Category: Friends

Never let go of a good thing without a fight. Especially if that good thing is Life

DawnLeave a comment

I remember meeting her at work, discussing some project and I was part of the conversation and … I dont know how and when but a friendship had already began..!

A very strong and caring one. Our hearts are always tuned in though we never meet everyday or chat everyday or even not text everyday… but the thought and love for our friendship is always there.

When you think of a person and that brings smile and sometimes laughter… It’s hilarious too…yes that is one of the person Wen Hui that I have ever known in my life.
It was fun to talk to Wen, in the beginning when we used to talk about our country and culture and people. It was easy to understand each other’s culture. Later it is all fun and frolic… I mean a woman with substance and strength is what I have seen in Wen.

It was so much fun when we all friends met to celebrate Wen Hui’s birthday, it is a great milestone and we had so much fun. She talks to you in such a way that you will not feel that there is anything in this world that is illegal or wrong…! She makes life so simple with beautiful guidelines and rules. 
When she is at work then no nonsense will happen as she will demand, not ask! I always enjoyed my lunch chat or even dinner chats with her. In fact I remember when she talks everyone will just be focussed on her listening to every word that she spills out… she has a knack of story telling and indeed it is wonderful.
When we friends came to know about Wen Hui has detected cancer… we all felt very sad as we have never seen her sad or in a situation where someone will feel sorry for her…and how she will take this one .. !
Today I met her in person and my heart was rushing with blood because thats how powerful she is. A very strong woman I have met today her spirit is same as she was before the diagnose and she talks and shares the stories exactly the same way and her jokes and humor sense, gosh its just that she makes everyone’s life easier who are in her surroundings. I am sure the doctors and hospital staff must be feeling lucky to treat this person as she does 90% of their job with her positive and strong will power and rest 10% is done by the medicine
I wanted to yell out from that room to the entire world… that one should lead by this example that this role model is leading – my love and respect for this friend has grown to the highest level. I am proud to be a friend of a tough yet smiling Role Model.
Who doesn’t go through pain and difficulty in life… but this is so true… we know we all are going to die but then why worry and make that to come in hurry…You can stay strong and fight it hard – there is a little pleasure in fighting back always!
I salute the lady whom I saw today – I witnessed the iron lady – May the power be with you my friend… we will see you soon with another chit-chat session to laugh at.
~ Dawn
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The simplicity in Identity

DawnLeave a comment
Happy New Year wishes to all my friends.

New Year has come again and it’s running into its teens now. Today I met a friend at work, it was our casual meet after last year. Since our lunch was done, we went for a walk and it was good to know a person whom I felt was a normal, down to earth and simple.

I meet many people in life, through many avenues and its rare that you think about that person when you are alone. It’s not that I didn’t think of other friends… all my friends are dear to me and I often think about them when they are not with me…but this one left with the deep thoughts as the person’s simplicity amazed me.

Talking about many things, about life, health, music – it felt like talking to human. After a long time I felt connected to a person where I felt their pain is my pain. Their happiness is mine and so are the thoughts too.

As we discussed things about life, eating habits, I felt there is a similarity in thinking too.

Felt good to be connected with this person and I see that simplicity of this friend is what has made me a fan.

I feel more connected to life and human than machines and each time someone gives me that feeling – I wish to thank for that reason or purpose that brought this opportunity to be friends.

My new year post starts with happy and grounded notes.

Life is simple, its only we who let it remain simple or make it complicated.

~ Dawn

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Friendship isn’t a big thing – it’s a million little things…

DawnLeave a comment

It was a weekend evening when we got invited by our friends for a Christmas eve get together.
Meeting with friends on weekends is always a bonus as you not only get to meet friends but also get to eat good food!
We reached our friends place and one by one each family started joining the party.
Along with the food, wine and other drinks were also served. I was introduced to one of the friend who was visiting US on a project.
My friend said, meet Shanti she is my schoolmate and she is here on a project. Me and Shanti we had never met before and after we were introduced we just started our conversation and it was a never ending one. From one topic to the other it went on and the best part was that we both got so connected that I was not able to talk to other friends with whom I usually mingle with.
That night when we were parting we exchanged our emails and phone numbers. We were in touch as long she was here and one day she said that she is going back to India as her task is finished here.

