So I just texted Mummy that I'm going to bed, and gave her virtual kisses.
Then I realised the last time I did this was basically when I was still studying abroad and basically that's how my parents (well mostly Mummy) and I communicate. My parents only Skyped me if there was something urgent - like I needed Daddy's help with my Accounting work or Mummy needed help with her electronics.. Really guys, I think the only think I did less than Skyping with my parents was drinking coffee. They are however big fan of viber - especially when I'm in London and doing Mummy's bidding... I remember going "Helloooo, helloooooooo" in the middle of New Bond Street because Mummy's connection kept dropping -.-
Anyways, yes. Nowadays I hardly text my parents, unless to tell them what time I'm coming home or if I'm eating at home.. I hardly even see them too! By see I mean have like long conversations other than the Hi/Bye/Have you eaten/Can you help me sort the TV out please kind of conversation..
I also realised I'm only this close to my parents now because I was away for that 3 years of my life. It's bittersweet really leaving home. Bitter because well your mummy's hug is not gonna be there when you're sick/sad, you don't get to go on family trips and keep missing out on family events. But it is at the same time sweet because you know with every "See you, take care! Jangan lupa sembahyang, study hard.." that they say when they're dropping you off, a "What time are you arriving and what would you like for dinner?" is coming your way :)
The other day Mummy & I were discussing Chanel prices..
Me: At £3,000, if I worked in UK, that'll only take me like 3-4 months to save up enough for a Medium
Mummy: You lah, dulu sibuk nak balik
Me: Welll... At least now you know I cherish my family more than any handbags.
I mean, I may have just said that as a cover for my dumb decision, but it's true though! If I had continue living & working in UK, God know's what else will I miss out with my family and this time it's not like I can come home every 3 months.. </3
So guys, go! Study/travel abroad, broaden your mind, see the world. But quoting one of my favourite lines from a movie: *No matter how hard you try, there'll always be something you'll miss out on.. And family time is not something I'm willing to miss for any materialistic things.
Note: *The full line is "No matter how hard you try, there'll always be something you'll miss out on.. So, enjoy this time, this moment". Nothing to do about family time in the original line okay!
This year my company decided to be a total doll before Deepavali - they gave us an additional day off!!
So while everyone else was dreading the Monday blues on Sunday night, I was nice enough to spread my joy by offering brighten up their gloomy Mondays..
"I'm on leave tomorrow, so if you need a lunch buddy so you no need to puasa sbb taknak makan alone.. Call me!"
"You can go on a lunch date with me :D"
Of course Cik P chose God over me, so I had to resort to Zawir. Mehhhh... I kid! I love spending time with him, teehee
To show how small the world is, Zawir ends up being colleagues with one of my primary school friend, Amir. So he too joined us for lunch.
The not so smart kids in us didn't take into consideration that people go on leave before their "Raya", so we (I) drove ourselves (us) to Bangsar hoping to get some banana leaf loving for the tummy. No shit Sherlock it was closed lah of coure! -____-' Although Nirwana was open the queue was more ridiculous than usual since it was the only one opened on that day.
So what happens when you let two boys decide where to eat?
You end up somewhere with grilled chicken -___-'
Is it me or do all boys just have this crazy love connection with grilled chicken or just chicken in general?
"Chickens are the real baes lah okay.. Chickens die for you! Literally"
- Z.S.O, ever since forever quoted by Z.I.O
Anyways we ended up at Nandos, #nocurrybutgotperi. During lunch we (Zawir & I) were discussing plans for the night and I told him I need to be home by 9.30pm because got Shah Rukh Khan movie (#priorities), but I also need to go to IKEA because Mummy didn't give birth to a boy before me, so now I'm here minion. Zawir said he might have to stay late at the office and it'll probably be rushing for us to have dinner and go to IKEA before 9.30.. :(
I then called Yasmin asking if she's available to teman me to IKEA and that was how the IKEA-during-Diwali-(season) became an annual thing. Lol
And yes, you guessed it right.. They played Shah Rukh Khan songs for my queueing pleasure #excellentcustomerexperience!
As for Diwali day itself, I spent it mostly asleep as I got my vertigo attack. For those of you not familiar with what is vertigo, the summary version of it is dizziness.. But it's worse than your usual dizziness you get because you've been fasting the entire day or that head rush you get after laying down too long okay! Imagine you're in like a see-through ball and that ball is in a bowl, in a 5 year old's hand, who's shaking the bowl as if she's Shaking & Baking. Mhmmmmm, ready to puke yet? With vertigo, even the slightest movement you make (like turning your head) feels like the entire world just move by few hundred degrees... So yeah in situations like this, I normally just sleep it off til it no longer feels like I'm in ship going through a storm whenever I switch side while sleeping. Cool eh? Diagnosing myself while still sleeping hahaha.
Zawir, who ditched me and chose food instead (#chickensaretherealbaes) decided to take me out for dinner... At Nandos again! Lol.
