Count on Me

Yours Truly

When someone dear asks you to be her bridesmaid on her big day, it is understood that she knows she can count on you. Getting to be a bridesmaid is exciting enough, but when it’s a Goan wedding happening in Goa with all the customs and traditions it is a thousand times more amazing! We’d been preparing for this wedding many months prior to the actual day and how it all came and passed is unbelievable. As a bridesmaid, dressing up with that gorgeous dress, hair, makeup and shoes is so cool but I cannot deny that even the fun moments spent in my rugged home clothes during the wedding preparation with close family and friends was such an experience.

Pose ready

 

Vintage wedding car for the bride

Bridesmaids on duty

That’s our ride- Goa!

 

It’s funny how everything becomes chaotic as the day approaches. Mixed emotions – happiness/ sadness/ tiredness/ exhaustion/ stress etc fly high with each passing minute. I’ve actually seen the bride lose weight just running about with all the co-ordinations 🙂
In case there’s a wedding coming up, here’s a little “To-Do List” I’ve prepared for you:

Book the church/ priest/ choir
Find a wedding gown seamstress
Book a Wedding Hall
Book the wedding car
Select a caterer
Order the wedding cake
Select a hall decorator
Select a lighting professional
A master of ceremonies
Select the toast master
A live wedding Band
Card printer
Distribute the wedding cards (Most time consuming task I think)
Make wedding bands for the couple
Book a photographer/ videographer
Book a Make up and Hair professional
Shop for the bride and bridesmaids
Keep her trousseau ready

There are countless other things that I’m probably not even aware of! Besides there are events before the wedding day and after that too. Imagine!!
Preparing for a wedding with/without a wedding planner can drive you nuts, no matter how small the affair is. But do not stress, as no matter how crazy everything is, somehow on the actual wedding day, everything just tends to shape up miraculously.

Wedding cake

All Blue

Jiving my heart out

Wedding March

Hope you enjoyed this post along with the pics. Share your #MemoriesForLife like I’ve done at BlogAdda for HDFC Life. 

Wedding Photography: Nolasco Alphonso

PS: Vellena check this out:  https://memories.hdfclife.com/message/XzRT1HChTG5J9rvzalpH9Q==

Also I would really like you to follow me on Twitter and Instagram. If you enjoyed the read, let me know in the comments below.

Lots of Love,

The Silent Hummer
Franchua D’Souza.

Soon it will be Christmas Day

Posing after an amazing dinner

Yes, the way days are flying soon it will be Christmas Day!

Last evening my sister and I went out to a newly opened Hotel as we had a meeting there with an executive of the Hotel. While we waited for our meeting attendee to join us, we sipped on some warm cappuccino and hot chocolate and listened to the soft instrumental songs that played in the background. The little beads of the chandeliers gleamed beautifully making the place look rich and well illuminated.

The highlight of the place was this tall Christmas tree. It’s the first one I’ve seen this Christmas season and it was adorned like a bride. The guests including us couldn’t resist taking pics of this beautiful tree. Also the high ceilings and grand stair case made the place look nothing less than a palace.

Oh Christmas Tree, how true you stand unchanging

After our meeting was done, my sister and I were invited to stay for dinner too, an invitation we gladly accepted. The dinner spread was of a wide variety and consisted of Indian, Chinese, and Japanese cuisines. Frankly more than anything else I scanned through the dessert counter which I looooved. I’m sure by now you know I have a sweet tooth (no regret).

I’m so excited Christmas is approaching soon. It only means more Christmas trees and decorations, more hustle and bustle around us friends & families, more food and sweets, and a lot more pictures and memories , speaking of which you must follow me on Twitter and Instagram as I keep posting pics there.

A few pics from last evening:

Warm Cappuccino

 

Want a slice?

 

A part of my dinner

Also a pic of my sister with the tree in the background. Beautiful right?

Lady in Red, my sister.

Christmas Greetings to all of you! Happy Holidays to people far and near. Spread the Christmas cheer around.

Lots of Love,

The Silent Hummer
Franchua D’Souza

We had Joy, We had Fun

Any guesses from which song did I choose the title? Write it in the comments below 🙂

This post is a dedication to Children’s Day (celebrated on 14th Nov).
Not too long ago, we friends visited Phoenix Mills for breakfast. Breakfast at Haagen Daz disappointed us but the over all visit to the mall was worth our time spent. Besides checking out the sales and offers (I love sales and offers), we randomly walked into this beautiful kids world of Hamleys. Considering we’re all grown ups and I’m not into kiddish sort of stuff, I didn’t think I’d have fun here. I was so wrong! Easily I spent more than an hour and half here!

