Picture this. A pumpkin on two legs imagining itself to be as graceful as Madhuri Dixit and trying to do a tumka .(For the ignorant ,it’s a kind of hip gyration in which u try hard to dislocate ur hip).Or Humpty Dumpty trying to a sexy belly dance, trotting up and down the wall…
Deadly, is it? Well…that’s what how it seemed to me also.
5 months of staying stuck to my chair in response to the complaint my client had abt me taking frequent breaks has started showing its impact .A nice roly-poly roll of fat on my tummy…and every other part of my anatomy looks the same. Like my cousin lamented its humiliating…..albeit the humiliation is still pretty private…but something tells me that if I don’t fix it or ignore it then someday its gonna be rather public..
And so started a desperate attempt to do crunches…Typically crunches are supposed to be when u roll forwards with ur head and shoulders towards ur tummy…and are the best exercise for the tummy…but only if u can do crunches….Now when I did crunches,my head came off the floor and there the crunch stopped, except for my grunts, of course, which rose and fell thru an amazingly flexible decibel range guaranteed to give any pig a run for its money. My shoulders stayed glued to the floor .Now before u guys start saying “What , u so fat?”, lemme tell u.No…its just that roll and ….my helpful hubby who decided that I had to get the maximum benefit out of each crunch and had me clasp my fingers behind my head. And that was it.Then he tried to get me to do another ab exercise which involved me lying flat on the ground, lifting my legs up, holding them in the air and then bringing them down slowly. Pretty simple, right? Except for the fact that my legs refused to leave the floor. I tried till I was red in the face but even my feet did not leave the ground, forget abt my legs.Anup wud not believe me when I said I can’t lift my legs up in the air and to help me ,he caught hold of my ankles and pulled my legs up and held them straight. I warned him not to let go since it wud mean my legs crashing down and hitting him in a very sensitive point. So he let go gently and wisely moved out of the way while I struggled to hold those legs up and he wanted me to bring them down very slowly. That was much better and I had more control over my legs. But once they went back to ground they simply wud not come up.
Anup said this way I wud never get myself a flat tummy. I took that as a challenge and went off to Google and find an exercise which wud help me take off that doughnut around my waist and did not involve crunches. That’s when I hit upon something called Rhimba’s dance routine. I checked on youtube for a sample of her video and lo,behold!There is this ultra fit female who dances every dance imaginable and did it so beautifully and effortlessly, that it reminded me of my love for dancing when I was in school. I was crazy abt dancing ,and still am…I don’t think am an awesome dancer but so far no one has complained that am terrible…or maybe they were being kind.(and am determined to take advantage of their kindness) Its been years since I did a jig and I decided that this was the time to put on my dancing shoes, do something I loved and get back into shape. And so I came upon these 2 belly dancers, Veena and Neena, who demonstrated a fat burning belly dance routine.Atleast that’s the title of the video. Now before all of u conjure up images of sexy belly dancing, lemme tell u, that this routine is more like the group dance routine I did when I was in 3rd std.Hop, skip and jump with ur arms stuck out in various angles. In spite of it, I decided to start with it and its 2 weeks since I started and so far I did it 3 times. I must say I was in far better shape in 3rd std than I am now though I did not know it at the time. And so on the first day, I hopped and skipped and bobbed up and down on my toes and sweated and panted like never before while my husband turned the TV off and decided this was much funnier than the soccer match he had been watching. My heart was racing as though it was in a private running competition with some athlete. If that does not burn fat, then I don’t know what will. When I completed this routine I came upon another routine which promised to improve flexibility and keep all ur body parts in tiptop shape using basic belly dance moves. Belly dance is supposed to be very very good cos it targets individual muscles or so says Neena.(or was it Veena?Dunno)Anyway, I stood in front of the mirror and tried to pretend that the different parts of my body were independent of each other. I did pretty well at gliding my head front and back and to both sides. But when it came to the point of pretending my tummy was independent ,well, I must say things did not look so good.Veena and Neena were happily making a wave out of their respective tummies saying “in and out and in and out “with the rest of their bodies absolutely still including the fixed grins they both sported(As though making waves with their tummies was the ultimate fantasy of their lives or sumthing) whereas my tummy seemed to be acting like a nice round boulder and not moving in or out unless I moved my feet as well(in which case my entire body from top to toe moved)..And though I did not have a fixed grin, I definitely had my tongue hanging out…So that’s something. I looked and looked in the mirror and I cud not see even the tiniest wave coming out of the boulder. Anyway we gave up on the tummy and then moved on to another exercise which required me to make a snake out of my arm. and though I was not as good as them ,it was loads better than the tummy.(The day my arms refuse to move independent of my body, I give up on life.huh!).I did not complete that routine. And consoled myself saying that after I burn the fat, I’ll be able to make waves using my tummy.
The next day my legs acted up. The fat burning routine had a lot of exercises which u had to do on ur toes with a voice chirping in the background “Jump jump ,twist,jump jump twist”.They are supposed to be good for ur calves.Well,for the next 3 days ,I had to be wobbling around cos my calves were aching so much. So no dancing for 3 days and then the fourth day I forgot to dance. And so it was a week later when I got back to the hop, skip, jump routine….and then there was work and a lot of other commitments…Ok .Am making pretty lame excuses.
And starting today am determined to stick to my fat burning routine and get rid of the roll….come what may .Some day ,I too shall hop , skip and jump effortlessly with a goofy grin on my face like Neena and Veena …Some day, I too shall make waves with my tummy… Some day, humpty dumpty too shall dance like Madhuri :-)
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
Rambles....
“You are awful” came the reply when I asked my mom if she read a particular post of mine titled White underpants with bright red hearts. Chuckle…and yet she checks my blog every day to see if I have written anything. My biggest fan and my strictest critic all rolled into one. There was a period when things were too busy and I cud not write anything for nearly a month…and she still checked the blog every day….When I asked her if she did not get tired of checking, she very matter-of-factly said “Well, Its just like washing your bum or brushing your teeth.You just have to do it. You cant stop washing ur bum saying you are tired of it, can you?”. Well, I don’t know if it is a compliment to have reading my blog taken as something she just has to do or if it is an insult to have reading my blog compared to washing one’s bum. And now you all know which side of the family I inherited my crazy sense of humour from. I told her then and there that I wud use that reply in a post of mine and she said “No!! Don’t do that. My reputation wud be in tatters.” On the contrary, Mama, I think you will be famous. Chuckle….
It’s a nice blue-sky-smattered-with-dainty-blobs-of-clouds kinda day.Its ages since I had the time to simply sit and gaze up at the sky. Its my day off for working thru the weekend. And I think with pity of all those people sitting in the office and not knowing what the sky looks like today. Even worse, not even thinking abt it. Well, tomorrow am gonna be going back to join them but still like they say ,Tomorrow’s another day. So right now I’ll sit down and enjoy my time lazing around and doing next to nothing.
I have finished that automation process to a certain extent and it just needs a week of tweaking to get it completed. I have sent it out to the client and while its an awesome tool (even though I say so myself) and saves so much of manual effort, I know I wont be getting much of an appreciation considering my resist-any-change-attitude boss.But the one thing I will get is more time for my puttering around with beads.Anup has finally got used to selecting beads and I must say is real good at it. In fact he is much better than me at it. He picks up all the unique beads which look good with anything and everything and keeps me from going overboard when I see coloured beads and he knows what spacers are. And I have started developing an interest in basketball matches which is of no use considering that the basketball season is ending. But honestly, u can’t live with a man who watches every match on the telly thru the whole season and not develop an interest in it. Yesterday in the midst of working I looked up to see a basket being made(highly technical jargon for managing to get the ball in the basket….I can hear u snort!!!) and spontaneously said “Beautiful!!!” and Anup looked at me in a way which I imagine is the way Moms look at their babies when they are born. Or maybe it was the way Edison looked at his bulb.( er…the light bulb).You get the idea?
