Thursday 11 February 2016

My favourite Love Story!

First things first…. A declaration! It is not my love story coz my prince charming is yet to find me and sweep me off my feet: P

Second thing second…. I am a hopeless romantic who takes much interest in love stories. I might have read and heard forties of them but my personal all-time favourite is of my maternal grand-parents (naana ji and naani ji).
Their saga of love commenced with the arrange marriage of her sister and his brother. Somewhere between him picking bhabhi from her maayka to her spending Sundays at her sister’s sasural, they fell in love and got married!

My fondest memory with them is of the times when I used to spend ten days every summer at their house. It was the time when it became one crazy place with nine kids chatting and playing all the time. 
                                                                                      Chopad and cowries

“Chopad”, my naana’s favourite game was allotted five hours of every day.
My naana ji has always been a loyal gentleman but he never ever played fair at Chopad.  At every chance, he used to arrange the cowries and we used to catch him red-handed. Then he would give an affectionate smile to Naani Ji, she would grin and somehow convince us that he didn’t cheat. So was their love!

Every Holi, naana ji used to put gulaal on naani ji’s cheeks while she was asleep. Every year, she knew that she would wake up with colour on her face, yet she would always laugh and ask him with love “Aap kab bade honge?” and he would always reply “Kabhi bhi nahi”…. So was their love!

Whenever they sat together, they always pulled each other’s leg. He used to tell me “Teri maa bilkul dramebaaz hai….apni maa pe gayi hai” and my naani would say “Koi baat nahi Shruti…tere naana ko drama bahut pasand hai ;)” So was their love!

One Sunday, I accompanied them to a Jain temple “Padampura” near Jaipur. When she faced difficulty in climbing the stairs, he joked with her “Sushila….abb tum boodi ho gayi ho… Walking stick use kiya karo” to which she giggled “meri stick toh aap hee ho, par kya kare… aap toh khud hee boode ho gaye ho : D” So was their love!

I can recite hundred stories where I have fallen in love with their love! Teasing each other, laughing with each other and laughing at each other…..Being for each other and unconditionally loving each other for sixty five years… So was their love!

                               The most beautiful couple with grand-children and great grand-children

I miss you naani… Rest in peace!


“This post is a part of #LoveAndLaughter activity at BlogAdda in association with Caratlane.”



#LoveAndLaughter 
 Shruti

Monday 8 February 2016

I looked dazzling, but then it happened!

Jaipur, 28th January, 2006
Engagement of my BFF Pooja’s sister

We (I and my other girlfriends) were pretty excited as it would be our first saree experienceJ 
We wanted to look ravishing and steal the limelight of the bride (Yea… we were mean ;) We had prepared ourselves well by reading lot of Vogue and Femina and watching shows on Style Check. 

We had roamed around the city for one full month to find the perfect girlish sarees and gone through numerous fitting sessions with the tailor a.k.a masterji (no boutiques back then!) to get the perfect sexy yet decent blouses. 

We exactly knew how we wanted our hair-do, how should our make-up be done and in what styles should our sarees be draped at The Big Day. We were the self-acclaimed Fashion Divas.

We had everything sorted out. We all stayed at one friend’s house so that we could go together to the beauty parlour and then directly to the engagement party and later get a drop back home by Pooja’s chacha ji.

We timely reached the venue looking beautiful and feeling gorgeous. We walked our way inside and saw an empty stage as the to-be-weds hadn’t arrived. Our only familiar face of Pooja was nowhere to be seen amidst the thousands of guests.

We decided to take a round of the garden to look for her and also show off our perfect looks! I for one was too happy with my net saree and the designer blouse (that’s how I liked to call it ;), the neat hair up-do and my new golden high heels.

As I walked with my head held high, I accidentally stepped on my saree and suddenly the tucked in pleats came off. I was shocked and embarrassed but my dear friends quickly circled me as I hastily tucked the pleats back. Okay! Even though my saree wasn’t perfect anymore, my new stilettos bit my toes and their heels sank in the garden with every step, I tried to display the confidence of a fashion maestro (not that, I felt that anymore!). It was just then my chic blouse decided to mock at me with the cleavage show off behind the net pallu and the misbehaving zipper at the back. I was irritated and then when I looked at my friends for some consolation, I realised that all of our make-up was way too loud for a ring ceremony in the Marwari community. The Clothes… Sandals…. Make up… Nothing fit right…! And there we were (particularly me) a classic example of misfits.