Their whole set-up, their collection of toys, board games, rides, legos, cartoon and animal replicas- everything were awesome! Even their staff looked like they had a fun job when they went about in roller skates, shooting bubbles, throwing Boomerangs around etc. Seriously, such an amazing job guys!
Also usually I do not get carried away by soft toys or squishy stuff but aww these things here were so soo sooooo cute!

Guess what, they even had a gorgeous little white piano which I instantly fell in love with. And why not, I’m the silent hummer after all, remember? Anything to do with music immediately attracts my attention and the next thing I do is take a pic! Like this one.

I think this post is beginning to seem like I’m promoting Hamley’s a little too much and this may be a sponsored post. But NO! This is not a sponsored post. I genuinely had an amazing time here. It’s right to say I actually went back to my childhood memories where there was absolutely no worries in life besides surprise tests and exams. Sigh!

If you’re around Phoenix Mills anytime, drop in here, see the variety of fun things they have to offer and you will forget the real world outside. You will definitely not want to leave the store empty handed. There’s nothing more perfect than visiting this place when you have to gift a kid something (or even an adult who’s fond of these things).

 

When was the last time you visited your childhood memories? What was your favorite toy? Which cartoon character tickled you the most? How do you make it special for today’s technology driven kids? Let me know in the comments section, I love hearing from you.

Photography: Nolasco Alphonso

Hope you enjoyed this post and the pics. Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter & Instagram

Lots of love,

The Silent Hummer
Franchua D’Souza

Baby you’re a firework

Ah this Katy Perry song! So motivating I tell you. If you’ve added me on Twitter and Instagram, you must’ve seen the sneak peek of my Diwali outfit.

Happy Diwali

I started hosting Diwali parties for close friends just last year. Bursting crackers and hanging out on my building terrace is great fun. The terrace is breezy, spacious and can accommodate many people, which is perfect for any occasion.
Knowing the well known negatives about crackers, we friends always make sure to never go overboard while enjoying ourselves. We care for people and animals around us, and value our hard earned money. Bombs, rockets and cracker strings are a strict no- no at my parties. Sparklers, Fountains and Chakris are welcome. This is keeping #traditionmyway in mind.

Chakri time

Fountain time

The interesting part about this year’s Diwali party was the dress code to follow. Indo-western fusion was the theme. The easiest way to put this look together would be wear a kurta on jeans or leggings. You’d stick to the theme and be boring at the same time. So after racking my brains and closet for sometime, I decided on a crop top and palazzos look. Where’s the Indian factor you wonder? It’s the crop top I’m talking about. It was my mother’s saree blouse from her younger days much before I was even born. Here take a look now.

My Diwali look- saree blouse and palazzos

Happy Diwali

What you may or may not believe about my look is, the orange saree blouse, the palazzos and the accessories actually belong to my mother. I was super excited getting to wear her stuff, thankfully they’re in great condition. This set has officially become mine now. Will have to ask my sis to buy similar stuff for her from www.jabong.com cuz I love this set too much to share it 🙂

I can’t wait to get my hands on more of these vintage things.

Hope all of you had a great Diwali this year. Please continue to keep your environment clean and safe for people around you. The Silent Hummer wishes you a Very Happy Diwali and a Prosperous New year! Spread the Light.

Also follow me on: Twitter and Instagram ! You’ll see many more updates there.

Photography by: Nolasco Alphonso

Warm greetings to you too

Lots of Love,

The Silent Hummer
Franchua D’Souza

Heal the world, make it a better place

In August this year, I had the opportunity to visit Ahmedabad. It was such a marvellous experience, I had mentioned quite a lot about it in my previous post. Here I’d like to share my experience in relation to India celebrating Gandhi Jayanti today.

At Gandhiji’s home

Sabarmati Ashram and Gandhiji’s home

Even before reaching Ahmedabad, I had made a “To go to” list, on which the Sabarmati/ Gandhi ashram was at the top. Although the temperatures soared then, we made it to this ashram. Visiting this place is an experience by itself. As soon as you enter the ashram, you instantly get this calming, soothing like feeling. Everything is so quiet and peaceful, even though there are ample visitors present. It’s like entering a church or any holy place for that matter. People automatically know this is a place of respect, not a picnic spot.

Collages at the ashram

Frames

Gandhiji’s Charkha

Demonstration of the Dandi March

Close up of the Dandi march

Such simple thoughts

The ashram was full of collages, frames of Gandhi’s quotes, frames of his letters and signatures, there were black and white pictures of Indira Gandhi as a child with him, of Gandhi with children. There was plenty information about his and his family’s lives, the principles he believed in, about peace and simple living. I remember reading on one of those frames, Gandhi said there’s nothing about this life that the world doesn’t know.