She moved to Bangalore and after couple of emails there were no communication. Once in a blue moon she will wake up and send me a mail asking how are things and whenever I am sending greetings to my friends on different occasions she is also included in the emails and so we still connect once in a while.
We are not in touch and we don’t email each other very often however whenever we connect it’s the same feeling and depth of knowing each other so well – now that’s what I call friendship, that’s what is called connection and in real sense that is the true friend who doesn’t interpret my actions as not interested but rather she understands we all are busy in our life in many different ways and hence we care for each other and it remains inside our heart.
Recently I get to hear that she is getting married and I cannot express my happiness as how happy I am to hear this.

May this day you share
be filled with love and laughter
May all the days ahead
be happy ever after!

I dedicate this post for a friend who is getting married to start a new life. I would like to give all my best wishes and prayers to this friend for joining this part of life which includes the path of change yet the path of happiness and togetherness.

“The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.” ~ Elisabeth Foley

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A new year is unfolding – like a blossom with petals curled tightly concealing the beauty within…

Dawn4 Comments
 

New Year’s Eve is a moment when you happily and content-fully say – Good-bye to old year and welcome the new year with lots of hope and aspirations.

My this year’s 2010 New Year’s Eve was well spent with meeting my blog friend – Pria.
Yes, I always have made plans with my blog friends based on my visit to a particular city and so far I only got lucky meeting Pria and her family in my favorite city Toronto.

It’s so easy when your thoughts match on the blog world with friends, it doesn’t take much to connect with them when you meet in person and that’s the feeling I got when I met Pria at her residence.
The eve is leading to the new year with the hope and aspiration of meeting more and more friends from all over the world…and I am hopeful with that thought with a kick-start meet with Pria.

As I say good-bye to this city Toronto, I also wish good luck to my friends for everything to go well as the new year approaches…I am sure things will change for better and it will…

Happy New Year To All My Friends…this year’s motto is :

“Drive yourself happy instead of crazy. Every minute spent stressing is one less minute being happy” – so let’s enjoy and be merry
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Childhood is the most beautiful of all life’s seasons

Dawn12 Comments


I still remember my first day in 2nd grade. It was a new admission for me in KVK NDA. I was kind of nervous entering the class as the 2nd A class was in a different building altogether. I had reached after the prayers hence the filled class made me more nervous. Everyone was staring at me. Those eyes were screaming and telling me as if ‘you’re late!’.

“Don’t wait for people to be friendly, show them how”.

My class teacher Mahajan Maa’m called me close to her and introduced me to everyone in the class. She was very nice, I felt someone knows me here.
The teacher asked me to be seated and asked our class monitor Arunima to help if anything is needed.
Arunima, was a tall girl in our class and her caring nature always made us felt like she is our elder sister. She used to help with sharpening our pencils and making sure we have our homework done. If not she will ask us to do and when and where ever needed she will help us.
The boys in the class were naughty and hence I don’t remember a single guy from my class except A.R. Manoj.
Manoj was a short and cute guy. Our parents knew each other and hence we felt it’s okay to be friends.
I was so afraid to walk around in the class as I remember one of the classmate Anagha who used to scare me out with her big eyes. She was my bench partner. Arunima made me feel so comfortable that I wished if I could sit with her but she was sitting at the last bench as she was the tallest girl in our class.
I remember telling Arunima about it and she used to make sure Anagha behaves with me.

“Treat everyone with politeness, even those who are rude to you – not because they are nice, but because you are”.



