My experience with Buddhist Chanting- NMRK

Happy New Year all! If you've been following my blog for a while (by which I mean, if you read it when I actually posted on it- apologies for the absence!!) you will know that spirituality has been a huge part of my life. I am a certified clinic hypnotherapist, having studied under the amazing Yuvraj Kapadia (who teaches at Illuminations in Dubai), have studied Reiki, am a Theta Healing Teacher (unfortunately that didn't work out too well for me), have gone to Pranic Healers, done Angel Healings, studied a bit of I Ching and went through a phase where I pretty much read any book on spirituality I could find. In the beginning I found I just couldn't get enough of the stuff.. it felt like this whole world had opened in front of me, a world I knew nothing about, a world that gave me a glimpse into other worlds, of worlds we will go to after this world ceases to exist. Needless to say, I was fascinated.
This went on for a few years and the whole point of "healings" really is as the name suggests, to heal. The more into healing modalities I got, the more disappointed I'd get with the people involved. Worse than an individual who is completely oblivious to their shallowness, is one who thinks they are very evolved and are completely blind to their faults, or justifying in their nature of it. A lot of the people involved in this business (make no mistake, it is a business) have money issues, ego issues, think they are better than others, and are riddled with insecurities. Of course there are exceptions, but having studied these modalities I realized I was very unqualified to be a healer, and besides, I HAD a day job. Many others around me studied for the sole purpose of then becoming healers and charging people absurd amounts of money per hour after investing in a few weeks of courses. There is no exam and no sifting process, and unfortunately with the stigma surrounding psychiatrists and psychologists in this part of the world, a lot of people opt to go to extremely unqualified and very immature "healers" for some serious issues in their life- be they medical or emotional. While you may think it unfair for me to bash them, please know that is not my intention. Please heed this as a warning if you're looking to go to one of them, find that you're paying crazy amounts of money to someone without any changes occuring or if you're obsessed with them thinking they have some extra ordinary powers. I need to reiterate again here- I could have been one of them so also feel I'm in a safe position to comment, and while there are some really great ones, they are few and far between. Also, despite the thousands I paid in not only undergoing, but learning different modalities, I found things in my life for many years just stuck, unmoving, and I guess it would be safe for me to use the word, unhealed.
I had completely snapped out of all things "spiritual" for a few years and had embraced living my life daily and accepting myself and my problems for what they were. In hindsight I'm SO happy I went through that phase, as that path of acceptance was more "spiritual" than the part where I was constantly trying to figure out the "why" behind things and trying to change them (although I'm extremely grateful for the knowledge I accumulated too as I'm able to make an informed decision for myself about what works and what doesn't). And one day, Nam Myoho Renge Kyo was introduced to me, and that's when the miracles began to happen.
A friend of mine who was not one of the most positive people I know (to put it politely) was visiting town and she was absolutely beaming. So much had changed about her, yet outwardly nothing had changed at all. "What happened to you?" I kept asking her through our meeting, and she kept saying, "I'll tell you!" I finally managed to pin her down for a coffee and said, "TALK!" when she told me about the chanting she had been doing. I was riveted. She was peaceful, positive, hopeful and had an amazing amount of clarity and insight about her life, something I'd never witnessed in the decade and a half I'd known her. "Try it," she said to me, and that evening itself, I did.
This meeting happened in Novemver 2012 and around January 2013 is when I really got into chanting properly, so have been practicing it for around a year. While my friend lives outside of Dubai where there are many meetings and an amazing support system of SGI (the organization), I have been practicing it for the most part alone by myself. It is said that in the beginning you see amazing changes and great victories and there is a name for it called "beginners benefit." As I didn't have anyone to tell me that, I think I blocked the fear that my beginners benefit had a cut off period, and honestly 2013 was a year of magnificent miracles. Don't get me wrong, I had many, many low periods and many struggles, with some amazing circumstances and learnings come out of it. For me, as I said earlier, the biggest problem I had in my life was of being "stuck"in many aspects, and things sort of flowed from one to another. These happened almost after Day 1 of me chanting. "It's a coincidence" I kept saying... how could 5 to 10 minutes of chanting every couple of days make such a huge difference to my life? It did. And it kept happening.
To give you a few examples- My relationships in my life dramatically improved. I wrote my first novel in a month over the summer of 2013 (fingers crossed for it to get published in 2014... and in case you're wondering how good a novel written in a month can possibly be, the fact that I actually FINISHED something I started was victory enough for me). I had random things happen like Bentley offering me a free car for 6 months, or the Manager of an extremely high end boutique here calling me out of the blue to offer me HER discount for a ridiculously expensive crocodile skin bag I had passed up on because of the price tag. Crazy, weird, amazing experiences!! And these are the tip of the iceberg as I don't want to get into stuff that happened in my personal life. I have since talked of my experiences and gotten a lot of people into chanting too, and it overjoys me to hear of their victories and miracles they are experiencing!
So how exactly does one even start, you ask? Well, sit straight in a comfortable position with your eyes open, and in a clear voice say "Nam Myoho Renge Kyo"... and repeat. That's it :) It helps me greatly to chant along with a YouTube video that I use (you can try using this one as its a lot slower) and start with just a couple of minutes a day. Also know that you don't have to be Buddhist or convert to chant, and there are a lot of sites that talk about chanting and give you more information- http://www.sgi.org/ is a great one.
If you have more questions about NMRK or my experiences with it I'd be happy to answer them in the comments below (please do not send me emails), and of course, if you'd like to share your experiences if you chant too I'd be thrilled to read them. Good luck!

Last Kiss Goodnight...

I don't really remember when I started my good night ritual. Perhaps it was on my permanent return home from college that started it, or perhaps I did it in my younger years and just don't quite remember. Right before I head off into my room at night, I'd lean over to each parent and make them kiss me good night. "Enforced chummi" (kiss) my late Father used to call it. "What if I don't feel like kissing you tonight?"he'd ask. "Tough,"I'd say and as I always did with him, would get my way. Sometimes my cheek was met with affection, sometimes with a quick kiss and moved aside if my head blocked a particularly interesting movie or TV show on the telly, and sometimes my cheek was just left unkissed and ignored. This was/is usually done by my Mother and is the ultimate show of anger. "I'm too angry with you to kiss you good night," that signals. "I'm too pissed off with you right now and know how much this will bother you but I really want to signal my anger across anyway," is what it really means. And on the really, really rare occasion, I won't lean in and motion for a kiss at all. "I don't care if you kiss me good night," is what it signals. "You know how much this action means to me and yet I won't even ask for it, so you can only imagine how upset with you I am," it says. Yes, a tiny little gesture can communicate so very much.
"What if I don't wake up tomorrow?"was given by way of explanation, "Or what if you don't," I'd tell my Mother at the rare instance she'd refuse to partake in my nightly ritual. "Do you really want either one of us to not remember our last interaction with each other?"My mother would then roll her eyes at what she viewed as the over dramatization of crazy thoughts that ran through my mind. The last kiss goodnight to me meant that no matter how bad we fought that day, we'd by a small action proverbially raise a white flag and make peace- at least for the night. It meant that no matter what, I was loved. It meant that no matter how badly I may have, or you think I may have behaved, I'm sorry. Mind you I have no qualms slamming a door shut having had a fight, or going off for a drive in a huff or parting a variety of fights in a variety of different circumstances at various times of the day without worrying about parting words. Yet there was always this thought that consumed me- If either one doesn't survive this night, we'd always have parted having shown we loved each other, and most importantly, having made peace.
Then one day in April in 2002, I woke up to the day I'd never see my Father alive again. My father was supposed to be sent out of the ICU that day in fact, but early that morning decided to instead leave us forever. I don't remember the night before clearly, but I remember it being late at night and me asking my Mother if it was too late for me to sneak into the ICU and see my dad. She had probably said to try anyway, and I remember distinctly walking towards his room. My last conversation with him is completely lost in my memory (which is strange as I remember his last words to me that afternoon as if it was yesterday- "The show must go on") as is any interaction with him that evening. I only remember that he was sleeping and I woke him up only to, you guessed it, have him give me one last kiss goodnight.

