Category Archives: Relationship

Hen’s Night for my friend AG

Posted on November 20, 2011 | 3 comments

Before I came to Australia, I had no knowledge of Hen’s nights but in the last few years, I have attended many of them with my girl friends. My own hen’s night was organised in a Spanish Club in Sydney. I had a great time with my girl friends, dancing the whole night.

It had been a while since I went out for a girls night out so my friend AG’s hen’s night was perfect excuse for all us to leave our partners at home and go to Vivaz for a great night out.

 Luckily it was a good, sunny day so when we met at the club, everyone was in high spirits. We had bought a package deal for the night so things were already planned for the whole night.

The theme for the night was anything red.

The night started with a live drawing of a naked male model. It was so much fun as I could see how much imagination all my friends had. Everyone was enjoying the class but I felt a bit sorry for the male model who was in a room with more that 20+ girls laughing at him. I guess he is used to that as he had this serious experience the whole time.

The next step was a lesson on how to make a cocktail. It was fun to know what goes in a drink you normally order. The bride to be got a few free shots and was having the time of her life. Even when we all tried to mix the same drink; all our drinks had a different taste. It was wise of us to leave mixing of the rest of our drinks to the professionals.

The next thing was Salsa lessons from a very hot Latino instructor ;). That was my favourite part of the whole night as I love dancing. As there were only girls, one of us had to do the guy’s steps and other one was doing the girl’s steps. The instructor was teaching all these sexy moves, we couldn’t help but laugh. It was so much fun that we didn’t realise we spent one & half hour dancing. Some of the photos we have are so funny that we were laughing our heads off.

Then it was time for our dinner. We were given table with the view of the Opera house and Harbour Bridge. What more could we have asked for? I am not sure for what reason but there were fireworks going on at the Opera house.

We were served a buffet dinner which had a few varieties of pastas, lots of green salads, baked veggies, roast chicken, beef and pork. The dessert was chocolate mouse and fruit salad. We all ate and enjoyed our sweet treat.

Finally everyone headed to the dance floor and had fun for the rest of the evening. We tried lots of steps that we learned earlier. A good night out with my gals!!!

Wishing my friend AG and her fiancé AA best wishes for their wedding. They are flying to Nepal next week and getting married on 2 December.

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Posted in Wedding

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Missing my dear friend

Posted on November 18, 2011 | 6 comments

This post is dedicated to my dear friend SD.

Reason, Season, or Lifetime

People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.
When you figure out which one it is,
you will know what to do for each person.

When someone is in your life for a REASON,
it is usually to meet a need you have expressed.
They have come to assist you through a difficulty;
to provide you with guidance and support;
to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually.
They may seem like a godsend, and they are.
They are there for the reason you need them to be.

Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time,
this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end.
Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away.
Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand.
What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done.
The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on.

Some people come into your life for a SEASON,
because your turn has come to share, grow or learn.
They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh.
They may teach you something you have never done.
They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy.
Believe it. It is real. But only for a season.

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons;
things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation.
Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person,
and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life.
It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.

— Unknown

It is so true that you meet three different types of people in life. Some for a reason, some for season and some for a lifetime. Today I am missing my dear friend SD who is one of the few friends who is for a lifetime. 

Me and SD in our school uniform

I met SD during my middle school years and  since then we have been very good friends. You know sometimes you meet some people for the first time and get this impression that they are so carefree that you wish you could be like that too. That is my friend SD. She is always daring, carefree, positive and fun-loving.

She is the youngest of 7 kids of her parents but she is the only girl. She has grown up with 6 protective brothers and as they were her mentor, she is very boyish. I think that clicked between us at first as I was a tomboy myself when I was young. 

We used to do lots of things together and one of the good memories from my childhood would be our sleepover. We used to talk through the whole night, no idea about what but it was super fun.

 Life has thrown us thousands of miles apart but we always manage to stay close and keep in touch. When I came to Australia, she was in Nepal. We kept in touch with emails and phone calls.

 The first time I went back to Nepal, she left to Austria after 2 days of my reaching Nepal. It was really sad for both of us.

Me and SD @ Time Square

The next time I visited Nepal, luckily she was there. I had a great time as she took me to  places, we did  things together and she was just there for me. We did lots of talking and caught up on lost time.

After that every time I went home, she was in the US so we didn’t meet for a while. Then I went to US for my holiday in 2009 and stayed with her in NY. It was like old times again and she was my guide there. We went to Time Square at midnight and had our funny photos taken at Madame Tussaud’s. We went to the Statute of Liberty early in the morning and Central Park at midday.

NYPD

She was up for every crazy idea I had as a tourist. She was the one who took my photo with a NYPD cop. I wanted to take a picture but didn’t know how to approach the cop who was working in the middle of street. She went and talked to him and told him there is this crazy tourist from OZ who wanted to take a photo with him. I had fun shopping with her and tasting lots of American food. I met a few of her new friends as well.

