a reason and a season for everything

We are all the same

2009-07-30T09:06:00.003+02:00

I wrote the following post nearly two weeks ago, but couldn't get around to posting it. Here it is now, and as I read it this time, I got all the more misty-eyed than when I first wrote it.

--

Sometimes unexpected events leave you feeling that all is right with the world. That strangely overwhelming feeling that engulfs you makes you overlook the quagmire of emotions that had till then been threatening to send your mind into a dizzy downward spiral. I am not talking something grandiose as winning a million dollars in the lottery. I am talking merely of events that take place everyday right across the street corner. Events that we in our race to conquer time, usually do not take note of; but on the rare occasion that we care to ‘stand and stare’, there emerges an understanding, and at times even an insight that would normally elude you, were you to spend hours together on books probing that issue.

The morning started as normal as any other day, and I was on my way to work, waiting for the traffic lights to turn green. I was looking around aimlessly when my eyes caught sight of a young man, probably in his mid thirties, and an older woman, may be his mother, standing together at the other end of the road, also waiting for the signal to change. There wasn’t anything extraordinary about the two of them; they were just the normal Korean people one would encounter on a day out – he was impeccably dressed; suited and booted, and the woman was well dressed in a black knee length skirt and a floral top. Not an unusual site to be seen in a fashion conscious city like this. As I soaked in the scene ahead, the lights changed, and what I saw next, gladdened me to my very core. It was something akin to a warm, soothing feeling overtaking you oh-so-slowly. What I saw in front of me was that as the signal changed, the young man had placed his arm across the older woman’s waist, and was guiding her along, with his palm holding her elbow. I smiled to myself, and stood there for just a second more taking in the scene. As we moved ahead, I from my end of the road, and they from the opposite end, by some stroke of providence, my eyes locked with those of the man right in the middle of the pedestrian crossing. May be I was still smiling, I am not very sure, but as we reached closer to each other, the man nodded at me, as though acknowledging what was going on in my mind, a tender smile playing about his lips, and his head held high! I shook my head in a quick nod, as though we had just casually exchanged a greeting as commonplace as, “Good Morning”. But there was more to it, and both of us knew that. May be this is what is the rare form of understanding that occurs between perfect strangers, just out of the blue. And this moment is so short-lived; it is here now, and then the very next second, you are back into your own world, looking at your watch, wondering if you would make it to the office on time.

It is moments like this that sometimes make me believe in universal emotions. I am an Indian, and that man was a Korean. But despite our national, cultural and religious differences, we had something in common. In reaching out to the lady’s waist while crossing the road, he connected with me and countless other Indian men and women who would do the same. May be despite all the outward differences, we all are unique in some way. Black, white, brown – that is the way a person’s eyes perceive us. But only if we look at others through our heart, we will find that there is so much that unites us all. We all want the same things -- love in our hearts and homes. A kind smile, a loving touch, a meeting of the eyes, a welcoming embrace – they all speak one language that we can understand in any corner of the world.

The Murphy clan is in love with me...Cont'd

2009-06-26T15:25:00.006+02:00

I involuntarily gulped a little. But with fake pride writ large on my face, anyway went ahead to get my drink from the machine. And a second later, I stare in wide eyed amazement when I find that the paper cup wouldn’t budge from its place. It was stuck to the cup-holder! And the cup is damn hot! 90 °C says the machine. So, I yank it a little this way and that in an attempt to loosen the vice-like grip of the holder from the cup rim. But the more I yanked, the more the Murphy clan rocked! And before I knew it, I had somehow managed to squeeze the paper cup, and its erstwhile contents were now lying in a neat little puddle on the floor by my foot.

By then I wanted to kick that damned vending machine, but I don’t have the strength in me to lift my foot to bestow this little act of annoyance on it. I am no management expert or war general, but I do know that the battle is still on, and I just cannot squander my position however weak that might be.

"You just wait and watch, Mr. Murphy,” I muster all my courage to speak in my best smart-ass tone, "You are sure as hell gonna regret paying me a visit.”

“Oooh, a feisty little thing,” retorts Murphy, “But peeps, don’t I always win my battles, more so against feisty creatures?”

“Yes, yes, yes. Woof, woof, woof.” That was the Murphy clan cheering from the sidelines.