We took seats in the front row with our plates full of veg Kababs, spring rolls and chilli paneer as the ring ceremony was announced. Confetti blasters were popped, gifts were exchanged and solitaires sparkled on the ring fingers but our friend was nowhere to be seen. (I so wished we were allowed cell phones that time!) 
So after the ceremony, I asked aunty (one can easily make out bride’s mom right!) about Pooja. She looked puzzled and questioned me “Who Pooja??”

Our faces turned blank….. Was she kidding us? NO!!!!!….. We were at a wrong party!
Oh! We were so embarrassed.

Next day, we got our butts kicked by Pooja and got mocked by everyone else (crazy stories travel fast: D) for missing the function in the adjacent lawn!

It has been ten years now and we still can’t stop laughing reminiscing the good old embarrassing times: P   

This post is written as part of the "That didn't fit right" blogger contest by Buttercups in association with Women's Web. 
Image Source: Internet

Celebrate yourself with a perfect fit. Take the Buttercups quiz @http://bit.ly/buttercupsquiz and get that perfect fit you deserve. Use GYRF10 to avail a 10% discount. 
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Keep Smiling!! 
Cheers, 
Shruti Jain

Sunday 7 February 2016

WOW… ‘Nobody Knows That I…’


Well, for a talkative person like me, it takes lot of effort to think about something that I know and haven’t shared with even a single fellow.

Okay…. So what could be something that is not meant for the public eye? Dark secrets…. Embarrassing stories… A love affair….Or anything that will scare me of being judged! Hmm….I got nothing… Haha… seems my life isn’t that fun!! (Although my friends tell me that it’s a fairy tale ;))

So, before I put out my only secret on a public forum, here is a little about myself… I like reading love stories and am a believer of happy ever afters; and keeping a secret is not lying ;)

June of 2008; it was during the beautiful days of MBA that I found these treasures of my life. She was my hostel - neighbour and he was a member of my Economics group project. Now I don’t remember how and when did I introduce these two but I am glad I did.

Here’s what happened!  Every night my two besties would voice chat on Gtalk and then the next day I would spend listening all about it by him in the class and by her as soon as I returned to my room. She used to go all gaga about him; his humour, his ambitions, how she really likes talking to him and on and on….. He wouldn’t stop blabbering about her innocence, her passion and how he really likes talking to her and on and on….  Basically, they talked to each other all the time and talked about each other for the rest of the time. And in the middle I, the chatterbox actually happened to listen!

It was the last month of college and they hadn’t even gone out on a date. Basically they acted dumb heads who hadn’t expressed their love to each other but me.

It was one night when she sobbingly told me that her father had shortlisted some bio data’s for her to see. I was angry with my BFFs for acting such chickens and it was just then, I decided to play cupid.


I had watched lot of romantic movies and thought to test them for real. So, I bought two beautiful cards and wrote in both of them –

“I like myself when I am with you. I am not sure…..but I think I am in love. So, if you feel the same way, be at Serendipity CafĂ© at 7pm tomorrow…. IT WILL BE A DATE!
However, if you don’t feel the same way, forget about this card and don’t turn up…..I promise, we will still be the best of friendsJ

Then I undersigned their names and ensured that both of them got those cards… And guess what! An hour later, they both were telling me about the cards they received. (They were going crazy!)

I must admit that I was thrilled to hear them being so happy but at the same time I was hell scared of being killed when they would find everything out! I decided to hang on to my halo and help them a little more. I picked out an adorable dress for her to wear and went shopping with him to buy her the perfect gift.

Well, it was no wonder that a day later, I listened to THE DATE story twice! Ah! I wanted to be acknowledged when he blushed about her charming looks in that blue dress. I wanted to pat my back when he continuously kept singing “I’ve had the time of my life….No, I have never felt like this before”. I wanted to be high fived for being an awesome planner when she shared the tiniest of the details of their romantic candle light dinner. I wanted to shout “Yay… I chose that song” when she pulled me into a dance while humming ‘Pehla Nasha, Pehla Khumar’.



Okay, It was no surprise that they had hopelessly fallen in love with each other. What though is a surprise is that now they have been happily married for four years and a baby is on the way!

PS - I am really close to both of them and we still talk about every damn thing; however, none of them has ever raised an eyebrow of their first date. So, I guess my secret (that I thought would be out on their first date and would get me disowned by my besties) is still safe!

‘Nobody Knows That I played a cupid!’ Oops... I guess now ‘Everybody knows!

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.

Image Source: Internet

Cheers,
Shruti 

Thursday 4 February 2016