Over the years I've had spats with friends and loved ones and while it completely makes sense that sometimes their normal reaction is to "want space"or to "give it some time" or "take a break" my request is always to sort the issue out then and there. To hell with going to sleep sad, mad or upset I say... stay up and fight!! I recently had a conversation with a friend who explained they thought it was better to not fight and say hurtful things in the moment that couldn't be taken back, but rather let both people involved cool down and then come to the table. "What? So you'd rather leave things unsaid and let people stay upset in the time being?" I asked, clearly horrified. "Just smooth things out then and there," I say having visions of me not being able to sleep at night.  At least whichever way things go you'll end the day knowing where you stand is my thought process. I hate going to sleep with a weight on my chest, and I think the more the person matters, the more it matters to me to "make things ok." Making things ok doesn't mean giving in, it means coming to a solution sooner rather than later as I hate letting hurt or angry feelings linger. Each time a friend, lover or parent has walked out on an argument I've always felt... well... abandoned for lack of a better word. I think most of us would like to "go" peacefully in our sleep if we could, so why not end the day having made peace with all around us? Even if making peace means letting go.
Weird, perhaps. But that's just me, and you know what? For the most part, it allows me to sleep like a baby.


L

My week at HBS!

Those who follow me on Twitter will know I am currently in NYC after spending an INCREDIBLE week at the Harvard Business School in Boston. This is actually my second visit there, the first being three years ago which is actually where these pictures are from. I've forgotten to carry my card reader and hence had to rely on a few old pictures on Facebook to give you guys a feel for the place. My week long course is part of a tie up that exists between HBS and YPO (the Young Presidents Organization) and hence is open to YPO members only. HBS however have a whole bunch of executive education courses that can be found here that may be of interest to you guys, ranging from different time periods to various subjects at all different levels of business folk.
My Late Father had done a popular exec education course called OPM which stands for the Owners/Presidents Management Program. He has been wrongly accredited in the Press very often for being a Harvard graduate which sounds like he was there for his undergraduate education or for an MBA, but he really is an alumni from the school as graduating from this program. OPM lasts for 3 weeks each year for 3 years and is a phenomenal program that my Father absolutely loved when he attended, and always hoped one of us would make it to our MBA at HBS. Seriously, his fanatical love for the school showed in his HBS notebooks that he used at home to take notes on with his HBS pens that he picked up each time he visited Boston. While I never made it there for my MBA, I understood his love for the school when I went 3 years ago, and got a similar reminder again last week.
So you're probably wondering how beneficial a one week course could possibly be right? I'd probably get a few lectures in and maybe a couple of pointers to take home, and the hefty price tags listed next to the courses are for the suckers who want to feel smart and say they went to Harvard right? WRONG! It takes about a good months' worth of reading during free time to be able to prepare for the course as the exec education follows the famous HBS case study methodology of teaching. All the cases printed out account for approximately a phone book sized worth of reading material that you need to get through before you get there. Oh and don't even think about leaving anything till when you actually do get there as the days are LONG and I don't think we ever wrapped up group meetings a single night before 1 AM!
The teaching faculty there will probably exceed your expectation of what you think Professors could be like. Having done my Undergrad at Boston College which too is an amazing school and one of the best in the country, I didn't think I'd be as blown away by the HBS faculty as I was. They are simply brilliant, and while professors at lesser known Universities may be brilliant and able to effectively teach concepts, you quickly realize in under 24 hours why the HBS professors are the ones writing out and forming those key concepts. To give you an idea, Michael Porter, one of the Gurus of Marketing is a professor at the Harvard Business School. And before you picture boring stuffy geeks droning on in the classroom while you pinch yourself to stay awake, most of the lecture is discussion based, the Professors usually electrifying and you better be paying attention lest you want to look like an idiot when cold called upon. Yes, they will pick on you and you better not even think of coming to class late!
The kind of people you meet as well are an amazingly diverse group of individuals and I know friends who have recently been for the OPM in particular, and have met some extremely intelligent people and made some very close friends. If by any chance you are a YPO member reading this and have never taken advantage of the course, you are seriously missing out! The level of discourse in the classroom given the fact that you are probably sitting amongst people who are leaders of their industries, and quite possibly game changers in the economy of their respective countries, is what makes this a program you MUST experience at least once.
The take home from these courses are incredible and they are incredibly hard work. While it may not be possible for everyone to head to HBS to do  one of their exec education courses, if you are able to take out some time and head there, I can't recommend it enough. It really remains one of the best experiences I've ever had and one of the best investments I've made!

The stunning HBS campus, covered in snow in 2009

-

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year!!! It's currently 3 AM in the Big Apple (I am jet lagged having just arrived yesterday) and I decided it was time to write my New Years post. I've been meaning to share these videos for a while, but I figured this post would be the perfect time to do it. If you haven't seen them and have never heard of Ben Breedlove, can I please urge you to be patient and watch these! They will change your life!!





Ben passed away on Christmas day 2011 and this video was found a few days after his demise. I'd actually heard of him before and was amazed when I realized that this young boy was actually the same one who had an advice channel on YouTube with 2 of his other friends, giving advice to other teenagers about random life stuff and relationships. What a way to spend your life knowing full well that your own could be cut short any minute! A lot of attention has been poured on Ben and these videos with Kim Kardashian tweeting about him and Kid Cudi talking about Ben's vision and I dare say most people will be moved to tears after watching it. I know I was.

I hope I'm not sounding too morose to you guys as that is not my intention at all! I'm hopeful for a fabulous year ahead and have all my resolutions planned out in my head (and mostly broken already) and had a supercrazyfun New Years Eve spent with great friends in Dubai before I jumped on a plane and came to my favourite city in the world. If that isn't a fabulous start to the new year, I don't know what is!

When I watched these videos, as I said earlier I knew I wanted them to be part of my New Year's post. Instead of putting up my resolutions as I did last year, I just wanted to leave you guys with a thought- to celebrate your life. 2011 wasn't a particularly great year for me and while I'm hoping for a better 2012, I have no regrets about the year gone and am reminded of a verse from my favourite poem, A Psalm of Life-

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
        Is our destined end or way ;
    But to act, that each to-morrow
        Find us farther than to-day.

Our life is made up of losses and successes and both are just as important as each other. I believe that when we finally reflect back on our lives, our not-so-good years will be as important as our fabulous ones as those will be the ones to have shaped our character. So while I know the past year hasn't been a great one for a lot of people, let's hope for a better 2012 while ourselves participating in the script of our lives and being the best that we can be. As the poem says-

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant !
        Let the dead Past bury its dead !
    Act,— act in the living Present !
        Heart within, and God o'erhead !

Something to think about? Happy New Year All! :)
-
You can read the entire poem on a previous post of mine here
- 

Not to Miss- Jaideep Mehrotra exhbition in Bombay!

