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.”

Still Round The Corner There May Wait, A New Road Or A Secret Gate

It has been one long week since the last time I blogged and nothing seems to have changed except for ebb of thoughts that keep changing their flow from here to there and everywhere. The last weekend passed away swiftly and I remember the two bottles of wine, the rosemary and garlic chicken made by Sags and me and the funny conversation we had while Richa who was equally tipsy sat in one corner of the living room just laughing at our antics. Sags is a fabulous cook and she so inspires me to try my culinary skills out and I love the fancy glossy cook books she has and I so look forward to flipping through them cos they have a little bit of history written behind each recipe and its ever so intriguing. We even have pots of herbs in our huge veranda be it oregano, thyme, rosemary and basil and its turning out to be a veritable kitchen garden. Oh and I love thyme in my omlette and may I suggest the same to you. :-)

My eyebrows were growing at breakneck speed and my face looked right out of some ghastly tv serial so last evening I went to this shady parlour called Hi Tech Faces. Yes aren't you flinching too but beggars cannot be choosers cos I am too lazy to get out of the house during the weekends and weekdays one clearly has too much work. I met up with Nik the other day for dinner there wasn't a single restaurant open in the whole of Indiranagar all thanks to elections ofcourse and by the end of the evening we had sat on 5 autos. Plus he insisted that he knows the cool places here unlike me who tries to act cool and fails miserably heheh! So last evening Richa and I were at the Barista at Leela Palace waiting for a place to have our coffees when I suggested we took a round of the fancy, overpriced and tempting shops until they beckoned us. Now that was clearly a bad idea as I ended picking up a perfume. And I am quite excited about smelling all green tea lotusish. These days the tiniest of things make me happy. Maybe cos the bigger things are eluding me.

Last Night Batty and I had the most whackiest of conversations on how we'll never ever get what we want when we want and we are obviously gonna land up in places we never expected to and why cities matter so much to us. In the middle of debating and contemplating on the diametrics of cities, people and our lives we ended up talking about volunteer work in Africa or the Middle East, Baghdad and even Kabul and how we would die to work in such places doing humanitarian work. Quite a few secrets were spilled out especially how both of us would like to be oh so famous someday the right way and how it would be to be working in Baghdad and we would be one of those women who wanted to make a difference and who left their cushioned jobs in MNC's cos we wanted a purpose in life and then in the process landed up in Iraq. In Iraq too we'd crib and whine but we'll be happy and then how it would be to get kidnapped by one of those psycho terrorist outfits and then we would make a heroic escape and be all over news and there would be Facebook campaigns like the one for Roxanna Saberi and this one would say "Free the erstwhile Lawyer and Documentary Film Maker". Sigh! To think we had to come back to our ordinary lives what with me having to draft an agreement for an insipid pharma device and Batty having to edit some uninspiring documentary film. No heroes definitely but two dreamy and foolish 25 year olds who clearly imagine too much.

“'What do you fear my lady?'
'A cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them and all chance of valor has gone beyond beyond recall or desire.'”
J.R.R Tolkiens

Wanderlust!

