life sometimes snatches more than its share from you

Like a 12 year old who dies from meningitis in todays day and age

When it gets too much for me to handle, my system reacts and then...














I'll be back

Hopelessly devoted to you

Guess mine is not the first heart broken,
my eyes are not the first to cry
I'm not the first to know,
there's just no gettin' over you

I'm hopelessly devoted to you

My speakers are cranking the sound out and I feel nothing.


There used to be a time that every love song would pull at my heart till it hurt

"How am I supposed to live without you?"

"You were meant for me"

"How can we be lovers if we can't be friends"

The playlist seems to be spitting them out by the dozen

But I sit here feeling nothing

Nada

I'm back to being comfortably numb in my life

Its a state of being that I've grown accustomed to

"I've grown accustomed to her face"

Maybe thats the secret to life

Don't have expectations - just grow accustomed to the state of being - and maybe the state of being is comfortably numb?

Imagine if the world had no happiness and no sadness and just perpetually lived in a state of comfortably numb

How terribly boring life would be

What do you think?

But something made me chuckle at work yesterday

I had this meeting with this guy that flew down to meet me

There was this formal presentation that he was making to me and my team

And at the end of the presentation he tool out his digitial camera and took a picture of me and my colleague...

And it had nothing to do with the presentation

Go figure...

A tight slap

What goes up must come down

Thats what I leant when I was a child

Who would have thought that its not only gravity that follows this universal rule in life

My life has been a movement of ups and downs for way too long now

up uP UP to a state of sheer delight where my cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing and then suddenly there is a splat

Actually more a THUD



A hard blow that brings me back to reality

I have been a bit disconnected at work for the last six weeks or so but after today, I can assure you I have got a tight slap back to reality

This has never happened to me before and I pray it never happens again

I never thought work would upset me THIS much

OUCH - that hurt

Pure is sin

OH MY GOD

Last nights dinner was pure sin and I ain't just saying it

'Pure' is the new restaurant at Taj Lands End in Mumbai and I am proud to have it in my city

'Pure' is barely two weeks old and has not been advertised yet

Pure is an experience

And what an experience it is

From the moment I walked in, I was whisked away into another world

A world of purity

Organic food put together brilliantly by Chef John from NYC

A fantastic bottle of cabernet from New Zealand added to the perfection of the evening

The lamb chops cooked with pomegranate is by far the most exquisite to have ever touched my palatte

The shrimp and scallops with sugarcane and the oysters came a close - a very close second

All in all between the two of us we ate 6 starters and 4 deserts

Oh don't even get me started on the deserts

The sorbet and the mango desert

OH MY GOD

So, I'm being a drama queen but trust me, 'Pure' will make anyone a drama queen

Go hungry for the rest of the week but Go eat at Pure

Trust me, its worth every penny and every moment

Its time and money well spent

But before I forget, I'm dying to go back and eat at their private dining room

Anyone wanna take me to dinner?

A message from a crow

I live in a very very peaceful neighbourhood.

Not many people in Mumbai can say the same.

I am terribly fortunate to be able to hear parrots at dawn and birds chirping at dusk.

But surprisingly I don't have too many crows creating a racket.

UNTIL, this weekend that is.

As a child there used to be this crow that used to wake me up at 7 am sharp on weekdays and never on the weekend.

It used to be a joke in the family that he knew I didn't have school on the weekends.

I haven't seen or heard the crow in years.

This weekend however was different.

The blessed crow insisted on waking me up all weekend.

Cawed and Cawed outside my window until i shoo'd it away.

But it kept coming back.

I finally gave up and allowed it to stay.

So caw caw caw all weekend is what I had to deal with.

I came to work this morning and went downstairs for my daily lunchtime stroll.

There are no trees around the building where I work and I was standing in the bright open sunshine with no trees or balconies overhead.

Yet, a crow shat on my right shoulder.









What do you think it means?

Do you?

Do you slyly look when you pass a mirror
Or do you stop and stare

Does it matter who’s next to you
When you plop down on a chair

Do you bite your toenails incessantly
Or do you chew your fingers to the bone

Does it matter what your feet smell like
Or do you spray them with cologne

Do you sing aloud in the shower
Or do you silently pray

Does it matter how much you eat
At an all paid buffet?

Friends are family

My friends are my family

No matter where in the world they are or I am I know that I will be there for them and they will be there for me

I hate it when things go wrong in the lives of those I love

I wish I could set things right when the universe conspires otherwise

But there isn't much you can always do

So my agenda can only be to pick them up, brush them off and tell them all will be okay

And I'm sure they will do the same

Lean on me,
when you're not strong
And I'll be your friend
I'll help you carry on
For it won't be long
'Til I'm gonna need
Somebody to lean on