Confessions of a Shopaholic :)

First of all...i am SO glad i did not watch the movie...!! reading makes it a lot more fun and i will tell you why here.... :)

When Isla Fisher appears as Rebecca Bloomwood on the screen with such sweet face..people tend to look at her and her facial expressions and everything else on the screen ...whereas when you read something like in the paragraph below..

" I'm wearing my smartest black suit, and tights and high heels , with an FT(magazine) under my arm, obviously. And i am carrying the briefcase with the combination lock, which my mum gave me one Christmas and which ive never used. This is partly because its really heavy and bumpy - and partly because ive forgotten the combination ."

then...you will see the real Rebecca Bloomwood and connect with her instantly.

Heres more ...

"So as i get ready to go, i feel quite bouncy and positive. I put on my new gray cardigan over a short black shirt, and my new Hobbs Boots - dark gray suede - and i have to say , i look bloody good in them. God i love new clothes. If everyone could just wear new clothes every day, i reckon depression wouldnt exist anymore."

" I give my lashes another layer of mascara, spray myself in Coco Chanel. I am wearing all black - but expensive black. The kind of deep, soft black you fall into. A simple sleeveless dress from Whistles , the highest of Jimmy Choos, a pair of stunning uncut amethyst earrings. And please dont ask how much it costs, because its irrelevant.This is investment shopping. The biggest investment of my life."


So...how could the screen explain such details...i guess it doesnt..its so fun to read the details yourself...and imagine the person wearing it...while on screen you might have missed most of what Isla was wearing...coz we are busy looking at her and listening to the dialogs.

And of course the book is simply hilarious and reading gives you time to laugh...share and continue reading without missing any moment of the story...something which we dont get to do while watching a movie...ohh come on...how many of us would bother watching the whole CD again or go the cinema the 2nd time just to catch a funny moment ?? But a book gives you the privilege of going over and over your favourite part and enjoy it again and again !

These are some of the reasons why most ( or maybe all) books are better than the movies... anything that gives you time and space to enjoy lasts longer in your memory and leaves a bigger impact in your life. But a movie just goes ...Whooosh ..leaving you no time to think or ponder over it...

Just like books...life itself has to be taken slowly at its own space...stop WHoooshing around :):) ..yeah ...go slow...enjoy every moment...indulge in anything you love...feel it and you will love life as much as i love books ! :):)

And going slow does not mean waking up late to work...or not finishing your assignments in time ....its about how we feel within...be calm ...Just take a min to Look at the flowers bloomed along the highway...feel the morning breeze as you are walking from your car to the office building...pay attention to how delicious your breakfast or lunch is...remember to say hi to your cleaner and ask how shes doing...admire the full moon ....listen to rain drops wherever you are , play in the rain if you can...be childish sometimes...like getting excited about having an ice cream while its raining...play a simple snake and ladder board game with your kids and remember to laugh when you get gobbled up by the snakes and celebrate when you get a ladder ....cheer someone else up .....run and chase around with your children..and get yourself dirtier than your kids by the end of it ! believe me they will be amused ! take your parents somewhere they have never been....climb a tree ! ( I still do..just in case you are wandering ! :) you dont believe me ? that gives me an inspiration for my next post ! :) Will share my experiences with my best tree friends :):)

so anyway...yeah i can go on and on....when you set your mind to such calm mode...you will find life going slow and steady...despite the fast moving life style ..try it !!! you will see what i mean !

Have a crazily beautiful day ! :)

2012 Believe it OR Not :) !

So, the much spoken about year 2012 is finally here...its pretty exciting to step into such an important era...and extremely interesting to learn the predictions of the Mayan civilization thousands of years ago....People then had seen so far ahead while we hardly plan anything that lasts beyond 5 years..Still all that we learn from the Mayans is only based on traces and ancient records which had been put through modern interpretations...so we hardly know the truth behind these predictions...or what EXACTLY the message was about. Only the Mayans would know that..! And interestingly the word Maya in tamil means something that is mysteriously unreal / illusion.