I wanna go on a holiday to Ulan Bator. Ask me what place is it? Tis the capital of Mongolia and I have sat for half an hour checking out pictures of Mongolia and reading up on where to go stay, what to do, what to eat, the places to visit, the drop dead gorgeus scenery. I really wanna go. I wanna see the shamans and witness a shamanic ritual. Sigh! If only one had the monies. I even found out the price of the tickets and it only costs 70,000 something for a round trip. In college I use to want to visit Tibet and I still do. Maybe cos I spent 2 years in Gangtok as a child and went to school with Lepchas( people of Tibetean Buddhist origins). One of them was called Dorji and use to be my favouritest friend to play with after school. They made the most amazing momos and thuppa and I got a taste for their food at the age of 6 and I still die for momos any city, every city I go to.
I was thinking about the number of houses I have lived in the 25 years of my life and gosh the number baffled me too. Can you imagine that I have inhabited 22 houses? So I sat and counted how many cities, how many houses and 12 of those are all thanks to Dad and the Indian army starting from Dehradun, Jodhpur, Gangtok, Pathankot( small town in the north of Punjab) and Calcutta. Then there were 6 different abodes for the 5 years spent in Pune. Oh my God some of them I dread to imagine. After college a place in Chennai, one in Delhi ( I miss, I miss the house) and two in Bangalore. Yes 22 houses I could have called home. I wonder how many more am I gonna have and how many more places am I gonna visit. But I have always been India bound. I wanna get out and visit Russia, Mongolia, Tibet, Turkey ( Sigh!! Istanbul), Mexico, Peru and the whole wide world. I envy globe trotters really! I have only ever been an India Trotter. Hmphhhhh!
I never grew up in that one house you can call home where you spent most of your childhood and I always envied people who had that cos for me it was such a luxury and we shifted every two years the first 10 years of my life and I hated it. Now in retrospect I realise that the very essence of this gypsy like existence was instilled in me since the time I was born and I actually start getting an itch to get out a particular city after a particular time period. As a child we had a truckload of boxes and trunks whereever we went and those were used as makeshift dewans and tables, carefully concealed under drapes ofcourse. The tin trunks use to have my Dad's name engraved on them in white saying Col XYZ , _____ regiment, shifting from ____ to _____. Even the sight of them would disturb me cos it meant a new school, making new friends and catching up with school work.
Last week when I was home and Mum sent me to Fort William to the pay the bill at the Club everything made me upset cos it reminded me of Dad and the life he gave us. I passed the Golf Course and it reminded me of the days he'd be off playing golf at 3 in the afternoon and come back at 5: 30 all sweaty, happy and high on life. I see the huge fauji trucks and I remember my whole school life when I went to school in them and how embarassed I'd be when I got a little older cos they looked like mobile zoos complete with the cage and us monkeys inside.
Yup this wanderlust too is my father's legacy...
And even if you were in some prison, the walls of which let none of the sounds of the world come to your senses - would you not then still have your childhood, that precious, kingly possession, that treasure-house of memories?

Picture Perfect Life

Sometimes you close your eyes and see the picture perfect life it could have been. The images conjured in my mind seem to be unreal. Fragments of memories keep coming back and its all so disjointed. I wanted it to be a train and not different bits and pieces as it has turned out to be. I wonder if I grew up to be the person I thought I would. Is this how I saw my life 10 years back? This walking, talking, laughing, perfectly functional wreck that I have become. Wow sometimes I hate everything and everybody around me. I envy people and I keep asking why the hell? When am I gonna be able to make peace with this and accept it as destiny? Most of the times I convince myself but again one phone call or one cry for help and one sob and its destroyed all the make believe peace goes up in the air. I am back to where it began and its as hopeless as ever.
I wanna be able to crib about silly and stupid things like I always have done and like the others do. I wanna be worried about why so and so did not message me and why isn’t XYZ not calling me up. I don’t wanna get upset all over again about work but I am cos someone said “I won’t deny that you have to work very very hard to catch up.” I know she didn’t mean it that way but it hurt and it amazes me that this thing at work will bother me always. I don’t wanna hear the tiny voice that says “ Oh God I don’t wanna be in her shoes. I am so lucky that its not me.” But I hear it silently every now and then. I keep consoling myself saying someday life is gonna make it all up to us but what if it never does and I keep leading this ordinary life the way I have all this while the mediocre and average way. I have begun to hate those two words cos apparently I am not even that.
I don’t know whats bothering me more the assumptions about me or the circumstances I am in. Both I guess cos I desperately want something to work out, anything to work out. I wanna see light at the end of this tunnel and this one wasn’t made by me at all. I had nothing to do with its creation but it has encompassed everything I believed in, shaken my faith. I can’t seem to reconcile myself with the stark contrasts. Honestly I have tried and failed but I promise myself that someday its all gonna be very very different, good different, better different, happy different. Someday we are not gonna be passed over cos we ain’t good enough. We’ll be good enough, way better than good enough, yes we will.
“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.”

