Category: Uncategorized (Page 1 of 5)

Peddi – a Review

June 8, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Although the movie is rated as 16+, Mr.Bee and I decided to take our kids too, to watch the movie, since all of us were going to the theater. We couldn’t leave them anywhere at the last minute!

We had tough time finding a theater nearby, so had to book tickets at my least favourite mall, the S## Mall!

 

 

Starring : Ram Charan Tej, Jahnvi Kapoor, Boman Irani, Jagapathi Babu, my favourite mad scientist from Adithya 369 – Octogenarian Tinu Anand, Bhojpuri gem Ravi Kishen, Kannada Shiva Rajkumar, Divyendu, Upendra Limaye and others.

Directed by : Buchi Babu Sana

Music : A.R.Rahman

Released On : 4th June 2026

QB watched On : 7th June 2026

Review :

The movie starts with a sports official (Boman Irani), who is intrigued by name Peddi being associated with cricket, wrestling and track sports! (I rolled my eyes here, how can anyone excel at 3 different sports? Is he the village equivalent to Chuck Norris and Rajnikanth?) Similar disbelief leads Boman Irani into the far away nameless village in mountains.

Peddi (Ram Charan Tej), a tribal man, with his raw power, brute force and hunger to excel makes him a power hitter in the town cricket team, similar to Chris Gayle and the likes!

Then comes Achiamma (Jahnvi Kapoor), in a meaningless role, a girl who saunters around acting hauty and important.  Peddi goes soft on her. Her character adds literally nothing to the story except spoil the good name of her mom, Sridevi. Even the director has succumbed to cheap thrills and objectified her, which I loathe, to say the least! Her scenes are in bad taste and cringe worthy.

Peddi rubs some upperclassmen the wrong way, in his bid to help Achiamma and thereby looses his spot in the cricket team.

Meanwhile, Appala Suri (Jagapathi Babu, in a memorable role), who is set on getting their nameless village, some recognition and a railway station of their own, dies. Peddi’s life changes.

Peddi takes up wrestling under the tutelage of Gournaidu (Shiva Rajkumar), who proves he is a veteran once again through his scenes.  Peddi is selected for the nationals and thanks to the grudge of a fellow student, ends up hurting his leg badly. That effectively puts an end to his career as a wrestler.

Even the silver medal, doesn’t get Peddi’s nameless village any recognition nor a railway station.

Once again he changes his sport and takes up track running and wins gold at Asian games and that ends the misery for the village and us, the audience! ( I swear, if he had taken up another sport or something,  I would have cried some precious tears!)

His village gets a name, Appalavalasa and a railway station, thus developing it further. The movie ends with Peddi being acknowledged as a hero.

What I like :

1. Sincere performances of Ram Charan Tej, Jagapathi Babu and Shiva Rajkumar.

2. The fact that, if one door closes,  another opens and to never stop trying.

3. Music by ARR

P . S :

What I don’t like :

1. The editing was bad. It drags at places.

2. There is no proper track between the main lead. Even the upperclass villains suddenly begin respecting Peddi!

3. Unnecessary item song by Sruthi Hasan who looks like she is having a hard time being sober. She also looked like she was unable to dance well, for some reason. If I had a universal remote, I would have fast forwarded some of the movie!

P . P .  S :

Mr.Bee and I would close our kids eyes’ during the scenes of death. GBee enjoyed the music and background score too. Both GBee and KBee enjoyed the fight scenes, which were truly good.

Overall, it is a one time watch if you are a fan. If not, it is ok if you skip it too!

Dhurandhar : The Revenge

March 20, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Let’s just start with a prayer to all the people who said Dhurandhar is a propaganda movie! Dhurandhar : The Revenge has a 30 second clip of PM NaMo, giving his demonetization speech. Take that!

Our show was at 10:30 pm, but thanks to all the useless Ads, it started at 11:00 pm. Most of the audience was openly exasperated and complained loudly.

If you see full house at 10:30 pm, on a weekday, for a movie like Dhurandhar, you should know the audience is serious about it’s movie and not for fun. We came to watch our fearless Dhurandhar.  I hope they refrain from wasting half an hour of our precious time.

Before anything else may divert you, let me put my two cents on the table, here goes the review.

Released On : 19th March 2026

Watched by QB on : 19th March 2026

Starring : Ranveer Singh, Arjun Rampal,  R.Madhavan,  Sanjay Dutt, Rakesh Bedi, Gaurav Gera, Yami Gautam and more

Run Time : 3 hrs 49 min

Directed By : G.O.A.T Aditya Dhar

Jaskirat Singh Rangi buys an AK-47 for his brutal rampage, (mind numbing action sequence by Ranveer Singh) killing 12 men of a high profile MLA family, which earns him a death sentence.

One detail I loved was the small town Jaskirat posing for a photo with his family. His body language shows his innocence, before he went on a killing rampage. The anguish and the change in Jaskirat seeps into the screen. We can feel his rage.

Enter Ajay Sanyal and Bansal, who recruit him into the Dhurandhar program. Jaskirat is now Hamza Ali Mazari, the babbar sher (king of beasts, the lion).