It’s a special day and am gonna get myself spring cleaned today. Just relax and go with the tide….Ooooh..La…la…..
It’s a nice blue-sky-smattered-with-dainty-blobs-of-clouds kinda day.Its ages since I had the time to simply sit and gaze up at the sky. Its my day off for working thru the weekend. And I think with pity of all those people sitting in the office and not knowing what the sky looks like today. Even worse, not even thinking abt it. Well, tomorrow am gonna be going back to join them but still like they say ,Tomorrow’s another day. So right now I’ll sit down and enjoy my time lazing around and doing next to nothing.
I have finished that automation process to a certain extent and it just needs a week of tweaking to get it completed. I have sent it out to the client and while its an awesome tool (even though I say so myself) and saves so much of manual effort, I know I wont be getting much of an appreciation considering my resist-any-change-attitude boss.But the one thing I will get is more time for my puttering around with beads.Anup has finally got used to selecting beads and I must say is real good at it. In fact he is much better than me at it. He picks up all the unique beads which look good with anything and everything and keeps me from going overboard when I see coloured beads and he knows what spacers are. And I have started developing an interest in basketball matches which is of no use considering that the basketball season is ending. But honestly, u can’t live with a man who watches every match on the telly thru the whole season and not develop an interest in it. Yesterday in the midst of working I looked up to see a basket being made(highly technical jargon for managing to get the ball in the basket….I can hear u snort!!!) and spontaneously said “Beautiful!!!” and Anup looked at me in a way which I imagine is the way Moms look at their babies when they are born. Or maybe it was the way Edison looked at his bulb.( er…the light bulb).You get the idea?
It’s a special day and am gonna get myself spring cleaned today. Just relax and go with the tide….Ooooh..La…la…..
Thursday, June 12, 2008
A tryst with a beautiful soul...!
Have u met one of those people who have a beautiful soul? The kind that literally turns ur head and makes u want to know them better. Makes u smile even though you don’t know them personally.Well, Jake was one such soul. He lit up the room as he loped around smiling up at people, even though not many returned his smile.
We were at the Big bear discovery centre and hubby was asking the receptionist for some directions. All of a sudden, the receptionist pointed to something behind hubby and started laughing. When hubby turned around, he found his wife standing with her feet planted firmly and knees locked while a huge golden retriever stood pushing himself against her thigh, both mutually enjoying a love fest of head scratching. And before u guys get round to asking the question, let me tell u the answer.No, he did not. I was scratching Jake’s head and he was NOT scratching my head.
Jake walked in with his family, consisting of a dad and a couple of boys .He was a strong fellow and the little boy could not hold him back well enuf as the strong golden retriever jumped about in excitement and rushed to say hello to everyone in sight. Most people shied away from the huge creature while I stood in total shock. He brought so much colour into the room. How could one resist that deep honey coloured coat and that big wide smile. Those bright warm eyes spoke so much and that plumy tail waved a hi so gracefully. There is no other way to say this but that I fell in love.
I normally do not go towards a dog here in the USA but rather wait for the dog to come to me.I have learned from experience that most dog owners here are a bit worried about a total stranger petting their dog as this is a country where everyone sues everyone else for everything they can think of. There are a few people who don’t mind and are sure of their dogs. This time I did not wait. I could not. I walked forward holding out both my hands and felt a bittersweet joy surge thru me. His owner smiled at me and asked Jake to hold out his paw for me. As I took his paw, Jake immediately put his other paw on my hand as though making a deal then and there. His owner said “Oh ,he likes u.He does that only to people he really likes”. Jake was as delighted as I was. No one else wanted to pat him. I buried my fingers into his thick coat and rubbed him while I chatted to his owner.Jake pushed himself so hard up against me that I had to literally push back at him to keep the pair of us from toppling over. I did not want to let him go.I wanted to go down on my knees and hug him. He was so huge that he wud easily come upto my shoulders if he stood on his hind legs.His owner exclaimed “There, U seem to have made a friend”. Both the dog and I had identical wide goofy grins on our faces.
He did not want to go and I did not want him to. But his family had come to take him on a hike and while we were content to stay that way, they obviously were not. They asked him if he was ready to leave and he obviously was not given the way he was trying to embed himself in my leg.Finally, with a wrenching reluctance that ran soul deep, I gave him a final pat and said “Good boy, Jake.Go!”.That’s when the intelligent animal turned round, looked at me and pattered off obediently with his folks. And to me, it seemed as though the sunshine had just walked out of the room.
We were at the Big bear discovery centre and hubby was asking the receptionist for some directions. All of a sudden, the receptionist pointed to something behind hubby and started laughing. When hubby turned around, he found his wife standing with her feet planted firmly and knees locked while a huge golden retriever stood pushing himself against her thigh, both mutually enjoying a love fest of head scratching. And before u guys get round to asking the question, let me tell u the answer.No, he did not. I was scratching Jake’s head and he was NOT scratching my head.
Jake walked in with his family, consisting of a dad and a couple of boys .He was a strong fellow and the little boy could not hold him back well enuf as the strong golden retriever jumped about in excitement and rushed to say hello to everyone in sight. Most people shied away from the huge creature while I stood in total shock. He brought so much colour into the room. How could one resist that deep honey coloured coat and that big wide smile. Those bright warm eyes spoke so much and that plumy tail waved a hi so gracefully. There is no other way to say this but that I fell in love.
I normally do not go towards a dog here in the USA but rather wait for the dog to come to me.I have learned from experience that most dog owners here are a bit worried about a total stranger petting their dog as this is a country where everyone sues everyone else for everything they can think of. There are a few people who don’t mind and are sure of their dogs. This time I did not wait. I could not. I walked forward holding out both my hands and felt a bittersweet joy surge thru me. His owner smiled at me and asked Jake to hold out his paw for me. As I took his paw, Jake immediately put his other paw on my hand as though making a deal then and there. His owner said “Oh ,he likes u.He does that only to people he really likes”. Jake was as delighted as I was. No one else wanted to pat him. I buried my fingers into his thick coat and rubbed him while I chatted to his owner.Jake pushed himself so hard up against me that I had to literally push back at him to keep the pair of us from toppling over. I did not want to let him go.I wanted to go down on my knees and hug him. He was so huge that he wud easily come upto my shoulders if he stood on his hind legs.His owner exclaimed “There, U seem to have made a friend”. Both the dog and I had identical wide goofy grins on our faces.
He did not want to go and I did not want him to. But his family had come to take him on a hike and while we were content to stay that way, they obviously were not. They asked him if he was ready to leave and he obviously was not given the way he was trying to embed himself in my leg.Finally, with a wrenching reluctance that ran soul deep, I gave him a final pat and said “Good boy, Jake.Go!”.That’s when the intelligent animal turned round, looked at me and pattered off obediently with his folks. And to me, it seemed as though the sunshine had just walked out of the room.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
I want to be the person my dog thinks I am.
Sometimes when am reading, I come across some bit of wisdom or the other which sticks to my brain like lint. I wonder if it is the same way for everyone or if its just that my brain acts like some kind of lint picker and homes in on such random bits of advice. Just yesterday I read this book called The undomestic Goddess. It was one of those books which are fun, exaggerated and utterly forgiving to women. Or call it chicklit.Thats when this jewel popped out at me. The mom of the tall dark handsome man advices the distressed heroine thus “Don’t beat yourself up for not knowing all the answers. Its not necessary to always be clear about where you are going. Sometimes, its just enough to know what you are going to do next”. To this the damsel tearfully asks “And what am I going to do next?” .And with a smile, mom replies “You are going to shell peas”.
