I'm shook

Every Monday morning, after I pack Xena's snack box, I stick a little sticky note on it. It usually features a random drawing with a speech bubble wishing her luck for a test, or just to say hello from mommy.

(Hey, don't judge. I drew these at 6 in the morning, ok?)

She really looks forward to my notes and from what she tells me, some of her classmates do too. She diligently brings the notes back and gives me constructive feedback on whether the drawings were cute or not, and what I can do to improve them. Sometimes she asks me to explain things, like what the motion lines that I sometimes draw around the arms and legs of the characters indicate. 

Yesterday, I was looking through one of her classroom workbooks that the teacher had sent back. She had to write three words ending with -ook, and draw a picture to show one of them. I was so amused (and impressed) to see that though she could have easily drawn 'cook' or 'book', she chose to go off the beaten track and drew 'shook' using the motion lines we had discussed.

Takes right after her dad, I can see.

The rolling stones

Two months ago, a friend added me to a very cool pebble-painting group whose main objective is to get kids away from electronics, and out and about in nature. It's become a big craze in Australia, New Zealand and some parts of the US, and something that tech-crazy kids of Singapore desperately need. It's like the analog version of Pokemon Go.

The rules are simple -- you paint pebbles and hide them around parks and playgrounds for other kids to find. What you find, you re-hide in another location. You post photos of what you paint, hide and find, and your personal hashtags at the back of the pebbles can help you trace where your artwork has travelled. Singapore may be a tiny island, but it sure is heartening to find in the west coast a pebble painted by a kid living in the east coast.

Xena and I already do a lot of art and craft and outdoorsy stuff, so this fitted right into our interests. However, I had no clue how obsessed she (and me; mainly me actually) would get.

Here are my top reasons for loving, loving, loving this new hobby:

1. It promotes creativity and resourcefulness. 
You can paint absolutely anything on the pebbles using any media you like. In the beginning, we had no suitable art supplies —just two bags of pebbles we had bought. Xena's water colours and finger paints turned out to be no good for painting on the surface of the pebbles. While I checked around to see what kind of paints and markers would be the best, we had to make do with whatever was at hand. So we used nail polish for colours, a correction pen for white and markers for outlines. Since I was really into nail art at one point, I do have some very funky colours and nail art tools. And I have to say they served us very well. And because the 'canvas' is so small, you don't need any real artistic skills. Anything you paint on a pebble will end up looking cute.

This entire batch was painted using nothing but nail polish and nail art tools.

At this point, I'm doing most of the painting, though Xena helps me do the base coats and paints some of the simpler designs after I do the outlines. 

Most of this is Xena's handiwork, with a little help from me.

2. It gets kids out and about. 
Xena and I often go for long walks to faraway parks and playgrounds. By the time we are done, she's often very tired and if we haven't taken her scooter along, I encounter some "carry me" whines. (Now, she may be super-light, but I ain't carrying a 6-year-old home.) However, since we started on this, I don't hear any complaints at all. Scooter or no scooter, she cheerfully ventures near and far in search of painted pebbles. And she goes to great lengths to find them.

We were pebble-hiding near the cable ski lagoon at the beach with a friend, when she borrowed his toy binoculars and said, "Mama, I'm looking hard for pebbles!"

3. It teaches kids to share. 
It's simple: paint --> hide and find -> re-hide. You can't hold on to the pebbles you find, no matter how pretty they are or how much you like them. You can keep them to admire for a day or two, but you gotta release them eventually for others to feel just as happy as you did when you found them. Xena gets this, and I sure am glad that she's able to let go of stuff this easily.

