I Heart(ed) Downton Abbey!

Well well, I'm quite surprised that I haven't written anything in last 2 years. Although I do see couple of posts in my drafts folder but unfortunately they never made it on to the published journal. Lots has happened in last 24 months but that's saved in for later posts.

Right now it's all about "Downton Abbey". I have just finished watching the first four series of Downton Abbey back to back. In fact that's all I have done in last 3 days or so. I must say that I feel exhilarated. The whole 'DA' experience has been one of a kind for me. You see I've got a huge thing for British Period Stories/Dramas. I'm totally a Jane Austen / Jane Eyre girl and I'm glad that this has been the first series that I hadn't read the book before watching.

Right now I could go endlessly about DA but I would like to pen down my most heart warming accounts:

1. The bloom in Mary Crawley's character from pilot to Christmas Special of 2013 has been just impeccable. She truly is an heroine (or should I say heiress) whom you can't resist falling for. Kudos to Michelle Dockery for a fabulous portrayal of girl power in post Edwardian era.
2. I absolutely love the sass and wits in the character of Violet Crawley the Dowager Countess of Grantham. Maggie Smith is so adorable that she takes the whole 'DA' experience to all the new levels. She's most enjoyable with Penelope Wilton's in the frame. Together Lady Violet and Isoble are show stealers. 
3. I absolutely adore the character of Charlie Carlson. Jim Cater emerges like a flawless phoenix. Carlson's discipline, sarcasm and beyond all his impeccable loyalty and kind heartedness is amazing. His affection for Mary and his chemistry with Mrs. Hughes is like a cherry on the cake. Like his on and off drama when Mr. Mosley is in the frame. (Giggles) His character is a true Father Goose for me.
4. Elizabeth McGovern's portrayal of Cora. the Countess of Grantham is so brilliant that she comes across as such matriarchal figure. She's so compassionate, kind and soft that she melts your heart away.
5. Till season 3 Jessica Brown Findlay as Lady Sybil was gorgeous. I missed her in series 4.
6. I enjoy the friendship between Mrs. Patmore and Mrs. Hughes. Especially Mrs. Patmore's sarcasm with her kitchen maids and footmen.
7. Anna as Mary's personal maid is brilliant and Joanne Froggatt deserves a big pat on the back for her wonderful portrayal of the character.
8. Love, love, loved (& still do) the gorgeous men starting from Dan Stevens, Rob James-Collier to Tom Cullen.
9. All the gossip, banter, secrets and drama downstairs looks like the secret key ingredient.
10. I absolutely love the fact that each and every character is shown to be human with their own strengths and opportunities. They depend on each other and can very well coexist without overshadowing each other.

All and all, I absolutely HEART <3 5.="" and="" forward="" looking="" p="" series="" to="">

The great robbery!

It's almost 2am... The day began way too early. I slept only for five hours. Kin and I had plans doing tons of thing(domestic but of course). Skyped with Louie for a while, she's in control ever since last few heavy dosages of my mental peace. The afternoon was spent in on and off discussions with D, she had a bitter fight with Malli and needed somebody to listen to her. It was nice to be her patient listener but that kind of delayed our plans for the day. Had lots of banter with Kin, called him 'batadee Gangu' which is kinda my thing with Louie. |Gosh! I miss that woman so much.

We reached BMO and opened a student account, this is because TD doesn't give a free SPC card. I like the way Kin joins almost all my schemes, it's just the way I would do for Boo. The weather outside was plesant and thus the whole walk to TC was not so bad. I checked the deals for the cell phones which I have to send back home and managed to crack an awesome deal on Nokia E73 mobile phones. I am planning to send a Google Nexus for Baapoo as a surprise from me. I know he won't like the fact that I over spent but soon he'll enjoy his BIG Touch screen phone.

Walmart was a fun shopping experience. Shopping these days is a light affair since I have driven a line on our personal consumables with Kin. We both buy what we actually want to buy without putting off the other. As usual we went overboard with our shopping baggage and all the fun of shopping was put to trial while carrying the stuff back. We both didn't have gloves thus our hands were freezing numb with the baggages. After five minutes of walk we gave up and Kin kinda grabbed this unattended/discared and kind of broken trolley from the parking lot. We were scared to the core but at the same time it was an howlarious experience. We made so much fun of each other with our endless nonsensical banter. Officially this is how we laid our hands on our FOUR wheeler without a valid licence which by the way we plan to return 'morrow back to the parking lot. I won't say it was stealing, I would say we borrowed help. They say na, 'majboori ka naam Mahatma Gandhi' something like that ;)

After we came home, I spent a couple of hours teaching the kids. H is getting better but honestly she needs to improve her attitude tremendously. Again lots of banter with D and the kids and Kin was with us on and off. I am happy and content with the crazy bunch that I am blessed with. A BIG Cheers to this family away from home!!!

