Depression

I know depression comes in different forms but i never thought that it would struck me this way. It happened on last Friday when my 'other' life partner fell sick. All of a sudden i felt lonely, restless without him!! Its true that until and unless somebody leaves you, you wont know its importance!

I met my 'other' life partner for the first time when i was in 9th grade!! As i was very young and naive then, i didn't interact with it much, it was on and off relationship. I was deeply involved with my 'other' life partner when i went to Germany 3 years back. Without my hubby during mornings, with no friends my affair with my 'other' life partner started. He was the one due to whom i was able to be in contact with my parents, friends back in India everyday. He used to encourage me to explore my writing skills. He boosted me to make new friends. He was the one who used to provide my daily dose of entertainment. And on Friday he fell sick because of me as i went to some place and brought the virus along which affected him!! I had to let go that disease from him and for that i had to take the resort of my hubby. Well to tell you frankly, my hubby is very cool about this my 'other' life partner. After all its 21st century and he himself has his own 'other' life partner!!!!!!!!!! See, we both have perfect understanding, when i and my hubby are together, both our 'other' life partners are shut down. Anyway luckily as it was weekend yesterday, my husband sat down with my 'other' life partner and gave all the dose to remove virus. By evening virus was gone and my 'other' life partner was back to form encouraging me with my chatting, blogging and orkutting as ever. :D:D:D

Driving Jitters

Since last 1 month I have started driving our car to nearby places. I am a person who always used to prefer public transport than driving a private vehicle but after coming to US, driving on your own has become a necessity. Till the time, I didn’t knew driving, sitting on passenger seat, I always used to do running commentary like “hey its green..move!!”, “hey you missed that left turn”, “hey that could have been a short cut”, “go slow”, “ go fast”..but now when I am on driver’s seat, I could feel the pressure. My hubby always says when driving take driving as a full time job not part time. When it comes to my hubby, he also believes that woman generally are bad drivers when compared to men(who are sober) and for that he showed me many examples :( ..infact last year our terrible accident was due to a woman..for people who didn’t knew about that accident…heres a little flashback:-

I and my hubby were returning from a factory outlet mall. It was around 4:30 Pm at that. We were on the highway/freeway and were just 5miles to our city’s exit. My Hubby changed the lanes to the last lane as our exit was nearing. In front of us there was a SUV. We were driving with the speed of 55mph. There was 1 more exit before our city’s exit. The SUV in front of us gave right-light indicator and moved to exit lane(a lane which starts just before an exit). Just a few seconds later that SUV took a sudden left turn to the lane we were following on without any indicators (I guess she got confused with the wrong exit). There was a very little gap between that SUV and our car behind, though my hubby tried to push break, our car got collided with the SUV’s rear wheel. The impact was so hard that our car took a plunge to middle lane and turned upside down. We were dragged for about 100feet with us hanging upside down inside the car. By God’s grace and seat belts we came out totally unhurt. Though its been almost 1year since the accident but still the incident brings jitters to me. But the main point here is that, that SUV was driven by a woman at that time :(

Due to the accident, my hubby has become extra careful and never ever speeds beyond the limit. Psychologically, the accident affected both of us a lot. When I drive a car, if a car from sub-lanes, tries to join the lane I am driving, I get scared and I immediately try to bring the car to full stop rather than slowing down out of panic which is wrong!!! I really don’t know when I would be able to drive the car with full confidence but I hope one day I would be a good and smart driver.

Happy Birthday India!!

India as an Independent nation turns 61 today and I am glad that I am a `Made In India’ product!!! A country so unique throughout the world with its various cultures, languages, cuisines, religions, traditions, arts and the list goes on! A country which saw a rapid growth in last 10 years becoming one of the fastest growing economies in the world. A country which is still strong to its roots along with modernization. Today I want to highlight few of the modern developments happened and happening in India lately.