4. It's a cycle. 
If I had a penny for every piece of artwork that Xena handed to me that I actually kept, boy oh boy. Every term, her preschool also sends me every single drawing of hers, and some of them are, well, I have no idea what they are. On an average, I keep about one in twenty. The rest dutifully make their way to the recycle bin, mostly when she's asleep. It's true; kids are inherent hoarders. They get attached to the most random things -- leaves, twigs, candy wrappers, ribbons, pieces of blu tack (I kid you not), etc. What they'd want to do with these things is anybody's guess, but they do love them dearly. So you can only imagine how attached kids can get to a cute pebble with a cute mascot painted on it. Now imagine if you kept every pebble you painted and every pebble you found. That's a lot of stuff to keep in the house, and goes totally against our general KonMari philosophy. So I'm actually happy that the pebble artwork gets renewed and recycled without anyone having to throw anything away.

5. It teaches kids how to deal with disappointments.
This is my absolute favourite. This generation of kids rarely have to deal with failure and disappointment in their childhood. (That's why 'participation prizes' bug me. Why are we rewarding kids for just turning up?) My worry is that when they grow into (rather entitled) adults, they will not be able to cope with all the curveballs life is gonna throw at them. Rock-hunting is great for this reason -- you might spend an hour combing through a park and find ZERO pebbles and that's okay. And of course, there is always the heartbreaking possibility of your beautifully painted pebble being discovered by someone who doesn't know what it is; someone who just picks it up and keeps it, or worse, throws it into the bin. Oh, well.

6. It's 'reboot' time for me.
Viv has been insanely busy with cricket so our weeknight Netflix sessions start only around 10 pm after he gets back from training. I end up with some free time after putting Xena to bed, so I just sit down and paint the stuff that *I* want to paint, without getting distracted with phrases like "Mama, this fish looks angry. We need to change its mouth!" or "Mama, please draw a JigglyWigglypie [aka random cartoon character she learnt about from her classmates that I have no clue about and have to google to draw]." This 'me time' is really calming. I can literally tuck away all my other thoughts and just focus on the pebble I'm painting. And now I have armed myself with acrylic paints and better markers, so the pebbles are looking better too.

Here are some of our latest creations. Will update as we paint more!

Not a piece of cake

Like many people, I've also had my fair share of chuckling at articles that show the contrast between how a dish looks on the recipe website and how it looks when a normal human actually makes it. Which is why, when I saw the Youtube recipe for a cake that had a colourful checkered pattern on the inside, I went, "Yeah, right." Seriously? You want me to believe that I can cut open a normal-looking cake and it will magically have a colourful checkered pattern inside? Ha!

Months passed, but I still couldn't get it out of my head. The math in the recipe seemed about right, and more importantly, curiosity was killing me. So I decided to do it. In a low-stakes setting. Our old gang was getting together for a night out after ages, and Viv was flying off the next day, and as usual wasn't going to be in Singapore for his birthday. I figured this was the perfect setting to attempt to make the checkered cake.

So I did, and the results were phenomenal. Viv's expression when he cut open the innocent-looking pale cake justified the 46429436034532 hours I'd put into making this cake. And I got some high praise from the two big bakers in my family -- my mom and my sister. My mom said it was the most beautiful-looking cake she's ever seen. Praise from her on anything food-related is like ZOMG levels. Friends have been trying to figure out how on earth I made it. A neighbour has already asked me to help her make it for her daughter's birthday. Since it's been such a hit, I thought I'd blog about it, and also share the instructions for all you bakers out there.

Here you go!

You're welcome. :)

Flying colours

Hello bewdas and bewdis,

Too many of you have asked how Xena and I made the elephant artwork featured in the previous post. Since good things must be shared, here are the details.

What you need: 

- A blank mounted canvas

- Scissors

- Black paper
- Crayons

- Glue

- A hair dryer

Step 1: Think of a concept you want to make a picture out of. Xena was given the following three options, but you can do almost anything actually. 

Step 2: Cut out the desired shape (e.g. the elephant's head) on the black paper. Fortunately for us, the cut-outs had already been made by the hosts, so we just needed to pick one. 

Step 3: Select the crayons you want to use (we chose rainbow colours) and break them into thirds. 

Step 4: Place the black cut-out on the canvas (do not stick it yet) and stick the crayons on the canvas with glue. 

