“Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.” ~ Andy Rooney.

I am enjoying my journey as a food stylist and was in for a pleasant surprise the other day when I received a call from the ace photographer Venkat Ram.

The photo-shoot was for a popular South Indian brand, Hatsun with a good network in dairy products. The photo-shoot was for their new venture into ready-to-eat frozen food product line by the name Oyalo.

“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”~ Jim Rohn

It has been days since my last post on Lite Bite.

After the life-changing career shift through food blogging, time is one luxury I don’t have.

Finding a balance between the demands of family and fulfilling your dreams is tough when you are passionately inclined towards both.

“I have to mention about a person who played an important role in this project. I didn’t know how to use social media network or to even send a mail. She is the one who opened my Gmail account and started my facebook page called DSOFT. She clicked pictures of the clothes we stitched and uploaded on the page.”

“Sanjeeta, my tech-guru, please stand up where ever you are” Saranya looked at me from the stage and smiled.

I shyly stood and waved to the audience. I could see my son smiling in disbelief after hearing her mom referred as ‘tech-guru’ 🙂

Another fruitful year comes to an end. Well, you don’t need a new year to make a change, all you need is a new morning.

The sky went from dark to almost black, followed by delicate drops of rain. Soon, the rain drops grew bigger & heavier and turned into furious storm.

It rained and rained and rained…till the city of Chennai and its suburbs were submerged under water. The devastation all across the city is far beyond the words to describe.

The evening on 1^st of December was when the nightmare started for everyone who were out for work. Torrential rains, power cut and neck deep water in most of the areas made the city traffic cripple and brought the entire city to standstill.

When you’re following your passion, you won’t need to be motivated.

There was a time when, I used to struggle to manage my blog with my self-imposed technology phobia and wondered if I would ever make it to today.

But today, sitting in the office of a very popular brand of Chennai, ready to sign the mega project….my hands are shaking and I could hear every beat of my heart. And I am ready to test my wings again!

“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.”~ Phil Jackson

“Hi Sanjeeta, there is a shoot on 14^th, are you free?”

 “Yes”

 “See you there!”

This is the conversation with Kunal before most of the food photo-shoot assignments we do together.

“You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.” ~ Campbell.

Mid-term holidays for children had started and we finalized a pretty destination for our vacation. Two photo-shoot calls and I had to re-schedule our trip and change it to a weekend getaway.

The photo-shoot this time was an independent project for Isha Life restaurant in Chennai. I was approached by Meena ji for this project sometime back.

As far as I remember, Tea was the very first thing I learnt to prepare when I was in my middle school.

I was playing an important role in an English play at school and wanted to practice my lines when everyone at home were asleep.

Mom never introduced us to drinking tea or coffee during our school days, but I knew that a cup of hot tea is my best bet to keep awake for long. So ‘tea’ it was.

“Amma, could you believe that I made close to 140 perfect looking Kozhukattais (steamed rice dumplings) yesterday for the shoot… Iniya  the actress who acted in the commercial, rushed towards me after the shoot and asked if she could take a few of those brown coloured yummy Kozhukattais  home.” I paused for a while sipping the strong & frothy filter coffee and stretched my legs to sit comfortably on the large wooden swing in my mother-in-law’s living room.

“You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.” ~ Joseph Campbell

Infact, I had no plans or any set goals for my life before jumping onto the bandwagon of food blogging. The only time when I needed to make a so called ‘plan’ was when I had to visit the grocery store, my doctor’s clinic, parents meet at school, activity classes for kids or to deposit cheques in the bank.

Life has suddenly become very fast and busy with a sudden spur of activities over the last few years.