The onset of the Diwali season ..

I love the festive season in Chennai and when it is Diwali the fun is a lot more .. You know Diwali is just around the corner when,

• People around you are talking about what they have shopped or where to shop for clothes ..


• When everyone at workplace are planning to go on extended leaves ..


• When the traffic in Chennai grows manifold just the day after Ayudha pooja..


• When super markets start stacking boxes of Haldiram sweets, dry fruits and chocloate boxes ..


• When you are easily able to book tickets for a weekend show in Satyam Cinemas just a day before, most of the janta is shopping anyway ..


• When the smell of sulphur start setting in the air ..


• When kids around the place run around with cape guns ..


• When they take no more orders for stictching in your tailor shop ..


• When all the ads in the newspaper are that of clothes stores and jewellery shop apart from the exclusive supplements we recieve along with the daily news papers ..

Thank god I am no more in school/ college where my diwali holidays were always followed by some exam :) :)

What are you doing this Diwali ??

Sweets, crackers fun and more ...

Diwali mood set in almost a week before the actual Deepavali day, when we had a pre diwali celebration in my flats with all of them getting together with lots of food, music, dance, fireworks and more ... This was the time I actually got to see many of my neighbours whom I haven't seen for months together ..

The Diwali celebration was later followed by distributions of sweets to family and friends - meaning we had to go sweet shopping a day or two and this had to happen a few days well before Diwali else you don't get anything except may be some mysore pak and laddu such was the demand for it in Chennai..

I along with mom and dad went sweet shopping at 11 pm around three to four days before Diwali to find sweet shops buzzling with activity and thankfully we also purchased crackers a few days in advance to avoid disappointment. The last year we went cracker shopping the day before Diwali to sadly find anything at all in racks.

The day before Diwali also happened to be my mom's bday and I gifted her a watch of her choice.. and my parents gave me a new Nokia E5 and I am in total love with it(review about it on a later post).

My Diwali day started on a slow pace.. After getting ready for the day had some delicious breakfast of melusu Dosai with onion and ginger chutney along with coconut chutney . This happens to be a Diwlai special item and I love it :) followed by lighting of some crackers and then off to distribute sweets to my friends and also had friends and relatives visiting home..

Evening couple of my friends came home and we bursted crackers for a while, just when we finished bursting our load of crackers I felt slight drizzles, which within few minutes turned to be a heavy down pour..

My weekend turned out to be fun as well..On Saturday evening, I had a lovely long walk around Anna nagar with friends and discovered a new place called The Soup and Salad Cafe which I am toally in love with. Great place and good food :). During this lovely long walk I actually came across a whole lot of new places in Anna nagar that I've never come across in my so many years of stay in the very place.

Sunday was lazy and the very thought of the long weekend coming to an end, made me do some useful work to avoid such thoughts hitting my head and evening had a fun time shopping in Express Avenue with parents ..

This long weekend also saw a couple of interesting activities happening in Chennai, one was the Beatles show and the other was the Extra Terrestrial show which more looked to be like a gymnastics/circus type of show I believe which I wanted to go to, but my weekend was already over packed.

Talking about the Beatles show, I remember my colleague at work Shyam who happens to be a die hard fan of the Beatlemania who was in total awe of the show. So, Shyam Adithya you've been mentioned in my blog :)

Two days into the week I am already looking forward to my weekend or rather Friday evening .. Have a happy week and a merrier weekend :)

Diwali celebrations ...

The weekend right after our practical exam and jus' before our model exam could commence was Diwali .. but that didn't stop us from having fun ..

Diwali fell on saturday but the fun began right from wednesday when my practical exam got over .. shopping for sweets .. standing in long queues .. then getting to know that the gift pack you ve been looking for has jus' run out of stock .. Well, probably we should change the saying from it sold out like hot cakes to .. it sold out like diwali sweets .. such was the demand for sweets in all stores in the city ..

After repeatedly visiting for another 2 days we got our stuffs .. made some savouries at home .. and came to know that friday was a holiday too ..

I had a lunch invitation to one of my friend Garima's place on friday .. a whole bunch of us were there at her place since noon till evening eating .. snacking .. gossiping .. playing ... playing .. n more playing .. this set us into the full festive mood ..

Got back home only to find myself all tired and worn out and wanting to hit the bed .. but that didn' stop me from doing the rangoli which i had planned to do for Diwali ( will put up the pic soon) ..

