Au revoir!!

I've never been good at goodbyes. The last time I had to say bye to a friend I didn't know how to react. The environment gets laced with an emotional charge leaving you numbed. I would rather meet my friends a night before than having to say good bye the next morning at the station.
But despite all that there is someone I'd like to bid adieu to as soon as possible. It's like I'm literally dying to say sayonara ,irrespective of the fact that she had been in my company for the last 12 months. Yea though our relationship has not been that pleasant and memorable throughout, it did have it's moments in the sun. And in the last couple of days as the year draws to a close,it puts me in a very somber mood, as I look back to the year gone by and the relationship we had as I say one final goodbye to her probably for one last time.

She came with a bang, with snowy flakes from heaven , the mountains with their firs drenched all white, as I looked out of my window. Yea this postcard picture perfect place was where I started my acquaintance with.At first I thought that she would be perfect, what with the almost flawless entry in my life.
But alas my friends that was not to be, like the old adage goes , looks can be deceiving.
The heartless thing gave me a choice , to be or not to be at a wedding of someone for whom my heart had lost it's direction for. This was the first dilemma in a series that would follow, that she cruelly kept on giving me.
As if that wasn't enough, to test my loyalties toward my priorities.( Talk of a jealous woman),she gave me three choices whether to take the government job handed to me so unexpectedly or keep trying for foreign shores or complete my masters in the college I always dreamed of going.Such a barrage of options left me confounded.
So with a heavy heart and leaving all my emotional and physical baggage I decided to make a sea change in the scenery, as I adopted to the hustle and bustle of my new city, away from the langley pace of life which I had become so accustomed to since the past two years hoping to get rid of her "pichha", but sadly that was not to be the case.
She forced me to say goodbye to my relatively new friends and some very good old friends probably never to meet owing to distances both physical and otherwise. Then she brought in Old friends, who entered my life like classic re-entry of the hindi movie hero , who everyone thought had died after falling off a cliff. These guys brought a semblance of sanity and order to the insanity and chaos called my life.

Couple of months following the reentry. Like they say yeh dil maange more, and so I craved for something more tangible and satisfying , so somehow she led me to this awesome fellowship that has helped me countless ways emotionally , spiritually etc.
Here she did me a huge favour because as an added bonus she was unselfish enough to help me forge some new friendships. In one of these friendships came a puny little package. And in this package I've found a friend who hears me , guides me , counsels me , making me wonder how one so small can be so bright and intelligent. Thank you dear friend and hope this friendship lasts. Here's to a friends who are rare to find, and when you combine all these rare people, this one will be rarer still.
Oh oh I digress, anyhoo here I am , at the end of the year and it has been one hell of a ride since the past 365 days. It was well worth knowing you cause if you weren't there I wouldn't there too, such was the nature of our relationship. One couldn't do without the other. Yes she made me cry , she made me laugh,she gave me moments I'l cherish for a lifetime and some valuable lessons which I'l remember lifelong , but time has come to bid goodbye to someone whom I'l never meet again. So adieu my friend 2013 . So long my friend, so long.

Colours of the female shopper..

For better part of my last seven years I've come across more females than males as  acquaintances and friends. Seven years is a really long time. But if you think I have understood the female psyche by now.Then you are gravely mistaken.There is no manual for that. They are as unique or quaint as they come.However I'm no expert on that topic either and neither do I have any intention to delve into it. But among the many things uniquely female like their elephantine memory for dates , events anniversaries ,and remembering slights of yesteryears which have been long forgotten, among others. A couple of things that stands out is their vast vocabulary of colours  and then there is their insatiable desire for shopping , it's almost frightening.

It just amazes me as to the vast array of colours they have, which for me is blue , red , green , yellow , orange ,purple and yea pink too. And additional names of colours that I know of is violet and indigo from VIBGYOR the colours of rainbow.And even then I think violet and indigo are purple.( hang on ' while I ask google. )And so this is how google answers me verbatim, "So in all due respect there is a difference between violet and indigo, violet is purple and indigo is a dark blue."So you get my drift.Consider this example, my uniform for work is a green shirt but my friend,she says it's a mixture of sea green and some other green , whose name escapes me.And here I was thinking the colour of the sea was blue.

I had the misfortune of accompanying a couple of friends( all girls, all crazy , insane shopaholics) to the mall(Big mistake; guys you better go alone with a girl rather than a bunch of girls.Long story maybe, will tell some other time.)however let's return to colours. So as these friends were going gaga over their clothes , one of them asks me ' How's the hot pink dress?'.I was like, Now how do you describe a colour by temperature is beyond me. Hot , lukewarm or cold for that matter. And woe is the man, whose woman sends him on a hunt for finding the matching duppatta, by handing him a piece of cloth ,on his grocery expedition. It's a thankless task, no matter what he does, he'll never be able to make her happy.

While I was accompanying my friends I was just observing how my other male counterparts were faring in the female section as they tagged along their female companion. I could see a couple of unfortunate blokes become a portable hanger as their females delved into pile of clothes talking animatedly to each other , lost in the colours as they made one selection after another and non nonchalantly giving it to their guy to hold , quite oblivious to his discomfort as he tried juggling the clothes on one hand and the kid on the other. And all the snippets of conversations that reached my ears was, I like that mauve jacket and see that midnight black .... Omg! Look at that... And the rest of the conversation was lost as I was pulled out of my reverie by my now maniacally restless company who simply couldn't get enough of this store and now wanted to try the adjacent store.

Over the years ,their shopping has undergone a sea change first it was the local kapde vala ( cloth merchant) ,where they would just keep on asking the shopkeeper to show his stuffs and he tirelessly and enthusiastically meets all their demand, hoping for a jackpot sale but in the end they leave him staring at a heap of clothes to fold and replace.Now with the advent of trial rooms it's simply all too convenient. All they do is just try on the whole store take selfies and leave empty handed at times and at other times two hands are simply not enough.

So all you guys out there I suggest that as for the colours you will probably never remember the whole lot ,no matter how hard you try ,so just go with the flow and translate the colour in the language you understand. But for shopping there is no middle ground either you join them or you don't . As for me I've done the latter and life's been blissful ever since.