Travelling is bliss.

Travel travel and travel..! :) 2014 was a year of travel for me. Have been to many new places. Have got so many new friends. Tasted variety of dishes. uff now Ijust want to stay at home relaxed for quite sometime... I will definitely share my travelogue for all these places... :) Here is the list of places: Varkala, Allepey, Trivendrum (Kerala), Delhi, Agra, mathura, vrindavan, Kundapura, Davanagere, Maari kanive/hiriyur dam, Thirupathi, Hyderabad, Indore, Omkareshwar, Ujjain, Goa, Tanjore and Kumbakonam to close the year with! :) And of course multiple trips to Mysore :) It was an amazing year! Each place was so much fun as most of them were my first times. Starting from boat house, backwater resorts at kerala to Wonder of the world at Agra, Lord Krishna's birth place at Mathura, Superb eat street at Indore, Navgaraha temple visit which was truly a temple run to close the year with. I have got no chance to scribble about my travels all through the year! I have made a new hobby to get a souvenir from each place I visit to add it to showcase at home now with small tags to it mentioning the place and date! :) Allepey, Varkala and Trivendrum: This was an amazing trip. My 1st anniversary trip. It was March first week. Enjoyed each moment of this trip to the core. Unforgettable memories of the places. These places were a feast to my camera also. It was second week of feb when we decided to make this trip. I always search for accomodation from tripadvisor. Read the reviews shared by other travellers and then take a call on that. Deshadan resorts was the place I found to be reasonable and good reviews. To my luck, there was only 1 room left to be booked. I was lucky to book that. It is a backwater resort. Few traveller photos were also there. I was quite impressed by it. Next place was Varkala. This was Karthik's choice. Varkala is one of the best beaches in the world with very few ppl. I managed to book the same resort there as well. It was 28th Feb 2014 night, when we started to drive to Allepy. It was a real long journey. We drove continously till early morning. After which we took some 30mins nap and continued. It was an amazing drive through palakkad and trissur. Google maps are amazing. Even the smallest roads were directed so exactly that we reached the resort with ease. As the checkin was at 12pm and we were early by an hour, we had to wait. They are not flexible about timings. But the staff were very courteous and they gave us brekfast to fill our hunger and roam around. It was a super hot sunny day! Room was cozy! This is an amazing place just next to the backwaters. Very calm, peaceful. Away from all huzzle buzzle of the city. Lunch, snacks and dinner everything was just superb. Vegetarian food especially. Their cafetaria arrangement itself is awesome. We had no plans to stay in boat house which doesnt move in the night, nothing to see outside the boat. I just didn't want to stay overnight in the boat house. After dinner took a short walk inside the resort. As it was dark, by the water edge could hear so many fishes popping into and out of water. That sound was so re-freshing. In that pitch dark, there were fishing nets with 50watt bulbs glowing with a switch to control the light. men were at work at that time also. It was even more amazing to see that person getting a call on his cell at that location and conversing.! I was just waiting for the next day. As our resort could witness the beautiful sunrise besides the backwaters. As always, photography enthusiasts will never mind giving up sleep to capture such moments! It was indeed a beautiful Sunrise over there. Early morning with small boats localites were there for fishing, few were chceking their chinese fishing nets. Waited for sunrise for quite sometime. I just cant forget the beautiful rays that gave me wonderful silhoutte pics there.. The day went in looking around the resort, taking a walk in that green land, seeing those typical kerala style houses etc. As we were in Allepy, I wanted to get the boat house experience n not to miss it. Our next day was planned for it. At the resort they quoted about 6000/- for a day trip. Felt its too costly and tried contacting few aquatic sports and travel ppl by taking numbers throough google. But it was a standard rate. Surprisingly, they ask you if you want 2BHK, 3BHK etc :D which was little weird to understand in the beginning. It is like this, a boat with 2-3 rooms and a common area and a kitchen. If you want the entire boat for yourself it costs much more. 6k was for sharing the place with 1 or 2 other families there. Finally we made the booking. We checked out at resort. We headed towards the boathouse point. Our boat house trip started at 10AM. There were two more families with us. The place from where the boats start is so nice to look at. Each boat is different with different artistic windows, few even have multiple floors etc. Different colored decked up boats. Its the core business too to make money there. After seeing the boat house and its room, felt good for not staying there. Its good if you have a big bunch of people to spend time with. Otherwise its so boring.. They provided us with welcome drink , some fresh fruit juice which I dont remember now. Each boat house has cable TV dishes to capture satellite signals. We were happy to see the aquatic sports centre and the greenary besides us, many other boats moving by etc for sometime. But over a period of time, it was so boring that the sceneray next to us doesn't seem to change at all. Lunch was ok ok. Vegetarian food was not that great. Non veg food must have been good :D If you are a person who enjoy, non-veg and sea food atleast for that you would like the boat house. We finished our boatride by 4pm. He didnt take us to any island as he promised, instead he was riding around the same place for quite sometime slowly. This was our 3 day trip at Allepey. We headed towards to Varkala from there.

Birthdays, happiness, Celebrations and expectations..! Happiness comes from within..! :)

It was my birthday yesterday. :) Yup 07-07-14. Special number this year. 07+07 = 14 :) I somehow was not excited about the day as I used to be every year. For no reason. This year I didn't want to celebrate my bday. Didn't want to give any special meaning to it. I did not expect anyone to celebrate it for me also. So when there are least expectations, everything turns out to be a surprise for a person. :)

With some past experiences of my birthday, me expecting too much from people around and getting disappointed was common. So, this year I wanted to donate orphanage kids for their study purpose and do some useful thing. Few weeks back found out from a friend of mine about one orphanage in Wilson Garden - "Anaatha Shishu Sevashrama". Children from age group of 3 yrs to 15 yrs are here. Around 60 children. All are school going kids. Starting from play home. Had made up my mind to give them notebooks and stationery as the schools have just started.