Diwali day started on a very traditional way visiting friends and relatives .. distributing sweets and since early evening it was time for us friends to get together at my place and this time it was for bursting crackers and to dine out .at Thali corner for some traditional north indian food.. Ah! its total fun when family and friends get together :)

Sunday saw us all getting together for lunch again at Palki ( jus' the post diwali celebration ;) )

guess this would be my last diwali with this bunch of friends since we are in the final year of college and most of us would be moving to different places .. So, we saw to it we had as much fun as possible .

Getting Into the festive mood...

I am one person who can never sacrifice a fun thing for anything more serious in life, but I was surprised when I held myself back to sit and prepare for my semester practical exam which was on the very next day when there was a Diwali Bash happening in the floor jus' below me .. all my neighbours getting together .. music.. dance .. cultural programs .. yummy food.. fireworks display .. and me studying *sigh*

Last Diwali Bash me along with family and a bunch of my college pals were having a gala time ,how much thigs change in such short span of time.

Neverthless, 3 days down to diwali i'm already in to teh festive mood keeping aside all college work. My high priority jobs for now is to get my diwal dress pressed and to distribute sweets to friends :)

I've not got much of major plans this Diwali but im not sure as to what is gonna pop out in the last minute.. So, what are you doing this Diwali ???

My heartiest Diwali wishes :)

Wish you all a very happy and a prosperous Diwali.. My diwali day has been going on very fine. Having a gala time with my friends thou' my exams are couple of days away. I might be a lil irregular in posting and visiting your blogs for the next few days coz I have my exams coming up, will catch up soon with your blogs. See ya .. Have a great time :)

My diwali week in a nutshell

Diwali this year was special to me in more ways than one..

Let me start with 5 days before diwali and how it all proceeded ..

3rd of November was the final day of dance practice - Practice session for the diwali function in my flats , it was so much fun and enjoyed myself to the hilt as I love dancing .. It was also a day when all kids in my flats started with bursting crackers , I was only a spectator and was taking care of few small kids as they were all too excited on bursting crackers , there were also a few morons who made me run around the flat scaring me with lighting lakshmi vedis (one kinda cracker) in their hand and threatening to throw it on me.. huff.. at last I ran home :P ..

4th of November was my mom's bday and also the day for the diwali party to be hosted in my flats... Altogether it was so much fun.. Got my mom her favourite chocolate as she did not want any gifts .. In the evening was the much delayed dance program as our choreographer got stuck in the traffic jam due to rain and he had all the songs for the program.. Neverthless it was so much fun even if it started a little late.. I was really worried if the program would be held as it was raining heavily.. But, thank god it stopped pouring by noon..

The best part of the day was when an old lady in my flat came and appreciated my performance. Thou' there were many others who appreciated , I felt really honored when an aunty whom i know brought this grandma to me and said she wanted to appreciate you for your performance and meet you.. I was just so happy and I jus' realised that when we put our heart and soul into the thing we do , the outcome is always good and never goes un recognised..

5th of November was a day for shopping gifts and sweets for friends and relatives.. My mum and grandmom did all the shopping as I mom made me stay at home and study for the coming exams :(

6th and 7th of November was spent distributing sweets to people in my flats after returning from college..

8th of November ...WOW... Was Diwali... and ...... there was another surprise waiting for me .. my aunt gave birth to a baby boy (Diwali release .. :D) .. I was so excited and so wanted to go see the baby.. But they were in my native place and we had also invited people over for diwali so we had to post pone the plan of making a trip to my native.. In the noon we had a family friend over at our place and went out for lunch.. In the evening there were few others who dropped in to convey wishes and at the end of the day we started with bursting crackers and so much fun it was... I initially thought I wouldn't be much interested in bursting them as I ve grown up and no more a kid and all that but I still like bursting them and get excited sometimes too :D

The superhit cracker with the people in my flats this time was the 100 shots.. You light it once and there are 100 rockets which start decorating the sky one by one ... It was an evening of colors and lights..

10th of november we hit the road.. Started to my native place to see the baby boy ( my cousin brother) I have never seen a baby of 2/3 days old , so was all excited in holding him and looking at his pink tender fingers... They haven't named him yet , so we were also discussing about the different names we could name him .

Hope you all had a lovely diwali too .. :)

P.S: Sorry for not posting Monday morning Inspiration for this week had some prob with my internet connection . You can surely look forward for it the next week