At the safe house in Afghanistan,  Jaskirat burns his family photo, the last clue of his existence and new life ahead as Hamza.

Anyway, after the death of Rehman Dakait (Akshay Khanna), the throne of Lyari  is up for grabs! Uzair Baloch is nothing compared to Rehman. Arshad Pappu becomes powerful by default.

Hamza, who is on a mission to eliminate as many terrorists as possible makes a move and Arshad Pappu is killed by Uzair Baloch, (A brutal killing here, just like the one Rehman Dakait commits in middle of the street), which lands Uzair Baloch in jail and that’s where he stays till the end. (I wondered why Hamza went soft on Uzair, but there is a reason for keeping him alive!)

Here, Hamza Ali Mazari is crowned the new Sher – e – Baloch. (This song has a little less pep than the Foos Foos song from Dhurandhar)

With the new title as King of Lyari, Hamza gets the chance to meet Bade Saab, Dawood Ibrahim. (Whoever said Emran Hashmi was playing Dawood Ibrahim needs to be reprimanded.)

Bade Saab, lives in a palatial bungalow with wires connected to him, living almost like a vegetable,  but he still has enough hatred in his veins for more terror attacks on India! He asks Hamza to prove himself worthy of Lyari throne, like his predecessors and involves him in a drug racket. (The drug addicted Punjab needs to thank Bade saab for its drug culture.)

At this point, Hamza comes close to blowing his cover, but thanks to the pick pocketer from Rae Bareli, Hamza is saved. But, SP Aslam (Sanjay Dutt) has his doubts about Hamza being an Indian spy and that seals the deal for him!

SP Aslam is eliminated. (One clean execution here!)

We come to understand the fate of a spy, once Yalina (Sara Arjun) begins to doubt Hamza. Jaskirat ‘s days as Hamza are numbered.

Meanwhile, at Dubai, Hamza is given autonomy by Ajay Sanyal, to do as he pleases and all hell breaks loose. We see unknown men gunning down terrorists,  terrorists suddenly dying from heart attacks and what not! (Salute to the unnamed and unknown masked men, who are serving the country in shadows)

Meanwhile, Omar, ASP, is after Hamza.  He relays the information to Major Iqbal (Arjun Rampal), who is shocked and frustrated.

A long drawn fight ensues, between Major Iqbal and Hamza. I, particularly love the scene where Hamza brings out a bazooka, to fire at Major Iqbal. (It is almost as beautiful as Rambha ho ho , scene from Dhurandhar!) Epic!

Major Iqbal dies and Hamza is captured!

Let me stop the story at that. The rest needs to be watched onscreen.

What I loved :

Ranveer Singh as Hamza Ali Mazari.  It is a role of a lifetime for him. When people talk about Ranveer Singh,  it will always be the talking point, B.D and A.D.(Before Dhurandhar and After Dhurandhar!) He killed it, lived it, breathed it and no one can ever take that away from him.

Rakesh Bedi as the true blue politician, Arjun Rampal as the twisted army officer, Sanjay Dutt as the brash SP, R. Madhavan as the pukka patriotic security chief  and Sara Arjun, as a hopeless wife and loyal mother of a child, too were good.

Finally,  the gripping direction and screenplay needs special mention. Take a bow!

P.S :

1. Who even manages to make 2 movies of bombastic content, in a duration of one and half year? No one! For that alone, Aditya Dhar is a GOAT.

2. The run time in no way made the movie boring. I have the habit of checking audience reaction and frankly, no one was sleepy or bored even at 3:00 am in the morning, when the movie finally ended.

3. The music and background score are good, but I loved the ones from Dhurandhar than Dhurandhar: The Revenge.

4. Just so you know, the video clip of PM Narendra Modi brought cheers from audience, just like the ones we get when a super star makes a cameo in a movie, interesting!

Overall, a not-to-miss experience.  Do watch it.

Stand By Me – A Review

February 24, 2026 / / 0 Comments

I love watching Hollywood movies, especially of America when it was less mad! (Before the Epstein files took the world by the storm)

Thanks to the AI in the Netflix, I got suggestions in my feed, the movies and shows which may suit my taste and that is how I came upon Stand By Me!

And…here goes the review.

Released In : 1986

QB watched On : 13th February,  2026

Directed by : Rob Reiner

Starring : *surprise… surprise* Will Wheaton, River Phoenix,  Corey Feldman, Jerry O’Connell, John Cusack and the likes.

Review :

The story starts with Gordie, who reads a paper about the death of a lawyer and there begins the flash back.

Gordie Lachance (Wil Wheaton) and his friends, Chris Chambers (River Phoenix), Teddy Duchamp (Corey Feldman) and Vern Tessio (Jerry O’Connell) meet at a tree house  regularly for playing cards, smoking cigarettes and whatnot. All the 4 friends are around 12 years old. (No way is it the age to be smoking!)

The common feature among them is that none of them have a happy family. While Chris’s father is a drunkard, Teddy’s father has mental health issues and Vern’s family is not exactly a loving and caring one. The saddest life is of nerdy Gordie, whose elder brother, Denny, a gifted baseball player, dies in a car crash. Both his parents never get over the death and his father even tells Gordie, it should have been him and not his elder brother who had died! (Who even tells that to a 12 year old??)

