Snowfall in Austin?? Yes, you heard me right!

As the snow came drizzling down, first light, then dark (oh no!! not really 'dark' 'dark', snow is white—Snow White of course!)..It's just that after 'light' I immediately thought of 'dark' and typed it out...er...whatever...let me start again!

As the snow came drizzling down, first light, then faster, then harder, as the snowflakes pelted into the ground, my mum came rushing into my room and exclaimed- "WAKE UP! It's snowing outside!" I muttered "Yeah, OK" and only shifted my head to avoid the light filing through the window above my head. "It can't be snowing in Austin, you see?" That's what I thought in my half-sleep state.."It must be a light rain-shower, icicles or sleet or god-knows-what! It can't be really snowing, in the true sense of the word because Merlin's beard! This is TEXAS and it bloody doesn't snow here!!" (OK, forgive the Merlin's beard part of it, I agree it was a bit overdramatic—it is the Harry Potter influence of course; those of you who have read him would know that..I am currently suffering from a fresh bout of Potter Mania as I told you in my earlier update)

Anyways, I muttered to myself about how the last time around the stupid weatherman had predicted snow in Austin, and said there would be about 3-4 inches of it..finally what happened? Hold your breath.....Hola! we got 3-4 centimeters (or wait, was it millimeters?) of snow and it wasn't exciting to say the least! So wisely indeed, I thought I should stay in bed for some more time and ignore the voices coming through from the other room, voices full of excitement and voices that were now exclaiming "Vihaan, see there—snow! snow! Snow is falling!"....grrrr...I din't care about the 'snowing' and decided it was best that I got on with my 'snoring' (OK, that last one here was a joke; but of course, I don't snore!!) ;)

When I had waited for ten minutes, or maybe fifteen, I couldn't take it anymore and felt around for my glasses...I said to myself, "I must see what this fuss is all about!" Sitting up in my bed I pulled the blinds apart a teeny-weeny bit to peek at the main street just outside my window... AND....

It was snowing, I mean really 'snowing,' I mean there were snow flakes that were clearly visible to the eye and I could see that almost half of the little green stretch just under my window was already covered under a white cloak, and the main street—the main street was also wet from the melting ice and the garden across—that was surely looking 'whitewashed' to say the least!!! Yes, my dears, it was surely snowing in Austin! Now wonders never cease, do they?

I jumped out of bed to find my family with their noses stuck to the window glass and joined them in admiring our first real snowfall together! Vihaan was surely excited, and he kept saying "raindrops, look raindrops" and we kept correcting him "snowflakes, see snowflakes!"

My mum and I put on our wintry clothing (read: a pair of socks, some gloves and something that has a hood to cover our heads) and amidst a scuffle, tried to get Vihaan to agreeably put on his three layers of jackets and tee shirts and slip on his gloves too! Oh, and did I mention my bhabhi had already returned home from work and decided to get us all going into the fun? She told me to get the camera while she asked Vihaan to 'please co-operate' (grrrr) and "Get Some Warm Clothes On!!" first before he could get his hands into the '(s)no'! Yes, Vihaan cannot pronounce any words that combine an 's' with anything—be it an 'm' or an 'n' or a 't' or an 'h'..So as far as my charming little lad is concerned, 'snow' is just 'no' and 'small' is just 'mall' and 'straw' is just 'raw'..I have been getting him to say 'small shoes' almost 5 times a day and he keeps repeating 'mall soos' after me...tsk tsk!

Nonetheless, with Vihaan already suffering from a terrible cold and slight fever raging within his tiny body, we had to keep our snow-game minimal and did not venture out much farther than the porch..It was still fun! After spending a few minutes getting used to the biting cold outside and the snowflakes that were dousing our hair and clothes, Vihaan could manage to keep his eyes open and we started creating snowballs..holding the freezing bits of ice in our gloved hands felt soo good! I was punching them hard to form round shaped spheres for Vihaan to throw around. And then, we got down to task—to create what is now going to go down in history as "Vihaan's First Snow Mountain"..Yeah buddies, that's all we could manage with those tiny hands at work! I could not stop smiling as I saw him enjoying himself so much in the snow, grinning at all of us as though he had found pure eternal bliss! That's what his pumpkin-shaped face showed...

I leave you with our pictures to tell the remaining story...Hope you enjoy as much as we did, looking at the '(s)no'!

And please click on each individual picture if they are not clearly visible; I am still struggling to get tech-savvy and manage this photo-business..grrrr!

And the Harry Potter Mania continues...

