top 5 things to do if you achieve "World Domination"!!!"

I started writing this blog sometime back :P Don't remember when and am too lazy to go back and checkbut Im guessing it was somewhere around 2008. And I had to explain the weird choice fot the name. One of the comments caught my eye. It was best of luck with your plans of world domination :D

Now, you may well wonder how I thought I was going to get there. And here's how I thought it would. i was kind of hoping that people would start reading the blog and my ideas would get embedded in their minds and then their actions and thus I could control them :P

Anyways, that did not happen, as you can clearly see. But I can still try to think of the top 5 things I would do if I had managed it, can't I? ;)

5) Put Salman Khan and Shahrukh Khan in a box and throw them in the middle of the next hurricane threatening the DCs I look at providing DR support to as a sacrifice to appease the Gods! Hopefully, it won't have the opposite effect!

4) Catch hold of all the bureaucratic people like one of my teammates who creates more obstacles than he resolves and fling them to the sharks, god bless their souls(the sharks not the people's)

3) Ban Rap and hip hop. God awful sound for no reason.

2) Get all my favourite brands to pay me for for shopping with them :)

1) Make fat the new beautiful like in the renaissance period :'( Too much hard work trying to lose it I tell you :|

Jaipur!

Amer fort from a distance... A big distance. But I did manage to tick off one more place from my list of places to see while in the north. The pink city is truly awesome. And it's actually not pink but brick red. The colour of gehru which is used to paint the walls as one overly friendly young guy in the train explained to me when he overheard me gushing about the pink houses we would see in Jaipur. He also added an unnecessary "who would paint their house pink?"  after that explanation. So let me start this from the start.

Diwali day and no-one is in the office apart from me and Darshika. We were always planning a trip to Jaipur but it had never fallen into place. So we said lets go to Jaipur this weekend. Since I'm  a member of the youth hostel, getting a place to stay is usually no problem at all. Then began the planning which was massively done by Darshika since I was super busy :( but she did a pretty good job of it and loved all the freedon to decide what we would do with our time too so it was all good. We booked train tickets to get there and bus tickets to come back.

Then came the Friday we were supposed to depart on and my drill just would not get over. Luckily we finished by 11 and rushed home by a private cab. and then the fun began. A 3:00 am cab to the station, getting into a train at 4:30. and all this when Im not used to travelling by trains at all just added to the charm.

Day 1 was a whirlwind tour of all the places outside Jaipur. So we started with Amer fort, and jal mahal and then drove all the way across Jaipur in the opposite direction to see Chowki Dhani. Now this place is absolutely a must go to if you are in Jaipur. Its a theme park with the theme of a Rajasthani village and is complete with magic shows, puppet shows, dances, elephant and camel rides, fortune tellers and a place where the artisans can sell stuff. And the food is absolutely to die for. Please, if you go to Jaipur or are in Mumbai check out Chowki Dhani though the one in Jaipur is much better than the one in Mumbai.

Day 2: We decided to backpack this day and see the places inside the city. Starting off with the City Palace. And as luck would have it some royal guests were expected that very day. We could not see the guests because they were taking their own sweet time but we did see the preparation. A horse buggy along with three decorated camels and a band playing bagpipes were all part of the grand royal welcome they were to receive. Man I wish I was the guest of the present royal family and if there was a young prince on offer, who was smart and good looking, I would not mind marrying him either :P

City Palace was followed by Jantar Mantar, a collection of old equipment to measure the movements of celestial objects. It increased my respect for the old Indian generations. They truly were into innovation and science. The current geenration is so busy earning money that all this has been thrown out the window.  We then went on to Albert Hall a beautiful museum and then after lunch walked to Hawa Mahal which was another experience as we covered in 20 mins flat as it was almost closing time. So we ran up the place posed clicked ran and repeated the cycle till we reached the very top. :D

And then we shopped!!! Obviously we had to. Badi Chowpath is the place to go if you want some nice traditional things. There's a lot of bargaining involved and Im just super happy that I managed to buy 2 dress materials after reducing their cost to 2/3 of what they were asking . :) You need to be a good bargainer for this place Im not a good bargainer but I did mange to get things down to my range. This was followed by dinner at MI road and then a rickshaw to Sindhi camp from where we took a bus back to Delhi.

 The cost of the entire trip per head without the shopping was Rs 3600 and Im sure there is margin for improvement here if we had not used a cab on the first day but then being girls we thought it was the safest option since we were roaming the outskirts of Jaipur. So all in all it was a nice quick weekend getaway.

Skyfall

Caught the latest Bond flick doing the rounds. I like Bond, and I like strong alpha male figures. There's just something very fascinating about a guy who has brains and manages to still kick someone's ass if required.