It really pinched me when I went there and witnessed the kids. I see two extremes. One at my own apartment community where children are being given all hi-fi gadgets to play and spend their time. Lots of pocket money to lavishly spend etc. The other one is here where the children are deprived of basic necessities and some love and affection. More than that proper guidance to their studies who would want to become future pillars of this nation.

After returning from there, lot more thoughts were still in mind. A midst all these my bday did come with some surprises from friends, parents and hubby! I did cut 4 cakes. Cutting cake has become a routine now. Some flower delivery - my parents gave me a surprise. It really did bring smile on my face. A card from hubby with text "To my Darling Wife" which was like "oh WoW" for me! You may ask whats special in all these. They are all small. But ya my mom got the online bouquet delivery done for the first time. Husband who never picked up a greeting card in life gives such a romantic card. My dad's cousin and his kiddo were waiting for me at my doorstep to return from walk to greet me n gift me! :) As I had disabled Facebook notification this year, there were very few who genuinely remembered this day and wanted to wish me! All this added and made this day more special.

I didn't go for any big parties, dinners nothing. It was a simple Rice-Rasam meal at home which was more soothing at the end of the day. May be over a period of time, everyone wants to maintain low profile at some point. This time of the year was mine. I did enjoy such simple one this time. Made Jamoons myself this year for my b'day. My mom always used to prepare some sweets at home which I would like, as a gesture of celebrating b'day at home. As I cannot prepare on a Monday which is a working day for me, I did prepare on Sunday. Felt happy cooking some sweets for myself :)

When we expect the least from people around, the more happier the life is. This was so true this time :) I was happy for myself. Only thing I craved for was to spend some quality time with my loved ones and parents both of which didn't happen this year.! Though everything was there, I was trying to find happiness in something else. May be that was this.

Plan your birthdays and special occasions to yourself and don't let anyone else plan it for you. It's your day! You plan it the way you want to spend it :) Happiness comes from within :) There are always people around who would want to know what gift did I get? how did I celebrate this day etc etc. Just to make them feel happy I can't change my way..! This is my way of celebrating :)

Re Kabira maan ja, Re Faqeera Maan ja... :)

Today when I started to listen this song on my mobile, many thoughts passed by. This song was so apt for me. I will tell you why a little later.

 "Life is very uncertain" - I have realized each bit of this in the last few weeks. At the same time need to accept all that comes in life and move on! After marriage life has changed a lot. Commute to mysore has come down. Attending every tom dick n harry's weddings has grown in list. Partying, late nights movies, dinners, rides what not! Life is so amazing with all these isn't it? :) No worries always stay happy. Parents are happy. In-laws are happy and Happy couple. If life is always smooth like this, when do we learn the value of it?!

 Have gained some noticeable weight over this 1.25 yrs of married life. Every Aunty who looks at me now at some or the other wedding says " Oh sadhana u have put on a little weight. U look good now.. Don't add more okay?!". Others also say, "Ur husband n MIL are taking care of you so well its visible!" So What??!! Is it the only talk on this earth that I am gaining weight! Every woman after marriage adds some more weight due to change in lifestyle and no fitness regime for months - getting ready to office, helping in kitchen, running to find the cab/bus etc etc. Definitely it adds to all the other factors of they taking care of me really well.

There were only two persons who wanted me to keep fit with some fitness regime. Mom n hubby. Mom knowing the complexities the life would offer in future she kept on saying this. Okay its time to hit treadmill as every aunty is able to figure out I have gained weight...

It wasn't an easy way out for me! But ya it did discover lots of things in my body. Every girl cares about her facial, eyebrow shape, nail shape, hair style etc But how many of us would care about each internal organs too?! Not many frankly speaking. Routine medical checkups are not our cup of tea :) Making faces at it. Oh I am all healthy is the thinking. No a BIG No to all those who think in those lines.

When I first hit the gym, it was a good feeling. First 15 days was quite normal. Later on there were few symptoms which kept me away from being productive in office at all.. Over drowsiness and dizziness. Drinking electrol as everyone of you reading this post would have thought didn't help me much. I quit Gym. 15 days I was normal. It started all over again without Gym also. I went through simple blood test to check if I am anemic. It gave a surprising result. Yes I was Hypothyroidic. 5 out of 1000 women get this. It has no cure. Just take one tablet as everyone takes for BP and Diabetes generally to provide thyroxyne supplement to body. Nothing more to be done for this. This was the cause for me to put on weight. My colleagues had even thought I was expecting a baby looking at my growing size and puffiness in face n neck. Few did ask me also.

There are many such no cure diseases caused by Antibodies in our own body. Ppl only know about big names like AIDS, CANCER, H1N1 etc.. It is not something major which I have got. But ya, when you know that you have to take medicine for life time and have to keep urself fit all the time it did make me think for a min. I had 100s of questions in my mind. I am lucky enough to have my friends, parents, cousins who are all supportive and knowledgeable in medical field in someway or the other to convince me. I easily accepted it as I am the reason for it. My husband did ask me to take it practically and move on. True it is. If earlier itself I had at least made walking as my daily routine, may be it would have helped.!

When I read the imbalance a thyroxyne harmone can cause to a human body, I really felt that there is so much to know about our own self. Every organ is so important to live with. Only fitness and walking regime can prevent all these. Prevention is better than cure is 100% true.

Never ever compromise on that 30 mins of your time daily reserved for walking/yoga/Gym/whatever! It is so much important! Take care of each organ of your body! They dont have replacement warranty. :-)

When I was pondering about all these thoughts in my mind and this song started playing in mobile "Re kabira maan ja, re Faqeera maan ja.."