With A Little Bit Of Help From My Woodwork Angels

I got up in the evening with the most rotten mood after my afternoon nap. I was angry with the world for a variety of reasons and primarily cos our prayers don’t seem to be working, cos my Dad needed an oxygen mask last nite, cos maybe I finally found something I can grow to love, be good at with time and I’ll have to take a break from because of circumstances. I have lived the last 8 years of my life skimming over everything, be it law school where I took it easy for almost all of the five years or my two years in Delhi whereby all I did was to have fun, drink too much( much too much for my own good), party, chill out with my friends and not give my best at work. I haven’t been true to the substantial things, the priorities for so long that it became a way of life for me. Somewhere deep down I always knew that I cannot continue in this fashion and hence the move out of Delhi. I wanted to be the best I could be and I know that I had fooled myself for too long. Nothing in life is free and yes all the fun has come at a cost and I am having to pay for every second of not making an effort at work before and I have struggled and continue to struggle here in this law firm but amidst this constant maze of questions I am getting answers. I have questioned myself every single day at work over here for the last 6 months wondering darn am I ever gonna be standing anywhere amidst people who are so good at what they do and know so much more than I ever have. The only thing I had going for me was the fact that I wanted to do well and I was sick of being a nobody, despised myself for having let myself become a shadow of what I could have been. But if you want something that badly and go for it even if you stumble every step of the way, make an utter fool of yourself in the process but you still get up, laugh and carry on cos this is gonna be one long journey and you just started, a tad bit too late maybe but tis never too late to go after your dreams and dreams change.
So there I was a couple of hours back fuming, snapping at my sister, furious after a phone conversation with my mother who insisted I was lazy and I should be able to cook instead of making do with take aways and instant food all the time. I walked out of the house to get milk for the coffee my roomie Richa was making for us and ended up buying eggs, onion, garlic, tomatoes and some potatoes thinking maybe I should try my hand at cooking and I can’t be that bad as they think I am or as I think I am. I come back home with the supplies and Richa goes “Wow you gonna be cooking.” I said sheepishly “Yes I am. Hope it doesn’t turn out to be bad, hope its edible.” I started with the chopping, cutting and boiling of the ingredients and doing just that exhausted me but not to be discouraged I carried on. In the middle when the mixie wasn’t working and I couldn’t figure how to make the onion, garlic, tomatoe paste I almost gave up looking at the mess the kitchen was. Whatever task I do and if it is a hard one there is always this one moment when everything seems to be falling apart and I think hell this isn’t gonna work out. But with time I have realized if I stick around and persist that moment passes and I do complete what I started out doing not in the spectacular fashion like in the movies but not half as bad either. I did finish making the egg curry and rice with a little bit of help from Richa and useful tips from Sags and my Mum. In the process while she fried the masala for me and I ground the ginger we exchanged stories about her Grandmum, my Dad, our families and I came to the conclusion that no I do wanna be there for my Mum and Dad now and if I don’t take that break now I’ll have life long regrets. The Egg Curry smelt yum, tasted fine and they liked it and there is a little bit left that I have to put back in the refrigerator. I wish I’d tried cooking before, I wish I hadn’t had preconceived notions about what I am good at and can be good at. But I am learning now that I can be good at what I truly want with a little bit of help from my woodwork angels be at Meggy at work or Richa at home with the cooking. Woodwork angels are those who materialize out of nowhere, almost the woodwork when you need someone the most. Thus Meggy has been mine at work for 6 months now and Richa was one today in the kitchen. :-)

The rule and not the exception... :-)

