Melbourne Moments- Week 1

Damn, I did it again! The intervals between my blog posts are getting longer every time, and I'm hating it. I do want my blog to be active and have a fresh feeling all the time, but sometimes I just get plain lazy, and other time, words don't come to me very freely even though I do sit down with the laptop and will the post to write itself so that I can add something new to my blog that has been gathering dust for weeks.

So today, I decided I had had enough of that, and started thinking of ways I could ensure the blog is updated with new stuff at least every week, if not every couple of days. And so I came up with this idea:

Monday Melbourne Moments- Every Monday, i will (try to) post pictures of places I've been around Melbourne and interesting events/objects I've witnessed here. Since it will be pictorial, there won't be the pressure of shelling out meaningful sentences when I don't have much to say.

Friday Fiesta- Since I love eating, cooking and trying out new recipes, Fridays will be about food. I will try to post pictures and recipes of dishes I've recently cooked, or at least yummilicious dishes I've recently eaten around town.

And anything else I feel like sharing can be posted any other day of the week. Well, to get the ball rolling, since it's Monday here, here's a snapshot from one of my recent adventures around Melbourne:

Hubby (the one on the right) and I (beside him) with a couple of friends in front of Flinders Street Station

Till next Friday, adieu!

Flip Sides

Almost two months have gone by since my last post. If any of you have been wondering the cause for my unannounced hiatus (I know one pesky little girl is!) at a time when there’s such a big change happening in my life, I will tell you that reason today. Well, frankly, it’s all been so overwhelming I just didn’t know where to start. So much has been happening, so many thoughts whirl in my mind all day…my fingers itch to write it all down to share with you guys here, yet I cannot begin to pick out a coherent string of words from that whirlpool of thoughts to convey all I want to say about how I feel these days.

For example, right now, I don’t know whether I should start off by telling you about the wondrous natural beauty of Melbourne that mesmerized me the moment I laid eyes on it from the airplane, or if I should talk about its freezing cold welcome that made me miss the hot humid confines of my overpopulated city. I don’t know if I should talk about how the vastness of this city overwhelms me each day I step out of the house, or the fact that there is not one inch of the city that feels like home to me right now. Maybe I could write about how my soul fills with joy when I look out of the window at night and am able to see the sky spackled with hundreds of stars (Dhaka’s sky is usually not that clear, and even when it is, the unplanned tall buildings make it impossible to see the beautiful stars) or would you rather know about how that very same vision brings tears to my eyes because it makes me feel how very far away my family is right now? Some days I wake up feeling grateful to the Almighty for having given me this beautiful opportunity to explore my dreams, and some days I cry to Him because the uncertainty of the future terrifies me.

I, however, have recently learnt to appreciate things like having a warm bed to sleep in after walking around for 4 or 5 hours in the chilly wind, food to warm my soul when the world outside seems extremely cold and distant, and understanding smiles from family members that tell you they know you’re trying, and it’s not your fault that you haven’t yet found a stable job even after looking so thoroughly for a month. Every day, I feel blessed that at least we have some family members (Hubby’s, to be exact) in this new world, or else I’m very sure I would’ve slipped into the dark grip of my old ‘companion’ by now (I do find it trying to squeeze its ugly way in sometimes, but so far, I've fought it off quite well, with mugs of masala chai latte that instantly seem to claim the void where depression sets its eye).

So, yes, here I am, in the country where I've been dying to run off to for the past couple of years, and now that I am finally here, I am caught between flip sides that terrify me and excite me at the same time. And thus I have decided to do the only thing I can do right now...move forward, and hope things will fall into place soon. And with each passing day, I am moving forward….I just don’t know towards what, yet.

A New Beginning

There’s a reason I haven’t written in here in the past few weeks. It’s because I wanted to wait and share with you a piece of news that I’ve been long waiting to disclose . Remember I wrote about something big about to happen in my life here?

Well, it’s official now! I am moving from the crowded Dhaka to the exotically beautiful city of…..waitforit, Melbourne, Australia! Yes, it’s the very same Melbourne that made its way to the top of the list of the Most Livable Cities in the year 2011, only to be beaten by Vancouver in 2012. Still, the second most livable city in the world is no small feat either, won’t you say?

I cannot begin to tell you how extremely excited I am in anticipation of this huge upcoming change in my life. Moving to a whole new city, no, country, no wait, CONTINENT  is HUGE for me, a girl who has only ever been to two other countries  outside her own country, that too, only within Asia. 

This would be a whole new chapter in my life: minus my crappy job, minus the traffic-loaded dusty  streets of Dhaka and minus the pollution. But it will also exclude the warmth of the bed that I’m so accustomed to at my current home, the company of friends who take up a big part of my heart and the warmth of having my family close by, just within reach whenever I want them. I have never been away from family for too long, so I cannot imagine how  it would feel to not meet my mother every other day at least or discuss politics on the dinner table with Dad or go out with my brother for burger feasts every so often. I’m sure this will all take a little time to get used to, but I’m also sure I will hold on.

It all seems like such a grown up thing to do! Moving to a new city with my best friend (hubby dear of course!), looking forward to so many new beginnings: new jobs, our first home for just the two of us (we live with his family here) and Masters degrees for the both of us. I’m sure it won’t all be such smooth sailing, and I hope there will be challenges too, for I’m sure they’ll only teach me perseverance and resilience and in turn mould my character towards maturity and stability. And if we two have the both of us together, I know no obstacle will ever be daunting enough for us to want to give up.

