Monthly Archives: April 2016
Finally ‘H’ome
I live in a secluded place that is all for myself away from the nasty kids that ruin my peace. I’m turning seventy this Winter. Having a dear dog of some woofy breed that takes good care of me, you see, I’m blind and hence the dog, but I hate them too. The place I live is across a busy road yet in a secluded place, I barely hear, you know and people at the church exclaim when I tell life as the only hell on earth. Home is where I would find peace and I was barely at peace.
“Oh Granma Peas, you need to be grateful for you have a life and the sun is shining his warm rays on you. The sun wakes up for you. Pray and he will be there, the Lord”
Well, I barely heard her after that, I meddled with my hearing aid, that sister in the church is way too chirpy. She believes in nonsense. The sun rises for the earth rotates not for me. I’m no love of the fine hues! I love a pastry or two though. And I live alone in my house, not home, with no one to bake around albeit the lady two-blocks away always comes home with some holy water and some poorly baked pie.
The pie tastes like rotten cake or perhaps my taste buds are dying, either way, I would still like a cup of hot coffee and some nice baked pastry with fresh cream. Oh, my younger days were full of them.
“Granma peas, can we borrow your fake teeth, we are playing you today” The little kid screamed outside of her tiny accommodation, merely the house that people live in.
“Ward off, you little mice, stay away from my place and my teeth, they are real”
They wouldn’t listen, they pester me everyday, on my way to the church and back from it, on my way to my deep slumber and the unwanted screams from the little boys. Everything was bad, way far bad than I had imagined. I like my dog though, he stinks but I still like him. I don’t feel lonely. It would have been better if my dog could speak instead of bark or rather if I could understand his barks.
This night, I take off my hearing aid, and stagger my way to my bed, for eternity, make me sleep is what I ask of the Lord above. I had to get home, away from all the uncertainties here. I wonder if he would hear me. I slept with a heart to let go of this crumpled body and slowly I drifted to sleep.
It was morning again and I was still alive, the lord doesn’t want me home. I put on my hearing aid and instantly hear the doorbell. I find my dog whose name is dog to help me to the door.
“hello Grandma, I found this place to be only accommodated by you, I go to the college 5 miles from here and so I wanted a place to stay. I can pay rent, just a few dollars if you could negotiate” the young girl was a pleasant surprise, she was full of energy and common sense, so like me.
“Can you bake pastries?” I ask her with a smile.
“Well, I can buy you one and I’ll learn if you could teach me that” She giggles and opened a packet that was stuffed with pastries. She loved them.
“Yes, you can stay, few dollars you say, how much ever you can save from your pocket money girl!” I tried to reach her and feel her face.
I could feel her smile and she held me in a bear hug.
I was finally home.
Home was the place where I was loved and where I belonged.I am finally home.
Feeling ‘G’rateful with Stella
The winds blew past me, whispering a tone of forlorn. Across the nations I walk, bereft of the reason to set things right, everything is bureaucratic and everyone is watching over me or so I feel. On my next flight back to India, I wait for my daughter to return from the ballerina classes she is attending, she might love our way back. After-all London, Manhattan and Jeju islands threw in a lot of perspective to what I have lost.
I miss my country, yes everybody told me to go abroad and settle down but what is the happiness with people so busy enough to never spare a smile, I spoke to the pigeons often, there are lot of them here, the sky is brighter and clearer, the clouds are cottony fluffy just as in the paintings. They are all beautiful yet I find my hometown more nearer to my heart. Stella disagrees with me albeit she hasn’t yet been to India, ever.
“Mom, Let’s not go back” Stella sounds hysterical from other end of the telephone.
“Stella,dear, It’s just for a month or two, it’s your vacation here and I really need to go back to the place I belong to” I try to reason out with her.
“Ok mom, you go then, I’ll stay back at my friend’s place.” Her voice has a tint of hidden excitement.
“And which is this friend that you are talking about?”
“Stop being so judgmental and Indian, Mom! and I don’t think so I would want you to know every single thing I do” Her tantrum isn’t new to me.
“Stella, that is not how you speak to your mother.” My voice quivers and I’m at the verge of crying.
“Beep, beep”
And that was the sound of disconnected line, the tears in my eyes were the symbol of disconnected hearts.
In my country, there is respect that is given to all relationships, there is an emotion of being Grateful for the relationships that guide us and there are emotions of queer happiness at somebody’s success and an emotion of care, concern and pride to be amidst our people.
