You could be my someone

I wish we were built to function as single entities, independent units who don't crave human touch as often we do. Sometimes I think that feeling of so near yet so far is maddening. I can see you, hear you, almost touch you and I'd like to know you and so would you but I know we never will. I don't wanna be meeting the likes of you any longer. I don't wanna be meeting the kinds with whom I can instantly relate to, have so much fun with during the course of a couple of hours but realise I can't have more for whatever reasons. Yes I really wish I could be custom made to operate as a single unit who can survive completely on her own. I can see the loneliness sometimes. Its amazing how many of them are out there. I am scared they shall be able to see through my veil too. Yes wouldn't it be so much easier if that very need of wanting to be with someone was erased?

"Alone, all alone nobody, but nobody can make it out here all alone."

Maya Angelou

All thats left has gone away

I never thought I'd say this but I am so gonna miss this quaint lil lawyer's office with its traditional wooden interiors and leather upholstery. I am gonna miss the sunny rooms and the fully stocked kitchen and the patch of small garden where we got out to answer our phone calls. We were even getting an aquarium each and were gonna choose our own fishes. I am gonna miss the books soooo much and I loved the funky book cases Walrus and the Preety Maid had designed. You name the book and they'd order it for us. I know most law firms function the same way but I ain't gonna be working in one very soon and maybe thats why I am feeling a teeny meeny bit nostalgic leaving all of this behind. I also realise that one tends to romanticise the past and sometimes we completely overlook the bad times. But the bad times for what it was worth over here have taught me lessons to last me a lifetime. I would have never ever learned the intricacies of researching or drafting if I hadn't worked over here and being a lawyer these two are the intrinsic skills required to succeed in this field wherever I go and whatever legal work I am involved in. I discovered that I am good at researching and I know I can find out those sections and a particular statute faster than my colleague and Boss. I so love this MacBook and even the thought of working on the Dell is giving me jitters. Hmphhhhh! I am gonna buy an Apple as soon as I save enough money.

If I want I guess I can make these 7 months sound like the worse time of my professional life but I choose not to do that. We take away something from every experience in life however brief or long it would be and I am carrying back a treasure trove of skills with me that shall come in handy tomorrow. And also that will to survive and the urge to prove them wrong. I know someday I am gonna be sitting across the table with Walrus proud of what I achieved in life and to think I probably took that first real step towards my dreams because he didn't have faith in me. :-) Its not that I don't have my bad days when I lament over the state of my life both professional and personal. Just yesterday I was speaking to my Aunt and I was choked with emotion wondering yet again why us, why me? I put the music on loud so that my roomie could not hear me and I howled my heart out cos thats exactly how far my dreams seemed to be and the road ahead isn't gonna be easy.

I know I'll have to work harder than others at that particular exam. Someone said I'll breeze through it but I know I won't. I know I'll feel dejected now and again and sometimes shall be on the brink of giving up. But I always pray that I don't loose that end in sight and this is just the means to an end. There isn't gonna be any space or room to be doing what I want to in my own sweet time for a longtime now. I am not going back to a happy home and things have taken a complete turnaround. But they say life also gives back to us all that it takes away. So last morning while I listened to Kelly Clarkson's " My Life Would Suck Without You" and shed some tears I told myself exactly how life would compensate for its unfairness. I keep waiting for that one sign that it shall become better. I keep praying and longing to see that miracle.

No I don't get any answers at all ever. The funniest is when people crib about the nonsensical things in life and I am amazed that those things stand nowhere in my life any longer and just 6 months back all I did was to complain about the very same things. I can't relate to that thinking any more and it just seems to be a luxury now. I realise I have grown older in my head and the change is glaring to me although unless you know me really well you'd never figure. It is still me though, the older frivolous me is probably hidden somewhere in the nooks and crannies in some dusty corner of my mind. I don't know if she'll get a chance to come out in the near future but I can live with that. All I want is that other life I yearn to have. I know I will, yes I know I will.
“ You have to believe in yourself, that's the secret. Even when I was in the orphanage, when I was roaming the street trying to find enough to eat, even then I thought of myself as the greatest actor in the world. I had to feel the exuberance that comes from utter confidence in yourself. Without it, you go down to defeat. ”

Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977)
comic actor, filmmaker, writer

Nobody said this was easy....