I can say I learned singing and dancing from there. Arunima used to make sure that all the girls are engaged with one or the other task. Arunima and her sister Gaitry both were in the same class and we used to dance on the number that they used to sing – Dhitang -Dhitang bole oh madhurletal tole – a bengali number which Arunima and Gaitry used to sing and make all of us dance. It turned out to be a action song for us.
I used to be amazed when I first heard Arunima singing the song ‘My heart is beating’. She was like our role model. I used to do things that will make her happy and never missed an opportunity where she used to smile and give a hug.
We became so close that after school Arunima and Gaitry used to visit my home and all evening we used to play until it’s 6:00 p.m. when they used to pick up their school bags and say bye to go home.
Evening always brought those parting sadness. But the next dawn was with hope to meet them in the class.
Arunima was one of those monitors who not only used to monitor the class but always took care of the classmates as if they were her own kids. If anyone fell or not playing… sitting hungry or alone, she used to make sure that child is taken care of. A very soft spoken with a melodious voice – that’s the Arunima I have in my mind even today.

“It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.”

I still can’t forget those ‘booth (ghost) dance’ in Arunima’s own words…she used to make sure that after our lunch time we don’t go and mess around outside hence she used to tell all of us to let’s play ‘booth dance – ghost dance’ – but the way she taught us was all like the tribal dance. We used to make similar noises and jump around and dance like the tribal in South Africa. In short, there was a not a single opportunity where we didn’t enjoy.
How life passed since then was never noticed as happiness takes you through all ups and down and then she was moved to Southern Command KV school.
She came back to our class again but this time she was a matured girl only to be reserved.

“Friendship isn’t a big thing – it’s a million little things”

I always cherished – Arunima of 2nd grade. Never got to know what happened but inside our heart we had that warmth for each other.
Today after many years I happened to talk to her and I could feel the same soft voice of hers which used to sing and make everyone soothing.
It’s true, we say past is past but how much happiness they bring to present is a present in itself.

“Bring the past only if you are going to build from it.” ~ Domenico Cieri Estrada

Thank You Arunima for bringing those moments alive once again in thoughts!

This post of mine is dedicated to all my school and college mates – with whom I have spent my best of childhood and teenage life which brings back all that moments alive as I am meeting them one by one.

“If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older” ~ Tom Stoppard

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To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else

Dawn2 Comments

Life is so complicated, that I always refer back and wonder there was nothing wrong with my childhood. Why life doesn’t remain a child always?

As a kid we fight with our best friend and we also know how to make it up. But its only when we grow up we don’t know how to make up and why is that? Specially, when we say kids don’t know anything they are still growing..they are still learning.

“We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today” ~ Stacia Taushcher

I think it’s time for a change in understanding that kids are not mere kids who don’t know anything. In fact we can learn a lot even if we have grown up we have our kids or kids around us from whom we can learn.

I always like to go back to my childhood and many of my friends say that I am going in my past. There is nothing wrong in taking tips and learning from past – isn’t it?

My dad many times supported me as a child on my decisions and I think he knew exactly what he was doing at that time even though it looked to my mom that my dad is unnecessarily spoiling me!

This reminds me of an incident it was my 12th birthday. I remember I had few friends who used to fight to be my best friends. Why if you ask, I am not sure may be because of my fun loving nature or something else but they used to make me say it and make me write it on my rough book that – so and so is my best friend.

“Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget”


I remember my nature was that I used to do it just to make them happy. Because prior doing that I always used to tell them that you all are my best friends and one is under one arm and the other is another and I used to put my arms around them. I realize still they had this insecurity of loosing me as a friend.

Hence I used to write it and I think this nature of mine make them take me for granted! Something that we all complain today about it isn’t it?

In all this we had another rival friend who always wanted to be the boss. I am pretty sure these things exist even today in school with kids. The names might have changed like a popular group and not so popular group.

Anyway when this ‘want-to-be’ popular person tried to influence my friends it didn’t work out in her favor and it so happened that she tried to play in a bad way – which we might call it as bad politics! See even kids know how to play politics and those who don’t will never learn anyway!

This friend – why I call her a friend is because she used to act as our friend and we trusted her. She tried to influence my friends and it so happened that they all came for my birthday celebration – wished me, brought presents, sang with me and had a ball of time. Everyone went home and around 10 p.m. we get a knock at our back door. When my mom opened the gate we see all of my friends along with this ‘want-to be’ popular friend and they started complaining about me to my mom.