I came back home on Sunday afternoon to a musty room with dust settled on almost everything I own and it did not feel like home. It still doesn’t however hard I try. I was dreading work on Monday morning and yes recession has hit us hard too and the clients seem to be barely trickling in. I was given work nonetheless and had to draft some agreement and as expected I took it too easy. I did anything and everything but draft the agreement and as a result of my excessive laziness I was up at the break of dawn today finishing it. I almost lost my cool an hour into it when I realised it isn’t as simple as I thought it was and was almost ready to give up but I guess this workplace has taught me one thing and that is never ever to give up on an agreement even if it’s the worst possible one. You carry on drafting slowly, reading and re reading, deleting and adding. Everytime I read it I found something missing or something not fitting in and I kept adding till the last moment even 5 minutes before submitting it at 11:30. It wasn’t the perfect one though. I wonder when I’d be able to draft a perfect agreement. ☺
Last week as we drove down from Haridwar to Dehradun I saw some of the loveliest scenery I have seen in the recent times (after my Jim Corbett trip last year and that already feels like a lifetime back). Yeah this was the same part of the country too and I love the trees, just endless rows and rows of trees and forest area. The eucalyptus, the pine, the fir trees with the purple bourgavillea made the prettiest picture postcard view. Though my frame of mind could not be equated to that beauty around me. But then hell tis never gonna be picture postcard perfect. Anyways I plan to come back next year for the Kumbh Mela and Batty has agreed to accompany me. It should be fun and intriguing and we should be able to take some interesting pictures.
Monday evening Meggy and I went over to Featherlite to choose chairs for ourselves for the new office. In the space of an hour and a half we tried out every single chair, couch and sofa in the shop and we had opinion on every item they had on display including the cute work stations, the coffee tables and the sexy bar stools. Now the problem being both of us found fundamentally different chairs comfortable and we cannot possibly have dissimilar chairs and had to reach to a consensus. But Meggy being 5ft and I being 5 inches taller than her we were not agreeing on any one chair. The ones I liked were too high for her and the ones she approved off were too low for me or she liked mesh while I liked leather. We were politely but firmly asked to leave the shop at 8:30 and the look of relief on the sales guy was to die for hahah! We still haven’t got our chairs ;-)!
There was Biriyani for lunch today in the Cafeteria and as usal Meggy and I passed comments on the people from the neighbouring office looking at them enviously as they always seem to be such happy carefree people. We on the other hand look perennially harrowed and tired, the types who clearly don’t have a life besides this law firm. Oh and last night Miss Lemony Pie and I came to the conclusion that we single women actually only ever talk about the exception and not the rule. ( Has anyone seen “ He’s just not that into you”) Me thinks Batty Woman’s story is an exception and point being I am probably not gonna be the exception so I should quit wanting what is unattainable. But I still don’t wanna and despite everything I still hope and maybe I always will thinking it could be just around the corner waiting for me. :-)

“Girls are taught a lot of stuff growing up. If a guy punches you he likes you. Never try to trim your own bangs and someday you will meet a wonderful guy and get your very own happy ending. Every movie we see, Every story we're told implores us to wait for it, the third act twist, the unexpected declaration of love, the exception to the rule. But sometimes we're so focused on finding our happy ending we don't learn how to read the signs. How to tell from the ones who want us and the ones who don't, the ones who will stay and the ones who will leave. And maybe a happy ending doesn't include a guy, maybe... it's you, on your own, picking up the pieces and starting over, freeing yourself up for something better in the future. Maybe the happy ending is... just... moving on. Or maybe the happy ending is this, knowing after all the unreturned phone calls, broken-hearts, through the blunders and misread signals, through all the pain and embarrassment you never gave up hope."

Gigi [He's Just Not That Into You]

And someday I'll chase them again.....