I’m not grateful for much today, I deliberately miss my flight, I get an awkward stare from my daughter when I reached her classes to pick her up, she was going to a party upstate, She swore never to speak to me again when I stopped her. We drive back home with acute silence and a heavy heart for not making it home. My mother would be upset.
But on the brighter side, our car broke down and I spent the next two hours looking for a ways to repair that disaster and it rained today, it’s wasn’t eh season yet I got to spend time with Stella, we licked ice-creams taking cover from our overcoats, had a long walk in the rain. I shared my teen years while she slowly opened up about her friends and her career choice of becoming a lecturer like me. I felt proud. I spoke to her about my hometown and how we chased squirrels and butterflies and the fact that the town is the same even after all these years.
She made an effort to speak genuinely with my mother and I genuinely accepted her friends whom I don’t approve of.
So, was today beautiful, ugly, heart-broken, crashed, understanding? Yes, they were all, today is feeling grateful for the mother-daughter bond that was barely intact.
Oh and I booked a ticket to India for three weeks and my daughter, not so excited but still willing to share my happiness. So I’m grateful for today, for the moments for the bad circumstances that sets everything right:)
‘F’ried Summer in Bengaluru
What’s summer like in Bengaluru?
It’s waking up with the golden hues filtering from the designed screens that waves to the mild breeze of the early morning. You smile as the warmth of the sun that touches you and everything else with the kiss of life. It’s summer again.
You would love to take a morning walk or the brisk jog to burn the extra calories or the serene asanas in the presence of the first rays, for your body needs to synthesize the vitamin D in the body. The flowers are bright and so is everything around you, shimmered with the wand of gold, the nature seems to be rich, once in a while the sun peeking through the canopies.
That followed by the hustled start of the day, the paper-boys racing through the roads as on a mission to get the world to you, the milkman ready on his clock for your coffee, the flower vendors happy with the abundance and freshness of the flowers. Then it’s finally you, dressed in the most comfortable summer dress, sprayed some summery perfume along with a bit of sunscreen, you know the afternoon sun. You are on your positive, bright side and you seem to love summer for the all the fruits it has to offer and all the water games that you are all set to play and for all those ice-creams stalls that you are going to flock at!
That said it all. Summer was defined that way! Before, long ago, a decade ago in Bengaluru.
What’s summer now?
Oh believe me, the sun is not bad, it is cruel! I have never offended him anyway possible for him to torture me, he is coming back at me and look at what my city has to pay for. My fault, I shouldn’t have called you cruel. You are the hottest thing ever and you are showing it off, way too much.
What is wrong with Bengaluru, people loved this city for it’s balance across the varied seasons. Summers are not too hot, winters are never freezing cold, spring is gay and happy , autumn is just wild and free. But the reputation is going to drains with the abrupt change of mind of my city. The schedule of the seasons are messed up, the degree of their presence is wildly out-of-control and what is it like today.
Burning under the 40 and 43 degrees of heat boiling our blood, dehydrating the fluids and tanning us, killing us!
We wake up frustrated because the previous night, the breeze was scare, we didn’t have a proper oxygen supply as the fans rotated in attempt to sing a lullaby and ended up feeding us our own breath, kinda gross but Bengaluru never wanted AC’s until the software giants made it mandatory even in winter. Were was I? Well, yeah ,it was about the way you start your day!
You start it with the sense of burning and sweating and sticking all over. The feel of exhaustion and lethargy is not the way we ought to wake up. It is then followed by the rush to work and sweat up there, burning your skin, you would just want a flood of ice-cold water in the city. The birds that were happily chirping seem to have vanished, more like dead. The nature is burning up with golden flames, scarcity of water leading to more deaths, oh a few more deaths sue to sun strokes, well, in came summer and along with it came the shadow of death along with load shedding and burnt brains.
This ain’t summer! This is some cruel season. And we all know that it is because of us we are facing it today, global warming, green house affect and everything that you hear in debates are serious issues and are for real. Let’s take small steps and keep some water outside for the animals and birds, let’s plant a sapling and manage our wastes better. You don’t need to be god to solve these, be the person you are and not the person that the society makes you.
It’s a long way to go in this venture, so far I have only kept water for the birds and did the division of waste but I think it’s time for the saplings as well. Let’s get our garden city back on wheels so that the generations to come by would exclaim with glee that “It’s Summer Again”
Happy Summer, Don’t get fried!