Poor Gordie, the stories he writes are of little consequence to his father, who is more into sports. Incidentally,  his brother Denny was the only one who was remotely interested in his younger brother’s talent.

Each kid has his own trauma to get over.

One day Vern tells his friends about overhearing, his brother talk about finding the dead body of the missing teen, Ray Brower. Vern’s brother and his friend are scared about informing the police, since they are delinquents and no one believes they can be innocent of foul play!

Vern and his friends decide to find the dead body by themselves so that they can become local heroes if they help the police discover the body. They pack their bags, Chris brings a revolver from his father’s desk, for safety purposes.  Gordie brings a water bottle, Vern brings a comb!(He expects newspaper notoriety,  so he wanted to look presentable for the photos) The one thing Teddy had to bring was food and he brings none.

The gang of four go away for the hike, running away from a dog, narrowly escape being run over by a train, get their blood sucked by some very creepy leeches. (seeing them first time in mainstream cinema!) They also spend the night by campfire, while Gordie tells his friends the latest story he wrote about a kid named David “Lard-Ass” Hogan. Chris, the leader of the gang, the cleverest and the most passionate one tells Gordie that he is a good writer.

They take turns keeping a watch for any wild animals while in the forest. That is when Chris and Gordie bond better and share their sorrows and become better friends.

Next morning, they find the dead body of Ray Brower. This is when Gordie has a meltdown,  since he is yet to get over the death of his brother Denny.

Parallelly, Vern’s brother and his gang of delinquents also reaches the dead body. Gordie scares the delinquents away with the revolver. But neither the delinquents nor Gordie and his gang get credit for their discovery of dead body. They make an anonymous call!

Later on, the kids return home, Gordie and Chris both get into colleges. Gordie is a writer and Chris is a lawyer. Vern and Teddy drift apart.

The movie ends with Gordie remembering his friend Chris who has been shot dead. He wonders if anyone ever makes good friends apart from childhood friends?

What I loved:

The actors did a great job and lived the roles. It felt like I was part of their world and it was not a movie!

One of the best coming of age movies. It stays with you, just like Dead Poet’s Society.

Interestingly, it was nominated for Academy Awards for best Adapted Screenplay.

P.S :

1. I was especially drawn to Chris and his acting. Gordie was good too. As the credits rolled, I understood why I loved Chris. He was River Phoenix! I have only heard about the brilliant actor River Phoenix was, but this is the first time I watched his movie. I felt immensely sad, because, he had such potential.

He was the elder brother of Joaquin Phoenix. River, died at the young age of 23, by accidental drug overdose! (He is super talented and his death caused a rise in fame for other actors like Leonardo Di Caprio. I hope he was not removed out of picture to make way for others! You know whose name is in the E*stein files, right?) River Phoenix was supposed to work in The Titanic, for the role of Jack.

2. Any The Big Bang Theory fans know Wil Wheaton and Wil Wheaton played Gordie, the main character in Stand By Me. No wonder I had familiar vibes.

3. This movie was adapted from the writer Stephen King’s novella, The Body.

Have you watched Shawshank Redemption? It is a classic, one of the top ten and top 100 all time movies, by IMDb rating. Well, that too is an adaptation of Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, a novella by Stephen King, who also wrote IT.

4. Watch the movie and thank me later!

The Intruder – Review

January 28, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Thanks to the Republic Day sale at our local mall, I decided to buy books. Incidentally,  the books which were dead cheap had some obsolete titles, ones that bookworms like me, never ever heard about.  I bought 10 books and will complete them one by one.

The first one of the lot that I wanted to read is The Intruder. Let me review it for the fellow bookworms, waiting to get their hands on a book!

Published on : October 2025

QB read on : 26th January 2026, (Republic Day of India)

Author : Freida McFadden (my latest favourite)

Review :

The story starts with Casey, who is living in the middle of nowhere, but still within the reach of basic necessities.

The cabin that Casey rented has a questionable roof. The weather forecast warns of a heavy storm in the horizon. What’s more, even the tree in her yard is dangerously old and may fall on the house anytime soon.

Either the storm or the fallen tree may kill Casey. But then, she finds a pale face looking through her bedroom window!

Is it a hallucination caused by the fear of facing a storm alone or is it a shadow caused due to weird angle of flickering light?

Casey is well prepared for any adversity, thanks to her father, who trained her well. I love how she keeps thinking about her father and what he would have done at different situations. It shows the deep friendship she had with her dad. (I love a good father daughter bonding story)

Then there is her lone neighbour,  Lee Traynor, who is concerned for Casey’s safety. He may or may not be the one who is trespassing her property!

Who is Lee? Does he have secrets of his own, like Casey?

During the blackout, Casey manages to find out the tool shed in her property is suddenly lit up. She decides to check out who it is! (Why go to all the trouble of facing the intruder?)

Who is the intruder?

Is it wise to face an intruder on your own, when alone?