There is a whole WORLD of things which has not been discovered by human beings such as the mystery of nature...life...planets...and the universe on the whole. So what we DO know is hardly a fraction of what we dont. With so much unknown, its hard to interpret or conclude what these ancient message mean exactly...people then had such super natural powers which enabled them to build the greatest civilizations without the aid of any science and technology whereas people now are totally dependant on external factors like computers , robots , machines and so on that we have forgotten the powers we have within. So how could we possibly KNOW for sure what these messages mean when we have forgotten so much !??


TO some the "END" mayans are talking about here refers to the material and physical world which means the planet and the living creatures on it will be destroyed! While to some others it means "END" of an era...where everything evil/bad dies off and the world takes a brand NEW face !


And for those who believe that the world would literally "END" then i am sure they would make the most out of EVERY moment we have from JAN 1st 2012...and live life to the fullest and be happier than ever before for the last one year they have !


While those who believe its a beginning to a better world...they would rejoice at the thought of everlasting peace and harmony on earth and thank God for every moment to come...

So either way its going to be a JOYFUL year !!! isnt it ??

well as for me ...i would share the FB status I put up as a new year message to my friends and family...

" NEVER MIND WHAT THE MAYAN CALENDAR SAYS....I KNOW MY CALENDAR SAYS 2012 IS A BEGINNING TO EVERYTHING BRIGHTER THAN EVER , HAPPY NEW YEAR All "

Soothing Sight

My good friend Kym, once said " How come most people do not seem to think about why there are tonnes of meat for sale in the supermarkets but then we dont see any animal roaming around in our neighbourhood....where do these meat come from ? Where are the animals..?" Yes ...how come people dont see it ! All these animals are cramped up in a inhumanely horrific condition simply so that WE have more space to live !! For those of you who have had the guts to watch the videos of these animals being tortured , thank you.. for will know what i am talking about...and for those of you who simply avoided watching these videos so that you could sleep better i have just one question...is everything ok for as long we dont see it ?? Just ask yourselves.....and let your heart answer that..

Anyway...though there are so much of cruelty going on everywhere...off and on nature somehow inspires you to believe in humanity. I had one such experience recently while i was in India....and i will not explain further for i shall let the pictures speak for itself....so good to see nature in its right order at least in some corners of the world ...truly inspiring...

And of course i understand that it doesnt mean there are no commercial animal farms in India..still it was soothing to know at least some were in safe hands... these pictures were taken along the highway from Chennai to Thirupathi and also at Mahabalipuram, Tamil Nadu.

A little healing images :):)

THE ZAHIR

The Zahir ! Another awesome work by Paulo.....this time all about "OBSESSION"... Well i use to think obsession is only when people are after the obvious things like....money...property....fame and so on....but then this book made me realise that ALL of us are obsessed with something without realising it at all.....we have been clinging to those few things that we want most ( or at least we think we want most ) and have naturally shut the rest of the world behind...totally blinded !

And of and on theres something from the other side of the world poking through the curtain we have drawn around us causing tiny holes to appear through which we get to peek...but then we are afraid of what might be on the other side if we were to draw the curtain open...so we hussshhh ourselves and patch that hole up so we stay comfortable in our world of obsession....

Human beings are the most amazing creation of nature for we are capable of loving EVERY one of the zillions of things in the universe at one time....LOVE never runs out...eternally... but then given such awesome gift by nature...yet we downgrade our system to Loving ONLY a few things that we choose...wouldnt Nature be crying for all the effort it had put for something like 14 billion years into creating this magnificent system we live in ! ??

In this book...a renowned author's wife goes missing leaving no trace. The author has absolutely no idea why and begins the search for his wife....and in the process he learns the truth of his own life which leads him to a new understanding of the nature of love, the power of destiny and what it really means to follow your heart...

The word " ZAHIR", explained by the author

as an idea from the islamic tradition which means "Visible", "Present" or "Incapable of going unnoticed" It can refer to a person or an object which gradually takes over our every thought, until we are unable to think of anything else. This could be considered a state of holiness or a state of madness.

