Bye Bye Blogger

I don't post here anymore. I now write on
http://anushapinto.com

One of My Best Days in a Long Time

May 20th, 2010 was indeed one of my best days for multiple reasons!

• I wore the shoes that I hand painted some time back. I have to paint shoes for 4 people now!
• Latesh from my work place lent me his skate board for an undefinite period of time :D
• Abdul from my work place will be getting me the book, Maximum City (high time I read it)
• I registered for a free weekend workshop on Graphic Design at The Art Loft (They say that the best things in life are for free!)
• I got talking to Ashley Ambirge on Twitter and she is awesome! I also downloaded a podcast of her interview and now secretly I call her my thought twin :P It is the 1st podcast I ever downloaded!
• Blindboys.org, the organisers of  Blowup Bombay : A Street Exhibition Of Photographs finally replied to my mail today.
• I had an epiphany while replying to a mail from Sam Carpenter who runs the blog workthesystem.com: I realised that a lot of things make me happy and get me all excited (like singing, dancing, making a brilliant pitch, painting and many more) But the one thing common in all of them is the ability to create something that leaves a WOW effect. From anything like an awesome table tennis serve/return to an irrefutable point put across to architecture to art to a rollercoaster ride. Witnessing a WOW effect is one thing... but creating it is another! I know this ambiguous, but this is what it is :)
•  My friend jonny, made me rethink if or not I want to go to Ladhak, Kasol and Srinagar with him and some of his friends. 
• Had too much fun playing table tennis with Basil against Naeem and Kaustubh. Saw Basil fall twice today, once while trying to steer the skateboard and then he slipped while playing TT. :P
• Had a quick 10 min chat with my dear friend Shaheen and she told me some of the sweetest things that made me very very verrry happy : )

All That I Am...

... or may be not. But definitely some of the things I am :)



This is me, I love flowers in my hair and big earrings!
I love music - listening, humming, singing, dancing, watching.
I am extremely outdoorsy and love hanging out in the sun unser the orange sky!
I love plants, so selfless, always growing and so symbolic of nature itself.
I am strong - phsically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally.
The Color RED! How it stands for multple things, even opposite and always extreme!

Emotions

I am an emotional being!! I live for emotion, I crave for emotion, I thrive on emotion!

My New Found Love - Onyx

I have been wanting to have a guitar of my own since a very long time. But somehow it never happened - I wanted to save up for a drum kit, I moved out of my parents' place, I have bills to pay blah...

Finally I made up my mind last week to buy a guitar on Sunday and said it out loud to my friends on the lunch table in office. Just then I heard an angel say, "Hey you can take my guitar, I haven't been using it for 2 years, it still kinda brand new and I want someone to do it justice"

I couldn't believe my ears. I love freebies (Who doesn't?) but this was not a cheap freebie; it was a gb&a sweet sounding, extremely light black beauty! I jumped for joy as I accepted the offer and within 24 hours the guitar was in my hands.

The angel is my friend Minal and the guitar is now baptized as "Onyx"



Black Onyx is believed to be one of the most powerful protection stones. Its way of doing this is to absorb and transform negative energy. Because of this quality people find it helpful in relieving stress and for emotional stability.

My Onyx certainly de-stresses me and all I can feel around my baby is positive energy :D

They say if you want something real bad, it'll happen. I guess the decision to finally BUY a guitar convinced the universe that I really wanted one, thanks to Minal's generosity. Yay!!

Picturesque

I have been trying my hand at photography (as a hobby) since the time I bought myself a point and shoot Canon A470 Camera. All the pics you see at the top and on the left hand side of my blog are pics that I have clicked. This time I have also given post processing a shot. Out of the two below one is original and the other worked upon. Would be really nice if you leave a comment and tell me which one you like and if I am any good

I saw this lone tree while I was while I was on a bike and I captured this image in motion. I was glad that I got it in a good frame. I don't like the grainy effect, but I have to make do with my point and shoot : )

Location: Enroute Usangaon, 22 Kms beyond Virar, Thane, Maharashtra
Time: Early morning, 6ish

TREE 1

TREE 2

A Wasted Generation - Part 2

It was around 10ish on Sunday evening, when a friend of a friend of mine, offered to drop me where my other friends were. The guy was a typical well-to-do-early-20-something-rich lad. On the way, we slightly brushed past a vehicle, and my friend screeched. From there we went on to the topic of how he would deal with his car damage if there ever was one. He mentioned that if would bang into another car he would claim insurance, since he was paying a good sum of 20K+ but hasn’t claimed anything. He proudly pointed out that his sister, more often than not, damages the car and that he is the one who has to get it repaired with out letting his father know about it; hence no insurance claimed.