In a nutshell, the protagonist is a high flying young never-make-a-mistake lawyer who had given up 7 years of her life to her work and was rewarded by being made a partner in the firm.5 minutes later she finds that she has made a mistake which loses her client 50 million and the shock of it drives her into running away. She is fired and becomes the butt of all lawyer jokes on the internet. And inadvertently lands a job as a housekeeper for which she is ill-fitted. While she struggles to come to terms with her world being turned topsy turvy and cope with the rejection of her former colleagues, she also learns to take pleasure in the simple luxuries of life, such as smelling a freshly baked loaf of bread. After days of beating herself up for her mistake, she finally discovers that she had never made a mistake and had actually been set up by one of the senior partners in the firm.
Sounds idyllic? It really is not. Women today are more or less like her. We drive ourselves to achieve everything and pride ourselves in doing it all and doing it well. We believe that we have to know it all, fix it all and always be on the go. Though it was a caricature, a lot of things in the book were too close to the truth.Atleast for me. I beat myself up when I make a mistake at work, at home or lose my temper .Maybe not so much ever since the disappointment of the last year-end appraisal. I beat myself up for losing my temper maybe cos I have a husband who is so good at controlling his temper that I have awfully high standards to live up to. Before marriage even when I did lose it, I knew when it was with just cause and when it was not. If it was not, I wud apologise.But after marriage ,I seem to have a conflict of conscience. Even when I know I am right, it rankles when I know Anup is not happy;Not that the dear man has ever demanded that I do as he pleases...For him,my staying happy has always been a priority.. Its tuf cos am too used to doing what I think is right and if I don’t think something is right or necessary, then I do not do it. But as per my hubby, some things have to be done for the sake of loved ones irrespective of whether it feels right or wrong. If that is the case, then why bother to think? Why is it that you bend only for your loved ones?
In the soul searching which followed for several days, I wondered if I was wrong. If all I believed in was wrong. If it really did not matter that you were able to look in the mirror at yourself, knowing you have done right simply cos everyone around you were happy with you. I wondered if I lacked compassion. Compassion – the literal term of the word is to share willingly in another’s suffering.
Maybe I do or maybe I don’t .I even wondered if I was missing something, if I lacked compassion cos I did not see the suffering which is supposedly happening. I searched deep inside me. My instincts which had never failed me when I listened to them still tell me that I did nothing wrong except to lose my temper. They still tell me that my words were not wrong but that they were spoken in anger which was wrong. Like some wise soul said, sometimes when you are angry, you have the right to be angry but it does not give u the right to be cruel. So I asked myself if I had been cruel.No.I had not. I had merely defended myself.
Sometimes its tuf to see clearly thru the fog of other’s expectations to what is right and what is wrong. I beat myself up for not knowing the answer to this riddle. What is right? Is compassion and kindness about being still and unresponsive even when someone abuses you? Does compassion mean going totally out of your way and doing what does not feel right to you, simply cos it may alleviate the suffering of a loved one? It’s an instinct in all of us. The instinct to protect our loved ones from pain. I shud know. I pray for life to be kind to my lil bro,He is just starting out on his career and I worry abt him.I wish I cud walk beside him and warn him about the parasites, the people who stab you in the back, the people who use u to meet their needs. I pray that he has an easy life and all his struggles be mine. And while I do that, I know it will not be so. I know he has to go thru the rotten tomatoes himself to grow strong. I know he has to make mistakes to learn and get hurt but become stronger in the process. Still it does not stop me from praying.
I am only human and I make mistakes. Its ok to make mistakes. I don’t always have to be perfect. I don’t always have to have all the answers. Even when I make a mistake am still a good and worthy person. Just because a person I love thinks am wrong, does not necessarily mean am wrong.
Recently, I read this book written by a lady called Anne Quendlin.The book was about her dog, Beau.It was a small book. The kind which wud take me less than an hour to read. In it she quoted some great soul as saying “I want to be the person my dog thinks I am”. Maybe it was cos the quote was so quaint that it set me thinking. What kind of a person did my dog think I am? Anne went on to say that her dog expected her to roll with the punches and take life as it comes. When I thought of my own dog, I really don’t think those are her expectations of me. She probably expects me to sit by her all day long while she sleeps and when she does wake up ,I shud have a few treats at hand, take her on a nice long walk, root amongst the grass and then scratch her ears, play with her, chase the odd cat so that she does not have to and then sit beside her while she goes back to sleep. She does not expect me stay up late, meet my deadlines, cook awesome meals, look beautiful and be nice to anyone else except her. She just expects me to be happy. Pretty uncomplicated,huh? To her its just enuf that we know what we are going to do next.
To my dog, if I have a treat for her, I am compassionate, beautiful and the best thing in the world after a drive in the car with the windows rolled down.Boy,oh,boy. Anyday, I’d choose my dog over people.
In a conversation with my mom,there came up the topic of the deity of Pisharikavu temple.The deity,Pisharikavillamma, is said to be of roudrabhavam( fierce in nature) but at the same time the most tender Mother.I wondered naively,when does the Goddess become fierce? What invoked her wrath?When her tenderness was mistaken for her weakness and abused?
Was that when she blazed with fury?
Chuckle ...I will never know...will I?As the poem Unfold the Rosebud goes..
It is only a tiny rosebud,
A flower of God's design
But I cannot unfold the petals
With these clumsy hands of mine.
The secret of unfolding flowers
It is not known to such as I.
God opens this flower so sweetly,
When in my hands they fade and die.
If I cannot unfold a rosebud,
This flower of God's design,
Then how can I think, I have the wisdom
To unfold this life of mine;
So, I'll trust Her for Her leading
Each moment of everyday
I look to Her for Her guidance
Each step of the pilgrim way;
The pathway that lies before me
Only She truly knows
I'll trust in Her to unfold the moments
Just as She unfolds the rose.
:-) I'll leave you on that note...
In a nutshell, the protagonist is a high flying young never-make-a-mistake lawyer who had given up 7 years of her life to her work and was rewarded by being made a partner in the firm.5 minutes later she finds that she has made a mistake which loses her client 50 million and the shock of it drives her into running away. She is fired and becomes the butt of all lawyer jokes on the internet. And inadvertently lands a job as a housekeeper for which she is ill-fitted. While she struggles to come to terms with her world being turned topsy turvy and cope with the rejection of her former colleagues, she also learns to take pleasure in the simple luxuries of life, such as smelling a freshly baked loaf of bread. After days of beating herself up for her mistake, she finally discovers that she had never made a mistake and had actually been set up by one of the senior partners in the firm.
Sounds idyllic? It really is not. Women today are more or less like her. We drive ourselves to achieve everything and pride ourselves in doing it all and doing it well. We believe that we have to know it all, fix it all and always be on the go. Though it was a caricature, a lot of things in the book were too close to the truth.Atleast for me. I beat myself up when I make a mistake at work, at home or lose my temper .Maybe not so much ever since the disappointment of the last year-end appraisal. I beat myself up for losing my temper maybe cos I have a husband who is so good at controlling his temper that I have awfully high standards to live up to. Before marriage even when I did lose it, I knew when it was with just cause and when it was not. If it was not, I wud apologise.But after marriage ,I seem to have a conflict of conscience. Even when I know I am right, it rankles when I know Anup is not happy;Not that the dear man has ever demanded that I do as he pleases...For him,my staying happy has always been a priority.. Its tuf cos am too used to doing what I think is right and if I don’t think something is right or necessary, then I do not do it. But as per my hubby, some things have to be done for the sake of loved ones irrespective of whether it feels right or wrong. If that is the case, then why bother to think? Why is it that you bend only for your loved ones?