After a heavy dose of reading, courtesy: The Fountainhead, I have been feeding my Potter Mania over the course of last 4 days in my bid for a light and fun reading. And I got much more than I bargained for, what with re-reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and watching the Harry Potter movies series all over again! You bet it's been a thrilling journey, emotion-packed and above all—sheer fun! My range of emotions hasn't been narrow by any sense of measurement: excitement, feverishness, impatience, fidgeting, quivers, butterflies, apprehension, jitterbugs, goose-bumps, trepidation, 'awwww' and everything else! Above all, it has been an action-packed week so far and I am extremely content with my choice of 'time-pass.'

Amidst all this imagination-overdose, my grey cells obviously set into motion and I found myself thinking aloud—if I ever had to meet Harry what would be the first thing I would say to him? Would it be "Hey, I think you are such a great wizard" or "Aww, you are too cute" or "Hey Harry, you are the best!" or er...something something...I don't really know what would be the first words I'd utter if I came face-to-face with him! Stupid of me, I know..but couldn't help wondering about this last night, as I sat watching "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" for the umpteenth time.

So all you Potter fans who may be reading this, have you spared a thought to wonder what would your first words be to Harry, should you run into him anytime? Or do have any Harry Potter stories of your own to share with me? Anything you guys did, experienced, read, watched, felt, waited for, etc. etc. I want to know about them for sure! C'mon grab your Quick Quotes Quills or send me your Owls..I am surely waiting to hear!

 

Things I am Happy about Today

I was thinking today (yes, I can think)—why not pen down my little nothings each day from the day that was? I surely had many versatile experiences throughout today, but at the end of it all what I would like to really savour and document from these wide-ranging thoughts and actions are the happy sweet nothings. Aptly so, since this is a happinezz magazine and "Frowns and Long Faces are Not Allowed." (OK I borrowed and tweaked that a little to suit my purpose)

So here goes my first post in an upcoming series of

things i am happy about today...

• my brother is safe and sound. no seriously, did you hear of the Austin plane crash? it happened half a mile away from his office, while he was probably happily typing away at his computer

• discovery of a pack of a new cereal variety—apple jacks—it tastes yum! so what if I borrowed some of those from Vihaan’s stock? :P

• that 30 minutes ago i was animatedly planning a business venture with an old friend and feeling the feverish rush of childlike excitement pulse through me once again

•  goodreads—a dear friend suggested it and now i can actually take stock of my so-called literary pursuits

• in the dark, watching the glowing light from all the electronics in my room

• overindulgence in coffee and cinnamon biscuits—that’s my version of devil's food aka the midnight snack

• sambhar chawal for dinner—maa ke haath ka khana

So pick up your pens (rather grab your keyboards) and tell me what are you happy about today...

Vihaan—The Dawn of My Life!

...

...or wait, should it read as The ‘Don’ of My Life? On second thoughts (actually third thoughts, since I just had a second thought a millisecond before) it doesn’t quite make a difference. You see, he is the ‘dawn’ and the ‘don’ both rolled it one.

Wondering who exactly I am talking about?

(Drums rolling, curtains lifting, the bugle hooting aloud)

For those of you who don’t know, may I have the honor of presenting my little nephew Vihaan who is the only child of my brother Vivek and bhabhi Laxmi, and the quintessential ‘chiraag’ of our family! (Literally translated, in Hindi ‘chiraag’ means a ‘lamp’ and ‘Vihaan’ means ‘dawn’ so my analogy isn’t too bad considering we are mainly talking about some form of light here :P)

Adorable isn't he??? Oh yes, when he was a baby he had that much hair!!??!! Unfortunately, he doesn't look as cute as that now with all those lovely curly locks of hair gone; this one's an old picture but one of my favorites. These days he likes to be called a "biggg boy"—tell him "Vihaan is a baby" and he'll go "No, Vihaan is a biggg boy." And rightly so, for he's nearly two years old—oh yes, his second birthday is coming up in exactly a month’s time now (18th March). And true to the meaning of his name Vihaan he has heralded a new dawn, a new beginning in all our lives; of course I am speaking for his parents but in no lesser way also for my parents and me. He is my grandfather’s first great-grandson and my father’s only grandson! Obviously my mother’s too...hee haw...

At present, my immediate family is all together here at Austin, TX (gosh, how time flies..cannot believe it is almost time to pack my bags for India) and having a wholesome ‘family time.’ It is another story that all our ‘time’ revolves around this piece of live wire called Vihaan. Yes, I called him just that—live wire. If you didn’t know any better, he is akin to a 440 volt electric wire, so when you are around him you had better “Mind it” as our Mr. Quickgun Murugan famously says. And I am warning you enough, yeh jhatka zor se hi lagta hai (ha ha, not like the Mirinda “zor ka jhatka dheere se lagey”). Spend an hour with my innocent-faced boy here and you will not know what in this world hit you!!

Chomping on a mango! See those innocent eyes?