I'm constantly amazed by the variety and intelligence level of people that read my blog and recently I received an email that came as a reminder of that. For lovers of Indian art, the name Jaideep Mehrotra is certainly not a new one. Mr Mehrotra is an absolute brilliant artist, and is one that my family members have been a huge fan of his work for ages. About a week back his wife, Seema Mehrotra wrote to me and told me she is a frequent reader of Kiran's Corner and asked if I was visiting Mumbai anytime soon as her husband was having an exhibition of his new work there through the month. While I'd have loved being able to go, I unfortunately have no plans of visiting soon but didn't want to miss the opportunity of pointing my blog readers in India, or those planning to visit Mumbai for the holidays, in the direction of the exhibit.
Instead of showing you guys works from the exhibit (that you can have a look at on his website- www.jaideepmehrotra.com) I thought I'd show you a very special piece of his work that takes up prime position at my home in Dubai. My parents, being huge fans of Mr Mehrotra's work, had this painting commissioned by him years back (and by that I really mean decades), when we were in the process of building the current house we live in. The painting's central theme was my Father obviously, and it was supposed to be a representation of him and our home. I was at college when this was done so never had the pleasure of interacting with the artist, but I remember coming home one holiday from boarding school and being blown away by the results. The colour palette was chosen using the colours from our home, while the painting itself conveyed so much power and depth. Instead of going for a complete portrait, Mr Mehrotra did a representation of my Father that wasn't as "in-your-face" and I think the elephant is much more of a giveaway of it being a commissioned piece than anything else (Jumbo.. elephant.. get it?).  Here's the complete piece-

(Click on the painting to have a detailed look)

I love the subtle touches like the man's wrinkly old hands which were again to represent power (my Father's hands never actually did look that old!) and the Alsatian dog, which was probably a lot more appropriate than my white furry Spitz called Pucci that I had back then!

As you guys know, I'm a HUGE art buff and used to frequent art classes and learn to paint myself. You don't have to know anything about art however, to appreciate the kind of detailing that went into parts of this painting, and I have to say the dog is really my favorite bit for this very reason. Even this close, it's pretty hard to believe this is a painting and not a photograph!

Ok, I'll stop gushing now and give you guys a chance to head on over and see Jaideep Mehrotra's stunning art works for yourself. Go on his website and have a look and if you're a fan of his work (it has definitely evolved a lot from the time he did this piece) you MUST go have a look. It's taken him 4 years to put together this body of work so it will be very interesting to see what he's come up with him and how the work looks up close.
The exhibition is at Tao gallery in Worli till the 15th and then at the Jehangir art gallery from the 19th to the 25th of December.
-
PS: And if you're a recent reader of my blog and happen to be a lover of art, just wanted to point you into the direction of the GORGEOUS painting my art teacher created for me which is a collage of my Late Father and I through the years. You can have a look at it here. Hope you love it as much as I do! :)
-

Test Driving the Ferrari California!

 Over the past weekend I was SO happy to be in possession of an absolutely FABULOUS ride.. the Ferrari California!! Being a huge fan of sports cars I've toyed with the idea of owning a Ferrari for a while now, but always stuck to Porsches. I currently own a zippy little Turbo Cabriolet as well as a Cayeanne Turbo if that gives you any indication of exactly how much of a Porsche girl I am! I guess the guys at Al Tayer motors got wind of my wanting to test drive a California and before I knew it I had someone coming over to my house and handing me the keys to a gorgeous white one.. talk about service! I had the car for a little over 4 days and decided to do a review of it for my blog as almost all my friends wanted to know what I thought and whether I was going to get one. Car lovers reading this blog, here is my disclaimer- do not expect any figures over here or any statistics on how fast it does 0 to 60.. I am a girl reviewing a sports car. Enough said? :)

So let me get straight into it- Turning on the engine is like listening to a perfect symphony only sports car lovers will quite understand. You really have got to love the "vroom vroom" as I call it to quite appreciate the sound this car makes. I probably looked a bit nutty while driving the car as I'd go really slow and then step on the gas just so I could hear the car growl as it ate up the road. Let's just put it this way- it made my Porsche sound like it was singing a silent nursery rhyme in comparison. A friend of mine sat in the car and asked me why the car was so noisy and whether it would eventually begin to irritate me over time. If I could have recorded the sound just to have it playback in my car, I would!!

To drive, this car reminds me of a thoroughbred racehorse. It is happiest when it is racing forward at high speeds (or the highest I could go in between radars on Sheikh Zayed road) and for that, it is a dream come true. Ever seen a racehorse trying to be contained into a walk though? It is agitated and jerky and difficult to control, and the same held true for the Cali. I had heard the California was an every day car and was much easier to control and maintain than the other Ferrari's before it. While I've only driven one once (raced it on the track in fact, so that doesn't count) and never owned one, I don't quite know how the others handle, but at slow speeds this car was positively jerky. It usually takes me a few minutes to get to Sheikh Zayed road from my house, and it pretty much jerked all the way till I got there- the kind of jerking that cars make when you're learning how to drive a stick shift and the car begins to jerk right before it shuts down? That, without the shutting down part. While I use my Turbo to run errands, go to the gym, pick up groceries and everything, I cannot dream of having to use this car to do any of those things. Of course you kind of KNOW that nobody uses a Ferrari to pick up groceries, but I'd at least like the option of being ABLE to if you're stuck in one. Any one of the Porsche sports models would very easily be able to be driven as a single persons only car, and as I mentioned I use mine almost daily. With the Ferrari, that wouldn't even be an option.

If I am making comparisons to my Porsche however, it is only fair for me to highlight the positive differences between the two as well. Going over 120 in my Porsche makes it feel a little jumpy and I have to be very careful with there being no or slight bumps in the road while driving it. Going past any construction site or any place that's being dug up also makes me feel like the vibration of the car is going through to my brain- it is an extremely rough drive. Surprisingly enough, the Ferrari glides through the roads and feels like a luxury sedan even over gravelly bits in the road. Speed bumps weren't as bad and I noticed that the usual spots on Sh Zayed that make my car feel like it's jumping off the ground, made no difference to the ride of the Cali. This car was super smooth and was a dream to drive, especially on turns.

As you can see in the pictures, there was no gear box in the car and the gears had to be controlled by the paddles on the side of the steering wheel. I can't imagine the kind of heart attacks I'd have while even thinking of handing the car over to a valet if I owned it. Think it would just not happen. The car can be driven in automatic mode as well as manual, but since I pretty much drove it on Auto the entire time, I really can't elaborate too much on that (again.. remember the disclaimer!).

Ok so here is when I go a bit girly on you and give you the more practical aspects that I felt were missing about the car. Most guys wouldn't care and would be like, "but it's a Ferrari!!" well yes, but not having a mirror on the sun shade flap REALLY inconveniences my life! Of course, it's not a deal breaker, but it would be SO nice if they'd decided to include one!! Same for parking sensors.. not a deal breaker, but it would have been nice if they had given me some visual parking aids than just a beeping sound (keep re-reading my disclaimer if you must!!) The stereo included in the car was just TERRIBLE but the guy dropping the car off said most people like listening to the sound of the car rather than the radio.. but that an upgrade was available while custom ordering the car. Considering I like bopping my head to music while driving, I'd definitely take the upgrade.. but the stereo system was just shockingly bad. I also didn't like that your car had to be parked to operate the roof and I'm so used to just going really slow while driving while doing and undoing my Turbo's roof that this again just seemed so inconvenient! Same for having to turn off the engine to be able to get the little gas door on the side to open while at the gas station. Fine for a few days in November.. I would NOT be wanting to fill gas in the car over the summer!

I finally found the cup holder for my daily Starbucks run

Overall, the car was an absolute beauty and I miss it so now that it's gone. My Porsche just isn't as smooth, as fast or as ubercool! And to answer the million dollar question- would I think of getting one? Not just yet. While most importantly I need to figure out the situation with my college next year (will I? Won't I?) I also would need to seriously consider that I will be having to use my Cayeanne or some other car as my primary car and would be able to take the California out only on times when I know I'm going to be driving mostly on the highway. But really.. what a drive it is!
-

About a Dog...