Out of the 7/8 years of blogging, I swear I think this year is the worse for me.. I mean just look at my posts count! Tsk tsk tsk.. How am I ever gonna remember anything in 2015 when I'm old and wrinkly and can't even remember where I put my car keys?!
Imagine guys, when we get to that age (insyAllah if panjang umur) we'll be the most tech savvy grandparents, ahahahaha.
Anyways, let's do some major throwback to 2nd of July 2015!
The project that I was on back then was supposed to finish by June 30th, initially. So I made plans to go on a short break from the 1st of July til the weekend in conjunction of not only my birthday, but my friend from UK, Dani, was also in town and Zawir was also coming back sometime that week.
A day before I was supposed to go on leave my colleagues were so nice, they took me out to dinner! They even let me chose the venue and since it was fasting month, my taste buds were all over the place hahahahaha. In the end I settled for Italian and it was a choice between having aglio olio at Pizza Uno's or arabiatta at Antonio's. I was going back and forth a lot and decided to go to Antonio's.
My mini celebration round 23.1
Now that we're no longer working together (as we're all on separate projects) I miss them :'(
Thank you for dinner guys!!!
So how I spent my actual birthday?
The summary version is well, I spent the morning half of it in IKEA, the middle portion of it at home and the night portion of it having dinner.
Please read below for a lengthy version.
Project Re-Style for my room is probably the longest personal project I've taken for myself.. It started sometime in 2014 and in November 2014 I bought a bunch of stuff for the room. Remember that Deepavali IKEA trip? Which somehow became an annual thing because guess what people?! I went to IKEA again this year a day before Deepavali... But that's a story for another day, at this rate it's a miracle if I manage to tell the story by NYE. Lol
Anyways, those things took months to get assembled, not because they were hard to assemble or anything, I just had other things to do. Once those things were finally assembled, I realised I need more stuff hehe #girlproblem. So I told Zawir way earlier that I need him to follow me to IKEA as I need help cause some of the things I want are just too heavy for small me. And what better day he can't say no to me?! My birthday!
So off we went to IKEA in the morning and bought my nightstand and drawers for my vanity when I went to IKEA with him, because all other things, namely 1 wardrobe frame, 3 wardrobe doors, and whatever stuff I need for inside the wadrobe, were bought 2 days in advanced and I got them delivered and installed by the IKEA men the next day after my birthday.
Now you may ask why couldn't I just buy everything and deliver it one shot? Well, that'd mean I'd have to carry my drawers and nightstand to the checkout counter and they were heavy. Plus I'd have to pay extra in terms
of delivery and installation charged.. I cheapskate. Hehehe
Once we were done at IKEA we went straight to my house and project pasang furniture begins!
Am I the only one who gets excited doing these home improvement stuff?! Zawir was so cranky doing this for me but since it's my birthday he can't say no lol.
We took quite sometime to fix it up because Zawir is the kind of person who likes to separate all the screws and make sure everything is accounted for as per the manual.. I on the other hand, finds the manual and find what I need as I go along. But you know, I'm asking the man for help so gotta do things his way.
End product :)
I give myself a good pat at the back for choosing drawers all enough to double as a vanity table. At the same time I also get to keep other stuff that doesn't really go inside my wardrobe (like extra toiletries, travelling bags and etc.)
If you're observant and have eyes like a hawk, you're realise that my left and right drawers handles are different (something that kills Zayana on the inside). This is because when Zawir and I were in-charged of fixing it up respectively, we both disagreed on which way it should be fixed.
I opted for the non-conventional way which is for the opening (place where you your fingers and pull) to face up, so that when you want to open the drawers your palm does not have to face up (which is quite unnatural isn't it?!). Zawir on the other hand disagrees and thinks that's how palms should face when trying to open a drawer..... -________-'
But whatever, we were late for dinner so we didn't have time to change it to my way.
Before dinner I briefly met Dani I swear it's been almost a year since I last saw her (which was on graduation day) and when she saw me she gave me a hug and carried me right in front of Pavilion! I've never felt tinier in my entire life!!
Dinner was at my favourite Thai place in entire of Malaysia (probably even the world) which I realise after dinner that it's been my birthday dinner place with Zawir for three years in a row...
No, this isn't what we were wearing to fix the IKEA stuff if that's what you're wondering..
But yes, that was my simple birthday celebration round 23.2
Do you guys realise how much less I blog now that I'm certified healthy (I didn't blog about my doctor's appointment did I..) and back to work at full speed? I do! Being a corporate slave makes your daily life so uneventful...
Anyways!
I realise I haven't really blogged about my Japan trip with my family that we took towards the end of Q1 this year. That was pretty hectic.. So lets blog about that (while I wait for my laundry to be done)
--
Sometime in March this year I made a trip to my second kampung (as I'd like to call it), UK. I promise I will blog about that soon, but let's shift the focus to Japan first shall we?
My trip to UK was fully sponsored by me, which was something I was damn proud off. Leading up to my UK trip, Mummy was already planning on a Japan trip for her, Daddy, my brother and my cousins. She asked if I wanted to come along. But considering that I'm spending my 6 months worth of salary on the UK trip, I have not much left to spare for another trip that's a week away after coming back from UK.
