Just another girl on the bus

Everyday at 7.45 I take a bus to work. Its winding way through the maze of Mumbai streets is just as convoluted as my life and for that I am grateful. We pass by dabbawallas, phoolwallas, paanwallas, cyclewallas, mochis, plumberwallas and all those little kick knack stores that form the nervous system of this city.
I watch the hustle bustle of the city as it wakes up to yet another day. This city which was once a small collection of seven islands ..now a world in itself. The shop owners dusting floor mats outside streets, the chai walla's running with cups of tea ready to energize the sleeping giants of mumbai and in the midst of it all, the booksellers at the signals, the little boys who dust car windows, the ladies who sell mogra flowers sewn in precise garlands and between it all a million shiny cars.
And in that daily two hour window stuck in a moment in rush hour traffic is a sea of dreamers. Big dreamers, small dreamers, ambitious dreamers, cautious dreamers, candid dreamers, superstitious dreamers. But dreamers - all of us. Sitting there - in traffic jams. Looking outside at the patterns rain drops and dust particles marry to make on our window sills, brooding over the dark cloud cover, listening to radio mirchi, news, ipods, jhankar beats or some other music, reading papers, talking on phones, cursing beeping blackberry's but nonetheless ..Dreaming.

Dreaming of how the city will be without madness, dreaming of things that are yet to come, dreaming of owning our own two feet in this absurd real estate market, dreaming of buying cars, dreaming of working thrice as hard to make life twice as good for ones around us. Dreaming of meeting love around some nook and corner, dreaming of growing old together, dreaming of reaching home in time to cook that special meal. Dreaming.
As I look around - I realise that in the past decade- I've lived in two continents, in five different cities, met fascinating people from all over the world, seen many days and battles..some tougher than others, met my worst nightmares head on, seen some dreams come true as others have collapsed, held on to the threads of optimism and hope that sew my scars and somehow - ended up......Here in this corner of the world where I am just another girl on the bus.

Just another girl on the bus.
And I know as I look outside my window that in the sea of dreamers that surrounds me...I am not alone ....neither in my misgivings nor in my heart songs and that there are thousands of people from all walks of life exactly like me.
But the truth is that no matter how logical and predictable everything seems and no matter how ordinary my life is - As I sit there on that bus gazing out out of my window contemplating the long road ahead and looking back at the years -
I just cant help it...... that even though I am just another girl on the bus.....

I am also overwhelmed, amazed and utterly thankful.
Amen.

Wet Weekend Wonders

Place: Mumbai
Weather: Pouring Rains on the outside, Foggy on the inside
Mood: Positive - Retrospective - Humorous
Weight: Ummm .. couple kgs too many
Time left in this weekend: Obviously not enough
Whats on my mind: Wet confused puppies that are roaming the lonely streets of mumbai
Whats on the kpod: Chandnein Ratein
What am I doing: Playing email catchup
What I wish I was doing : Watching Carrie, Sam, Mir and Charlotte with the girls in Atlanta What am I thinking : Here we go ..in no specific order
1. Friends just dont happen. It take a lot of hard work on the part of some good willing like minded people to make relationships work.
2. Why are nail treatments called "Manicures" ..when only women get them .
3. Robert Frost and Van Gogh would have loved the rains in mumbai - Grey takes on a zillion different flavors and shades and the stars twinkle almost musically to the dancing raindrops .. it would be the privilege of any artist to get inspired by a night such as this one ..on a day like today ..
4.They say that you know what meaning lies in a relationship when someones absence means a lot more to you than the presence of a thousand others .... Its hard when a friend moves away and leaves only silence behind ..and that silence speaks to you ..
5. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that ..for everything you gain ..you lose something and for everything you lose ..you gain something. Knowing doesnt make the time spent waiting in between any easier but it does provide food for some serious thought anyways ..
6. On nights like this I am as alone as I was two weeks ago when I boarded at 12.15 Churchgate fast ..as alone as I was when I shopped at Cumberland Mall as alone as I am on the bus ride to work everyday ..surrounded by a thousand people in silver blue cubes and that no matter how many blogs I write ..or how many books I read ..I will never be a "Que sera sera" kind of a person. And everyday I learn something more about who I am but know so little about ..
7. Rains remind me of poetry .. Whitman ..Tagore...Frost..Keats ..people who lived in times far different from mine but who wrote about stories I see everyday .. like Whitmans leaves of grass that are no lesser journeys that galaxies of stars .. what would my life be without them ? I guess I would never know what I was missing ..
8. I hope it stops raining soon. Soon the evening will turn to night and it will be time to look ahead.
But until then - From this little corner of my world ..to all of you'll who are reading this..
Much Metta
Kau

Plan B

You make the perfect plan.