As we  read through the story of the Casey and the intruder, we also alternate to the life of Ella.

Who is Ella?

Then there is Ella’s mother. This is the first instance where I have read about a character who is in severe depression. I could only pity Ella. Such a pitiful childhood.

Ella finds respite in the friendship of Anton. (Anton is one such character which is good inspite of the circumstances around him. He is a good guy but flawed.)

Finally, when the story unfolds, it brings chills down my spine.

It shows the plight of a kid who has an irresponsible parent.

Scary and sad!

If you had a good childhood with loving parents, then count yourselves lucky instead of taking things for granted. Some kids are not so lucky.

P.S :

1. True to her style, Freida McFadden has some twists up her sleeves and she uses them well at some places.

2. I hate staying alone in a cabin, but if at all I was, I wouldn’t go ahead and search who the intruder was, in the tool shed, that too during a storm!

3. Worth a read. It gives some valuable lessons of how parenting should be done and how important parenting is.

Till the next post, ciao!

For the love of Pizza

December 1, 2025 / / 0 Comments

My earliest memories of pizza are from my childhood, when my friends and I would haunt our favourite Global Bakery, order a small pizza, eat a slice each and go to our evening tutions.

When one of our friends had their birthday, we would celebrate with a pizza along with 200 ml each of Coca Cola or our desi favourite, Thumbs Up. Those were the best days, of no worries and screen-free childhood!

The nearby, Country Oven was somehow unsuccessful. Everyone preferred the Global Bakery.

Anyway, schooling was the time my love for pizza started.

Once I progressed to college, getting pizza delivered became a routine. Mid Land Bakery got most of our business. These orders grew manifold, once I began earning.

I miss those days when the Technical Division team girls had a fun lunch at the Pizza Hut and ate to our hearts content.

After marriage, when Mr.Bee and I, made Charlotte our new home, pizza had been the go-to lunch or dinner, during our lazy days.

Even though I have been in love with the Pizza, this post is not about me!

I remember my first ever pizza in Charlotte, which had nothing but mushrooms as the topping. (I hated the Mellow Mushrooms pizza, by the way. I am not a fan of mushrooms, even though they are one of the rare sources of protein for vegetarians.)

Then came the particularly soft Papa John’s pizza, who knew my heart and always sent extra pickles for this desi girl, Queen Bee! I could savour their soft pizza, thanks only to their pickles.

Then there was Vapiano Pizza, which had the best ambience and was the true Italian pizza, but I felt no connection! (Sadly, it was shut down during Covid lockdown and now the new pizzeria in it’s place is, the Bella Ciao)

The Pizza Hut pizza was good too, but could hardly conquer my taste buds.

The Fuel Pizzeria’s Garden Fresh Pizza with my all time favourite topping of Basil had me salivating like never before. Mr.Bee loved to have a Margarita Cheese Pizza. At Fuel, we ordered half and half, one half with my choice of toppings and the other half with three kinds of cheese for Mr.Bee. Sweet deal! The added advantage was of the ambience, which was friendly, but not too friendly.

Incidentally, the FUEL pizzeria was close to Mr.Bee’s office and that added to the charm. I also loved their Garlic Knots, which were my “soul” food, they made my soul happy!

The day we landed in Charlotte, we had pizza from Mellow Mushrooms, Mr.Bee got negative marks for this choice of pizza!  He didn’t know about my aversion to mushrooms. To compensate, he took me to the Fuel pizzeria for dinner and that saved his neck!

Team lunches and dinners for Mr.Bee always meant Pizza, he must have eaten more than twice of my share of pizzas, but still, this post is not about him either!

During the lockdown, the one person who missed pizza was none other than GBee. Yes, this post is about my elder munchkin and his love for the Pizza.

Thanks to lockdown and the after effects of it, we stopped eating out for a while. To satiate our demanding taste buds, we even made a pizza at home, with the head chef/ baker being Mr.Bee and the sous chef / baker being me!

Once GBee saw that we were making him a pizza, he was excited and I don’t remember how we made him sit for full 45 minutes, till it was done.

He was so excited, he rushed outside to the main gate, as soon as he heard the gate open. He shouted at the top of his voice about pizza being made at home. Sadly, the visitors were confused and were in too deep a conversation to even respond to the kiddo.

GBee sharing his happiness with random strangers!

Since we didn’t have an oven good enough to bake a sinful pizza, we made it with desi jugaad. That weekend had been memorable.

Before and After – Homemade pizza

Credit goes to Mr.Bee for the tasty pizza. Guess who loved it the most?  GBee.

Although, he picked out every piece of vegetables on the pizza and piled it onto my plate, he still loved it! If only he ate it with all the vegetables, he would have been a bigger pizza fan!

Some day I would love to go to Italy and try the pizza there, probably made by a nonna . Does anyone have similar dream?

P.S :

1. Down the line, when we wanted to feed GBee to some sandwiches, we would bluff that they were just mini-pizza and he would believe us and eat them. Now, he is old enough to recognize the bluffs.

2. KBee, surprisingly doesn’t like pizza. We always order garlic bread for him to eat. Our choice of pizzeria in Hyderabad is the Pompeii. (The pizza is to die for!)