He is a spirited little toddler (that is, putting it very mildly) 3 feet tall, with his little head barely reaching my waistline. But trust me, sometimes he gives me the feeling that one of these days he will reach up to my shoulder. That’s because he is bouncing up high ALL the time and his springiness makes my head go in a spin. Now, please do NOT undermine that capitalized word ALL—I mean ALL the time and hence the emphasis. And if his jumping wasn’t already enough, his daddy dearest got him a little trampoline so that he can jump as much as he wants. The end result—nowadays you will never find him walking on his two little feet; in all this while I have been here I am yet to see the miracle of him ‘walking’ around the house. I hope you can visualize the picture that I am trying to paint, one of him jumping, prancing, hopping, running or skipping around us in joy and gaiety, typical of his childhood innocence. Watching him thus frolicking around reminds me of what my tauji (‘uncle’ in Hindi) used to say about me as a child—he would go “This girl can never walk demurely because it takes an effort for her to walk without dancing or hopping.” My heart swells with pride at every comparison that others draw between him and me and I cannot help feeling smug—out of nowhere I suddenly find myself sitting with a silly look on my face, smiling softly when I recollect tit-bits from my childhood and see Vihaan enacting my kiddies days to the T, complete with my eccentric childhood behaviors if I may admit so. But let’s not get into the details of these oddities that he and I share because if I begin to enlist our commonalities here, it will eat up this entire post (yes, you read me right—I do not want to talk of my eccentricities so much as I want to bring Vihaan to you). So let’s keep it to that—that Vihaan and I share a lot in common. Wait, let me correct that—that Vihaan and me as a child share a lot in common (I no longer behave as a 2-year-old!). You bet it tickles me pink to see him grow up into a fine little kiddo, just like his bua (that’s me alright, ‘aunt’ in Hindi)! Pompous and vain, ain’t I? But then wasn’t it R. L. Stevenson who said “Vanity dies hard; in some obstinate cases it outlives the man.” So I am vain and so be it.

(Jeez, was I just talking about myself againnn? Really, I don’t know how I land up talking of myself) Nonetheless coming back to Vihaan, my parents and I are often amused to see how his ‘battery’ never dies out because although he looks like a lanky little fellow, my bubbly baby boy has so much energy packed in him that we are zimbly exhausted by watching him! He is forever in the “action mode” and always so merrily hopping around, doing something or the other, singing some poem or the other, that it is pure joy to watch him (well, ‘joy’ only if you do not have to make him Eat, Sleep or Drink. If you are responsible for his meals and naps, believe me ‘joy’ easily turns into ‘terror’! If it is your job to make him do ANY such activity that requires him to Sit, Slow down and Cool off, trust me you have had it! That's where the 'Don' part of my introduction fits in—he is a pure-blood firebrand with a mind of his own and a tough cookie to crack). So whenever someone says “Oh, he is only a hyper-active kid,” I say “You are kidding me! That has got to be the understatement of this century!” If any of you reading this are also getting the impression that he is only a hyper-active kid let’s see if I can describe him any better for your benefit. Hmmm...I’d say he is animated, bouncy, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (O.K. the tail part is not to be taken literally) cheery, chirpy, gay (no no, not the ‘gay’ you are thinking) gleeful, peppy, poppy, perky, springy (yep, I checked his feet: he’s got spring under his soles), sprightly, sunny (his name has something to do with ‘sun rays’ remember?), zappy, zingy, zippy, winged (I believe he could almost fly if he tried enough) and whew!—all of this and MORE! I am out of breath already, only writing about him! Imagine what it must take of me to play (read: run) with him for 30 minutes! Old age, old age (grumble, grumble)

So I’ll stop here to catch my breath and be back with more of Vihaan in my upcoming posts. So long then, you can see some of his pictures and savor your first meeting with this zesty little nephew of mine!

Little champ goes swimming!

He's wearing all those rakhis that his doting buas sent for him..I sent him that outfit too! Doesn't he look like a smartie?

Marwari seth is on a roll-literally! Donning a Rajasthani attire and scooting off on his little scooter... :)

No no, that isn't a sweet little girl..It's a sweet little boy!

I told you he could almost fly if he tried..Winged on an aeroplane :)

As a Sleeping Beauty, a rarity that he is!

With Daddy...:)

Mini-Santa spreading the joy of the season with Mummy!

Doodh doodh doodh doodh doodh, piyo jar full!

My favorite fun times with Vihaan are when we sing nursery rhymes together (yep, that’s what I Google these days, nursery rhymes and songs for kids. Lately I have learned so many of them that if any of you need help with those, you know who to ask now!)

Fittingly I end this post with one of our sing-a-longs which ‘fits’ Vihaan well...

For he's a jolly good fellow,

For he's a jolly good fellow

For he's a jolly good fellow,

Which nobody can deny.

For he's a jolly good fellow,

For he's a jolly good fellow

For he's a jolly good fellow,

And so say all of us.

(After reading about him, don’t you say so too?)