So I told her to count me out.
While I was still in UK, she texted me
"Are you sure you don't want to go?"
"Nahh, it's okay. It's out of my budget for the year"
"Okay lah, we'll pay for you"
"Lol, thanks. But even so I don't think I can get a leave"
"You can just go for a weekend... Don't have to follow for the entire stretch"
She really wants me to go guys..
At one point she was even sending me pictures of Sakura flowers and reminding me almost every night to ask for my boss' permission. #whatMummywantsMummygets #persuasivemother #gotitfrommymama
So after my UK trip, I went back to work for about a week and then I asked my boss if I can get two days off because my parents wants me to follow them to Japan for over a weekend. My boss was kind enough to give me the green light, and off Mummy went booking my ticket.
After a 7 hours flight, we arrived in Japan.
Upon landing, I desperately needed to go to the ladies, and when I went there I was so amazed by the toilet!! Not only you have the water sprinkler thing inside the toilet bowl, the seat also goes up and down by itself (so you don't have to touch it!!!) and the seat was heated. DO YOU KNOW HOW AMAZING THAT IS IN WINTER/EARLY SPRING?!
I said to myself, "it's official, I love Japan" hahaha.
Then I realised one thing I hate about Japan - there are barely any English signage!! So unless you speak the language, it's pretty hard to navigate yourself around and you'd spend hours using that translator app on your phone.
See what I mean about non-English signage?! If it weren't for the typical toilet symbol, I wouldn't even be able to find a toilet myself...
I've heard about how much Japanese love their culture, but experiencing it yourself is a whole different thing guys!
I was so grateful for the tour guides that we had. They are a group of Malaysian students in Japan that provides you a tour guide in each city that you're travelling to. So say today I'm in Tokyo and I'm going to Osaka tomorrow, I'll have one tour guide in Tokyo and another tour guide will be waiting for me at the train station in Osaka.
So cool right?! They don't have that sort of thing in UK..
And since they're Malaysians students, they not only speak Japanese, but they also know which halal places to go to and what not.
In that picture above is our Tokyo tour guide (whose name I've forgotten) but his wife and him was so lovely! They made us breakfast :D I like it when people feed me when I'm hungry. Bless the couple!
Our first stop from Tokyo was Osaka.
We took the bullet train (called shinkansen), and it was so cool!
Not only it was super fast, but you hardly feel it. And it the seats were packed but it didn't feel too cramped it you get what I mean.. And the toilets were super clean too! #vivalaJapan!
The train station.
Lemme tell you how the train works, basically they have three different "lines" - if I'm not mistaken the red is the fastest one, followed by yellow and then blue. You can get use this train to get from one of Japan to the other in a day, and you won't even get motion sickness!! I'd know, I sometimes get motion sickness from KL-JB -.-
See the men in suits? People use the shinkansen to commute inter-cities for work, so expect a lot of people during peak hours (i.e no chance of not having people sit next to you so you can just take all the seats to lie down flat and sleep, teehee)
Our first stop at Osaka was the Castle. You can read more about the Osaka Castle here.
You wanna know why Japanese are so kurus?
The use the stairs everywhere!! -.- We rejoiced everytime we found an escalator at the train station. Hahah
That green roof is the castle's roof and the tembok is well, I guess to keep unwanted people away from the castle.
The castle grounds is also filled with lots of sakura trees as you can see. Perfect for photo-op session!
It was quite a walk to get to the castle from the ground. And on the way we found this little stall that sells Japanese soft-serve ice cream.. They had strawberry, chocolate, vanilla and green tea, I was spoiled for choices!
Settled for strawberry instead and thus began my addiction to the soft-serve ice cream.
Mummy said: "Come say hi to Atok", lol
Finally made it to castle!! Ice cream pun dah habis :(
Hehehe, isn't he so cute?!
Lemme tell you the funny story about this photo.
So we spotted this cute little samurai uncle on the castle grounds, and everybody was intrigued by him and apparently photo with him was free (I guess he dresses up like that for fun? But I'd like to think he enjoys making people's trip to the castle more memorable).
Anyways, at first Daddy and I were the only one who wanted to take a photo with him. But he insisted having the whole family for the photo-op. Then Daddy asked him if the sword was real.. And then he took it out and it turned out to be tongs (as seen held by Daddy).... Ahahahahahahah! But yeah, cute lil uncle!
After the castle we went to the Kaiyukan Aquarium.
Next it was shopping time, because I insisted on getting a pair of sneakers - walking in Japan is no joke man. What with no escalators and all..
I can get around UK in my ballet flats, but for Japan...... Gimme me my Nike! *waves white flag*
So our Osaka friend (travel guide) took us to Shinsaibashi, a famous shopping centre (though I'd like to call it more of a street) in Osaka. It's basically a long stretch of road with shops left and right of the road. There were a lot of things to see but even a whole lot more people x.x
We also went to see the Glico man. But camera's lighting failed us.
It's supposed to look like this, replicating NYC's billboards.
