Day 73 : Eka Uvacha

Madam has turned dramatic these days.


When I scolded her for doing something naughty...

[Wailing away]
"Why are you scolding meeeeeee.....
I thought we were friendssssssss.....!"

In a story that she was conjuring....

"Once upon time there was a princess.
Who went to the garden and pluck flowers.
And her life came to nothing."

Yup, 'her life came to nothing'.




And my favourite...

To her dad, "One day, you will die."
And then, turning to our helper, "One day, you will also die."


27 more to go. 

Day 71 - 72 : Maxing it Out!

It was the weekend after the "D-Day" and I was feeling on top of the world from the good news we received yesterday - We can go back to a normal life, at least for six months! That was awesome!


So I did what I usually do best. I decided to max it out.


I went to the temple to say big round of thank you.


I booked two holidays - one to Phuket in July and one to Bali in August.


I spent some good time catching up with friends, in laws and of course, the husband.


I took Madam on many outings - to the temple, to United Square for her favourite ride followed by Japanese food at Ichiban Boshi, to get her favourite Thai food from E-Sarn (the only place where she heartily gulps down vegetables!), to play with her best friend K at the Singapore Cricket Club.


I ate a lot - Japanese, Thai, Indian and an overload of home cooked food.  


I read a lot - current it is Anita Nair's "Mistress" (once again, such beautiful language but terrible plot!)


I did a lot of yoga - so much so that I realized I can now do Heron pose (Krounchasana) and Compass pose (Parivritta Surya Yantrasana)!


Yes, I maxed it out and man, did it feel good!


428 more to go.

Day 70: The D-Day!

The D-day was here. All of us woke up bright and early, including little Miss Shukla, who was interestingly, quite excited to go to the hospital. Apparently, she had been missing the garden there and she couldn’t wait to pluck the flowers again! I love this ability of hers – that of remembering only what she loved and never about the painful times. It has made the repeated visits to the hospital a lot less traumatic for all of us.

We got to the hospital, was admitted quickly, she happily changed into her hospital scrubs, and we took off to the garden where she plucked the flowers and talked to the birds until they came to take her to the MRI room. 

Preparation for MRI was not too traumatic either. Usually we have a kicking, screaming child whom they insert the IV into but this time, they first gave her an anesthetic gas and then inserted the IV, so she didn’t know much pain. But then she went ahead and yanked the IV away during the MRI itself and they had to reinsert it into her other hand. Oh well! The anesthetist did assure us later that she will have no recollection of it, so I guess that's good. 

While we were waiting in the MRI room, I called her neurosurgeon’s clinic to know the next steps. I was told that while the scan results will be available by the afternoon, the doctor would be out on a surgery and hence, we were advised to come back on Monday to meet him. So I mentally prepared to let things go and not think of potential scenarios until Monday. 

Once she got back out of the MRI room, after some initial drowsiness, she was back to her usual chirpy self pretty quickly. She changed out of the scrubs and back into her own clothes, and insisted on a dab of lipstick for good effect (don’t ask!).  As soon as she had her food and showed no signs of any after effects of the anesthesia, we wanted to get her discharged. 

So I went to the ward nurse to start the procedure. First she asked me to wait until we hear back from the doctor. Apparently, they had sent the scan results for him to take a look even though he was in a surgery and were now waiting to hear back. So we waited, and after a while, she updated that doctor has seen the reports and wants us to wait for him and not get discharged.

Gulp.

These vague statements are what make you a nervous wreck in such situations. Why doesn’t the doctor want us to get discharged ? Why can’t his conversation with us wait until Monday? Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Is it simply that he wants to meet Eka since he hadn’t seen her for three months? Or the best case scenario - does he simply want to share some good news with us as fast as possible? Or the worst of all, are we on an emergency situation (that has happened before too)? 

There were so many questions and no answers, so we just had to suck it up and wait.

So that's what we did. We waited. Thankfully the little Madam was in full form and ruling over us and the hospital staff and having a ball. She was probably as happy as she would be in a playground!

