the Rise of Indian Fashion.

Fashion in India has changed so much from the time I went there when I was 11 years old to now.The vibrant colours worn, and the intricate embroidery on every piece of clothing is magnificent. 

Synergy One Delhi Couture Week 2011

Synergy One Delhi Couture Week 2011

Designer: Ecru (Wedding Dress)

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"A focus on ornamentation. His traditional silhouettes feature intricate embroidery and stone work." - Vogue India

Synergy One Delhi Couture Week 2011

Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week

Synergy One Delhi Couture Week 2011

Synergy One Delhi Couture Week 2011

Synergy One Delhi Couture Week 2011

times are changing.

I was on one of my favorite news websites- BBC, when this article caught my eye.

Iraq gets first all-female taxis

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15898825

It hit me right then and there that, yes, our world is slowly but surely changing and progressing. I think it's so important for women to grow and see their potential. I know for many years in my life, I didn't take the time for myself to realize what was important to me and what wasn't. I put other people's needs before my own. And now that I am getting older and yes I can say a bit wiser, I am in a very content position in my life.

I have a lot to learn but reading stories about women who take a chance for themselves to better their lives and the future generation is inspiring. It inspires me to do better.

We live in a world where women are constantly judged. More frequently I've noticed women judging women. I can honestly say, I hate it. I hate when women say "oh that girl isn't pretty", or "that women is like this etc." It's frankly disgusting. And I don't like it because I know there was a point when I was younger and would look at women and judge their beauty.

It was insecurities in myself. But now that I am growing up, I realize that women are so much more connected in ways we don't even care to realize.
It's so important for us to stick together instead of judge one another. Look at this article. It's women who came together and said "Yes! It's not always safe for us to go out, so let's do something about it to make it safe!"

Simply wonderful!

a thousand words.

The sky is the limit.  Laughter is precious and this picture is absolutely priceless.

The story behind this picture is about a young woman named Aasttha Khajuria. She decided she would leave her comfortable life in Edmonton and volunteer her summer educating young children in the slums of Mumbai. 

This story is not about what she taught when she was there but it's about how volunteering makes such a difference in an individuals life. Be it for a second, minute or lifetime- it makes a difference. The smile those children have on their faces is simply priceless. They appreciate the simplest moments. The moments of learning, laughing and loving.

Though Aasttha is back in Edmonton, she will never forget those moments she shared with those children. She will forever cherish her first time volunteering in a country she could call home and also take back what she learned and share it with everyone around her.
"The love I felt for those kids was something I never thought I was capable of feeling. These kids were so happy being who they are. They weren't jealous of anyone or anything," Aasttha said.

When I looked at this picture, all I did was smile. Aasttha has been my best friend for over 10 years and to see her go out and do her little part in trying to make a child smile who doesn't have the same privileges as we do, was so very precious. I feel in a world where everything is fast paced and we get caught up in the rat race, we never seem to take the time to appreciate what we have. We take in too much stress that only causes negativity. So instead of being negative in life; simply be positive. 

Take the time today and make someone smile. Be it for a minute, second or lifetime :)

kissing.

Don't worry, this post is not about actually kissing. Though it would have been an interesting post. It's rather a song that got me through this weekend- filled with writing, writing and MORE writing.

Enjoy :)

Uptan- Natural Indian Beauty

When I was younger my mom would make a paste base for me and would tell me to put it on my entire body as it would exfoliate my skin. I finally found out what her secret was. It was called- Uptan.


Uptan is as follows:

whole wheat flour
sugar cane (sugar crystals)
turmeric
milk ( or you can use rose water)
sandlewood powder
 (Many people have different ways of mixing the paste together, but the main ingredients needed are turmeric, sandalwood powder, milk or rose water)

Step #1: Add Flour, Sugar and Turmeric

Step #2: Add Milk

MIX

MIX

MIX until it becomes like a paste

APPLY TO THE ENTIRE FACE AND BODY AS DESIRED 

In Indian weddings, it is common for the groom and bride to have a separate Uptan ceremony. It is said that Uptan cleanses the body and soul. It leaves the skin feeling cool and fresh.

for the LADIES.

This is HILARIOUS!!! MUST WATCH IT LADIES :) Let me know what you think!

Diwali.Festival of Lights.

Wednesday October 26, 2011 was Diwali, also known as the Festival of Lights. It's a holiday celebrating and welcoming the goddess Lakshmi (goddess of wealth, prosperity, purity, generosity, charm, grace and embodiment of beauty) into your home.

My mother religiously celebrates Diwali every year. She cooks a bunch of YUMMY treats the night before and spends the day lighting our entire house with candles and decorating our floor with little Lakshmi footsteps (as if the goddess is ACTUALLY walking around our house). Oh, she of course cleans our house spick and span before the prayers begin.