At Gandhiji’s home

Gandhiji’s room

Mahatma Gandhi lived here

I’m glad the authorities have maintained the place as it was. Gandhiji’s house is simple, not cluttered at all. It shows, that besides a man of principles, he was a man who lived a very basic life. Just the thought of me standing in the place where he decided and planned the well known Dandi march to revolt against the salt tax gave me goosebumps and all those History chapters came back to mind.

The Charkha I bought

The Sabarmati Ashram even has a bookshop that sells books and momentos. As soon as I spotted the mini charkha (which isn’t really mini ) I knew it would make a great momento and I had to buy it. While choosing a right momento, it had to be between this, a monkey or salt. And the charkha it was. 🙂
What’s awesome is that it actually works and spins cotton into thread. I was excited as a child on seeing how it worked.

Of course there had to be Gandhiji’s 3 monkeys 🙂

Gandhiji ke teen bandar

I’m not sure if wishing everyone a Happy Gandhi Jayanti is a thing, but here’s hoping we inculcate some of those tough values in our day-to-day lives, especially in these days of war and violence. If nothing else, wishing everyone Peace.
Lots of Love,

The Silent Hummer
Franchua D’Souza

She’s been living in her white bread world

I am used to eating a lot of bread whether it’s in the form of sandwiches, bread with chicken gravy at home, pav bhaji, vada pav, hot dog rolls, or garlic bread. I’m not the health conscious type so I don’t really know benefits/dangers of that much bread. As long as the bread accompaniment is good, I’m a happy person.

Recently on Groupon India, there was a deal for Pizza Express at Andheri which my friends and I tried. We love deals, we love discounts and we’re not ashamed of it.

We knew what to expect as there was a special groupon menu available and the deal wasn’t bad at all for the cost. To make it a fun trip to Pizza express we even used the famous Mumbai Metro, which worked out like a perfect plan considering the outlet we went to was just below the metro station.

Having been to the Colaba outlet before with college friends, I loved the ambience and the vibes there, especially the open kitchen. When we had visited then, we even had to wait for 20 mins. Keeping that in mind, this time we made a reservation which really wasn’t needed. This particualr outlet is quite spacious, with a lot of tables. Also, just one of tables was occupied when we reached. So we had the liberty to decide which table we wanted and were ready to get some good service considering there weren’t too many diners.

The 4 of us went with Peach iced tea (was very watery due to tooooo much ice) for beverages, chose Garlic bread with Mozarella cheese (I did say I eat a lot of bread, didn’t I?) and Bruschetta Originale (err.. bread again! Also, it wasn’t that great a starter) for starters. Since we weren’t too excited with the Classic pizza options, we decided to pay extra and upgraded to Apollo and the Giardiniera thin crust pizzas that weren’t part of the Groupon Menu. For desserts, considering there was just gelato flavours of lemon, vanilla and chocolate to choose from, chocolate seemed like the best.

Since pictures are a very important feature of my posts, here are some pics. Enjoy.

My overall rating:

Ambience: ***
Food: ***
Service: ****
Groupon deal: ***

Note: This is not a sponsored post.
P.S: I’m still awaiting an invitation from sponsors, haha 🙂

Lots of love,

Thesilenthummer
Franchua D’Souza

Feeling Hot Hot Hot

Firstly wishing all our Beautiful mothers A very Happy Mother’s day. Though I somewhere believe these special days are over rated and are business making rackets for Hallmark and Archies, making your mother feel special is never a bad idea. We all will agree to the fact that no matter how expensive our gift for her is or that dinner you’ve surprised her with, nothing is close to the amount of how much more mommy dearest deserves.

My sister decided to take mom and me to lunch at TGIF. As the planning was still on, we spoke to friends and we called them and their families too. By the end of it, we were 10 of us. It was one big happy jing bang with lots of food and drinks.

TGIF Review: I decided to reach early and make a reservation since they didn’t take my phone reservation.On trying to push the glass door, the hostess from inside scribbled on a notebook “12” indicating they open at 12pm. I looked at my phone, knocked on the glass door again, showed her my phone, the time stated it was “12:01” pm.She checked her watch and apologetically said they need 5 more mins.
Now TGIF came up with a new menu so we decided to give it a try. For appetizers We enjoyed the fish fingers with mashed potato and the dip, the onion rings which reminded me of “kaanda bhajia” from those vada pav stalls, the potato wedges were just right,and the salads were good too. For main course we relished the Portuguese blackened fish, Kung pao chicken, Some chicken Thai noodles and Newyork chicken. I doubt the penne pasta will be on my list the next time I go there. Anyway the desserts- Peanut Brownie and Mini Sundae were satisfactory, nothing over the top.
Ambiance was great,the place by itself makes you feel alive and vibrant. Service could be much better but the place was crowded so it was understandable.