Post MRI, at the hospital coffee shop buying macaroons 

Soon the doctor came by and the first thing he says is “The scans look good”. Phew!!! So it was the best case after all - he just wanted to give us the good news as soon as possible! God bless him! 

He went on to say that the tumor is stable – it is still present but hasn’t grown, which is such a blessing! Also, the excess fluid that she had on both sides of her brain are more or less stable as well. In fact on the left side, it seems to have completely adjusted the levels. 

Which is all such awesome, awesome news!!! 

I felt like all the knots in my body released and felt several kilos lighter. My in laws, husband and I hugged each other in joy while Madam wondered what the fuss was all about.

The doctor did say that we cant leave the tumor alone – we need to get another scan done in six months' time and we will need to treat it via microradiosurgery some time next year when her brain is more developed. But for now, we can go back to our lives. Of course, we always have to keep an eye out for any symptoms, but I guess that is something we will have to live with for the rest of our lives.

So we returned home , a rather happy bunch of people! 

I thanked all the Gods and went to bed early. Because there was nothing more that I wanted – than just to sleep with a lightened heart.

Thank you to everyone who sent a good wish, a prayer across! I can't tell you how much I appreciate that!

430 more to go. 

Days 66 - 69 : The Wait.

Madam's next MRI scan is scheduled for the 27th of May. Which means, that I spent the last few days thinking about pretty much nothing else. There are so many unknowns that would get their answers on 27th. Is the tumor growing? Is the excess fluid in her brain under control? Is there pressure in her brain?  Would she need to do microradiosurgery immediately? Life had started to seem normal over the last few weeks, would all of it go out for a toss?

I found myself returning to these questions over and over again and it took all my willpower to ignore them and move on with whatever I was doing at the moment. I realized that if I don't keep myself fully occupied, I would simply worry myself silly.

So that's what I did - I immersed myself in activities. Work helped because there were several important meetings that I had to prepare for and I had evening calls every single day running past midnight, I applied to film festivals (which are more time consuming than one would think), I spent a lot of time with Madam, painting, reading and going on outings, I did a lot of yoga, I finished reading a book (one of Simon Brett's Fethering mysteries) and I took mom in law for pain therapy sessions for her knee problem - after which we celebrated with some really good food and drinks at TCC.

In fact, I was so focused on keeping my mind occupied that when my poor husband came over and started a conversation saying "I hope she is fine...", thereby expressing his nervousness about what might happen on 27th, I mercilessly cut him off with a "Sorry, I don't wanna think about it. Am gonna read my book" and promptly did just that. That was probably rather selfish and not very considerate, but well, that's what I did. Because thinking about it gives me palpitations and I don't quite enjoy that feeling.

This focus on distracting myself did work pretty well in a few ways - some of those important meetings turned out pretty well, I spent some good time catching up with the in-laws on our outings to the pain relief clinic and TCC after, and it was also nice when Madam joined us on an unexpected weekday afternoon trip once. To a large extent, all of this did help me forget about the upcoming day too.

And now the wait is almost over because tomorrow is the 27th. I have completed all the admission formalities and we are ready to go. Am keeping all my fingers and toes crossed.

431 more to go.

Day 65 : Colours!

Over the last couple of weeks, when the film crew was in town and we spent long hours over our computers, Madam would join in either with a bunch of crayons or with her own little pink laptop and busy herself with her "work". She used to get so involved that even after we wound up and the crew left Singapore, she would still come every evening and say "It's not sleeping time, it is working time!"

"Working" during post production

Recently her "work" has been all about colouring, and we have noticed that she can stay on for more than two hours at a stretch colouring away. This particularly excites me because, well... I myself used to be like that! I have spent a lot of my childhood immersing myself in the joy of colours and brushes and I loved that she was doing the same!

When we went for our usual Sunday evening outing, she sat through the whole dinner at Ichiban Boshi and coloured away. That got me really excited and in my excitement, I brought her another round of crayons and colour pencils and even a set of water colours. She may be a bit too young for water colours, especially with brushes, but I bought them anyway because well, I couldn't contain my excitement. I guess I imagined she and I painting many paintings together, and I couldn't wait to start.