As blunt as I am, I asked whether she drinks and drives. He responded that she doesn’t do that, but irrespective, she doesn’t give a damn and is simply a reckless driver. Slightly uncomfortable with his attitude I asked if she had ever run over anyone, being reckless as he claimed she was. He said “NO”. My feeling of relief lasted less than a Pico second when he promptly asserted, “Even if she did, big deal! We’d take care of it”

I couldn’t believe my ears and repeated like a parrot, “Take care of it??” I remember him not having an ounce of doubt in his statement. All I said was that it’s not cool, it is someone’s life that we're talking about. I did not go on and on about it because it would be a waste of my time. The conversation ended and my destination had arrived. I got off the car thinking how can people even think like this? That needs some level of conditioning.

I grew up (and still live) in a middle class society, where if you screwed up, you were punished for it. I genuinely had faith in my generation. I thought we would be the renaissance youth of the 2000s; we would be conscientious citizens, working for the betterment of the nation, people, nature and the world. My bubble had burst quite a long time ago, but this was a hard blow and mind you I am not a fragile soul.

I tried to put the conversation behind me and enjoyed an awesome Sunday evening with some new friends I made.

Monday I got text message stating that my one of my friends' sister had expired.

It was on Tuesday when I was informed that it was a case of HIT AND RUN.

(The conversation and the incident happened in two different states of India and are not correlated)

A Wasted Generation

I hate to see educated people of my generation waste electricity, water and paper. It's day light, switch off the damn tube light!!

I Had a Dream Last Night...

I had a dream last night, in which I fell in a muddy stream, almost like a gutter. I was holding on to rocks in an awkward position. I find a small size cowboy hat, a book that I wanted to read. Somehow I am happy that I have found those. Nobody comes to help me even though there are quite a few people at the banks of this disgusting stream. I am covered with thick layer of clothing and yelling "help". I then assume that the cloth almost covering my mouth is the reason why people can not hear me. I then balance myself to get out, and my socks, shoes are soaked. After I am out of the water, I see people leading their normal lives and even though some saw me there, nobody bothered. There was an equal mix of Indians and foreigners around. I walk into a Mall and want to buy something and then I realize that my bag is missing. (This is my company bag, a big black laptop backpack, with Directi written on it, no laptop though) I see one of my friends, who is now in Bangalore and ask for his assistance. He starts inquiring and looking around.
The clothes made me feel like I was in McleodGanj, the Stream felt like a mix of Mumbai gutters and the beautiful Bhagsu waterfall stream; and the malls+my Bangalore friend made it seem like I was in Bangalore.
All in all I was upset and lonely at times. I had to come out of the gutter situation myself and I still do not know if I ever found my bag again that had my wallet, with my IDs, CCs, License etc. I was searching and searching and then my eyes were open. It seemed like 7:30 AM, but to my horror, it was 10:47AM and I had a 11:00AM drumming class, that is half and hour away from my place. wwhhhaacccckkk.....I jumped out of the bed and rest is as usual, chaotic.

In McLeodGanj, Dharamshala!!

It is absolutely brilliant here and I have been maintaining a diary of sorts :) Lots of pictures to be taken. I have seen the biggest monkey and I hang out with a German-Argentinian girl, who calls herself the Monkey God :P
So far have seen the Dalai Lama Residence and gone up and down the streets. I can see triund from my guesthouse window and I eat meals at different places.
Yesterday I was a bit bored, but today I am getting a hang of things.
It took me 28hours by train and another 5 hours, with 3 changes of bus to get here. But you know what...It is soooo worth it!!
It is a bit commercial though. like a proper tourist place, but the people, weather and the neighbouring places make up for it.
That's it from me now.