Drawing Challenge - Day 11 - A Turning Point In My Life

Anyone who knows me would easily be able to point to the one point in my life that turned my ship in a direction I had never imagined! While the moment when I lost her did change a lot of things  for me--inside and outside--the real turning point in my life happened long before that fateful night. About two years before.

I totally hate that my light-hearted drawing challenge is becoming such a mush-affair with this one (and nothing here is sad, it's just nostalgic), but I don't want to leave a lie drawn on my blog for my generations to read (YES, that's how long I plan to blog here, hehehe).

The real turning point in my life was when I saw my closest person struggling with her health. Doctors, hospitals, path labs, tests, reports, medicines, syringes, the works! Ughh!!!

I pray NO BODY has to EVER get into that cycle of hospitals and treatments, because it is just too painful for the one suffering and those around him. The two years when I saw my mom go in and out of treatments, meeting doctors, trying therapies, medications, etc, led me look at life in such a different way. It turned and twisted something within me each day... one day at a time.

Those two years tested my mom, my family and me to the extremes. I saw a lot of people reacting in strange ways. I was young, but I started getting exposed to a life without a shelter. No one to save me from injustice, harshness and abuse that the world inflicts on all of us. But I was really young for it all.

Just one fine day, I was not the kitten wrapped in my mommy's arms, safe from anyone and anything. I was out there, exposed for the world to throw its realities at me.. and I was too young to even build an armor. There were those who looked me in the eye and gave me strength, and there were those who looked me in the eye and gave me the shivers.

I struggled to figure out who to trust and who not to. I was a little girl.

Impressions of those two years, whether it is the memories of my last days with mom or the memories of people around me, are so fresh in my mind even today... over a decade later... that if I sit and think for 10 seconds (and allow them to haunt me), they would start flashing like a high-definition movie playing in front of my eyes.

Well, while I and everyone else thought that I was a little girl, I happen to remember every single word that anyone said to me or about me; I happen to remember just how it all made me feel; I can't forget the bruises and abuses--mental, physical and emotional. I was a chubby little girl, but I remember it all. Everything!

There's such pure joy and such crude pain trapped in the memory of those two years that I don't think I will ever be able to forget them, or even let them fade.

Drawing Challenge - Day 10 - My Favourite candy

Who can forget the taste of melting-in-the-mouth, yummilicious Cadbury Eclairs?!

So many eclairs came and went, so many companies tried to make them but failed... Cadbury nailed it just right, and I consumed tons of them to grow far-and-wide, the way I have!

I love the way I have drawn this one. Well, somethings are possible to draw!!!

Drawing Challenge - Day 9 - My Favourite TV Show

I am sure many many many of those who grew up in the '90s in India would agree that the sitcom that we watched the MOST was FRIENDS. It was mainly because we didn't have much choice; That was the one show that played over and over and over on TV.

So even while the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of my favourite TV show is "chup chaap chale yaan shor mache, jaan jaaye yaan jaan bache, roz naya ek khel rache, ye kissa hai rangeen... harr lamha behetareen, Dekh Bhai Dekh!", I have forgotten most of the TV shows that I used to enjoy as a kid (because now I watch only reality shows or biopic-history ones). FRIENDS, however, is remembered and recalled word-by-word!

Not to take away from FRIENDS, it was a brilliant series! The beauty of my relationship with FRIENDS is that I have been each of those characters at some point or the other in my life. I was Joey once, and I was Ross for a long time. I was Rachel once and I am Chandler most of the time. These days, my husband calls me Monica! Hahahaha

Drawing Challenge - Day 8 - My Favourite Animated Character

Cartoons and animation films are an integral part of my growing up like for many others, I am sure. I have watched so many of them growing up. Whether it is Tom & Jerry or Tail Spin or Dexter or Richie Rich or Mickey Mouse or Scooby Doo, I watch them all even today; Sometimes even on YouTube!

But my all time favourite has been the muscular and strong sailor who always comes running to save his stick-diagram girlfriend, Popeye!

It is only now that I realise why I loved the spinach-eating sailor Popeye so much - the romantic in me just loved watching the knight-with-a-pipe reaching out to his lady love, Olive Oil

This post becomes even more fun because I recently went for the Bangalore Comicon with friends, and I was even more convinced that cartoons are one of the best things EVER!

Before I upload my drawing for the Day 7 challenge, thank you Blessen Philip, daddy of my best friend, Cookie, for being one of the kindest, most sorted and humble person I have known in the longest time. Thank you for being so thoughtful and giving me tips for overcoming my drawing-challenges, without even my having to ask. I did try to put the tips in use, in this one. I really hope our world has more men like you, Blessen.

So now... here's my Popeye The Sailor Man... pooon pooon...

Drawing Challenge - Day 7 - My Favourite Movie

"I love the world! I'm so happy! Thank you!"

And that is how she concluded her Oscar award winning speech in 2000 when she won an Academy for Erin Brockovich.

