Perhaps it would be better if I gave some background information before I started, for you guys to be able to completely empathise with my story. The ONLY people I shop with are my sister Sheila who cannot stand shopping for more than 5 minutes and Gaurav who will simply snicker at the sound of “pumps” and “wedges”:D I love them both a lot but this severe disability of theirs has resulted in me looking elsewhere for my aptly called “SOLEMATE”( I gotta give credit to my friend Samira who came up with that word! )

Many people would vehemently agree with me when I say that I am a tad bit  irritating while shopping. Which is why the moment I mentioned my plans,  people started making excuses left, right and center leaving me to shop all on my own!! I knew it was bound to happen and so I head to my favorite spot “Hill Road” in Bandra with my pockets full of cash, a super grin on my face all prepared to do some serious shopping! As luck would have it, I met my “SOLEMATE” almost immeadietly.

She was standing next to me at my favorite shoe shop ( stall/ shack  whatever ) and giggled when she heard me tell the shop owner my shoe size and try to explain to him in hindi that I was prepared to buy his whole shop if he found atleast one pair that would fit my enormously large feet. I soon forgave her audacity when she admitted that she too had been blessed with feet the size of Asia and was totally blown away when she started suggesting that I try on shoes that were completely my style. The pessimist in me refused to beleive that she was the one, and so I decided to test our shoe-compatibilty. I pointed to all that shoes that I would never wear with a hopeful smile, tricking her into beleving that I liked them, and she rubbished them with a mere wave of her hand! ( Ok I am so completely adding masala to my story, but isn’t this fun!! )

I soon found out that we had many things in common. We were of the same age, and we both had boyfriends who disappeared at the very mention of shoe shopping! Sadly I do not have any pictures of us shopping together, but ( at the cost of sounding very cheesy ) I remember every shoe we picked together!

We didn’t have much time to get to know each other better, but we did exchange numbers and I also found her on facebook. Needless to say, it was the most fun I had that day, and I didn’t even realise that 3 hours had passed. Gaurav got a bit jealous after listening to my story and accompanied me clothes shopping the next day. Jealousy is a tool I must use more often If only it worked on Sheila!

Apart from shopping, I had a great time in Mumbai, but thats for another post!

What does one do on a lonely sunday evening? I can’t go to the park. Its been raining all day. I used to love the rain once. Now it just makes me feel gloomy. Sharing my feeling on this blog is making me feel better. It doesn’t judge me or poke fun at my silliness. It just takes all my feelings and stores it for me to read when I am happier and am able to laugh at this.

Feel better already.

The election that is coming up now is to vote for the person to be placed in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly or to make it simpler to become an MLA. Now, after scourging the internet, this is the definition I found for the Legislative Assembly.

Legislative Assembly: The constitutional body empowered to make legislations on the subjects coming in the state list as per constitutional division of powers between the Centre and State. Each district is represented by a specific number of MLAs in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly.

• They make laws for the state.

It has powers to levy taxes, raise resources, authorize the state Govt. expenditure by passing the annual budget of the state Govt. presented in the assembly. Thus it is responsible for the development of the State.

• They are the guys who decide the amount of money the state requires and budget it for different purposes. In other words, the reason for the very poor state of infrastructure in Karnataka. This roads are the worst in the country!!!

The Chief Minister and Council of Ministers remain in power as long as they enjoy the confidence of the State Legislative Assembly. Thus the member of Legislative Assembly decides on the leadership of the State Govt. and controls its activities through the financial powers vested in the assembly.

• They decide who our chief minister is!!!!! They also have control over state finances and thus over the chief minister! ( I think )

Member of Legislative Assembly or MLA: He is responsible for the development of constituency, He places the developmental needs and problems of people of his constituency before the Govt. and sees that proper plans are formulated for the benefit of the people of this constituency.

• Each of us have to vote for a person who we feel will take the trouble of voicing our issues to “THEM” ( GOVT )

He participates in the proper running of the Govt. by raising questions and calling attention of the Govt. to important matters on the floor of the Assembly.

• If he has attended the session and is not fast asleep, must ensure that no bad decision is made in the assembly that can have drastic consequences!

He participates as a member in one of the various house committees which scrutinize inspect the functioning of the Govt. departments minutely.