Colouring away at Ichiban Boshi

For more than an hour, she painted away with her new water colours and I watched. I guess there's something about colours filling up a piece of white paper that's really therapeutic, even if you are not the one doing it yourself. So she painted, I watched.

Painting with her new water colours 

After about an hour of her painting, I told her, "Do you want to stop now? You are working so hard". To which she promptly replied, "No Mummy, I am working so loose". Whatever that means.

So I let her be.

435 more to go.

Day 64 : The People. The Book. The Rain.

It felt like the calm after the storm. The first Saturday, after a long while, when I actually had nothing specific to do - no travelling, no work, no film production, nothing really.

In celebration, I spent the whole morning lounging away at home - with a bit of yoga, a bit of reading, a lot of playing and chatting with Madam.

In the afternoon, we met two friends with their little son at Robertson Quay. The kids enjoyed each other's company - they ran about, played hide and seek, and hugged whenever they felt a surge of love for each other, which was pretty often. I myself hadn't caught up with these friends for a while, so we had our long overdue catch up as well.

After the family outing, the husband and I ventured out, for our own little "date night". I couldn't recollect when was the last time just the two of us went out and spent some time on our own. And that, obviously, was no good. So we went to Chimes and spent an hour or so over a glass of wine for him and a cup of tea for me. And we talked and talked. Or rather, I talked and he listened. It felt good.

By the time we got back home, it was pouring cats and dogs. Rest of the house went off to sleep and I snuggled up by the window with my book "Alphabet Soup for Lovers' by Anita Nair and read it cover to cover in one go. I simply adore her writing! I wish her plots were better - but she makes even a wafer thin plot, like the one in this book, so beautiful with her style!

Sitting there, well past midnight, in the company of the lashing rain that I let stray through the open windows, the accompanying thunder and lightning, breathing in the lovely fragrance of  the soaked earth, with a dreamy book to go along - it felt so perfect and I wished it would last forever.

436 more to go. 

Day 63 : The Bollywood Effect!

It was a very exciting day!

My editor called me up from Mumbai and said that a major post production house has agreed to do the final sound mix and colour grading for our film, pretty much for free! Apparently they watched some of the film as well as the trailer, liked what they saw and in the spirit of supporting independent cinema, they are going to work on it in return for the credits.

It was super, duper exciting! More than them working on the film, I was thrilled that they actually said they liked our little film! I mean these are the guys who have worked on some of the biggest productions from India and have even won national awards previously! And for them to like our work, I must say, I was on cloud nine!

This is one of those situations when you wonder what's the universe is trying to tell you. On one hand, there's the follow up scan coming up which am constantly thinking about and on the other hand, there is all these unexpected goodness.

Maybe it is just saying, "Chin up", so up it shall be.

437 more to go.

Day 62: The Innovation Summit

As the innovation director, one of my biggest tasks for the year is to organize the innovation summit in Singapore attended by folks globally. Today was the summit - after months of preparation and the day lasted for a good 11 hours for me. At the end of the day, the feedback from the participants was very positive, the outcome was considered strong and seemed like we had managed to sufficiently prep to avoid or manage any surprises. Thus one of my biggest tasks for the year was completed successfully, and am a happy employee!

438 more to go. 

Day 61 : R. K. Narayan

R. K. Narayan is probably my most favourite author. I love ALL his books, and I have been reading a fair amount. I love the simplicity of the plots and the simplicity of the language, and how everything makes you smile. Currently I am reading "The Financial Expert" and loving it! Am able to read only a few pages at a time but snuggling up to some Malgudi air right before bed, is just the perfect way to fall asleep.

439 more to go. 

Day 60 : The Joy of Juicing!

Here's one of the rare posts from me on the joys of healthy eating. Of course, it is not something I practice religiously but it does feel good to think that I do it at times and that I can show off my wisdom about it.