It took 25 whole years for real life to come knocking at my door and now I can't wait for it to get over and for the rest of my life to begin. Why am I talking in riddles? Today while making dinner (methi chicken) I realised that cooking is one of those rare things that comes easy to me. I have forgotten how the word "easy" use to sound like or how it feels when it isn't too difficult and everything falls into place miraculously. Yes I have been on one of those pensive moods. But so would you be if you get up on a Monday morning realising well I don't need to go for work any longer and that I have actually given my resignation letter but why am I still feeling guilty for sitting at home for a legitimate reason? Thats what the last 8 months or so have done to me and I can't even sit at home for a day without work and not feel guilty.

Why do I have to pack up time and time again and start from scratch? So this is the price I have to pay for the life I lead before and all my past shenanigans. I don't drink at all these days and its hard to imagine a me that drank copious amounts for the longest time. Jinu and I went to Hard Rock Cafe on Saturday and had 2 glasses of fresh lime soda and spoke and spoke as if the world was about to come to an end and this was the last time we were meeting. Now who goes to Hard Rock on a summer afternoon and drinks fresh lime sodas instead of guzzling a beer except for the likes of me and Jinu hahaha! There is always so so much to discuss and so much to dream, to plan, to hope and the castles in the air we build are too enticing to resist. I am gonna miss her a lot when I leave. Hmphhhh!

Seems like I have to be making the right friends just before biding adieu to this city. I made another really good friend in a space of a few weeks and I have known her forever and both of us are amazed that we never chilled before despite knowing the whole world in common. We share a love for food and we meet every weekend and try out a restaurant and a new cuisine each time. Its such good fun discussing work, love and life over a plate of tamarind chicken or dum pukht biriyani. Something very very comforting about thai red curry cos the last 3 consecutive weekends I have been having that for sunday lunch.

Batty and I have yet again charted the course of our whole "new"life out (sans lecherous, eccentric, slavedriverish employers) right from the degree, to the new country, the job, the boy to her wedding, to the new house in California and vacations to be taken together with our better halfs and the dogs and even the jokes on my better half. Yes we are definitely suffering from an insanity that comes from talking late hours on a Sunday night knowing there isn't any office to go to on a monday morning.

Yes the nightly conversations are surely gonna be missed and so is the switch from the Brit English to native tongue and back to Brit English. Its so darn easy getting use to having people around. They seem to come and go and this wretched life doesn't keep an account. Or does it?

I turn my head and go away.....

"The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise.”

Miguel Cervantes

And thats why I got a tattoo of a phoenix when I did get one. There is so much I wanna say and so much of this has been left unsaid.I wish I could write exactly what I feel. I wish I could produce the riders just as they are on paper, the loopholes, the jagged edges that need to be evened out. But this is a blog at the end of the day and not my personal diary where I could possibly put my heart out. I wanna tell him that I could have been as good as you wanted me to be with time. I know I could have but life and circumstances had made up their mind way before. I had wanted so much and I got so little. I hate such unfinished chapters and parting in such a hurry. But we'll meet again and it'll be a different day.
This post is also for someone else whose having to quit a job she loves for the most uncomfortable of reasons. You remember the day you took this picture of my tattoo. We were so excited about meeting up on the pretext of your work in Bangalore. We liked the way life was shaping out however bumpy the road seemed to be. We never thought that this is how the journey would end. You do know that you and I will find our own little niche someday. We'll be happy, doing what we love and without compromising on your dignity and my self confidence.

One day.....

"One day, not today, not tomorrow, not this season, probably not next season either but one day, you and I are gonna wake up and suddenly we're gonna be like every other team in every other sport where winning is everything and nothing else matters. And when that day comes, well thats, thats when we'll honor them."

['We Are Marshall']

Romeo save me, I've been feeling so alone...

