enigmatic

I never really comprehend the gravity of season 1, episode 4 of Friends when Phoebe says, "I don't even have a pla". I found it funny and humane but never really related to it. Until recently. I have never exactly known what I really want to do in life but there were always these milestones which I thought I will accomplish and then they will lead me to what I am ultimately supposed to do. It was "plan" enough for me.

But now that I don't have semesters ending at a particular time, no exams which only solely depend upon how much I study and vomit in the stipulate tick tock tick time. Now that I am working, and there is no semester to automatically end, bang. I understand what Phoebe was saying.

While Ishaan, friends, mentors have pushed me enough to make a plan, I am not able to. So I am trying to take the what-do-you-want-to-remember-about-your-life-when-you-are-at-your-deathbed lense to life. And what do I say. I am trying. There are certain things I definitely want to have done enough of in my life but there are certain aspects of things I still need a plan for.

Anyway, in the set of things which I definitely want to have enough of in my life, I just came back from Prague, spending some carefree, sunny, windy, rainy, wine-y time with Ishaan. We did not have any plan for the days I was there. No agenda. But that didn't mean we were sleeping till late and not doing anything. Instead, we were on the streets of Prague or of hills nearby, doing nothing. Well except walking of course. 15-20 km/day of walking.

It was beautiful. Minds free, lovely weather, country side, cozy houses with creepers, surrounded by lush green gardens with trolleys of beautiful flowers and nice little red or yellow cars parked randomly in the gardens. Cute dogs barking. Three generations having lunch in the porch. Under a canope which probably they built together with cute benches and cushions and flowers and vases to go along. And both Ishaan and I on foot, an umbrella in hand.

I was so happy. Ishaan was so happy.

See how Ishaan got Starbucks and me in the same frame.

It started raining after Ishaan clicked this. We used our big black umbrella and sang "Pyar hua ikrar hua"- what will we Indians do without Bollywood

Twirling around.

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Just being everywhere. With nowhere to go.

I don't have a plan. I need to get one. Meanwhile, I will just live in the present. And make memories.

Its June. Almost 50 degrees. But believe it or not, its raining shadis in my family. Both own and in-laws.

So here I am. Giving some wedding outfit ideas. For us moguls. The non-brides. The non-grooms. The guests.

The lehenga I wore for my first cousins's sangeet. I think anything non-saree works for sangeet. But this one is particularly comfortable. The skirt is super super light and has so much flare, it makes for really beautiful "ghoomne" wale steps :D

Watch out this space for wedding outfit ideas for different functions!

Having lived in Gurgaon for almost 3 years now, I always wanted to explore Chandni Chowk for jewelry. Especially silver jewelery. I am a very frequent shopper who wants something new every week if not early, and therefore getting things at good prices becomes a necessity to keep my credit card bills and husband sane!

Anyway, coming back to the desire to explore Chandni Chowk. So I have always wanted to go there, but surprisingly not a lot of people are enthu to accompany me there (Ishaan being nice decided to drive me there but we had to return mid way. Because traffic). And then MOM happened. She wanted to buy a silver necklace and remembered me telling her sometime in the far far past that Chandni Chowk has this amazing whole sale typish market. So here I was. Orders from mom to buy a silver necklace before a certain family shadi.

With mom's orders looming, Delhi's June sun blazing and my desire to visit Chandni Chowk burning ( I know I know. It should be "my burning desire...), I finally ended up going to the Dariba Kalan market in Chandni Chowk with my dear Soumaya for company (and Shireen on face time). And I went crazy. Ofcourse. Not only silver but there are a lot of junk jewelery shops which sell the same designs as Zariin or Dang but ofcourse at least one-half the prices.

Check out some of the stuff I bought from there.

These I got for Shireen. She selected these earrings while sitting at home, sipping lemon soda and FaceTime- ing me. The shopkeeper was kind enough to take upper and lower parts of different pairs of earrings, join them together and create this beautiful pair.

Do take out the time and make a shopping cum picnic out of a 'Day in Chandni Chowk'. Avoid summers though :P The next time around, I am definitely visiting Red Fort :D

What makes you happy? What makes me happy? I ask myself this question almost every day. Relaxed days, multiple times, busy days, at least once if not more. Do I have an answer? Ofcourse not. But there definitely are themes. Family. Friendship. My time. Loyalty. Feeling of accomplishing something. Sprinkled with minimum level of materialistic charm.

It was a sunday. A dear and old friend of mine was visiting from the US. I was happy. Happy to meet a friend. Near my comfort place, my home. Having my comfort food. Having a good laugh. Talking about the life that was, has been and hopefully will be. Happy to know that somethings don't change. Happy to know that investment in people pays off.

How? In making you happy.

I have a thing for dark colors. Green is an addition to the forever love for black and blue. I had wanted to buy a pleated skirt for a long time now. But could never decide which color to go for. One time I almost picked up a metallic one but the risk averse side of me just couldn't pay for it. A sale at H&M combined with my love for dark green and I have this gorgeous, super comfortable pleated green skirt in my closet :D

I find it tricky to wear non body hugging (NBH) skirts. While the typical rule is to pair an NBH piece with a BH one, I think if you belt your outfit, you can make work two NBH pieces perfectly well.