In the soul searching which followed for several days, I wondered if I was wrong. If all I believed in was wrong. If it really did not matter that you were able to look in the mirror at yourself, knowing you have done right simply cos everyone around you were happy with you. I wondered if I lacked compassion. Compassion – the literal term of the word is to share willingly in another’s suffering.
Maybe I do or maybe I don’t .I even wondered if I was missing something, if I lacked compassion cos I did not see the suffering which is supposedly happening. I searched deep inside me. My instincts which had never failed me when I listened to them still tell me that I did nothing wrong except to lose my temper. They still tell me that my words were not wrong but that they were spoken in anger which was wrong. Like some wise soul said, sometimes when you are angry, you have the right to be angry but it does not give u the right to be cruel. So I asked myself if I had been cruel.No.I had not. I had merely defended myself.
Sometimes its tuf to see clearly thru the fog of other’s expectations to what is right and what is wrong. I beat myself up for not knowing the answer to this riddle. What is right? Is compassion and kindness about being still and unresponsive even when someone abuses you? Does compassion mean going totally out of your way and doing what does not feel right to you, simply cos it may alleviate the suffering of a loved one? It’s an instinct in all of us. The instinct to protect our loved ones from pain. I shud know. I pray for life to be kind to my lil bro,He is just starting out on his career and I worry abt him.I wish I cud walk beside him and warn him about the parasites, the people who stab you in the back, the people who use u to meet their needs. I pray that he has an easy life and all his struggles be mine. And while I do that, I know it will not be so. I know he has to go thru the rotten tomatoes himself to grow strong. I know he has to make mistakes to learn and get hurt but become stronger in the process. Still it does not stop me from praying.
I am only human and I make mistakes. Its ok to make mistakes. I don’t always have to be perfect. I don’t always have to have all the answers. Even when I make a mistake am still a good and worthy person. Just because a person I love thinks am wrong, does not necessarily mean am wrong.
Recently, I read this book written by a lady called Anne Quendlin.The book was about her dog, Beau.It was a small book. The kind which wud take me less than an hour to read. In it she quoted some great soul as saying “I want to be the person my dog thinks I am”. Maybe it was cos the quote was so quaint that it set me thinking. What kind of a person did my dog think I am? Anne went on to say that her dog expected her to roll with the punches and take life as it comes. When I thought of my own dog, I really don’t think those are her expectations of me. She probably expects me to sit by her all day long while she sleeps and when she does wake up ,I shud have a few treats at hand, take her on a nice long walk, root amongst the grass and then scratch her ears, play with her, chase the odd cat so that she does not have to and then sit beside her while she goes back to sleep. She does not expect me stay up late, meet my deadlines, cook awesome meals, look beautiful and be nice to anyone else except her. She just expects me to be happy. Pretty uncomplicated,huh? To her its just enuf that we know what we are going to do next.
To my dog, if I have a treat for her, I am compassionate, beautiful and the best thing in the world after a drive in the car with the windows rolled down.Boy,oh,boy. Anyday, I’d choose my dog over people.
In a conversation with my mom,there came up the topic of the deity of Pisharikavu temple.The deity,Pisharikavillamma, is said to be of roudrabhavam( fierce in nature) but at the same time the most tender Mother.I wondered naively,when does the Goddess become fierce? What invoked her wrath?When her tenderness was mistaken for her weakness and abused?
Was that when she blazed with fury?
Chuckle ...I will never know...will I?As the poem Unfold the Rosebud goes..
It is only a tiny rosebud,
A flower of God's design
But I cannot unfold the petals
With these clumsy hands of mine.
The secret of unfolding flowers
It is not known to such as I.
God opens this flower so sweetly,
When in my hands they fade and die.
If I cannot unfold a rosebud,
This flower of God's design,
Then how can I think, I have the wisdom
To unfold this life of mine;
So, I'll trust Her for Her leading
Each moment of everyday
I look to Her for Her guidance
Each step of the pilgrim way;
The pathway that lies before me
Only She truly knows
I'll trust in Her to unfold the moments
Just as She unfolds the rose.
:-) I'll leave you on that note...
Thursday, June 5, 2008
White underpants with bright red hearts!!!
After a long 3 weeks with no sign of it, sanity makes a comeback at office and its time for another wacky post. God speaks people. There is this trick I use to keep my spirits from sagging under some of those rotten tomatoes that comes my way. I did not intend to make it public but for some reason, I have had signs which I believe is God telling me to share my wisdom with poor wretched souls in desperate need for a smile. I remembered this in the midst of a mail to my friend across the seas. But alas, before I cud finish the mail, the wicked pumpkin of a client had me work on a lot of jobless jobs…U know , the kind they give u to keep u busy just when u have managed to get urself an hour to write a post.Ok…am rambling here. What had me sit down in the midst of my cooking and write this post, is an ad that just came up on the TV with a female prancing around in a red bikini swimsuit with white polka dots on it. hats when I told myself like the Goblin told Spiderman “God speaks,Anupama” and now u are being treated(or rather subjected)to this post. Now u may wonder what a “ female prancing around in a red bikini swimsuit with white polka dots” has to do with God speaking to me.
Well, here is the tale….Long long ago…Ok…that makes me sound terribly old which I assure u am not. So not so long ago, when I was in college, we had this absolute terror of a professor called TK.Now don’t ask me to expand that cos I don’t know. What I do know is that this absolute sadist of a prof came up with another scary idea to torture whatever itty bitty bits of our lives were left. He came up with this absolute brilliant idea of giving us a circuit each and having us figure out what it was supposed to do and as the topping on his dessert , we were to take a seminar on the circuit in front of the class. Now unfortunately, as much as I love my name, it was my name which had me come in as the first to be subjected to the experiment. I duly went and collected my circuit from TK and promptly took it to my brainy friend to decipher. Together we pored over the circuit. We stared at it from every conceivable angle, turned it upside down and even held it up to light hoping the secret would reveal itself like the treasure map in the movie National treasure. Fat chance. To this day I suspect that the circuit really did not do anything except provide TK a means to torture us.
I had just one night to prepare or rather resign myself to being skinned. After running from pillar to post asking ppl if they had the vaguest idea of what the circuit wud do, I cud feel myself panicking. That’s an understatement. I was freaking out and badly enuf to worry that I may ….um…pass out some funny smelling wind in terror in the class. (ok! Ok!!fart!...was just trying to be dainty) Oh boy. That is just not good. That’s when I put on the brakes and stopped the snowballing. I pulled myself up and trying hard to breathe evenly ,told myself that I had got myself out of worse scrapes and cud handle this. The trick was not to be intimidated by TK.Intimidated?More like keeping myself from turning into a blithering blubbering shivering mass in front of him. So I put aside the circuit and put my brains to work while my roommate looked on in pity. She ,by the virtue of her name ,had 23 souls standing in line before her before it was her turn to be up on the chopping block. And voila! I got it.
The guy was really dark...so I decided that I wud mentally undress him and pop him into a pair of nice white underpants with red hearts all over it...I know, I know. am horrible...but if u knew the guy then u wud think I was pretty sensible...and so I practiced a few times and then turned in excitement to my roomie.Here’s the plan……
The next day when I walked into class, I seemed to be walking into a huge wall of sympathy which was almost tangible….Everyone there was quaking on my behalf while I remained as cool as a cucumber ,confident that I cud pull this off. My friends were terrified for me and were even more worried when they saw that i was not worried...When my gang questioned me on my preparation, I told them I intended to make up the purpose of the circuit as I went along.Cos anyway it wud be wrong .So why bother. There was quite a long shocked silence during which my loyal friends wondered if I was cracking under the pressure or was plain stupid. Am sure they came to the conclusion that it was not possible for me to crack any further since I was certified crazy. But I was planning to make things up? That was dangerous. There was no predicting how badly TK would rip me apart with his questions. When they asked me I told them coolly that if the man asks me a question I will simply strip him and pop him into white underpants with red hearts...Needless to say, the gang was rolling with laughter...