Step 5: After the glue has dried, use a hair dryer and melt away! Tilt the canvas to control where the flowing wax goes. I don't have a picture of us using the hair dryer on our picture, but here's another kid using the hair dryer on her picture. This should give you an idea of what to do. 

Step 6: Stick the black cut-out over the melted and dried wax. Ta-da!

Xena used some fluffy beads to decorate her artwork. To be honest, I'd have preferred not to have them at all (I feel it looked classier without), but she really really wanted them... that too, all over the painting. Yikes. So we negotiated and reached a compromise -- we would have the beads, but they would match their background. 

Art attack

"Ok this is very eerie, in light of what I recently blogged about."

These were my first thoughts when I saw it.

But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.

So last weekend, Xena and I attended an art-themed birthday party. The birthday girl's dad is an amazing artist, and I say 'amazing' because I've seen his portrait of his wife and it actually looks like his wife.

At the party, each kid was handed a mounted blank canvas and some crayons. So my immediate thought was, "Oh, they're gonna get the kids to scribble on the canvas." and because the average age of the kids at the party was five, my next thought was, "Oh dear, what a waste of the nice mounted canvas..."

But I was in for a big surprise.

The artist gave everyone step by step instructions on what to do, and because the steps involved scissors, glue and a hairdryer (to melt down the crayons, no less!), I pitched in to help Xena.

Before we'd started, she had been shown three 'sample paintings' and she had to pick one to mimic. I had absolutely no say in which painting she'd picked, but look at what we had made at the end of the day!

My head is still reeling a little bit.

P is for painting

"Beautiful place," said an acquaintance who'd visited our newly renovated home. "Now all you need are some paintings on all the bare walls."

I smiled politely at her. There would never, EVER be paintings (in the plural no less) on ALL the bare walls as she had pointed out.

I don't hate paintings, but I probably lack the aptitude to appreciate them. A few weeks ago, Viv and I went to an art gallery (Why on earth, you ask? Because they had a children's art workshop that Xena was going to love). We did roam around a little, looking at the various paintings on display. I spent a very very loooong time (about 13 seconds), looking at a particular painting that was priced very affordably. Only $112,000. Two words came to mind at the end of the 13 seconds. Preschool artwork.

So in our home, we have a grand total of one painting. Come to think of it, it's not even a real painting. It's just a giant photograph that comes in the form of five vertical strips that we have hung on our living room wall. I believe that more than the 'painting' itself, I liked the whole 'cut up into strips' concept. Viv and I took three days to decide which one to buy though. I wanted to go for something that would match our brown couch and yet have a splash of colour to liven things up (aka a nice-looking landscape) but he wanted a picture that would mean something to us, e.g. a place we had travelled to or a picture that we had taken. So we reached a compromise and got ourselves a beach landscape that matched the couch and had a splash of colour.

We agreed on a beach because we love beaches and have gone on a lot of beach vacations together, though we have never dared to take our DSLR along on one. Some day, if we ever repeat our Telunas island vacation, I'd like to go there armed with the DSLR and come back with a stunning picture to print in a bigass size and hang on the living room wall.

The only time I've ever coveted a painting was one that I saw literally displayed on the road at the Chiang Mai Sunday street market. It showed the profile of an elephant's head peeping into the painting. For some reason, I found it remarkable. 70% of the painting was just white space, and the elephant's head and trunk were simply made up of splashes of colourful paint. We couldn't bring it back with us because the thought of owning it struck me too late. Anyway, it was too big for us to have brought it back in our luggage. After getting back to Singapore, I tried to check if I could find it online and have it shipped to me, but all Google gave me when I typed 'Chiang Mai elephant painting' was pictures of sad elephants being forced to make paintings using paintbrushes held in their trunks.

Anyway, I tried not to get too obsessed over it as I'm strongly opposed to the idea of repeating holiday destinations (mainly because the world is so big and there is so much to see), so it's unlikely that we will go back to Telunas or Chiang Mai or New Zealand or the other gorgeous places that we were foolish enough to go to without a giant camera. However, because the world is so big and there is so much to see, I'm sure we'll find something along the way that will nicely adorn a wall in our home.