‘E’…#AtoZ Challenge
So the upcoming word in the challenge was ‘E’, I pondered on what topic I would write about. my thoughts were rummaging through the vocabulary in my mind. As there was a power cut at my place yesterday night, I had quite some time to think over it. My mother kept a close eye on my lost senses.
“What are you thinking about?” She asked me with not much of interference. Probably she would have been fine even if I wouldn’t have answered ,but I don’t like her questions unanswered.
“Mom, remember the word building games that I used to play. I always find ‘E’ to be the most complex alphabet to find words. I always used to lose points because of it” I explained, no, I much blabbered.
“Well, you have… Engagement.”
I gave out a sarcastic laugh, obviously with the talks of it very pertinent in my phase of life; it still helped for the word!
“Mom, we do have emblem, engross, ephemeral, enigma, enthrall,“
She was fast
“Entertainment, enter, exit, ego, element,”
“Exercise, engulf, exotic, entity,”
“Encourage, economics, emphasis, establishment,“
And the word game was fascinating after-ll, . It was the semi-darkness that was engulfing us with all it’s might while our enigmatic minds were so engrossed in listing out the words from the alphabet ‘E’. With the light so inclined towards the clock, each moment was enthralling. Later I was left to be alone, lost in my own thoughts
My train of thoughts often mulled over the enabling of symbolization of the four Asiatic lions in our emblem when I declared the word stopping the time. The Indian Emblem was a symbolization to power, courage, pride and confidence; the four enriched words were the most coveted traits in me. I still long for them. Then the thoughts take a different route. The route to tone, not that I’m racist but I think the enormous sensation of being fair isn’t much needed. I wish if we were to see the beauty of the souls instead of the skin-tones, the whole emphasis of beauty would have been a lot different.
Brown and different shades of it, I assure you, gives the most exotic looks to a person. Hence the entry of a narcissist and hypocrite into their lives would be estimated to be a loss. Each person is beautiful and unique with their enchanting charms neatly wrapped in the societies most eyeing situations. It is at these times the esteemed lions play a role, looking into the exhaustive repetition of the long lost tradition of racism, we could entertain our own thoughts and be as esteemed as ever , for what is a life without a trace of ephemeral feelings that can make us laugh and cry, to stand in pride and to bow down in humbleness, entreating and engrossing, everything around you would make you feel beautiful if you were to feel it’s beauty.
Well , a simple game of words brought the most deep rooted insights in me and am I still looking for a word that can enlist the “E” in them. Well, I had to rush to relish my dinner. And yes the simple thoughts were an engaging talk with myself. We all should often talk to ourselves, for deep inside us lies the most brilliant person and the silliest of the lot. You’ll get the honor to meet them both:)
Happy talks folks:)
‘D’reams…#AtoZ Challenge
Dreams are as mysterious as life itself, on the context that it is over-whelming real life experience. People can dream about flying and falling, movies and monsters , horrors and hell and still go completely unaware about the granulating details of the most important dream. Some other dreams stay and repeat, sometimes filling you with a surge of energy and sometimes depriving you of the little possible peace in you.
Are the dreams that important to life? Wouldn’t our lives be better when our mind could actually slip into a semi-coma state with nothing but satisfaction of the long rest after a hectic play of emotions and physical strains that you have to endure.
Is it for the happy dreams that make us smile or is it for the frightening ones that warns us of an impending danger else is it for the pattern that you draw to know yourself. Still in a haze?
Do you know why we still dream?
Let me take you through figments of people and their lives!
A young boy, no more than four sits across the street in ragged clothes and an emaciated body but he smiles for he dreams.
A thirty year old lady, after having lost her hairs due to cancer but before that she had a beautiful family, a loving husband but all that she is left with is an estranged relationship and a rough fate yet smiles, for she dreams.
A sixty year old man, completely weak from all the diseases known to mankind, but his heart aches for a treatment from his family. He is alone on a torn sheet, succumbed to death in an Old-age Home yet now and then the nurse finds him smile in his sleep for he dreams too.
With all the problems and conundrums we endure through the day, the night comes as a knight with hopes, some gives us strength, some others warnings and something more the very source of energy to carry on.
The young boy smiles for he dreams of better living that he is adamant to achieve. He wants to live for a better tomorrow.
The lady with the cancer smiles for she just has heard of people getting cured of cancer, a hope to live and make a living of her own. With no strings attached. She wants to live for a better tomorrow.
