These are a few of my favorite things

The funny thing about life is that you never know when you are making a memory.

I've come to realise that I am someone who wants everyday magic. And more often that not I am fortunate enough to find it in places least expected.

For a significant portion of my adult life, my Saturday morning involved a run on the Chattahoochee river followed by newspapers at a Caribou Coffee on Powers Ferry road. And this totally mundane occurrence is probably one of the most significant poignant memories I have of my life. I dont know why. And the killer is that what I remember the most of this mosaic of memories is pulling into the parking spot and figuring out how to get to the cafes doorstep.

A lazy walk in summer while kissing the sunlight silly.

A sprint during late summer showers enjoying the dazzling raindrops that cut through the skies

A stroll in Autumn while evading bright red maple leaves that flutter through the silence

A run in winter bundled up in three layers but still getting mushy over the snowscape and smiling at the santas helpers from St Judes'

If anyone had told me on one of those saturday jaunts that in a few years, I would have packed my life once again into 3 suitcases and moved back to bombay - where I would have to channel surf to see the fleeting fall and winter wonderland - I would have never believed it.

If anyone had told me that I would eventually learn to let go and learn to make friends and memories, I would have found it even harder to believe.

But life is strange like that. I once read that "Life was a rough patch. Memories made the edges smooth" ..so we move on and fall into new routines like I have.

These are a few of my favorite things these rainy days -

- Going to the crossword bookstore next to my house on weekends. Its small, cluttered and no barnes and noble. But over this summer, the chaos in the store has started making more sense to me. I love the worn out carpet, the cashier who always gets frustrated when I ask for obscure books he cant find in the computer and the amazing display of "Shilpa's Yoga" that they have :), shelves of books on India and all Indian things from Vedic math to Yoga

- Driving back from the gym through the crazyily congested irla lane - playing alpha alpha .. where I feel like I am on the edge of my seat, always getting honked at, blinked at and finally making it out feeling like a million bucks just to get out without a dent feeling like jackie chan in rush hour after a crazy car ride

- Reading in my room on rainy nights with my night lamp and the clothes hanging on the clothesline making crazy shadows on the walls of my room. Writing this blog - amidst all the chaos in surburbian life - quite a contrary picture from the past few years.

And in these routine experiences I find happiness and balance in my ordinary utopia.

Benjamin Franklin once said that the Constitution only guranteed the citizens the right to the pursuit of happinees. They still had to catch it and find it themselves.

And in this rainy corner of the world, unexpectedly - I do.

Good Night World.

All you who sleep tonight

From the brink of a rainy night here in Mumbai, one of my all time favorite poems. Thank God for perspective and poetry.

All you who sleep tonight
By Vikram Seth

All you who sleep tonight
Far from the ones you love,
No hand to left or right
And emptiness above

Know that you arent alone
The whole world shares your tears
Some for two nights or one
And some for all their years

The best kept secret

I've discovered the worlds best kept secret today.

Its not the magic Coca Cola formula, its also not a rememdy for instant weight loss or a time machine to take you to 2050.

The worlds best kept secret is that things rarely go as per plan. Even when they so convincingly appear to. So what is it - is it fate - or is it infact faith or something in between.

After enough time and pressure has blown over, you realise that everybody will eventually hurt you. Anyone who says otherwise, is either lying or too naive for his own good. Its because we are all built like that. Just like someone said - theres no good people and bad people. Just people, who make choices that result in positive or negative outcomes. So the way things are - everbody will eventually cause you pain. Knowing that - is the easy part.

Figuring out who is worth taking the pain for - is the hard part.

So when things dont go as per plan and someone cause you more hurt than you had anticipated - what I have learnt these past few months, is that there are some things that are meant to go wrong - Only so you can more easily become who you are.

So that you understand what moves you, to laughter and tears, what makes you get out of bed every morning and what you are thankful for as the stars turn on each night.

So that you may be lost before you can eventually be found.

And this is the worlds best kept secret.

I'm bringing blogging back

I’m bringing blogging back.

“I believe that everything happens for a reason. people change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together" - Marilyn Monroe”

Ever been at a place, stuck in a moment when its just you and grey clouded skies… that want to sign a truce with you but all you want to do is get into a yelling match?
And then the unthinkable happens – the skies get into that much needed fight.
Only thing is – its difficult to be angry with life when soaked silly to the bones.
Only thing is – its difficult to be angry with life – At all.

I left work late last night and got into a rickshaw.
Mad about things that hadn't gone as per plan and also at things that had gone as per plan but by then the plan had changed. Mad at everything. All at once.

When right in the middle of my pathetic whinefest – the skies decided that they had heard enough and had to intervene. And then they did.