Meanwhile, here's the most beautiful painting in my life at the moment -- my new iPad cover that I had to wait two whole months for because it was out of stock and I wanted this and only this. Viv's reaction was "Hmm...", but I love it to bits. In Konmari's words -- it sparks joy in my heart.

V is for vocals

"You know, when your sister was a baby, her cry was so melodious. OooOOooO." My Mom said.

"Wow. What about me? Was my cry melodious too?" I grinned.

"Errr...." was her reply.

Fine. Apparently it was more "WAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!" than my sister's gentle "OooOOooO".

Fine.

So I didn't have a great start to my vocals journey. But unlike my OooOOooO-ing sister, I have loved music and singing ever since I was a kid. Mom used to sing on radio when she was young, so it was a dream for me to do that some day. Except that my music teachers at my primary school didn't quite think so. The male teacher was still okay, but the new female teacher couldn't stand me. Once, we all auditioned for a singing part for the school function. I'd barely sung 3 words when she put up her hand and dismissed me with a pained expression. Her final pick was this girl called Desdemona (parents must be fans of Shakespeare, methinks). Fine.

A few months later, we had a chance to do a musical play on radio, and the story was that of the rabbit who fooled the lion into thinking that there was another lion in the well. And guess who was chosen to sing the parts of the rabbit? MOI. Not Desdemona. MOIHAHAHAHA! I still remember the song. It was very jingle-like and it went, "Is bhayaanak sher se humko pana hai chhutkara, is bhayaanak!" Radio dream? Check. Of course, my mom sang 'Raina beeti jaaye' while I sang 'Is bhayaanak' but still.

That was the high point of my 'musical career'. The song never left my head. Even when we had some random minister or school inspector visiting the school and we had to wear saris and sing, "Aap aaye chaman mein vasant aa gaya, kokila gaa uthi swaagatam swaagatam", in my head, I'd be looking at him and singing, "Is bhayaanak sher se humko pana hai chhutkara, is bhayaanak!"

In high school, I did sing for inter-house and inter-school competitions, but my real exposure to singing came during my university days when I successfully auditioned for NTU's Indian musical band. For four years, I worked with highly trained people and learnt a lot. Of course, they were very supportive and tried their hardest to camouflage the shortcomings of this amateur singer. Some songs were too high-pitched for me, and nobody could hear me sing. Well, dogs, perhaps. And they literally used to lower the scale for me. (I know some of them are reading this, smiling and nodding their heads. Hi, guys!)

Then in 2005, I had a chance to audition for Antakshari. Here in Singapore, in front of Annu Kapoor. It was just the first round, so all he was asking people to do was just sing the mukhda of one song and go. He asked me the same and I started with 'Mera kuchh saamaan'. I was about to bow and leave after my mukhda but he asked me to sing another one. So I sang, 'Tujhse naaraaz nahin zindagi'. Surprise surprise, he asked for another one. So I sang, 'Tere bina zindagi se'. He seemed lost in thought for a while, and then said, "You like Gulzar songs, don't you?" I nodded. Then he said something like he didn't think I'd do justice to 'energy wale songs' and dismissed me. I didn't make it to the next round. Obviously. See, how I planted the axe firmly on my foot because of my dukhi aatma songs?

Fast-forward 10 years. Music is still forever playing in our home. I'm either listening to songs or singing them. All the time. So Xena has been exposed to it since a very young age. When she started talking, I couldn't wait for her to start singing. I'd sing the opening lines of a song and let her provide the ending word. Of course, sometimes she'd just say 'POOP' after my enthusiastic "It's the time to..?"   Of course now, she's a lot better and sings along with me. For some strange reason (and to my delight), she seems to like old songs. Mera naam Chin Chin Choo, Kajra Muhabbat Wala, etc.