I was returning home from the gym yesterday when I saw a strange sight on the main road of Al Wasl... a little Yorkie running helter skelter, about to run out onto the road towards oncoming traffic. Being a dog lover, I slammed on the brakes, jumped out of my car and ran after the dog. Luckily she seemed to understand "come here" and ran towards me. I waited for 15 minutes for the owners to show up, or to try to figure out if any of the houses close by accidentally had left their gates open and had this poor little creature run out onto the roads. Nobody came. I called my friend Pinky who is an absolute dog lover and asked her what I should do. "Take her home," she suggested, "and after I get done in an hour we'll figure out what to do." Being Eid, most of the vets, K9 and the muncipality would be shut, but luckily the cute munchkin had her dogtag which meant that she might even be micro-chipped. I brought her home but had to be careful since I already have a Yorkshire Terrier at home (the famous Chintu who's with me in my logo above) who is quite a ferocious thing and so I had a bit of trouble putting the two of them together. My mother suggested I walk around the block and hope that the owners are out looking for the dog, and since my maid thought she knew whose dog it was, both of us set out to find the dog's home.
I went over to the compound next to my villa that has Vivel and Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf when a girl looked so excited to see the little furball, I almost thought it was hers! Her name is Cynthia and I told her that the dog was lost and she offered to help me to find the owners and to help in whatever way she could. Turns out she's a huge dog lover too and even volunteers at K9, so really this dog was extremely lucky to have 3 crazed dog lovers looking after her. After we had no luck in the neighborhood, Pinky came over and the both of us went over to the Al Barsha veterinary clinic to find out the microchip number of the dog, which they gave us in 2 minutes. The vet was kind enough to examine her as well and confirmed that while she was not ill and had not been hurt, she wasn't kept in the best of conditions either- her hair was matted and she was way too thin and seemed to have some sort of a bruise on her head. We hoped she'd been kept well and that her owner hadn't abandoned her on purpose. Since she had her tag on, we assumed that wasn't the case, but I'd have to wait till the next day (today) to be able to call other vets to find the parents of the beautiful pup, which the vet estimated to be under 2 years old. I kept her during the day but since I didn't want her and Chintu fighting during the night, requested my good Samaritan neighbor Cynthia to take her, which she did gladly.

I woke up this morning to a call from Cynthia saying she'd started calling vets but hadn't taken the number of the microchip from me, so was requesting me to call them and try to locate the owner. I told her I'd walk over and meet her and take the dog from her and continue to call the vets all over. The little pooch was SO happy to see me this morning and Cynthia looked like she was about to cry while handing her over. She had to go to work so couldn't babysit anymore, and was super apologetic about not being able to help more (really, this girl was incredibly sweet!) I told her I was going to go next door and have a coffee myself and that we'd be in touch. 5 minutes later she came running over excited saying she'd found the dog's owner (they were matched with the microchip) and that while the owner was at work, she'd be sending a friend over to collect the dog. Over this one evening that the dog was with us mind you, Cynthia had bought dog food and milk and fed our new furry friend this morning, and had put up posters in Choithrams. Pinky has yesterday evening put up pictures all over Facebook reporting that a little Yorkie has been found, while I was trying to get people to retweet the news in the hope that the owner or owners friend would read it and be able to bring the dog home and had left my name and number with the coffee shops nearby hoping the owner would come in and ask about the lost animal.
Anyhow, after about 20 minutes the owner's maid came up to me to get the dog- the dog didn't seem happy to see her at all, and there was not the hint of a tail wag that came from the pooch. I asked the woman what had happened, and she said that the driver had let the gate open and the dog must have run out. I asked if the Owners had tried looking for the dog, and she said she'd suggested they put flyers but that they hadn't yet because they had a party that night that they were busy attending to. I asked her what on earth they had done all day to recover the dog and she said, "no he only ran out at around 6 'O Clock".. Mind you, I'd found the dog at NOON. They had gone 6 HOURS without even noticing the dog had run away, and how they didn't notice that the dog hadn't eaten any lunch is absolutely beyond me!! She also goes on to say that the dog often ran out of the house and this wasn't the first time.. I shudder to imagine what the dog's fate will be the next time!! Anyhow, I took it upon myself to call the owner, and at this point you can imagine how furious I was! I introduced myself as the girl who had found her dog, and asked her if she didn't even take care of her pet... she sternly replied that I should not be questioning her about how she runs "her household" and that I was overstepping boundaries. I tried to calmly myself and ask her if she tried to look for the dog at all, and what steps she took to do the same (again to remind you, no vets had reported any missing dog report to us and we had to find her) and she yelled at me saying she didn't have to justify her actions to me and hung up on me.

So first and foremost, Eileen, Owner to Chikoo the Yorkie who lives behind Union Coop/Choithrams, you are not fit to be a dog owner. Your dog is neglected, too frail and obviously gets no care or attention from you or your 16 year old daughter who apparently is Mother to this poor creature. Secondly, if you were in the US or some place that allowed me to call and complain about animal cruelty, their number would be on my speed dial to make sure your home was pet-free and that this dog got a new, deserving home. How you went for SIX HOURS before even realizing your dog was missing is beyond me, considering that her whereabouts were not unknown to us strangers for 6 MINUTES while she was away from you. SHAME ON YOU. And while we were going from place to place trying to figure out where a concerned owner might look for their beloved pet, you seemingly searched a total of zero places, or else you would have found us, and not the other way around. Again, SHAME ON YOU.
I realize animal cruelty is rampant in Dubai and most dogs fare much worse fate as they've been abandoned on purpose and often have to be put to sleep, but this little dog has really tugged at my heart strings. I requested Cynthia to call this Eileen person again to see if she was willing to sell her dog to me, but she hasn't since taken her call or responded to her messages. I will going to bed tonight only praying that the wonderfully sweet dog that I've so fallen in love with is being taken care of, or that by some miracle the Owner decides to give or sell her to me, Cynthia or make sure she goes to a more deserving home.

Also not to state the obvious, but if you are thinking of adopting a pet PLEASE make sure that the pet will not be abandoned or that you are fully capable of taking care of one. Pets, especially dogs, are like little children and need constant love and attention, and often people forget that they are in a transient city like Dubai and that they might have to leave and go home and won't have space for their pets in their new life. Sometimes they buy one during the summer to entertain their kids, but when they realize their kids have no time and no discipline to take care of an animal, they abandon it and kick it out on the roads. Again for all the stupid people who leave their animals in a parked car over the summer with the windows shut, YOUR PET WILL DIE.
In the absence of any proper authorized body against animal cruelty, please lets just use common sense when it comes to animal care, and hopefully if you guys see a dog or a housed cat running on the road, you'll stop and help it out and not keep on driving!
Oh and if you know Eileen, please do forward her this link or "like" it or "retweet" it or whatever, so that someone can look at it and tell her to take better care of that darling dog that she has!! Thank you!!! And for all the people at K9 shelter and other animal rescue places that are dealing with these dogs and see the cruelty of humans taken out on their dogs and deal with that without crying every single day, I salute you!!!

 Thanks Cynthia for all your help! I don't think we're getting her back, but let's hope she's happy wherever she is!
-

"Cheat Days" and why they work!