The second period, TK walked in and my palms turned cold and clammy. But there was nothing for it but to go up there and get over with it. For all my bravado,I just hoped my knees wud not give away. With 29 pairs of eyes on me I get up from my seat and walk towards the black board and am heartened to find that my knees seem to be working.TK looked around for a chair, sat down and squirmed around a bit to get comfortable .I took a deep breath, called upon God to give me the nerve to carry it thru, and started. I confidently went thru my idea of what the damn circuit was which i knew was nowhere close to the real thing....I knew the worst was yet to come...i looked at everyone in the eye, including TK and took a good 25 min on my explanation. Then when i finished i turned round and there the guy was staring at me. I looked at TK and he stared back at me with a totally unfathomable expression. For one wild moment there, I wondered if by some really big time fluke I had got it right. Then decided that was just not possible. It took me every bit of my iron will to hold that gaze.
TK turned round to the class and asked if anyone had any questions. No one had. Truth be told, all of them just wanted me off the podium so that I wud not get ripped to pieces. I was and still am touched by their concern for me. And then the wicked man says”Ok.Then I will ask some”. There was a collective gasp from the class and sounds of people shifting uncomfortably in their chairs. I cud feel myself beginning to panic. TK proceeded to ask a question in which all I understood was the word "What”. I stared at him in sheer horror and felt my knees shaking.
I tell u...at the last possible moment I remembered my trick and used it on him...and at the second question, I gave him a helmet with ostrich feathers too... (It was pretty easy since I had seen a ridiculous head gear recently in a movie).and so there he was...the terror lounging sideways in a chair, sitting elegantly with one leg slung over the other, wearing a pair of white underpants patterned with bright red hearts and a nice wavy headgear overflowing with ostrich feathers. I managed to keep myself from grinning widely but I must say, it really took away the terrifying effect TK had on people, atleast for me. I heard a twitter and glanced at the back row. My friends were sitting with stifled giggles and funny wooden faces.TK followed my gaze and I flashed a quick reassuring smile at the gang. That cracked them up even further.TK apparently thought that they were laughing at my answer which made as much sense to me as his question did. But I knew better. The rest of the session was a breeze…
A lot of stuff we have gone thru in college or school wud have seemed overwhelmingly important then and funny now. But the terror that TK inspired in all of us was real and still is. If I had not done what I did then, today all I wud have been left with what wud be an absolutely humiliating memory of how I became a shaky shivery dead loss. But as it is, a sense of humour and a wacky imagination served me well and all I have is a funny memory and feelings of having trumped one over TK.There are friends of mine who broke down and sobbed for an hour after their seminar. So u can imagine how ruthless the man was.
I used that trick several times later in the direst situations of my life where my sense of humour was at an all time low but I was still required to smile. And this trick has never failed me.
White underwear patterned with bright red hearts…fond memories…Chuckle!
Well, here is the tale….Long long ago…Ok…that makes me sound terribly old which I assure u am not. So not so long ago, when I was in college, we had this absolute terror of a professor called TK.Now don’t ask me to expand that cos I don’t know. What I do know is that this absolute sadist of a prof came up with another scary idea to torture whatever itty bitty bits of our lives were left. He came up with this absolute brilliant idea of giving us a circuit each and having us figure out what it was supposed to do and as the topping on his dessert , we were to take a seminar on the circuit in front of the class. Now unfortunately, as much as I love my name, it was my name which had me come in as the first to be subjected to the experiment. I duly went and collected my circuit from TK and promptly took it to my brainy friend to decipher. Together we pored over the circuit. We stared at it from every conceivable angle, turned it upside down and even held it up to light hoping the secret would reveal itself like the treasure map in the movie National treasure. Fat chance. To this day I suspect that the circuit really did not do anything except provide TK a means to torture us.
I had just one night to prepare or rather resign myself to being skinned. After running from pillar to post asking ppl if they had the vaguest idea of what the circuit wud do, I cud feel myself panicking. That’s an understatement. I was freaking out and badly enuf to worry that I may ….um…pass out some funny smelling wind in terror in the class. (ok! Ok!!fart!...was just trying to be dainty) Oh boy. That is just not good. That’s when I put on the brakes and stopped the snowballing. I pulled myself up and trying hard to breathe evenly ,told myself that I had got myself out of worse scrapes and cud handle this. The trick was not to be intimidated by TK.Intimidated?More like keeping myself from turning into a blithering blubbering shivering mass in front of him. So I put aside the circuit and put my brains to work while my roommate looked on in pity. She ,by the virtue of her name ,had 23 souls standing in line before her before it was her turn to be up on the chopping block. And voila! I got it.
The guy was really dark...so I decided that I wud mentally undress him and pop him into a pair of nice white underpants with red hearts all over it...I know, I know. am horrible...but if u knew the guy then u wud think I was pretty sensible...and so I practiced a few times and then turned in excitement to my roomie.Here’s the plan……
The next day when I walked into class, I seemed to be walking into a huge wall of sympathy which was almost tangible….Everyone there was quaking on my behalf while I remained as cool as a cucumber ,confident that I cud pull this off. My friends were terrified for me and were even more worried when they saw that i was not worried...When my gang questioned me on my preparation, I told them I intended to make up the purpose of the circuit as I went along.Cos anyway it wud be wrong .So why bother. There was quite a long shocked silence during which my loyal friends wondered if I was cracking under the pressure or was plain stupid. Am sure they came to the conclusion that it was not possible for me to crack any further since I was certified crazy. But I was planning to make things up? That was dangerous. There was no predicting how badly TK would rip me apart with his questions. When they asked me I told them coolly that if the man asks me a question I will simply strip him and pop him into white underpants with red hearts...Needless to say, the gang was rolling with laughter...
The second period, TK walked in and my palms turned cold and clammy. But there was nothing for it but to go up there and get over with it. For all my bravado,I just hoped my knees wud not give away. With 29 pairs of eyes on me I get up from my seat and walk towards the black board and am heartened to find that my knees seem to be working.TK looked around for a chair, sat down and squirmed around a bit to get comfortable .I took a deep breath, called upon God to give me the nerve to carry it thru, and started. I confidently went thru my idea of what the damn circuit was which i knew was nowhere close to the real thing....I knew the worst was yet to come...i looked at everyone in the eye, including TK and took a good 25 min on my explanation. Then when i finished i turned round and there the guy was staring at me. I looked at TK and he stared back at me with a totally unfathomable expression. For one wild moment there, I wondered if by some really big time fluke I had got it right. Then decided that was just not possible. It took me every bit of my iron will to hold that gaze.
TK turned round to the class and asked if anyone had any questions. No one had. Truth be told, all of them just wanted me off the podium so that I wud not get ripped to pieces. I was and still am touched by their concern for me. And then the wicked man says”Ok.Then I will ask some”. There was a collective gasp from the class and sounds of people shifting uncomfortably in their chairs. I cud feel myself beginning to panic. TK proceeded to ask a question in which all I understood was the word "What”. I stared at him in sheer horror and felt my knees shaking.