The old man smiles for he dreams of the people around him as a family and he has realized that home is not a physical entity but a place where he feels that he belongs there and the old-age home has given him a family of friends to share his feelings. He wants live for a better tomorrow.
And that is why we dream, for that single ray of hope that bestows from the darkest tunnel convincing of the brighter sun at the end of it.
We dream because we believe that tomorrow can be better.
We dream because we know what it is like to not have any dreams and we would better be dead rather not having to dream.
We dream to realize what we are and what we are supposed to do.
We dream to live in a bubble and smile about it.
We dream to forget it more often for they are not that necessary.
We dream to live another life in hundred different forms.
We dream to know the answers to many forbidden questions.
We dream because that is a way for a new perception to be born.
We dream for it to come true.
We Dream to Live Again.
Happy Dreams:)
‘C’atastrophe…#AtoZ Challenge
A Memory:
Back in eight grade, this particular word “Catastrophe” seemed to be the most dreadfully long word. We had a lesson on Black Friday articulating the day’s event of the twin-building disaster that took place on September 11. It was a story of what a human mind is capable of doing, in the most precarious manners.
We were students horrified with gruesome happenings of the world. Keeping aside all the little discoveries , we were more horrified to hear a surprise test on the glossary of the particular chapter. We scavenged for the books hidden in the warm sockets of our bags, briskly turned over the pages and started to by-heart the meanings.
But then our teacher gave out a twist in the surprise test. She announced that she would give the meaning a word and we had answer the question word . Well it wasn’t logical (at least for us, back then) for we were good with the meanings and the words seemed too long and complex to have a proper pronunciation.
We were still memorizing the contents, when our teacher with a sleek stick tapped on the desk and called upon my name.
“Yes you, tell me the word for ‘An event causing great and usually sudden damage or suffering’.” and that was indeed a sudden disaster to me. I was to be asked according to my registration number and I ended being called first instead of twelve. Like a lion sure of it’s prey, she rounded me tapping the slender stick on my table making me fear for that beating( The stick was only for keeping the class calm, now I think about it, no , my school actually never beat people)
I took breath and blurted “Catastrophey” ; yes the pronunciation was my fault and what I call as my luck, is the fact that, among-st those fifteen glossary words, I knew only the one I was questioned for. It might be a stroke of luck but it got etched in my brain so effortlessly that it started a new craving for more complex words in me, of-course with almost proper pronunciation, I started learning them, loving English a bit more than ever.
Hence what might pass on as a catastrophe might many a times come handy to reach our new horizons, to face new challenges and to have a broader perspective. Albeit it was just a childhood snippet but it had an immense impact on the way I look to things and the way I embrace them into my life
Now that I think about all those catastrophes around the world, some intended, some others , a work of nature. They all get destroyed at one point of the time phase. But what matters is how high they stood, be it the humans or the non-living structures, in their worth of staying on this earth. If nature works can’t be denied or prevented with the limited knowledge of technology and over-use of the same technology to the destruction, then I might well say , we should be more prepared for the world’s sudden disasters to fall upon us.
I hope we could minimize the damage, be more human and understand the environment we are in to have a better future, a better living and to leave behind a healthy world for the generations to come.
Happy thoughts:)
‘B’ack-up Passion…AtoZ Challenge
I don’t know if such a thing called back-up passion exists but one thing that I’m sure of is that we are all born to be passionate about one thing or the other in life. Something that makes us feel alive. It might start as a mere curiosity or just a connection felt when doing it as a random act.
Coming to it I love to read, I mean a lot. Not the text books per-se but all the stories in the world. It was the tinkle series that got me started or should I mention that it was my mother who brought that Tinkle and ignited the fire of reading in me. Well thanks to both of them then.
I remember as a little kid, while commuting to school in a van that fairly takes over forty minutes and I always felt the time fly and it was then I realized that Time doesn’t travel but our brains make travel. Einstein was a genius for the relativity concept ( A bow). Courtesies to my tinkle and other magazines for connecting to Einsteins relativity theory.
So that said it all, I realized that reading was my passion. I was wrong. Writing was my passion albeit not as literary concern as possible! Yet I still found time to write horror stories when I was young putting all my flexible muscles in my fingers to scare my brother who was and is the most honest critique of my works. And then we all grew up, started to believe that the real world out there scorns at your hobbies and passion. You had to be an engineer or a doctor to make a mark in life and so I was set for the career choice that I was believed to be the best for me and that was the best decision I ever made .