Divine Intervention : Lord Venkateshwara!

Ever since I started figuring out stuff on my own, I always wanted to visit Tirupati/Tirumala Devasthanam. DidiM, BalaM and AhkerusM regularly visit but none of them could be of any help to me. About six months ago, during a family vacation in Kerala I wished to visit TTD for my 25th anniversary and the topic was out of my mind by the time we were back home. Ever since Bapu's agreement to the whole 'study-abroad' thing I had conceived the whole 'Thailand' dream for my 25th and was very serious about it too. In the middle of my 'study-abroad' plans there came a time when things got too tough and the whole thing started appearing impossible. In a moment of despair I had booked maa n me to a train for Tirupati for 'the day' but I had to cancel that ticket immediately since there were no options available for the return journey then.

Things got moving and once again I was back on my 'Thai' plans. As per my planning I was expected to get maa's and mine passport 15 days prior to 'the day', the consultant goofed up and thus my 'Thai' plans were screwed. While I was looking out for some local escape routes, BalaM announced his visit with no date of return. I was stuck with no options but to wait patiently for his departure. Finally after a week his departure was finalized, three days before 'the day'. While booking his ticket I just tried my luck with TTD tour for maa, poopoo and me. This time I could book tickets for both ways, wait listed though! I booked us for a 3 days trip to TTD and kinda kept it a surprise for maa since I wanted to avoid the whole 'our kinda' discussion. I had kept a day's breathing space for us post BalaM's departure before our tour.

BalaM's departure was delayed because his ticket was wait listed till the last moment and thus his departure plans got hazy. We couldn't leave till he was around and thus I had to break my silence on the whole 'surprise' thing. Thankfully there weren't many discussions around the whole deal and BalaM left the next evening, leaving no time to catch our breath. Our tickets were still wait listed and none of us wished to travel without reservation. When I came back after dropping him to the station, maa raised the whole itinerary thing and what if things aren't favorable doubts of hers. I had no certain answers to any of her queries but one, ''have left it to Lord Venkateshwara, if he has called for us then he shall take care of our trip. Let us take our reservation status as his signal, if they don't get confirmed then he doesn't wish to see us and our etickets will get canceled automatically!" Next minute I logged on to check our PNR status and to our surprise our tickets were confirmed.

Our train was scheduled for 3:30 pm and thus after our BAU(Bickering As Usual) we left home at 2:30 pm. I don't remember a single incident of train delays in my life so far so none of us bothered to inquire with IR before leaving from home. As soon as we reached the station, we learnt that the train was delayed by two hours. There was no point going home and coming back since it would have taken us one hour to commute in total and about 200/-. I had not slept on the previous night so I decided to take a nap on one of the benches on the platform.

I woke up in like 5 hours only to see tired and long faces of maa and poopoo. Poor guys had survived for 5 hours on that platform, while I rested. So, apparently the train was delayed by 6 hours and my comrades were almost about to give up. I suggested a quick dinner at Comesum, we had packed lotsa stuff from home and we bought malai Kulfi from the vendor out of courtesy. The jolly dinner boosted zeal in maa and poopoo, they were good to continue waiting at least for next couple of hours. By the time we finished our meal and dessert, we heard arrival announcement for our train. After a lot of confusion and crazy running around we managed to board our train.

The compartment was full of men it did not appear worrisome and honestly we did not face any struggles during our 18 hours of journey. Poopoo and I had literally invaded the window seats. We reached Tirupati  station at about 4 pm, whereas we were supposed to reach at 10 am. As soon as we got down, I started inquiring at random places for 'hows' and 'whats' of the destination. Post my terrible bargaining shots we reached TTD Srinivasam by 4.30. After sitting in a non moving que for little over 45 minutes I started panicking out since I was responsible for two other lives who kinda were helpless due to their lack of knowledge of English. I somehow 'pattaoed' the guard and bargained his commission charges from 500/- to 100/-. As soon as I was about to pay him money for special arrangements for one AC room, the que started moving and I got lucky with one nice AC room without any commission.  :p

After some rest and bathing we were ready to head out, since it was 'the day' maa insisted on a fancy place for dinner. In stead I took them to the roadside 'dosa on thelas' place and ordered for three masala dosas. By the time I got couple of water bottles (less than 5 minutes) maa and poopoo were holding their respective dosas. I signaled them to eat, to both their surprises, it was indeed one of the best dosas both of them had eaten. I kinda louved the twinkle in poopoo's eyes. After finishing our firsts Poopoo and I shared another dosa. Maa and I sipped some steaming sips of some amazing tea. Finally around 7.30 pm we boarded a bus to Tirumala since we were very keen on making 'the day' some extra very 'special'. The bus was kinda funny, since apart from three of us there was only an elderly couple in the whole bus, it had a lady conductor and the driver would stop at various eateries and the conductor would pick up food and together they would eat in the bus.

