My 'Zesty' Five

There are some words which are positive in their sound itself. They carry a happy and a bright feeling with them. ‘Zest’ is one such word. The dictionary defines this word as ‘great enthusiasm and energy’. I am sure everybody has something or the other in their lives that induces this zest in them. These few things make moments in life worthwhile. A few such things for me would be:

Watching Reality Dance Shows: No, don’t think that I can shake a leg or something. Nope. I just can’t. But that doesn’t stop me from enjoying these shows. No matter how bad day I have had in office, play these shows at the end of the day in front of me and my mood gets lifted watching all those amazing and complex dance moves and lifts. I follow them fervently not missing a single episode of them. And while they are on, dare anybody touch the remote?  :P

Listening to Wind Chimes:  I love them. I just love their music. I have so many of them in the balcony of my room. Their soft tinkling sound is a great mood lifter for me. I think they are one of the best gifts that I receive (Yes, people around me know my love for them and I keep on receiving these once a while. Ofcourse, that doesn’t stop me from buying new ones for myself :P ). I love collecting them. And I hope to have a room full of wind chimes someday.  

Collecting Diaries:  My love for diaries is well known to people around me. And if a writer woudn’t collect diaries, who would? I have a huge collection of them. And I have different diaries for different purposes. One for writing all the good happenings of the day, one for making to-do lists, one for writing bad incidents and learning for life, one for remembering birthdays (yes, I am the traditional types, I don’t depend on my phone for that) and the most special one is for writing thoughts that get converted into blogposts. I protect my collection fiercely and nobody (even from my family) gets a chance to take away a single one from my collection. Seeing my collection everytime fills me up with immense happiness.

Making personalized gifts: Yes, I make personalized gifts for my loved ones. Somehow, making scrap books and other such personalized gifts gives me satisfaction. It makes me believe that I have put my heart into giving that gift. And I know the receivers treasure it too. That way, a part of me and the moments they have spent with me always remains with them. I love seeing the smile it brings on the people receiving these gifts. It makes them feel special and me happy.

Baking: This is my newest hobby or passion or experimentation field, whatever you can call. I have been fascinated by it. Watching ‘Cup Cake Wars’ and other cooking and baking shows on television has induced this new found interest in me. I have tried my hand at a few dishes recently. Not that everything turned out to be amazing but a few of them sure did. And I hope to hone my baking skills with time.

Well, these few things do the trick for me. What about you?

This post is a part of the #ZestUpYourLife activity in association with TATA Zest and BlogAdda.com.

Conditions Apply

Wish to be a tenant of Bigg Boss House? Following conditions apply:

*        Should have made a hit-and-miss appearance in movies or television

*        Talented enough to get angry at the drop of a hat

*        Ability to scream at the top of vocal cords

*        Capable of washing dirty linen in public

*        Adept at over-showing emotions

Any takers?

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I feasted on romance in novels, was drunk on the idea of love portrayed in them and waited for my Prince Charming. I couldn’t believe my luck when he proposed exactly like my favourite character. Little had I known, that love in today’s times comes with * mark quoting Conditions Apply in tiniest fonts! Sigh.

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It never bothered you when I wrote love poems. Sometimes I can also put up a rant for the fight we had on the blog. That’s my way of calming down. Plus, I never mentioned your name. I wrote it as fiction. We writers come with Conditions Apply. Didn’t you read them before getting married?   

This post is written for '55 on Friday - 2' by Write Tribe. The prompt was 

'Conditions Apply'

Dreaded Delhi Trip !!

BlogAdda's Tangy Tuesday Picks

I have been asked by my organization to attend a meeting which is to be held in Delhi. Delhi !! Yes, Delhi.. dreaded Delhi.. I had been there for the same meeting last year in March. But this year, things are different.

Image Source: Google

Because between March last year and September this year, there was a month called December 2012. And in that December, there was a date - 16^th December. The unfortunate date. Yes, I think you now know why am I dreading Delhi? Why is my family dreading to send me to Delhi. Their concerns are well placed. After all its Delhi :0 Delhiiiii.. The dreaded Delhi..

And guess what’s icing on the cake? I just saw an episode of Crime Patrol showing the same unfortunate incident. My skin crawled on seeing the cruelty inflicted on Nirbhaya. (May her soul rest in peace!) My eyes were filled with tears. My mum cried too.

And fear? Fear raised its ugly hood throwing some real ugly doubts towards me. This is the conversation I had with it:

