The 19 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Death*

1. After being decapitated, the average person remains conscious for an additional 15-20 seconds. Talk about a way to go.

2. Mourning your dear departed cat? You could shave your eyebrows like the ancient Egyptians used to. Then again, maybe a trip to the pet cemetery would be easier.

3. May want to rethink what you bury your loved ones in. An old wives’ tale claims that if a woman is buried wearing the color black, she’ll come back to haunt the family.

4. Speaking of preventing hauntings, yet another old wives tale led to the institution of burial wreaths. It was believed that the wreath would encircle the spirit of the dead person, thereby preventing them from returning from the grave.

5. In 1931, Henry Ford decided to preserve his friend, Thomas Edison’s last dying breath. He kept it in a bottle. Hope he put a label on that one.

6. One of the main reasons cowboys carried pistols in the 1800’s was to avoid being dragged to
death by their horse. You think they could have just gotten bigger stirrups.

7. The last words spoken by Union General John Sedgewick were, “They (the Confederate soldiers) couldn’t hit an elephant from this dis…”

8. So much for the curse of good ole King Tut. Despite reports that all twenty-two people who were present at the exhumation kicked the bucket, twenty-one were still kicking ten years later.

9. If someone plans to jump off Mount Everest to commit suicide, you’ll need a lot of patience. It takes the average person 2.5 minutes to hit bottom. And we don’t want to know who timed it.

10. Here’s a job I definitely wouldn’t want to have. When Pyrenees beekeepers die, someone has to go around and splash every single one of their bees with black ink.

11. John Bowman, a tanner from Vermont believed that after his death he would be reincarnated with his pre-deceased wife and children. So, he ordered his house staff to have dinner on the table every night, just in case. They finally stopped in 1950 when the money finally dried up.

12. Think your décor is bad? Oscar Wilde’s last words were, "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or other of us has got to go" He fought the wallpaper and the wallpaper won.

13. An old superstition stated that if the doors in the house were locked, the soul of a dying person couldn’t get out.

14. Yet another superstition warns against pointing at a funeral procession, with the dire warning that you’ll die within a month. More proof for that whole three fingers pointing back at you thing.

15. Might want to read the labels a little more carefully. Nearly 2,500 lefties are killed every year using products meant for righties. Who knew? Now, just back away from those right-handed scissors.

16. A pet-parrot caused a ruckus at President Andrew Jackson’s funeral. His crime? Swearing during the ceremony. Guess he should have given Polly just one more cracker.

17. That ballpoint pen? The one you’re chewing on? Might want to put it down. 100 people are killed every year by choking on a ballpoint pen. Which proves the old quote about the pen being mightier than the sword. At least some of the time.

18. Apparently, they really are virtually indestructible. A cockroach can reportedly live up to 9 days without its head. The only reason they finally kick over? Starvation.

19. And you thought sex appeal was the first to go. Allegedly, it’s actually your sight that goes first when you die. It’s your hearing that’s the last to go…. What was that?
* These 19 statements have been collected from various sources and are for entertainment and discussion. The authenticity of these is for you to discuss and research on your own.

by bloggeroid

YE DELHI HAI MERE YAAR

Ankit and I went on a Trip to North India. We boarded the GaribRath Express and were off. We lost track of time completely and realized that we had reached Mathura as soon as we heard the vendors “pedha pedha mashoor pedha”. Getting out of the station we were surrounded by rickys… as all tourist are and after some effort we were able to bargain the worst price and were on our way to ‘Draupadi Nivas’, a guest house for our short stay in Vrindavan.

Vrindavan, a land where cows, monkeys, squirrels, and sages are amidst blaring remix bhajans! The whole place is an ideal pilgrimage spot where every lane is overloaded with temples and florists. (Enough I’ll not go into further details)
Let me cut to Agra. We were in Agra to attend our friend Esha’s grandparents’ Golden Wedding Anniversary. And yes!, we did visit the terrific Taj Mahal. It’s a treat to the eye. Seeing it in the pictures is one thing, seeing it physically will leave you speechless! Its architecture and craftsmanship truly makes it deserve its top spot in the list of Wonders of the World. We went crazy taking pictures there.