As any serial dieter will tell you, "cheat days" are the most treasured and looked-forward-to part of the diet plan! I've been on possibly every single diet imaginable and only over the past year and half have tried the Dukan, Lively (the food delivery system based in Dubai), the food intolerance related meal plan , all with varying successes and with one thing in common- I eventually got tired and got off them. Some of them offer you a "cheat day" as part of the diet, and for some it's a complete no-no. For example, while I was on my food intolerance diet, I could have a cheat meal once a week, and that too consisted of things that I wasn't allowed to have the entire week and wasn't intolerant too- which basically meant a meal with rice and gluten free chocolate. When I was on "Lively" I didn't have a cheat day or meal, but on "Right Bite" (another food delivery service that I'd tried a few years back) I was allowed one every week. Mind you each of these diet plans have worked for MANY people out there, and I'm not knocking them at all!! I just met a friend 2 days back who looked gorgeous after having lost 20 kilos on the Dukan diet, so it obviously really worked for her... I'm merely sharing my personal experience.
There are some dieters who like "cheating" a little bit every day and will eat a cookie or a piece of chocolate or two, but are very conscious of the calories they consume and continue to lose weight. There are some, like me, who like to abstain and would much rather have a strict diet plan during the week with a meal or day where I'm allowed to indulge, before I get back on track. It gives me something to work towards and I look at it as being a reward for sticking through the diet strictly. I've always noticed I'm much more likely to continue longer with a diet that allows me that space to maneuver than those that tell me I can't have bread till eternity.
When I started training with Amir a few months ago, he said to me it was very important I get on his food plan as it would be imperative to me seeing any results while training with him. With emailed it to me and mentioned he encouraged cheat days but I'd only get one after 4 weeks, then one after 3, then after 2, before they become weekly events and I figured it wouldn't be too bad and got on my diet. The diet is VERY strict and the first 4 weeks on it were brutal and the cheat day seemed like a very pretty nutella-glazed light at the end of a very long, hungry tunnel! I was shocked when Amir explained to me what he expected my cheat day to be like. There was no, "eat what you want but make sure it's in moderation" speeches given! It was more of a "if you can't eat anything and everything in sight then there's something wrong!" "WHAT?!" I hear you say? Trust me, that's exactly what my reaction was too.
Cheat days help you stay motivated and that is usually how they are used in traditional diet plans that allow one. My diet plan of a cheat day following a 4-3-2-1 sequence ensured that it was affecting my body in a positive way, and wasn't just extra calories that would find it's way straight to my hips. I started noticing that my size dropped after every such day and I couldn't help but recognize that what Amir was saying was actually right- that a cheat day is almost as important to my weight loss as the diet itself. How does my cheat day now differ from the ones I used to have before? Amir prefers it that I eat stuff that has a higher fat content and I'm not worried that the "damage" I do on that one day will negate everything I do on the other 6 days, as I know it's quite the opposite. After I came back from New York for example, I got one after dieting for 3 weeks and he warned me to be honest with him and tell him if I "crashed" in the afternoon or early evening (and by that I mean was unable to eat anymore), as it meant my metabolism wasn't in peak condition yet. There are other telling signs he had asked me to look out for, the main one being that you tend to sweat a lot on that day as your body is working hard to turn the excess food into fuel. Another one that I noticed myself was that previously even a larger than normal dinner would have me wake up the next morning not being able to eat a morsel till evening as I was stuffed from my meal the night before. Now, I marvel at the fact that I wake up the morning after my cheat meal ravenously hungry and I realize that my body is in high gear having burnt off all the food. And as I mentioned before, the best proof of the pudding is in it's eating, and the fact that I'm losing size obviously means I must be doing something right!
So while I'm unable to share my diet plan with you guys I suggest you guys optimize your metabolism by following the 4-3-2-1 system and marvel at what it does to your body! Worst case scenario? You'll lose some serious weight!
-
Please do check out Amir's very interesting blog at The Body Axiom
- 

Why Steve Jobs' Death will have forever changed my Life

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life"... Famous words from what will go down in history as one of the most famous and inspiring speeches ever given.
I've already written my tribute to Steve Jobs that was published in the Gulf News, but while the world seems to have moved on and Indians everywhere are today mourning the death of music legend Jagjit Singh, Jobs' demise has affected me more than I thought possible. Every once in a while you get a wake up call that makes you examine your life and ask yourself what you want from it... Jobs' demise has done just that for me. It's made me ask myself whose life it is I am leading and what I want my legacy to be. You got all of that from the death of a person you've never even met? you may ask. Yes, I realize how cliche and almost tragic it sounds. As mentioned in my article, Jobs counted as one of the two men I'd always wanted to meet in my life. The irony keeps hitting me... he achieved all his dreams he possibly could in the short 56 years that he walked this earth. I didn't even try to realize my dream of meeting him.

Yes while Jobs was someone I'd never met I won't say it is completely a coincidence for me to be feeling this way considering my own Father passed away at the age of 56. In my article I wrote about a type of man whose DNA is predisposed for success and who doesn't quite fear the feeling of failure. Not to say they never experience it.. it's just that they understand that success is a journey and that you may run into a few ditches and potholes on the way to get to your final destination.. meanwhile knowing full well that they're on the path and are doing something to get there. My Late Father was often asked where he got the idea to name his company "Jumbo" and he'd tell the story of how he came to Dubai with a few hundred dollars in his bank account with a dream in his heart to build something great. He didn't know what it is he wanted to do, but he knew he wanted it to be the size of the Air India Jumbo jet that carried him. Now let me quickly clarify to fans of the "iCon" here, by no means am I trying to compare the two! I am merely drawing parallels between my two personal idols, and what they represent to me.

Incidentally, my Father was not really a fan of Apple products, and in one of my earliest blog posts, I've talked about his reluctance to buy me one of my first computers ever- An Apple PowerPC. To convince him I decided to try my hand at Photoshop to demonstrate to him what this fantastic little machine could do. Back then, using Photoshop and Freehand easily pretty much meant using a Mac to do it! A lot of convincing went into it, and I used a Mac to create this- My own "Think Different" ad!

And yes, at the end I was the owner of what was to be a never ending love affair- my very first Apple product! But I digress...

I wonder back to the past 11 years of my life since the year I graduated in 2000, and I wonder where the time has flown by. Jobs' death has probably had the complete opposite effect of what my Father's had on me, as while one made me try to figure out how I would survive the day in front of me trying to deal with an insurmountable loss, the other has me thinking about my future and what I want my legacy to be when I die. Over the past 11 years I've applied for an MFA in Creative Writing in New York twice, only to be wait listed twice and for me to have not been able to go. A novel that I started to work on two years back has been saved on my desktop screen and stares back at me each time I work on my computer, it's 3 incomplete chapters taunting me and begging for some attention. I always say I have a "no regrets policy" in life, but I have a feeling that if I don't give some serious thinking to what it is I was sent on God's green earth to do, that policy may soon change... and that is not how I want to live the rest of my life. (I always say that the worst thing somebody can be is stupid.. and the worst thing someone can have is regret.)

Having said that, one of my favourite quotes is from Paulo Coelho's books, The Alchemist - "Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure. You've got to find the treasure, so that everything you have learned along the way can make sense." I've always believed that to be so true for my life as I find everything comes a full circle and at the end, makes complete sense. It seems Jobs' believed in the same philosophy in life and talks about it greatly in his Stanford commencement speech and refers to it as "connecting the dots."But to find that clarity and come that full circle, one has to keep up with their end of the deal and do what they love- and it is that action of doing  that most people forget about.

I hope I've got you guys thinking if even for a moment about what it is you want to do with the rest of your life and what legacy it is you want to ultimately leave behind. If you want some food for thought, I URGE you to watch Steve Jobs Stanford commencement speech if you haven't already. If you have in the past, but haven't seen it recently, I think you will benefit greatly from watching it again. Knowing that the man in the video is no more and knowing the type of respect and idolization he received upon his death, only makes his words so much important to pay heed to.