Last year, I briefly entertained the idea of finally taking formal music lessons. But then the idea of learning Mandarin appealed to me more, and I only had space for one class in my water-tight schedule.

Besides, why stress myself with formal lessons when I'm having so much fun just singing, especially with my new singing partner Xena?

N is for nail art

In my resolutions for 2015 post, I'd mentioned that I'd like to pick up a new skill - something creative and fun. And that it was most likely going to be nail art.

So yes, I've started. However, I've not really had the chance to delve too deep into it. I understand that YouTube and Pinterest have thousands of videos and images on the subject, and if some day I have the time, I will most definitely go through them and pick up new ideas. But at the moment, I've been doing basic stuff and having fun with it. It really helps to have a willing guinea pig, aka the sis-in-law, who really doesn't mind any colour or pattern, and has made even me (someone who used to stick to pinks and maroons) more open to really quirky colours.

Therefore, it was only natural for me to think of posting some of my nail art pics for the N post.

It started with me trying to jazz up a boring pink shade on my nails on a rare afternoon with no deadlines. 

I really liked the duotone design and before I knew it, I'd bought blue and purple nail colours, which I normally wouldn't even dream of!

The diagonal lines felt a little boring, so I tried the 'cloud effect' with some dotting tools.

More clouds

I'd been sending pictures of whatever I'd been doing to the sis-in-law, who got super excited and came over right away to get her nails done. 

I did this on her nails. The silver strips were also bought online along with the dotting tools. Unfortunately, the strips didn't last more than a day (in spite of a top coat), so I went back to using only nail colours.

The next time we got together for more nail art, she wanted this polka dot design. It looked funky and she pulled it off so well!

She even wore something matching to work the next day and sent me this picture!

This is one of my favourites. I'd done this for a ladies' night out with some mommy friends (aka 'let's-throw-the-kids-at-the-hubbies-and-go-drinking'), where I was in a purple top and white capri pants. 

I like the idea of accenting just one nail and painting the rest normally. It's also easier and faster, especially because I'm still not good at painting the nails on my right hand!

Another accented design. I'm wearing my gym clothes in this picture. My nails matched them exactly. Totally unintentional!

This was me trying a marbled effect. It didn't turn out that great. I guess I need more practice.

A closer look at the marbled design

And the last one is the latest. I did it on Monday for my birthday party, to match my birthday dress! 

K is for kthxbai

A few years ago, I'd recruited a bunch of fresh grads in my team. I hung out with them quite a bit in the beginning (welcome lunch, orientation, teaching the ropes, status update meetings, etc.) but contrary to popular belief, hanging out with them did not make me feel younger. If anything, I felt old. Even though I thought I knew their lingo, I didn't. Apparently OMG and LOL were so passé, and ZOMG and kthxbai were in.

When I first came across 'kthxbai', I had no clue what it was. It looked like Kantabai, but obviously a bunch of Singaporean-Chinese fresh grads would not be talking about Kantabai. So I turned to Google. Apparently it is 'the internet bastardization of "OK, thank you, goodbye" and is a hasty way to tell someone goodbye, especially if you do not want to talk to them'.

Wow. Okay.

One of them told me how she sent a very long polite email to an unreasonable client, but that "the essence of the email was basically, you know, kthxbai".

I was amazed. Normally, I get annoyed to see stuff like 'c u' or 'call mi' or 'luv da color'. But this 'kthxbai' really intrigued me. I wasn't even sure I knew how to use it properly. So I never really did. And then I kind of forgot about it.

Until last Saturday, when another kid reminded me how to use it.

I'd taken Xena to an Easter party that had a lot of children's activities. Easter egg sculpting and painting, colouring bunny pictures, pick-up sticks, etc. Xena thoroughly enjoyed the egg-painting and wanted to colour the bunnies next. So we headed to the booth and got the picture and the crayons. She sat on a chair and looked around at all the other kids. They were all much older than her and busy colouring. Xena picked up a few crayons and asked me which she should use for which parts of the picture. We were examining the crayons and discussing when the lady manning the booth gave me a dirty look and said quite loudly, "Don't help her, can? You should let her do it by herself."