Your daughter said this about her and that and what not and it came to a stage where my mom was getting so furious that she called me with anger and said, you call them your friends? Now on you are going to school only to study and no friendship. You don’t go to school to make friends. Hence forth you will not talk to any of them.
My mom told my friends that hence forth my daughter will not talk to you anymore. Please don’t make any friendship with her. If she is so bad then you shouldn’t be having such friend.

That night was a terrible night for me – the fun and excitement of my birthday ended as if a beautiful piece of glass vase was thrown down from top only to crush it into tiny pieces.
The night went in thinking as what made that my friends who were looking for me to be their best friend changed them so bad that they were complaining about me to my mom? and then my mom’s decision that was just thrown at me. No one asked for any explanation, nothing as if I don’t have a say!
I was very upset and waited till the night took me into the darkness till where I unknowingly went to sleep.

Next day when I woke up it was rough and sour – the feeling. I was kind of unhappy and was angry with everyone I suppose and hence I got ready for school. When my mom was about to leave for her office she came to me and said, ‘so you remember what I said yesterday? I don’t want you to be friends with such kids who come on your birthday and complain about you. You don’t need such people as your friends.’

I was like mom, now in school what will I do? When everyone is going to play I will have no one to play… !
My mom said, ‘you have only these friends as friends in school? You don’t have any other kids? and this made me think…and I just took my bag and walked out of my house to go to school.
I felt the way to school was longer today than the other days. I was feeling as if every one on the way, every shopkeeper from Gole Market and the people around there knew what happened yesterday night. I was some how looking down and walking towards school.

I reached my class and kept my school bag on the bench. My friends so called who just added cherry on my birthday cake last night were sitting and observing me as what will be my next move.

I am very scared of my mom’s anger and hence to follow her instruction is the only way and hence I went to other friends in my class and started talking to them. I went for my assembly with them. I didn’t look at anywhere else and made my self comfortable with my other friends. These friends were the nerdy ones who are very good in studies – very good in the sense they don’t come below 97%. Some may find that very good but I always felt education is not all about percentage. Probably I used to understand life’s core ethics from my dad’s heavy duty proverbs that we live for today and live it fully as we don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow.

One thing I noticed that I started completing my homework in school during the free time as these kids were like that. When I used to go home, I used to walk home with these kids. Though life was a bit different but I didn’t mind the change. Some how my dad always taught me to adopt the life style of ‘when you are in Rome be like Romans’ !
“Life’s not always fair. Sometimes you can get a splinter even sliding down a rainbow” ~ Terri Guillemets


I didn’t even come to know how time flew away that it was the year end where I had participated in a fancy-dress competition and guess what none of my nerd friends were there in this.

It was awkward for me as I was dressed up as a native from State Kerala – which is in the southern part of India. I had worn the traditional sari and I had to say two sentences – ‘I am a lady from Kerala and I am proud about its culture.’
I had to say this in the native language of Kerala – i.e. Malayalam.

It will be funny to say that no one was with me yet I got first prize and it started raining like cats and dogs.
I was very happy. The day was done for all the students after the fancy dress competition and other cultural activities. My so called friends who spoiled my birthday didn’t participate in anything but I saw them coming behind me.

I was walking in the rain with my umbrella as that was part of my fancy dress, these friends behind me whispering – call her – you go – you talk to her.
I was still walking without letting them know that I know now the tables have turned.

I crossed the road and the school seemed to be going far and the Gole Market came near by, the smell of sweets like balusha, jalebi and ladoos from Karachi Sweet Mart.
Suddenly, the so called boss came in and said we all want to say, sorry to you’ and they gave me a greeting card which I still remember had a blue peacock and inside was – We are sorry, please forgive us. We will be friends forever.
I stopped and looked at all of them and smiled – it was a feeling where I had already forgiven them in my heart. Life is much more than this and I had these realization when I was ten and hence at that time I just smiled at them and said, I would like you to come and tell this in front of my mom so that if she allows me to be friends with you only then I will re-unite with you all.