I tell u...at the last possible moment I remembered my trick and used it on him...and at the second question, I gave him a helmet with ostrich feathers too... (It was pretty easy since I had seen a ridiculous head gear recently in a movie).and so there he was...the terror lounging sideways in a chair, sitting elegantly with one leg slung over the other, wearing a pair of white underpants patterned with bright red hearts and a nice wavy headgear overflowing with ostrich feathers. I managed to keep myself from grinning widely but I must say, it really took away the terrifying effect TK had on people, atleast for me. I heard a twitter and glanced at the back row. My friends were sitting with stifled giggles and funny wooden faces.TK followed my gaze and I flashed a quick reassuring smile at the gang. That cracked them up even further.TK apparently thought that they were laughing at my answer which made as much sense to me as his question did. But I knew better. The rest of the session was a breeze…
A lot of stuff we have gone thru in college or school wud have seemed overwhelmingly important then and funny now. But the terror that TK inspired in all of us was real and still is. If I had not done what I did then, today all I wud have been left with what wud be an absolutely humiliating memory of how I became a shaky shivery dead loss. But as it is, a sense of humour and a wacky imagination served me well and all I have is a funny memory and feelings of having trumped one over TK.There are friends of mine who broke down and sobbed for an hour after their seminar. So u can imagine how ruthless the man was.
I used that trick several times later in the direst situations of my life where my sense of humour was at an all time low but I was still required to smile. And this trick has never failed me.
White underwear patterned with bright red hearts…fond memories…Chuckle!
Thursday, May 15, 2008
A day in a rat’s life
I crashed into his arms and he promptly hugged me. As the man apologized and moved on, my hubby quipped “There goes another man looking for an excuse to hug you”. It was all I cud do not to laugh out aloud in the middle of the office floor.
We had gone to get our customary cup of coffee at eleven in the morn and were walking back to our seats when all of a sudden at a corner, a colleague walking fast got right in my way and since I was walking at a quick pace, before I cud stop, we collided. The man opened his arms out wide and literally hugged me which in fact reduced the impact and kept me from spilling the hot coffee on both of us. Trust my hubby to never pass up a chance to pull my leg.….As I looked at him and thought of a wicked reply, I wondered, as I often do, on the workings of fate…He was everything I cud have wanted and more…and I was still surprised that no gal had snapped him up before I came along……..and he keeps saying he was surprised that I fell for him…chuckle..Ok.So we have a mutual admiration society going on…
I hurry back to my seat. It’s a typical day in the rat race.3 Releases going on simultaneously with umpteen fone calls, every nut I ever said a hi to calling up to find this detail or the other, unending cries from my teammates ”Anupama,this,Anupama that,Anupama,the other thing”, and the urge to change my name to Abrakatuchosui grows by the second; the fight not to throw up my hands in despair and say “I quit” becomes more difficult and the wish to go back home and hide under the bed with my dog becomes a heartfelt prayer. The temptation to yell at someone, call someone an idiot, the urge to tell someone “Get lost” or “No. I wont do it cos its ur job”, the constant fight to stay a professional and take pride in my work. Its one of those days when I lose sight of the fact that I am not a rat and neither do I want to be one. I lose every last rational thought and there is no relief to be found in a hot shower or a nap. Even in my dreams, I find myself counting the number of programs in each Release and wake up in a cold sweat cos I remembered that I had forgotten a task only to find that I had completed it last week.Yes, am a classic basket case on the verge of screaming every second. I stand up for a minute and stretch my aching back. I mutinously think of my last appraisal which was unsatisfactory indeed with a year’s hard work gone completely unappreciated. I think with despair of going home and making dinner and the next day’s lunch. I think with despair of a friend across the sea who has been mailing me faithfully every single day though I am not able to type her a reply. I think of the library books which are overdue and need to be returned. I think of how I had not had a stroke of exercise for the last one month and how I am stiff from sitting in my seat for so long. I think of how even my prayers had been said at the traffic signals on the road these days. I am too tired to even heave a sigh. Across the aisle, a guy with coffee brown eyes looks at me and winks. Chuckle….He is irresistible.
People ask me if I don’t get tired of seeing him all the time…since we both work in the same office, in the same bay and sit within 3 metres of each other. Absolutely not. Maybe cos I know it won’t be forever. Right now if I want to see him, I just have to stand up from my seat and there’s my hubby.And there are so many couples out there in this rat race who hardly get time together.
To be honest, I have slowed down a bit after marriage. I take time to do the things I love doing. I actually discovered that I love cooking. My mama will get a huge laugh out of this. She tried hard to get me to cook while I was in college but I always managed to squirm my way out of the cooking part and stuck to the eating part. Now that am away from home, my dog gets to play that part. Lucky her.
I still don’t manage to do all that I want to .I cannot pinpoint exactly how I have changed but I have. I still have the drive to get the best of all worlds but maybe I do it more consciously and try to keep a balance. I keep in touch with my aunts and uncles more than I did when I was single. I hurry to finish my work so that I can go home early but I still take time to enjoy a cup of coffee with my husband. Talking to my mom and dad was always important but now it has become second to nothing. No matter am running late to office or it’s the dead of the night, when am talking to my parents, as far as am concerned the world comes to a standstill. My work does not suffer for this newfound pace of life.
Maybe it’s the realization that even if I win the rat race, I’d still be a rat. Though to be honest, there are times when I forget it and become a rat. Just the other day, inspite of a hectic schedule, I walked out for a minute with the hubby to buy a fruit bag for lunch .I sat under a shady tree enjoying the breeze and watching the cars whiz by while the hubby stood in line in the sun.(Yeah.I was protecting my complexion. A little sun wont hurt him since he anyway comes back looking brown after a round of cricket. Chuckle…The privileges of being married.)It was lovely. The flowers were out in full bloom and the trees were all a bright fresh green with new leaves.A treat for the eyes and the soul. Its one of those days when all u want to do is lie out there in the grass and read a book all the while enjoying the weather. Its one of those days when u can see what u want out of life very clearly, the kind that makes u realize that the journey is what matters. For a second I envied the fruitwala.He had an entire day of this bliss. At that moment I wud have gladly exchanged a couple of days of my life with him. And then I realized that the grass is always greener on the other side. For all I knew the guy wud be envying me my life in the air-conditioned office. Sigh, I don’t want to think of that Chaos awaiting me.
When I was in college, our hostel had this large terrace which looked out onto the mountains unmarred by any tall buildings. You cud see a huge expanse of the sky and the mountains. Everyday the sun wud go down behind the mountains setting the skies ablaze in unimaginably beautiful scarlet, oranges, pinks, purples and yellows. Each day I wud think that this beauty cannot be surpassed and the next day, it wud be even more magnificent. Every single day the sunset was heartrendingly beautiful.Poignant.It made u feel glad, sad, immensely tiny and moved to tears, not knowing why. The kind that made u want to go down on ur knees in gratitude for the privilege of being able to see it. The kind that washed u clean of the pettiness of life and made u feel that its ur own fault that u lost sight of what’s important to u..The kind that made u stand with ur mouth open in sheer awe. The kind that made u sigh in happiness when it got over. Nothing mattered after it. You got ur perspective on life right. You believed that God spoils u.I loved receiving parcels from home in those days and still do. Call me crazy but those days I honestly believed that God sent me a surprise parcel every day with a sunset in it.Well,I’ll admit it, I still believe that.
I don’t get to see a sunset everyday but God does send me a parcel everyday. It may be the chance to wander abt barefoot on the damp lawn outside the library after a long day at work when am so tired that I cant even think of getting dinner up. Or it may be a 2 year old with rosy cheeks smiling up at my stony face (though for the life of me, I cant figure out whether the kid is smiling at me cos his life is so happy or cos I look funny when am stony faced.) .Am not very particular abt the gifts and God probably knows it.
It cud be a laugh shared with a friend or some bit of kindness from a colleague or a good snap clicked by me or a plant growing in our tiny garden or even a recipe that turned out well.