I was a bit taken aback because we were just talking about the colours and it was not like I was doing the actual colouring on behalf of Xena. Also, it was just a party, everyone was having fun, there was no need to be so teacher-like and start scolding parents. But I didn't want to be rude, so I just nodded my head.

The next thing I knew, Xena had pushed the piece of paper back towards the lady with a "I don't want to colour anymore."

I didn't know how to react at this supposed standing-up-for-mommy stance of hers, but we just gathered our things and walked away. The lady was gaping, and even made an attempt to stop us.

But our decision was final.

It was kthxbai.

My musical monkey

I'm so thrilled. Xena is showing interest in Hindi songs! I was humming Piyu bole and she seemed to take a keen interest in it, even attempting to sing some of it with me. Here's the video of us singing Piyu bole.



And oh, do you guys know of the cup song from Pitch Perfect? I didn't, till my sis-in-law mastered and recorded the very complex-looking cup moves that go with the song. I showed Xena the clip and she was so fascinated she wanted to try it out! Here she is, having a go at it. (Not that she gets anywhere, but it's music to my ears.) But before that, here's a fascinating a cappella cover of the original.

Young at art

Whenever I change Xena's clothes, she has this hilarious habit of saying "Hand klangya?" ("Hand kahan gaya?", or "Where did the hand go?") before her hands emerge from the ends of her sleeves, and "Toe klangya?" before her toes emerge from the ends of her pants. I've been trying to capture it on camera for the longest time. Finally, today, during one of our fingerpainting sessions, she said it when I put on her painting bib, and I got it on camera! Yooohooo!



Okay, the second video is just us talking about random stuff as she paints so bewdas might find it boring. The mother in me of course doesn't. If you manage to watch it though, you'll see how she still refers to 'Angry Bird' as 'Abhijeet' (or something like that). I still don't know why!

Music to my ear(ring)s

So Clueless examines my earring collection and asks me, "Hmmm... how many pairs of earrings do you think you have?"

"Uhh... I don't know... 50-60 pairs maybe?" I hazard a guess.

Interesting question, I thought to myself. I never really sat down to count them. The reason was that if you looked into my earring boxes, you'd be most likely to find ELORE, which sounds like a pretentious brand of ridiculously expensive earrings, but actually stands for 'Enormous Lump Of Random Earrings'. To find out how many there were, I'd need to separate them, and then pair them, and then count them. Let's just say that task looked like something I should set aside to do after retirement.

I plead guilty. I have a terrible weakness for earrings. Especially the kind you get on the streets - not only are they dirt-cheap, you can get them in virtually every colour to match with every single one of your clothes. Once I bought a pair of green earrings for Rs. 7 from a roadside stall in Delhi and because none of my clothes went with it, bought a 3000-rupee green churidaar kameez. I am proud to say that I do not indulge in such idiotic behaviour anymore, and have actually reversed the buying process. However, even though I do buy them at a higher frequency than I buy shoes, the large mass has accumulated due to the kindness of my friends and a rather generous sister who figured that unlike shoes, size doesn't matter when it comes to buying earrings for me (it's true) and contributed to my ELORE collection with open hearts.

Going back to Clueless' question, I only discovered why she asked me that when I saw this exquisite, self-designed, handcrafted earring holder. I was and still am completely bowled over by the beauty and practicality of this gift. That fact that it is handmade just adds to the charm.






































So I brought forward the post-retirement event. It took me almost two weeks to organise and arrange all the pairs, and every now and then just for kicks I'd call up people and ask them how many they thought I had. (Viv: "Err... about 40 pairs?" Mom: "You're mad. I'm sure you have like 50 pairs!" Sis: "50-60 pairs?")

Today I completed the task and counted. I will not tell you how many there are, but I do believe 113 pairs is not a small number.

