Here’s a tag from starsinmyeyes 

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen x
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien x
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte x
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling x
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee x
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte x
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens x
Total: 7

11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott x
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy x
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller x
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare x
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier x
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien x
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger x
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
Total: 7

21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell x
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald x
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy x
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy x
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky x
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll x
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame x
Total: 7

31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy x
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens x
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen x
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen x
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini x
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres x
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden x
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne x
Total: 8

41 Animal Farm – George Orwell x
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown x
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins x
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery x
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy x
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding x
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
Total: 6

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen x
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth x
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens x
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Total: 3

61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov x
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold x
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas x
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie x
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville x
Total: 5

71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens x
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker x
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett x
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce x
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome x
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray x
80 Possession – AS Byatt
Total: 6

81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens x
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro x
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert x
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White x
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle x
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton x
Total: 6

91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery x
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams x
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas x
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare x
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl x
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo x
Total: 5

So. A total of 60. I think I’m going to go order some of these books on amazon now. It’s been so long since I had time to read a book. Just cuddle up and read and drink tea Been partying and working like crazy all year.

Amazon, here I come.

Cheers y’all. Peace.

Durga Puja today and I was as oblivious as ever. My Dutch supervisor reads his paper and sees these goats being sacrificed in Bangladesh. Then does a quick look up at me, hesitates and says: Aarabi, do you know today is Durga Day?

lol

A: Yes Edgar, it’s called a Puja

I love how he’s fascinated by our epics and religious stories, our traditions and social systems. At work, I talk quite straight about some of the shi*ty things in our system. I also talk straight about things which strike me shi*y in the dutch system too (so don’t send me hate mail already)

I found a very pretty bangle which mom put in my bag when I was in India. I heart it so much! And to make the evening even more special, I’m wearing a new salwar!

Indian clothes make a girl feel so graceful and beautiful. The cuts and flows make you automatically feel more lovely and gentle. What is even more cute is guys start treating you with more gentility. I am amazed at how they transform. Maybe it’s something Indian guys are hard coded to do? Maybe traditional clothes trigger some deep down gene?

I think I’ll wear a saree to work tomorrow. Make Navratri special at KPN

Aarabi is a happy bee today!

Cheers all and peace. Enjoy your Navratri.

I am utterly lost trying to understand what men see in beer.

Even the sweet Kriek beer , which is a cherry beer, makes me feel sick with it’s semi bitter after taste. So I was talking to a friend about what guys see in beer. Apparently after the first few sips, they don’t notice the bitter anymore. Okkaayy. Why go through with the first horrid sips and get to that point anyway?! you know? like what’s the point? Let’s all grow fat and ugly together?

I’ve nothing against alcohol. My housemates drink it by the litre – honour bright I just don’t get beer.

On a completely different note, this weekend, I’ve shit loads of stinking work to do, a slumber party and an India-Pak cricket match and a 20 page report to start and finish. I’m so screwed.

So to keep myself from completely flipping under the work, I’ve been digging up old favorite songs and I’ve gotten re-hooked to Janet.

I’m leaving you guys with this:

peace homies.

So! I’m trying to get my life back on track. Number one on my things to do is keep my mind occupied all the time.

I work during the day on my internship and thesis. It almost always leaks into my evenings and nights. I never have even a half day of no jobs. I work for another group at university which pays me rather good. I also joined the Board of Telecom at university and am organizing events for them. I’ve joined my university sport centre and I’m falling in love with the idea of pushing my body to its limits, get fighting fit  Today I tried a body activity called Spinning and then Pilates.

Tomorrow, I’m doing Kung Fu. Wednesday, yoga, hip hop and spinning! I love it!

More updates soon!

This summer, I’ve grown up. I know I haven’t blogged since April. But it was SO hectic.

I had to get my internship and thesis contract in place. Super loaded with work. Worked out the finance to support my living. Now, juggling 4 jobs, a complete new attitude (because I now live with 3 guys, eep!), coping in a completely Dutch speaking environment at work, a super messed up social life, and several self perception issues later, I present to you the new and improved Aarabi 2.0

This one is still learning to love herself, accept her limitations, understand her needs and loves, pamper herself as she is.

I love me for what I am. I can think with the best, I work with people from the UN with ages of experience and learning. I can chill with almost anyone already with no self perception issues and am working towards straightening out my complicated social life. I can live with 3 absolutely adorable guys who have supported me and strengthened me through this. Hearts, you guys.

Anyway, I’m back. And I’ll post more sooooooon!

Ciao ciao!

What a hectic couple of months!! I’m still in the middle of it!!

What with all the exams and assignments and tour planning and birthday planning, I’m sooooooo exhausted. My birthday is this week. In a few weeks, my friend and I give a shared bday party – pirate theme!!

For the first time this night, I walked back home alone all the way from the Centrum and did NOT feel scared. I loved the cool breeze and the whispering trees. It took me back to my Magic Faraway Tree and my school summer holidays. What a beautiful beautiful night. The moon was just a sliver of silver, the pools and waterways were gleaming and tiny little ducks swimming everywhere. The TU way was deserted but it really wasn’t scary. 

I found the sweetest bookshop in Den Haag ever!! Anyway, I spent hours and hours there this morning. Browsing, drinking off. Nice day off. I’ve made my wish list of books for this year! (It’s something I do everytime I grow one year older) So here goes.