For it opened the doors to a new world, where learning and knowing the importance of the stage, coming to know of the value of friendships and the value of your passions were decrypted. Until then I had forgotten all about reading and writing until I came across like-minded people , Mangs(Mangala) , one of my closest friends who wears that shy traditional name and it was from her ; I discovered the plethora of books that I could read and tend to get a gist of the genre I like and thus my journey revamped.
So , passion is fine but how long can one be only passionate about a single thing. The process can propel in the loss of creativity as the mind tends to dry up in the same dampened lane. This is when one needs to have a back-up passion , one that supports you, inspires you, gets you on your strong spirits and re-directs you to the goal.If that is what I have to say , then photography especially when it came to conceptual photography was more inclined towards my choices until the death of my camera. Then I was least interested with the low picture quality that comes from the not so expensive smart-phones. I have always felt that they never made justice to the object.
Then what else, when I had nothing to write about or click about, dilemma imposing it’s ambiguous sword against my neck. had an option , there is always a choice.Find something that you like and I like singing with my feet and contemperory style has always fascinated me. It’s the most complex yet graceful forms that I have ever come across. The tilts , the jumps , and the way you lift yourself into the air, it feels like flying(not that I’m a dancer, but still…) and maybe that is why I was more attracted towards the form.It inspires me, it makes me wake up with a purpose, re-connecting me to the goals, to the dreams that I have planned for myself.
And that is how you motivate yourself back to your true passions and back-up passions are a blessing to human kind. Embracing it would lead us to the unknown paths that’s lighted only for us intensifying the passion to learn more in all the ways possible.
I’m grateful for all the good things in my life and many more struggles that only has strengthened me so far.In the process of backing up more skills.
Happy day:)
‘A’nger…#AtoZ Challenge
Rather not a positive take on the Challenge, I wish I could go for the traditional A for apple and written about Steve jobs or rather the inflation of the apple prices! But then a more prominent “A” word shone today for I had been angry and frustrated for a while and thanks to that, it led me to write a post on how grateful I am for the emotion . It recited the importance of peace and calmness in my life.So ,here is what I think about this!
Anger is known to be damaging but from what I know, it helps as well. I wasn’t a temperamental as it would have come across, a soft heart is what people used to tell but then anger and being impulsive came in as I grew up. I reckon, we all , at one time or the other would have bowed down in front of Anger and let it in our life.
Yet , with all the satisfaction it gives my ego, I still was dumbfound to find me disturbed. If anger could find me a way to be gloomy and frustrated all day then what might a grace of smile would bring. Hence started my journey to mitigate the temperamental attitude, slowly, removing them brick by brick for I knew an empire wouldn’t be built with flawed bricks. And relationships can never be cured with anger alone and that is how I always meant to see the way to repair them. Albeit sometimes, everything goes wrong and we are left with ” I just shouldn’t have done that” feeling that secures a place of guilt in the warm heart weighing it more than a ton.
Yet I have come to understand that anger is contagious, I start it and like a forest fire it spreads and so is the calmness. I have come to understand that more the calmness , lesser the brain-aches. For that moment we may have the loathing feel where life seems to be unfair and people incorrigible but still life can be more beautiful with the fragrance of the smile.
For that smile can set many things straight if and only if they come from the heart, that is what the famous poets have always told about. A perfect smile is the one that starts from the heart and ends as a sparkle in the eyes.
So yes, I have learnt as I grow, I have known about happiness and contentment, peace and satisfaction, sleep and meditation. And I have come to know of all these from that impulsive moment of anger. And life might be just an algorithm of highs and lows. But I am too young to define life in all it’s glory, while some say that death is a mystery , I find life itself to be a huge mystery.
Hence amidst the chaos , uncertainties and vastness of life. I thank the emotions that brew inside us. Some of them teach us, yet some of them gives us our serenity . There are no negative emotions as such, just premonitions of what might happen. With it , we all need to deal with the variations.And like every one of you, I have embraced my emotion and morphed it into a smile.
With today being a new year for us, I would love to say bevu bella thindu olle maathadone.* let us share the sweetness and sourness of life in equal quantities and let’s talk good*
So Happy ugadi, Let’s forget the anger strikes and go in for a new life in a full fledged flow.
Brewing words 