Yeah I have been away for a while but I guess its expected considering the fact that we lead the lives we lead.This one week will see me traverse 3 cities (Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata) and 2 small towns (Haridwar and Dehradun). I have loads and loads of memories atatched to Dehradun as I spent a part of my childhood there. I was 4 then I think as we use to live right next to Doon School. I had the most ridiculous haircut which in the mid 80's use to be known as the "katori cut" as in literally meaning that your hair would be cut in the shape of a round bowl. I looked like quite the clown and to top it all there was some serial killer on the prowl in Dehradun in those days and he had a taste for little girls so I had been strictly intructed by my folks especially my Dad that if anybody asks my name I am to say my name was Pappu. Well I took to the game like a fish in water and very soon started acting my part so well that I would not respond to my real name except for Pappu and I had convinced myself in my head that I was a little boy until my Mum whacked me one day reminding me who I actually was and what my real name was hahahha!
I know I shouldn't be writing such inane anecdotes but I don't seem to want to write anything else. Someone told me the other day that I have to be strong and a little indifferent to whats happening around me or else even when this time passes and life changes I'll be stuck in this time capsule having lost the real me forever. Sometimes I feel maybe I'll never be able to have a fun time without worrying or feeling guilty that I shouldn't. Life surely has the strangest ways of teaching us lessons I say. I know I have to be making plans very soon but selfish that I am something which bothers me a lot is taking this break from my job and I'll be missing out on work and a learning for sometime. But times change, atleast I hope they do and my dreams will remain with me intact and hopefully someday I'll chase them again. Till then I'll do my duty cos this is the least I can do and I owe them this much and so much more.

The boy with the gruffiest voice

That time nothing made me happier than an e-mail from him with an account of exactly what he has been upto and how much he misses me. I haven't exchanged such frequent and long e-mails ever again in my life despite the internet being so much more accessible now. Those were the days when one had to pay 30 bucks for an hour of surfing the net but I'd check my mail without fail just to receive one of his long, chirpy, intense yet sunshiny e-mails. I remember his gruffy voice and how everytime he called Dad would think a really old guy is calling me up when in reality it was a 17 year old calling a looney 18 year old and trying to put some sense into her head while she swayed to and fro from sanity to insanity. I remember his obsession with the guitar and he idolised Joe Satriani. I loved, I loved talking to him and the feeling was mutual and no this isn't any love story or anything even remotely close to that. Just an episode I was reminded off today after years cos I dreamt of him last night. In hindsight I feel we could have been really good friends if not for the stupidities of youth and the quirks and eccentricities that come along with it.
By the end of it he vanished just as suddenly as he had made an appearance and the melodramatic me deleted those lovely e-mails he sent me in a fit on anger. I want those e-mails back, I really do. Infact I tried retrieving them a couple of years back but to no avail cos technology has its limitations too since the account shut down 7 years back. We never got in touch again except for an odd e-mail I sent him and he replied back saying he had been thinking about me but again that was that. Sometimes I did wonder how he was, how was law school coming along for him because one did not have social networking sites in the earlier part of this decade. But since he had hurt my already damaged ego I would have never made an effort to renew our association. Apparently he'd come down to my college once for some moot court and asked about me but my luck I was back home then. I was excited just knowing so he does remember me.
Finally when I did bump into him I completely looked through him as he stared at me. It was the High Court in Delhi a year and a half back as I was chatting with S and we walked past by each other and he looked at me while I put on a fabulous act of not recognising him and continued my conversation with S. I knew it was him the instant I saw him but I wanted to have the upper hand for once and thus the elaborate act. I got some perverse pleasure out of it as he almost had that surprised expression on his face. He never came forward to say Hi to me but I know he kept looking back.
I believe he still plays the guitar like a dream and still is quite the dreamer he use to be at 17. I heard he lost his father almost 2 years back and that was one time when I wanted to say something but there was nothing to say. I have no idea why you were in my dreams last night but when I got up this morning I did know that I wanna say " Hi Gruffy Voice! How are you Dude? Longtime! Hope you are doing good. Thought I'd drop in a word." But I never shall.