Thanks to the hectic post production schedule and trying to juggle work and everything else with it, my eating and sleeping cycles had gone out of whack. For a few days, we were eating the heaviest masala dosas at midnight or popping in another slice of pizza at 3am. It was terrible! As a result of it, I had been feeling  bloated and uncomfortable and even the short bouts of yoga here and there didn't completely make up for the abuse.

So, for the last couple of days, I had been having juices for breakfast and dinner. Not the fruit juices that are loaded with sugar, but nice, heavy smoothies of raw vegetables and fruits.

I hate salads, so a few months ago, I had invested in the $75 Nutribullet - an amazing invention for making juices of vegetables, fruits and seeds that even someone as useless-in-kitchen as me can easily get to work. I had been using it on and off too - mainly for my breakfast, as I need something to gulp down quickly. The good thing about the Nutribullet is that it smashes up even the fiber and absolutely nothing goes waste, not even the seeds! In fact, sometimes I add things like pumpkin seeds for good effect.

Over the last couple of days, I decided to make full use of my purchase and had been using it for breakfast and dinner. Usually it is a mix of mixed garden greens that you get for making salads (so things like romaine lettuce), as well as any fruit that's in the house - apples, grapes, bananas, pomegranates etc.

It's probably all psychological, but am already feeling less bloated, lighter and generally of a better opinion of what my body feels.

So there, to the joy of juicing! 

Day 59: When the Clouds Descended

After days of all the production excitement, I was back to the grind. May was expected to be a tough month at work, but I must say that the expectations were majorly exceeded. I was caught in a whirlwind as soon as I got to office and the wind looked all set to whirl for the next several days. Sigh. Anyway, I settled down to it with as much enthusiasm as possible, because really, I was suffering from withdrawal symptoms. I love my job but was so hard to focus on powerpoints and excels after so many days of visuals and sounds!

It was not just the withdrawal symptoms that was tough. Madam's next scan - the one that would determine when and how much of a microradiosurgery treatment she would need to go through, is also coming up in two weeks' time. Obviously, am not looking forward to it. This post production work was a great way to distract myself from worrying about it, but now that it's over, well...!

Just as all these thoughts - work, withdrawals, scans - rammed against each other in my head, the universe once again decided to show just how beautiful this world that we live in, truly is.

In the evening, it poured cats and dogs all across Singapore. The skies were a deep dark colour and the rain slashed through with a vengeance. Once it took a short break, we could see that the clouds had descended very low and were now touching the upper limits of the city skyline. This sight is quite a rare one. Usually when it rains, the whole skyline disappears from our view, but today, I could see most of it very clearly, except for the wispy cottons that floated very low, covering the last few floors of the tall buildings. If the folks in there had reached out through the windows, they may have been able to touch the clouds!  In my imagination, it was simply the heavens coming down to earth, gently reminding that it is all good, really.

So I brushed my thoughts aside, breathed deeply, took another sip of my hot masala tea and smiled.

441 more to go. 

Day 58 : Post Production Party!

Actually, it was the house warming party of our leading guy, but given that we had almost completed this round of post production work as well as the fact that most of the team including out-of-Singapore folks such as the editor and the music composer were still around, we sort of turned it into a post production party. And to make to the most of it, we even shot some behind the scenes interviews and stuff. 

So here we are - the cast and crew of Pularum Iniyum Naalekal, looking super duper happy after the completion of this round of post production, together with their partners who made all of this possible. I love this bunch! 

Post production joy! 

This isn't from the party itself, but I wanted that young chap in front, our sound designer, to be part of this post too! 

442 more to go. 

Day 57 : The Final Flaw!

I know I mentioned that post production almost ended a few days ago, but given that the editor is still in town, we always find more things that we want to tweak. This is the story of how we tweaked that final flaw of the film. I call it the "Final Flaw" because I feel like we have corrected all other mistakes but this one had been lingering for a while. 