Of all the amazing stories I've heard about Jobs (and if you search the internet, especially over the past few days, you'll find a countless number of them) is one that shows him at his most human. In a moving tribute, his friend Stephen Wolfram writes about visiting Steve at his NeXT offices-

I used to see Steve Jobs with some regularity in those days. One time I went to see him in NeXT’s swank new offices in Redwood City. I particularly wanted to talk to him about Mathematica as a computer language. He always preferred user interfaces to languages, but he was trying to be helpful. The conversation was going on, but he said he couldn’t go to dinner, and actually he was quite distracted, because he was going out on a date that evening—and he hadn’t been on a date for a long time. He explained that he’d just met the woman he was seeing a few days earlier, and was very nervous about his date. The Steve Jobs—so confident as a businessman and technologist—had melted away, and he was asking me—hardly a noted known authority on such things—about his date.
As it turned out, the date apparently worked out—and within 18 months the woman he met became his wife, and remained so until the end.

Here's to living a full life, leaving a great legacy, and finding your true love....
Thank You Mr Jobs for making me realize all 3 are possible... and that too in one lifetime!
-

Back to Dubai!

Yes, I'm back in Dubai and the above cartoon is some sort of indication about how I feel. I've been back a little under a week now and to say I have the post-holiday blues is like calling a suicidal person grumpy. I'm just not happy to be back!!
Yes, Dubai is where my work is and my family as well as my home. I have made some amazing friends here over the years and considering my family has been based here since before I was born, Dubai has always been a home base for me. Yet, I somehow feel like I don't truly fit in here. Don't get me wrong- while in New York it's not like I didn't miss being able to drive around rather than taking smelly cabs, or I didn't miss not having to wait an hour over our reservation time for a table at a new "in" restaurant. I love the perks and the life Dubai has to offer, but while I will very quickly get adjusted to the city and maybe even live here quite happily, New York is where I truly feel alive!! Sometimes I wonder if it's New York that I love or whether it's just being away from Dubai.. I'm still figuring that one out.
I won't bore you further with my melancholy, so let me tell you about my trip... Aah, my trip! I always have an incredible time in the city and have written, repeatedly in fact, on my love for it. You'd think 2 months would make that love wane and fade a little? Not in the least! While I always head out there for extended periods of time each summer, there was something about my trip this year that was life changing. No, nothing happened, I didn't go off and have some major epiphany or my life didn't change in some drastic way. And no, if you're a friend of mine and wondering, let me save you the call- I didn't "meet" anyone! I think I was just truly in the moment and decided that I would have the time of my life, and that's exactly what happened. I partied and shopped like the end of the world depended on it, I walked around the city in awe and wonder and truly loved every second of it, and even when I decided to stay in, I'd look out at the gorgeous view from my apartment and truly be grateful for that perfect sight at that perfect moment. My trip wouldn't have been half as amazing if it wasn't for my NY friends- existing ones and new ones. I think I got to meet so many more new people this trip, and I loved meeting and getting to know them all. Since I'm sort of a recluse in Dubai, it was so refreshing to go out and interact with different sorts of people, one more ridiculously intelligent, funny and fun than the other! While I'm a permanent fixture at any given coffee shop in Dubai on any given day, I absolutely loved being social in NY, and it just so is unlike me. I got to spend some quality time with my best friend Payal too, which was nice since she's been crazy busy. Her husband and loving in laws have always made me feel welcome at their home in the suburbs, and I packed my bags quite a few times this trip and headed on over for some much needed TLC.
In all of this, I must admit, blogging was the last thing on my mind. I'm pretty good at blogging while I'm in Dubai and I promise to get back on track and blog much more now that I'm here. But I'm sure you will understand that I was just too damn busy having way too much fun and any posts that I would put up would be more "forced" than anything else. But I didn't forget you guys when I was gone! I have tons of fun stuff to post on, including a lot of recommendations for places to go to in NYC. And maybe I'll give you guys a sneak peak into some of my shopping too!
Hope you all had an ab fab summer, and hopefully you aren't having the blues as bad as me. Or maybe you've already dealt with them, in which case tips are most welcome! K time to go back and cry some more into my pillow....
Xx
Kiran

Me, Myself and Irene!!

Last week while shopping around at the outlet malls, I glanced at my phone to see a few messages in from concerned people on my blackberry. Turns out, there had been an earthquake in New York City. "Thank God I was on flat ground and not in my apartment on the 41st floor," I thought to myself, letting my friends know that I didn't feel it at all. I returned home to the city (I was staying with my best friend for a few days) only for the doorman of my building to inform me that we had a hurricane coming our way. "What?!" I said panicked and started researching all the news I could find on what was coming our way. My friends laughed and my best friend joked that I was turning into a typical American and worrying about absolutely everything. As the days went by though, people seemed to take me more seriously as the news carried warnings about Irene and the crazy destruction she was causing in her path. As Irene's arrival grew closer, a lot of friends who had scoffed at me had to vacate their homes as the Mayor caused a forced evacuation of a lot of areas in New York which were in danger of being hit the hardest. It was all very scary.
I decided to tackle Irene much like Indiana Jones- I was prepared for the worst! The first thing I decided to do was to stock up on groceries that were dry and slow to perish on the off chance that the electricity went out. The streets of New York was hectic yet eerily silent and all conversation around me was only about the hurricane. I felt like I was in a Hollywood movie with half the people (myself included) taking every precaution imaginable with the other half making plans on where they wanted to party through the hurricane and trying to find out what was open. It didn't help that all Hollywood movies around doomsday all seem to take place in New York City! I did all my laundry so I would have clean clothes, withdrew extra cash from the ATM in case credit card machines stopped working, did the dishes and bought a huge bag of supplies for a first aid kit that I might need. After I was done, a friend convinced me to go out for dinner after which we went out club hopping. It looked like a regular Friday night in the city and we returned home at 4AM.
The next day, Saturday, was when we expected Irene to hit us in all her glory. She was scheduled to arrive at around 5 PM and I decided to rise early and take a walk around the city and grab myself some coffee. Buses and trains were ordered to stop running post noon and people had shut shop to return home before they got stranded at work. Virtually all the stores were shut with a scary sight of Bloomingdales right across my apartment building being boarded up just in case the winds shattered the glass. A nearby Cafe Metro seemed to be the only place open, which is where I grabbed coffee for myself and bagels for the building staff who were going to be working through the storm. The roads were silent and it was raining slightly. Was very, very scary.

I walked back home and as advised by a neighbor, filled my bathtub with water (in case of loss of electricity we'd lose water too) and had asked for two gallon bottles to be delivered to me in case I needed drinking water. The news had carried warnings of imminent flooding which would cause loss of electricity for sure. I kept checking my phone and was amused by all my friends (the same ones who had partied with me the night before) checking with what the plans were for the day. One suggested Lavo, another suggested Bagatelle while a third friend called me and checked if I wanted to drive up to Montreal and escape the hurricane completely (and pray we don't bump into her on the way). Needless to say, the last one was a definite no! But after all my, "What is wrong with you?! Don't you know we have a hurricane headed our way??" type comments, they arm twisted me into heading to Lavo to grab a drink before heading back home to safety. I know I've mentioned in a previous post that I would do a review on Lavo, and I promise I'll get to that soon. But just to give you an idea on what it's like, it's a place where people go over the weekend for "Brunch" which pretty much turns into a day time nightclub. And not just any ol' fun nightclub.. it gets like New Years Eve in there! So when I head there that day, I assumed we'd be the only few nutjobs that had braved the circumstances to step out of the house. Oh how I was wrong! I entered and was gobsmacked to find New Yorkers jumping wild atop tables partying like their lives depended on it! Large cases of alcohol and magnum bottles of Vodka and champagne kept passing us, and this was all taking place at 5 PM. The exact time Irene was expected. We even had our celebrity sighting for the day when Rod Stewart was spotted leaving Lavo a little while after we got there.