What if I don’t have any supporters; I am all I need, says a voice inside me. And so, I roll up my sleeves, and fish out some more money to get myself that precious drink now. So this time around, the coins fall down with a clink, the cup is dismembered from the gorges of the machine, and the beverage pours down with a sound that is now music to my ears. I gingerly open the flip door, and gently pry the cup out of the holder. Yippee do! I finally have my Hot Choco in my hands!!

“Uh-oh, Mr. Murphy! Care to join me for a drink? The drink is on me for sure; you were such a good sport after all.”

Silence. I hear neither Murphy nor the Yes-Woof chorus.

“Oh! Mr. Murphy. Now don’t be such a grouse. Come say congratulations to me. How many people beat you in your own game? You gotta acknowledge that.”

Still silence.

Ah, well! “Good riddance,” I think, and decide to enjoy the drink for which I fought so hard. “Expensive drink, this one,” I mutter to myself, and oh-so-slowly take a swig out of the cup.

What transpired next is best censored from this blog, because I managed to curse myself in some rather unpleasant words. Instead of the hot-choco that I craved, I now was in possession of a cup of piping hot coffee – black, bitter and strong! Aided by Murphy, I must have pressed the wrong button. And as I stood there contemplating what to do with that cup of coffee, I am sure I saw the Murphy clan gliding across the hall in a neat little line on their tip-toes, the perfect image of grace and style, with Murphy at the head, and Tommy at the end.

“Boy! We do a mean ballet or what!” cackles Murphy.

But his peeps I am sure don’t believe in rhetorical questions, and as is their wont, reply in the affirmative, “Yes, yes, yes. Woof, woof, woof.”

The Murphy clan is in love with me

2009-06-16T13:09:00.003+02:00

Yes, you are reading it right; the Murphy clan is in love with me. Now it is quite one thing to have Murphy pop-up out of nowhere in your mind’s eye and gleefully chuckle, “Ahoy! Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” And I guess it is also quite normal with some people, when Murphy, depending on the level of things going wrong, would do a merry jig, a pirouette, and even a yippe-do somersault, if he thought you were the new–age poster boy/girl of his famous Law. But having the whole of his clan drop in to visit me on the same day, within a matter of few minutes, and all of them doing a perfectly synchronized ballet dance to celebrate *the* Murphy’s law taking place in such style, is altogether another thing. I am sure their synchronized ballet would have put the best of Russian ballerinas to shame. This was after all a celebratory dance. And as they say, when you are happy inside, it shows in whatever you do.

Right. So this is how the Murphy clan decided to descend upon me. Happened a few days ago. I was reeling with a bad case of head-ache, and so decided to check my office kitchen for some chocolate powder to make myself a cup of hot choco drink. But turned out that we only had coffee there. I am not a big fan of coffee. If it were a mug of Mom-made-Bru-coffee, I would have had a few sips of that. But this was just black coffee – strong , bitter and dark. I retraced my steps, rubbing my index finger and thumb on my temple, mumbling something to myself. Somehow I then find myself in front of the vending machine for my imminently-essential dose of chocolate. The following is what transpired there upon:

In my inebriated state of mind, I had forgotten to bring my wallet along, and now had to make do with whatever little change that I had on me. So I insert two 100 Won coins into the machine, and press on the ‘HOT CHOCO’ slot and wait to lay my hands on my elixir of life. But quite unbeknownst to me, Murphy was getting ready to pay me a visit in all his grand regalia – pomp and show. I imagine him doing a merry “Ho, Ho, Ho” ala Santa Claus, as soon as I put in my coins into the machine, and then holler to his family,

“Hey, Mom, Pop, Bro, Sis, Tommy...comeon you all. Let’s go drive this woman up the wall.”

And then this is what they would have replied,

“Yes, yes, yes. Woof, woof, woof.”

So I am waiting for the paper cup to drop down and the hot choco to pour into it for some 30 seconds now. Now nine times out of ten, I am a patient person. But this just happened to be the tenth instance, so I did what I could do best with a throbbing headache - I banged on the vending machine. With all my might. It was only a few seconds later that I realised that it wasn’t a test of might to being with. So I mutter something not so nice under my breath, and proceed to dig out some more coins from my pocket.

This is where, Murphy would have remarked with a smirk on his face,

“Goodie, good. Having fun, peeps?”

And the peeps in question would have responded,

“Yes, yes, yes. Woof, woof, woof.”

