if wishes could be horses....silver jubilee approacheth!

the numbers seem incredible. come tomorrow, n i'l be 25! quarter-century. two and a half decades of walking this earth, and nothing major achieved. time to compose the to-do-before-i-die list.
here goes;
a) travel to the mountains with a biker party, roughing it out, eating momos by the wayside, staying at dharamshalas, breathing fresh air, feeling the wind whip through my hair...
b) straighten the curly cloud
c) adopt a kid
d) get glamorous
e) retire at 40 to a stone cottage in laddakh. totally unwired - no phone, internet, TV
f) volunteer teaching at a school which needs it the most. laddakh again? in the snow bound winters when schools shut down for lack of teachers?
g) learn to play the violin
h) learn urdu. bliss! to be able to read manto and chugtai in the original...
i) get a puppy- a pug or an alsatian
j) write a book
k) buy mom a house in kerala with a mango orchard around it. hens, a vegetable patch, a central courtyard, a swing, red plaster on the sit-out floor....
l) wear an off-shoulder dress! cherry red!
m) learn to apply eye-liner. properly, i mean. atleast enough not to look like a kid has been at one's eyes drawing particularly ziz-zaggy zig zags around them. looking like a colicky panda kills all glamour, past experience tells me
n) learn to eat with chopsticks
o) sponsor a kid's education
p) learn to cook biryani
q) learn karate. will be such a pleasure to kick certain people in the mouth!
r) build my own library
s) backtrack across turkey. with someone.
t) take a road-trip. again with someone.
u) find the someone.
v) watch basic instinct without flinching
w) teach a unit on shakespeare. make it fun. make kids fall in love with the bard's golden words.
x) watch 'the phantom of the opera', and 'jesus christ superstar' live
y) go to the promised land, visit the wailing wall, float on the dead sea, live in a commune
z) swim with the dolphins, snorkel


so many things. will have to keep updating this.

oh, in case any of the gang is wondering what to give me for the b'day, here are a few subtle hints...picture book style.

these are a few of my favourite things.....


a greek island. a house on it. simple stone cottage. freshwater spring.







a pug! to make me feel less bad about the early crows-feet and laugh lines.






a girl's best friend...a pair of them. solitaires.








a bonsai.