Two posts in two successive days, am neverthless thrilled about it (it doesnt take too much for me to get thrilled), my previous post was not entirely original, it was an inspired write up(partly original), It didnt give me too much of a creative satisfaction (well even if its a write up that does not make sense and if its yours, it still feels good), so I actually thought I had to do something about it, and the topic had to be something that I could write about anytime, and every blog that I checked had its take on this, well here's my take .......

Arranged Or Love...

Is the most oft asked question - when you say you are going to attend a wedding, your friend is getting married, your friends sister is getting
married, or some random person whom you once gossiped about is getting married, and then you could be getting married.. and then the never ending debate of which one works better.. there is nothing like an ideal marriage, just like an ideal spouse, its all about making it work, about sacrifices or atleast so have I heard from people..
Well take most instances of people who are in love, ask them how did they decide that the person was the right one, 90 out of 100 will tell you "INSTINCT" , ask people who had to decide over a cup of coffee or over
just a 5 minute conversation in this whole saga of arranged marriage,
most of them would still say "INSTINCT"

( am not talking about forced marriages here, thats a different story altogether).

Sanjay and Zarine Khan decided they were made for each other, the very first day they met over a casual stroll on the beach ( they were 19 and
14 at that time), Anil Ambani and Tina Munim hadnt seen or spoken to each other for over two years after they decided to part ways, before Anil decided to break the silence and they got married, they say things could have gone so many ways in these two years but they are just destined to get together.
Both these marriages have worked or so have many others, Jackie Shroff first saw his wife in a Video library and then decided she was the one for him or is this one better, hrithik saw Susanne khan at his sisters engagement party and told his friend that "that girl" was gonna be his, he even had no clue who she was, what happened after that is well known to the whole world.
( Courtesy: Rendezvous with Simi Garewal and my ever favorite magazine FILMFARE).

And we all know of the countless arranged marriages which have been success stories, for atleast till a little while ago, LOVE marriages were considered a crime in the soceity. Times have changed or atleast have started to change, people have become more receptive to the idea, though they may not entirely approve of it. Just like most of us who are just in love, with the idea of being in love, than being in love, parents are beginning to see reason in the choice of their children. I still know many of our generation who very conciously avoid getting into a relationship for fear of upsetting their parents and the
same holds good for parents who still believe that they know best
when it comes to choosing a life partner for their children. Either ways,
it is the rest of a lifetime that we are talking about,

for holy matrimony is considered a bonding for a lifetime and everyone tries hard to make it work atleast in our Soceity.

There is always a flip side to this, not all arranged marriages are made in heaven, not all love marriages are rosy.. people who have had an
arranged marriage may realise they are just two different people and

cannot be compatible, then in love marriage, most often people

try to change the very basic characteristic in a person that they

fell in love with, then the blame game starts, who was responsible

for getting the match fixed, atleast in case of a love marriage,

you had made your choice, you live and you learn, but in the case of an arranged marriage, its just the case that your parents might be

supportive.. and then not to forget arranged marriages are the only

option for poor souls who got dumped, who were not able to impress

anybody or that they just did not meet the right person, but there is always someone for everyone in an arranged marriage.

They say "All relationships come with an expiry date, just that in most cases, the man or woman will expire... "

"In arranged marriages DESTINY chooses you, In love marriages you choose your DESTINY "....
either ways its destiny...... :):)
( I would like to say that I came up with this quote but recently I heard some one saying the same thing on TV, nobody would now believe if I say it was my
original quote)

"Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky
chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are
half chance. So are everybody else's." - Baz Luhrmann (Wear Sunscreen)

"Dining or whining... "

Waiters who keep you waiting
Your hot date who is so cool, but you have to pay for her as well.. (oh yaa, you remember those people who said, a thing of beauty is a joy forever, but only until your credit card bill arrives..)
Your hot date who can talk thru with an empty wallet.. (He is spending all his money to get his muscles toned and of course you fell for that muscles which are bigger than his brains or wallet.. )
Menu cards that have alien, tongue twister names ... (the complexity of the name is directly proportional to the price)