So I see that I have quite some amount of change on me, and proceed to insert another two 100 Won coins into the machine, after it shamelessly swallowed the earlier two without as much as a burp. And voila! As soon as the second coin fell down with that characteristic ‘clink’ I hear my eagerly awaited hot choco oozing out.

“Ha! Not so soon, my darling girl,” Murphy must have said at that instant. Because when I open that flip door to retrieve my drink, I see with my eyes wide open that the liquid is actually pouring straight down into the machine’s sink. By some stroke of convoluted workmanship, there was no paper cup released to hold this much-craved and much-needed drink, now going waste. The best thing for me to do at that time was to sigh, and I did just that. And since I do things the best I can, I sighed a little longer than would have been necessary, as though to will the vending machine into a serious bout of ignominy at that deed of its.

But no such luck, for I could distinctly hear Murphy say to his clan now,

“Yay, peeps! Do we rock or what?”

And I swear I heard the over-enthusiastic clan reply in unison,

“Yes, yes, yes. Woof, woof, woof.”

But now with an open battle waging between me and the Murphy clan, I could not accept defeat like a coward, head ache or no headache. I had to uphold the respectability of my ancestors. What was a mere headache after all in the face of the pride of my forefathers? I couldn’t afford to let them down, could I?

So now I decide to make myself 200 Won poorer, and do the coin insertion act on auto-pilot. I suspect I also sent up a prayer to request God to give me the strength to fight this Murphy clan. And wonder of wonders…the prayer seemed to be working. I hear the paper cup drop down, and then the brown liquid flow down into it.
“Ha! The game is over you Murphys,” I snort to them with all the disdain I could muster.
But alas! Murphy is a seasoned pro.

“What say, peeps? Shall I make her eat her words back, this very instant?”

I hear him retort. And yeah, you know by now what the peeps would have eagerly said. Yes, they all went,

“Yes, yes, yes. Woof, woof, woof.”

... To be continued.

It's all in the head

2009-06-12T13:15:00.002+02:00

Me: He still hasn’t replied to my e-mail.

The voice in my head: Hah! He cannot not afford to reply. Heard of something called patience?

Me: No, he is not a doctor. He doesn’t have to deal with patients. He sure has plenty of time on his hand.

TVIMH: Aww, honey! That wasn’t funny in the least. If anything, it was bleah.

Me: Thanks. You are being very helpful.

TVIMH: Oh, I aim to help you. And you know that dear, don’t you?

Me: I am on the verge of an anxiety attack, goddamnit! And this is the kind of support I get from you, my inner voice? Ah! Woe is me!

TVIMH: Tell you what, you make a very bad drama queen. Period.

Me: Huh? Did you by any chance jump ship? You traitor, you!

TVIMH: You could never make me do that. Not even if you make a bigger fool of yourself than you have managed to accomplish till date.

Me: Yeah, right! What would I be without you?

TVIMH: Lost.

Me: Don’t you ever get tired of listening to yourself? I mean, I could very well do without you. It sure must be stifling in there, right? Why don’t you take a break or something? That would do both of us a great deal of good.

TVIMH: I am afraid not. You see, when God made you, he saw that there was something amiss inside you. That was when he sent me to be with you with a note that said,

“An acute case of foot-in-the-mouth-itis. Guard her.”

Me: Oh, so I am a defective piece. Why, thanks. That is a welcome news.

TVIMH: I am not quite finished about that note. The post script in God’s very own handwriting on that scroll read:

“Being a pachyderm ain’t bad. Teach her that.”

Me: Right! So how are we doing on ‘Being a Pachyderm 101’.

TVIMH: Terrible! A hundred different kinds of terrible. You gotta send that sensitive side of yours on a hike. Seriously!

Me: Yeah, with you around, I don’t need anything or anyone else. Not even S!

TVIMH: So this S is the guy who hasn’t responded to your mail. He is the one who is responsible for you babbling to no one in particular. He is the one who is making you refresh your gmail inbox every other minute. Am I right?

Me: Um-yeah. But my behavior is beside the point. The point here is – why hasn’t he responded yet to my e-mail after more than 24 hours. 28 hours and 12 minutes to be precise.

TVIMH: The seconds don’t count, I see.

Me: Are you by any chance on a mission to infuriate me?

TVIMH: Actually not. I am only trying to make you see the big picture.