To be honest, I love celebrating Diwali. The best part is spending time with family, friends and enjoying drinking, eating and lighting firecrackers! This year I took it upon myself to move my guy cousins aside and light the firecrackers one after the other without their help (well, they put it in place) but it was phenomenal !!!!

Diwali is a wonderful time to CELEBRATE. Celebrate your life, family, friends and welcome all good things in your life. Remove all negativity and be forever positive! 

Candles, also known as Diya that we light around the house

Firecrackers I lite outside in the country side (St.Andrews)

Look! It even says Happy Diwali :)

Goddess of Lakshmi

tweet and travel.

Though this is a school post, I've wanted to write about this topic for quite sometime.



My first tweet was back in 2009 when my cousin, Joey, told me to start using it. Her exact words were "Have you heard of Twitter? It's SO much fun!"

 

I did hear of it, but didn't care for it at that time. I think it's because I thought it was plain silly. Why would someone want to write about them eating? going for a number 2? and to top it off share it with the WORLD. So I tweeted two times and stopped.

It wasn't until I went to Vancouver in 2010 that I saw how Twitter ACTUALLY works. Joey would be on it 24/7 and finally I asked her "what's the deal with this Twitter business". She told me how majority of users don't write that kind of 'personal' stuff but rather market themselves on who they are, what they do, and what's going on around them in a total of 140 words. I thought that was pretty cool. But the coolest part was when it was put into ACTION. 

Joey woke me up one morning, SUPER EARLY (thought I would add that in) and told me we have to go take the train to go watch The Colbert Report LIVE!!! I was pretty stoked! I asked her how she found that out and lo and behold she said TWITTER!!!!!!!

That is when my appreciation for Twitter began. Twitter is more than a website. It's a way of life. It allows you to connect to  different types of people, experience things that you wouldn't on a daily basis and be part of everyone's world. Twitter is travelling in my eyes. Travelling into people's lives.

 

The only unfortunate thing is I write less, probably less then 140 words on a daily basis. BUT if used in a way that gets your point across then every word is POWERFUL.

Let me try a few sentences on how I feel about Twitter in less than

140 words and let me know what you guys think.

Try #1: Twitter is like travelling. Watch the fascination unfold tweet by tweet.

Try #2: Twitter is like several short stories. Those who don't read them are missing out on the whole experience.

Joey and I

I'm looking forward to what you guys think of Twitter! Please comment in less than 140 words.

@priyatandon

laughter and music.

This weekend I stayed at home. Yes. I did NOT go out once, except to hand in one of my assignments at school.

What got me through this weekend was first, my cousin Devika, who would Skype with me and make me laugh till my tum-tum would hurt and my music-- the Weeknd and Buddha Bar... yes Buddha Bar-- love them!

I'll post a video of the two songs I repeated this entire weekend. Oh and please take the time to look at the beautiful images posted on the song Secret Love- Buddha Bar. Absolutely stunning.

Secret Love- Buddha Bar 

The Weeknd- The Zone (feat Drake)

Oh and I thought I would post a picture of my beautiful cousin Devika who never fails to make me smile. 

Devika "cousins by blood, best friends since birth"

all the same.

I loved watching this video- an Italian woman who married a Sikh man and her occupation is a taxi driver in New York City.

It does not matter what race you come from, we are all the same.

check it!

Life as an Italian American Sikh female taxi driver in NYC

marrying off children.

This morning I read an article on BBC- What is it like to be a child bride?

The stats were out of this world "Some 10 million girls a year are married off before the age of 18..."

It is surreal to think that this exists in our world today.

Being brought up in Canada, we have the freedom as women and men to do whatever we please and make choices to be single, in a relationship, divorced and so on.

However, in India this is not the case... yet. The laws in India have shown that it is ILLEGAL to have child marriages, yet it openly exists.

Why?

Women are still looked as a burden in many families in regions throughout India. Also, the dowry system is prevalent. ("the brides parents offer dowry to the grooms family in the form of money and materials. This is in order to help support the livelihood of the bride until groom grows up to support her himself").

Not only that but people do not like change. If a system as been a way for so long, they want nothing to change that system.  "I hate the government for trying to stop us. This is the way we've always done things. The government bans this, saying do not get under-aged children married, but we don't care and we do these weddings anyway." - A bride's grandfather says in his interview on BBC.

Surely, one day India will CHANGE and as an optimistic person I am, I believe they can CHANGE for the better.

Below is the link for the BBC article- it's a good read.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15082550

Also if you have the time, you can watch a documentary on child marriages- an unsolved fact (a child marriage). Below is the YouTube link on all parts.

dressed in PINK!!!

Today was the Run for the Cure walk. This was my first year going and I have to say, it was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had.

