Sustaining exercise regime....elusive!

Currently I have taken fancy to brisk walking in the morning.It has started with the bang and lots of promises done to myself by myself  as done by lot many  people like me.Its been a month now and fortunately I am sticking to my promises.But how long ? A very big question! Exercise is an activity which solely depends upon self motivation and needless to say self motivation is quite an elusive area .

While doing my morning walk I was just thinking that people can be  categorized in three classes.

• First category of people always feel motivated and take their regime quite seriously and somehow miraculously continue to stick to their routine.
• Second category is on-off people.These guys start with the bang and then they go into hibernation.After a while they will spring up again of course after piling on weight  and so on so forth.The on off sequence goes on and on. 
• Third category belongs to the elite class who just keep accumulating all the possible gym equipment , fancy gym gear but somehow cannot make them to work.Things bought by them are either used by their friends or relatives and of course free of cost. I don't call this category  benevolent for nothing.

I am fortunate to have got face to face with last two categories. Third one goes hands down to my husband.An orphaned bicycle ,a lonely never used tennis racquet ,erstwhile cross trainer(now used for hanging clothes) are few of the items from his treasure. Second category belongs to me.  As per  the
 characteristics of citizens of my class, I have been taking to exercising every now and then for the past two years but all in vain and my latest thing is walking. Walk walk walk ....... this is my mantra these days.I have not felt demotivated even for once in last one month so I think have found peace with myself .Lets see how long can I stick to this and gradually move into first category of people.Amen!

As you finish reading this post  you must have found your category.What is your category ?

Good old world of comics

People who have grown up in non internet era will connect to my post at once. Do these images remind you of your childhood?

I am talking about the time when kids in the colony would fight tooth and nail to guard their treasure of comics .It was a time when there was no 24x7 TV.

The overgrowing pile of comics would be  matter of pride and the owner of the largest pile would be undisputed king or queen of herd.It is amazing how kids organized and tracked  their little trove which included swapping of comics with one another.

During vacations kids of colony would have a meeting where it was decided that what all books/comics to be bought by each one. It was done to avoid the repetition of comics :-).Once bought , books would change many hands .It was a kind of community library run by everyone. It was unsaid norm of taking proper care of books and surprisingly even the naughtiest kids followed the rules without being told because defaulters were chucked out from the community library immediately.
Kids used to opine about the stories just like reviews of books which one sees today.The books with maximum number of opinions would be most sought after. Those were the days .Kids would learn so many things related to organisation , dealings ,responsibility just by doing these little things on their own.

While writing i have got so nostalgic that I am just going to finish this post here only and search internet If  I can get old editions of my favorite comics on internet.

By the way , what was your favorite book or comic or character?Mine was Mandrake the magician.Though my friends always discounted his charisma owing to his magical powers.They were more into macho hero like Phantom.I did like phantom but not over Mandrake :-) Though I liked Phantom's mysterious cave and family.
 

Joys of rains in hills

Rainy season always bring freshness in my mind. With freshness , it brings a lots of nostalgia which take me back to my days in Shimla.People who have visited hills in rainy season will connect to my thought on the same.

Sipping hot tea and listening to pitter patter sound of raindrops soothes mind to the deepest.You can pass hours and hours just by watching  raindrops trickling down and making their way from spikes of cedar trees.Occasional sound and flash of thunder and lightening is the only sound which can get you away from your thoughts. This is also the time when friends can get together and can gossip for hours over cups of teas and pakodas. The cosiness this season brings is wonderful.

Sun gets into naughty mood and gives way to magnificence of colurs in nature while playing  peek a boo with clouds.It shines through trickling water from roofs,leaves and if you are lucky it will give you a glance of rainbow too.The sunshine makes drenched trees,bushes and shrubs  appear more fresh and a cool breeze accompanying makes it heavenly.

A stroll in the misty weather under the canopy of trees is enough to awake your romantic side or may be your writer part.Clouds get so near that you can almost touch them.