Our next stop was Amritsar and after another round of bargaining we hired this really smart sardarji, Sonu. This chap was a semi guide and told us about all the best places to visit in Amritsar. (his marketing strategy.) After getting us a cozy hotel, just a stones throw away from the Golden Temple, and a commission from the hotel he left.
we freshened up and off we were to the temple. We visited the glittering Golden Temple thrice as we suddenly felt very religious. ;) Next destination was the wagah border. Reached there like ‘rajas’ only two of us in our chariot called Rickshaw. On reaching there the feeling of patriotism engulfed every Indian present there.
Chants of ‘HINDUSTAN ZINDABAD!’ ‘BHARAT MATA KI JAI!’ and
‘VANDE MATARAM!’ drowned Pakistan’s ‘JEEYE JEEYE, PAKISTAN’ and ‘PAKISTAN ZINDABAD’. The quick parade and exchange of glares on either side of the border was electrifying. Music from bollywood movies blasted songs which passes currents through the body.
To be continued….

Slumdog Holi

Holi of 2009 is 1st Holi of our bahu, Muskan. Naturally our main target was she only. But to our pleasant surprise, not only she enjoyed every bit of action but also fought back as fearless shikhni.

We started in a decent way, as all holis should be played. Colour, and more colour. The one more surprise was in form of Manju also participating! Normaly she puts tika and her holi is done. Today she was not screaming yuck as and when colour was sprayed on her.

After applying the routine colors, our movie crazy family decided to pay tribute to Slimdog Millionair, by playing holi with Muck - Mud - Mix. Lets start, Sharat and Akshay were already in process.

.

Muskan, who, naturally is very concerned about her skin and looks, was also the game. The opening was good and slowly all made a beeline and applied the mud-pack, with muskan being the most in demand victim.

Yucks!

In all this everyone smiled, but muskan smiled the most!

For More Photographs....
http://picasaweb.google.com/pgdodeja/Holi09
by P G Dodeja

Diwanapan - Craze about movies

It is not necessary for you to be tied up with Film world to be crazy about it. Take example of our family. Four Generations of Dodeja are movie crazy, for this I present following.

My grand father, used to watch at least 4-5 movies in a week. Not that he had plenty of free time. No sir. He used to handle Mumbai - Pune - Ahemdabad - Hydrabad offices, was very much into writing, travels and business. Where ever he was, he would watch 2 new Hindi releases, one of his old favorite and one English movie, minimum, in a week.

My father's routine consumption was one Hindi and one English movie a week. Plus he was very big fan of Film Festivals. Not only festivals but he would join film societies, and religiously see maximum shows possible. He will get into one genre, watch maximum movies and soon shift toother genre.

I have this odd fetish of not repeating the movie. As I was growing up, I would accompany grand father and father on there cinema hall visits. Thus I develop this habit of enjoying different kind movies. Then I am lucky enough to get exposure to all kind of movies, TV serials and what not. Grandfather would prefer action, suspense, whereas my father would like to see the drama based, story based movies. Then my children forced me and made me fan of cartoon, Jim Carey, Jackie Chan kind of movies.

Then my son has gone one step further. I have seen him, enjoying continuous run of 18 hours, movie marathon. He is so much addicted, that he must see a movie a day, atleast.

Can anyone guess a name two movies, which are favorite of all four generations, have repeat value even today?

(Clue: My grandfather died in 1988, so the movie belongs to the period before that.)

The movies are.

Black and White classic: Chalti Ka Naam Gadi. (Ashok Kumar - Kishore Kumar - Madhubala)

And the evergreen wounder, Sholay.

by P G Dodeja

Sinhgad 2009

Nandni & Kunal Nanda, our family's new member, Muskan Akshay Dodeja's brother and sister had come for overnight stay. 26th being republic day holiday, we decided to have early morning picnic at sinhgad fort. It being an before sunrise outing, many dropped. But Akshay - Muskan - Kashyap - Myself - Sharat - Nandani - Kunal and Ramu, all made up a good company.
Early morning drive was pleasant, fast and smooth. Van and Ramu's Karisma bike.


Reached before sunrise, and watched with awe, sun coming out gently from the womb of the earth, slowly, throwing its glow and warmth all around, bathing everything in its beauty. As it made its journey to heavens, birds welcomed it with its chatter, trees swayed, swished and we all marvelled at natures beauty.

Clicked plenty of photographs. Our new bahu gets very much excited in front of the camera. Also I had all other young good looking boys and girls ready to pose. So it was click time and fun time. After plenty of focusing and shooting, we took tea, had local food as lunch.

Normally it is very excellent, this time I found food, dull and not attractive. Why? No inkling. By 1.0 pm we were all tired. So trekked back to our vehicles. As we walked down, we acknowledged our wisdom of coming early. The parking lot, entrance, the whole place was crowded and jam packed! We thanked our stars and returned with pleasant memories.
by P G Dodeja

Marriage's are made in Heaven, We make it in Mahableshwar.

Wow! What a wedding. Sounds arrogant, but frankly I am overwhelmed and forced to say again, Wow! what a wedding.