Check out how I styled my NBH green pleated skirt with a BH polo top and belted an NBH top :D

Outfit: Head to toe, H&M

Which look do you like the best?

Ishaan and I have been married for over a year now! One year. One married year. It would have been interesting (and yet, sort of cliched) to say that the past year has been a roller coaster ride, but it hasn't. Instead, its been a happy, sometimes exciting, sometimes dull involving a lot of travelling year. Touchwood. And I really pray to God that all the coming years are so.

Anyway, this post will not be about our one year of shadi. I will leave that for another post (when I have some good pictures with Ishaan). This post will be about the saree I coaxed Ishaan to buy for me as a first wedding present after already having bought a handbag under the same gift tag. Our plan was to dress up (Ishaan in his nice suit and me in my "gifted" saree), hire a photographer for the day, go to a fancy restaurant for lunch and just roam around. But as it happens in life, our plan got delayed by one week, then another, then another and when it finally came time for us to execute it, we both were just too lazy :D Ishaan wanted to have a sleepy sunday after a drunk saturday night and I was too scared to wear a saree in the cold january month to go eat in an open air restaurant!

So what did we do? We mutually and very happily decided to ditch the plan and do what we do best. Just be. Eat pasta, watch a movie in the confines of our home which we just love too much. But.

Had we done just the above, this post would not have come into existence. You see, lately I am getting this feeling that I am going too much into a comfort zone and I lack the will power to do things sometimes. So, I forced myself to get up, not be lazy, coax my maid to come and drape the saree, coax (well, not actually) Ishaan to get up and come outside and at least click pictures for the blog. Rolling eyes are we? I know this might not count as getting out of the comfort zone, but hey, I tried. It was definitely more difficult than just sitting and eating and watching a movie.

So anyway, Ishaan very sweetly headed to my request, clicked pictures very patiently and we came back, I changed into my pyjamas and we watched "Catch me if you can" for the umpteenth time. I think we will do something next year as well. Because, well, this is us. And what better way to celebrate your anniversary than to celebrate it doing what we love doing together.

About the saree, I am more about simple style. Simple clothes, 1-2 pieces of jewelry and simple hair style. I loved the colors at the Raw mango store in Chattarpur, Delhi. Their sarees are simple, available in very lively colors like green, yellow, blue and blush pink (which I decided to buy). There are heavier banarasi sarees as well, but a plain chanderi saree with an elegant border suited my style the best.

For jewelry, I am an out and out earrings and maang teeka person. I stumbled onto Noorah by J at an exhibition in Delhi and just loved her pieces. So elegant and immediately noticeable. The earrings went perfectly with the saree as they were a very pale golden color with a big pearl drop at the bottom!

Saree: Raw Mango (click here)
Earrings: Noorah by J (click here)

My hair is really unpredictable. So are Delhi winters. One day it will be sunny and higher temperature making me sweat in my multiple layers. The next day it will be gloomy and rainy and windy making me shiver in my lesser layers which I shed, because, it was sunny yesterday :/

Anyway. Back to my hair. I am having a lot of bad hair days these days. I switched to a sulphur free shampoo recently. While my hair is shedding less, its also behaving less.

Anyway :P This post is about what I wore on a gloomy, rainy, winter and bad hair day in Delhi. So here you go.

Few tips to look stylish in winters.

1. Don't mix a lot of colors. Dark colors can be boring but are the key to looking stylish in winters.
2. If there are three pieces of clothing, (i) top/ sweater, (ii) overcoat and (iii) trousers, keep at least two of the same color and experiment with the color of the third.

Apologies for the ugly hair.

Cape, Trousers: Zara

Polo neck: Dorothy Perkins, Jabong

Shoes: H&M

Bag: Dune London

If there is one thing I love about winters, its the freedom and the luxury to add a good number of layers to my outfit! Though coordinating which colors would look good with which can be a task, I always feel so stylish once I am successful in putting together a decent combination. Layers have this thing about them. Be it adding a blazer, a muffler, a shawl or a really sexy overcoat :D

While I try and add colors to my winter wardrobe, I ultimately end up buying major items in shades of blacks and blues. So I add a little color through accessories like muffler or a hat.

Overcoat: Forever New
Jeans: Gap
Shoes: H&M
Bag: Zara
Cap: Vietnam local market

Happy layering!!

Guess? :D

Black. White. Worn separately or together.

In one of our many Whatsapp conversations on clothes, our many failed attempts to contain our shopping addiction, every morning "effort" to look "effortlessly" elegant, our new found lust for luxury brands and blah blah blah, my friend and I came to the following conclusion.

Shades of white and black is the answer.

The colors ooze style, elegance and simplicity. Simultaneously. While our casual clothes could be any color (especially during summers), black and white in my opinion are the colors for work wear and other occasions where we want to look stylish and yet keep it simple.