Anyways, after a good 12 hours in Osaka (give or take) we bid farewell and thank you to our Osaka-friend and went back to Tokyo.
I slept so soundly in the shikansen ride back to Tokyo, somemore with the two pillow I my parents bought for me from the aquarium. Come to think of it, its been almost 8 months and I haven't named them!!
See the otter and seal pillows?! Aren't they cute?!!! They also makes a super fine travelling pillow, so my Opti (the star shaped pillow who was in the wash when this photo was taken) has more friends now!
That marks the end of my Osaka trip. Shall continue with the rest of my Japan trip later on k!
Shah Rukh Khan recently got his honorary doctorate from University of Edinburgh, and I read his entire speech while laying in the hospital bed - you have no idea how bored Zayana was... Take note: The only way to shut me up is to let me have my Shah Rukh Khan dose. That always work.
Anyways, I thought I'd share the speech here - incase you know, it gets deleted or whatever and I can't trace it back:
It is indeed an honour for me to receive this doctorate today. “Humbled” is a word often used by people in my profession. I dislike the hypocritically obsequious connotation of it in these contexts so I’m not going to use it, but I will say that such occasions have a way of putting me right in my place! I get invited to conferences and inaugurations now and then to speak. When I receive the invitations, I also receive my brief. It’s usually about “success” and my “tips” on it (not my toes- those are covered by the “I will never show my toes” clause in my acting contracts. It’s my attempt at gender equality. My co-stars have no nipple clauses; I have a no toes one).
Most people believe Bollywood stars aren’t insightful about anything other than the fateful occurrences that made them stars in the first place! I’ve had the odd divergence from being taken for stupid though; recently I got an email from the International Association of Advertising It read, “Dear Mr. Khan, The advertising community would like you to address them on Globalization and disruptive marketing”. I spent the next 4 hours on Google trying to assimilate the “disruptiveness” of innovating a product to match its market? But it was one of those rare days when even Google can’t help you. A day when you need to leave Google and ask God for deliverance. But I have a film releasing soon, so I didn’t want to waste my quota of favours from God…believe you me, I need a big hit right about now. So I did the next best thing. I made a grand entry on my io hawk and told everybody, that there is nothing I can tell you that you already don’t know. You are such an august group of gathering…blah blah. Instead let me entertain you because you all deserve a break, and before the organizers could interject I started thrusting my pelvic into their faces and broke out into the one and only intellectual thing I know to do… The Lungi Dance. I got away with it without being “humbled” (it helps to be a better dancer than most advertisers ) and what’s more, they seemed to have a good time.
But that was a conference and this is a Doctorate from the prestigious University of Edinburgh. So I’m going to try to sound intelligent and insightful especially for you today. One of the subjects on the list of five I was sent for my speech today was: “Life Lessons” so for what its worth: here goes. Let me start at the very beginning.
Whatever I have learnt of life has been at the movies. Actually the first few films that I did in my career and their titles very nearly have formulated all that I believe one should pass on as Life lessons to students of a prestigious institutions like yours.
One of the first movies of my career was a movie called Deewana.
I fall in love with a widow, who I meet literally by accident in which I very nearly kill her mother in law. I marry her. Not the mother in law but the widow. The widow is not keen on the marriage because she still loves her late husband but she marries me anyway. My rich, mean father disapproves of this union and does what a mean rich father does…tries to kill the widow. I am naturally disgusted by his behavior and after a long two page stand off with him, I leave the house for good. Then for some reason apart from the fact that I ride my motorcycle without holding the handlebar I have an accident. Seeing me so forlorn and sad in the hospital bed my ex widow wife falls in love with me. There is something about sick men that always attracts women to them. The sicker the better. Then again by a chance of fate I rescue a stranger at night from a bunch of goons, and guess what?? He turns out to be the original husband of my ex widow wife, who hadn’t died inspite of his inheritance hungry uncle’s best efforts. Evil uncle then kidnaps me and my ex widow now not so ex present day wife to get hold of his nephew. I escape his clutches and come back with my wife’s undead husband to rescue her. By now she is strapped to a bomb and after a liberal round of fist fighting kicking and screaming the evil uncle is blown to smithereens by the very same bomb that he had strapped on status confused lady of the film. But not before the sacrificial ex-husband has done a kamikaze, unstrapping his ex-wife and set the bomb off killing himself in the bargain. All obstacles removed, our hero lives happily ever after with his beloved wife.
I’m not sure why the movie was called Deewana (which in Hindi means madness of a particularly nice/romantic kind) but I have a feeling it had something to do with the guy who came up with the plot!! So, here’s my first life lesson, inspired by the movie title Deewana: Madness (of the particularly nice/romantic kind) is an absolute prerequisite to a happy and successful life. Don’t ever treat your little insanities as if they are aberrations that ought to be hidden from the rest of the world. Acknowledge them and use them to define your own way of living the only life you have. All the most beautiful people in the world, the most creative, the ones who led revolutions, who discovered and invented things, did so because they embraced their own idiosyncrasies. There’s no such thing as ‘normal’. That’s just another word for lifeless.