1. Sea of Poppies – Amitav Ghosh

2. An Artist of the Floating World – Kazuo Ishiguro

3. A pale view of the Hills – Kazuo Ishiguro

4. The Volumptious Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam – Lauren Liebenberg

5. Naguib Mahfouz’s Trilogy.

6. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman – Haruki Murakami

7. Snow – Orhan Pamuk

8. Other Colours – Orhan Pamuk

9. And as usual, my list ends with the book I wish for year after year. When I was a kid, I had this book called the Hollow Tree House by Enid Blyton. It’s now out of publication. Mom lent it to someone who never returned the book and now, I’ve found my copy of the book on Amazon. It’s selling for 159 euro today. Aaaaaaaaaarggghhhhh!!!!! I love my book! I want it back! Please Mr.Whoever-owns-it-now, can I please have my book back? I can’t even get a new edition anymore! 

Book lovers, unite. I’ve been dying to find a book on Book Crossing and I can’t seem to cross a single book. Is it just me or do you see that happening to you too?

you can’t sleep without dogs barking outside

you recoil when a girl only says “what the…” (especially so when she leaves out the swear word)*

saravana bhavan is your idea of fast food

in school you were impressed more by geek-two-plaits with her 100 in “maks” as opposed to the hot lil silent number.

after school, the only woman you ever made eyes at was the immigration lady on your way to Amey erica

you can pronounce arulmozhivarman without blinking.

you’re a walking, talking, thair sadam** eating cricket database.

you know its “dh”osa and not “doe”sa

at least once in your life, you’ve hung around in spencers acting cool and feeling so WITH it

32 degree C feels pleasantly enjoyable

you never realized that most of the points made here are about food and geekism and now that you do, you’re still smiling anyway.

dushyant adds:

spot a madrasi on dining table:
u r madrasi :
wen u prefer curd-rice over ice-cream as desert.
wen u swear ” aye ye yo” wen i tell there is no curd.
wen u forget even about curd rice if I put Rajnikant is on youtube

P.S – by request, I add the following to this list. 

Hindi seems funny to you. yek gaaun mein yeh kisaan ragu thatha is you’re comprehensive hindi capacity.

Last night I hung out at friends’ place. Wonderful big apartment. It made a pretty change from the tiny spacebox i live in. Loved the place, loved the food, loved loved loved the company!! Din’t help my sanity one bit.

After dinner, I had some assignment stuff to finish. It’s exam time again okay? Okay.

And then I made the biggest fool of myself. Think the biggest big that you can and big that by a gazillion.

They have a clock that was reading 3 am (yes, a.m.) and suddenly the hands started going at top speed. 4 a.m, 5, 6, 7, 8,9. You get the picture. It’s just freakin running in front of my eyes. I nearly died of heart attack. Yes, I am a freaking telecom engineer. You’d think I’d heard of GPS wouldn’t you? And not like they knew it or helped it either. Dushyant sitting next to me suddenly GROWLS and BARES his teeth at me and Prem gravely starts chanting some weird rhyme and my mind is already COMPLETELY overworked and i start freaking SCREAMING . Very Very Sane. Stupid girl. Never stops to T.H.I.N.K. Well at least at the end of THAT, when they’d insulted me crapless and ensured I’d eat up any self-proclaimed evil spirit before believing in it, I had the presence of mind to recognize the technology. I deserve such a good kicking. Mera naam ullu hai.

It’s nearly Spring again!! In a week, we do the Spring Forward daylight saving time! This morning, i saw a tiny tree of the most beautiful pink and purple flowers! Oh sunshine and sweet sweet summer, come soon!

All day, I have been running some simulations, which means I have a lot of time to kill while the computer does all my work for me. So I quickly popped into my favoritest of all cities – Madras!!

There are so many posts on the net about the fantastic places and experiences people have had in Madras, it’s like I was there all over again! I’m so sated and happy, it was like I had a quick lil visit home.

So I’m not going to write – my mind is absolutely choked with flashes of my crazy city now. Instead, here are links to some of what’s running through my head. Things I did and saw that make me love love love the most creative, affectionate and sunshiney of cities.

The marina

Iyers

Orey Philo pa

Vacations!

Today, I’ve become a feminist.  I read an article about a community of women in Kandahar, a war wrecked part of Afghanistan, bull-headedly defying the violent opposition to their right to educate themselves.  Their school was attacked by bikers spraying acid on them, attacking them and threatening to disfigure them if they continued studying. These girls walk miles to school everyday, defying the threats and brutalities of a bunch of testosterone happy chauvenists who mask their insecurity with religion. I’ve read parts of these religious books and I’ve a heck lot of moslem friends. I’ve Never heard it being said that women shouldn’t be educated.

This, is feminity in its finest form. It says Bitch. Here’s a finger for you. You can take all your insecurity and all your religious beliefs and put it another place. These girls celebrate arriving at school everyday. Shamia has had her face scarred and disfigured. But she keeps coming back. So do all 1300 of them.  Are men so threatened by women that they’d resort to the low down dirty of physical abuse? I’m amazed and inspired by these women. They have me converted.

That brings me to the idea of feminism per se. Burning bras and dirty talking might be alright for promoting the cult. But tangible action? True feminism is this, what I talked about before. And also this. Because we’d like to tell the chaddi walas that there’s more to us than sticks up our a*ses, unlike them. And thank you very much. Hitting us, throwing acid in our faces, pulling us out of pubs by the hair, will only make us laugh at you. We’re only going to make you feel weaker and more threatened than ever before.

What really surprises me, is the fact that there are so many guys who believe in this kind of strong feminism. Strength in women. And they’re being quiet about it. I haven’t read any blogs about this, or heard my guy friends talking about it. Sam, Ram, Su, Krishnan, Rajesh, Anchit, I’m looking at you guys.

I think I’ll ask one of these guys to guest post here. That should be interesting. And Krish, BikerAnna, where are you guys on this?

You should check out Arayan on this.

PS. Krish has written on this. I’m thinking of asking a guy to do a guest post here. On this issue maybe. We’ll see soon!