First experience with Halloween :)

My first experience with Halloween - well I thought its going to be just another day with people dressed up, but was I wrong! Its BIG! 

Everyone was not just dressed up while taking care of minutest of details, but were also in complete character. People who were dressed like devils would act like one, those who were dressed like WWF fighter's literally had friends with whom they were fighting on street in the same style, those who acted dead walked like one etc.

Streets were buzzing with characters ranging from - walking dead, to evil nurse, to devil, to angel, to mummies, to Ravan (yes Mahabharat's Ravan :D), to Greek Kings to sexy cats to WWF Fighters and to what not. You imagine and its probably there somewhere in the crowd. When I looked at a few of them, I could only imagine the efforts they had put into all this. Exemplary! 

Besides all this, what you will love even more is the spirit and the energy the whole place and people exudes. Its festive mood, people greet strangers, clicks pics with anyone they wish, you will hear laughter and will feel happiness all around you.

I mean it was crazy, mad and literally over the top! Loved every bit of the experience. Next year I might just be one of the dressed ones ;) !

literally random thoughts....

When there comes a time that you simply run out of stories to tell….can’t even recall those amazing moments you once marveled upon….those memories that once were so vivid starts to fade away…..whenever you try to force down yourself to sit and write, all you can think about is “have to get up early in the morning”….you stop talking late in the night because you won’t be able to get your proper sleep….it’s time to tell yourself “WELCOME TO THE CORPORATE WORLD” and “YOU ARE GETTING OLD”.

I haven’t visited my blogging pages since ages, but today an incident or shall I say a moment reminded me of those awesome 2 years of my life, when my world was the 100acres beautiful campus, only tension was “what’s there in mess today”, only aim was to get 7.5+ CGPA and only travel was the running from hostel to class and to mess.

That incident or moment I spoke of is related to something called “Gulab Jamun”…hahahahha..! I was eating it in peace and luxury without worrying about any devil snatching it from me…without planning out how to get the 3^rd piece, without having to go to the other side of the mess and put extra food in the plate only to get a few more piece of them…and without always keeping an eye on few my ever so present lurkers for the sweet. Those lurkers I am talking about here very well know its them who not once let me eat it in peace and never never never after I had my food (had to finish it the moment we got it in the plate…hahahahha). I am not going to elaborate on the same. But incase u too have a Gulab Jamun story of college…most welcome to add on those list of amazing SWEET memories.

For my best school buds...

There are times when we think, this is it, he/she is my best bud for life and nothing can change it. Many a times it stands true, many a times something happens and friends are lost and many a times people you least expected stand by you in the time of need and become your friend for life.

In the course of my 6 years at Doon International, I had many best friends starting with Harmeen

Chaddha, a real studious but amazing person to have fun with, Sonam Singh who was an awsum friend but don't know what got into her after she left school and we lost contact, Apoorva Chauhan, an extremely soft spoken and truly genuine friend who I am still in touch with, then came class 9th which was the worst for me and last there were quite a few people in class 10th who made my life wonderful starting with:

1) Yoona, a very cute and very genuine South korean girl who was an absolute sweetheart. She was an absolute gem of a person. I still remember her English sentences which used to lack any prepositions and always in present tense so she would speak like, "what you do", "where you go". She did Maths major from somewhere in the US. We lost touch gradually but I still love her soooo much.

2) Rabia, a complete papa's girl. I remember her crying sitting near our room's window from where we could see Mussourie. We all knew the reason for her crying which was "missing home" but were wondering why is she crying and looking towards Mussourie again and again. So I stepped up and asked her, and her answer had all of us rolling on the floor with laughter. She said, "one of her uncle had come to Mussourie and so she was looking there and missing him".

3) Roshni: she wasn't my best friend but she was the life of our room. She brought in all the gossips, she lived her life the way she wanted and truly has given my some weird yet amazing memories of school. I still remember her pulling out school dress from the pile of clothes lying on her bed, getting ready and then standing in front of the mirror every morning admiring and talking to herself.