“Sorry Madam – Rickshaw ka gear break hai” (The gear is broken)
I said – “Whattt” ..Bhaiya ..kaise break ho gaya (Over dramatic ;;Hooowww??)
“Sorry Madam – ab purposely to nahi kiya naa” (Like I would break it purposely??)

I looked left and right – and no one in sight.
At least an hour away from home.
The rickshaw walla grabs my 50 rupee note.
I get out and start looking around for alternate modes of transportation. Then I hear a noise – I turn around and he has gotten into the rickshaw and left????? ..Wasn’t the gear BROKEN?!

So I give my special grimace to the cosmos…equivalent to a shaking fist as if to say... “”Ohh whatever – you’re not on my side anyways. I’m going to handle this...Like I handle everything””
And then the skies showed me that they were really not on my side if I insisted.
Flash of Lightening, Roar of Thunder and Sheets of rain.
5 minutes later – It was me, soaked to the bones, looking aghast and the only thing to snap me out of my trance was the honks and flashlights of people in a hurry to get home while I tried to reason with the world.
But sometimes, you just can’t reason with the hand of cards you’ve been dealt. Sometimes the only thing you can do is cross your heart and play them.
So I decided to walk. And I kept walking. And it kept raining.
At first I was upset. Mad at my dumb luck and how things had turned out.
At second I was angry at how I had not had my way in many other situations off late.
At third –I was thankful for not having felt the need to make a fashion statement and wear heels that morning.
At fourth – I was immensely grateful for having the good sense to leave my laptop at work.
At fifth – I was starting to enjoy the walk.

No sidewalks. No Safety Net. Only miles to go.
No sense of direction. No Compass. Only a sense of being.

I did not get a cab or a bus or a rickshaw for another 50 minutes. I walked all the way. Walked through puddles and broken tiles and stood next to three wet nosed dogs as all four of us tried to cross the road. We got it right on the 5th attempt.
Then I met an old lady who was selling vegetables. And I asked her where the road went. And she very sweetly said “This road doesn’t go anywhere”
So I reached a dead end. And decided that I would turn right.
And turned out that it was the right decision to make.
As I walked into my home – 2 hours after I had started out on my journey – I knew that this wasn’t a mere coincidence.
After all the aching muscles, ugly wet hair and mud splattered clothes – I had infact managed to get where I wanted.
So there were crazy delays, and there was pain – but in the end, the journey was the destination and it had all worked out.
Maybe not exactly as I planned. But somewhere in the vicinity.
And I was finally – at peace with the world.

The truth is that change is hard and I just don’t like it.
But everyone knows that it’s an illusion to think that things will always be the way they are. So in my bravado at going with the flow and waking up on the right side of the bed – I somehow convinced myself that I would be okay. That I would also change.
But what I realized today – after my tryst with the mighty hands above is that change isn’t something that I can do. Change is something that at my best – I can accept and allow. It will happen anywhich ways.
And in the interim all I can do is wear walking shoes and learn to be a little more grateful.

Thank God I have enough.

Noodle Soup

Sometimes I wonder whether knowing the outcome of a certain situation would make it easier or harder to go through it.

While the verdict on that was still out - I found myself stuck in yet another wet rainy traffic jam this side of the world. Believe me when I say so, traffic jams are every authors fuel for thought and every romantics fire for disaster.

I know that there is some very fancy literature that talks about "thirty seconds worth of your life as a oprah worthy biopic" flashing through your brains while your neck adjusts to that shimmering blade just one step short of a personal turkey carving lesson and what not ...

...but I have it on good record that mumbai traffic jams are just as lethal ..so that explains the fits of introspection, retrospection, enthusiasm and borderline desperation that I go through while my neck adjusts to the shimmering lights of cars gone beserk.

Today I thought about Uma Thurman the entire way back home. More specifically I thought about the bride. About how they put a bullet through her head and she still lived. That she spent years training with pai mei under his cruel tutelage and even though she was in excruciating pain at that point - she was yet learning each day those very tricks that would one day snatch her survival from the very hands of her destiny.

How miserable those years must have been that she spent just getting ready for a battle that had not yet made itself known. That she spent yearning for a victory she did not even know existed.

And then I wondered if knowing what lay ahead of her - would have caused her to flee, do something otherwise to stop the hands of time.

Well- the night is too young and beautiful to ponder over that.

And like the great master Oogway said to Master Shifu .."It is often that one meets his destiny on the very path one takes to avoid it"

So I guess I keep on walking.

And I keep honking at cars to get the hell out of my way - so that I can go on to greet whatever it is that awaits me and in the interim pray damn hard to give me the strength to face it.