Me: Oh, yeah? And that is?

TVIMH: Now, that’s a good girl. So how long is it since you know this S guy?

Me: 9 days.

TVIMH: That is a lot of time to get anxious about the non-receipt of a mail from someone, huh? I must be really stone-age.

Me: It is not the amount of time that matters. The thing is I felt a kind of connection with him when I saw his profile first.

TVIMH: By Jove, that must have been some super strong connection for you to feel traversing the Pacific between the two of you. Remember the time when you felt a similar oh-so-strong connection with David Sedaris’ ‘I Talk Pretty One Day’, and decided that you must have the book right then. And when you finally did get your hands on a copy of that, that connection was nowhere to be seen. And I think you still haven’t gone past a few pages on that book.

Me: Are you out of your mind? You are comparing apples and oranges here. That was a book, and he is a living being, for God’s sake.

TVIMH: Ah! I thought I was being rather just given that your excitement for the book was because you thought you had found a kindred soul who was in the same category as you – socially inept. Gauche. And that I thought was the best kind of connection one could have, after your recent fiasco.

Me: What do you call someone with an elephantine memory, and with the ability to impart clarity as though touched by the hand of God?

TVIMH: Umm, I suppose you could call her ‘The voice in my head’ or ‘My inner voice’. Either way, it’s fine. I don’t crave social recognition, you see. The only thing I care about is whether you are living to your highest right. And when you stray, you can rest assured woman, that I will make you take note of my presence and set you on the right path.

Me: Have I ever told you that I love you?

TVIMH: Not quite as often as I would have liked to hear.

Me: Right! So let’s maintain the status quo for a little while more. I am a stiff-upper-lipped-fiercely-independent woman after all. Gotta be true to myself. Wouldn’t want you to be enraged if I do anything that is so unlike me.

TVIMH: Hah! Sure, I can live with the status quo.

Me: So let me attend to my work now, and I promise I won’t check my gmail again for the day.

TVIMH: Now, that is music to my ears. Let me catch up on some sleep now. You sure do keep me busy. Toodles.

When words failed me

2009-05-26T09:14:00.007+02:00

One of my worst nightmares ever came true a few days back. No, I wasn’t abducted by aliens. Even if I were, I wouldn’t be terming the incident a nightmare; I would be terming it the most kick-ass thing ever to happen to me (probably ranking above the rare occasions when I retrieve all my socks from the dryer, without the dryer eating them up. So there. Now you have an idea of what constitutes excitement in my semblance of life). Anyway, the nightmare of an incident that I was talking about, was that I was out for coffee with a person for the first time, and I ran out of things to talk about, and yes, I froze! Right in the middle of a warm, sunny day, seated comfortably in a plush little chair, sipping on hot chocolate...I froze! No, the person who was accompanying me was not an ogre. He was quite a nice guy with all things right if you look at him from a woman’s perspective. Yeah, I know...why else would I be out with him in the first place, right? But even if you look at him from a man’s perspective, a doctoral degree in computer science from an Ivy-league doesn’t hurt, does it?

So anyway, I got to know this guy online - saw his profile at a site, liked it, we exchanged e-mails back and forth, chatted for a while, and then decided to meet for that ill-fated drink. Curiously enough, our online conversations are fun! At least I enjoy them; and going by our chat transcripts that are littered with hehes, hahas (no lols/lmaos/rotfls – we aren’t PhDs for nothing!) from both of us, I am tempted to believe that he has fun chatting with me as well. Or else, he definitely is a master of disguise. No, I am kidding. Yeah, I am not ready to take a blow to my already on-the-brink-of-being-crushed-ego by as much as considering that he didn’t like chatting with me.

So right, the day of the meeting dawns bright and clear, and we meet as decided. All is fine for a while, we talk about school, books, the city, the place where I am from, where he is from, the weather (not quite sure!), the travails of being a foreigner in this country and may be a few other things that rank in the negative on their earth-shattering importance level. So, I am sipping on my hot chocolate, and it occurs to me that something doesn’t feel right. I am contemplating that, but still unable to quite place my finger on it, when suddenly I hear him speak.

"Say something. Or else this meeting will go down as one where I had the 90% conversation time."

GULP!

Yeah, that was me gulping – in embarrassment! In horror! In trepidation! In helplessness!

