My 22

Wish you Advance Happy 22nd birthday Sagarika.
I am turning 22 tomorrow.

I always asked my parents what is the meaning of my name. Since they couldn’t answer it I depended on Google and came to know that it’s a Bengali name. So Sagarika means ‘of the ocean’. hmmm interesting.

22 years of life has been vanished in a flash. It’s one more year of regular cake cutting (depends on my mood) ,one more year of regular temple visit, one more year of eating gulab jamun made by mum and one more year of receiving gifts from friends and family.

Where have the 22 years gone? I have yet to see at least one of the 8 wonders of the world (if I ever see 1 it has to be Taj mahal because I believe in this ‘Before you explore any country, explore India’). I have to yet to finish my bachelor degree, yet to step my foot into a new country other than India and Singapore, yet to become a good cook, yet to love programming languages, yet to touch the snow and donate blood at least once etc. Sheesh

Now that I have entered into the 22 era I decided to rewind back my life and know myself all over again (of course good opportunity for people who want to know what Sagarika is all about)

Small flashback of my life

-1 to 14yrs
The most innocent and simple years in my life

I was born in lovable country India. I spend my entire childhood with mother and brother. Dad came to Singapore even before I stepped into 1st standard. I studied LKG and UKG in Gitanjali School from where my 1st stage performances started (Up to today I managed to do less than 10 stage shows). Basically my childhood was all about following in brother’s footsteps. Since he studied in Gitanjali School I studied there, He studied in St Ann’s Primary so I studied there too and he continued in St Ann’s High School so I continued there too. Been an average student throughout (when compared with brother I was always average or even below average :)). Rest of the life was occupied with school friends, small fights, sweet school trips, dad visiting days and lot more.

June 30th 2001
-14 to 18 yrs

Years of hard work and few wrong steps

I left something very precious on this day and moved permanently to Singapore with high hopes of bright future. I don’t remember crying on my first day of school in India, I don’t remember standing in front of the school and refusing to go in and I definitely don’t remember my parents accompanying me on the first day. What I remembered is my first day of school in Singapore. The memories are crystal clear in my mind. I was tensed and refused to go to school on the first day in Singapore. I remember I faked up being sick just to postpone going to school to one more day but after getting call from the school principal I decided to gather all my courage and set on my new mission. New country, new culture to adapt and new teaching method definitely didn’t stop me from being nervous. Surprisingly dad came to send me off to school on that day and that’s when I felt like a LKG kid. I survived the first day with just plain water (hated the food here in those days. Well I still hate it) and came back home with an “I-Want-To-Give-Up” expression. The rest of the life is mystery. Five years of school life passed away in night out for exams, studying, studying and more studying. Maybe that’s how I managed to be in top 3 of cohort every year and yet missed the $ 500 cash prize (it’s given only for locals).Of course I had my share of fun with those four friends of mine but still studies took over majority share of my life.

-19 to 21 Years

These are most important years in my life. I decided to choose polytechnic instead of two years of college. I know that is the place where I can shape out my future. One more reason why I choose it was to avoid studying Hindi language for two more years (I am hopeless in languages and more about this is in the later part). These 3 years have been a roller coaster ride. Gained some friends, lost some friends, gone through lots of emotions and mood swings, stepped into the world of maturity, Earned my first pay, Picked up new hobby (bowling), did some unforgiveable mistakes, First time failed an exam(I am hopeless in Maths and more about this is in the later part too),celebrated my 19th,20th and 21st memorable birthdays with friends, struggled with programming languages, fallen in love with database subjects and scored extremely high for those subjects, improved my communication skills, did a mistake by learning French, had a baby crush on my database teacher’s smile (he was Telugu teacher with cute smile and I can’t resist cute smiles),filtered the people around me and choose to be with a small special group of friends and finally I learnt what to do with my life.

Everyone says that I am very choosy in terms of food, clothes, movie, habits and especially people. So how choosy is my choosy?

Random stuff about me

- I am a health freak
- I can cook(few dishes only)
- I don’t like to wear full black colour tops
- I am very talkative
- like only Indian Food
- Hate clubbing or parties filled with strangers
- Hate loud music
- Love surprises
- I like a movie due to dialogues, hero’s smile (Mad about Maddy’s smile), song lyrics and for few scenes in the movie
- My Bachelor degree means the world to me right now and I don’t tolerate a word against it

Things I hate the most

- First things first I hate smokers. Yea almost every girl say this and yea I fall into that category too
-I can puke at the smell of sweaty clothes and body odor
-I hate people talking while they are brushing their teeth and hate to be disturbed when I am brushing my teeth
-Hate the smell of papaya and the taste of banana
-Dislike people using my ear rings( I am very sentimental about my lovable collection)
-Hate people calling me Shorty ( like to be called like that only by few special people)
-Absolutely hate egoistic people.
-Having any kind of pets near to me
-Learning languages
-Guiltily eating chocolates

Things I love the most

-Of course family and friends are in the list by default
-Pani puri. I am mad about this. One of the top reasons why I love to go India. I told myself that pani puri will part of my wedding menu and if possible brother’s wedding also:)
-Chocs, ice creams, teddy bears, beaches, dolphins, fishes
-Smell of rain on a dusty ground. For the past 9 years I am missing this feeling because until today I think I can feel this only in India( other than the fact its desi feeling , Singapore don’t have dusty grounds at all you see)
-Ear rings are my obsession since past three years. I absolute love them and trying to get 100 pairs before this year end. This madness is now passing on to bracelets and bangles. The first ear ring I lost was on 18th September 2006 and lost a very favourite ear ring on the 1st day I landed in India(Lost so much in India and here I am complaining about an ear ring. sheesh)
-Snow- At least once in my life I want to experience the feeling of holding the snow in my hands and creating snow girl (yea sexist you see). I want to see the world going white with the snow and stretch my arms and hold on to the snow flakes. Please someone offer me a trip to a snow country (preferably not US)
-New Zealand- This country remained on top of my Must-visit countries
-I am totally a rain lover and I love to eat ice cream in the rain (Na I am not inspired by Varsam movie nor Trisha). Since I was young, rainy season was my much loved season in India. I loved going to school when it rains, wearing the raincoat and getting a chance to skip our PT (Physical training classes) due to the rain. Even till today whenever it rains I go to my window and admire the rain and if possible eat ice cream (my definition of enjoying rain is not drinking hot coffee and eating pakodas). Anytime it rains and if I see people trying to hide from it, I tell them only one thing (It comes once in a while to make us happy just welcome it with open arms and join the fun). That reminds me of how I use to avoid taking umbrella to college so that I can get wet when it rains (mom hated it every time she saw me drenched at the door).
-OMG how can I forget about my previous darling, my hair. In end of 2005 I straightened my hair due to the craziness of achieving soft hair but today all I can say to my hair is “sorry for pushing you through the torture”. Yea I regret spoiling my hair which resulted in losing 80% of my hair. Urgh If I knew I will lose it I would stick to my curly hair and just would have made it soft.

Things I know I will never do it

-Drink soft drinks(I have never drank Coke ,Pepsi or any soft drink till today)
-Smoke
-Get interested in cricket
-Learn car driving
-Learn swimming
-Eat Fish (ha this something to think about. My mind is still struggling between choice of morals or health)
-Love Maths
-Run a marathon
-Write poetry

Basically the whole post is about my likes and dislikes instead of what kind of person I am
because I know what I am .So that’s enough

First time i worte such a long post all thanks to my lunch breaks in the office.

Once again Happy 22nd birthday to me!