Think about it three times and each time it makes perfect sense. The time is right, the mood is right and there is nothing that would be more fitting in your grand scheme of things at that precise moment - all roads lead up to that one moment when you and the cosmos collide and make one of life's great moments happen.

And then - it rains. Not just your pretty blue shower rain.

It pours in torrents and streams of water suddenly flood the otherwise safe landscape of your belonging. Grey clouds swirl and crash test into each other and the heavens weep as they regret to announce that no matter how much in control you are of your life and how much you believe that happiness can be created if only you take charge ..that no matter what the fancy literature says about making your mind up and winning half the battle .. the skies regretfully have other plans for you.

So what do you do in the interim...with wet cheeks and wetter streets and the gods weeping at your foolishness and fancy ?

I wish I knew the answer to that question.

Would have certainly made my evening easier.

But what I did learn today - the hard way .. is that when it rains ..it pours ..and an evening spent alone indoors watching the lightening crackle across a Monet like sky ..can actually be the Plan B that turned out to be way better than the Plan A you'd wished would happen instead.

Life :)..How can I not love it so ?!

Words

For someone who writes relentlessly and loves to talk, I'm certainly not a person of a few words. But then again, like most people I'd certainly agree that actions do a lot more talking than most words do. Pauses on the phone and practiced poker looks of indifference all inclusive. Or a warm hug from an old friend - or a firm look in the rear view mirror while driving. Clenched fists or fidgety hands at dinner. Or the look that only someone who understands you really well can decipher from across a crowded room.

Then again, there are certain things that just need to be said. And if they aren't, then the words that connect and make those heart wrenching sentences together instead assimilate and become barriers between friends. There are certain things that we have to admit to ourselves too - things that regardless of what the world realizes and interprets - make us who we are at the end of the day and our hearts are that much lighter only when we say them aloud if only inside our heads.

So yet again - I find myself taking comfort in words.

Words scattered across an assortment of newspapers I read on the long hot commute to work - that remind me of how my life overall has been like the jackpot save for a few over exaggerated blown out of proportion incidents .. how there is so much going on in the world around me even though things seem at a standstill in certain aspects of my own life ..of how people all over from China to America to Russia are learning to deal with the unknown and finding meaning in everyday things that I often take for granted.

Words written in emails that my friends send me. From Atlanta, Tampa, Seattle, Casablanca, Sydney. Words that travel thousands of miles just to make it to my inbox that brighten my world just be the subject lines - that often are "Hi" "Hello" "Wassup" but convey a sense of solidarity and familiarity that only friends know of.

Words that my fellow bloggers post - from Delhi, Kashmir, California, New York, Bangalore, London - each story a world in itself, people whom I know only through their blogs as well as old friends who I learnt to love in new ways through their words.

Words that light up the green screen on my cell phone when close friends call. Even though I may not always be able to pick up the phone but that make me feel understood just by being there in my phones fleeting RAM.

And as the precious few hours of the day draw to an end - words that I read in books - that bring friendly characters that live in far way places into my often uneventful day, whose lives and frustration often mirror my own, whose dreams and loves are my aspiration.

And I cling on to them - all these words that I come across in a given day, I hug them tightly and take solace in them on days like today when I am alone, save for the falling raindrops on a grey June night and hope that one day - not too far from today - I find my voice and someone who can understand me without it - so I can have a conversation without them.

Mantra

I once read that if something was worth doing - then it was worth doing well. If it was worth having, then it was worth waiting for...and if it was worth waiting for...then it was darn well worth fighting for.

And so the saga continues...A day in the life of kau.

Wading through a sea of cliches everyday - stuck in a moment that I cant get out of in rush hour traffic.

I see flashes of my life and remember the laughter and warmth. Then I also feel my heart beating wildly and I remember the hurt and the sense of utter loss. And the mood becomes grim. But in a few gut wrenching seconds I recollect vividly the precise moment when I set myself free and smile as the breeze changes direction midway.

This is where my story started and now I am back here.

And there is meaning in this circle of life.

Maybe I havent found it yet and maybe I never will. But the thruth not being known doesnt stop it from being true and such is the way of the world.

So I walk few more steps everyday...further away from who I once was and yet seemingly no closer to who I will ultimately be.

But these minutes - these long stretching summer minutes are eternity and for the briefest of moments if at all ...somewhere suspended in this dusty hour - I am complete.

Thank God I have enough.