I am quite sure I wouldn’t have been able to compartmentalise those uncalled for feelings so efficiently at that instant, but thinking in retrospect is a luxury that I indulge in. And it isn’t without benefits; you, my readers, get to delve into the recesses of my mind in situations where I am cornered on account of that luxury. So there I am, under pressure to say something, and unconsciously I blurt out a gem of a statement that would without doubt take the cake in the annals of "first-meeting-fucks-ups" if at all anyone decided to create something like that.

"I didn’t come prepared with a list of topics to discuss with you."

Yeah, right. That was the smart-ass me, trying to salvage a situation. But all I ended up doing was to dig a grave and bury that meeting while it still had some vestige of life in it. So there lies my first-ever meet with a guy in this country, at that cute little Belgian café. And in case you are wondering, the epitaph on the grave that I single-handedly dug reads:

For her 10% contribution to the conversation.
When words failed her on 17 May, 2009.

Random musings on a Friday afternoon

2009-04-17T09:35:00.004+02:00

Right. So it’s a Friday afternoon, the sun is shining brightly on my window, and the vibrant spring colours out in the open are doing a merry jig inviting me to partake in their celebration. Must sound very nice to you, but if you happen to be that discerning reader, your ‘danger ahead’ sensors should have picked up those two words that are the license to write on all inane and mundane things that happen in the semblance of life that people like me lead. Yes, I know you are bright, and I was indeed alluding to that particular time of the week called Friday afternoon, which in my world happens to be a cornucopia of visions of all things useful and useless. Not that I don’t have anything better to do, but when I am fighting with every ounce of my resistance to keep my drooping eyelids open, the only reprieve away from la-la land happens to be Writing.

“Write for joy and understanding,” beseeched Erica Jong and I have been doing just that even before I read her propose this. But I also write for a lot many other reasons, one of them being – just for fun. To just be! So as I sit at my desk fighting the sleep demons, meandering through the convoluted web of thoughts doing the rounds in my head and munching on freshly microwaved popcorn, I realize I want to write about my birthday. (Boy, am I a pro at multi-tasking or what?) Well, not about the day exactly, but about what I want to do in the run-up to my birthday at the end of this month. Why post that here, you ask? Well, here’s the newsflash: It still is a Friday afternoon! So those of you who are still with me, having fought your desire to move on to constructive things, let’s move forward, shall we?

The thing is I don’t know what this birthday is supposed to mean to me. I am about to turn 29. I was a lot more excited last year, but the day itself was a dampener with my grandma’s sudden death close to my birthday and the funeral being held on that very day. The year that has been however was an eventful one. I got a job, chucked that for another one, and still vacillate about deciding on what is it that I want to do with my life professionally as well as personally. The more I think about it, the more I find that my days and nights merge into an unending spiral of questions, with no answers in sight. But it’s okay I say to myself, as long as I keep thinking and be on the look-out for those occasional flickers that offer me new directions to pursue. So by that token, I thought I’d make a To-do list of things to do before my 29th birthday. I am not thinking world-peace here or any such magnificent issue, just some little things that mean a lot to me. Heck, I do not even have the list ready in my mind, and I’ll just have to think as I type on. So here goes:

1. Write an e-mail everyday to one person in my address book, whom I haven’t spoken to in ages. Yes, there are many people in this category. So, that means I need to think of many different ways of breaking the proverbial ice. Or may be not, who said I can not use the same opening sentences for each of them. ;)

2. Speak to my colleagues more often. This is on the list because I don’t speak their language, and they are not too keen on speaking in English. So I am like an alien sitting in our shared office, being spoken to only when I speak with them.

3. Check the following:
(a) How would staying away from gtalk while at work, affect my sanity?
(b) Will I develop finger tendonitis if I don’t refresh my Gmail inbox every 30 milliseconds?

4. Post something on the blog everyday till the end of this month. I have been rather negligent about writing here.

5. Finish that article that I have been working on for almost a month now.

6. Begin work on revising the article from the last job, and set a deadline to have that out of the door. More importantly, convince boss to have that article see the light of the day after having it hibernate for almost two years now.

7. Decide on what I want to do in the short break from work that I’d get in May. I want to see this country. It is beautiful, my words have not been able to do justice to it so far, may be I should let some pictures do the needful.

8. Begin my early morning jog routine. Been ages since I turned my back to it. Spring sure is a good time to turn over a new leaf.