Soon after I acted in Deewana, I became the hapless hero of a movie called Chamatkar. This movie had a more believable plot line. I get cheated off all my money by my best friend slash, conman and find myself asleep in a cemetery only to be awakened by the ghost of a murdered mobster. A ghost that only I can see and nobody else. I am very perceptive that way. Anyway the mobster ghost helps me get a job as a teacher through his ghostly good offices. I fall in love with his daughter from a wife that has passed on after being duped by his flunky. Together, the ghost and I organize a cricket match, yes I was doing that even before I owned a cricket team, and avenge the various misdeeds done to us by bashing up the flunky and the conman, forgive them and let each other descend into the respective abodes where we belong. He goes back to the grave and I go away with the babe. Now ‘Chamatkar’, means miracle: right and straightforward without any nuances. So, my next lesson is the following: If you ever find yourself cheated of all your money and sleeping on a grave, do not fear, a miracle is near, either that or a ghost. All you have to do is fall asleep! In other words, no matter how bad it gets, life IS the miracle you are searching for. There is no other one around the corner. Develop the faith in it to let it take its own course, make all the effort you can to abide by its beauty and it will not let you down. Use every resource you have been given, your mental faculties, the ability of your heart to love and feel for those around you, your health and good fortune: all of the thousands of gifts life has given you to their maximum potential. Honour your life. Honour each gift and each moment by not laying it to waste. There is no real measure of success in this world except the ability to make good of life’s endowments to you. Sometimes life’s gifts arrive wrapped in all the wrong damned wrapping too, at which point we have to learn to do two things with them: recognize them for what they are and gamble on our fear that they might be disasters.
This brings me to my third life lesson inspired by two movies in which I played the anti-hero: Darr and Baazigar. Twenty years ago, in the Indian movie industry, roles were very clearly defined. They provided the security of your stardom in a sense. If you’d been successful playing an “angry young man”, you’d pretty much be angry and young for the rest of your career. If you’d been a police inspector in three movies, odds were, you’d be one in the next 33 too. This applied to female stars as well: wives were wives, seductresses-seductresses, mother in laws- mother in laws, and so on. Few actors would have willingly switched from romantic heroes to obsessively violent lovers. I took the leap…not because I was particularly brave, but because (a very dear director friend of mine sat me down and told me I was ugly. And being ugly necessarily meant I do bad guy roles. I wasn’t the romantic hero types, he said, actually he used the words, that my face was not chocolaty enough, whatever that meant). So, I started to eat a lot of chocolate and while waiting for it to take effect, I jumped into bad guy roles. Darr means fear in Hindi and everyone always tells you that you ought to be brave so I’m not going to bore you with that idea.
Instead let me tell you this: Being brave means being shit scared all the way to the party but getting there and doing the Funky Chicken in front of all your teenage kid’s friends anyway. Let me just add on behalf of all the fathers of the world who have embarrassed their children by doing this…it takes a lot of bravery resolve and grit to do this. So do it. Don’t let your fears become boxes that enclose you. Open them out, feel them and turn them into the greatest courage you are capable of. I promise you, nothing will go wrong. But if you live by your fears, everything that can possibly go wrong will go wrong and you wont even have done the Funky Chicken.
While we’re on what everyone tells you to be, let me also say that all the planning in the world, won’t take you where you want to get to. It’s fine not to know what you want to be twenty years from now. Most of those who had it all figured out became bankers anyway.
Oh this will appear on YouTube right? There goes my next big loan for the film from my friendly neighbourhood bank.
I did a movie once called Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa, in which I was the victim of a lover’s confusions and my next lesson is precisely that. It’s ok to be confused. Confusion is the route to all the clarity in the world. Don’t worry about it too much and don’t ever take yourself seriously enough to be so clear about your own ideas that you stop respecting other people’s. Our values are our values, they don’t make us any better than anyone else, at best they make us different. Always try to see the other person’s truth because like every movie has a story, every human being has one too and you have no right to imagine that yours is better than anyone else’s. You can leave that silliness to my esteemed colleagues and me!!
And if you thought the last two stories I told you were crazy, here’s another one in the reckoning for the Oscars for weirdest screenplay: Guddu.
Guddu was my name in a movie about loving and giving in which basically, I have an accident (yes another one) but this time instead of almost wiping out my future mother-in-law, I wipe out my girlfriend’s eyes. Many convoluted sub-plots including a life threatening brain tumour, a legal battle for the right to donate organs and a fast unto death, my lawyer father, my religious mother and I are battling over which one of us will donate our eyes to my blind girlfriend. In the end, I recover miraculously and my mother dies donating her eyes to my girlfriend and we all live happily ever after.