As I finish this post , i am yearning so very much to revisit hills in rainy season.

Drenched road and trees in misty weather

So guys if you too love misty weather and rains, hills are beckoning you...go and enjoy

Some eye talk

Eyes are  by far the most prominent feature on face which get noticed except for the case if the person you are talking to has some special kind of nose! If that is the case then nose takes the cake else eyes are at the helm.

Most of the times eyes are the true reflections of person's personality but sometimes they can be just opposite of it of what person actually is.

Arrogant persons have eyes that just  cut through you with their sharp looks whereas humble confident eyes will have assured look. Diffident eyes will never look into you. Beautiful eyes will always capture you.Deep eyes will get you engrossed.Twinkling eyes have freshness and naughtiness to them.Wicked eyes gives you jitters.Talking eyes do lot of talking silently and then there are eyes which are in the middle of water reservoir! A little trigger will make them flood in no time .Sad eyes are always lost in some thoughts.Spy eyes are always searching for something or other.

Color and shape  plays an important role in giving a distinct character to eyes. Blue eyes fall in the elite class of most likable .Green and hazle eyes also fall more or less in this class.Shades of black and brown are quite common. By simple rule of demand and supply princple and the amount of pupulation we have of these eyes , they definitely fall in common category.

Then  of course there are colours like yellow which falls into sick category and and should be treated as an  invitation from a doctor. And not to forget  red colur. If it is due to hangover then please go and have lime water else just stop reading this and give your eyes a much deserved rest.

BTW what do your eyes reflect? 

My sweet little peccadillo

Everyone has hidden sins which seldom make to public stage.I too have my sweet little peccadillo which can not be hidden and any party and celebration manifests it more . Hold on to your high horses...my only sin  is my unconditional love for chocolates and Indian sweets!

Since my childhood , this thought is deeply imbibed in my heart and brain that stomach does have different compartment for desserts and you have always that extra space even if you have eaten like a monster !

As I grew up , my brain did change it's idea(thanks to internet for getting Ms. Calorie into center stage)  but heart still abides by that imbibed thought :-).My heart and brain are at antipodal positions when it comes to eating sweets and needless to say my heart wins by unbeatable margin :) And my accumulated pounds do echo the same.

I am not alone in this quandary .I have many acquaintances and friends who too struggle with ...to eat or not to eat  sweet and eventually they end up eating only .I myself have tried to give up sweet many a times but I guess it's deep there in my DNA .When you don't find any logical reason .... DNA is an easy culprit to put blame on !But my food DNA is not that bad ....I owe big thanks to it for disliking ice creams infact a very big thanks (looking at calorie content of ice cream ) and a bear hug for making me dislike cold drinks and pastries .Imagine if my food DNA had strayed more into sweet territory I would have ended up with menu like -  ice cream for breakfast ,chocolate for mid morning snack well supported by aerated sweet drink , pastries for lunch  and so on ....

Thank God for making my DNA sane .So for now I am just  trying to find peace with my peccadillo as I have come to know  DNA is a blueprint... unchangeable!

Finally it is one story with happy ending :) Tell me if you think otherwise.

Colonial Williamsburg.....step back into time

I have just finished reading  Ken Follet's "A Place called Freedom".The major part of story revolves around Virginia and Colonial Williamsburg.I get deeply engrossed in the literature which is set up in the areas which I have visited or lived.This happened with this novel too.I could visualize each and very place mentioned there. This made me recall my Colonial Williamsburg visit which happened few years ago.Though I am not able to place my photographs but this visit is still fresh in my memory.I have taken few photographs from internet(Photo credit link at the end of post).

This place is so romantic and vintage that the moment you place your foot in Colonial Williamsburg, you get transported to 18th century in no time. You want to get into corsets and long flowing dresses and ofcourse  hats.