3. Before our flight to India, when we were finally returning home, Mr.Bee and I ate at the Fuel Pizza, one last time.

Pet Parent for a day!

March 26, 2025 / / 0 Comments

During my childhood,  I had been a happy -go-lucky one, who was ignorant about the things going around her. I lived in a world of my own and there had been never a boring moment.  (Touchwood!)

One winter night, we, a family of four were having dinner, watching some golden oldie Hindi movie, eating roti for dinner. (For a South Indian family,  we ate roti on a daily basis, more than idli sambar) My palette for food was selective in those days and the top billing was given to my preference of food and our daily food menu was based on my whim and fancy. Being the youngest has it’s perks!

Anyway,  as we finished our dinner and sat down to watch the rest of the movie, during a brief silent moment in the movie,  I heard “meow” and a definite scratch on our door to the verandah.  I ignored it.

As the scratches became more frequent and the meowing became more apparent,  I alerted my parents.  My dad opened the door. I was half expecting a cat fight, turns out it was not! Two tiny kittens rushed inside the hall, through the open door, one was thin while the other looked well fed. (I suspect the fat one never let the thin kitty have his share of food!) Both the kittens were as white as snow.

The winter night air had been too cold for them and that is the reason they became our guests. My parents fed the kitties the left over roti and milk, which they had for their hearts content. For a brief period both of them used our teepoy as their bunk bed, after dinner, to rest. (Teepoy = coffee table!)

Using the teepoy as their bunk bed!

By a mutual agreement,  I and my sister decided to adopt one kitten each, for ourselves, the thin and the more active one being mine! Once the kittens had their dinner, they started to play with us, till it was our time for bed.

By the time we woke up early in the morning,  the kitty cats were already awake and about. One of them had lept onto my bed too. I was as excited about a pet as George from The Famous Five series by Enid Blyton!

Both me and my sister made our beds and got ready for our school. I didn’t want to leave my kitty home and but went to school with a heavy heart. My sister had named her kitty as snowy. (I am unable to recall what I named my kitten as! I don’t even remember their gender!)

I boasted about my new pet to my friends and eagerly waited for the clock to strike 4! (That’s when the last school bell rang, thanks to Thomas uncle who was always on time! We studied at Christian Missionary school, the best in those days.)

Anyway,  as soon as I was home, I couldn’t find any trace of the mischievous kitties and I demanded an explanation from my parents.  Turns out the twin kittens were the pets of our neighbour from another apartment.  He came searching for them as soon I and my sister went to school. The said owner had left his door open and the naughty kittens ran out of the door, climbed the wall and walked all the way to our house!

The owner asked for his pets in the nearby apartments and found them with us and took them away immediately.

We were heart broken and that is how we became, pet parents for a day! (night, actually!)

P.S:

1. After many years, we had another pet, turns out we have very little luck when it comes to pet animals. That will be post for another day.

2. The chubbier kitten of the two looked like Snowy from Stuart Little, but without the grumpy face. This one looked almost dumb!

3. We always wanted bunk beds in our childhood but nope, we had separate beds and that was fun too!

4. I love how Kramer from Seinfeld comes up with the idea of a coffee table book which converts itself into a coffee table, genius!

5. As you must have guessed, I made the pic with what little editing I know. The kitty cat images and teepoy image is sourced from Google. I just edited them together.

Till the next post,  ciao!

The Animal Farm

March 20, 2025 / / 0 Comments

This particular post is during the time I was heavily pregnant with my first born, GBee. So, it was in 2017.

It all started with me returning to Hyderabad.  Living in an apartment in India is not new to me, but finding myself in the company of many animals is!

One fine Sunday afternoon, when our home was filled with guests of all ages, we were immersed in talking about various topics, when all hell broke loose! I heard cries which scared the hell out of me. The cries came from our veradah. Inspite of my present state, I rushed to see what the matter was.

There, standing near the utility area were two monkeys, eating the snacks mom had given our house-help. The monkeys scared off our 60 year old house help like a couple of predators and began munching her hot bajjis. (Mom had prepared bajji for all our guests and gave some to our house help.) Our house help was so scared, she cried in blood curdling scream, ran towards our watchman and that was the scene before our eyes. Both the monkeys were munching away the snacks, like there was no tomorrow!

It is all together another story of how the monkeys were shoo-ed away.

And then, there is the cat!

The stubborn little creature can’t be scared and shoo-ed off easily. Even when we shout or shoo it away, the cat doesn’t bat an eye! It looks on with little respect at our “cat shooing away skills”!

The first time I saw the little monster was when I left the door to the verandah open and the cat found it too tempting not to barge in. I had to hurl a slipper near the cat (taking pains not to hit it. Yes, PETA,I am not cruel to animals, but I don’t like being taken for granted either!) The stupid one, didn’t budge! It took three of us to force it away.

One or two such incidents left me with bad taste for cats! (I had a cat as a pet for one day in my childhood! Did I happen to tell you that story? If not, will do that in the future)

What do you do if the said cat empties the dust bin, yes, every single day!