Ladies and gentlemen, presenting the featured artists of the month at the bar - the very talented and creative Clueless and Machogirl, and their unbelievable creation.

The ultimate couple(t)

Most couples make me sick with their couply ways, especially when they act all coochie-coo romantic and what not. But thankfully, there are some couples that just give you a very good feeling each time you see them together. I think Javed Akhtar and Shabana Azmi are one such couple and I was lucky to catch them on an episode of 'Koffee with Karan' (one more time - Youtube ki jai ho!). Whether it was him teasing her about all her activist stuff, or her teasing him about his bad memory with appointments, it was a pleasure to watch them interact. I have written about them in the past, but here's another post dedicated to not just the most talented couple in Bollywood, but one of the most ideal as well. It's amazing how both being incredibly serious people, are also incredibly funny people at the same time.

Javed really stole the show when Karan asked him to recite a couplet for Shabana and he said:

Khush-shakal bhi hai woh
Yeh alag baat hai magar
Humko zaheen log hamesha aziz they.

("She is beautiful but that is besides the point...
The fact is that I have always loved intelligent people.")

Man, I was totally bowled over. Now this is the kind of couplet a girl would like to hear. Heh heh!

Darn, if only Viv wasn't so Urdu-challenged! :P


.

The code - cracked

Note: This is my 555th post. Panch sau pachpan washing powder panch sau pachpan! :D

So I have cracked my code, I mean 'cold' and can say my m's and n's. Yeay!

Now it's time to see which of you guys cracked my code on the last post! Everyone did well, but it was kinda expected, cos knowing Viv and me, you'd know that this would be very heavily cricket/Bollywood focussed. :D

1.



















Of course this is Dhoni! Most of you got it, but Himesh Reshammiya was a close contender. I guess it could be Himesh, but he has more facial hair, yeah? Other contenders were Jack sparrow and Yasser Arafat!

2.





















Again an easy-peasy one. There is only one famous muchhwala chef - Sanjeev Kapoor! Again, most of you got it, but special shoutout to Shub who thinks I am soooo SRK-crazy that I drew SRK in the movie Duplicate here. Haha! I don't think he had a moustache in Duplicate, did he? Army, yes, but Duplicate? :O Ursjina's guess was 'Sayesha's cook'! Damn I'm insulted! I dun need no cook-shook! :/ Ramkumar thought it was Viv! Hahaha!

3.





















Okay, this is the one drawing I am most ashamed of. Fortunately, some of you guessed it, and may I just say you guys ROCK for having guessed this is Oprah in spite of the very bad drawing. I didn't mean for the others to turn out as kids, I just wanted to show that on her show everyone cries. Viv took the longest to guess this one! Your guesses included Rakhi Sawant, Evita, Mamata Banerjee, Sayesha (SHEESH!), SRK (Shub, I'm gonna kill you for this one!), "some teacher", Kalam, Viv (SHEESH!), Hilary Clinton, Indian Idol, Madonna and Ms. Briganza aha (Duhita, bonus point for you for this one!)!

4.





















Yeah, Viv started with Beyonce too, but then I drew the big butt and he said Jennifer Lopez and then I drew the 'shake' lines near the butt and finally he guessed it was Shakira! Most of you also guessed one of the three. Sanchit and Bivas thought it's Mauli Dave (well done, guys!), while others came up with Annie (who's that?), Janet Jackson, Madonna, Britney, and Mariah Carey. Crazy Dhakkan gets bonus point for her guess "Saroj Khan trying her hand at singing".

5.














When Viv first drew this, I glared. "Dude, this is a cricketer. Do you know how many cricketers there are in the world?" Then he drew the goitre-like thing, and I immediately guessed it was Mandira Bedi. He wants a special shoutout to Kosh and VR who actually guessed this one correctly. Other contenders were Sachin, Dhoni, Ganguly, Symonds, Viv, Ponting, Malaika (why?), Sayesha (CHHEH!) and Deepika. My bonus point goes to Amey for asking, "Is that a bat or a knife?"