I woke up at 7:20 am on a Sunday, so I knew I was committed to going on this walk. I got ready, took my dog for a walk and was on my way to the run. 

It felt as if I was surrounded by yummy pink cotton candies. Men, women, children and animals all dressed in pink. Men wearing tutus, women wearing pink colored wigs; running as if they themselves were killing cancer by each step they took. It was enlightening.

There was one incident that got to me the most. I saw a beautiful woman who was going through her stages of cancer, her head gorgeous and bald and her family holding her up, being her pillars of strength. I looked at my 'special friend' and we both had a moment. A moment where I remembered my aunt going through her chemo, fighting for her life to rid her cancer. She fought hard and she survived. I called her right after the walk was done.

Unfortunately that was not the case for my 'special friends' aunt and his friends' mom.They were fighters, and fought hard till the end. They will NEVER be forgotten. 

I salute everyone who is fighting; fought cancer. You are all simply beautiful....

I will be sure to make this an annual event. 

"Page One" (Documentary) - School Post

Before I start this post I would like to apologize for being a downer but this is my full honest truth of how I felt when I watched 'Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times' 

September 23rd 2011 all of us Cre Comm students made our way to Cinematheque to watch the ever so thought provoking documentary 'Page One:A Year Inside the New York Times'. Basically this documentary was on The New York Times and how journalism has been, is and will be in the many years to come.

To be honest it frightened me. I went into my program thinking I would major in Journalism and the more and more I think of it, I do not know if I want to put myself in a 'risky business'. As my Journalism teacher pointed out today that many newspaper companies are 'bleeding money'. Its a fact. They are bleeding money, and in many years to come who knows if we will have print media or worse no jobs for journalists.

On the other hand, I need to be more optimistic because yes, print media may die and we physically will not have papers BUT journalism will never die. They need to start adjusting to new technology which they will HAVE TO DO!!!!!

Technology's influence on our world today is not a new concept yet how this documentary portrays our world's dependence on it, is an eye opener. I urge all journalists working on print to make their way online because our world is turning into a boxed screen which we will be looking into for decades to come.

'Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times' : OFFICIAL TRAILER 

it's raining MEN.......uh ohhhh......

I usually never pay attention to my sister's mail, especially the monthly magazines she gets from CMAJ-JAMC- Medical Knowledge That Matters but the other day I did.

"The consequences of son preference and sex-selective abortion in China and other Asian countries"

That was the cover of the magazine. The most interesting part in this article was instead of emphasizing men as a preferred sex they make mention of the fact that women are less discriminated against and are becoming highly valuable.  THAT IS HUGE!!!!!!!!! 

"As numbers of women in society fall, they become more highly valued and their social status increases" (quote from the mag) 

It even mentioned in the article that in 2005 it was estimated that there was a  1.1 million excess males born across the country then females. These stats are INSANE! The sad part is, is now because of this problem, men ages 20-27 are not getting married or reproducing and this could lead to psychological problems. 

At the end of the day, people need to get it together. Men and women are just as valued and important as anything else. So whoever dares to sex-select- RETHINK your thoughts and LOVE your child be it a male or a female. 

You can refer to the article by going to this website:
http://www.cmaj.ca/content/183/12/1374.full?sid=ce56acbd-befe-4d12-abbc-e8033d9eaf3f

forget teeth whitening ... why not skin whitening!!!

First of all, I would like to apologize for my days missed on my blog BUT I am BACK! So, the other day I was skimming through magazines for an ad assignment we had to do and I found an ad that was quite interesting. It was in Vogue India and it was an ad on skin whitening.

Now it may seem very odd to North Americans as to; 'why would someone want to whiten there skin, when tanning and having that bronzy look is so prominent'. Well... in India and even in North America many asian women whiten there skin because it is more 'appealing' to the eyes, just as many caucasians darken their skin.

I will admit, along time ago I bleached my skin because I thought it gave me a 'brighter' look. But I was wrong, it actually made my skin spotty and irritated that I had to stop using it. I know I am not the only one who has felt or feels that way.  Many of my friends struggled with that feeling that they are 'darker' and think being 'light' is more beautiful. That is why we all get pulled into buying these BLOODY products that hide our beauty. UGH!

Honestly, we need to remove ourselves from spending so much of our time on looking 'beautiful' and wasting SO much of our money on products that hide our beauty. EMBRACE is the word of the day! Embrace your beauty, your skin color, your body, your intelligence and everything that you have!!

my life introduction.

For 23 years of my life growing up as a South Asian woman, I have struggled with finding the right type of make-up that suits my skin color, the correct hair removal that will make my skin oh so smooth and silky, and balancing my life as a Canadian as well as maintaining my East Indian culture.

Thus, my life as a brownie is a movement bringing men and women together from all walks of life and embracing who and where they came from and of course speaking out LOUD about it!