And I once caught the same cat staring at the coconut tree, what a weirdo! ( on second thought, there is a belief that cats can scare away ghosts, so this stray kitty was probably scaring off a coconut tree ghost! Lol)

                                                                 Cat staring the coconut tree!

I also took a picture of a tiny little mud structure made by mud wasps, which now reminds me of the cartoon GBee and KBee watch regularly,  Ben and Holly, where Ben is an elf and Holly is a winged fairy. (There is a belief in our state that if  wasps built a mud structure in your house, it implies good things are on their way to you, in my case, birth of my GBee)

Mud structure made by hardworking wasps

That was when I decided that living in the heart of the city, one can still feel like they are living in a modern ranch with lots of animals for company and there it is, my own Animal Farm!

P.S:

  1. You can hardly control a child these days, let alone shooing away animals, who are less intelligent than a child.
  2. The concept of cats scaring off ghosts was also seen in the movie The Mummy, if anyone cares to recall it!
  3. On totally unrelated note, I love two songs from two sitcoms, “smelly cat” from F.R.I.E.N.D.S and “soft kitty, warm kitty” from  The Big Bang Theory.
  4. With industrialization, more and more monkeys come into cities and are creating nuisance on a regular basis. I recently saw a video of monkeys taking a respite in the over head tank of a house. They were having an unorganised pool party! I deleted the video by mistake and it’s not AI generated one, it’s an original.
  5. I always imagined there were fairies in our garden etc and Ben And Holly has similar concept of humans interaction with elves and fairies.

Disclaimer: Come on, Mr.George Orwell (Desi born British novelist), I am just using your highly popular book title, but that’s it. My post is not plagiarized in anyway. Thanks for letting me use the title! 😛

Of Gaming and Counting Numbers!

September 22, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Before I jump directly into the topic at hand, I would love to give some flashbacks, put down a solid foundation and build a beautiful structure of a post, like a true blue Civil Engineer I have been.

If I need to tell about my experience as a serial gamer, I should probably start with KONG and the PRINCE, the most unforgettable games I have ever played when I was still a primary school student.

I remember all those beautiful days of my childhood, when I would return home from my school, freshen up, eat some snacks or plain old curd rice and get into playing my favourite game of KONG. Thinking back, my inclination of drawing cartoons as stick figures probably stems from my fascination of the KONG!

The game had an average stick figure, the hero, who had to save a stick figured heroine, who was ‘beauty’napped by the villain, a bulky stick figure. I am not sure, but they must have been stick figured gorillas, because of the posture of both the hero and the villain, which appeared to be bow legged and also based on the name of the game!

It looks something like this. I tried to replicate as much as I can remember.

The hero is at the bottom of the building, moving slowly (since he is bow legged!) and escaping automatic bombs in blue colour, which keep coming from the top left corner, while Kong, the villain keeps moving on the top floor, (jumping bow legged) trying to scare the poor hero.

Initial stage of the game – Kong

Once the hero seems to be making a progress, the villain begins to throw bombs or stones in weird shapes and they manage to break the stairs and pathways, all the while, the hero still needs to escape the steady flow of bombs, coming automatically out of a small structure.

Breaking the stairs and wrecking the way!

I was in 3rd standard when I first played this game. At last, when the hero wins, the girl is in his arms and he carries her at the end. I only played till I won once and then moved on to the newer game of PRINCE.

While KONG was a black and white game (I made the cartoon in colour because, I love colours!), PRINCE was a game in colour. It had a guy, whose style of dressing was like Disney’s Alladin, he ran faster than the stick figure hero in KONG, found magic potions in unlikely places, went through secret passages and sometimes got killed under sharp shutters and thorny walls! Although it was an interesting game, I stopped playing Prince after 5th or 6th level because, the booby traps  got bloody as the game progressed! (I was only in 4rth standard during this game. It was too much)

After that, years have passed and I have played many a games, from Pin Ball machine, Minesweeper, Soltaire to Disney’s Alladin in computer, to Tetris in hand held video game player, to snake game and block game in Nokia 1100,  to Ice Age game where I raised many extinct animals and their families, to Paradise Bay, where I had to make an island livable! I even played many food games, where I make food and feed the customers on time, solved many a sudokus, to finding and making words. The other memorable game is Seeker’s Note: Hidden Objects, which I played for the span of more than 5 years, installing and uninstalling (because of severe neck pain of being a serial gamer!), but thankfully, my progress had been saved by Facebook! (Wait , I remember participating in online snooker matches too, LOL! What fun!)

Some of my gaming madness had rubbed off to GBee, who is also a serial gamer. He enjoys playing different kinds of games, his all time favourite being Angry Birds.

GBee is usually allowed to play on the cell phone only on every Friday, for 1 hour.  On one such friday evening, GBee managed to win a game, I am not sure which one.

The serial gamer wins!

Just as GBee began to shout that he won the game, the baby who was newly learning the numbers thought his anna was asking him to recite numbers and shouted two! I generally initiate KBee to recite numbers by saying ,’one’ he says ‘two’, I say ‘three’ and we alternate the numbers and play. It was funny to see him do the same with GBee thinking he was asking to recite numbers.