Life lesson number four rears its head: Give of yourself to others. And while you’re at it, make sure you realise that you aren’t doing anyone any favours by being kind. It’s all just to make you feel that sneaky little twinge that comes from being utterly pleased with yourself. After all, the one that gets the most benefit out of any act of kindness or charity that you do will always be you. I don’t say this, as many see it, in a trans active or karmic way. Its not an “I do good, I get benefit” equation with some white bearded figure taking notes from the heavens above. It’s a simple truth. An act of goodness becomes worthless when you assign a brownie point to yourself for it, no matter how subtly you allow yourself to do so. As benevolent as your gesture might be; someone else could have made it too. Regardless of how rich, successful and famous you become, don’t ever underestimate the grace that other people bestow upon you just by being the recipients of your kindnesses. You might be able to buy your friend a Rolls for his/her birthday but its no substitute for a patient hearing of your sulky rants on a bad hair day.
Sometimes things just happen, as encapsulated in another movie title of mine: Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and you know what? They don’t always add up (that would be ‘One Two Ka four’ as the list of titles continues). So my fifth lesson is this: when life hits you with all the force of its resplendent rage, the Rolls isn’t going to give you comfort. A friend’s grace will, and if you can’t find resolution as easily as you would like to, don’t panic. Everything evolves as you go along, Chalte Chalte as we say in Hindi (and yes, that was another movie I did but no more mad plots for God’s sake!!) Even disasters eventually resolve themselves. Give life the space to move at its own pace, pushing it ahead only by way of being kind to yourself when you are hurting or in despair. You don’t always have to figure things out or find an explanation for the circumstances you are in. It’s more prudent to accept that sometimes there just isn’t one. “Ram Jaane” (God knows), as we say in Hindi and as a priest responded to my orphan-child character when i asked him, what my name was, in a movie of the same appellation. The boy plodded through three entire hours of film referring to himself by that fatalistic phrase and why not? Who says that what we call ourselves is any definition of who we really are?
And that’s lesson number six for you: All the names you give yourself, or those that others call you, are just labels. You are not defined by them no matter how flattering or uncomplimentary they are. What defines you is your heart. Ask The Artist Formerly Known As Prince!! And learn a thing or two from him, if you don’t believe this insanely sexy Indian Superstar standing in front of you. And I say this out of experience because if I was to go by what all I am called on Social Media I would be an old desperate manipulative has been star who swings both ways while making crap movies, and these are just the good mentions.
If you aren’t charged up about doing something, if you don’t have what in Hindi we call the “Josh”, the fire in your belly for it, then don’t do it. It’s a waste of your time and more importantly, of those who pin their hopes on your endeavours too. Redefine yourself if you have to but do it on your own terms and just get on with it. In fact, like my character in the movie My Name is Khan, don’t forget where you came from and who you really are. It ought to be the compass by which you navigate through life’s vicissitudes. The North that keeps you oriented despite a series of misfortunes or a shower of privilege.
One of the biggest hits I made was an unexpected one and for once the plot was neither meandering nor barking mad. I was the coach of a beleaguered women’s hockey team that went on to overcome its struggles and win a world championship. Its title was Chak De, an inspirational martial cry that Sikh soldiers used while lifting logs in order to make bridges across rivers on their campaigns against their enemies. It implies the will to get up and get on with it, which brings me to life lesson number seven: whatever it is that is pulling you back, its not going away unless you stand up and start forging your own path with all your might in the opposite direction.Stop whining and start moving, so to speak. Sadness and happiness have the same quality of transience. Life is a balanced exchange of one with the other.
And this is lesson number eight: Don’t attach yourself to either (sadness/happiness), they’re both going to change with the same certitude. Take them with the ephemeral spirit of their impermanence and manage them with a healthy dose of good humour. Laugh at yourself when you are despairing, shed a tear or two when one of my movie plots makes you hysterical with laughter (we did actually consider Guddu donating a single eye to his blind girlfriend and both of them waltzing into the sunset eye patch to eye patch).
Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham was the title of an Indian style family drama in which I was one of many heroes and it means just that: to be happy sometimes, and sad others, is the very beauty of a life lived in full measure. Why fail yourself by desiring one emotion and detesting the other?
You know, I’ve acted in over 50 full length movies, if I took you through a journey of each title, we’d be sitting here forever and you’d all end up fast asleep (this wonderful venue being most un-cemetery like notwithstanding) so I’ll wrap up with my last two lessons.
Live from the heart. Dil Se. Love. Love people, love the world around you, love animals and birds, and big cities and mountains, love dreams, love life, love your work, your friends and your enemies even if you feel least like it. Most importantly, my friends; love yourselves. Embrace all that this life has in store for you, let your heart be as deep as the deepest ocean and as wide as the farthest horizon. Know that it is limitless. Love is not an excuse to grab or to hold or to own or to barter. It is the only excuse you will ever have to call yourself special. And if someone you love lets you down, don’t fault yourself for not trusting him, fault yourself for not trusting your love enough to forgive his/her trespasses.