Fear:	So, you are going to Delhi, haan?
Me (meekly):	Yes I am.
Fear:	Ahaan, Did you just not see the Nirbhaya incident. Who would have thought about such an incident happening. You think you would be safe in DELHI?
Me:	I guess, I should be fine. I just have a day trip and I would be back by evening. It’s not that I am going to stay there or something. I hardly have to spend some 5-6 hours out of which most of them would be in the meeting.
Fear:	Ok. And what about travelling? I think you just saw what happened to the girl during travel.
Me:	Oh Shut up. And stop being unreasonable. That happened during night time. I told you I am going to be there during the day. In Broad Daylight, do you get me?
Fear:	But who said, incidents don’t happen during Broad Daylight? Haven’t you read about them?
Me:	Yes I have read about them.
Fear:	So?
Me:	So what? What do you mean to say?
Fear:	I just want to say that anything can happen anytime. Have you thought of being ready for any kind of adversity?
Me:	Adversity?? God!!! I am not going on some warfront. I am just going to visit another city and that too in broad daylight. What adversity do you think can I face in that? And what do you mean by ‘being ready’ ?
Fear:	You never know.
Me:	Okay, Okay.. let me think how can I be ‘ready’ for visiting another State, a State which is the Capital of my country ?
‘Fear’ taps her shoes looking at me while I scratch my head about all the articles related to safety of women that I had read after the incident.
Me:	Okay. From whatever little I know about Delhi, I think would take the metro. No private vehicles. I just downloaded that application on my phone which helps detect the location of the woman on just pressing one key and sends the message to her selected contact numbers. I have a swiss knife with me. I will go and buy a bottle of pepper spray tomorrow. I just listed down the number of people I know in Delhi. Very few I know. But can’t create more ‘Delhi’ friends so soon. I guess that’s about it. What else do you think I can do?
Fear:	Just one thing.
Me:	Yeah, tell me now.
Fear:	Don’t go. After all, its DELHI !!!
Me:	Arrgghhh.. Just shut up. Will you???
Fear:	Your wish darling. I was just helping you.
Me:	Why don’t you just disappear?
Fear:	Lolzzz.. How can I ? I have a permanent residence in the minds and hearts of young girls like you, in the hearts of parents of girls, in the hearts of their family members, their friends. I have a permanent space darling. And I have created this space .. (Laughs out devilishly) I have created this space because you live in such a COUNTRY… a Country that has become a mockery of its own existence.
Me:	Oh Shut up.
Fear:	What a strange Country are you living in? I wonder what phase is your country of more than a billion people going through when a woman, an educated woman, an educated working woman is listening to ‘Fear’ before going to another State and that too for a day trip. And that hapless State happens to be the capital of your Country.
Me:	Speechless.
Fear has a devious smile on his face as if mocking my speechlessness.
Me (to myself) in an almost inaudible tone so that ‘Fear’ wouldn’t hear : Dear Delhi, please become a safe one. Not just for me but for every woman out there. And why just Delhi? My Dear India, please eradicate this ‘Fear’ from the hearts and minds of women, their families, their friends. I really want to sing out the following lines to ‘Fear’ loudly in days to come: Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is free Where the world has not been broken up into fragments By narrow domestic walls Where words come out from the depth of truth Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit Where the mind is led forward by thee Into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.                                                               -      Rabindranath Tagore

  

Dance Baby, Dance !!!

Last few months have been amazing for a ‘Reality Dance shows’ freak like me. If you follow them, you would understand why am I saying this. Or even if not, you would have probably guessed by now that three ‘Reality Dance Shows’ are running from past couple of months on three different GECs. (General Entertainment Channels, duh !!)

Zee airs a yet another twisted version of their immensely popular dance show

Source: Google

(Dance India Dance) called ‘Dance India Dance – Super Moms’. While Sony on the other hand is running its sixth edition of Jhalak Dikhla Jaa – Dancing with the Stars. And while two competitors are airing shows on similar themes, how could Star Plus trail behind? They too have inaugurated their first season of their reality show called ‘India’s Dancing Superstar.

So the dance lover in me (which is strictly and totally restricted to only and only watching the Dance shows and never attempting to practice a single step myself :P) is thrilled. From watching the celebrities to watching commoners move to different dance forms so well, what more could I have asked for?

Come every weekend, I am hooked on to the television screen at the time of these shows. I keep hopping channels to watch the performances on every show. And if I have time on hand and these shows are running their repeats, there is nothing in the world that can stop me from watching or rather re-watching these shows subjecting my poor family to the torture of watching the same shows again ^_^

And if you are talking about DID Little Masters, (which by the way is a past

Source: Google

season) all hell broke loose if I missed even a single performance of those amazing kid performers. Especially the performance of Faisal Khan from Mumbai who won millions of hearts with his out-of-the-world dance moves. Last week, Faisal was on the show DID - Super Moms (And by the way, which moms look and dance like the ones on the Show? God, they are so amazingly beautiful and brilliant dancers) along with other kids from DID – Little Masters to support the current show participants. And my heart yet again melted seeing him dance with such ease and poise. The judges’ appreciation flowed whilst calling him the deserving winner of his season. :)

While Dance India Dance brings common people to limelight giving them their 15 minutes of fame (well not just 15 minutes in some cases, a few of these performers from DID have gone to become celebrated choreographers and are still enjoying fair share of limelight); Jhalak Dikhla Jaa on the other hand, cashes on the celeb factor by making celebrities from all walks of life dance to the tune of Samba and Rumba or Jazz and Contemporary. While a few celebrities find dancing a cakewalk, struggles of a few can be easily seen from their performances. By the way, how can you expect Kris Srikant to be good in dancing?   

I find these reality dance shows highly creative and entertaining. What I also realize is the amount of efforts these participants put behind each performance. How else do you expect them to perform with such finesse in a span of a week’s time?

With these shows on the block, I now have a fair idea about the difference between Contemporary and Lyrical contemporary style, the fact that your legs need to be pointed and that there is something called Broadway Jazz and Waltz ;) May be, well, just maybe, sometime when I find enough motivation to put on my dancing shoes I would atleast have enough amount of information for starters. Till then, where’s the remote ???