Having said that and shown I'm clearly biased towards James Bond, I know the movie has not got as good reviews as its predecessors have. However, I believe this is more to do with the fact that Bond in our minds has been moulded into this sleek gadget wielding, casanova types. So when we see Bond movies with not that much sex and machines. I actually like the less objectifying of women as sex objects part to be honest, I like Daniel Craig's James Bond movies more partly for this. Hardly seen him making out as much as the previous Bond's did. And I say this after having been a big Pierce Brosnan fan from his days of Remington Steele. Plus there's no denying that Craig is a more hand's on Bond. And I like the delving into the past that I see in these movies. I loved discovering how Bond became so emotionally detached from women, or that he is a rich Scottish(?) orphan. And I definitely liked wathing him trying to save M and a list of agents(somewhat Mission Impossible I-ish) rather than watching him go catch hold of weird baddieswho want to nuke the world in hopes of getting their oil to somewhere else or similar nuke related Bond stories. Not that I did'nt like those. But I think people are being harsh giving these not so good reviews. I think an unbiased viewing of these movies would actually help you enjoy them more. Why must Bond always save the world from an impeding near end? I know I went in not expecting Bond to be the Pierce Brosnan bond flicks and was on the edge of the seat. I could not even wait for the title song to end cos I was so eager to see how Bond was gonna come back next.

 And now I'm going to be a girl and let the girlie instincts take over. Daniel Craig is awesomely hot. I love his eyes (thanks to the title song where they are in focus and make you think of clear blue oceans and sandy beaches :D) I was even more excited to see Ralph Fiennes(one of my all time favouritest actors in the whole wide world :P) come in as M. He's super awesome. And the new Q is cute too. And my dad told me Daniel Craig is 50 years old when I started gushing over him on the phone. Dads! Anyways, I hate to see Judi Dench leaving. But all in all I liked this movie too. And I'm glad to see a change in perspective and them trying to do something new.

What's in a Name: Pat II

So admittedly, I have one of the most difficult names to pronounce. the k is more of an illusion at the statrt and the sh have to be attached to the k and stretched so that it almost sounds like x but in xylophone but isnt quite there because the sh is attached to it. And I have a lisp too, to make matters worse for me actually.

It was quite embarassing as a kid because I could not pronounce my own name till the 7th standard which is like I was 13. Led to a lot of loss of self esteem and 7th std was easily my worst year ever. But then I practised it and am now quite capable to say it out loud as long as I'm consciously thinking of what Im saying. The moment I am in a hurry or not focussing, it's all over the place again :P

Anyways, the only positive I see out of all this is that when foreigners mispronounce my name, im ablt to understand why and take it with a pinch of salt. So recently I had a call with some guys from Puerto Rico and since their native tongue is Spanish rather than English.( funnily foreigners who know english are better at saying my name, don't know why) . And this guy is being really nice to me and trying to ensure he gets my name right. So he started off with Xeeteeja, which is good for a first time person saying my name who is not in Indian culture, 10 mins down the line he went Xeeja, then Xena and finally by the end of the call I was named Katrina!!! :D

Anyways, it's all fun. I have several names due to the difficulty people have saying my original name. Kates, Nicky, Dexter, hello(strangely enough because I have a habit of greeting everyone with a friendly hello no matter how small an interval ago I just saw the person :P) a. So I say to myself, what's in a name??    :) 

Hotel Transylvania

Interesting animated flick, Different concept. It twirls around the age old dilemma of who's actually afraid of whom. so there's Count Dracula and guess what, his daughter has just turned 118. He has raised her all on his own and watched her grow. He has built a castle where no human can ever enter and this is now a hotel; Hotel Transylvania;a hotel for only monsters where they can feel safe from humans. She has lived 118 years surrounded by only monsters.

And now it's her coming of age. She has finally turned 118. There is a lavish party as usual for her. All the monsters you can think of are there right from Frankensteing to the werewolves to the zombies. And he knows that for her 188th bday she will argue that she wants to go explore the world. So he stages a scene of a village dresses up zombies as humans and sends her out there for a half an hour flight. It has the desired effect, she returns vowing to never go out again. However when the Count's band of zombie actors return from the village a young backpacker who had heard stories of this castle follows them straight into the hotel. The Count now has two tasks on hand, ensuring this youngster gets out without anyone figuring out a human made it to the castle, which would ruin business for him as the castle would no longer be a safe getaway from humans and two ensuring the boy and his daughter do not fall in love. And invariably he fails miserably at both.

A sweet romantic flick which plays amazingly well with the emotions of a father trying to protect his daughter from his worst fear and then eventually giving in to her wishes in order to see her happy, its a nice watch and has many other subtle messages about acceptance and forgiving and letting go off the past and adapting to the future. Over  all I would see watch it when you are in the mood for a nice animated flick you can see with your family. 

Daddy's Little Girl

She tries her best
To make it on her own
She feels the world
At her feet now bows.

For she is now grown
and has learnt a lot along the way
She feels all safe and secure
For she knows there's someone who cares.

A nice strong man
who has always cleaned her path for her
Has rid the road of thorns
And tried to carpet the world

He has anticipated she would walk
He has anticipated what she would do
He has aspired and dreamt
Of what when she's grown she will do

And now he watches
With pride from the shadows as she twirls
She does not know
That before she tried to them command he already had tamed the troublemakers

Always watching out
Planning and anticipating
Wanting to protect but knowing he must let go
if he wants her to always be Daddy's little girl!