 A ride in a horse drawn carriage takes you back into time.The stroll in the main street and a peek into houses gives the account of how people used to live at that time. The clean low  white fences surrounding the houses are very picturesque.


 Everything has been preserved so well.Visit to various retro shops gives you glimpses of how businesses were carried out at that time.You will come across people dressed in vintage clothes enacting lives from colonial past.It is the living history museum.


As the day gets closer to twilight ,you can see the streets illuminated by lanterns.Walk  in the street in the evening gives you quite an eerie feeling. It somehow gives you the feeling that you might be having ghosts walking by your side! There are many ghost sighting stories associated with Williamsburg. Fortunately I did not bump into one but that eerie feeling did not leave me for quite a long time!
 

 

My evening was wrapped up by watching  18th century play in theatre.It was a sheer delight seeing the actors submitting to the encore cheers of audience.


Photo Credit links:

 photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hbarrison/2463602185/">HBarrison</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a
photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_g_travels/1235957400/">Mr G's Travels</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a
photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/vamcmag/10819607435/">MizGingerSnaps away...</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a
 

The dark world of short stories

I have never been a voracious reader but yes I am not bad either.I can read anything but self help books. They mention very obvious.If you have not lost your commonsense , you would anyways know those things and will stick to them.In case you have lost common sense ,then no matter how many self help books you read ...you will always be a forlorn figure. I have seldom voiced my opinion as it can be taken as sacrilege.After all people are very sensitive to these books ;-)

Though I do not shy away from novels but what catches my attention the most is anthology of short stories.These are the stories which take you into different cultures and give you different perspective in few pages. Every story offers a distinctive view.I have huge respect for authors who do the daunting task of etching characters in few words and still able to stimulate your thoughts.Many of these stories have made their place in our school books and reading them all over again takes me back into time.

I have read quite a few pieces but stories which have caught my fancy are the ones by Saki(H H Munro).His stories always have surprises at the end and are very well woven.If one speaks of dark humour then Roald Dahl takes the cake.Being from hills , I have special love for Ruskin Bond's work especially his ghost stories based in colonial architecture. Alice Perrin ,Rudyard Kipling are the  must haves for lovers of  colonial era literature.

Few stories just remain etched in my memory because of their queer endings.Biscobra by Alice Perrin is one of them.It has a macabre ending and not quite enjoyable.It leaves lot to reader's imagination.Reader is bound to get nightmares after reading this but nevertheless the way it has been written and built up is commendable.
Similarly there is a story by Roald Dahl which tells about the super anxious lady who locks her husband in the house before going on vacation. Then there is "Parson's pleasure" by the same author where the super smart antique dealer becomes victim of his own smartness.Saki's "The phantom Luncheon" tells you the story of three sisters who have habit of piggybacking on others and finally gets to pay for that.The "Upper Berth" is the story about the haunted room of ship.And the list goes on....

For beginners who want to get into the corners of this dark alley...Roald Dahl is the good starting point.....Do share your thoughts once you get there.

Conscious eating - inexpensive way to fight flab

Few days back I stumbled upon an article with quite a thought provoking heading - "A moment on lips, lifetime on hips". It said that whatever we eat, it just takes three hours to get it converted into fat tissues in your body.

Though I am not a part of diet police (something like fashion police ;) ) but i do believe that one need not starve oneself from all the temptations, it's just a matter of getting little conscious in the quantity of what we are eating and when we are eating. Though this is the universal truth and common sense but we all know how rare common sense is :).

We don't even realise that a single plate of humble bhelpuri(so called low fat snack) garnished with peanuts  can give us half of our daily required calories. And then by end of day, one just says .....today I just had bhelpuri and no lunch! Villains like bhelpuris exist in ample around us. We don't have to defriend them but just have to control the frequency of meeting them :). Aim should be to restrict the entry of such villains in house. For me as soon as I get back from office, all of sudden I start feeling very very hungry and then my hand just goes into one of the drawers/containers of kitchen and I devour whatever I can get  my hands on. To prevent this I have started keeping healthy alternatives like bananas, almonds or may be good old pal milk in kitchen. Easier said than done but I am trying !