We all walked together and reached home. We didn’t talk through out as we were walking in the puddle and splashing water. My off-white sari was getting spoiled yet the feeling of getting wet and playing in the rain is something you can only feel no one else!

Today mom had a weekly day off and hence when I knocked the door she opened it and excitingly she asked, how was your fancy dress competition?’ and believe me I was all excited to show her the trophy and certificate that I got. My mom gave me a big hug and that’s when she saw my these friends.
My mom gave a look at me as – what’s all this about now? and she asked them – did my daughter do another mistake this time?

And, I was like mom please, they want to be my friends again! and I showed the card that they gave me.

My mom invited them and we all had the sweet porridge that I love – it was a celebration.

All I can say is my mom was happy that I kept her word and everything turned out to be as she expected. But my question was, what made to happen all this?

The so called boss was way elder to us and it was her mind that created all the differences among us. I maintained my friendship with all nerds and these ones and never showed any difference but my friends came to know what one should believe in and what one shouldn’t.

Kids learn from their mistakes but elders not necessarily!

“I brought children into this dark world because it needed the light that only a child can bring” ~ Liz Armbruster


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“I’d rather have a moment of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special.”

Dawn19 Comments

It was one of the winters when I was flying from Toronto to New Jersey to meet my friend Shika.
It was a long weekend and I had nothing much to do so his timely invitation worked out for me.

I landed on Friday evening and that’s when Shika told me that we have to attend a wedding party.
I was totally zapped…a wedding party? who’s party? Do I know them? etc..etc..!

Let me tell you about Shika, this guy was and is never serious in life. I guess he was never serious when he proposed me and hence today we are friends’ still but not a couple …lol! As usual his reaction was so what they all know you.

First I was a bit hesitant as me and Shika we are kind of dare devil in this matter but what about those whom I don’t know yet? But then I also thought who cares…am Shika’s guest and he is taking me so I was chilling out. I made sure Shika is carrying the gift.
We reached home had coffee and lots of goodies from India as Shika just made a trip to India and so he brought all sorts of unique sweets and snacks from Pune.

Dinner was not a issue as we got dressed up to go for the wedding party. They were Couple met via internet and now they got married – girl is from Kerala and the guy is from Chennai.
The moment I was introduced there after other formalities – the groom asked me where I completed my education and based on the University this guy just got freaked out and said now no one messes up with Dawn as she is from my University and then it was a history that I didn’t know these people.

“Nothing is more exciting and bonding in relationships than creating together” ~ Stephen R. Covey

In that event I met lot of new people – all jokers just like me – meaning carefree and having fun jokes and what not! I met this well built guy Puneet – a handsome charmer – girl’s go crazy for him this is what I heard from him. I don’t know when I was introduced to him and rest is history.
We became so good friends that night when we were leaving he was like – I am throwing a party for Dawn before she leaves to Toronto and he took me and Shika to Ethiopian restaurant – I still remember I loved the food.

That day I got a compliment from Puneet saying – I like your company because with you
there is no formality, one can talk openly and be friend without the thought one is guy and other is a gal.

“It is superstitious to put one’s hopes in formalities, but arrogant to refuse to submit to them.” ~ Blaise Pascal

After that, I didn’t get a chance to meet Puneet but we are in touch via emails or a surprise phone call.

Lately, I got busy at work and with my moving etc…I have to admit some of my do’s I have been not doing it 🙂 and this friend of mine called me just to remind that 🙂

“Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.”

It was hilarious talking to him and we joked a lot and as usual I pulled his leg and finally he ends up the call by saying – ‘I like your company because with you there is no formality 🙂

He is very sweet – when he didn’t get any greetings for Independence day from me he got worried about me 😀
I still feel laughing about this event….but yes, friends do love no matter where you are, whether you are in touch with them on regular basis or not – but they do care which is most important of all

Three cheers to my friend Puneet

“A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked” ~ Bernard Meltzer

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