Me and SD in Madame Tussaud

As everything had to come to end, my holiday was over too and I had to come back. I was sad to leave but I had no choice.

Then in 2010, when we talked after my engagement ceremony, we decided that we have to attend each other’s wedding for sure.

In early 2011, things were looking great as she had already filed for her Green Card and was sure that the processing would be completed before June so she would be in Nepal for my wedding. We were so excited but then she got a letter from immigration telling her that they lost her paperwork as there was a mix up with addresses. We still hope that things would fall into place and she would be able to fly by June 20 for my wedding on the 24th. The paperwork did not arrive in time and so she missed my wedding.

She was sad and upset that she couldn’t make it but I did understand her situation. If she had left the country for the wedding, she would not have been allowed back so she had to what she had to do.

I had her family expect her parents in my receptions. Her parents didn’t come as her dad was ill. I went to see her parents before I came back. It was always nice to see them as they always treated me as their own daughter.

Finally in August, she got her Green Card so she decided to go to Nepal for a holiday. Out of blue things happened so fast and her wedding was fixed for 2nd of December 2011.

I was so happy for her and at the same time a bit sad that I would miss out on the wedding as there was no way I would be given any more vacation time from work this year as I had taken so much time off for my own wedding.

We were still constantly in touch and I was advising her on what to do and where to go for the preparation of the wedding, from my own experience. Every time we talked she would day “Wish you were here. It would have been so much better.” and I felt very sad.

Few days ago, I saw her online in Skype and this is how the conversation went,

  “Are you free to chat?”

 “I am not SD; I am her fiancée using her account”

 “Oh, how have you been, how is the wedding preparation going? and how is SD doing?”

 “Actually I need to tell you something,”

 “Yes”

 “Yesterday SD’s dad passed away”.

When I read that I didn’t know how to react. I was really shocked that when I was thinking she is in the happiest moment of her life, she was going through the grief of loosing her dad. He had been a bit sick but his passing away was unexpected.

I called her after that and I felt a bit better that she was coping better than I thought she would be. All her family members were with her. She was very calm and was talking to me normally. She said “Everyone is coping well so don’t worry. There are lots of people around.” Then she told me something that I didn’t expect. “I always wanted you to be there for my wedding so I guess now you have to be present for my wedding as it will be in 2012. Make sure you come this time. “

I couldn’t say anything but I admire her positivity in the rough time she was going through. All I wanted to do at that point was give her a big hug. I wish I was with you there my dear. I am missing you a lot. And I promise to be with you when you get married in 2012. 

P. S: In Nepal, if someone dies in the family, the family will not celebrate any festivals or birthdays for a year and there will be no wedding or any other happy celebrations for that year.

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Posted in Friends, Relationship

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How do you all do it?

Posted on November 14, 2011 | 8 comments

I am writing this blog in the hope that I am not alone in this situation. 

I do follow a few blogs and I have never read anything regarding this problem so I am not to sure if I am alone in this situation or if there are more people out there like me.  

I am talking about cooking everyday and cooking without complaining. Before I came to Australia, I hardly cooked as it was my mum or our maid doing all the cooking. So I never thought twice about how my food got on the table. Then before AS came to Australia, I had a life style where I hardly ate at home so cooking was never an issue. 

But after marriage, we are living by ourselves so we have to cook everyday. It is not feasible to eat out everyday.

Mostly on week days, after work I cook dinner and have either keep some for lunch the next day or make sandwich. There are weeks when I am very happy to cook so I will download recipes, go shopping and cook. But then there are days or a week sometimes when I don’t feel like cooking at all. I don’t want to even think about it and we end up ordering take away for dinner and have lunch outside. 

So I always have this rollercoaster of cooking cycles where sometime I am cooking for weeks continuously and then there are times when we won’t use the kitchen for days. 

I am lucky that my husband helps me in the kitchen with cutting and cleaning but I end up cooking dinners most of the time and he looks after breakfast. 

I don’t understand why we have to spend so much time to feed ourselves. I have seen people who cooked a variety of meal everyday and feed their family. I am sure they love cooking but can you really do it every day without complaining? 

My problem starts most of the time when I don’t know what to cook for dinner. As I don’t know what to cook, I won’t know what to buy and then that is the end. For a few months, we tried to decide on Saturday itself what we were going to have for lunch and dinner for the coming week.  According to that we did our shopping and I was a bit organised but still I had days when I was too tired to cook. All I wanted to do was go home and crash on the sofa in front of the TV. 

I am writing this post in the hope that people out there either will tell me I am normal and it does happen to them as well or tell me how they do it without going insane. How can it be ok to work the whole day and come back home and cook too. If anyone has a good solution for my problem, your suggestion will be highly appreciated. 