Maintaining a log of what you eat is something which gives you control.You might have to maintain it physically initially but after a while your mind gets tuned to it and you can maintain the virtual log in your brain. To help you there are sites like http://caloriecount.about.com/, http://www.livestrong.com/ and many other. These will help you maintaining the log and you can actually track your progress.

As they say everything has it's pros and cons.When people start following calorie count specific sites, they start to count calories in every damn thing. On lunch tables they would start ranting about the calories contents of each and every thing. As obvious they become a laughing stock:-) So guys you have to strike a balance! Count the calories for you and not for others :-)

Happy calorie counting ...and stop eating as if there will be no tomorrow.

Shimla ...old memories

When it comes to writing about places , Shimla finds a special place in my heart.The obvious reason for this bias is number of years of my life which were spent there. I was born and brought up in Shimla and lived quite a considerable part of my life there.



View of Nabha Estate..the locality where i spent my childhood

For a current Shimlaite , my article might seem as If I am writing from some time warped zone because current Shimla is not even 1% of it's glorious gone by era.The degradation has been exponential in last two decades but I want to remember my Shimla as it used to be years back.Let people call me time warped!

Shimla is not called "Queen of Hills" for nothing.This moniker gets a big endorsement when one gets to see shimla hill from a distance at night. The lights scattered in the hills look line a crown of swaroski crystals trying to outshine one another.




Sparkling at night. Courtesy Internet.

Life in Shimla used to be mostly on foot. One could spot only few local vehicles owned by government  or mighty and rich.Children would hike to their schools .They could cross cart road without any fear of oncoming vehicles.Believe it or not -  Cart Road had one solitary traffic police guy !
I used to hike around 4 km daily to my school from Nabha Estate to Mall.I think that at that point of time I never realised the importance of that route.Now when I sit and think back into time ,  realise that there were so many historical buildings which I used to cross - Iconic railway station ,Gorton Castle(AG office),railway board building  and GPO.All are marvels of wonderful colonial architecture.

Railway Board buildig

Railway station

Gordon Castle

Mall road was a place where people used to follow the unsaid discipline.You would not find any shabbily dressed person and there would be no bumper to bumper traffic of people.In the afternoons you would find group of retirees hanging out on ridge.Some would be sipping their cuppa coffee in the coffee house.The coffee house walls were adorned with big black and white photos of Nehru depicting his visit to coffee house.It was  quite a cool hangout joint for intelligent and not so intelligent conversations:-).

Indian Coffee House

I remember doing one of my school plays in magnificent gaiety theatre. What a magnificent building it is. This is the only building untouched and still an epitome of gloious past.

Gaiety Theatre

On Sunday afternoon one would come across groups of children who used to be on their weekly outing.Shimla had/has quite a number of prestigious boarding schools.Trip to Mall road would be incomplete without Horse ride on the Ridge and a softy(ice cream in cone) treat from Embassy.Embassy was the only eatery where you could double coloured softy!Quite a novelty in those days.



The Mall

Horse riding at "Ridge"

Nearby places like naldera, sankat mochan ,kufri were the ones for sunday picnics with family.These places used to be so clean and pristine.Devouring the yummy home cooked food  those were the days when eating out was not very common ) in the shadow of pine trees or cedar trees followed by long sessions of hiking used to be high points of picnics.


Naldera

Sankat Mochan Temple

Shimla has changed a lot over the time.I really wish if people both the natives and tourists can become more sensitive to this beautiful place and help retain it's old glory

 

Barot....Hues of green and blue

A serpentine road cutting through thick cedar forest and rain lashing already green forest, making it more verdant.Giving you company throughout is River Uhl gurgling and  making it's ways through rocks and hills. This is a road to quaint sleepy village called Barot in Himachal Pradesh.