And the song just stuck to my head so much so that I played it a million times until I have been forbidden to play it again. Romeo never does come to save you though. Take it from me even if you hit rock bottom and think it cannot get worse it gets worse and nothing but yourself and your spirit can make you get up and start from scratch all over again. Would you want that one person to save you from the demons and shield you every step of the way? I wouldn't and I don't know about you. Sometimes though when I get glimpses of peoples lives I realise yes some of them have had it a little easier than the rest but life is a great leveller and I truly believe that. We more often than not choose our own lives and I chose this and everything that comes along with it. Well almost. I can't blame others for my fears, my inadequacies, my failures and I am standing where I am right now for I let my fear of failure play havoc in my life and now that the worst has happened I seem to be almost uneffected. Its not that I don't care. Yes I do, ofcourse I do but I cared too much, I tried too much, gave too much and sometimes the trick lies in being a tad bit indifferrent and exiting gracefully knowing nothing more could have been done and you couldn't have done it any differently. This wasn't meant to be ever. This was only how long this journey was supposed to be.

Besides I feel unless this decision had been thrust on me I would have never ever chosen to opt out of this situation. I guess I don't really have the option but to go for it now. :-) I kept pushing it back year by year but now I won't wait too long. There is a time for everything, every bloody thing. Sometimes I feel damn is this how it was supposed to be? Then why the hell was I trying to fight against the wind? If something was right here in my backyard why wasn't I aware of its existence? Eeerie this is, all of it. :-) So where has it come from and where was it all this while and why the appearance now and why does it feel so familiar? Not the scary familar but the comfortable familiar, not the you gimme the creeps familar but the warm familar. No this isn't gonna save me cos no one but me saves myself but yes it might lead me to a different road and a new direction and I like the sound of that.