Sometimes I feel sorry for my husband that I whinge about small tasks like cooking and that he has the worst wife in the world . : ( 

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Posted in Relationship

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Ta, Timi, Tapai and Hajoor

Posted on November 6, 2011 | 11 comments

Compared to English, I think, Nepali is a very complicated language. Just to say “You” there are so many ways in Nepali. In English “You” is a second person pronoun of both singular and plural but in Nepali it is a totally different story.

Ta – used for someone younger than you, as well as for someone of lesser stature or when you are trying to dominate someone. You also find that friends use it casually among themselves as it can also show closeness among friends. (If not among friends, Ta is considered rude.)

Timi – used for a person younger than you or of similar age/ stature.

Tapai – for a person older than you and to anyone who you respect/ of higher stature

Hajoor – Mostly used by Brahmins and Chhetris for addressing older people and to show lots of respect to people of higher statute. Other ethnic groups don’t use Hajoor but use Tapai instead.

The reason I am writing this post is how these words have affected my life after my wedding.

Before our wedding, I had known AS for almost 12 years and we were friends. So I used to address him as “Timi” and he used the same for me. It was perfectly fine and there were no issues.

After we got engaged, my mum heard me talking to AS using “Timi’ so she told me not to use “Timi” but use “Tapai”. I ignored her suggestion and kept using “Timi”. I felt more comfortable and I was used to it anyway. I also felt bad that he was allowed to call me “Timi’ but I had to change to “Tapai”.

Before the wedding, I had to go and meet my MIL for shopping. AS was in Australia then, so it was just me and her. In that meeting she told me, try to use “Tapai’ for AS when there are people around us but “Timi” is fine when we are alone. I understood her point. She didn’t want other relatives to talk about me being disrespectful of my husband just because I didn’t live in Nepal. So after our wedding when I was in AS’s house, I switched from using “Timi’ to “Tapai” all the time. It was easy for me to follow just one way of addressing him and not changing it depending on whether someone was near us or not and because it was just too confusing otherwise.

When we came back to Australia, I didn’t realise that I was calling him “Tapai” all the time. I got used to it and I know he liked it so I didn’t bother to go back. Also I didn’t want to say “Tapai” only when we were Skyping with our parents.

Now, some of my friends tease me saying that I am being “a good Bhuhari” and some say I am acting weird after the wedding. I have many married couples around me but apart from my cousin K, who was married in Nepal and lived there two years before coming to Australia, no one addresses their husband as “Tapai’. They all use “Timi” and they find it odd that I use “Tapai”. I am sure they must have gotten used to this by now but I still feel that a lot of times, people look at things I do in a negative way even when I do the right thing. It would have been perfectly fine if I had been a Nepali Bhuari but people find it hard to believe I use “Tapai’ as I am an Australian Bhuari.

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Posted in Marriage

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A Nice Suprise

Posted on October 22, 2011 | 5 comments

As you may already know Nepal follows a different calendar than the Gregorian calendar. For most of the children born in Nepal, a birth chart is made by an astrologer as per the Hindu astrological calendar. This chart is called a “Cheena” or “Janam Patro”. So if you look at it as per the Gregorian calendar it looks as if a child’s birthday falls on a different date every year based on the Cheena. A day as per the astrological calendar is called a Tithi. So a child can have his birthday celebrated on his Tithi birthday or as per the Gregorian calendar or both.

Every year, my mum takes my birth chart to an astrology to get my birthday according to the Tithi. And so every year, I have two birthdays. One according to the Cheena, and the other according to the Gregorian calendar.

 On my Tithi birthday , my mum performs some Puja in Nepal for me and on my Gregorian calendar birthday I usually have some friends over and enjoy the day.

While Skyping last Saturday, she told me this year my Tithi birthday was last Tuesday. I thanked her for the gift she had sent me with my friend and told her how much I loved it.

So Tuesday came as any normal day and I even forgot that it was meant to be my Tithi birthday for this year. We had invited some of my cousins and my brother for dinner(not for the birthday of course) that night so my head was occupied with all the cooking and planning I needed to do for the evening.

I had to go for a training from work in the city that day so I didn’t reach home till 6pm. When I was rushing home to cook, AS called to let me know that he had to stay back at work a little longer (it always seems to happen when we have plans eeeerrrrrrrrrrr). I was annoyed but I knew he would have come early if he could to help me with the preparations.

I went home and quickly started making dinner. While I was cooking, AS came home. When he opened the door, I saw him carrying a stunning bouquet packed with luscious red chocolate hearts. It also had a card with very sweet message. “Light of my light, heart of my heart, you’re my true love under the stars. Happy Birthday Love”. He handed me the chocolate bouquet and wished me happy birthday. I was so touched and felt so special. I wasn’t expecting anything at all as I knew he would get me something on the day of my other birthday.

I guess this is another perk of being married/in relationship. You get unexpected surprises which warms your heart .His gesture brought a big smile to my face and made me feel very loved.

I love you baby. Thank you soooooooooooo much.

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Posted in Marriage

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