Theme Party

I had taken a sabbatical from blogging for a while. Constant Facebook reminders from Akansha have been a reason for this piece. Lol

Planning a theme party seems relatively easier in theory. When you finally get down to detailing, it looks like a never ending task. These days my creative streak is a little high and I have been helping a friend in organizing a theme party.

When we first decided on the idea of throwing a theme party in the beginning of April, we decided on throwing the party on the 29^th, with bollywood as the theme. Since then a lot has changed. We have shifted the theme twice, from bollywood to gangster and from gangster to Hawaiian luau and the date has been shifted from the 29^th April to 11^th May.

So here is what my gangster theme was all about

Basic knowledge of corel draw and other designing softwares was very helpful in this planning.

Email invites: Some people are good and creating things, while a few unfortunate ones use google. I am amongst the unfortunate ones.

Food labels: These were suppose to be tent cards.

Badges for the guests

For decorations we had decided to use toy guns, poker set and a few posters

What Kind of Chocolate Are You

You Are Milk Chocolate

A total dreamer, you spend most of your time with your head in the clouds. You often think of the future, and you are always working toward your ideal life. Also nostalgic, you rarely forget a meaningful moment... even those from long ago.

Life is like topography, Hobbes. There are summits of happiness and success, flat stretches of boring routine, and valleys of frustration and failure.

Jennifer looked out of the window, and for the first time in the past seventeen years witnessed the beauty of the sun set. Within a few minutes the golden orb concluded its perambulation across the firmament and concluded into deep darkness. The feeling of sadness over took Jennifer once again.

She had seen the worst of times and the best of times in her life. At the age of 35 she had witnessed everything, she had been a daughter as well as a mother, a mistress as well as a lawfully wedded wife, a student and a teacher, she had been loved by all and had been hated alike. She had made friends with criminals as well as the elite. During the period of her happiness and success she seldom indulged herself into soul searching and that was the period when she had morally degraded the most. Her life was not all white or all black, it was marked with shades of grey, sometimes the devil succeeded in overpowering the angel and sometimes the angel had an ace up its sleeve.

At the age of 18 she had run away from her house and had come to New York. She was an aspiring journalist, naïve yet firm about making some changes in the world of journalism. With the help of a friend she was able to get a job as a junior assistant to the co-editor of New York Times. It took her two years to move to the position of the editor of the newspaper; she was engaged to the owner of the newspaper and made the most out of her position. Love is an emotion that she completely lacked, married at the age of 22 and pregnant right after that. Yet her soul aim was to make sure that in the process she gained full control of Dave’s life.

Her pretence lasted 17 years, one day under the influence of sedatives she spoke the truth, “ I compromised on my way to becoming the most powerful women in New York, I married a guy with no spine, yet today” after that moment the whispers converted to loud shouts and her voice got lost somewhere in the middle, “ after seventeen years I know for a fact that I did not make a mistake, because all this while I was truly in love with him, without even realizing it.”

The next morning hell let loose, the news was flashing all over. Dave and Jack were nowhere to be found. The phone rang and she hurried to answer it, “Oh god!!!!” and she broke down. Dave and Jack were dead. Road accident they had said, Jennifer knew they possibly could not have known about the news because they had gone trekking. The phone networks and the other signals were bad in that area so Jennifer knew they died in peace.

Cremation was a big event; almost every celebrity was present there. Jennifer was still rich and powerful and everyone in New York knew that, people gave their condolences but she saw their intruding eyes.

She returned to her apartment and looked out of the window, and for the first time in the past seventeen years witnessed the beauty of the sun set. Within a few minutes the golden orb concluded its perambulation across the firmament and concluded into deep darkness. The feeling of sadness over took Jennifer once again.

She looked at the bottle for two hours and finally drank the contents and went to bed. Next to the dead body the cops found a letter saying, I am not a woman of many words, in my lifetime I have been a fairly happy woman and here I lie in peace. I have lived my life to the fullest and now I wish to retire in peace.

Life is like topography, ######. There are summits of happiness and success, flat stretches of boring routine, and valleys of frustration and failure. Jennifer lived through a lot of things, the period of realization of true love made her let go of a beautiful thing called life.

I do not know what took away her life, the intruding eyes of the people, Dave’s and Jack’s death, loneliness, people say when you are at the zenith of your achievements that’s the time when you stand alone, or was it just the feeling of betrayal towards Dave. Sometimes I think she was a coward for engraving death and sometimes I think she was too strong to take such a decision.

Being Independent ……………….