Stranger Stranger Lover of Unreachable Heights

And now it was evening.
And Almitra the seeress said, "Blessed be this day and this place and your spirit that has spoken."
And he answered, Was it I who spoke? Was I not also a listener?
Then he descended the steps of the Temple and all the people followed him. And he reached his ship and stood upon the deck.
And facing the people again, he raised his voice and said:
People of Orphalese, the wind bids me leave you.
Less hasty am I than the wind, yet I must go.
We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us.
Even while the earth sleeps we travel.
We are the seeds of the tenacious plant, and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of heart that we are given to the wind and are scattered.
Brief were my days among you, and briefer still the words I have spoken.
But should my voice fade in your ears, and my love vanish in your memory, then I will come again,
And with a richer heart and lips more yielding to the spirit will I speak.
Yea, I shall return with the tide,
And though death may hide me, and the greater silence enfold me, yet again will I seek your understanding.
And not in vain will I seek.
If aught I have said is truth, that truth shall reveal itself in a clearer voice, and in words more kin to your thoughts.
I go with the wind, people of Orphalese, but not down into emptiness;
And if this day is not a fulfilment of your needs and my love, then let it be a promise till another day. Know therefore, that from the greater silence I shall return.
The mist that drifts away at dawn, leaving but dew in the fields, shall rise and gather into a cloud and then fall down in rain.
And not unlike the mist have I been.
In the stillness of the night I have walked in your streets, and my spirit has entered your houses,
And your heart-beats were in my heart, and your breath was upon my face, and I knew you all.
Ay, I knew your joy and your pain, and in your sleep your dreams were my dreams.
And oftentimes I was among you a lake among the mountains.
I mirrored the summits in you and the bending slopes, and even the passing flocks of your thoughts and your desires.
And to my silence came the laughter of your children in streams, and the longing of your youths in rivers.
And when they reached my depth the streams and the rivers ceased not yet to sing.
But sweeter still than laughter and greater than longing came to me.
It was boundless in you;
The vast man in whom you are all but cells and sinews;
He in whose chant all your singing is but a soundless throbbing.
It is in the vast man that you are vast,
And in beholding him that I beheld you and loved you.
For what distances can love reach that are not in that vast sphere?
What visions, what expectations and what presumptions can outsoar that flight?
Like a giant oak tree covered with apple blossoms is the vast man in you.
His mind binds you to the earth, his fragrance lifts you into space, and in his durability you are deathless.
You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link.
This is but half the truth. You are also as strong as your strongest link.
To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of ocean by the frailty of its foam.
To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconsistency.
Ay, you are like an ocean,
And though heavy-grounded ships await the tide upon your shores, yet, even like an ocean, you cannot hasten your tides.
And like the seasons you are also,
And though in your winter you deny your spring,
Yet spring, reposing within you, smiles in her drowsiness and is not offended.
Think not I say these things in order that you may say the one to the other, "He praised us well. He saw but the good in us."
I only speak to you in words of that which you yourselves know in thought.
And what is word knowledge but a shadow of wordless knowledge?
Your thoughts and my words are waves from a sealed memory that keeps records of our yesterdays,
And of the ancient days when the earth knew not us nor herself,
And of nights when earth was upwrought with confusion,
Wise men have come to you to give you of their wisdom. I came to take of your wisdom:
And behold I have found that which is greater than wisdom.
It is a flame spirit in you ever gathering more of itself,
While you, heedless of its expansion, bewail the withering of your days.
It is life in quest of life in bodies that fear the grave.
There are no graves here.
These mountains and plains are a cradle and a stepping-stone.
Whenever you pass by the field where you have laid your ancestors look well thereupon, and you shall see yourselves and your children dancing hand in hand.
Verily you often make merry without knowing.
Others have come to you to whom for golden promises made unto your faith you have given but riches and power and glory.
Less than a promise have I given, and yet more generous have you been to me.
You have given me deeper thirsting after life.
Surely there is no greater gift to a man than that which turns all his aims into parching lips and all life into a fountain.
And in this lies my honour and my reward, -
That whenever I come to the fountain to drink I find the living water itself thirsty;
And it drinks me while I drink it.
Some of you have deemed me proud and over-shy to receive gifts.
To proud indeed am I to receive wages, but not gifts.
And though I have eaten berries among the hill when you would have had me sit at your board,
And slept in the portico of the temple where you would gladly have sheltered me,
Yet was it not your loving mindfulness of my days and my nights that made food sweet to my mouth and girdled my sleep with visions?
For this I bless you most:
You give much and know not that you give at all.
Verily the kindness that gazes upon itself in a mirror turns to stone,
And a good deed that calls itself by tender names becomes the parent to a curse.
And some of you have called me aloof, and drunk with my own aloneness,
And you have said, "He holds council with the trees of the forest, but not with men.
He sits alone on hill-tops and looks down upon our city."
True it is that I have climbed the hills and walked in remote places.
How could I have seen you save from a great height or a great distance?
How can one be indeed near unless he be far?
And others among you called unto me, not in words, and they said,
Stranger, stranger, lover of unreachable heights, why dwell you among the summits where eagles build their nests?
Why seek you the unattainable?
What storms would you trap in your net,
And what vaporous birds do you hunt in the sky?
Come and be one of us.
Descend and appease your hunger with our bread and quench your thirst with our wine."
In the solitude of their souls they said these things;
But were their solitude deeper they would have known that I sought but the secret of your joy and your pain,
And I hunted only your larger selves that walk the sky.
But the hunter was also the hunted:
For many of my arrows left my bow only to seek my own breast.
And the flier was also the creeper;
For when my wings were spread in the sun their shadow upon the earth was a turtle.
And I the believer was also the doubter;
For often have I put my finger in my own wound that I might have the greater belief in you and the greater knowledge of you.
And it is with this belief and this knowledge that I say,
You are not enclosed within your bodies, nor confined to houses or fields.
That which is you dwells above the mountain and roves with the wind.
It is not a thing that crawls into the sun for warmth or digs holes into darkness for safety,
But a thing free, a spirit that envelops the earth and moves in the ether.
If this be vague words, then seek not to clear them.
Vague and nebulous is the beginning of all things, but not their end,
And I fain would have you remember me as a beginning.
Life, and all that lives, is conceived in the mist and not in the crystal.
And who knows but a crystal is mist in decay?
This would I have you remember in remembering me:
That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined.
Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the structure of your bones?
And is it not a dream which none of you remember having dreamt that building your city and fashioned all there is in it?
Could you but see the tides of that breath you would cease to see all else,
And if you could hear the whispering of the dream you would hear no other sound.
But you do not see, nor do you hear, and it is well.
The veil that clouds your eyes shall be lifted by the hands that wove it,
And the clay that fills your ears shall be pierced by those fingers that kneaded it.
And you shall see
And you shall hear.
Yet you shall not deplore having known blindness, nor regret having been deaf.
For in that day you shall know the hidden purposes in all things,
And you shall bless darkness as you would bless light.
After saying these things he looked about him, and he saw the pilot of his ship standing by the helm and gazing now at the full sails and now at the distance.
And he said:
Patient, over-patient, is the captain of my ship.
The wind blows, and restless are the sails;
Even the rudder begs direction;
Yet quietly my captain awaits my silence.
And these my mariners, who have heard the choir of the greater sea, they too have heard me patiently.
Now they shall wait no longer.
I am ready.
The stream has reached the sea, and once more the great mother holds her son against her breast.
Fare you well, people of Orphalese.
This day has ended.
It is closing upon us even as the water-lily upon its own tomorrow.
What was given us here we shall keep,
And if it suffices not, then again must we come together and together stretch our hands unto the giver.
Forget not that I shall come back to you.
A little while, and my longing shall gather dust and foam for another body.
A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.
Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you.
It was but yesterday we met in a dream.
You have sung to me in my aloneness, and I of your longings have built a tower in the sky.
But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over, and it is no longer dawn.
The noontide is upon us and our half waking has turned to fuller day, and we must part.
If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song.
And if our hands should meet in another dream, we shall build another tower in the sky.
So saying he made a signal to the seamen, and straightaway they weighed anchor and cast the ship loose from its moorings, and they moved eastward.
And a cry came from the people as from a single heart, and it rose the dusk and was carried out over the sea like a great trumpeting.
Only Almitra was silent, gazing after the ship until it had vanished into the mist.
And when all the people were dispersed she still stood alone upon the sea-wall, remembering in her heart his saying,
A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.