I recently read something on the internet and it made so much sense that am posting it here.
“We convince ourselves that life will be better after we get married, have a baby, then another. Then we are frustrated that the kids aren't old enough and we'll be more content when they are. After that we're frustrated that we have teenagers to deal with.
We will certainly be happy when they are out of that stage. We tell ourselves that our life will be complete when our spouse gets his or her act together, when we get a nicer car, are able to go on a nice vacation, when we retire.
The truth is, there's no better time to be happy than right now. If not now, when? Your life will always be filled with challenges.”
So true. There will never be a best car. There will never be a perfect spouse. There never will be perfect children. Life is rather simple and God only meant us to enjoy it. It’s we who make it complicated and a fight. Maybe if we all sat down and looked at a sunset, half the problems in the world wud be solved. Just imagine. Laden and Bush sharing a sunset together…Inspiring, isn’t it? Chuckle….
We had gone to get our customary cup of coffee at eleven in the morn and were walking back to our seats when all of a sudden at a corner, a colleague walking fast got right in my way and since I was walking at a quick pace, before I cud stop, we collided. The man opened his arms out wide and literally hugged me which in fact reduced the impact and kept me from spilling the hot coffee on both of us. Trust my hubby to never pass up a chance to pull my leg.….As I looked at him and thought of a wicked reply, I wondered, as I often do, on the workings of fate…He was everything I cud have wanted and more…and I was still surprised that no gal had snapped him up before I came along……..and he keeps saying he was surprised that I fell for him…chuckle..Ok.So we have a mutual admiration society going on…
I hurry back to my seat. It’s a typical day in the rat race.3 Releases going on simultaneously with umpteen fone calls, every nut I ever said a hi to calling up to find this detail or the other, unending cries from my teammates ”Anupama,this,Anupama that,Anupama,the other thing”, and the urge to change my name to Abrakatuchosui grows by the second; the fight not to throw up my hands in despair and say “I quit” becomes more difficult and the wish to go back home and hide under the bed with my dog becomes a heartfelt prayer. The temptation to yell at someone, call someone an idiot, the urge to tell someone “Get lost” or “No. I wont do it cos its ur job”, the constant fight to stay a professional and take pride in my work. Its one of those days when I lose sight of the fact that I am not a rat and neither do I want to be one. I lose every last rational thought and there is no relief to be found in a hot shower or a nap. Even in my dreams, I find myself counting the number of programs in each Release and wake up in a cold sweat cos I remembered that I had forgotten a task only to find that I had completed it last week.Yes, am a classic basket case on the verge of screaming every second. I stand up for a minute and stretch my aching back. I mutinously think of my last appraisal which was unsatisfactory indeed with a year’s hard work gone completely unappreciated. I think with despair of going home and making dinner and the next day’s lunch. I think with despair of a friend across the sea who has been mailing me faithfully every single day though I am not able to type her a reply. I think of the library books which are overdue and need to be returned. I think of how I had not had a stroke of exercise for the last one month and how I am stiff from sitting in my seat for so long. I think of how even my prayers had been said at the traffic signals on the road these days. I am too tired to even heave a sigh. Across the aisle, a guy with coffee brown eyes looks at me and winks. Chuckle….He is irresistible.
People ask me if I don’t get tired of seeing him all the time…since we both work in the same office, in the same bay and sit within 3 metres of each other. Absolutely not. Maybe cos I know it won’t be forever. Right now if I want to see him, I just have to stand up from my seat and there’s my hubby.And there are so many couples out there in this rat race who hardly get time together.
To be honest, I have slowed down a bit after marriage. I take time to do the things I love doing. I actually discovered that I love cooking. My mama will get a huge laugh out of this. She tried hard to get me to cook while I was in college but I always managed to squirm my way out of the cooking part and stuck to the eating part. Now that am away from home, my dog gets to play that part. Lucky her.
I still don’t manage to do all that I want to .I cannot pinpoint exactly how I have changed but I have. I still have the drive to get the best of all worlds but maybe I do it more consciously and try to keep a balance. I keep in touch with my aunts and uncles more than I did when I was single. I hurry to finish my work so that I can go home early but I still take time to enjoy a cup of coffee with my husband. Talking to my mom and dad was always important but now it has become second to nothing. No matter am running late to office or it’s the dead of the night, when am talking to my parents, as far as am concerned the world comes to a standstill. My work does not suffer for this newfound pace of life.
Maybe it’s the realization that even if I win the rat race, I’d still be a rat. Though to be honest, there are times when I forget it and become a rat. Just the other day, inspite of a hectic schedule, I walked out for a minute with the hubby to buy a fruit bag for lunch .I sat under a shady tree enjoying the breeze and watching the cars whiz by while the hubby stood in line in the sun.(Yeah.I was protecting my complexion. A little sun wont hurt him since he anyway comes back looking brown after a round of cricket. Chuckle…The privileges of being married.)It was lovely. The flowers were out in full bloom and the trees were all a bright fresh green with new leaves.A treat for the eyes and the soul. Its one of those days when all u want to do is lie out there in the grass and read a book all the while enjoying the weather. Its one of those days when u can see what u want out of life very clearly, the kind that makes u realize that the journey is what matters. For a second I envied the fruitwala.He had an entire day of this bliss. At that moment I wud have gladly exchanged a couple of days of my life with him. And then I realized that the grass is always greener on the other side. For all I knew the guy wud be envying me my life in the air-conditioned office. Sigh, I don’t want to think of that Chaos awaiting me.
When I was in college, our hostel had this large terrace which looked out onto the mountains unmarred by any tall buildings. You cud see a huge expanse of the sky and the mountains. Everyday the sun wud go down behind the mountains setting the skies ablaze in unimaginably beautiful scarlet, oranges, pinks, purples and yellows. Each day I wud think that this beauty cannot be surpassed and the next day, it wud be even more magnificent. Every single day the sunset was heartrendingly beautiful.Poignant.It made u feel glad, sad, immensely tiny and moved to tears, not knowing why. The kind that made u want to go down on ur knees in gratitude for the privilege of being able to see it. The kind that washed u clean of the pettiness of life and made u feel that its ur own fault that u lost sight of what’s important to u..The kind that made u stand with ur mouth open in sheer awe. The kind that made u sigh in happiness when it got over. Nothing mattered after it. You got ur perspective on life right. You believed that God spoils u.I loved receiving parcels from home in those days and still do. Call me crazy but those days I honestly believed that God sent me a surprise parcel every day with a sunset in it.Well,I’ll admit it, I still believe that.
I don’t get to see a sunset everyday but God does send me a parcel everyday. It may be the chance to wander abt barefoot on the damp lawn outside the library after a long day at work when am so tired that I cant even think of getting dinner up. Or it may be a 2 year old with rosy cheeks smiling up at my stony face (though for the life of me, I cant figure out whether the kid is smiling at me cos his life is so happy or cos I look funny when am stony faced.) .Am not very particular abt the gifts and God probably knows it.
It cud be a laugh shared with a friend or some bit of kindness from a colleague or a good snap clicked by me or a plant growing in our tiny garden or even a recipe that turned out well.
I recently read something on the internet and it made so much sense that am posting it here.
“We convince ourselves that life will be better after we get married, have a baby, then another. Then we are frustrated that the kids aren't old enough and we'll be more content when they are. After that we're frustrated that we have teenagers to deal with.
We will certainly be happy when they are out of that stage. We tell ourselves that our life will be complete when our spouse gets his or her act together, when we get a nicer car, are able to go on a nice vacation, when we retire.
The truth is, there's no better time to be happy than right now. If not now, when? Your life will always be filled with challenges.”