So...isnt it true that we find our plants grown faster when we were not looking every morning and evening to see if theres a new leaf on it..? We love the plant...water it ...fertilize it...trim it and add the soil whenever needed...but say we look at every 5 mins to check if its growing...wouldnt it drive us mad by even just a week ?? Now thats obsession..in my own words! Whereas if you....let it grow...and take its time and do all thats necessary ...while also loving everything else around us....one day after a few months when we are watering it...we will be sweetly surprised to see a lovely bloom and we might go " HEy....i just planted it...and it has bloomed !!" so fast ! hahaha...yeah but it wasnt exactly "SO FAST" on the contrary it took all its time while we let it ....so i believe it applies to everything else we do .... just spread our love to everything....and we will get to be surprised every now and then.... but if we stay obsessed over just one plant ...then we most likely would miss every other bloom around us....including the one we are obsessed about !

And here i wish to share some phrases from the book which i really like :

" Welcome to the place where we always say that the sky is blue even when it is grey because we know that the colour is still there above the clouds"

"The world we know today is merely a story someone has told us, but it is not the true story. The other story includes special gifts and powers and the ability to go beyond what we know"

" I dont regret the difficulties i have experienced; i think they have helped me to become the person i am today. I feel the way a warrior must feel after years of training: he doesnt remember the details of everything he learned, but he knows how to strike when the time is right"

"When they passed through cities, the nomads would think: The poor people who live here, for them everything is always the same. The people in the cities probably looked at the nomads and thought : Poor things , they have nowhere to live. The nomads had no past, only the present and that why they were always happy."

" In order to live fully , it is necessary to be in constant movement; only then can each day be different from the last"

Happy Reading :)

Sparks of Love :)

People say Deepavali is about LIGHT ....or that it signifies the triumph of Good over Evil....and that Lord Krishna beheaded the demon narakasura..... and these stories go on and on.....but why complicate something so simple.... its all about love and peace at heart....

My Deepavali is....

that ONE simple breakfast at home...with family with the same old "thosai" , "Idly" gravy and chutneys... which tastes extra delicious on that day simply because everyone sitting around at the table...had taken time to reschedule all their work or business....and had been running around like mad to prepare the cookies .... or had saved money for a few months to get gifts for their loved ones.... or had travelled thousands of miles just to be there....or had driven all night after work as leave wasnt approved by their company....or had worked over time and weekends just to get the extra days off .... and this time one of my cousin had eye infection so bad that she looked like she had been punched in the eye in a boxing match !! and yet with a tissue in her hand and sunglass , she wears her new saree and comes over to enjoy the breakfast without any complain...all for a plain thosai and some gravy ?

Later we see our fathers and grown up brothers and sisters enjoying the firecrackers more than the kids themselves !!... we tire ourselves by going from one uncles house to another.... all in a day or the next....

So does it matter if it was the day Lord Krishna defeated Narakasura..... ?

Its all about love.... to have that ONE meal together no matter what.... !! Funny part is...every year we discuss to make the event different but end up doing EXACTLY the same thing.... and still ENJOY it to the maximum though it was the first time :) and thats the beauty of DEEPAVALI :):)

So for those of you who had been doing the same thing year after year ....KEEP GOING !

Hope you had a great celebration too :):)

Mixed Books with Mushroom :)

Now there are 4 of us in love with Paulo Coelho's work....so we decided to create a book club to exchange and also discuss books. And yesterday we had our first meeting at The Loaf in Empire Subang...and it turned out to be pretty interesting ...we wish to continue this journey with Paulo and also take it further with other authors and books.

The thing about some books is that...we understand it even better when we explain it to another person than we did when we read it...thus it gives a new perspective to our readings....and of course it also helps to remember the story better when we discuss it.

You will also be surprised at how some story mean totally different things to different people...

As for Paulo Coelho books....they are mostly categorized as "FICTION" but when you read it you will realise it isnt totally. The content maybe fiction but the essence of it is not. How could anything about "LIFE" be fiction? Our thoughts....feelings...emotions ....instincts...and dreams maybe abstract but we still FEEL it dont we....just like the wind...we dont have to see it in order to believe its real....we simply KNOW it is !