:D

HappyZine’s first 40 happy hours!

Well, I had promised my buddy that my first post will be about DM2VR2K. No no, don’t get me wrong. This is not the name of some space mission code or a chemical formula. It is only the name of our ‘innocent’ girl gang.

Sigh, I know—call it lack of creativity or call it typical schoolgirlie imagination. Whatever it is, we are stuck with this name and so I am…er…kinda beginning to like it (ever heard of sour grapes? ) C’mon, at least this name sounds ‘techie.’ Some geeky code language…ha ha! And anyways, this post is about my time (precisely speaking 39.5 hours) with the ‘techie’ girls of our gang—one of the M’s and both the R’s—all of whom came to visit V (for Vibha obviously). To elaborate on their geekiness…ahem…Mansi is an enginiyer and so is Ruchi. Riddhi, I most recently learnt, is also a computer science grad. How elitist in comparison to me—I am the ‘poor’ business girl and miles away from the ‘techie’ world!

So Mansi (and Mr. Hubby in tow), Ruchi and Riddhi decided to come down to Austin for ‘Vibha darshan’ (for the benefit of my non-desi friends: darshan= ‘sight,’ well you can almost say they came for ‘sight-seeing Vibha’). Well, I call it ‘darshan’ because just like at Tirupati one needs to queue up for long hours to get a darshan of Lord Venkateswara, these girls flew zig-zag across the US of A only to get a glimpse of me (oooh, how they complained of their long flights!). And, akin to the Tirupati darshan, their joy was also short-lived—only 40 hours of ‘Vibha time’ they got! Ha ha!

Now now, before these girls batter me down for my self-glorifying talk, I wish to profess my sincere joy and thrill of having them over and I am dedicating this post to those 40 hours of non-stop fun. We did not stop much, except for those power naps on the second night of their visit. "They came, we ate, we conquered"—it was pretty much that. Yes yes, 'conquered'—I will share our very comical Coach bag story in just a bit. We had our share of “Mansi’s Vital Gossip Dose” and “Dear Ruchi’s Giggle Fits.” And of course, “Riddhi’s Ravishing Poha” was the highlight of the trip (though she did not think so—she kept complaining how the potatoes in the US of A do not taste half as good as our desi potatoes). Our dear hero, Mr. Mansi aka Viral, decided it was best (and safe?) to stay out of our gossip and giggles and instead, he spent a leisurely time staying in bed for the longest hours. But yes, he was also our designated photographer for the trip and thanks to him, I have a new profile picture now! :)

Coming back to the Coach bag story, well here goes: Ruchi came up with the most awesome and the bestest idea (if I may say so despite the painful long hours of shopping). She proposed that we all go out and buy something unique for ourselves, to keep as a memoir of this trip. But the condition was that we should get four identical pieces so that all of us may flaunt that gift (whatever it was going to be) when we are all together the next time. We debated about bags, shoes, watches, accessories, Swarovski jewellery, blah and more blah. As if on a mission, we headed out to the nearest outlet mall to hunt our memoir down. Results? Well, let’s see what we got—overall it was three hours of fun, with a dash of despair, and some bubbly excitement, a pair of Aldo shoes for Mansi and a long-faced Mr. Hubby who burnt a tiny hole in his pocket, much disappointment, then some more fun, a lovely blouse for Riddhi, sore feet, and finally—eureka! Our moment of glory arrived when we all got ourselves a lovely (so what if it is tiny?) Coach bag! What pride showed on our faces to have found the best deal in the mall and most importantly, a bag which we ALL liked!

I stress on ALL—let me explain why. Does anybody on earth know how difficult (read: next to impossible) it is to get four ladies to agree on ONE same item? Someone likes the yellow bag, other thinks it’s not ‘her’ color; another feels that we should get wallets, and yet someone thinks maybe we should try at some other mall! I can barely express my happiness when we ALL agreed on the same bag and of the same color! I was truly overjoyed—after all, we did finally succeed in our mission.

But amidst all this fun, the other part of DM2VR2K was sorely missed—Molly, Divya and Krupa. While revisiting our good old school times, we grew nostalgic over “Molly’s Sarvajanik Pav Bhaji” and “Krupa’s Never-Say-Die Attitude.” Then there was “Public-Speaking by Divya,” and her music mania too! While writing this down as I think of each of you, I recollect our carefree school days, and some not-so-good ones too…but then, we are one helluva gang—what say girls? I have such happy memories of our fun and frolic that fittingly this is my first post on HappyZine!

Gosh, now I am completely possessed with the idea of our DM2VR2K vacation. We really must must must get together, all seven of us!

To sign off, ladies, I have penned some lines in your honor….

Laughter and mirth
There was never a dearth
For it is you, ma lovely ladies
Who make my time on Earth
All that it is worth!