Its 9 at night and I am in office trying to finish something along with Meggy. No big deal i know since most people I know work just as hard if not more. But today was one of those blearghhhh days maybe cos She and Miss Touch Me Not left and i couldn't spend enough time with them and also cos I am PMSing real badly and to top it all there isn't any water at home. Also cos I feel ugly and fat and not me at all. I've had a real fun time last 2 days with these 2 friends of mine but I do not feel like replicating it on Blogger as yet cos I wouldn't be able to do justice to it. I've even shopped lots and lots but why do I feel the way I do? Oh and I sorted stuff out in my head too and it is such a load off my chest.
I've stopped wearing kajal cos I got the nastiest sty in my eyes and I look like this pale imitation of the older me which maybe I am. I saw such happy snaps on Facebook and wanted to be as happy as her but I cannot. I am turning into a social recluse but not to worry because I feel it is just a phase. At least I hope it is. Last night I had homemade Irish Cream at someone's place and it was divine and very potent.I drank lots of wine too but like She says I can have two bottles of wine all my myself and not bat an eyelid. I ain't half that cool anymore. I got high on 3 drinks on Saturday with my roomies and She and Miss Touch Me Not. She got me the prettiest bedcovers and I am very excited and dying to use them.
Nutty bugged me all weekend and we fought quite a bit, much to the amusement of everyone around. They find it hilarious and they would considering the fact that we fight like cats and dogs on the stupidest of issues. I am tired, really tired and I just wanna sleep and not worry, wanna be able to hope for something good to happen, look forward to something or have plain fun without reality biting me and reminding me of the real picture.

Shimmer :-)

Fell in love with the song and the lyrics. The song is called Shimmer and the Economist thought the lyrics were somewhat akin to the quotes I always put up on my blog :-).

"Shimmer"

She calls me from the cold
Just when I was low, feeling short of stable
And all that she intends
And all she keeps inside, isn't on the label
She says she's ashamed
And can she take me for awhile
And can I be a friend, we'll forget the past
But maybe I'm not able
And I break at the bend
We're here and now, but will we ever be again
'Cause I have found
All that shimmers in this world is sure to fade
Away again
She dreams a champagne dream
Strawberry surprise, pink linen and white paper
Lavender and cream
Fields of butterflies, reality escapes her
She says that love is for fools who fall behind
And I'm somewhere in between
I never really know
A killer from a savior
'Til I break at the bend
It's too far away for me to hold
It's too far away...
Guess I'll let it go

How we use to be ...

Something written by me more than 8 months back. We have surely come a long long way indeed. I was drunk on a quarter of vodka one Saturday evening in Delhi when Preema and I decided to ditch the rest of the gang as they headed to some fancy club ( think it was F Bar). I sat at home obstinately making the excuse of monetary problems and Preema sneaked out and came home with the Bald Cutie and three of us drank and spoke a lot about life, why we are the way we are and why we do what we chose to do, religion, faith and our personal beliefs. I distinctly remember composing this blog post and for some reason not putting it up. Maybe cos I thought it revealed too much. Now it doesn't pinch me anymore and surprisingly this was still lying in the drafts unpublished so here it is. A bit of the " love-sick looney" I use to be and always will be heheh!


"i don't listen to the same songs anymore. i keep searching for new songs on limewire looking for music that doesn't remind me of u. i know life has changed and we ain't where we used to be. i wonder if all that was real. i hate so hate aerosmith and i'd rather die than listen to "dream on" or "deuces are wild".i am moving on and succeeding. i bump into u in and all that i feel is the awkwardness left and the silence that predominates every other feeling.i don't even get drunk as often as i used to when u were around. yeah m a little inebriated now but tis all good. u ain't around to keep an eye on the number of drinks i have. i don't ask questions anymore and i don't wait patiently for weekends anymore cos weekends ain't half as fun without u. i know u ain't gonna call me on a saturday night saying"m coming over soooo pleasseeeee order food" or jus come home and mess up my room. we ain't gonna be standing in front of my dressing table doing r own thing completely unaware of the pretty picture we make and darn there ain't gonna be anymore pictures of us. but u know what this isn't it and some other day, some other age and some other time we are gonna meet again and it is gonna be a different story."

"and if r hands should meet in another dream we'll build another tower in the sky"