The above mentioned were awsome friends but time told me that it wasn't going to be life long friendship. And so I come to my forever school friends. These two people are someone I of course spoke to but never even at a good friend level. The interaction was always very normal and not even in my wildest dream did I think they will be people I can rely on any given day, time and situation. They are Vandana whom I fondly call Vandu and teasingly call "Bandar" and Vidit whom I call mota at times.

So, first I will talk about Vandana. She left DIS after 8th and joined DPS , VK in Delhi. But somehow once in a while we got in touch through emails and that was it. Then after 10th boards when I came to Delhi for break I got in touch with her and I can never forget our excitement when we met each other. She was standing outside the gate (the net gate) of my uncles house and literally jumping and ditto for me inside. Then we went out to Priya's, a famous hang out in South Delhi and our friendship took a new turn. We both took admission in G D Goenka in class 11th and even though she out of blue left school mid-term and went to her hometown to continue but we remained in touch. I remember our hang out at her place where we once got so tired of eating junk that we decided to cook and ended up making something worse than a junk food :D. Even now we might talk once in a month but whenever we do, its just best buds talking and we catch up with everything :). Its been 13years (oh i just realized, its been soooo long vandu) approximately of knowing each other and she is an Intern Doctor now :). Really thanks for being there literally always :). Love u.

Now my other buddy, Vidit. He was there in school till 10th but we hardly spoke as friends, and even thought he denies but I really feel he disliked me for whatever reason :D. He got into DPS Noida and it wasn't like we spoke everyday and became best friends. In fact we hardly spoke and hardly met which stands true even for now but whenever I speak to him, I can be rest assured I will not to get to hear any sugar coated words but only the truth. And this is what makes him someone I can turn to when I need to know the reality about my self and things. Thanks for being there and alllllll the best for the awesome step of career you have taken. I am not saying it because I am superstitious about it but from the bottom of my heart I pray you succeed.

There are times when we make a mistake and loose some real precious friends, well all I will say is if you have friends such as these, its worth every effort in the world to keep them with you forever.

Basketball: Dedicated to Kelly Sir

I dedicate this post to Kelly Sir for all the hours of practice, all the jokes, all the scoldings, all the warnings of hitting (from outside the court during matches :D), for all the broken chairs during the game, for all the times he fought for us with the referees, for all the winning matches and last but not the least for giving us a passion and not just a game.

So here goes my Basketball journey:

The flood lights were on, score: 28-26, last 2 minutes left: crowd was going crazy with all the slogans and shouts, Amrita had the ball (our captain), Kelly sir was shouting, "pass the ball, don't dribble, pass it to Kokil", I had reached the other court and was screaming for a pass, Amrita heard and passed the ball to me, and I passed it to Kokil, she went in for the shoot and for a second, it was as if the world stood still, everything was in slow motion and then there it was, another score and a long whistle blow announcing : DIS Senior Girls Basketball team had won the CBSE Basketball tournament with final score as 30-26. What a moment it was, we five ran towards each other hugging as if there was no tomorrow, jumping in tandem, screaming our lungs out, then came the rest of the team, crowd and Kelly Sir all rejoicing the winning moment. To add flavor to the win, we beat Jaswant Modern against whom we had lost the finals a year before. It all came together to make the moment absolutely perfect.

It was not a one off thing, basketball has given me numerous such moments to cherish for whole of my life, be it Independence cup at St. Thomas (where we were always runner's up and hoped every year that Welham's doesn't participate :D) or Kashyap Cup at Pestleweed (where we were the winner's for two continuous years and where both of our school's cheer leading team always ended up in verbal fights), or District tournament (where we got to go to Doon school :) and be in the company of some amazing players ;)) or Hilton cup (which was only 5 member team game and tested our stamina to the max.) or CBSE cup at our school (where we always won with an exception of once loosing against JMS). It might sound unbelievable but basketball was so important to our school that before final matches our principle Mrs Mann used to call us inside her house for Prashad and we got treat at President Restaurant on winning. All the wins were celebrated like crazy and loosing meant everyone around literally crying and being upset for hours and hours.