Expressways

Out of all new expressways coming up in India, I would like to share something about Delhi-Gurgaon expressway. The expressway completed on Jan 24 2008 has some special features such as

• It has a tollgate which is largest in Asia and third largest in the world, a total of 32 lane tollgate..phew!!
• 11 flyovers and overpasses
• CCTV surveillance till IGI airport
• 47 km of service roads for local and slow moving traffic.

This is only one of the examples of the new expressways developed in Indian. Others which are worth mentioning names are
Delhi-Noida expressway
Mumbai-Pune expressay
Ahmedabad- Baroda expressway

Temple

Akshardham temple, the newest Hindu temple in India, located in Delhi, has entered Guinness book of world records for becoming the World’s largest Hindu temple. The temple has been built on a 100 acre plot on the banks of Yamuna river. The temple boasts large landscaped gardens and a beautiful musical fountain which I am fortunate enough to experience in self and enjoyed it. The main monument, depicting ancient Indian "vastu shastra" and architecture, is a marvel in pink sandstone and white marble that is 141 feet high, 316 feet wide and 370 feet long with 234 ornate pillars, over 20,000 sculptures and statues of deities, eleven 72-foot-high huge domes (mandapams) and decorative arches. And like a necklace, a double-storied parikrama of red sandstone encircles the monuments with over 155 small domes and 1,160 pillars. The whole monument rises on the shoulders of 148 huge elephants with 11-feet tall panchdhatu statue of Swaminarayan presiding over the structure.

I.T buildings

Unlike in US, the I.T buildings in India are worth gaping at. One look at building of Infosys in Mysore and you would be wondering, if that’s a resort or a building where people do programming!!! Recently I came across the photo of I-Flex building in Bangalore and my-my it looks awesome. Next time I visit Bangalore, I ought to see this building with my own eyes!!

Airports

Almost all major cities of India are re-vamping the look of their airports. Out of all the new airports in India, look of Hyderabad airport has been appreciated the most nationally and internationally. It is being considered a world-class airport being one of the best in Asia. The airport which is still in different phases of construction, handles the capacity of 12 million passengers at a time as of now and will finally handle 40 million passengers upon its completion. Aero Bus shuttle service has been started to help people commute to the airport which in itself is luxurious treatment to passengers. This is the airport where the roof is mainly made of glass allowing natural light to penetrate thus becoming environmental friendly airport. It also has the tallest air traffic control in India as of now.

Bridges

When it comes to bridges in India, the most talked about bridge now is Bandra Worli Sealink bridge which almost under completion. The Bandra Worli Sea Link will be an 8-lane, cable-stayed bridge which will link Bandra and the western suburbs of Mumbai.

• An 8-lane bridge with 2 lanes dedicated for buses.
• Unique bridge design for the Link Bridge to emerge as a landmark structure in the city.
• Single tower supported 500 metre long cable-stayed bridge at Bandra Channel and twin tower supported 350 m cable-stayed bridge at Worli Channel for each carriageway.
• Modern toll plaza of 16 lanes with automated toll collection system.
• An intelligent bridge with state-of-art systems for traffic monitoring, surveillance, information and guidance, instrumentation, emergency support, etc.

Public Transportation

Latest and most modern public transportation now in India is Delhi Metro. Seeing the success of Delhi Metro other cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad have also started laying their plans for such transport system. E.Sreedharan the man associated with this project was declared "Indian of the Year for 2007" by CNN-IBN news channel for completing first phase of the project within budget, before time and with very fine execution. Each train consists of four coaches and can carry up to 240 seated and 400 standing passengers. The trains operate at intervals of every 3 to 5 minutes. Coaches on all trains are well ventilated and air-conditioned. All metro stations and trains are monitored constantly by many CCTVs, and specially trained Delhi Metro police are stationed at all stations and trains to deal with law and order issues in the system. The Delhi Metro is also one of the few metros in the world to have plainclothed metro-marshals on trains.

Automobiles

The newest amazing product from India in its Automobile Industry is Tata’s Nano famously known as 1Lakh rupees car. As the name suggests it is famous for it smaller, cheaper and lighter model. Newsweek identified the Nano as a part of a "new breed of 21st-century cars". With this car Tata has refined the manufacturing process, emphasized innovation and sought new design approaches from suppliers. Tata is expecting to roll out these cars by this year end.