Although it was nice to see GBee play games in cell phone and win them, I still think his fun pales in comparison to mine. It is the fun of playing games by graduating from hand-held video game players to computers, to laptops to cell phones to iPads and finally moving to XBoxes and PS4s and then coming back again to cell phones!

What fun!

P.S:

  1. I remember playing a game of a monkey eating bananas as it jumped from one tree to other and even Dave, which was my favourite in our school computer lab!
  2. My dad having an office of his own in the early 1995 has been very helpful in making me a serial gamer. He never stopped me from playing on the computer. Now that I think about it, I had no time limit for playing on the computer. I would play till I was bored! I hope GBee doesn’t find out that I never had time restrictions for playing games, he may curse me!
  3. Whenever GBee is not allowed screen time, he takes that opportunity to draw the Angry Birds levels he has completed, something like this. (That inspired me to draw the KONG game and post it here. Thanks GBee for the inspiration.)
  4. KBee is into puzzles like the origami puzzle game. I do help him once in a while.
  5. I don’t think I have ever seen Mr.Bee play anything except Candy Crush or Snooker! He prefers PS4 to cell phones as gaming platforms.
  6. Taking this post as an opportunity, I would love to thank all the creators of various games I had ever played in my life, till now. Thank you for making them! Cheerio!

P.P.S:

My mom is a gamer too!

Oh My Friend Ganesha!

September 13, 2024 / / 1 Comment

I don’t know if it is because my favourite deity is Ganesha or because I have ancestral roots in the temple town of Ainavalli in Andhra Pradesh or because of the large scale festivities in Hyderabad, but Ganesh Chathurthi had always been my favourite festival.  My favouritism doesn’t end there. I eat, sleep, pray Ganesh and I also named my first born Ganesh. So that sums up everything, I rest my case!

Even during my childhood days, I had a pink and white Ganesha statue in POP (Plaster Of Paris) as my toy, more like companion! My pink Ganesha had a place on my bed, beside my pillow. It was a sad day, when I lost grip on the Ganesha , one fine summer morning and broke It, into 2 symmetrical halves, separated at His navel!

My mom let me have It on my bed for two years, but then, some elders warned her not to have a broken Ganesha at home and that was the end of our companionship! My cute little pink Ganesha was left under the hibiscus tree, which coincidentally had light pink blooms (same colour as my Ganesha), year round, to let the rains wash Him away!

That was how the story had ended.

My kiddos have no such bond with the Ganesha and it becomes apparent during this season, or so I thought.

A day before the Ganesh Chathurthi, Mr.Bee, I and both GBee and KBee got into the car and excitedly drove towards the Erragadda market. It is 5km away from our house.

Just like last year, it was drizzling and hawkers and shoppers both braved the drizzle to continue their shopping. The kiddos loved the Ganeshas, agreed on the One I showed them. (For now, I am the BOSS and they know it!) With the Handsome Hunk in my lap, we returned home!

While we got everything ready for the Ganesh puja, I was in my happy space, humming O My Friend Ganesha, Thu Rehna Saath Hamesha…! I was happy because I got home a Ganesha who had vibrant dhoti in my favourite colour, with a cute design. The dhoti clinched the purchase for me!

On His temporary resting place…

In Telugu states, as far as I know, people generally perform puja to only a Ganesh idol made of clay. It is the most auspicious choice. Second comes the idol made of plaster of paris. Even if anyone, (like us) is swayed by the beauty of POP Ganesha, we still buy a clay idol too. So we have two idols, for every Ganesh Chathurthi.

While we were busy preparing Ganesha’s puja mandapam, GBee began to chat with both the Ganeshas on the table, as if he was inviting some guests home!

GBee chatting up with old friends.

I was happy that GBee was talking to Ganesha like I used to during my childhood. But what surprised me the most is that he thought, the POP Ganesha and the clay Ganesha were cousins! LOL. (I mentally noted it, needs to go into my blog, I thought). There is another such incident during Varalakshmi Puja and it is a post for another day.

Anyway, we prepared the mandapam, set everything ready for the next day’s puja and slept off the exhaustion!

On the day of the Ganesh Chathurthi (i.e the next morning), I gave the kiddos a good oil massage and oil bath. (Both cried their eyes out! LOL. I wanted to laugh, but I couldn’t because watching the kids cry is exhausting!)  I remembered how I would also cry when my mom made me take an oil bath and massaged me, during my childhood. I am on the right track, I thought and moved on…

The puja itself lasted for half an hour. The preparations, the decorations, the prasadam and cleaning up the puja area take most time, than the actual puja. That is an universal truth!

Like is the case, after the puja, I went ahead to the kiddos, to put some Akshinthalu on their tiny heads, for blessing them with positivity and to avoid neelapanindalu (which can be loosely translated as ‘rumours affecting one’s reputation’.) While GBee was ok with it, KBee reacted in a way which surprised me.

KBee lying down on his stomach and watching TV and QB in a messy Mom-Bun hairstyle!