9. Enquire about a gym in the locality and work up a schedule to join beginning 1st of next month.

10. Get back home at a reasonable hour every night from work.

Ten sounds like a good enough number for me to stop. So good luck to me and all that jazz. And off I go to scan my address book to pick that one person to send my e-mail out of the blue. I will write here how it went, if the responses (if any) I get aren’t too abusive/sarcastic/associated adjectives to be posted here. Hell no! Who am I kidding? I just want to do my part – which is to write that e-mail. I am not thinking of the outcome.

What do they say about life and lemonade?

2008-12-11T16:01:00.002+01:00

So here's something I doodled a while ago. Apologies if it doesn't make sense. If it does, just send me a hug...I could do with one right now.

Sometimes I feel I am in the middle of an ocean on a dinghy little raft, holding on to it for my life, while all around me I have roaring waves threatening to overturn the raft any minute. I don’t know swimming, and all I seem capable of doing is to pray for non-existent help. Can only a miracle save me in this situation? I don’t know what to do to better my chances of survival. But surprisingly, I am not all terrified or miserable. Sure, I don’t know what will happen the next minute, but I am doing what I believe is the best I can do at this particular minute...and that is to pray to God for strength! Yes, just for strength so that I hold myself together in this ordeal.

I am no coward, and I took this chance to venture out into the ocean, and now that I face a near-fuck-it-all situation, I am going to be brave and face it with my head held high. Deep down I know I did my best to avoid this fuck-up, and now that I am in here, I confess I don’t know what to do. There doesn’t seem to be any help at hand. I take one minute at a time; I don’t know for how long. If I am sure of one thing, it is this that if I have to go down, that will be with the knowledge that I ain’t a coward.

Back

2008-12-11T15:50:00.003+01:00

I am back to the blog after a very long time. Lots happened during this break, the lessons of which I am still trying to understand.
I was going through some of my old folders today, and found this gem of a poem. This has often given me strength in times of despair, and today was no different. So here I am posting it for myself and for anyone else who could do with a little pat on the back. Go on, drink from it...

The Invitation
by Oriaha Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring the moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your sorrow, have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed for fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself, if you can bear accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore be trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty everyday, and if you can source your life from it's presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon...YES!

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done for the children.

It doesn't interest me who you are or how you came to be here. I want to know if you can stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me what or where or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in empty moments.

Turning twenty eight on the twenty eighth

2008-02-01T04:57:00.000+01:00

I have been tossing and turning in bed over the last hour or so, unable to sleep due to a terrible flu. I decided to get up and write this post as the idea for this suddenly struck me. As my fingers type away on the keyboard, I realize they are shaking slightly, and that I smell of Vicks Vaporub. I pause for a while, and the pitter-patter of raindrops on the window distracts me. But I know I just have to carry on and capture my thoughts into words, but I don’t know why my blog takes precedence over my diary at this particular moment.

Anyway, the thing is just this: in a few months from now, I’ll turn twenty eight on a twenty eighth. For me this is the personal equivalent of the ‘Turning Thirty’ phenomenon. I remember reading Mike Gayle’s novel by the same name about two years back, and it was then that twenty eight became ‘the’ age for me. The novel’s protagonist Matt Beckford’s thoughts on turning thirty are excerpted below from the publisher’s write-up,

Thirty means going to the pub if there's somewhere to sit down. Thirty means owning at least one classical CD, even if it's 'Now That's What I Call Classical Vol 6'. Thirty means calling off the search for the perfect partner because now, after all these years in the wilderness, you've finally found what you've been looking for.

As I had finished reading the book then, I had asked myself, “What do I want for myself when I turn twenty-eight?”, and the first thought that had crossed my mind was this, “I want to be living in a house with a library and a garden” [1]. Over the last two years I have revisited this question many times, and I no doubt have many answers. All of these reflect a part of me, but THE answer which is me in totality has eluded me so far. May be I’ll arrive at the answer in the run-up to my birthday, may be I’ll not, or it is also possible that thirty five or even forty turns out to be “my twenty eight”, but right now I can’t do much except to jot down my foremost thoughts on this. When I turn twenty eight, I would like…

…to have moved-on. I have many bitter memories hanging around my neck like the proverbial albatross. I think I have learnt my lessons from those trying times, but the memories still haunt me. I must have learnt to let go of that negativity.
…to have acquired the strength to understand that I am what I am and not to compare myself with anybody; and more importantly not to get riled by others’ comparisons.
…to have learnt to be at peace with myself.