Fine dining in Chennai's stylish restaurants can be rather unnerving, where else do you dress up to get a dressing down... ,
"the probability of meeting some one you know (in these so called stylish cool eat outs) increases when you are with someone you don’t want to be seen with" ( I google’d to find out that this was called the Ruby's principle of close encounters")

All this can last only for a while, before there is a day when you are broke, depressed , suicidal , especially when you don’t have enough money to take your "real " date ( you had to pursue her for a year and she finally agreed) out for dinner ( you had spent all your money on those innumerable dates , they were just not worth it)

Dining Culture in this so called conservative Chennai has taken a 360 degree turn from what it was a few years ago, we can take "pride" in the fact that it is the software industry that has caused this revolution ( ok ok we might have just contributed for a 330 degree turn.. ), the multitude of hotels that have sprung up on the ECR is just proof enough, you know they also give you a 10% discount if you are from a software company but I wonder if anybody else (the non-software kind)has even heard of them ... This is for a weekday lunch. If you can manage to get the time to go out for dinner (your project manager is a major deciding factor, the day he has time, everybody else invariably has to be free) , the hospitality of some of Chennai’s best hotels will be judged by your team, even as the top management of these hotels will be holding meetings in some part of the world to discuss how to serve you better( which only means, they are discussing what are the other ways to swindle your money) and the Finance Minister is busy contemplating increasing the tax for food and beverages.

"Those fruit forks, steak knives, dinner tables, starched table linen, table manners" , have you ever thought of moving ahead of all these and try out Chennai's very own "Road side dhabbas" and "Beach Bajji stalls".. This is the real eating “OUTSIDE” experience. But then again remember Eating out will not kill you but it just might, but dont worry in the long run it might just increase your immunity. You dont want to be like those paranoid people who think of the innumerable diseases even as they read the menu, you dont want to be called those overprotected, mineral water spoilt people, dont you??

Whatever is your style, eating out is just another way of spending some “quality time” with people, unwinding, or just chilling out …. and an excuse for people who just dont want to cook at home.... Happy Dining :)

2 Blog oR Not 2 blog

In my attempt to try and explore, I landed up at this astrological site and tried this free reading for me... this is what it had to say..

"You have an extremely active, lively and versatile mind with a multitude of interests and an inexhaustible curiosity about life. You are quick to grasp new concepts and equally quick to lose interest in an idea or project once your curiosity has been satisfied. You like to taste a little bit of everything...”

Considering my different attempts in life:

1. To learn to play the guitar - I’ve always been passionate about music and of course the guitar and to prove that, I had to take guitar lessons, I was of course a nightmare for my guitar instructor, even after 4 months of training, I can’t shift chords fluently. Now that was almost a year ago, now with renewed interest, during one of those random shopping days at landmark, I have now invested a little more than a grand on this "How to play the guitar" book... I hope I survive my attempt this time.. and well play "Hotel California" some day.

2. Dancing: If you want to know what having two left feet means, you got to see me dance, of course that doesn’t stop me from enrolling for a free trial session only to decide formal dancing aint my cup of tea... and moved on.. well dancing is my passion ;);)

3. BOOKS: I absolutely love reading books, that’s one interest that’s probably stayed with me for my entire life and will always be.

4. Theatre: I love watching plays, during one of those days, I of course did have a fleeting interest to perform live on stage, and of course I did not make any further attempt, not that I would have gone beyond an initial orientation session to decide this aint for me.

5. RJ’ing: A big fan of Niladri Bose and radio, I wanted to be a RJ that I even mailed Niladri to find out if there was formal training to be a RJ, he even replied asking me to attend one of his workshops. and then again... of course I dint go to his workshop, need I say more..

6. Journalism: I am sure people will be much relieved that I did not take to this profession, imagine the torture of being subjected to read all that I write ( I am just being a little optimistic that if I did choose to be a journalist someone would recruit me)..

And now coming to the whole purpose of this post, I like writing, after contemplating for one whole year “Should I blog or Should I not”, finally my inexhaustible curiosity in life took the better of me... and voila.. This is my Blog and this is my first post.....

*Disclaimer: For all those people who have been forced to visit my blog... I hold no responsibility for disorienting your gray matter... but then again thanks for visiting this page... :-) & for the people who accidentally stumbled on this page... GOD Bless you!!