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Other than these there are lot of other developments going on right now in India like the different shopping malls, which is changing the whole shopping experience in India, the community living apartments/villas, which is giving the whole different meaning of secured and luxurious living, amusement parks, film studios, etc., which is roaring India towards modernity. Ofcourse India would truly become modern when things like corruption, red-tapism vanishes away and attitude of people in general towards India as a country changes to a positive outlook. Till then wishing India, my country, a very Happy 61st Independence Day.

My Blog’s New look and My first ever Blog Award!

Bored with the old look of my blog, I thought of going to new look. Started searching for different blog templates and finally when I tried to change the old one, all the widgets and add-ons vanished to my dismay.!! Doing different experiments, I understood that I have removed the layout mode and thus cant add different page-elements which google/blogger provides and the worst part I cant revert back to old mode. The damage is done but however I hope my blog readers like the new look of my blog. I miss the different widgets and add-ons of my old look however. Anyway through all this mess of re-modelling my blog, I got this one sweet news from one of my friend Padma, who awarded me with “Brilliant Weblog Premio 2008”.



Thanks a lot Padma. Well regarding Padma, I know her through my community in orkut. She has an awesome blog of recipes and she maintains that very well. All you guys who are reading this ought to visit her blog once to see her some exquisite recipes. Now comes the difficult part, the passing on this award to 7 other people. Well there are few blogs which I love reading every time they get updates so I will not pass this to 7 people but few who genuinely deserve this.

Reema’s Opinions and Expressions.
Sreedevi’s
Satish’s Naa Autograph
Last but not the least Keerthi’s
(I wanted to award this to Sree too, but noticed she already got this)

If any one of the above reads this post please take up the award and pass it on to blogs you like.

Some Tidbits of the week gone By

Days are running so fast..already more than half of the year 2008 is gone..Summers are almost gone..Another month to go and we have to start putting on 2kgs of clothes to cover ourselves :((

Anyway coming to the week gone by
• Finally bought WII and my hubby is very very happy like a small kid. Only problem with the WII for us is, we are in 2nd floor of our building, and as WII involves lot of running and jumping on the floor, it makes sound in the floor below us. Till now we have not got any complaints so far and hope so it stays like that in future.
• Went to an Indian restaurant on my hubby’s birthday and to our disappointment service was very bad though the food was good. The waiter there forgot to bring our starters and in the end, he added the cost of starters on the bill!!! Ofcourse that got resolved but altogether a bad experience.
• My very good friend Jaya and her family came down to our house this weekend and we had a great time together. Went to Boston downtown and visited MIT/Harvard and Harvard union square. Did a small walk near Charles River. Next day went to White Horse Beach of Plymouth where we had some unfortunate incident with the cop but rest was fine. I and my hubby for the first time did Jet Skiing and I was pretty excited about that.
• I realized if I ever have a kid then he or she should be like Jaya’s son who is so well-mannered and cute. Generally baby boys are very naughty and make lot of fuss in others home but Jaya’s son is so matured to his age, sometimes more than his parents!! (Jaya if you read this please don’t hit me :D )
• Finally Abhinav Bindra made us/India proud for the Individual gold medal in shooting category for the first time in Indian Olympics history.

Olympics 2008 – The Opening Ceremony

Mind Boggling, Crazy, Finesse, Artistic, Flawless, Stupendous…are some of the words which are coming into my mind right now after watching the spectacular show of Olympics 2008 Opening ceremony. I was glued to television from start to end of the show. It was sheer entertainment and joy to see such flawless performances of thousands of thousands people with equal coordination. The biggest attraction of Beijing Olympics is its bird nest stadium which was built only with this Olympics in mind and it indeed provided the required grace to the whole show.

The show started with a huge foldable LCD panel which was laid down right in the middle of the stadium on and around which different events were performed.

Initially the illuminated Olympics rings brought the first impression how the rest of the show is going to be.