To say that it was our hard work, attitude, dedication, planning etc was responsible for success of wedding, will be stretching it, but of course this played its part. For that our family deserves the applaud. The unity helped us a lot and every one contributed in big way. All deserve the award. For Vedhi Fotos Click here.

But briefly with what I will remember the wedding?

• The marathi words in our letter, "Akki Chi Jhali Nakki".
• "I thought you will not be able to better Avi's wedding, but you have done that. What next?" Jyoti Nichani
  
• "The smile pasted on face during welcome, stayed till the end." Deepika's comment.
• "In my life span of 75 years I have attained numerous weddings, this is the best wedding." Arjanlal Dodeja.
• "Fanta-boulus." [Whatever it means] Bhagwan Dodeja
  

• The welcome Part, (Moni-Deepi-Deepak-Deep-Dhawani-Lali-Kash-Mili-Myself) was roaring success. The guest were great and participated with gusto. This set the mood for the wedding in big way.

• The FUN Mood. It was the basic concept, have a Fun filled wedding, and believe me, it was all the way, Fun filled.
• 
  

• The almighty was biggest help by providing excellent climate. Cool enough to enjoy. Warm enough to stay out of Shawl's.
  

• Location, just mind blowing. Everyone was apprehensive, but when they reached destination, they were on cloud nine.

• Skit, I heard a guest saying, "Very sexy and decent. Wow, bollywood stuff." No better compliment can be given to Chawla girls - Kash - Meet - Deep and their friends.

• Chillam Chilly function was marred by drab section of Mimicry & Love Poem by Manish and Tina. However, Kash & Sharat saved the day by great performance. The awards recipients were surprises lot, wish we had given it more time.
  

• The Groom and Bride looked out of this world. Specially on engagement night. Class. Dress designer [Khushboo] must have received many many compliments. Well, being parent it will be biased opinion, so I will be posting few pics.
  

• Morning tea with all oldies smiling and enjoying get together was sight to behold. Mummy - Rajkumari -Moti - Madan - Pushpas - Sanjay - Lali - Bhagwan - Maya and many many more.
  

• Thappa food was greatest add on. The best food ever. Thanks to Thappa. Irony is that very few of the family members relished his food. Every one was busy taking care of guests, looking after them.
  

• The timing were perfect, with no lull in the ceremonies and function. The ride kept rolling for all 56 hours with bare minimum sleeping time of few hours. Dodeja attitude of sticking to fixed time frame was big help in success of the whole program, be it arrival, Engagement, Food on table, starting of Vedhi, Departure etc.
  

• And our thanks letter with Dodeja Doing DVD was cherry on the cake. Umesh Valecha specially send me thanks message!
  

All in all great stuff, the stuff which makes the all hardships faced to keep family together, worthwhile. Chawla - Bajaj - Dodeja - Kash Friends - Bathija, Thanks to all. Only missing thing to my mind was absence of youth from the Girl Side. They were, I feel over whelmed and awed by everything, so they kept to them self.

by P G Dodeja

Shadi Ke Shad Mane [Dodeja - Wedding]

Akshay & Nikita finally said yes to each other! Frankly, they had said 'YES' long long time back. But being in India, the family yes also counts. The family 'YES' took its own time and after years of wait the day came.
Just one day before 'Shradh' month's start, Roka (Formal 'YES') ceremony was performed. Very close family members, Dodeja's - Chawlas - Nandas were present. The full program was planned in Pune. However, due to our 'fun' attitude in all matters, at last minutes suggestion that lets do the Roka in Khandala (It being very cool and cloudy) was considered very seriously. Mummy was not happy, but accepted our suggestion. However, after confirming, the plan was dropped as, no Hotel was ready to provide food for 40 odd people at last minute.
Currently I am going through the happy phase of wedding. The planning. As travel part is always best in a trip, so is the planning part of wedding. Daily, Lali - Myself and Avi consult, discuss and work on small part of event. The every 2nd day, late night meeting and discussion and observations and plans are held either at KK or at Sacred Heart. All said and done, real fun time. The tensions, the problems and issues will come just 5 days before the event, till then, I am Loving it.
But then, every possibility is that tensions, the problems and issues may not surface at all! So, god bless.
To start with, wedding is planned in Mahableshwar, a hill station, 210 Km from Pune. So the planning part is very crucial and delicate. We have dispatched the invitation letter, 2 months in advance. The letter was received with many compliments. The passing comment by maharashtrian friend of Sharat, 'Akki chi Jhali Nakki' was gleefully pouched and used in letter. Every one liked it and this letter is being refered to as 'Nakki' letter!

by P G Dodeja