What I wore: Knowing Mumbai heat this summer, (remember my last post?) And keeping in mind that after lunch I was directly going for the IPL match *was excited about it*, I wore a plain Black tank top and my comfy blue jeans. To make it a little dressy I accessorized with mommy’s heavy necklace.

In my next post, I will tell you about the IPL cricket match I attended:)

Let me know what did you do this mother’s day? Or how did you spend your time this weekend?

Yours Truly,

Thesilenthummer
Franchua D’Souza

A New Day has come

Turning 25, with it’s surprises.

Let’s get it straight 2014 was the WORST year of my life! Amongst other little things, the biggest jolt was losing my daddy dearest.

The idea of turning 25 would have been super exciting for me, after all it’s a silver jubilee by itself right? But it was different for me. The 24th Birthday celebrations still seemed so fresh in my head, I could remember the new wall paper put at home, the aroma of the tandoori chicken my dad prepared, the fake funny smile he gave when I told him to pose, the tightttt hug when he wished me, how he sat with the guests and chatted away about their times.. this time without dad, I didn’t feel like celebrating at all. So much so that often when my friends asked me what my plans were, it was only then that it would strike me my Birthday was approaching and then I would forget again. On any other Birthday I would stay awake excitedly awaiting calls at sharp 12. This time I fell asleep at 11:45pm! I had decided instead of taking the day off, I would attend work as any other day, nothing fancy at all.

Just one thing slipped off my mind, that I had awesome friends and loved ones!

Surprise 1. As I said I fell asleep at 11:45pm, spoke in my sleep when people called at 12am (I don’t even remember who all), and at 12:15, my doorbell was rung!! So in my night clothes and night hair, unprepared for any surprise I had 2 of my closest friends- Nolasco and Joyson there, with food, pastries, gifts and cameras!
Must admit cutting pastries with close friends is much more fun than a big cake! They did bring some excitement in me and then left me to my 6 hours of sleep before work.

Night clothes, Night Hair and New ear phones!

My dear co- worker T was off that day so it was just my manager and me. Thankfully no one much knew or realised so it was pretty much a regular day in office. My manager thought cake is over rated so he got me pizza from CPK to cut 🙂 I couldn’t ask for more.

Surprise 2. Darling T at work was actually off for the day,but she made it a point to make my day special, as she surprised me by dropping in for just 10 mins, along with a card, cupcake, and chocolate! Isn’t that cute?

Surprise 3. Now that I had two of those close friends visit me at night, with them wishing me a good start to my year ahead, I thought that was that. Turns out, it wasn’t. Nolasco who I’ve been coaxing for 4 years to come visit my office sometime ,maybe catch an early dinner after work around here, never did. So imagine, I was almost done at work and packing up and then I got a call from the security saying some guy called Nolasco has come to meet me!!! 😀 It was a little unexpected! It felt so wonderful. Not that we don’t meet often, not that we were going anywhere or had plans, it was just the thought in his head to bring a big smile on my face. We took the sky walk from BKC to the station, caught our trains and headed towards my home as I decided maybe I could do dinner with a few close ones.

Surprise 4. It was a day of enough surprises. Or so I thought. I went home with Nolasco, my sister Rita was around. Hardly I entered the house, I heard a group of mad youngsters (the rest of my gang- Karen, Joyson, Tabu, Ryan) yell SURPRISE- HAPPY BIRTHDAY! as they stood at the door, their hands full of cake, balloons and bags of gifts!!! It was the biggest surprise for me ever! Especially since I didn’t have anything for this day in mind. How they planned it, when they did it, I don’t know how but it was really awesome!

Ice cream cake From Baskin Robbins

The gifts received were : Mi In-ear Headphone(Piston Design), An Esbeda bag, a clutch, another navy blue office bag and a very novel Ice cream Birthday cake from BR. This surprise-filled day ended with a mughlai dinner out. That’s the least I could have done for these amazing bunch of people. And I’m sure my dad was around with a big broad smile, blessing me :-*

Felt so darbar like at the Mughlai joint

Esbeda bag and matching clutch

Note: The ear phones are awesome for gifting, You may get them here

Hope you enjoyed reading the post!

Yours truly,
Thesilenthummer