“Home is the nicest word there is.” ― Laura Ingalls Wilder

I am often asked questions like 'which is your favourite place in the world?', or 'which is that one place you'll give anything to go to?' I have never been able to answer these questions, until finally I realised...
My happiest memories are of the times when I spent my summers at my grandma’s place in Sangli. She had a small house in my Grandfather’s backyard (her brother), around 300-400 sq.ft., it was divided into three parts - a bedroom, in between the hall and the kitchen.

Maa's was the prettiest house I've seen till date, she had a small kitchen garden in the backyard, and a big mango tree sheltering the front yard protectively. Her house was beautiful and cosy because it was filled with her love and care; and it always smelt of God, probably because she always had an incense stick burning. The house was so clean and tidy that you wouldn't even see one small crease on the bed or the newspaper even an inch out of its place. It was my home.

Maa always had stories to tell. She was a great writer, some of her work was even published, she wrote for the local newspapers, and magazines. I used to love sitting in the kitchen, and listening to her stories while nibbling on some home-made snacks. I enjoyed spending time with her, I have learnt so much form her.

She had a lot of interesting things like old pictures, jewellery, old radios and clocks that had stopped working, but were too valued to be thrown away, she loved collecting things. We were seldom given the liberty to go through her prized possessions, but the joy I felt when I was allowed to read her letters and see the pictures was hardly ever felt again.

It was those small moments when we used to walk down to the bakery to get fresh cookies for tea or grandma catching us when we used to sneak out in the afternoon to peep into the big well in the backyard that made holidays so much fun!

She was very fond of writing letters, and so every once in a while we would get letters form her asking how everyone was doing and what was going on with all of us. even today when i open those letters I have tears in my eyes, it makes me feel so special and so loved!

Isn’t life about treasuring these small moments, so that when we put them all together it becomes great?

We all want the same things in life. We all want to be loved and we all want to be cared for. And it’s those small moments that make us Happy, that make us feel Alive. So my favourite place in the world would be a place where I’ll feel loved like that. It would be a place like my grandmother’s, where I’ll be able to share those small moments with the peopleI love and care for.

Its a.....

Its like a summer drizzle bringing the smell of wet mud,
Its like warm sunshine on a Cold winter morning,
Like the joy of walking bare feet on dew drops,
Its like the soft blowing wind that brings the smell of sweet flowers,
Like the sound of gushing water hitting the soft pebbles,
Its like the Joy of being loved,
Its the most Beautiful feeling in the World,
Like the feeling of being one with Nature,
Its the feeling of being in the presence of a rainbow!

I Think I'd Like to Fight.

There are two things that I am absolutely scared of failure and…failure. I don’t know why or since when.

I think I’m probably scared of not able to make my dreams come true or that I’ll disappoint people who think I’m capable of doing something great in life.That’s because there is always a possibility that things will go wrong and no matter how hard you worked on building that big castle, the waves are going to bring it back to the ground. It’s depressing and very disturbing to know that in a flash of a second everything that we ever worked on can just go down the drain!

My point here is, what should we do, by ‘we’ I mean scared people like mee. Should we just sit at home scared of doing anything at all or should we go out there and build a castle strong enough that the water won’t be able to perish it?

I think if given a choice between standing in a corner and seeing someone do something great, or going out there, fighting my fears and making my dreams come true, I would always choose the latter, because that is what will make mee happy, to see myself work hard, to see my self achieve something, to see myself become the person I want to.

I think I would like to fight, fight every fear, fight every obstacle, fight every difficulty and fight every failure.

So in the end I’ll be happy with where I’ll be standing, because I would know that I worked hard and did everything to be there, at the top! =)

Crazzzy Lady and the Pigeon!!

It happens every time, and when I say every time I mean EVERY SINGLE time!!! Every time I decide that ‘Ok, today I’m going to sit and study’, I always get distracted! Sometimes its Movies, some times its TV sometimes a book, or of course Facebook!! And you know what distracted me today? A pigeon! A Bloody Pigeon!! I mean come on, these birds are really annoying, first of all they always come in to your house from somewhere or the other, usually it the terrace, which I can bare with, but it’s really annoying when it comes into My room and goes and sits on My cupboard while I’m Sitting in the room, I mean I’m Sitting RIGHT THERE and it STILL comes in!! I mean you think it wont have the guts to come inside when you are in the room and so you keep the window open, but Noooo it comes right inside and once it comes and sees mee freak out, then gets scared of mee and flutters all around the room till I scream my ass off and run out of the room and then it finally finds the window and struggles to get out, , there is so much of panic and running and urgency in this process that I actually am laughing and screaming at the same time because its so funny that both of us are scared of each other, poor little thing, that pigeon, I’m sure it hurts itself like crazy while trying to get out of my room as quickly as possible!

You think it’ll stop coming after this happens like 3-4 times but Nooo, it keeps coming again and again and AGAIN!!!! The worst part is I can’t really do anything about it, and sometimes I… Oooohhhhh…..Ooohhhh…its entered again….yikes…....aaaaaaaaaaa...

Life as I Know It

Aloha!!!!!

I thought and thought and thought and finally came to the conclusion that I might as well start with telling everyone about my life and about myself, about the things i love and like.And as for the things i dont like lets leave that for later...

I was in boarding school for 6 years of my life(and that is a loott), a fact that I'm immensely proud of because those were the best years of my life and also made mee the person I am today. These were not the easiest years of my life, but I have learnt and developed so much that I’m truly grateful to have lived in a boarding! I met some amazing people during these six years, made some life-long friends who I absolutely love and I also met some not so nice people, but I’m glad I met them because they helped mee realize the difference between good and bad, right and wrong. I had a blast in school, we (that will be my roomies and myself) did everything we thought we were incapable of and that includes both good and bad things. We broke rules, we did things we ware told not to do, for instance something like trying to break into the store room in the middle of the night, and surprisingly, with some difficulty though, we all got our way out of all the mess!

But I also did some things, good things, I thought I could have never done if it wasn't for my amazing teachers who were so tolerant and encouraging. I gave speeches, and compared the entire annual show, it was a wonder I didn't faint. Ooh did I mention, I also became the captain of Blue House,and was in the school choir,but i wonder why they took mee into the choir, i'm a horrible singer! And I loved playing Hockey,it was my favorite game!!There are such fond memories of school days! I miss school so much sometimes I just want to go back in time and never come back!

I started Reading, something I started rather late in life but once I started I haven't been able to stop, I absolutely love books, there is nothing else in this world that makes mee more happy! My mom is scared to take mee to a book store because she’s scared I’ll spend all her money there!

There are so many wonderful things a book can teach you, and it introduces you to this whole new world and it accepts you just the way you are, no strings attached!

When it comes to books there are certain things I believe in

One – You don't choose the book, the book chooses you. I feel that a book knows itself well and it also knows who its readers are, and it very beautifully draws its readers towards it, a book chooses its readers , has it ever happened to you that you went to the store thinking about a particular book and ended up buying something else, because there was ‘just something about the book that you couldn't let go of’? If yes, then theres the proof to what i'm saying!!

Two – There is always a deeper meaning to any book, there is something more to the book than its main subject, something that is hidden, something that you have to understand by reading in between the lines. Because I think writing is the most un-interruptive way to get your thoughts across, and when a writer does that it is bound to have many layers to it!

There is one thing I promise, your book will always love you, no matter what!