Layers of hills merging into horizon....

There are only three dominant colours in this valley....green, blue and white and that too in their purest forms.This is a place straight out from Artist's easel.It has all the elements like water,snow ,forest all in one place.Any coordinates in this place will give you amazing views .You will see layers and layers of mountains merging into horizon.This almost seems surreal till you come across one or two occasional group of shepherds.

Small hamlet perched on hill

On the way one will come across hamlets perched on hills.Not to miss the the cultivation done in form of wide big green stairs.This seems like a green heaven in lap of hills.I noticed that there are some hills just having a single house.While looking at them , I was just trying to contemplate the hardships and struggles these villagers have to undergo each and every day.Life can be quite a challenge in these hamlets which get cut off completely  from urban civilization in winters.

Mighty Uhl River

Throughout your journey you will be tempted to stop at each and every turn  and enjoy the breathtaking landscape.The more you travel further the more closer you keep on getting to mountains.Finally you reach Barot.This is the place which was put on map in 1927 by Britishers.They tamed Uhl river here only and made a small water reservoir and also laid the foundation of trout farming for locales.Its amazing to know that this dam was built almost 90 years back and that too in such a inaccessible and remote place.Britishers laid a track for haulage trolley so as to carry people and material from villages/towns to this area .This trolley is still in operation .I bet if God can send back any of it's creators  today to see this trolley , they will die hundred deaths.It is in such a state of neglect!It could have been very well made it's way into heritage property but alas...

Log hut

Anyhow coming back to Barot. This is strictly for those travelers only who are seeking just solace and peace of mind and not looking for any glamorous type of holiday. There is a lone log hut which is a pwd resthouse where you can park yourself for a night or two and venture out into the wilderness of Barot and nearby places.
As far as eating out options are concerned ,if you are lucky you can savor the taste of quintessential kidney beans and rice in a sole dhabha(a small basic eatery) in market.Market boasts about 10 shops and to my utter surprise , I could spot a beauty parlour too. Beauty knows no bounds ;-)

A short journey to Barot left an everlasting impression on me and left me asking for more.....I want to go there again and again. By the way this area is also called trekkers paradise ...may be next time I will stick to that way of exploring...

Passion and compassion

Somebody gave me a reference of book "Alive in the death zone".It's a book about  Mr. Lincolon Hall who reached the summit of Mt Everest and then faced some difficulties while descending. He was left for dead at the summit.This book depicts the miraculous survival and rescue of Mr. Hall.Ironically he lost his battle to cancer after 5-6 years of his miraculous rescue.

While I was reading the book , I got more and more intrigued with Everest and the people who climb it. I searched on Internet and found that there are around 200 climbers who have lost their lives in quest of Everest.Bodies of some climbers lay preserved in nature's deep freezer as it is!

Mr Hall could have been one more addition to this number if it was not for one compassionate group of climbers who gave up their summit dreams and risked their own lives to rescue Mr. Hall.There was a other group also who feigned ignorance and did not pitch in for help and kept following their route to summit.

This story left a mark on my mind and heart.I am just thinking why  people can not be passionate and compassionate at the same time.Though Everest is not everybody's forte but I think common people like us also come across our own types of  Everests in day today life. We see lot of people day in day out who just follow their passion so vehemently.Some follow it ruthlessly like the climbers who were more worried about their summit rather than helping Mr. Hall. Some do it with compassion just like the guys who gave up their aim of reaching summit for helping Mr. Hall.

Passion and compassion have to go hand in hand else passion transgresses into boundaries of evils and craziness..

Start...

Well I am a late bloomer in this already hustling bustling bloggers' world.I must say it was a tough task naming the link of my blog.I must have tried 1000 words but nothing was available! I know it was quite frustrating but at the same time quite amusing.There are people like me in this world who think like me.
Finally I decided to give name "initialthots" and bingo...it was available .

Here I start my journey.......