You never know what the future will bring, whether there will be a tomorrow or not. I died at a shockingly young age in a movie called Kal Ho Na Ho which means exactly that. And I wasn’t even a smoker!!! I never let my two older children watch it to the end, we even filmed a whole alternate ending especially for them. But now they have grown up and like all of you, will soon be embarking on a wondrous journey of their own. Instead of trying to protect them from life, the wiser and older version of me grabs every chance to tell them: live as hard as you can in this very moment. Live now. Live today. You may not see it with your youthful eyes, but NOW is as much time as you will ever get. Because tomorrow we will all be dead. And just in case there is no cycle of rebirth etc…why take a chance. I don’t want to end this on a cynical note by reminding you about the reality of death. I want to let you all know that how important your today…your now is. Study hard. Work hard. Play harder. Don’t be bound by rules…don’t hurt anybody and never ever live somebody else’s dream.
Remember however many times you go wrong, no matter how many times you fail, despair, feel like this world is against you….in the words of Bob Marley…at the end everything is gonna be alright. And in my words: “Hindi filmon ki tarah life mein bhi, anth mein sab kuch theek ho jaata hai. Aur agar na ho, toh woh anth nahi hai…picture abhi baaki hai mere doston.” ("Just like in Hindi filsm, in life, everything will be alright at the end, and if it's not alright, it is not the end") Take it as the only truth you need to know. Take it and believe it because the most unlikely to make it in Bollywoood is telling you this…the most romantic hero who doesn’t look anything like chocolate or taste like it.
“Now” all you bored professors out there in the first row, come on up: lets do the Lungi Dance!!!
-end of speech-
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I swear, this man speaks to my soul! :') Watch his full speech here:
I'm saving this speech for a rainy day. You know, when I feel like I need him to talk to my soul again.
Also this man turns 50 today!
Damn, I sure do hope my future husband & father to my future children look as good as that when he's 50..I just have one issue with this cover, couldn't they take Gauri Khan on the cover instead?! Gauri is just as hot as that VS Model -_____-' #onewifewoman #getyourhandsoffhim!
Zawir is starting his job tomorrow so today I had to follow him shopping for work clothes. As if the 101 shirts he has been collecting all these years are not enough (we actually made a list of all the shirts colours he should have, and I'd say we're about 98% there! Where am I supposed to find a nice dark purple shirt?!), he also needs (read: wants) new pants, socks (whateven?!) and what not..
Being best girlfriend of the century that I am, I woke up at 8 despite sleeping at 3am.. Side note: Do not workout in the middle of the night guys. Just refrain yourself from another helping of rice.
After running errands for my house, we made our way to Mitsui Outlet Park in KLIA. Why? Because I wanted to get myself a pair of sports bra but the cheapo that I am wanted to get a better deal so Zawir suggested to go to an outlet (plus, JPO is like 3-4 hours drive away..)
We reached Mitsui by 10.12 despite the 30hour delay in our plans. I was very proud because I was 4 minutes late than the ETA Waze gave me when I Wazed for directions at 9AM.. #speedracer #daddysgirl
My first reaction when I saw the outlet and the shops' signboards:
"OMG SAYANG! They have Diamond (something) shop too! Can buy cheap diamonds here too!"
Hehehehe
Our first store of the day was Nike (for me) and God knows where Zawir went but I told him that he should just leave me in Nike as I may spend a little bit more time here.
See girlfriend of the century! Bangun pukul 8, tak kisah diamond rings on discounts, doesn't expect boyfriend to follow you shopping.. 0:)
After a few times staring at the Nike Flyknit and thinking "Do I really want a blue sports shoes? Its so blue, its Zayana.. This feels wrong.. But this is a Flyknit, and its almost half price..", I decided not to buy the Flyknit shoes and just bough myself a tshirt and another pants (they were on sale for steal prices!!). Oh what happened to getting myself a sports bra you ask? Well, all the ones I want ran out of sizes (one was so cheap but it was XL and I was thinking about how to make it fit for an S lol) and the only one left with an S has polka dots on it... I don't know why, but polka dots on a bra just seems funny to me... Think about it.. Lol.
I tried other sports shops like Adidas, Puma and the likes but they're all either not my sizes, retail prices or not to my liking (why do people make sports bras with spaghetti straps idk, what support do it even give?).
So after my failed attempt, I continued my gf duties and went to search for Zawir. He said he was in Sacoor Brothers and by the time I got there, he was in the fitting room. I then spotted a shop selling branded cosmetics stuff (like Clinique, Lamer, MAC, Bobbi Brown and what not) and I was about to make my way there then I heard Zawir's voice.
Dang it!
So after giving my opinion to him on the shirts and picked a tie for him, I told him Imma go back to Nike one more time to think if I should just get the polka-dot bra..
Me: It has ugly polka dots on it!
Zawir: Well, it's not like anybody is gonna see it -__-
Me: But I know what Im wearing.....
Zawir: So?
Men really do not get it sometimes! -_____-
He "released" me and while I made my way back to Nike, I stopped by the cosmetics store to see if they have anything interesting and asked Cik P if she wants anything from MAC (cause the last time she said she wanted something from MAC)
Me: Eh P, they have mac here too, you want anything?
Zayana: Ouuuuhhh issokayyy. Is the stuff cheaper? :D
Me: Yeaahhh!
Zayana: Even the laptop?
Me: ...... Mac makeup lah dol!