I have had many such thoughts competing for my "Turning Twenty Eight Manifesto", but may be you get the idea from the three above…it’s all just on the lines of becoming a better person. And these could well be passed off as new year/any birthday resolutions…but these are not what I am looking for. Hell, I had even created an account on 43things.com about an year ago just for fun, to see if that helped, but it turned out to be an utter waste of time. All I ended up doing there was to think of things that I wanted to do before twenty-eight (I remember one amusing entry that I created then; it was to throw away my blanket after I read an article on the BBC about deaths caused by mite-infested blankets. But no, I still haven’t discarded that blanket, because it was one of the first things I had bought with my first salary. Emotional bonding to material things, that’s the characteristic that I wish to get rid of).

So there you now see my thoughts on turning twenty eight. I am uncertain to a great extent. I have the bits and pieces that make up the jig-saw, but turns out that, it is one of those humongous thousand piece puzzles. I need time, and I definitely need patience to get it right.

[1]. A library with my own books, and a garden that I would have created. And I was pretty sure that the house in question would be a rented one…striking gold in the profession would take a few more years :).

The day that was...

2008-01-26T22:07:00.000+01:00

It has been an unusual day. Not the calendar day, but the duration from 7.00 pm yesterday to 7.00 pm today. This time period has brought me experiences that have truly made me happy, along with an inexplicable sense of satisfaction.

My day began with a phone call to R. He is about six years younger to me, and our families have known each other for over fifteen years. But since we have been moving around quite a bit, it was only in the last year or so that I have really gotten to know the real wonderful person that R is. This was just an ordinary phone call, no special reason, and we talked. Well, it was more like he talked, and I listened. Conversation is not really my forte, and this guy R, he is an excellent conversationalist; a laughter-riot. May be that wise someone was thinking of R, when he coined the ‘capable-of-selling-ice-to-an-Eskimo’ bit. Despite this lopsided long distance talk, our banter and camaraderie has left a smile on my face, that is making me feel so happy within.

I know R will be the guy who will secretly count the number of ‘right’-s in my conversation (I use the word right quite often), and will gladly tell me the same just to irk me. But that’s fine with me because both of us know that I think of him as the brother I never had!

(There, now I feel my faint smile widening into a big grin:)

After this phone call, which must have lasted about three hours, I looked into some job related stuff, which I have been procrastinating for a long time now. I knew this would take up a lot of my time, and I needed it this way, because I wanted to stay awake to wish my mother early in the morning of 26^th January for her birthday.

After the telephonic talk with my parents, I resumed my work, only to be interrupted by someone on Gtalk. Turned out that he was my mate from University days. We had fallen out of touch, and it was good catching up with him after around four years.

I returned back to my work-stuff after this, only to find that I was unable to make sense of what I was reading. After much coaxing and I-can-do-it talks, I decided to watch The Italian Job. This was recommended to me by R over the phone, and I don’t regret spending time over it. Infact I loved the movie. By the time the movie ran into the credits, it was 5.30 am, and I got back to my work with a happy state of mind. And surprise! I had a minor breakthrough in my work! Yes, it’s minor, but I know if I use this ‘window’ properly, it could lead me to my aim.

So to celebrate this, and to ease my aching back, I decided to make myself a cup of ginger tea (my favourite beverage ever). It was close to 7.00 am now, and I was excited that I actually could see the sun rise in a short time. I love sunrises, but I am a late-riser, so you can figure how often I grant myself this simple joy. Having made the tea, I walked with my cup to the window beside my writing table, all eager to combine two of my loves in a single moment – ginger tea and sunrise. But, I think it wasn’t meant to be so, as it was still quite dark outside. All I could see from the window was the city skyline with the occasional patches of yellow and white lights piercing through the blanket of darkness. It was beautiful, but not what I was looking for. So I decided to return back to my desk, to savour my drink before it got cold. I took a sip, and it was as usual refreshing. And like the many hundred times, I involuntarily told myself that that was the best cup of tea I had ever made.