Oh, one thing I’m terribly happy about is that I will once again be able live in a city beside the ocean. I used to live in Chittagong before which had a small but lovely beach, but for the past 7 years, I’ve been living in Dhaka which is nowhere near a beautiful water body….this, I totally loathed. And now, it’s going to be Melbourne with its beautiful sunny beaches, I can’t imagine a better place to live in!

Well, I have just about 12 days left till the moving….gosh!!! I’ll have sooooo many things to tell you in the upcoming days, no, months, because of course I would love for you all to see the sights that I see and experience with me all the new things I come across in this new land. So, stick in here with me then, won’t you please?

Birthday Fiesta

I turned 25 a few days back! And I have looked at the number both ways: the carefree age range of 20-23 is still not too far behind me, while the maturity that comes with 30 is not very far either. I've also thought of it as a quarter of a century old, well that’s a scary thought! Anyways, age is always just a number, and at heart, I still feel hardly 17!

To celebrate, I had a homely birthday party with just close friends and family the night before my birthday. My mom-in-law and I prepared some yummy Indian-Asian fusion dishes for the dinner; you can have a look at them below:

Vegetable Shaslik

The dinner table set with my favorite dinner plates

 I tried my hand at making Coffee Creme Caramel, and it turned out perfect, to my utter glee:

And the highlight of the party was this beautiful, super yummy chocolate-laden piece of heaven one of my best friends baked for me:

I got several lovely birthday presents too, and among all of those, my favorite was this:

This friend sure knows me to the core :)

So that's all for today....I'll be heading for a little getaway this weekend with my friends.  We'll be heading to my grandparents' place in the beautiful outskirts of a little town called Sylhet, filled with lush tea gardens all around. My grandparents' duplex apartment spanning the 9th and 10th floors has some of the most beautiful views in the country. Hope to get some good pics for you guys to see :)



What are your weekend plans, do tell?

My Love She throws me like a Rubber Ball

My old friend, or rather enemy, or maybe ‘Frenemy’ as a new term goes, is back. She’s back with renewed vigor and a suppressed vengeance, it seems. This time, she’s got me in a tight grip and the physical effects have started showing: the dark circles turning from light ash to a sinister grey, the puffy eyes in the morning taking much longer than normal to subside, the skin looking so tired and ‘un-fresh’ all the time. But these really aren’t my biggest worries. I’m more upset by the thoughts she puts into my head: the restless fretting, the unnecessary reflections on the days gone by, the worries of the future. All this while the chaos of yet another meaningless day rushes towards me and I’m left to fight its anarchy with diminishing energy and sagging eyelids.

This frenemy of mine has been with me for years now. She’s fickle, comes and goes as and when she wishes, no particular pattern or reason. When she announces her arrival, she gets me wondering to what I owe the pleasure (NOT!) of her presence. When she leaves, I’m left looking for clues to what it was that drove her away. Most of the times, she brings along some of her friends and they seem to have a ball in my head every night. Her friends have ominous names too: Anxiety, Restlessness and Exhaustion.  They are often joined by Blankness, which is even more irritating than its other acquaintances.

This time, I don’t know how long my old friend/enemy will be staying and when she will suddenly decide to let go of her grip on me. *big sigh* I just hope she tires soon this time.

Three

I’ve recently learnt (the hard way) that only when we are faced with turmoil in our life, we learn to appreciate the good times that we once passed by oh-so-nonchalantly. And similarly, the not-so-genuine friends we have around us teach us to appreciate the value of true warmth and friendship that we sometimes tend to take for granted.

One such ‘friend’ recently erased her name from my list of close friends. Let’s not get into the ‘why’ and ‘how’, what matters is the whole incident gave my brain a thorough shaking and made me sit up and take stock of my life around me. What I realized was not disheartening at all. The friends I still have around me (albeit, very few) genuinely love and care for me like I do for them. My two best friends from childhood are still there with me in every step of life, in spirit, if not physically. And there's another one, very special to me and very close to my heart for she's more like me than anyone else I've ever met was/is. She's like a soul sister, a confidante who relates to every word I say and makes me feel like my thoughts are not as insane as I reckon them to be. I'm very lucky to have these three very special ladies in my life, and I cherish them more now that I have realized such strong bonds are not to be taken for granted.

Three may not be a big number, but it’s more than enough for me. And just three will be enough to carry me through a lifetime.

With or Without You

 

As a child, I remember wondering how my mother could bear to stay away from her friends for such prolonged periods of time and only meet up with them on weekends or special occasions. To me, it seemed like something I would never, EVER be able to do. I just HAD to see my friends every day, or at least chat with them on the phone for at least an hour, if not more. During the teenage years, my two best friends meant the world to me, and the thought of not seeing them every day was unimaginable. We went to school together and went to tutors’ classes together, and as if staying together for something like 8-9 hours a day wasn’t enough, we’d come back home and chatter away on the phone till our mothers screamed their lungs out at us.

To think that the scenario today couldn’t be more ‘opposite’ is still shocking to me.The three of us hardly get to meet anymore. One of them lives in a different city while the other lives in the same city as I do, yet our worlds have drifted so far apart that we can hardly ever synchronize to catch up with a hangout. Funny thing, I don’t feel the sharp pangs of ‘missing’ I used to once upon a time. If anything, I rather like spending my weekends at my home, reading magazines or watching sitcoms or happily cooking in my kitchen. I like the distance and the space it allows me and the fact that I no longer feel the urge to share my inner turmoil or future plans with them on a regular basis like I did once upon a time. What was once unthinkable has been happily accepted as the norm now. Is this what adulthood does to everyone? I can’t figure out yet if it’s a good thing or a bad one.