Besharam Toronto
Hey, looks like there are solid Bollywood nights in Toronto. 3 months in Toronto and I am ready to jive to "Soldier, soldier meethi baatein bolke", "Kudukoo..Soni de nakhre"
Well, the club is called Besharam. Kind of a second thought place, uh huh?
Well time to sexify and hit it. Will let you know how it went. This one gives me feeling of going either way, rock bottom or nutsy high!
What I will definitley avoid is Sexi Sari Club, Toronto.
All the Sad People of the World
In Canada, I learnt about this problem called Bipolar disorder, that leads to acute depression.
I felt sad watching people affected by Bipolar disorder, on TV. Imagine a person wanting to die all the time. Just plain sad. And when they know they are patients of bipolar disorder, they know the feeling is meaningless but still feel generally depressed and irritable.
Watching these people,I felt another emotion. Gratefulness. I felt good that I am healthy and able to live life without biological sadness. I only deal with everday disappointments and pitfalls.
It really feels like some people bear the whole burden of sadness for the rest of humanity. It feels like that even though I am a disbeliever in cosmic connection between people.
And some people suffer from anguish and depression to create such fantastic art, like Van Gogh did. It seems like all the art does not reward the artist with long term happiness. But it is such a treat for our eyes.
In India, bipolar disorder is not even heard of. You are either normal or mad. Anything in between is self-pity or putting on a show. Well, India has her own problems to deal with. More in your face stuff like poverty.
This whole article is getting quite despairing.
Something nice I read recently, by a friend of mine - Ankit, was "Do not associate words like pseudo intellectual or wannabe cool... with people who express complexities."
Same
I was talking to my grandfather on the phone and answering the usual - Howr you finding Canada?
I said that everything is different until you realize that under the skin, everything is the same.
Here are 2 images I came across separately and they illustrate my point. Thank you to
Priyankar Gupta http://priyankargupta.blogspot.com/
and Luc Latulippe http://www.flickr.com/photos/luclatulippe/
.
This is Priyankar Gupta's illustration of people on a Mumbai Local train. He is Indian.
This is Luc latulippe's illustration called Subway Crowd. He is Canadian.
Renzo, a friend of mine, said "I think people bring books to read in Subways, just to avoid talking to each other."
Toronto, Rain, Snow
It rained here in Toronto and I was like - Where is the chai and the samosas?! I have still to get that excited about hot chocolate moments.
But when I wake up and it has snowed overnight its beautiful. All the leaves are bent with lumps of slushy snow on them. I could put a straw into Toronto and slurrp it all up!
I am here as an exchange student. So that makes it 4 months in Canada.
After college here, I have to do an internship for 4 months from Jan to April 08 and then I graduate.
Geez..man..getting to the end of the road in school or college always takes ages, especially the last bit of the run.
Everyone has been talking of how cold it gets in Canada, but trust me, India is a colder place.
It's snowing here in Toronto, the temperature is in minus degrees celsius but all the central heating makes it imperceptible.
It's in india that you get into your bed with socks and topi and razai and a glowing heater 5 ft away and still feel cold. Now thats winter!
Include freezing to death in autorickshaws, especially for the 6:00 a.m shatabdi! 
And the sadistic school admin in Lucknow, which made us wear pretty schoolgirl tunics and socks in winter.
{{{{{{{{ How brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....... those mornings werrrrrr }}}}}}}}
College
College is so much about vomitting roomies huh ?
self-discovering first yrs,
ennui struck second yrs
industry-savvy third years
and holding onto jawani fourth yrs. lol
And Einstein had to go ahead and prove even time is not absolute
Sanity in a world of no absolutes, no forevers.
Once upon a time there was a large tree. It held onto the same soil with its strong deep immovable roots. It overlooked a flowing stream. And then there was a little plant that had frail roots. Not too deep, not too strong. It was planted in a pot. Shifted to another pot. (I dunno why but all the shifting works to illustrate my point. lol). It really didnt know what life was about since it was a new life each time and it was a new plant in new soil.
And then there was a dandelion stalk. That floated in the wind. It knew what it was and just drifted everywhere taking change to be absolute. Just that when I come around to this part in the story its tough to liken my 70 kg self to a floating dandelion stalk. 
Om Shanti Om in Cineplex Odeon
The movie suxx. Having said that...
Watching this movie, any movie was just the thing I needed after a long day and night's work and a tiring presentation that went off well. I looked up the theatres in which Om Shanti Om was playing across Toronto. Took a subway and dashed off to a distant theatre in unknown parts. My mind was mostly on the loveliness of my belted coat and the personas of strangers in the subway. I reached a large multiplex with multiple snack counters and around 9 auditoriums. Unlike the constant throng at PVR Saket, whether its Monday or Wednesday or a weekend, this theatre was ghostly and totally empty except for one guy who manned 10 ticket counters alone, and one woman who manned all the snack bars. The number of employees seemed justified considering that I was the only one there to watch a movie - in all the 9 audis.
I went into the theatre. The screen was full size. The seats were comfy. Lots of leg-space. No reason to avoid the theatre. I touched the screen on which they project the movie and saw what it felt like. I went and looked right into the overhead projector which was showing some meaningless routine promos. No one in the projection room. No one in the seats in the theatre. I tested 4 exactly similar seats for best ass comfort, before I settled on one. I put my feet up. A while later I bought some food and coke and ate noisily with my coat on one seat, Coca cola bottle on another, feet up. The nachos I ate cracked noisily in my mouth at the most significant emotional pauses in the movie until a couple came into the theatre to catch the film-in-progess. In fact, that didn't stop me. By then, I was the self-proclaimed King Of the place.
Bole mere lips, I lerve Uncle Chips!
I love Amitabh Bachhan and Himesh Reshammiya. Yes i do! And stuffed buses and trains. And cabs from gurgaon to delhi. Its all nice when u are jammed in and travelling wi ur bf. And I love monsoon india things like steamy chai-samosa-pakora that appears as soon as the first drop pelts down.
And I like shirtless taporis on bikes when it rains. And mud puddles. And Mard Kamzori posters seen from trains as you approach towns. And people who ask if you are baniya or sunar or whatever. I am something new each time! I love greasy black auto mechanic shacks with blackened tenacious hands working monkey-wrenches. And I love the arm-cuts on guys who work at the tandoor, over its red glow and erratic sparks in dhaabas.
I love aunties who force you to eat. And the sweet milky awful tea that real estate brokers force you to drink in their air conditioned offices with an aquarium for effect. And Mughal Gardens and Rajput forts.
Irreplaceable Words
Here is a list of words and phrases I like for their pithiness.
Succulent
Exposition (courtsey Renzo)
Quotidian (Courtsey Romy Misra!)
Kickass (try to think of a single substitute)
Indefagitable
Malcontent
Turgid
I am going to keep adding to ths list. You can add your words as comments
Love Update
I am totally in love with Pasha from "So you think you can dance!"
Yup, soppy, doggone lowe..
And it doesn't help that heaps of girls over America are in love with him too. Sighh..
Pic from starlitecommunity.com
Thats Anya in the pic. She is the damndest great dancer too!