Khalil Gibran ( Originally called "The Farewell")

Hope

While cribbing about the fact that I shall have to give up my MacBook Jinu told me that someday I am gonna have the money to buy hundreds and hundreds of MacBooks.
While cribbing about how bad I was feeling about the current situation Fino said "This was a good experience, but something you forced yourself to like and get used to. Maybe you will effortlessly fall into place in some other set up- making life a lot easier for you."
Mom says " Don't let anybody take away your dreams from you."
And I say that I wanna remember this day forever and forever. Today's one of my lowest days. But someday far far away I am gonna look back to this day as the day when I took that first step.

"Never let go of hope. One day you will see that it all has finally come together. What you have always wished for has finally come to be. You will look back and laugh at what has passed and you will ask yourself... 'How did I get through all of that?”

I needed inspiration and not just another negotiation.

I can probably think of a thousand different reasons stating why I'll never get there and how impossible it seems right now.I can stop thinking about it like I hadn't thought about it for such a long time. No I don't want just this, no this isn't enough. I want more, lots more. To think it was some silly song and a certain Coach in Indiana inspiring me and to think that the person who inspired me doesn't even know so hahaha! Sometimes when you get that one glimpse of somebody else's life and you are so tempted to venture out again cos it looks so happy. Maybe it'll never be just like you had imagined but close to it I guess. That would be enough. Yes that would surely be enough.The bottom line being sometimes the most outlandish things inspire us and for me that happened during the wee hours of the morning last week. :-)

When you get a choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance :-)!