This ones pretty obvious! Just look at the responsibilities these guys have to carry out. The reason I explained all of this is because most people aren’t aware that an election is happening, and of those who are aware, most don’t know what it is for! ( Me a few hours ago! ) and those who are aware and proactive have no idea whom to vote for!!!!! This is such a crazy dilemma that we all are in! None of the people standing for elections have actively promoted their goals for their constituencies, but I guess the main reason is because people don’t think this is important. Its just like that “Tata Tea” ad on TV, where a guy questions the MLA on his qualifications and the MLA actually takes offense at the question asked!

The only thing that the state government provides us is entertainment and complete insecurity and distrust. Why can’t we hold people responsible for work that they were supposed to do? Why can’t we have the people contesting on and more public platform such as TV ( or radio for me! ) where they debate on issues and allow us to see who is the best person for the job?

We waste our time voting for idols, when we should be spending time voting for a better future.

If you want more information, then check out http://www.indian-elections.com and http://www.kar.nic.in to know more about whats happening. Most of the stuff in there is outdated though. I heard a speech by the chairman of the legislative council Prof B.K Chandrashekar, in December’ 07 and I was really amazed to see a guy who spoke so well, and was so highly educated. He actually understood the problems of the city and was simply enlightening. Maybe we do have more people like him in Karnataka, but all we see is the corruption and injustice.

I will not be voting during these elections mainly because I will not be in my constituency ( Mangalore ) and also I do not know who to vote for. I see no point in ticking some random persons name and hoping he hasn’t been to jail in the last 6 months! But those of you who are aware, please do vote! And those of you who are brave enough, do compete for elections, maybe we could make a difference!

The only problem I’m facing now is finding good gym clothes. People look at me weirdly when I walk around in my over-sized black shirt with blue slacks that have the words “Blue Jeans” printed on the front!But I just don’t see the sense in buying clothes that cost me more than my gym membership! So if anyone knows a place where I can get decently priced ( = really cheap ) gym clothing in Bangalore please let me know!!!

On a different note, work is going really well for me now. Its interesting and not too taxing. But I know I’ll be doing late nights very soon. When work is interesting, you lose track of time I guess. So no complaints! My colleagues as super cool and never complain when I keep bugging them with the silliest of doubts. God Bless them!

Almost all my peers have some plans of doing higher studies ( an MBA, MS whatever ) but I just can’t imagine myself learning by sitting in a classroom listening to a lecture. But everyone keeps saying that a higher degree is a prerequisite to getting a better paying job ( not necessarily a better job! ) and all this talk confuses me so! I don’t miss my school or college days at all and never want to have to go through the ordeal again. School was ok but engineering was an absolute 4 year nightmare.I wouldn’t say it was a waste because it was in these four years that I met my Best Friends For Eva! ( Sorry couldn’t help myself! )

These are just random thoughts that ran through my head this week! Will write more interesting and worthwhile stuff soon!

My Timeline

I know that the root cause of my ever expanding behind is the lack of home cooked food. My habit of having dessert every night is something I should’ve stopped when I was in high school.Well, from today onwards I’m on a strict diet of no dessert, no cheese and no rice. A little tandoori chicken once in a while is harmless I’m sure!

Today was my first day at the gym, and after cycling for 10 mins straight, I couldn’t feel my legs! So I gave up after just ten mins and walked out while everyone in the gym watched me walk all funny! Who knows, tomorrow I might just stay for a good 15 mins! I really hope I get thinner! I got to go to Goa in November!!

This is a Kannada version of will.i.am ’s “I Got It From My Mamma”. Please give due credit to our Audacity skills! And Sheila’s singing!

I totally love its non - glossy screen ( which has been stopped Lucky me! ) and its sexy clean whiteness!!! I am so overjoyed at not having to install an anti-virus software, or have to deal with constant crashes which I had with my windows machine! I love how its Power-On button is so discreetly placed, and how the DVD drive slot does not have ugly blinking lights on it when the CD just fails to read every time. I love how I need only one power cable that fits so neatly into the monitor, and how I can connect my mouse to the USB port in my keyboard!! I love how it comes with built-in wireless capabilities!! I love the whole iLife package, and how I can use simple wonderful UNIX shell commands that I love so much on the CLI! I love how you can set the tracking and scrolling speeds of the mouse and how smooth the track ball feels when I use it. But most of all, I love how my blog looks on the iMac! Simply Superb!!