I remember once there was day match during school hours (usually tournament timings are after school) against a Mussourie school (can't recall the name, an all girls school something starting with L). All of us had reached the court and were warming up, suddenly we saw class after class coming out of the academic building (in one straight line and one arm distance:D) towards the court. The scene made me so nervous, all the teachers had come to watch too. Anyway, the game started and suddenly I notice, my class teacher Saxena mam (a nice old lady-hindi teacher) and Shamta mam (social science teacher) shouting things like, "oh god, can't you guys see, number 3 is not been checked, Anshu take her" etc etc. Even though the game was on but for a moment I was confused and smiling. Then came a time out and my smile was gone. Both literally started scolding us as if we hadn't finished our homework :D (teacher's just can't digest that there might be something we would know better of :D). Anyway luckily for us, we won the match and the pride was retained :).

I had started playing basketball at the time when the court was still not cemented and after every vacation, it used have knee length green grasses growing all over. As a solution to it, school used to dig the whole court making it so uneven that it was a rarity of ball coming back to you after a dribble. Gradually we got a cemented court and an amazing coach in the form of Kelly Sir. He made us run for hours, dribble for hours, shoot for ours and ultimately gave us perfect set of boys and girls for a team and what a team it was. Our boys team was simply superb and we were not that bad either ;). We played almost every tournament and won majority of them. Team we had been afraid of, became just another game and list of trophies were added every season. The practice time and match time used to be my best hours of the day and I miss it always. At the end I would just like to mention my amazing team mates : Amrita Shrestha, Amrita Singh, Amrita Gurung, Firfilla, Sanswarang, Kokil, Jasleen, Anuradha Gandhi. And ofcourse how can I forget the other half i.e. the boys team Eman Bose, Mudit, Pal, Bhuppi, Chintu, Moti, Krishad, Sheetal n others. Thank you for always standing by us and especial thanks to Eman bhaiya and Mudit Bhaiya for helping me get over my fear of lay ups :D. Miss you all soooooo much....

Note: Welcome Rahul Nautiyal Bhaiya, who has just joined my small group of followers. Seriously I was surprised and thrilled to see your name there. For readers who don't know him, he was in the senior most batch and one of the smartest guy around in school. Mahesh bhaiya told me a year back that you got married (I hope its correct info. because I am announcing it pretty publically), so Congrats :). Hope you like your junior's writing (if you remember me then it must be as a 5th or 6th class girl :)).

My sweetheart: For my little Bro.

It was that time of the year again when school's hostel used to get new occupants. There were new faces everywhere some sad, some happy and some bidding their final goodbyes. I stood on my hostel stairs thinking how its going to be a special day tomorrow. It would be special because my little brother Rishi was joining hostel. He was to enter class 2nd then, so you can imagine that when I say little, I literally mean it :). Ma had called up and told me he was all excited over the thought that he would get to be with his Didda (he calls me that) and have all the fun. What he miscalculated or shall I say missed out on was that Ma-Pa won't be there.

Finally the day arrived and he was there with Ma. After all the hostel formalities and shopping she finally bid goodbye to both of us and left. And that's when my brother's hostel life started. I can never forget how he cried when she left. It melts my heart every time that scene flashes across my mind of him crying out loud and trying to run towards the gate. I kept trying to distract him by telling him of all the fun we will have but nothing mattered at that point and all he wanted was for Ma to come back. He said call up Ma, she will come back and I replied, there's no phone. And as smart as he is, he said, "no I had seen a phone in the office, call her from there". After a while he calmed down but kept aloof and to himself. As a special case, school allowed him to stay with me in the girl's dormitory for a few days till he settled down. Slowly he stopped asking to go home, not because he forgot things or got fine with being away, but because he resigned to the fact that there's no going back for a long time.