Well I have been so wanting to post last one week and everyday I had ideas for a different post but I guess there is a right time and place for almost everything including blogging so here I am Saturday evening sitting in my room with a cup of coffee in this cute chicky Mug ( She gave me) and listening to Lee Ann Womack's music on my Dell Notebook while I am typing this post out in a frenzy on my MacBook :-). There is so much one could write but lets start out with the essentials. Firstly I met the cutest and the bubbliest blogger chick last weekend at Hard Rock Cafe for a drink and lemme tell ya Jinu has the chubbiest cheeks and can talk nineteen a dozen and put me to shame. I always thought I talk non-stop when I am in the mood to chatter but Jinu beats me hollow and its lovely listening to her recount her tales cos they are frighteningly similar to mine. She is as henpecked as me and as silly and goofy and I think I found a kindred soul. :D We had so much to talk about and not even for an instant did I feel that this is the first time I am meeting her. Felt that I'd known her forever. I am sure she shall be mentioned more so in the future on my blog.
So Jinu and I have been tripping on this New York Time article on Helen Gurley Brown who was the editor of Cosmopolitan magazine for 40 long years. The article was aptly titled " Bad Girls Go Everywhere" after her biography of the same name chronicling her life and rise to fame from small town Arkansas in the first quarter of the Twentieth century to the plush offices of Cosmopolitan in NYC. We have promised ourselves that we are gonna buy a copy each to inspire ourselves cos we are definitely not the Good Girl variety heading to heaven hehehe! And have you guys ever heard of Anita Loos? She is the one who coined the term " Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and that is actually the name of her book that was considered to be quite unique in those days when published in the fifties. I'd had only seen the romantic comedy starring Marilyn Monroe but never heard of the script writer and the brain behind the idea.
Our Law Firm formally shifted its office on Thursday and Meggy and I were kept on our toes packing up the heavy books, the stationery, the printer and even the paper shredder. Walrus was also doing his bit ofcourse as we made multiple trips to his car and Meggy car. The transporter guy never turned up and there we were with two overstuffed cars. We had a dozen cardboxes full of office files and one of the boxes looked exactly like a coffin and the size was perfect for Meggy as I suggested maybe we could pack her complete with the bubble wrapping and send her across with the luggage too heheh! Oh and Sags parents were in town too last weekend and lemme declare them to be the coolest parents of all times. Aunty is adorable and looks like a tiny pixie and more like Sags sister and one has to literally pull her away from the kitchen cos she just cannot help but keep cleaning up all the time. Uncle is such fun and we were bumming cigarettes off him. They took us to Koshy's for dinner Monday night and it was merry making all the way.
Since I have gone and on with my cooking escapades I have to mention my exploits in the kitchen haahha! So I cook almost everyday now and I am loving it. Be it helping Saggy out with the dinner last Saturday and making Zuccinis with olives and lemon rind and baked potatoes with basil and rosemary or the ordinary " Usal" ( Sprouts actually and I never knew they could be so yummy). Richa is sick of Sags and me trying out recipe after recipe saying " You guys really make me feel so inept" heheh! So last nigth I officially called Fino home for dinner thinking she is gonna be the first of my friends who is gonna sample my cooking. I was quite nervous in the morning cribbing about it to Sags saying what if I made mess of it. We guys went to Namdharis and Food World in Indiranagar to buy the ingredients for lunch cos HE was coming home and for my dinner ofcourse. Sags ended up picking up rotten mutton and I went out of the house thinking i am gonna pick up the chicken and mince meat both from SPAR ( Bangaloreans would know SPAR. The meat counter is to die for:-).) I bumped into HE under the house and he offered to gimme a ride. I sat on a bike after the longest time and I don't know if he was was riding against the wind or with the wind but I loved the feel of it on my face as it snarled and whispered at the same time as if telling me that times will change :-). HE, Sags and I full chilled in the afternoon and come evening I got down to the task and made roast chicken stuffed with mushrooms, herbs and walnuts with jacket potatoes with sage and onions. Apparently it tasted divine.( Yes I take credit for it ;-) ) We drank wine and there were strawberries in cream for dessert. And I haven't entered the kitchen today heheeh!
Hmmm so guess I am doing good, yes I am. I completed 6 months here. Can you believe it? 6 months of Bangalore, 6 months of Walrus and the Preety Maid and we have come a long way indeed. Yeayyyyyyy!
“We dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the dancers, we create the dreams.”