It's Time!

To pack away the skirts, start lounging about in track pants & a sweat shirt rather than 'short' shorts & tank tops, and get the winter wear out! Because winter has set in, people!! And I'm happy as a mouse with his cheese :)

I really love winters. I love the chilly wind. I love it when the tip of my nose gets red but my hands are warm inside my gloves. I love wearing sweaters...and socks and shoes instead of open sandals. I love the feeling of comfort you get in a mug of steaming hot chocolate. I love the feeling of sun on my skin. But more than anything, winter also means that it's time for Christmas!!

And we LOVE Christmas over here :)

On a different note, I had a fab weekend. Started my Saturday with cleaning parts of my house. Cleaning can be very therapeutic, especially when you're frustrated or angry with someone. This was the fifth consecutive weekend that The Boy wasn't around. Now, he's not my entire life but he IS a considerable part of my weekends, and if you're used to seeing a person almost every day of the week, not being able to see them for five weeks in a row can get a bit too much to handle. Then on a complete impulse, I got a haircut - short, barely reaches my shoulders, with sideway bangs.

In the evening, I hung out with a 'girl' friend after what seemed like ages, and guess what? I suggested she get a haircut too! She played along & came out looking like a million bucs. How I wish I had hair like her - straight & voluminous.

We had Shawarmas for dinner & wrapped up the evening with chocolate chip ice cream! The two of us generously flirted with the cute owner of the ice-cream shop. He flirted back. We asked him how fattening the waffle cone was as we were both dieting, and he was like, "Errr...you're eating ice-cream!!" Anyway, we flirted some more, giggled, got our favorite ice-creams, got free toppings, wished him a good weekend, waved at him & left.

Today I had a lovely brunch - toast, American-style scrambled eggs (without cheese), fat free bacon (!!!) & OJ. How healthy are we!! Then I got a mind-blowing head & body massage, followed by a hot shower, more food & a nap. The massage was planned. The cute guy we flirted with was a bonus. Can a weekend get any better?

How was yours?

Bura Na Maano Dilli Hai!!

I love Delhi. Minus the crime against women of course!

What do I love it for? The wide roads…the open spaces…the history…Dilli ki sardi…the one million ‘golchakkars’ the city has…for Janpath, Kamla Nagar, Sarojini Nagar & Karol Bagh…for Dilli Haat…but most of all for it’s lip smacking food whether it be the parathas of Qutub Industrial Area or Moolchand Flyover, or the Punju food you get at dhabas!!

I was in Delhi for Christmas 2 years ago (i.e. 2006) & that was the most fun Christmas I’ve had in the past five years. It was freezing & I spent the day with two of my friends from Delhi itself…VJ & SA.

Christmas was on a Monday so we had a long weekend & we spent the entire weekend doing nothing but eating! That’s right….we ate and ate and ate and ate and ate some more!!

Throughout the three days, the three of us would meet in the morning and start making plans for the day. We would make many plans but eventually we would do nothing. We would make plans, walk from one place to another, eat. Make plans again, walk to another place, eat. Make even more plans, walk to yet another place, eat again!! And we ate all the unhealthy fattening stuff in the world…aloo parathas, gobi parathas, paneer parathas (doused with butter mind you, there is no other way to eat parathas in Delhi), chhole bhature, butter chicken, gaajar ka halwa. I can’t ever forget for as long as I live how much gaajar ka halwa I ate in those 3 days! Dripping with ghee that too. We ate so much over those 3 days that when I came back to Bombay after it, I had gained 1.5 kgs!!!

Christmas day was the most fun though. We spent the day at Connaught Place. The three of us bought Santa caps (the ones that have lights on them) & we wore them around Connaught place all day. We ate, we took pictures, we harassed the roadside vendors selling Christmas paraphernalia asking them a million questions, bargaining with them & not buying anything from them. We wished random people ‘Meri Christmas’.

Then in the evening we went to PVR in Saket to watch a movie (we watched 'Kabul Express' if I remember correctly). We had to kill some time before the movie so we (surprise surprise!) went into a restaurant & ate.

When we came out (still in our Santa caps), a guy from the Airtel store spotted us & wanted to take a picture of us. He went on saying things like “You guys are looking so cool! Please let us take a picture. We will publish it in our brochure.” Basically I think he wanted to take our picture as we were the only three freaks roaming around in Santa caps & he would've printed it in his brochures to be circulated NATIONALLY with the caption "Look at the 3 Morons"!! But what the hell…it was Christmas for Chrissake!! So we let him take a picture, which he promised to mail to us but never did. It came out pretty cute, actually. Then the guy started singing ‘Jingle Balle Jingle Balle Jingle Balle Balle’ to us….which has sort of become the anthem for VJ, SA & me since then.

After the movie got over, we went to a club called ‘Café Morrison’ at South Ex, named after Jim Morrison obviously. Still in our Santa caps! Stayed there for a few hours, got drunk. After we left Café Morrison, we wanted to cut a Christmas cake (please note we were completely sloshed by this time, at least VJ & I were, not sure about SA).

There were a couple of cake shops at South Ex but they had run out of cake!! We went across to a convenience store at the gas station across from South Ex. They had cakes but not eggless ones (VJ is Jain so he couldn't have cake with eggs). Then we walked to another eating joint a little further. Don’t remember the name…it was something with an R…Rameshwar maybe? They didn’t have cakes at all! Then I think we tried finding ice-cream. Couldn't find that either, so we finally settled for chocolates.

Well, we might not have been able to have Christmas cake in Delhi but we surely had enough gaajar ka halwa to last us ten winters! Say 'Aye' to Dilli!!

Some like it cold

I love winters. The kinds where you are chilled to the bone. You wear a cap, gloves and muffler and still shiver. The kinds that makes your eyes water and the tip of your nose, red.

I started missing the winter when I moved to Bombay and could no longer experience the windy, bone-chilling winter of the US that I was used to. It was then that I started craving trips to Delhi in the winter to be able to feel the chill again. I did manage a few trips to be honest, and expectedly they were a blast!!

On one of the trips, my friends & I walked around Connaught Place all day in a Santa hat with lights (LOL) and even went to a bar wearing them. It was Christmas. On another trip, we had kaala-khatta at India Gate at 2 in the morning!! It was so cold we couldn’t even hold the damn thing properly.

Winters in the US are excruciating. Temperatures fall below 0 degrees Celsius and what makes it worse is the wind. God, it’s windy in that part of the world!! Only a heavy-duty L.L.Bean, J.Crew or North Face jacket can save you from dying.

One of my most memorable winters was during my Sophomore year when it snowed in North Carolina after 20 years. The state hadn't got snow in a long time, so it took the city some time to put snow clearing activities in action. Classes were cancelled for a week as professors who lived in the Raleigh-Durham area, which is a 30-40 minute drive from Chapel Hill and which is where most of the professors lived, couldn’t make it to Chapel Hill. The boys stole huge plastic trays from dinner halls (hiding them inside their over-sized jackets) so we could sled in the snow. We rolled about in the snow, had snow fights, and took pictures. Life had come to a standstill in the small town of Chapel Hill. Thank God the pizza delivery guys were still working or we would’ve died of starvation because no restaurants were open! You can always rely on them Gumby’s & Papa John’s guys :)