I finished the tea, and decided to listen to this song Aao Na from Kyon Ho Gaya Na. I had loved this song even when the movie was new, but ever since I catched it on YouTube a week back, it has been continually playing in my mind. I took a look at the window to see if the sun had decided to rise, but that wasn’t the case. So I sank back into my chair, stretched my legs, put on my head-set, closed my eyes and played the song. As before, I enjoyed the song for its lovely music and good lyrics; particularly the line - Sun sako dhadkanein, itne pass aao na. “This is beautiful,” I mused to myself and opened my eyes. But something looked different now. It took me a couple of seconds to realise that it was not just my table lamp that was illuminating my desk, but there was sunlight falling on to my monitor from the adjacent window. The sun had long been up!

Disappointed, I walked up to the window and saw that the street lamps were switched off. The Opel showroom a few kilometers away still had the light on on the huge O-P-E-L sign. Closer home, I looked down and found a man walking his big dog; cars were parked in a neat line along the road-side; lots of swaying bare tree-tops; a single nest, probably an empty one; the tall building with the grotesque yellow-violet exterior that stood out among the other sober ones. That was what I saw: my new surroundings. The missed sunrise was out of my mind by then, and I found myself looking at the scene from my window with joy; for this was the first time since I moved into this apartment about twenty days back, that I had consciously taken note of my surroundings. I had known this place for the past three years, so when the place came up for rent I just moved in without much thought. But that moment at the window was like forging a tryst with my future in this house.

The rest of the day was quite uneventful, except that when I woke up from my sleep around 4.00 pm, the first thing that I did was to walk up to the window and let myself soak in the view that lay ahead. A new day had just begun…

Edited to add: Looks like the 'good' streak is still running. I logged into my blogger account and found the first ever (well, two actually) comment(s) on this blog. :) The reason for the extra happiness is that these are from Tharini, whose writing and thoughts I have come to admire over the last couple of months.

Thanks, Tharini! I couldn't have had a more 'welcome' welcome to the blog world! :)

Words

2008-01-24T16:29:00.000+01:00

I read somewhere that when you are confused about what to write, the best option is to write of the thing closest to your heart. Taking up on this advice, I have decided to write about WORDS. So this post deals with words that have touched me in some way or the other. The list is not by any means complete, but may be I’ll just jot down the words that are screaming oh-so-loudly for my attention.

brook (n)

This is my favourite word in the English vocabulary. I am not sure if I have seen a brook in real life, but I sure have been captivated by many a photograph depicting this natural wonder. I think I am in love with the vivid imagery of a brook that arises in my mind when I as much as think of it…a small stream of water running over stone-laden earth under a canopy of lush green ferns; the gurgling sound of the flowing water; the ripples creating a layered texture on it with a view of the pebbles and stones underneath with the sporadic green mat of lichen on them…this is exquisite beauty to my mind’s eyes!

For the same reason, I like the word rivulet as well, and I think the word has a sexy ring to it.

nice

This is a word that I do not like at all. To me, it appears devoid of life and soul. I try my best not to use this word in my writing and conversations, and am learning to overlook the chasm between ‘fine’ and ‘good’.

rendition and the phrase like a house on fire

Both the word and the phrase appear utterly artificial to me. Any write-up with the words his rendition of ….. steers me away from the piece. It’s not like the word is too jarring on the ear, but there is something obnoxious about it, which I haven’t figured out till date. And ditto for like a house on fire. When you talk to me of two people who get on with each other like a house on fire, something makes me run miles away from them and you. Nothing to do with the destructive overtone here; there is something that I just don’t ‘get’ with the phrase. Hell, I love similies. Even a like a fart in thin air is fine with me, but just not this!

A new beginning

2008-01-15T01:36:00.000+01:00

I have been toying with the idea of having a blog for quite some time now. So here I am marking my foray into the blogosphere, with a site of my own.

Over the last couple of years, my life experiences have made me believe that there actually is a reason and a season for everything in life. I am not exactly espousing fatalism here, let's just say that I am learning not to be too critical of myself, as has been my wont. And this phrase on the top on this site is to remind me not to take myself too seriously, and to enjoy things while they last.

And yes, I absolutely love writing. I suspect I am just plain bored of my 'Dear-Diary' type journal entries, and hence this gnawing need for something new. And you dear reader, if you wanna say hello or anything that you read here catches your attention, do drop in a comment.

Shall be back with more soon!

Geeta.