Since it is official, I have the permission to proclaim it!

Li’l Joel has been accepted to join the Jesuits. So in another 12 years or so, I’ll have another friend who is a priest.

All the best Joel. May God bless you always!

I’m currently doing a distance education management course from SCDL to keep in touch with the studying.  I had been having exams every Sunday and today was the last of the semester one series. I’m sure glad they are over

Full Monty, Li’l Bro, Ruth and myself decided to catch a movie in town and since 27 Dresses was at a convenient time we agreed to go for it. Not wanting to be disappointed like the last time we tried getting current tickets, we went an hour early. Picked up the tickets and headed to Fab India who was supposedly on sale. Ruth picked up a couple of garments. We treated ourselves to road side treats - Chaat and Nimbu paani! and headed to Regal for the movie.

I didn’t expect too much from the movie and so wasn’t disappointed. The eye candy was worth the money! We took a short walk down causeway and decided to drop dinner plans and head home as the next day was a working day. All in all an evening well spent

For as long as I can remember I have always being going for the Easter Vigil - which is the 4 part service on the eve of Easter Sunday. These are “The Service of the Light”, “The Service of the Word of God”, “Renewal of Baptismal Promises” and “The Eucharist”. While the service is very meaningful, it gets rather long winded and in my opinion that is when the ‘rituals’ take away from the prayerfulness of the service. Hence, this year my sis and I decided to go for morning mass.

When we were little, my Grandma used to hard boil eggs and get my sister and me to decorate the egg shells before breakfast. It was a lot of fun. Pity I don’t have any photographic evidence of the same

Tanya and Joshua came over with easter eggs and bunnies. How I love those kiddos. They are a joy to be around.

Lunch was a mish mash of fantastic Manglorean cooking (courtesy my Dad) - Pepper Pork & Pork Vindaloo, Chinese - Chicken in hot garlic sauce and Hakka noodles, and the all time tried and tested vegetable pulao!

I promised to cook dinner for some very ’starved’ potential Jesuits and so made some extra Chinese and took that over in the evening to Vinalaya. Spent a quiet evening with Joel and met some other Jesuits too.

I’ve always loved the peace, serenity and lushness of the Jesuit campus at Andheri, and this time was no different. Spent some time in silence at the foot of the Grotto of Our Lady and reminisced about how much my life has changed since the first time I visited the place. All I can say is that I have been blessed immensely.

you agreeing to help us with the project

the multicolour checked shirt

the black jeans

the floaters

me trying to impress you with my ‘knowledge of power point’

you sprawled on the floor of A’s living room

you trying to connect the CD writer to the system and realizing that it was not going to be possible and you would have to do it at home

you promising to have it ready by the next morning and me being paranoid that you wouldn’t have it ready

me asking you to give me a lift to the bus stop

the suggestion that maybe you should burn the CD and give it to me before I went home

the ride to your home

the introduction to your mum

the actual job we went there to do

your concern about how I’d get home

the bumpy bike ride to the station

the long conversation we had

me trying to con you into dropping me home

the exchange of email addresses

the promise to keep in touch

the email I sent you when I got home

4 years and 1 month of memories to the date!

This post comes to wish a special cousin a Very Happy Birthday! Though he lives half way across the globe he’s still very much in our thoughts and prayers. Hope you had a fun day cuzzie

Here are some pictures from l-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-n-g time ago!

We can’t blame others when love dwindles away-

for we knew from the start, it never promised to stay.

It’s just one of those things where the stakes are high

and sometimes its forever and sometimes its goodbye.

And when you love the right way you will never lose-

no matter what path life may force you to choose

You may end up with tears or a broken heart-

but you knew what you signed up for from the start.

You can only give what you’ve got to give-

And if that’s not enough, you must continue to live.

Life will go on and broken hearts will heal-

you must continue on your quest for thats the deal.

Throw your heart into life and never stall-

For the greatest risk is to risk nothing at all.

You see love is the only thing that we know

that can be divided and divided but continue to grow.

And life isn’t long enough to lock away our heart-

just because life may have forced two people apart.

We will continue to love and continue to lose

will continue to pick and continue to choose.

And then one day we will risk it all-

take the chains off our hearts and dismantle the wall

The last time we love will be forever

And never again will our hearts be forced to sever.

We’ll never have doubts that it will go away -

B’coz this time its here to stay

But until then we must endure all the pain

For we only see sunshine if we can wait through the rain.

                                                                                                         - Kristy Glassen.

A friend of mine wrote this some time ago.

Myopia

- bj

I pointed to the skies….
Showed him the moon
The stars the clouds…
Then turned and pointed to
Lands beyond the horizon
To all that the world had on offer

He looked at me and said,
“Your nails are dirty!”

When I was not so young and still relatively ’stupid’, I parted with a very precious object. I gave it to someone who at that point meant very much to me. It was an exchange you know- ‘I give you something precious that belongs to me and you give me something precious that belongs to you.’

Well it has been some time since we parted ways and he still had that precious something. After letting him know in clearly stated words that I needed it …. nay wanted it back, it finally reached me 2 weeks ago.

Big B very kindly agreed to play courier boy. We met up after AGES, for coffee at CCD. Conversation ranged from books to the good ole’ days at Xavier’s to the events surrounding my treasure. If felt good to spend time with someone who has been an integral part of my life for so many years. Thank You for all that you’ve been to me.

This comes to wish you all the very best J as you take on the panel at XIM - Bhubaneshwar. Dazzle them!

May God Bless you! (And of course you have that entire army of  “you know who” backing you :P)