The day began with the editor, the trailer guy (who also happens to be a good friend, actor, cinematographer etc. - but for the purposes of this blog, am going to call him the trailer guy) and I spent most of the day working on various things. Seemingly, there is no end to getting a feature film ready. 

About 7pm or so, the three of us wrapped up our work. We took the MRT to visit my in laws who are staying with my brother in law, and on the way discussed several potential scripts and ideas for the future. 

Half way through the journey, I mentioned how I wished we could sort out that last flaw in the film. And the editor said he completely agreed - apparently, it was he had been thinking the whole of last night! Seems like both of us didn't mention it to each other because, ultimately, no one wants to touch a fully locked edit, at least not for something so minor. 

You may be wondering what this flaw is. There is one scene where the actor has a small tea cup in his hand which he moves a LOT during a conversation but also happen to pretend to sip from it. So it seemed like very evidently he is pretending and in reality there can't possibly be any tea in that cup - it was a blooper! It wasn't caught during the shoot nor at the time of the first edit but as time went by, whenever that scene comes up, a note goes off-tune in my head and I cringe. 

The editor and I got pretty excited that we agreed with each other on this and both of us wanted to give one last shot in fixing it. So we gobbled up dinner at my  brother in law's place and rushed back home to start working on it. 

At first, it looked pretty hopeless. We simply didn't have enough footage to take out all that shaking of the cup. There was only one take of the scene from that particular angle, so there was not much that could be done. Then I had a brainwave. The issue was not just that he was shaking the cup too much. The issue was also that he pretends to sip from it. If he had not sipped, he could shake the cup as much as liked to. So the brainwave was to take out the sipping, vs. trying to fix the shaking!

And it worked! Our final flaw was fixed! We felt AWESOME! Of course, we also wondered why we didn't think of this any earlier, but I guess everything happens in its own time. 

We were up until 4:30am fixing this (and a few other things, now that we were at it), but at the end of it all, I felt on top of the world because the film now is flaw-less (i.e. from a blooper standpoint)!

443 more to go. 

Day 56: The Nap of the Century.

It was day two of the consumer research and this time, it was a full day and more number of consumers. The research was held at the R&D facility so any time I would have even a 10 minute break, it was taken up for quick face-to-face catch ups with my R&D colleagues so that all of us can save the 100 emails to convey the same 2 messages.

Which meant that by 6:00 pm or so, when the research finally wrapped up, I was completely spent. It didn't help that yesterday too we stayed up really late tweaking one thing or the other on the trailer and subtitles.

When I finally reached home, my in laws had arrived from India - with hands full of gifts as always. After a brief chat with them and since Madam was fully preoccupied with them as well, I excused myself and went off to bed.

From 7 to 8pm or so, I had one of the best naps of my lap.

It was not the nap of a tired person but the nap of someone who was tired yet super duper satisfied from the work that made her tired. In short, it was the nap of the century.

I woke up refreshed, happy and completely at peace.

And then, on a Friday evening, we sat down for the next mile of post production work, but that's another story.

444 more to go. 

Day 55 : Consumer Research High!

There was no respite in my fatigue levels but I dragged myself to a consumer research that had been planned. We were to meet 7 consumers and talk to them for about 45 minutes each, all in half a day. So one can imagine how hectic that would have been. And I had the good fortune of being the minutes taker as well as the videographer through it.

I braced myself for what was expected to be several long hours.

At first the fatigue didn't help, but once we got into the groove of it and especially after I started to see consumers getting excited over the particular project that I am working on, I caught on the excitement.

Needless too say, I came out of the research rather pleased with the whole thing.

I have to say that even as I enjoy my movie making hobby so much, I am pretty pleased that am in a career that I fully enjoy as well. Many, many things to be thankful for! 

Day 54: Work & Play

I was dead tired after five continuous day of 4-hour sleep and constant gazing at computer screens. In the morning, I didn't want to get out of the bed at all! My body felt like a truck had been over it and I just wanted to sleep and sleep and sleep.

But I dragged myself to the office because there was simply too much work to do! Once I got there, thankfully, I quickly got into the usual rhythm without much resistance from my tired body and mind. 