During the school hours, I guess he did ok, but during games I would see him walking alone all by himself and run to him. I used to call little kids and ask them to be with him and they replied, "didi we always call him but he never comes". He was a kid who was loved at home, taken care of like the only baby in the world and here he was, in an unknown place without the comfort of home, love of Maa and his strength and support "papa". It took him a long time to settle down but did it so well. Gradually he settled in the hostel life and things began to change for good. Every sport was new to him and I guess he promised that he won't leave playing any of it. That's why during every vacation when we went home and Papa used to ask him what he played, it was always a new game :D. He was always among the toppers of his class, had "contacts" with the seniors :D. Life had become pretty good for him except for the fact that he didn't get to eat more than one omelette's during breakfast :D and one Sukhdev bhaiya (a helper in junior boys hostel) whom he called "Dukhdev Bhaiya" really troubled him by catching his mischiefs and complaining to the wardon :D. Oh! and one more problem was the canteen coupon of 200/month that we used to get was pretty less for my sweety :D.

All in all, this phase of our life is such that even today when we start talking about it, it can go on for hours and hours with almost the same stories and it never gets boring :).

When I slapped a guy

Some of my friends were confused between Doon and Doon International, well to clarify, Doon is all boys and a very old school whereas Doon International is a co-ed school established in 1991 but of course the best :).

So, now from the campus of Doon, lets get back to my school i.e. Doon International. I was in class 8th and a completely changed person compared to what I was back in days of my 1st blog era :D. One very peculiar character of mine during those years was that I for some reason just couldn't stand boys in general and hated girls who would be all sweet and sugary just to be in their good books. It doesn't mean that I didn't have male friends, I did, but they were selected few whom I found to be genuine souls :). In class 8th, I was made the monitor along with one most unexpected candidate named Vicky Shahu. Now, the reason I said most unexpected is because he was neither good in sports nor in studies and nor was he very popular (I am sorry Vicky, I am sure you must be very successful now in life but back... :D). His only USP was that he was one of the naughtiest student of my class and our teacher Mrs. Jha mam's philosophy was to make a girl monitor who is intelligent (yup! since its my blog, I have full liberty to call myself intelligent, smart, etc etc., hahahaha) and a boy monitor who is the naughtiest. Reason being that making him the monitor would bring in responsibility and the girl would represent the class otherwise.

So, we both were made to sit right in front of the entrance at 90 degree angle to the class, a very difficult place to sit and understand what's written on the black board.

It was hot summer day and school was nearing towards its end for the day. Our teacher for the last session was absent so Jha mam called us and asked us to make sure that class doesn't make any noise. We entered and I announced the same and requested them to talk in whisper's if at all they want to talk. Everyone listened expect this one over smart boy probably because he thought himself to be so cool or whatever. So, he very smartly came over and sat on my desk and the conversation went on something as follows (not exactly):

Anshu: A, please get back to your sit.

A: (with a smirk), chal na, kya ho gaya isme.

Anshu: I am serious, mam ane wali hain and she really won't like it.

A: (showing off like a fool) itna kya serious hai.

Note: all this while Vicky didn't utter a word since they all lived together (all boaders).

Anshu: Thappad parega (its out of habit).

A: acha chal laga

Anshu: (getting angry) main seriously laga dungi, go and sit on your seat.

A: (getting serious) laga de dikha.

This "laga dungi" and "laga ke dikha" went on for a while and my anger was shooting straight up and by this time we both were standing right in front of the class and arguing. The whole class was looking at us and some of our friends sensed that its not going to end just in talks and probably thats why they were standing behind us, just in case. Continuous conversation of ,"A get back to your seat or else I am serious will slap you" and him saying, "acha now you try" wasn't helping me and all of a sudden I lost my temper and there flew my hand right on his face (after all he had been daring me in front of the whole class for pretty long time and I couldn't be the girl who would get scared of boys hehehehe). The moment I slapped him, he was shocked and thank god for that or else I wouldn't be telling this story, hahahhaha. By the time he realised his friends held him away from me but don't know why in the world I started crying..:D...To tell you the truth, Gosh! within a seconds I was terrified :D. It just stuck me as to what I had done, after all if his reaction time would have been less, I would have been in real trouble. Anyway hearing all the commotion, Jha mam came in the class and saw the scene, immediately without even asking anything she blasted off "A" (he was one of the most disliked boys of teachers). That's bugged him even more. So, this is how the day ended.