I was nauseated on my way up since it was a ghat road and my dosa was also rising up, the last thing I wanted to do was to throw up, so I kept my eyes closed throughout the journey. When we reached up many people including the security guards started misguiding us, most but a few insisted on purchase of special 300/- special darshan tickets. There were few true and godsend folks who guided us to a que for free darshanam. After walking for a little over an hour from the bus station we reached a hallway. Devotees had laid down groundsheets and were getting comfortable to sleep/rest. Initially it was a bizarre position, nobody understood us and we had no plans of spending the night in a communal hallway when we had paid a grand for our room in Tirupati. Maa was kinda losing her patience so she engaged poopoo to run some errands and bought some munchings from a vendor. It was the vendor, who explained me the whole thing, apparently it was going to take us a little over 2 hours of waiting in that hallway and then an hours time in the que for the darshanam, on our way to dashanam we could buy prasadam laddoos by paying 20/- for 2 laddoos per head. Much relieved with the information all three of us dozed off within minutes.

At around 11.15 pm on 'the day' I woke up to a divine Conch sound and woke maa and poopoo too. Since we were amongst some of the early risers we could skip and run a huge distance and finally at around 11.59 pm I was in front of Lord Venkateshwara's idol for little over 90 seconds. I literally concluded 'the day' in front of the deity and I couldn't think of a better way of making it one of the most memorable expeiences of my lifetime. The journey that followed this whole experience  was equally miraculous/coincidental and interesting. We met a godsend angel who took us for the all temple darshanam tour organised by the devasthanam, followed by the ISKON temple darshanam and miraculous confimation of the return journey tickets.

I feel special, at times elite, smarter than many others but this time I felt blessed. The whole tour thickned my belief of existence of a stronger governing force. This definitely doesn't make me quit my chores and sit in front of an idol for hours or give up on every other ting that I enjoy and is considered as 'ill or evil' by my religion.
My take out, ''Be true to thine own self!''

P.S. Yes it did rain on 'the day'! :)

Deck(ed)!

BalaM is visiting, he arrived this morning with poopoo. I had promised him that I would receive them at the station so I had kept me awake the whole night and was right on time, very unlike me, eh? We had a miscommunication last night, I had hinted him to get down at Ajni rather than the main station. Since this was his first time to get down at Ajni, I wanted to confirm if he was game? I started buzzing him from 5am but bledy his phone was switched off. Finally I left home at 5.30, maa called while I was just about to start my bike that he is getting down at Ajni!

Internet was down for past two days. Didn’t miss much except when I had to check the whereabouts of my visa application. Bammi wasn’t reachable and Ashu couldn’t help, in desperation blew all my talktime balance on gprs, only to find out the f**k up done by the consultant. No internet and no mood for any torrent based entertainment drove me to pick up ‘Freakonomics’, half done but taking it slow now since I am back to broadband. Maa and I played kitty and rummy after ages. It was so much fun to see her wild competitiveness. That woman can’t accept defeat it was fun to watch her win her defeats were even more fun and dramatic.  I often cheated on purpose just to make her mad. I am too fed up of fighting over food so daily I am cooking religiously. My garlic tomato trick is a success, it tastes so well that maa has literally pushed her lunch from 12pm to 4pm. Tried my hands on the chariot special chocolate smoothie and succeeded too. Printed some of the good clicks and now presenting a framed version to whomsoever it belongs to. The joy of giving, nothing can beat that and by the way I hate receiving!

My bank loan papers were finally ready on 1^st June after so much of running around the whole of May. Even after submitting every damn paper related to me on the face of Earth. My visa application has been submitted on 20^th June. The Consultant was simply sitting on it, until I inquired. On my inquiry the excuse given for the delay was so silly that any poor dog would have sniffed suspicion. This whole thing has killed my Thailand plans. My 31^st July departure has been postponed to 3^rd August now, since the airfare has shot up like crazy. Bledy morons!!!  They don’t even realize that they are dealing people’s careers and hard earned money.