Once I got back home, I ordered home delivery of some really good food from Daawat Tandoori. The owner of the place must be given an award for the nicest service (on top of the yummiest food)- he had always been very attentive to details and flexible with what customers want but this time, he even said I can pay later when I mentioned to him my trip to the ATM to withdraw cash! Really, who says that in Singapore?! 

Anyway, back to the point. I ordered in food because we were to have a nice little film team gathering before our sound designer returns to Dubai tomorrow. While the gathering was for his benefit, he shut himself in the room revising the sound and hardly made his appearance outside. 

After a while, I insisted that he eat and we go on a city tour of Singapore because he was beginning to look like a zombie after the heavy duty post production marathon. Also, he had come all the way from Dubai but had not seen anything of Singapore, except my house and the heroine's house where most of the post production was done. So clearly, he needed some play and not all work.. 

So at 11:30pm or so, the two of us as well as the editor packed ourselves into the hero's car and he took us around Singapore. The visitors were given a glimpse of everything from Mt Faber to Little India and Marina Bay Sands to Chinatown. It was pretty nice and much needed break from the backbreaking days. 

It was yet another beautiful day with this amazing team and am definitely going to miss all this excitement! 

446 more to go. 

Day 53: Final Post Production Day!

It was the last day of post production work at the heroine's place because from tomorrow, I will get back to office and the rest of the film work was planned to be done at my place. So while technically it is not the end of post production, it surely felt so. So we made the max of it and once again kept up until 3 or 4 am.

In between we talked, laughed, ate, made merry and even built in some exercise - some of the boys had a push up competition and we girls practiced yoga together!

It was really, really fun and am sure to have withdrawal symptoms soon!

And to top it up really nicely, we fixed the trailer including music and final edit and felt really awesome about it! It was our first feel of a complete product and it felt oh-so-good!

Making this movie is most definitely one of the best experiences of my life!

447 more to go. 

Day 49 - 52: Post Production Awesomeness, All That Love & Tons of Gratitude!!!

Notice the three exclamation marks in the title - quite an unusual thing as far as my blog titles go. But that is HOW FREAKING EXCITED I am! The last three days had been crazy - I had been up and about with a constant adrenaline rush and on four hours of sleep daily (as opposed to my eight comfy hours, so it is a big deal).

This is because the editor, the sound designer and the music composer are in town and we have been working on the post production for my feature film! We started the work off in my place but then shifted it to my friend's house because of the expected late hours and Madam and we didn't want to get in each other's way. This friend is also the leading lady of the film and I have to say that she treated us like royalty as always. Unlike me who relies solely on our helper for home cooked food, she ensured that we were constantly fed and taken care of by cooking herself, on top of all the other work like dubbing, dancing, meditating, exercising etc. that she does. It was amazing!

Anyway, coming back to post production - it was SO COOL to see the movie coming to completion. It is a super, super simple film. Two characters - that's it. The two actors and three crew members including myself, the camera man as well as the cinematographer cum editor cum driver, drove around the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and pretty much shot this entire movie over a week. It is that simple and low key a production. Yet, I am SO HAPPY that it has turned out the way it has! Really, really thrilled about it which you would have figured from all the CAPITAL letters and the number of times I keep repeating a word like "really really"!

Every time an edit felt so smooth, every time a music fitted the scene like a glove, every time the completed sound of scene made it seem like it's been done by a full blown production house, I felt awesome! I loved how the dubs that the cast and I had worked so hard over the last few months sounded so good! The sound designer, a young chap and a first timer on our team, was so dedicated and good at his work! Oh, and I also loved how I had to dub a few lines (like you see, two lines) for a supporting character.

And then I got to see the first draft of the trailer which was amazing! I mean, the guy edited a two hour movie to a trailer in like four hours or so and it felt so right! Mindblowing!

It's been many many hours of back breaking work but I needed this. I so needed this. Just to spend a few days thinking of nothing else than my film and being amazed by the talents all around. We really do make a fantastic team and I can't thank God enough for making everything happen the way it did.