At 7 when Lavo shut in preparation for dinner, we headed on over to Tao (that is right across the road) for some dinner and some more drinks. I had a friend staying with me and we reached home at around 10 I think (because of my insistence that too) while other friends made plans and decided to go over to each others homes. I had another friend come visit and leave at 1 AM in the morning... It was just raining outside but apart from that there was no strong winds. And then, we waited. We waited and waited and expected something to change. We watched the news and watched it pour outside and at one point were very nervous as the full glass windows on my 41st floor apartment started to shake and vibrate. My friend calls me over to the kitchen and makes me listen to a creaking sound that we can hear- was the building actually moving? We braced ourselves for strong winds and I kept my first aid kit plus my handbag with my passport and all my cash by the door in case we needed to dash. Pretty soon the vibrating subsided and it was calm again. We decided to watch a movie and track the storm on our laptops instead. We watched "3 idiots" and the next thing we knew it was 7 AM in the morning. The storm was now scheduled to hit us in around an hour and was supposed to be pretty bad till noon. We decided to get some sleep while we still could. Of course, for those who know what happened with Irene knows what happened next- Absolutely NOTHING. I woke up at around 10:30 only to find that the rain had stopped and whatever storm was supposed to come, just didn't. I switched on the TV only to find a reaction between relief (weather and news guys) and amused (the chat shows) with Irene being the butt of all jokes-
"How sad that everything that goes near Wall Street gets downgraded"
(Irene was to hit the downtown area the hardest. She was also downgraded from a "hurricane" to a "tropical storm" in those few hours I was asleep.)
And another one that I loved- "Typical. You think you're hot shit and then you get to New York City only to find out you're not a big deal."

Well I guess all's well that end's well and it's a good thing nothing happened, although a few friends who lived in the suburbs did lose their electricity for a day or two. At least I know now that I'm pretty good (if not paranoid good!) while preparing for an emergency! I also suspect that on the 21st December 2012, NYC will have the baddest party this world has ever seen. There is something about oncoming death and destruction that really makes these guys go wild! A friend of mine posted this on Facebook and it couldn't have been more apt for the occasion-

My friends bottles of wines are still waiting to be picked up as those were his version of "emergency supplies."
-

My walk down memory lane in Boston...

Over the weekend, my best friend Payal and I decided to take a road trip and head over to Boston. It is a place that has so many incredible memories for us since we both went to college there. I was at Boston College (BC) while Payal was at Northeastern and her husband Sameer was at Babson, and I'm pretty sure all of us feel that those were the best years of our lives! I know a lot of people who went to school in America, and aside from Boston, LA and New York seem to have been the favourite cities for most of them to go to University. Having said that, I am so incredibly grateful I didn't opt to study in one of the larger cities as Boston was the perfect mix of large city with the feel of a small one. In fact, I do think it's the perfect mix of European mixed with American too, as the feel of the city is so much cleaner, more conservative and much more preppy than the average American one. I don't know too many people who've been to college in Boston recently so I can't really tell, but the vibe of the student population there seems to be a lot different now than it was in our day- pre-September 11th. The International students ran the town and it wasn't odd to see an eighteen year old back then with a Porsche or Ferrari or other such fancy car (I was not part of that club- I took the tram the 2 years I lived off campus!). The clubs played a mix of international music and were packed with kids who were all definitely under 21 years old, but with the right fake ID and over time, the right connections, were welcomed through the velvet ropes without a problem. Armani Cafe on the posh Newberry street was the place to be at, and kids loved hanging out there in the afternoon, sipping on their wine and polishing off what was left of their Torta Della Nonna- the best chocolate desert, EVER, before heading off to shop at Ricardi, the fashionable multi-brand boutique located on the street. M80 was a nightclub that most of us who graduated from that era look back at being an institution in itself, where we spent our Wednesday and Saturday nights, whereas Thursdays were spent at Avalon, another popular club on Landsdowne street. Boston seemed like a gift that was presented to us from older generations, that we left behind, 4 years later, for the younger ones to inherit. Alas, a few years post September 11th a group of us visited one weekend to reminisce the old times. M80 had shut down in our senior year so we knew that was gone, but to walk into Avalon on a thursday night and find it playing country music was almost too much to bear. The closing of the Emporio Armani and Armani Cafe that has now been replaced by a Zara seemed to be a telling sign of how things had shaped since we left. It was a sad, sad realization that as we'd aged, our beloved city had too.
When Payal and I visited this weekend we, thanks to two previous trips, knew exactly what to expect. We reminisced about old times while walking around and making some new memories. It did help that while out at a shop on Saturday morning we realized we'd accidentally come to Boston on "Tax Free Weekend," a concept we didn't even know existed in America! So all the stores were tax free on those two days and we went a bit nutty shopping. I wanted to go over to BC and walk around the campus like I always do, but I didn't really get a chance to do that neither did I get to take pictures like I wanted. So I'm posting some pics I had taken of my campus and of Boston the last time I was there. While returning to NYC I was messaging a friend and fellow Bostonite currently in India and telling him how happy I was to be there and how it must be something in the air of the city. "I can imagine," he replied, "it makes me so happy just knowing you are there, can you imagine how happy I'd be if I was??!!" Aah... those were the best days of our lives!

Gorgeous city!

Entrance to BC

I lived on campus my first two years of college. This was my dorm my Sophomore year

BC Pride!!

More pictures of our campus

Fulton Hall- the building for the School of Management, where most of my classes were

Kiran's Corner moves to NYC!!

Well, the move isn't permanent and when I say "Kiran's Corner" I really mean "I"! As I did last year, I've left the heat of Dubai to move to the heat of New York for two months over the summer. I absolutely LOVE this city and I've been spending summers here for a few years now so am very familiar with the place and have enough friends to keep me occupied. My best friend also lives an hour away from the city so it's always great to be able to spend time with her. I've been here for a few days already but because of some confusion I had no internet at home and wasn't able to post on my blog. But now that I have everything working again and I'm almost done with my jetlag, I should be back to regular posts, updates, reviews and the like, all from the best city in the world! In these past few days I've already tried out quite a few new restaurants including the La Petite Maison in NYC (you'll remember that I LOVE the London and Dubai branches) for which I'll have a review up in a day or two. I also made it out to a Rihanna concert in Long Island a few days back, so I'll post up a few video clips (albeit horribly shaky ones on my Blackberry) as well.
I'm going to try to post as often as I can, but in the summer it really is SO hard to sit on the computer and put up stuff when all you really want to do is go outside and play! But I promise I'll try to be as consistent as possible. And in the meantime, do follow me on Twitter to find out what I'm up to and to request any reviews on any place I may be at or something I may be doing. Which reminds me, if you enjoy watching Bollywood movies you MUST see Zindagi na Milegi Dobara which I saw last evening. Such a fun, great movie to watch and definitely something I'd quite enjoy seeing again. Anyhow, it's time for me to get out into the hot sun and hit some stores on 5th Ave. Enjoy!
-

Have teeth.. Will Smile!!