So true. There will never be a best car. There will never be a perfect spouse. There never will be perfect children. Life is rather simple and God only meant us to enjoy it. It’s we who make it complicated and a fight. Maybe if we all sat down and looked at a sunset, half the problems in the world wud be solved. Just imagine. Laden and Bush sharing a sunset together…Inspiring, isn’t it? Chuckle….
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Out from my head. On the blog.
Its tuf when u want the best of all worlds…and especially when ur job is not as challenging or as rewarding as u wud like it to be, u can either moan abt it or u can start working on the list of things-to-do-someday….and that’s what I did. All of a sudden, I found that my job did not give me the returns I expected for what I invested. Blame it on the management or on the client but the bottom line was that “this is how things worked” on this team.Ok…lets not go into all that. It just digs up a lot of bitterness and I prefer not to have the extra luggage. and so I decided to take a look at my to-do-someday list.…I don’t hate my job or anything but I decided that I need to get back in touch with my creative side. It helped that I have a hubby who absolutely loves it when I do something artsy.I got out my paints and painted a picture. I started spending more time on decorating our house and writing .I started reading more and I made a new friend whom I mailed every day.I took out my camera and got a few lovely snaps. I started my newest hobby of jewellery making. Now the problem with having so many hobbies is that u cannot be up todate on all ur projects. My second painting has been awaiting the final touches for over 2 months and my jewellery making skills have improved. My writing has been suffering while my reading has been going on at a stop-start-stop pace. And I have forgotten my photography techniques.….and to top it all, I want it all….chuckle…I never learnt to slow down and decide on one thing…I always want it all and I always want it now….so here is the plan. I want to write at least 3-4 times a week, mail my friend as much as possible, make at least 1 pair of earrings every day, paint on the weekends, read as much as I can and still be able to keep my house looking neat and tidy, ring up my dad more often, ring up my relatives and friends once a month atleast.Wow!!!Wudnt I be perfect? The trouble is even when am not able to do all this,I still believe that its possible to do it all…I managed to tidy our clothes cupboard finally last Friday and it still looks neat and tidy. The trouble with the 2 of us working is that the laundry never gets folded. We did the laundry on weekends but the Laundry room wud be so crowded that it took a lot of juggling to get our clothes washed and dried.So we switched to doing the laundry on the weekdays when the laundry room wud be empty. The trouble with this arrangement was that by the time the clothes were dry, it wud be late in the night and we wud leave the clothes jumbled up on the couch. The next day when we wanted to sit on the couch,they wud be moved in the same jumbled form onto the bed and at night back to the couch. This wud go on for a couple of days until finally I wud give up on my good intentions of tidying the clothes cupboard and stuff the jumble into the already messy cupboard. So even when I did tidy up the house,scrubbed the bathroom and the kitchen, my cupboard wud always keep niggling at the back of my mind. Finally, it came to a point where when we needed something from the cupboard, we wud pull it all out, pick out our thing and pile it all back in. Its tuf to find something in that jumble even when u have it all out on the bed and the floor. On Friday, when I had to do some office work from home which basically required me to click a button once every half an hour and monitor, I set up the laptop where I cud see it and started on my cupboard. It took me a good 2-3 hrs.But by the time I finished my office work which involved clicking the mouse 10 times and staring at the screen, I had a neat and tidy cupboard. I felt real good. Finally I had a clean house and a tidy cupboard.U may think what’s the big deal abt having a neat and tidy cupboard. I’ll tell u.I read it somewhere that even if u have a tidy house but a messy cupboard which is hidden from the world, it indicates that u have certain hidden emotional issues. Now to all of u out there who are thinking guiltily abt ur own untidy cupboards and wondering if u had any hidden emotional issues ,let me tell u.I don’t believe that u have an untidy closet cos u have emotional issues. I bet the guy who figured that one had never ever tidied his cupboard and was just taking a jab at his poor wife cos he was not able to find his underwear in their messy closet. There is something abt having to tidy a clothes cupboard that turns a good woman into an ostrich that buries its head in the sand. We cringe at the thought of our cupboards, promise ourselves to tidy it up every other day and never get round to doing it.Atleast that was my case, until I finally did it.I pulled out just one shelf of clothes,sorted,folded and arranged them on the bed and the bare shelf looked so neat that I started on the next one.By then I knew I wud get it done.And viola!I did it.It also helped that this was done on a weekday cos it left my weekend guilt free.I did all the cleaning and tidying around the house on the during the weekdays last week and to my amazement ,found that it was easier than trying to do it on the weekend. On weekends, just the thought of tidying up was enuf to keep me in bed. Of course, am tired when I come home from work, but when I do tidy up and the house looks nice, it relaxes me much more than anything else. And the weekend turned out to be much more fun cos I did not have a huge pile of things to do. The cupboard was the only thing which was a pain in the …um…double cheeked rear region. And I did it while I was finishing my office task and on a weekday. Isn’t that nice? After all those weekends where I kept putting it off, I finally did it on a weekday.
Most of us who work outside home feel too tired to tidy up but I must say that that the sooner we get up and do it, the easier it is. The guilt alone is enuf to make us feel worse. And when u stand up and look around,you can literally feel urself relax. There is something abt a neat house which brings home a sense of being a successful woman.
Now after all that rambling…. I’ll come back to my plan of action so that I get it all and get it all done.I shall write one page post everyday. Just one page. Come on.How tuf can that be? If I can’t write a page a day then what’s the whole point of writing? And if nothing else, its good practice. And then painting is going to be done only on the weekends. Now the reason for this is, I need daylight. So weekends are the best. And I shall try to make at least one pair of earrings a day. Now while this sounds like its gonna be the simplest of all the projects, it really is not.Cos I have to cook dinner, tidy up the house, then finish the earrings….That’s a bit tuf,u see. But I wud hate to put it off for the weekends.Cos then it wud become more of a chore. So I like to do it on the weekdays. And then I decided I shall read in bed. Just before I pop off to sleep. Those 5 -10 min of reading shud do the trick…so there I have it all planned out. Now its just abt working it out.Somedays it just may not work. Like today. I have so much office work which am finishing simultaneously while I am writing this. But atleast I wud have tried. Like today. I was only planning to write a page to keep my resolution. But here I seem to have happily rambled on for 2 whole pages. Isn’t that great? Just shows, where there is a will, there is a way.
Most of us who work outside home feel too tired to tidy up but I must say that that the sooner we get up and do it, the easier it is. The guilt alone is enuf to make us feel worse. And when u stand up and look around,you can literally feel urself relax. There is something abt a neat house which brings home a sense of being a successful woman.
Now after all that rambling…. I’ll come back to my plan of action so that I get it all and get it all done.I shall write one page post everyday. Just one page. Come on.How tuf can that be? If I can’t write a page a day then what’s the whole point of writing? And if nothing else, its good practice. And then painting is going to be done only on the weekends. Now the reason for this is, I need daylight. So weekends are the best. And I shall try to make at least one pair of earrings a day. Now while this sounds like its gonna be the simplest of all the projects, it really is not.Cos I have to cook dinner, tidy up the house, then finish the earrings….That’s a bit tuf,u see. But I wud hate to put it off for the weekends.Cos then it wud become more of a chore. So I like to do it on the weekdays. And then I decided I shall read in bed. Just before I pop off to sleep. Those 5 -10 min of reading shud do the trick…so there I have it all planned out. Now its just abt working it out.Somedays it just may not work. Like today. I have so much office work which am finishing simultaneously while I am writing this. But atleast I wud have tried. Like today. I was only planning to write a page to keep my resolution. But here I seem to have happily rambled on for 2 whole pages. Isn’t that great? Just shows, where there is a will, there is a way.
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