Today my brain is not formulated to exert itself. If my grey matter starts playing up I will be worn-out and my efficacy at my new job will droop. My first day in a new office, a component of my body seems sanguine about my performance, another component is as petrified as a pigeon (or chicken as I like to call it sometimes).

I am 22 and after three months of hard work in the present day I feel completely independent. Although there are some loopholes here and there, I am an alumni from one of the World’s finest universities (Queeen’s), with a master’s in HR from such a good university I am affiliated with an organization that has nothing to do with Human Resources or employee relations, what is more troubling is the fact that it is not by option but by chance, the employer looses his patience within fraction of seconds, he is a fine example of a guy who has riches but lacks etiquettes. People who know me well would be shocked to hear that I have started being submissive to life and circumstances. Gradually one learns that if you keep fighting with everything that comes your way, you loose out on a lot of beautiful moments that life has to offer.

Anyways I get my last month’s salary on the 5th and I will pay my rent from it and other expenses, I still have some money left from the last to last months salary. Today I am Independent enough to take care of my food, shelter and clothing. I still remember the first job that I had taken up, teaching, my fuel expense had been more than the salary I received.

I am content as of now, it has taken me 22 long years to reach where I am today. I am an Independent woman with an amazing fiancé who has all the time in the world to spare for me. Although we have tiffs and sometimes real bad ones but a part of me is always sure that things will be normal in fraction of seconds. Sitting at my office desk today I get the feeling of accomplishment. I feel like making my thank you speech and let all the people who have helped me reach this far know that I am content and I thank each one of them humbly. The matrons, the friends I made in boarding and the enemies too, all the auckyites, the house mistress, the principal, my folks, every single person who has met me has left a great impact on my life.

I Accuse......(and so do I)

Religion is one contentious subject to discuss, we have different religious convictions, our beliefs and faith play a crucial role in the overall development of our character. I apologize for hurting your feelings, but in the present day I detest any religious belief that you have and I wish to question each one of you. What I ponder upon every now and then is the explanation for the state sponsored pogrom that transpired on the eve of 31st Oct 1984, and had remained rampant for three long days. This black period in the history of our country, indelibly marks the lives of thousands of people, even after 25 years these people live in the twilight of bitterness and despair.
I am mortified by the manoeuvre of the ruling party. Do we Indians lack the moral fibre to be good human beings? By not raising a voice we condone acts of terrorism against innocent civilians. My question to the entire community is, “what happened to all those people who were held responsible for the riots that happened in 1984”, we killed 5000 Sikhs, burnt them alive, did our souls not burn with them, don’t we see blood on our hands every morning when we wake up, or did we also sell our souls for bottles of liquor supplied by ruling political party. Have we been subjugated by the devil himself, who has taken away every sense of morality that was instilled in us when we were young, fresh and truthful.
‘We were given a bottle of alcohol and 100 bucks each and were asked to kill the Sikhs in different parts of Delhi’ Dr. Jha (name changed to ensure privacy) Dr. Jha was in a very reputed colleges of Delhi during the 1984 riots, pursuing his Bachelors of Arts. The boys of these colleges did not to the best of my knowledge kill anyone they were added just to increase the number of mob. If educated people from best of colleges of India could fall prey to a bottle of alcohol and 100 bucks, it is clear that the people from lower starta of society with minimal education would not hesitate to kill. Both educated and uneducated youth was used (misused) by the ruling party. ‘They had police on their side so they had nothing to worry about’ says Mrs Balraj who lost her entire family in the hands of such butchers. The intent of this blog is not open the unhealed wounds of the Sikhs and to remind them of the injustice that was done to them but to ensure that nothing of the sort is repeated again in the future.
India boosts of being a secular state and a democratic republic, such is the plight of the people in the country which talks highly of secularism. I still remember a few lines from one of the choir songs we used to sing in school:
‘Mazhab Nahin Sikhata Aapas Mein Vaar Rakhna,
Hindi Hain Hum Vatan Hai Hindusitan Hamara Hamara’
(The whole paragraph evolves to the meaning that our first identity is our Nation, Hindustan. It states between the lines that every difference in opinion is our own creation, we must drop those)
Changing the political set up of the country is not easy. You try to screw the system and the system really screws you back. Yet there is one thing that each one of us can do. We can all take a pledge to teach the illiterate masses, the task is not easy yet the juice that we will get out of squeezing the orange is a lot healthier than the efforts that we will put into achieving this goal. Together we can move towards a goal and make positive changes for our country, which can ensure peace in future.