But then in the evening came tution time when all the boarders go for tutions according to their respective classes, and there we met again. From the conversation that I could hear, he swore to get back at me and I was petrified :D ...But nothing happened and to add to my happiness, he was not promoted to class 9th and I was relieved :D .

Note: for all my school friends (aniket, naman, asjad, apporva etc...) do not name "A" in any comment.

Two days of Sunny winter at Doon School

To tell you the truth, I don't really remember much about what happened in class 5th and 6th. The events preceding my admissions in DIS were something that has run through my mind a number of times, so its a pretty vivid memory but after that its all a blur. So I, from now on will write about random thoughts and memories (just as my URL says) in the chronological order.

So why in the world would I go to Doon School for two day!!! The reason was:

District athletics meet at The Doon School :)

Every year in the month of December, District Athletics meet ( a 2 day event) used to be held where all the schools of Dehradun including IMA (Indian Military Academy) used to come and the hosts was always Doon School, thanks to its huge grounds and amazing infrastucture. The school is a city in itself. On the day of the Meet, Doon used to wear a complete festive look. It had tents selling all sorts of eateries, campus filled with students in different uniforms, sports men and women practicing their events, teachers shouting at students for varied reasons or sometimes no reason at all and of course the sight of Doon boys trying to get a date was pretty common.

From school's perspective this used to be one of the most important sports meet as it was the biggest event of the year and every win was an added trophy of pride in the School's reception area. So the moment dates used to get declared, our school's full focus used to shift from its all time favorite sport i.e. basketball, to athletics and march past. I have never been into athletics so march past was the only way to get into the team for the Meet :). My reasons for getting into the team was because those 2 days were of absolute fun, festivities and we (boarders) used to get Rs 50 coupons to eat (oh yes! it was a big motivation, since going out was a rarity and that too with money was a dream :D). But for some of my seniors, besides these things there was another motivation, Doon boys :). Doon boys had a completely different aura about them probably because they knew they belonged to the best. So, those seniors would try harder than anything else to get their techniques of march past right. Finally on the D-day, our matron Ganga didi used to check our complete uniform to see if everything was spic and span and while getting onto the school bus, another check was made by Thapa Sir (PT sir).

The atmosphere in the bus used to be amazing with we singing in our pathetic voices all throughout the ride and then fighting for the best pair of gloves ( have been in school for 6 years but for some reason it never once managed to get all equally clean white gloves in the exact number as required). While getting down at The Doon, we behaved like perfect students for the fear of being sent back.

The main ground of the Doon was a beautiful site with green grasses sparkling with early morning dew drops all over and surrounded by Doon's hostel buildings. So, the boys who probably would never get their chairs out and sit in the balcony used to be only in the balcony as if the rooms didn't exist. On ground below, girls from various schools used to pass glances or secret looks, trying to gather attention etc. Every school got their separate place allocated and we as far as I can recall, always got the one which was 3rd towards left from announcement center and near one particular building of hostel ( a great delight for a few :) ).

The event started with all the school's march past team marching one complete round on the tracks and saluting the chief guest for the day. And then started various athletic events in their respective places.

Now for the my seniors, once march past was over, what exactly do you think they would be doing :). To tell you the truth, I really don't know, but by the time we got to the eateries area with our coupons, we would see them sitting with some Doon boy, chatting with a smile of triumph :) (I can just imagine the state of mind of our school boys on seeing this :D). And we being the little kids would just wink at them to congratulate :D. Later in the day I would get to hear all their stories about what the boys name, what he said, what plans of meeting they have for the next day etc etc. All this privilege for me was because I was particularly close to those seniors for two reasons, 1) we were all in the basketball team and 2) we all were boarders. I can't name anyone, reason being simple, they will either kill me for it or sue me, but my school mates would for sure get to know who all I am talking about :).

And for my seniors: You guys absolutely rocked!!!!