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have some idea of what I'm going to talk about. For those who don't, this Wednesday I had a dreaded dentist appointment to fix a filling I'd been putting off for a year. While there, my dentist decided to gently coax me into another procedure he'd been trying to get me to do for the past year I'd been avoiding him- he wanted to fix my gummy smile. For those who don't know what a gummy smile is, it's when a person smiles and their top gums show more than their teeth. Now while that doesn't really sound like the biggest deal, it can actually be quite a pain for those who are in possession of this curious problem as it can ruin many a photograph! All my "nice" photographs are those carefully posed ones which along with getting the right angle, lighting, position, etc, hide along with any shadow of a double chin, the unsightly pink gums in my mouth. You know happy pictures of people laughing that are captured without them knowing the camera is upon them? There isn't a single one of me out there. Again, if you follow me in Twitter you may have seen the perfectly Photoshopped pictures of me that I use as my profile pic that were shot by the genius photographer Vikram Bawa in India a while back. It isn't a coincidence that you might see them change with different outfits and different poses, but with one thing remaining constant- my mouth tightly shut into a smile. While taking the photographs he'd wanted me to relax and tried to do so by talking to me, only to realize any pictures of me talking, or worse yet, laughing, would be completely unusable. Don't get me wrong, I don't have bad teeth... in fact, I don't have a single tooth out of place! It's just the gum factor that's gotten to me for all these years!
So back to Wednesday. I had done a bit of research on what I thought the procedure would entail and I had visions of a full fledged surgery. "It'll take 10 minutes and won't hurt a bit!" the Doc promised. "Am I really that vain to go ahead and do something as drastic as this?" I thought fleetingly to myself. Honestly, before I had the time to even properly answer that question, he was standing over me, syringe in hand, ready to numb my gums to start the procedure before I could change my mind.. or apparently even make it up. My Dentist you see has been bumping into me in social occasions and noticed how I'd always get shy and as a reflex action, covered my mouth with my hands every time I laughed or smiled wide. "Do the procedure, it'll change your face!" he promised me each time. An hour later, I was out of the clinic, my filling in place with a new smile to take home. I smiled to my Mother and asked her if she noticed anything different and she yelled, "I told you to not get your teeth whitened! It ruins the enamel and weakens the teeth!" Errr.. try again Mom! The next day in the office her Secretary who has been with us for a few decades noticed, "You've got your teeth cleaning done? Whitening? You've done something," she said. The difference is ever so slight that not many people can tell unless I point it out to them. All in all, it really did take approximately 15 minutes to do, and the Doc was right... it didn't really hurt. Since then my gums have just been a little sore and reactive to hot and spicy foods, but I can tell it's getting better and hopefully I should be fine by tomorrow. If you or a family member have a gummy smile or any issue with your teeth in general, I can't urge you enough to go fix it! Being able to be comfortable with yourself, especially your smile, is SO important! And then of course, you'll just have to work on finding something to always smile about! Unless you're him...

Image taken from here

 For those interested, my procedure was done by Dr. Anand Shenoy who is located in Satwa and whom I cannot recommend enough! He helped save a tooth of mine last year that needed a root canal (as it had been messed up by another Dentist) and I finally went to him after hearing rave reviews from a few friends as well as my older sister. While dentists in Dubai seem to be worried more about polishing up their own wallet rather than your teeth, I found him to be very conscious of not doing more than necessary. If you're looking for a good Dentist, definitely do give him a shot.
-

Museum of Me

An Intel site really blew me away today! It is a promotion for their i5 processors, but I really don't know how the two relate at all. It accesses your Facebook information and in a few minutes creates what it calls, "The Museum of Me" which integrates all your info on Facebook including pictures, words you use most often as well as pictures of your friends and sets it up into a Museum-y type format.
I'm doing a crap job at explaining it, but trust me, it's really cool. To check out what your museum would look like, click here or watch the video below of what the Kiran Chhabria museum looks like! Since I couldn't save the video, I've taken it with my video camera facing my laptop so if you see any shadows or blurriness, that's why. I think it's just so SO well done!

No more Oprah?!?!?!

Only moments back I have finished watching the final episode of the Oprah show and just HAD to get on my blog and write a few words about it. A few days ago I met a friend for coffee and she handed me over a flash drive with the last 3 episodes (2 being the surprise event her staff planned for her and the final being her simply talking to her audience) and she encouraged me to watch it soon so we could discuss it. Her final episode has moved me so much, I felt I couldn't wait for the discussion with my friend and felt I had to talk about it now. As Oprah says at the start of her final episode, each of us are "guided" to do something in our lives- it doesn't have to be big, and it doesn't have to make us rich or famous. It just makes us feel like THIS is what we're meant to do. For me, that feeling has always come through either creativity or communication.. which is probably what lead me to write a blog as I feel in my own teeny tiny little way, it allows me to do both. I don't know where my writing or other creative outlet will take me in the future, but I know that I feel totally "plugged in" while doing it, and hence I know it's what's good for me as it's what I'm guided to. Either way, I just figured this was the natural outlet for me to give my thoughts on Oprah's show.
If you haven't seen the final episode, I HIGHLY recommend you watch it by finding it online somewhere, or by borrowing it from your friends or however you possibly can. The clip I show above is her last clip and final goodbye, and like millions of people round the world I too thought, "What?! No more Oprah?!"Yes, she isn't dead (everyone on Twitter too seems to be reminding themselves of that fact) but there's something about her way of communication and her spirit that shines through the TV set (or computer/device) and touches you directly. She talks also in this episode about God and coincidences, and echoes a thought I believe to be true- there is no such thing as a coincidence. Given that, it is perhaps not strange then that just this morning, I was having a conversation with my new Personal Trainer, Amir (whom I blogged about a few days back) and we were talking about loving and accepting yourself and your body. He keeps repeating to me about my weight and size, "it is what it is" and just this morning was telling me the importance of being happy with what you are NOW instead of having conditional happiness (I had just said, "I'll be happy if I loose x kilos"). I had argued that while one can wake up in the morning and affirm that they love themselves and what they see in the mirror, there will be people and situations through the day that will negate that and reaffirm to you that the way you are and the way you look IS important in life. It was then my own personal "Aha moment" when I watched the show just now and saw Oprah air clips of hers through the years and watched her weight go drastically up and down, as one thing remained constant over the 25 years her show has been aired- her magic on her audience. She changed lives and touched hearts and changed her own body several times, and if she can come on TV and drop the emotional shackles that bound her to her weight and be comfortable being watched by hundreds of thousands of people every day all over the world, what the hell am I complaining about?!
Oprah has over the years guided thousands of people to lead a better life and is one of the most inspirational people alive today. Madonna says in her 2 part surprise finale, that when people ask her who her role models are, she gives them a long and varied list  for the dead role models category, and in the "alive" list, has but one name- Oprah. As sappy and cliche as this sounds, I truly do echo her sentiments as well. To be able to alter lives and educate thousands of people, get millions to start reading again and become ridiculously famous while doing it is all well and good- to get people to start thinking, to be kind to one another and to learn to not only service but "pay it forward"... all while going through a public metamorphosis herself and struggling to come to terms with her own body, ego and abuse issues while doing it? She's definitely my hero.
Recently I had the honour and privilege or meeting Kevin Spacey while he was visiting Dubai and heard him give a private talk about work he is involved in in promoting the arts and theater. He said that he himself had learned from his mentor that when one rises and reaches levels of success, it's extremely important to "send the elevator back down" which is a thought that I'll never forget. While all of us should question ourselves of the type of life we'd like to live, a few actually do it, and a fewer still actually do something ABOUT it. Watching this episode really got me thinking (as you can tell) and once again I really recommend you listen to it. A few months back I'd posted a YouTube video of The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch along with other powerful speeches.. I think her final episode would definitely belong there, as it's not just advice she's giving people, but a testament to how she's lead 25 years of her life. It's really sad to think, what on earth will the world be like without Oprah?!
-
I do apologize for any rambling or grammatical errors in this post.. I forced myself to stay awake and finish it but don't know whether I've been coherent while doing it :)