So its about how you "SEE" the book. If you just sit by the banks and look at the surface of the lake listening to someone explain that there is life beneath then it is fiction but if you take a plunge ....you will SEE whats beneath....and how "REAL" it is!

So for those of us who had been sitting on the banks and refusing to see whats beneath....these books definitely drag you to it and throw you into the lake of life ! So much to discover....!

Anyway...it was my first time at The Loaf.....and had no idea what would be the best to order..but since i am a vegetarian ...choices are always limited, so its easy....i decided to try the Mixed Mushroom tartine.....and it turned out to be pretty yummy ! loved it...!

As the for the books ...i exchanged " The Alchemist" for my friend's " Like the flowing river" and i cant wait to begin the journey with Paulo again...this time by the river....and not through the dessert to Egypt as in "The Alchemist".....hope to discover more and share it here with you :)

If you are walking with me....i See u somewhere by the river banks....soon :) !

Do you speak wind ?

Crash: What's that noise?

Buck: It's the wind. It's speaking to us.
Eddie: What's it saying?
Buck: I dont know. I dont speak wind.

This is my favourite quote from the movie ICE AGE ( 2009). Made me laugh so much when Buck says ....I dont know. I dont speak wind. Well why i thought of it now is because last weekend i went to watch INDIA BEAT 6 at the Merdeka hall of PWTC in KL. Have only watched it on tv all these years...and this is the first time i got to watch it live. And...we met some friends at the entrance of the hall who were worried they might be bored of the first half which is instrumental performance. Nantha and i thought the same and were more interested to watch the bharathanatyam dance performance which comes a little later.

The concert featured the very best international carnatic artist such as :

Padma Shri Shobana Chandrakumar – Bharathanatyam

Padma Shri U. Shrinivas on the mandolin

Padma Shri Kadri Gopalnath – Saxaphone

Kanyakumari – Violin

Shashank – Flute

Sikkil Gurucharan – Vocal

Anil Srinivasan – Piano

Prasanna – Guitar

Bakthavathsalam – Mridangam

Radhakrishnan – Ghatam

U. Rajesh – Mandolin

Akkarai – Violin

Vijay Ghate – Tabla

Rajashekar - Morsing

So we went into the hall and managed to get a perfect spot to be seated....then, walked in the musicians with their respective instruments . They looked so ordinary until they started playing.....the main instrument was Saxaphone accompanied by violin , mrithangam and Ghatam.

It was our FIRST time hearing Saxophone in a live performance especially in indian carnatic music and Padmashree Dr Kadri Gopalnath was just AWESOME ! Nantha and i were totally lost in the music which carried our souls into joyous realms and i closed my eyes to let it carry me further.

That is when i realised that we dont need to have learnt music to be able to flow with it. When good musicians play....they definitely get to your soul no matter what kind of knowledge you have about the instrument. I have not even touched a saxophone in my life, let alone play one....and yet...the music conveyed such intense feelings that you and only you could understand for yourself. You cant explain it....and i thought no wander they call him a genius. He took like 20 years to connect this western instrument to indian carnatic and gosh the outcome is divine !

Then of course the bharathanatyam performed by the ever gorgeous and graceful Padmashree Shobana....but i have to admit that i am not really a fan of her dance style. I dont know why, i cant seem to connect with her moves. But the thought of watching and even snapping pictures of someone who came from a family full of super gorgeous dancers like Padmini and Rahini is definitely exciting especially because she looks so much like Rahini . Well if you are a niece to such dance goddesses you cant help being a goddess yourself....thats what i see in this beautiful dancer.

But then again....though i LOVE Indian classical dance more than any other art form...on that day, the saxophonist spoke through the wind a little louder than the dance goddess did with her ankle bells !!

And overall it was a musical treat and i know watching it on tv will not do justice to that divine music that was rendered life ! Still...do catch it on tv when they show , believe me you dont have to speak wind to understand it.... just close your eyes and let yourself drift with the music...the rest will come naturally :)