The very awesome TP has nominated me for the Liebster award. Yes! This award comes once again. Thank you very much! I am honoured. Since I have already accepted this one before, I am going to skip copying the image and going through other formalities. Instead, I’ll jump straight to the questions.
1. What made you start blogging?How is blogging different than keeping a diary for you or is it the same?
I’ve answered this one question multiple times in the past I think. Anyway, here we go again. Mint’s blog and him persuading me to start my own inspired me to do it. Back then, I blogged on this site called http://www.blogdrive.com. I wonder if that site even exists now. Must check. That was in the year 2003! And oh, that little fact reinstates the euphoria. I’ve been blogging for 11 grand years now.
Moving on to the second question. I think a diary is a more private medium as compared to a blog. When I wrote in a diary, I didn’t bother about factors like maintaining my anonymity. I used real names. I wrote without much restriction. Obviously, I have chosen to not be as carefree on my blog.
2. Do you have a pet? If yes, which one? And if not, why?
I don’t have a pet, but I think I mentioned Mint’s strong desire to have a dog in an earlier post. While I love the idea of having one too, I doubt I am devoted enough to care for one. This is one subject I am really confused about. And ofcourse, my mother who swears to never enter our home if we choose to have a dog only makes matters more complicated.
3. Which city do you think is the best to settle down in India? And why?
While I have lived in 3 cities around the world, when it comes to India, I have only lived in Bombay. So I am not sure I am qualified enough to pick the best city to settle in India. But ofcourse, my heart beats for Bombay. Despite the crammed spaces, the crowd and the chaos, everything and everybody that is precious to me is held by this city.
4. What is the one thing that you ordered in a restaurant and it turned out to be totally yuck and expensive?
I remember craving for good Indian food when we lived in Cincinnati, Ohio. This was ofcourse, before we moved to California, which is nothing short of an Indian food haven. Good Indian restaurants in Cincinnati are rare. We made sure we totally avoided Indian food when we ate out. But this one time, I absolutely insisted and forced Mint to take me for a full blown Indian buffet. I believe the restaurant was called ‘Akash India’. I cannot even describe how awful the food was. The gravies were full of tasteless cream. The memory of that godawful meal has never left me.
5. If you see your enemy (or simply somebody you dislike) in a helpless situation, will you go forward and help them? Or leave them and enjoy mercilessly?
Knowing myself, I will go ahead and help them. And then spend time rethinking and analysing my actions and wondering if they were worthy enough of my help at all. Only to follow it up with a repeat episode of helping them again. And then questioning myself some more. You see, I am certain I will help people in distress, but I am not certain I do it because I am truly altruistic.
6. Have you ever been caught by your parents doing something totally inappropriate for your age?
You want to hear that story again? I am sure it is there on the blog. Anyway, here we go.
Mint and I had been in a very happy relationship for a while when we decided to take it to the next level. We knew my parents would be supportive, while his wouldn’t. We decided to formally tell my parents first, so that we would atleast have them backing us when we had to face his parents. The timing was right because I was visiting India during my Easter break. (Some background: I lived in UK whereas Mint lived in the US back then). So I came to India and told my parents all details about my relationship with Mint and how we were considering getting married. They knew Mint and I were very obviously into each other, but before this I had been very noncommittal. They were just taking in the details of all that I said to them then.
That’s exactly when Mint decided to come down to India for a day to surprise me on my birthday. If you haven’t read that story yet, you absolutely must. Anyway, he was in India only for one night. Since Mint and I didn’t want to stay apart even for a minute of the time he was there, I convinced my parents to allow Mint to stay in our house for the night. They were a little unsure but eventually agreed. We had no spare bedroom and it was mutually agreed that he would sleep in the living room.
The day of my birthday, the two of us got back to my place really late in the night. My were happy, exhausted and highly sleep deprived. My mom set up Mint’s make shift bed in the hall and asked me to go to my bedroom and sleep. And then she went away and the lights were turned off for the night.
Obviously, not wanting to stay apart, I crept back to the living room where Mint was waiting for me. Who planned to sleep when we had just one night together? The lights were out so we would remain unseen. In the darkness, we snuggled next to each other. After some intimate nuzzling, we drew in close for a good kiss. And then, in the midst of it, with our lips seemingly locked, with our heads tilting towards each other.. WE FELL ASLEEP!
Ofcourse, you can guess where this goes. My mom woke up in the middle of the night to fetch some water. She was absolutely unprepared to see our faces almost glued together. I can’t tell you how much I squirm even as I type this. The lights flew on. I had an out of body experience for that one second when I realised my mother had seen us in that position. I jumped to the other side and offered the most lame explanation on this planet. My words were, ‘We were just chatting’. To add to my horror, Mint let out an audible laugh when I said that. My mom was silent.
I could see she was quite shaken. She told me in a very stern voice to go and sleep in my room immediately. I was so embarrassed, I considered jumping out of my balcony. Suddenly I was very thankful I was returning to UK in two days. Mint pulled over the covers and slept. The next morning, my parents were up quite early and since Mint was sleeping in the hall, he was very unsure of how to face them. After all, they had just met him for the first time the previous day. And had just been made aware of our relationship officially. What would they think? So he made sure his face was covered with the blanket and he didn’t have to meet their gaze.
The moment he could, he ran to my room to wake me up. I will never forget his words. “Can you please wake up right away? I am feeling just too awkward being with them on my own”. Well, I was so conscious myself, I didn’t know how to face my mother either. Anyway, I have to give my mom some credit for never bringing up this incident with us. I don’t even know if she spoke to my dad about it. I never want to find out. We were both so very flustered back then. But when we think about it now, we can’t stop laughing at all. Being caught in such situations is the worst thing to happen if you have an Indian parent, I suppose. Doesn’t matter how cool and unconventional they are. It just is awkward.
From then on for us, the word ‘chatting’ has gone on to become synonymous with something very different from its original meaning. Whenever Mint looks at me and asks, ‘do you want to chat?’, it makes me break into fits of giggles. He never got over how incredibly lame my response was at that time.
7. What is that one thing that you criticize publicly, but do the same in private?
I don’t think I do this.
8. Do you like water sports? Which one?
I can’t swim and a near drowning experience has filled me with deep fright. Despite that, I have so far had the opportunity to jet ski, para sail and go for an ‘easy to medium’ grade of white water rafting. If I had to pick one, I’ll pick rafting. I am waiting to experience more. I have promised myself I will learn swimming one day and combat my deep rooted fear of water.
9. Have you ever thought (or actually did ) of harming somebody very badly in order to get back at them? How?
I have murdered a thousand people in my head, a thousand times altleast. If you believe it is possible to murder a person only once, you are obviously wrong.
10. Do you fart and behave like the other person is guilty of the crime?
I barely ever fart. Honest. I don’t seem to have too much of a gas build up in my tummy. But if I were to fart in front of people, I’d have no reservations owning up.
11. Have you ever been caught by the police ( or worst locked up)? For what reason?
Locked up? No. Only Mint has such interesting experiences. I have only been caught by the traffic cops, either because I unintentionally ran a red light or because I was talking on my cell phone while driving. Boring, I know.
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