Since KBee saw us putting lots of akshinthalu on the deities during the puja, he thought they were only meant for Gods and not for mere mortals and reminded me that he is infact just a baby and NOT a Jeji (or GOD)! LOL.  What fun!

KBee later warned me not to invite my friends to our house. He said that I always invite friends home during puja and make them chant Telugu Stotras! (He was infact talking about my MIL’s friends who visit our home regularly to perform parayanam.) He assumed new ladies in the house meant, friends of mom!

With that, we ended our conversation and got busy eating the jilledu kayalu, undrallu and the other specials for the day. We also visited my parents house, ate the specials my mom made and ended the day with a stomach full of yummy stuff.

Thank you Ganesha, for a memorable day.

P.S:

  1. For those who are new to our Hindu culture, akshinthalu is the grains of rice mixed with either turmeric or vermilion, which are showered on our heads by elders, to convey blessings.  Other words and meanings for you: mandapam = place where the Deity is kept during the puja ; stotra =  verses ; parayanam = chanting verses together;  dhoti = cloth tied up like a pant.
  2. None of my friends visit my house, because everyone has either one or two kids to look after and this is not the correct age for socializing. We are too busy for that. Who will make the kids study or do their homework if we go about socializing each evening???
  3. I always prefer tying my hair in a messy bun. I sometimes wonder how I have changed from the girl who once hated to have even a single strand of hair out of place to being a woman who enjoys messy bun! Times change, WE change, only change is constant!
  4. I would love to have atleast one cartoon in each of my posts, but they take a minimum of 1 hour to draw and edit!

Till the next post, cheerio!

The Devil in the Empty Classroom!

June 18, 2024 / / 0 Comments

An idle brain is a devil’s workshop. My dad had written me an essay once, with the same opening line, during my school days and I even won the elocution. (He would write me beautiful essays to read and I would learn them to win elocution competitions. What a happy memory.) The particular competition I am talking about is when I had to talk about T.V.

Before I begin to tell why I started the post talking about the devil, let us get into flashback mode, with me as your guide.

I was a student of GSHS, a popular school in those days and later has changed its name to NHS.

Like in all schools, we had to elect our first languages. The whole class was divided into Telugu and Hindi sections only during our language period. I was part of the Hindi gang and that’s where this particular story starts.

Since our school was in a predominantly Telugu locality in Telugu state, there were less number of students in our Hindi class. Most of my fellow Hindi students were Muslims, so the Hindi I would talk in those days was a mix of Urdu and Hindi.

If you ever read the Harry Potter books, you would know that the Slytherins had their common room in the dungeons. Similarly, most of our primary classes were held underground, in the cellar! (If you ever wonder why some people have nightmares, this may be one of the reasons!)

Anyway, if you are in a Hindi class, then lucky you, you get the last classroom at the end of the cellar, the very dead end and the darkest room as your classroom. (We only move to the Hindi class during Hindi period.)

Even with lights on, I guess most army people would feel safe in it, since it resembled a bunker than a classroom! On top of the darkness and the silence, we even had rows and rows of iron benches topped with wood, piled on top of each other in the corner of the said classroom and we Hindi class kids felt their ominous presence!

While the ‘grade 1’ me was getting used to this weird classroom, one fine morning there was a rumour in our school. The assembly was buzz with students talking in whispers, that there was a devil in the empty Hindi classroom, hiding behind the , you guessed it right, the benches!

YIKES!

Suddenly some of my friends even went as far as to testify that they had seen blood red eyes looking back at them from among the piled up benches! (I have always been a scaredy cat, so that scared the hell out of me.)

An idle brain is a devil’s workshop.  (Turns out that even an idle classroom is a devil’s workshop!)

Empty Classroom = Devil’s workshop! (pic courtesy : Google)

As the day progressed, the afternoon was given a holiday and we were all sent home! (I don’t know if it was a coincidence or it was to get to the bottom of the rumours, but we had an afternoon off!)

While I was coming out of the cellar, from our classroom, I heard the general chatter about how the devil had scratched the P.T. sir and how his face is now disfigured and that is the reason for the day off! Even the next day had been declared a holiday!

Even though we had an unexpected holiday, I met my friends at their house, only to gossip again about how the school watchman had seen the ghost at night and how students are scared of going to the restrooms….

Once the school re-opened, we began moving about in groups. I dreaded going to the Hindi class and I bet others were scared too.  Luckily, the Hindi students had some good news. We were designated a new classroom, with good lighting etc and we soon forgot the damn rumours.

Even now when I think back about the incident, I wonder if that is the real reason the Hindi classroom was changed!

Do you believe a devil or ghost can stay in an empty classroom?

P.S:

  1. This incident happened in my primary school days when I was in Grade 1. I remember it distinctly because I was so scared at that time. I remember talking about it to my friends and family too.
  2. I am not disclosing the name of the school because, even if our school was best at studies, who even has classes in the cellar, which is dimly lit? I even remember my first Hindi teacher, Ms. Shiva Parvathi mam.
  3. Couple of years later, the school had been moved into its own 6 floored building. I moved to a new school after Grade 3, it was a life changing move, because I made friends for life and also met Mr.Bee.

Till the next post, cheerio!

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