If I had the final word on Oscars, I would give Julia Roberts the award for the Best Leading Actor-Female, every year... year after year... even if it had been several years since she did a movie! That is my love for her. And this is just a fraction of how much I love her and what her smile means to me.

Today's challenge was to draw my favourite movie. How am I supposed to choose one movie between all those I am in LOVE WITH???

I grew up on Julia Roberts. Whether it was Notting Hill or Pretty Woman, I have seen them all a 100 times over. From Monalisa Smile to Eat Pray Love, I have watched them all, or rather sat through them all just dumb-struck at Julia Robert's face, waiting for her to smile.... Ah! That bright, sunshine-like smile. How can I not love her, how can anybody not love her?

Having proved my drawing inabilities in the previous six posts, I am sure I would have killed myself if I tried to draw Julia Roberts (though I confess that I did try. What came out seemed like a witch out of some fairy tale! lol)

I LOVE YOU, JULIA ROBERTS... You are the most beautiful actor EVER!

Drawing Challenge - Day 6 - My Favourite Book

For someone who has spent very many years trying to inculcate the habit of reading (yes, it did not come to me naturally) today's challenge is quite the task. It is hard to put a finger on which book is my favourite, not because I like so many, but only because in a marathon to stretch my boundaries beyond what I knew, I forced myself into reading so much... so much of everything, that I really cannot make up my mind as to what is my favourite.

Reading was a choice I made. Something that happened to me really late in life. Unlike many of my friends who say they read their first novel at the age of 10 or 12, I read my first non-text book at 19. Yes, I was the ignorant sorts, and to add to that, there was no external motivation that would force me into reading at a younger age.

For an average punjabi girl, brought up in Delhi, you are not really expected to be well read. Back when I was growing up, reading outside of texts was not even considered a good enough hobby, forget an achievement of any sort.

It was only papa, who had himself widened his boundaries by all the reading he did during his youth, who softly but consistently reminded his kids... Read, reading makes a lot of difference.

So when I reached a place in life where I had to make the decision about what I want to be like when I grew older, I decided, I must read! Now since I took to it late, the first few books were sheer torture. But a few books down, I realised that with each novel that I read, I gained so much--so much of language, so much of thoughts, so many new ideas, so much of history, so much motivation... I started noticing how my mood and my attitude changed with the book that I was reading, and the point where the story in the novel was.

I have read MANY books over the last 8-10 years. Of them all, I have carefully kept about 50 with me safely. I have read several of them over and over again. They moved with me into my new home after marriage. They are kept on the book shelves of our home and somewhere in my mind, I feel that they are the symbol of the knowledge I brought with me into the life of my man. Every time when mundane matters try to drown me, I remind myself of some character of some book I had read, and there, my mind drifts into a more peaceful world.

So while the list of my favourite books would be long, this is one book that means a lot to me. It was bought for me by a very dear friend, who is my guarding angel and is responsible for a lot of what I am today. He had picked Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho for me, along with a bunch of other books. I nearly extorted him by force, because he had got his first salary, and I am glad I did so.

Eleven Minutes, which I keep telling everyone, is unlike any of the other (usually boring) stuff that I have read of the author. It changed something inside me, and that moment when I felt something within me changing, will stay with me always.

Here, I have tried to draw my favourite page of (one of) my favourite book... Do read.

Drawing Challenge - Day 5 - My Best Friends

Long time ago, I had read a quote that stays in my mind till date -- 'One who has many friends, has no friends'.

Well, I am sorry for whoever felt that way and wrote it, because I have LOTS of friends, and I love them all... and I am pretty sure that they love me just as much too!

As I grew older, I realised that friendship is among those things that require least efforts, just like marriage. It was quite a revelation to me, because I always found 'keeping friends' a constant effort-full job. But I believe, as I grew and made friends and lost friends, I realised that the best friendships in life are those that require no mandatory meetings, customary mid-night birthday wishes and gifts, ceremonial friendship day calls, or any such things.

My closest friends are those who I can invite at home and say, I am in no mood for cooking, so figure out for yourself! Or those, who I miss sending birthday gifts to because I forgot to order one in time! Also those who don't expect me to send them soppy forwards for Friendship Day, or keep any such absurd expectations. They are the people who I can be care free and careless around. Most of them have accepted me just the way I am, and like hanging out with me, even if we have a gazillion differences of opinions.

HOWEVER, naming anyone in this post would have proved hazardous, because I am blessed with a big bunch of such kind souls who make my life beautiful and content... And of course, I am sure I would have missed out one or the other if I sat down to list them out.

So here's a sketch of my groups/friends in the three cities that I have spread my life across (one of the Dilli waalis is now in the US, so a special mention of her in the drawing). I am DARN sure that when/if these people see this, they will know who they are... Guys, you ROCK! :) (and sorry for making stick-diagrams out of you all, but see the brighter side, in my head, you all are so lean and crisp!)