6.

















South Indian superstar - Rajnikanth! Most of you got it, but other contenders were Nelson Mandela (Sheesh, my India map looks like Africa?), Shah Rukh Khan, Dravid, Mani Ratnam, de-turbanated Manmohan Singh (shabash, Bivas!), Manoj Kumar, Big B, Himesh and Narendra Modi.


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Okay confession - first I thought I'll draw the guy who copies Harsha Bhogle, then I remembered that I did not remember his name, or whether he even wore glasses. Sheesh. So I decided to draw Harsha. Apologies to his fans for giving him the wrong kind of frames. Again, most got it, but some also guessed Kumble, Udayan Mukherjee, Dravid and Sachin.

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Okay, here come's Viv's famous body cast. Come to think of it, most of what he draws resembles this. However, since I have been thinking of OSO (haven't seen it yet!!! Oh the horror!), the moment he drew the two lines across the abs, I knew it was King Khan. Viv was a bit sad that I did not even let him complete the six-pack, but boy, was he delighted to see that many others also guessed it correctly. Bonus point to Raj for guessing 'Hangman' and to Crazy Dhakkan for guessing 'Gabbar with his arms re-growing'. Aequo Animo thought it was a scarecrow, whereas Sandew thought it was someone wearing an oversized T-shirt. Sowmya said, "LOL @ this. Hands look like mug handles." while Amey asked "A man?". Clueless thought it was an Ajanta/Ellora painting while Duhita christened him 'Plastic man' (I'm already singing in my head, "Plastic man, plastic man, friendly recyclable plastic man!"). Somya thought it was Rakhi Sawant because "anything that looks weird is Rakhi Sawant."

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This was another simple one that almost everyone got. Those who didn't guessed Gopi Chand, Ritwik Bhattacharya (who's that?) Mahima, Hingis, Sania Mirza, Leander Paes and Federer. Come on people, surely that doesn't look like a tennis ball? I took great pains to draw that shuttlecock! :/


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Again, if you're in the OSO frame of mind, this is a give-away. Most got it, but those who didn't guessed Sayesha (why oh why?), Ekta Kapoor, Deepa Mehta, Ahana Deol (she's a director already?), Barkha Dutt and Deepika.

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When I drew the heavy kohl and lipstick, Viv still couldn't guess it. So I just kept drawing bottles and tubes of cosmetics till he arrived at Shehnaz Hussein. Some of you got it. Other guesses included Kareena Kapoor (actually yeah, in Asoka she did look like this!), Aishwarya, not Sayesha (gee, thanks! :/), SRK (*throws a durian at Shub*), Britney, Rekha, Paris Hilton and Mandira Bedi. Amey responded with a "Did Halloween come late? Who is THAT? :o"

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Again, almost everyone got this. Those who didn't (and thought it was Siddhu, Sukhvir Singh, Ishmit, etc.) hmmmph! :/ Sanchit thought it could be Mika or Rabbi too, but Mika doesn't wear a turban and Rabbi doesn't wear this overcoat thingie. Ha! :D

Okay, it's time to announce the winners!!

1st prize goes to... Sandew with 9 correct answers! *a keg of pani puri ka pani to Sandew*

2nd prize is shared by... Sanchit, Kosh, Shekhar and Bivas with 8 correct answers! *a jug of pani puri ka pani to each*

3rd prize is shared by... Shashikant, Shub, Ursjina, Stone and Baawara Mann with 7 correct answers! *a glass of pani puri ka pani to each. Oh wait. Except Shub. Shub doesn't get anything. :/*

Thanks for playing, everyone! :)


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Crack the code

So I have a bad code ad by dose is blocked ad I'b sittig at hobe feelig bored ad I thought I'd write a blog post. Viv ad I played pictiodary last dight ad we drew sobe persodalities. Cad you guess who they are? I have edabled cobbet boderatiod so dobody cad copy others' adswers. I will release the results id the dext post, with special bedshud of special guessers.

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