Zayana: Oh! Hahahahahahahahahah!
Wishful thinking terlebih budak nih..
Since P didn't want anything and I recently had a Sephora spree, I left the store empty handed. I then went to Isetan to look at bedsheets. They had pretty pillow cover but it's sold out :( So sorry SA, you were really nice but I really want that pillow cover jer.
Got back to Nike and decided I really can't stand the polka dots and I declared my shopping done at the outlet, so it was time to just teman Zawir. He's now looking for cufflinks, so we went to Boss, Zegna and Club 21 and found nothing suitable to his taste/budget. So we left Mitsui and made our way to Zawir grandfather's place for lunch.
During lunch, Zawir's new nephew got introduced to the family members and everybody was basically all over the newborn lol. Zawir on the other hand,
"Did you know.... I've never hold the baby....."
Bahahahaha! Penakut!
Post lunch we, well Zawir, went to visit his grandmother (from the mother's side) while I wait in the car because I shy and was given the option to kehkehkeh. With Zawir gone, Zoe 7 hours behind, Zayana was the only Z left..
*talking about the picture where Zawir commented saying Zayana looked pregnant.. I apologise for his manners*
Zayana: Do I really look fat though?
Me: No lah! Its just the way your hands were placed, making it look like you're resting it on your stomach.
Zayana: Seriously??? Haih, I can't wear tight clothes, I can't wear loose clothes..... What can I wear Aisya?
Me: Noo! It's not the clothes, it's your hands position. Optical illusion jer, chill lah.. You don't have to make it a kain lap meja yet (inside joke)
Zayana: BAHAHAHA! You'll never know..
Me: Now now, don't do anything rash
Zayana: Child, I just had a packet of Oreos for lunch.. Anorexia is not something you should be scared about for me
Me: Nooooooo! I mean don't make it into a kain lap! You can't even starve yourself for half a day if it's not with niat "... kerana Allah SWT"
Zayana is one heck of a complicated child.
For the years I've known her, she's almost always fasting Monday-Thursday because God knows how many promises she has made with God, and yet she could barely make it til lunch with nothing in her stomach on days she's not fasting..
Me: Zayana, I'm in a pickle.. Zawir is visiting his grandma and I'm in the car and I really need to pee..
Zayana: Why didn't you follow?
Me: Cause contrary to popular belief.. I tau malu okay!
Zayana: Ahahahahahaha!
Me: Let's not talk about the sea... (cause we were talking about the sea previously)
So we talked about life
Zayana: He just wants to add (insert name) to his gundek list!
Me: ...... HAHAHAHAHAHhAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH That's not how you spell it!!! *insert laughing til you cry emoji, lots and lots of the emoji*
Zayana: REALLY?! Damn.. And here I was really proud for using a bombastic Malay word!
Me: Omg, I might just pee from this... Ahahahahahahahahahahah!
Gundik = concubine, and it's spelled with an "i" yer tuan-tuan dan puan-puan.
After another half an hour of pointless conversation, Zawir came back and off we went to Pavilion for more shopping (for him)! By the time we reached Pavilion we were soooo tired. We went to Parkson and Zawir got his pants, then we went to Uniqlo for his inner t-shirts and socks, back to Pavilion to go to Nike for my sports bra (I caved! I know....) and some drinks and snacks for the road..
Next stop Bangsar Village. Zawir actually fell asleep while waiting for me to find parking in BV, kesian dia.. We quickly ran our errands in BV (light bulbs shopping lah, pants alteration, grocery shopping and quick refreshments for Zawir) and zoomed to Hartamas to pick up his dry cleaning (last stop for the day, woohoo!)
So the entire thing you just read above equals to... about half a tank of minyak, >RM30 on tolls + parking fees, 180++km and 6-7 hours of being out of the house.
For as long as I can remember, I have always been listening to music really loudly. Mummy & Kookie would always yell (cause that's the only way to get thru the loud music..) to me to lower down the volume. Despite her countless reminder from them about how bad it is for my ears to be listening to such loud music, I never really bother, I'd still listen to music as loud as possible, even while studying (it was a gift, I know)
When I started studying abroad I lost my "gift" and I can no longer focus while reading and listening to music at the same time. However I can't not listen to music while studying either. So bye bye earphones and hi playing music on the laptop :(
Now that I'm working I can't possibly play music on my laptop (because really, my clients & colleagues will not be interested to listening to Hindi movies..), so back to earphones! Btw, a day in the office w/o earphones is torturous. But I no longer play music as loud as I use to, because well, FOCUS!
One day while I was browsing YouTube during my downtime (lots of free time remember?), I discovered the Whisper Challenge. And it looked so fun! So Min & I decided to play it one day and it was really fun!!!
All those year abusing my ear drums paid off! I think I am excellent at lip reading.
And I would like to say, if Yasmin didnt say "last time ookay!" to me, I'd figure out she said fruits not food -.- CHEATER purposely enfored time limit on me suddenly (my fault also for not thinking about enforcing the limit back on her.. Told you she's extra competitive)