Last but in no way the least, the husband and Madam have been incredible supportive. The husband had to manage her all on his own the whole of Sunday since the helper was on her off-day, and every day I had been returning home well past 3am, so it was all him each evening. I was so guilt ridden throughout for being "selfish" but all credit to the husband that he didn't once complain!

And on Mother's day, when I returned home all red eyed and fatigued, I find this little gift set waiting for my on my bed, complete with flowers and a hand drawn beautiful card. Needless to say, I was an emotional pulp.

Indeed, I can't thank God enough!

448 more to go. 

Days 45 - 48 : Palace, People & a Great Business Trip!

I have to say the London business trip was one of the best so far!

For once, I actually had time to go out and explore the city not one day but two! This is a big change from sitting inside a hotel and shuttling to and from meetings all day, every day.

On day 2, May 2nd, my cousin sister who is based in London, came down to meet me with her family. I had a four hour break mid-day, so we had lunch together and then they took me to the Buckingham Palace and the St. James Park right next to it. We walked for hours in that area, taking in the lovely weather, watching the glorious tulips in full bloom, marveling at the the palace and the guards of course, being part of the numerous tourists and locals who were having as nice a time as us, and being amused by the antics of the ducks, swans, sea gulls, pigeons and what not in and around the pools in the park. It was perfect! I have been to London a few years ago just for a couple of days, but this time I felt like I immersed myself better - we even took the London Tube (even though there is nothing really to write home about on that one)!

May 3rd was choked with meetings but I enjoyed them because I got to once again meet with all the wonderful people from my team from the US, and it was fun!

May 4th was my flight back home. It was pretty eventless other than of course my routine movie marathon watching. I watched the English film "Her" (really interesting concept and acting but rather overboard with all that sexual stuff), a comedy called "The Heat" which was fun and the Hindi film "Phantom" which was way better than Kabir Khan's previous rubbish called "Ek Tha Tiger". Overall, once again I enjoyed my long flight and the only real "me time" I ever seem to get!

I got home in the morning on May 5th to a rather excited little Madam. The day was spent in recovering from the trip, sleeping away the fatigue, catching up on emails, playing with Madam and spending time with the dad and the husband as well.

It was a good business trip and it is great to be back home!

452 more to go. 

Day 44 : London!

I had a nice long flight to London where the highlight was the food (Singapore Airlines Indian Vegetarian is always great) and the movies (my favourite this time was Maari, the Dhanush film in Tamil). 

We touched down at about 3:30 in the afternoon and I was in my hotel at Holborn by 5pm. I quickly learnt two things - 1) This hotel is pretty centrally located and 2) The sun sets only at 8:30pm or so these days in London. 

This meant that I had enough time to explore the area before it gets too dark. I had been to London once for just a couple of days in 2010 or 2011, and I don't honestly remember much of the details anymore. So I wanted to take the opportunity to see a bit of the city instead of resting, which was what one part of my brain was asking me to do. 

So, soon after check in, I walked out armed with a map. I wanted to see the Thames river and the Covent Garden district which the hotel receptionist told me was the "nicest place near here". 

And that's exactly what I did. I walked around for a couple of hours, exploring Covent Garden, walking along the Thames, taking in the sights, smelling the flowers in the air (spring is indeed here!) and enjoying the glorious weather (it was nice, bright and sunny and at a perfect 15 celsuis!). After a point, I realized I was exhausted thanks to the long flight and the lack of rest, so I walked into an Indian restaurant, ordered myself chicken 65, chappathis and dal and topped it all with a really good steaming cup of masala chai. It was the perfect drink to warm me up as I embarked on the journey back to my hotel in the crisp, cool, breezy weather. 

By the time, I got back to the hotel, I was ready to drop asleep but also, feeling very warm and fuzzy because indeed, it was the best decision to push myself out of the door for that walk. I enjoyed it so much! 

Tomorrow, the work starts. 

456 more to go.