Vincent

On the way back from a friend's house last night, Don McLean's 'Vincent' came on the radio, or 'Starry Starry Night' as it is better known as. Since the first time I ever heard it, this song has held the power to send me off on a melancholy walk through the dark tunnels inside my head, for some reason I never quite grasped. It wasn't any different last night. Not that I was in a chirpy mood to start with. You see, I've been trying to deal with some 'issues' lately, which many will say are just a regular part of growing up. But me, I find it difficult to process and accept facts like people we hold dear may not sometimes value us as much as we do them, or that people are often not what they project themselves to be. I just don't get it, this game of charades. I have intentionally always kept away from it, and I don't understand why anyone would want to take part in it in the first place. Each to their own, you could say, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't bother me when I realized some 'loved ones' had always only pretended to be the way they are in front of me. Anyways, I should probably save that story for another day.

Back to Vincent, the song, which led to me think about Vincent Van Gogh, the painter who inspired the song. The song made me google some of his works, and 

the question popped up in my head: has this world finished its quota of good artists forever? All the legendary painters, singers, sculptors, scientists have now been and gone. Are we ever going to see any more of such massively talented people? What is the future for art like? To be quite honest, the future of music seems quite bleak to me. The possibility of getting another Elvis or another Sinatra is next to nil, while the likes of Kanye and Beiber keeps increasing. At this rate, we may be heading for a world devoid of good art.  How depressing is that thought?

Back to life

Life had taken over, and I had forgotten about this space. This space that had given me much joy and serenity in the past had to move over to make space for the mundane banalities of adult life, and for a long while, I didn't get the time or energy to sit down and reflect on my thoughts. I felt the need to, from time to time, but I just couldn't find it in myself to gather my thoughts for some reason. But things changed recently and as I have often done in the past, I felt the need to turn to my writing, to pour my heart out and heal myself again. So here I am, once again, with not much to say but a universe inside my head that's currently in a whirlpool and needs to calm down.

Update

It's been a while since I've written here, and I can't even say I missed it much. There I was, one fine day in September, promising to give this blog the attention it deserves and then Boom! I was gone just like that. I have no reasonable explanation for this disappearance, besides the fact that, for a while, I just couldn't bear the thought of even looking at this blog, let alone, write something for it. Strange, I know!

But...right now, I'm here so let's not dwell on the how's and why's for too long...the sudden wish to write something again sprung out of the blue, and so I am here to give you an update of how life has been in Aussieland so far.

In one word, if I may, pretty-darn fantastic! The Hubby and I both managed to get somewhat satisfying and stable jobs around 6 months back, rented a tiny apartment of our own, went around Melbourne quite a bit and started to fall in love with this city bit by bit. We had a fabulous summer throughout which we visited beaches and festivals and all sorts of cheery places, and worked on turning our little flat as homely as possible. Our family and friends helped all throughout with generous donations like a bed, a bookshelf, kitchen appliances and whatnot. We are happy in this little house right now, the Hubby and I, and currently looking forward to welcoming my mother here who's supposed to visit in a few months, as well as a couple of our closest friends who will be moving to Melbourne and will be staying with us. Exciting times ahead, I tell you!

The only sad part, though, is that winter is on its way again, and I'm not looking forward to it one little bit. Melbourne winter just doesn't work for me, and if I wasn't looking forward to seeing my mother and my best friends, I would be really sad about the fast-approaching winter months.

Melbourne Autumn: picture from Google

Well...way too long an update for now....hopefully I'll be back later. Ciao!

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?