As you can see, I am very much IN LOVE!!! I rush home from work early just to be able to use my iMac for longer hours each day. I use my iMac until I can hardly keep my eyes open and then I finally get into bed still staring at it until my eyes finally close. I’m so in love!

On the way to the vineyard we passed by these beautiful fields of some type of grain :P( sorry I ain’t all that informed on types of grain ) I just had to stop and take this very “cliche” picture. I just had to!!

Sula had advertised that the very cool grape stomping tradition would take place and I was really looking forward to getting my feet into the thick of things! When the time finally came I decided against making my own personal “feet flavour” of Grape Squash. People who’ve seen my feet would thank me for not taking that juicy step! Instead, I got a picture of two very lovely feet!

I met my very good friend Kenneth D’Silva at the place too and Shreyas, Kenneth and I decided we would learn to perfect our wine making skills and take the guided tour! There was really cool machine that removed all the grapes from their stems, and they also had huge cylinders filled with fermented grape juice. It was really quite cool actually, but the smell was really pungent and we quickly got out of the brewery….

This is a picture of the lovely Sula grapes…

This is a picture of me wishing I was swimming in the huge cylinder containing wine!

After the tour came the wine tasting session. We learnt how to actually “taste” the wine by smelling it first, gargling it in your mouth before taking it in… I was actually surprised what a difference it made if you smelt the wine before tasting it! I’m not too sure of the gargling bit though! The guy who was explaining the whole process to us was really sweet and I managed to record him describing each wine too! Will put up a recording soon… Here’s Shreyas and me taking classic pictures posing with our wine…

My most favorite wine was “The Sula Late Harvest Chenin Blanc” which is a sweet sweet smelling white wine. It also has the highest alcohol content among all Sula wines and I must second that fact! If you any of you guys are ever planning to start drinking wine, this is the wine to start with!!!!

You can see the rest of my Sula trip here. The Sula fest is happening next year too… See ya all there.

Here’s a picture of Rajeev Sawant the owner of Sula Wines inaugurating the festival with his sweet dog “Johnny” sharing the spotlight!!

A detailed description of the Sula vineyards is a post that I’m going save for later,but now I just want to tell all you guys about the music festival that was just so awesome!!!! There were 3 bands slated to play, “Shaair + Func“, “The Saturday Night Blues Band” and of course “The Raghu Dixit Project“.

The Saturday Night Blues Band were the perfect way to start the show just as Shreyas and I sat down with a bottle of “Sula Late Harvest Chenin Blanc” a spectacular wine to have with dark chocolate!!!

By the time Raghu Dixit project was up on stage I was ready to party!!! What a show it was!!!! Everyone was dancing and some people even got onto stage and basically went mad!!!! There was even this really cute french guy named Oliver who despite not understanding the music was having a ball!

As you can see from the picture, the setting was beautiful! Here’s a picture of the crazy audience!!

I just love this picture and so I had to put it up!

The last band to play was “Shaa’ir and Func” which is just a 2 member band consisteing of Monica Dogra and Randolf who also plays for Pentagram. These guys are just awesome and they are a genre I had never been exposed to! Sorry guys but I got no pictures of these guys since the wine had kicked in by then and nobody trusted me with their cameras after that.. Lol!

Nothing is better than dancing your heart out to awesome music on a hot summer night in the middle of a massive vineyard…. Yes this is a night I will not forget, because of the great music, great wine and great people!!!

The 4 hour drive was uneventful, save a few save a few accidents that we encountered on the way. But what was most interesting was the landscape around us. There were hills that looked like huge awesome temples, some which just looked like Phaluses and some which looked like .. well just plain ordinary hills. But the view into the ravines was splendid!

I even saw 3 twisters!!!!! They were completely harmless and completely breathtaking too!!! Once I get the pictures will show them so that none of you think I’m making this up!

The city of Nashik was mostly bare and boring, but I loved the hotel we stayed in. Its a new self-service hotel chain called “Ginger” part of the Taj group of hotels. The place was great because even though you didn’t have room service, the rooms were so great no one cared! Total value for money!

Shreyas and I proceeded to the Sula vineyard at 5 p.m. after the band returned from sound check. I promptly took Gaurav’s camera to knowing that I would get great shots there… But the Sula experience is reserved for another post when I get my pictures uploaded.

The trip to Mumbai on Sunday was amazing fun and I learnt many things on the art of tricking people on that journey! The guys at OML and Counter Culture were so sweet and so much fun! Thanks guys!!!!