Then comes the return of triumph performance by Terracotta Soldiers. The sheer number of people who performed this event with equal coordination was awesome. The clothing, the makeup of each person performing was truly amazing.

Then comes the movable type printing performance. The whole time I was thinking that the whole performance is mechanical seeing the finesse by which those boxes were forming different shapes. But in the end, boxes were opened to reveal the people standing inside and I felt like giving standing ovation to that particular performance.

The next best part was where acrobats assembled together to form the birds nest stadium. Other than the number of acrobats involved in this performance what attracted to this show was the dress worn by acrobats which got illuminated by giving the dazzling affect to the show.

Then comes the next part which made the audience go crazy was a 16 tonne crystal globe which rose from the floor of the stadium on the sides of which people were hanging and walking and dancing and doing all other crazy stuff around the globe. On top of the globe were two world-renowned singers who sang a beautiful Chinese song.

Final breathtaking part was obviously the torch lighting part which was a big suspense for the audience. Finally when the time came audience stood mouth open to see the creativity. Mr Li Ning the famous athlete from China held the final torch who was lift in the air till the rim of the stadium and he was spun around the stadium along which he was running in space. While he was spun around the stadium, the screen on the top of stadium illuminated with images of different sports. When Mr Li made one round, a big cauldron came out of nowhere and he lit it with equal grimace.
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The only kicking part was when Indians walked down the stadium and on the T.V they were displaying the population of each country and the number of participants from that country. For India it showed 1.1 billion population and 57 participants a ratio which none other country had. :(((

Soul Mate

Long time back my Friend Keerthi, tagged me with this topic.

“The tag rules: Write about the changes that have happened in your life, at least five, because of your significant other. Then Tag five others.”

I waited till this day to post, cos today is my soul mate’s birthday. A soul mate who is closer to me than my own parents... A soul mate who pampers me as if I am some 5 year old kid… A soul mate who still loves me after 6 years of marriage as if we were just married yesterday.

I presented a birthday card for him today and the wordings were so apt for him and i just cant stop myself from sharing with you all..

“To the man I love, this is just a note to say thank you
For being my husband…
For being my partner..
My lover, my friend..
My yes, when everything else is no..
My calm when everything else is crazy..
This is just a note to say thank you
For being who you are..
For being the kind of guy who can laugh at himself..
A guy who works hard..
Who still finds time for the people in his life..
This is just a note to say Happy Birthday
And I love you…today..tomorrow..forever…”

After I got married to my soul mate, the first thing that got changed is, all my other friends took 2nd place in my life and he took 1st place for being my bestest friend with whom I can share anything..everything under the sun. I met my soul mate through internet in the year 2001. We fell in love without seeing each other physically. I was always skeptical if that would change after we meet face to face but with God’s grace that spark between us never changed even after these many years of staying together.

The second significant change after marrying my soul mate is I have become much calmer a person than before. Even if I get mad, he will make me calm and cool quickly, which none of my other family members were ever able to do!!

In some ways he has also spoilt me. I have started spending more than I used to before marriage and the reason is my soul mate never objects to my spending. I remember during last 2 months as I was sick and couldn’t go out for shopping, my soul mate took me to shopping last week and said, “its been 2 months since you have not shopped, so buy something for yourself today!!!” If I am working in kitchen for more than an hour, he will start getting worried and says “working hard for me!!” feeling sorry for me, though the whole day I am at home with not much physical work to do.

I was a person who had lot of inferiority complex. I always used to compare with others and used to wonder why I don’t have that quality or thing in me. My soul mate hates that kind of comparisons and those are the times when he lectures me. He always makes me believe I am a beautiful person in and out. He is the reason why I have started loving myself for who I am.

I started to have interest on cooking because of my soul mate, because he simply loves whatever I cook. Ofcourse its altogether different story whether I cook good or not. :))

Well those are the 5 major things that changed after I married my soul mate. I would like to pass this tag to Nirupama, Ramya, Amu, Deepthi and Kalpana