My box of candy!!

It’s that time of the year when everything around you is bright and festive. Wrapped up in thick coats and huge shawls, you crave for the warm rays of the sun to hit your back. Yet, amongst the chilly weather and the morning shivers, something about this season brightens me up. Being a Hindu, probably, I should be fond of Diwali among all the festivals but Christmas seems to be my favorite. Diwali tends to get too strenuous and I feel completely drained out by the end of the day with all the festive arrangements. Christmas, on the other hand completely relaxes me. I can sit back and enjoy all the bright decorations and the cheerful smiles on people’s faces.

We tend to believe that as we age we become wiser. Well, to be honest, I am not sure about that but I can definitely say our perspective towards situations does change. As a child, I looked forward to Christmas as I knew my Santa would leave a small gift for me before I am up, and as it happens with all of us, my Santa happened to be my Dad. I would eagerly wait for the delicious home-made plum cake and rose - cookies that one of our family friends would gift us religiously year after year. The Christmas carols and the secret Santa in school just added to the fun. Sticking to the true spirit of Christmas, the joy of giving, we would always give away our Christmas trees to our Christian friends.

However, as I grew up, this time of the year was not just about plum cake and rose cookies, it had a different feel to it. To be honest, I confess that I still love the cute Christmas stockings and the beautifully decorated Christmas tree. It was something more than just the bright lights and colorful streamers. It was the proximity to a new beginning. A new year that is just a few days away.
A new year, which gives me the strength to bury the past worries and look forward to a bright beginning. It brings out the optimist in me with a belief that the ordeals of the old year would end and the joys would multiply in the New Year. It is the energy that drives me to wild dreams and aim high. It is that part of the year that strengthens my belief in hope and faith.

It is a new beginning. It is the awakening of a confidence that gives me the energy to start a new tapestry, maneuvering the needle to create a pattern that I want. A journey which I hope will be a smooth ride to the destination without any hitches and bumps. The eagerness to look forward to days filled with sunshine and of course, the coming spring.

I am back to being a six year old child eagerly waiting for her box of flavored candies. Flavors that throw me by surprise every time I pop them into my mouth, hoping that the next candy wouldn’t spoil the sweet taste lingering in my mouth, looking forward to days filled with joy and cheer.

Here’s hoping that I find my favorite flavor of candy as I open the box!

Destiny..

It was just around the corner,
I stretched my hands to catch it,
I felt the soft tenderness across my fingers,
Yet, when I tried cajoling it, there was emptiness.

As I stood on my toes,
I could see it with a sly smile spread across its face,
Like the Cheshire cat,
Inviting me to hold it.

The faster I ran,
It further increased its speed,
As I perceived it to be near,
The farther it actually was.

As hours became days,
And days became months,
Wishes turned to dreams,
Waiting for them to manifest into reality.

One fine day, there was a knock,
And a beautiful package was delivered,
As I felt the warmth in my hands,
I realized that it shall come to you when it is prepared,
Destiny cannot be chased; it always reaches out to you!!

May their souls rest in peace!!

It was a cool evening, the clouds looked pregnant enough to burst any moment. People call it the perfect Bangalore weather. The right time for a cup of hot tea and some pakodas, but I was on my way for a doctor’s appointment. As I stopped at a traffic signal, I saw a group of young boys in their colorful tees and half pants playing cricket. People would normally call this a wonderful sight but I was yards away from feeling wonderful about it. This had nothing to do with my laziness that has set in me in the recent years. Well, I was appalled to see these children play in a grave yard right adjacent to a busy road. The Government decided to expand the main road to ease traffic congestion and decided to break into the grave yard. The poor children of the city then decided to make best use of whatever little space was available to them and converted it into a play ground. Should I be appreciating these kids for their nouvelle idea or sympathize with them for the lack of space?

I remember as a child, I never faced a dearth of space to play, if it was, it was always lack of time, which was a problem. And of course that also was not a big deal as I didn’t have television eating up too much of my outdoors time. Treasure hunts, replays of the famous five and the secret seven, rock climbing were our normal games as there was always place to hide and to imagine one to be isolated on Kirrin Island. Cricket was something one would play in the limited area of their compound or on the neighborhood street. One was scared of breaking window panes and flower pots while playing but I can’t imagine myself to be scared of ghosts creeping out of their graves whilst I while away my free time with friends. I wonder where this leaves the generations to come. Where would they be playing? Or should I be asking where would they be living? On houses built over grave yards?

It feels nice to see images of India with marvelous commercial complexes and even more wonderful apartment buildings. However, are we missing out something bigger in the picture? I am sure we are. As humans we have aesthetic sense to admire a painting with lush green meadows, silver cascades, and the bright blue sky. I remember a tapestry that I saw when I was a child; a bunch of kids of different age groups playing in a park with the new-moms and their little one in prams. It’s been two decades since I first saw that tapestry, yet I still search embroidery houses for a similar one. The simplicity of the picture has left a deep bonding; it captured the normal evening routine of my childhood. Would my child appreciate the beauty of the picture or would he think it’s a wonderful dream captured on a tapestry?

All that I can do is wonder how the deceased must be feeling with little kids’ legs running over them to catch a ball or as they watch their white homes being made as a boundary for a four. Will they ever be able to sleep among the sounds of sixes and wickets? May their souls rest in peace!!

The chase aint ever over..

The farther you try to run from your past, the faster it chases you. This is what my father told me after watching a movie where the protagonist tries to run away from his past. I then started thinking which I rarely do. Is my father right?

As humans, it is but natural to have a past. What I don’t seem to understand is how the word ‘past’ has taken a negative connotation over the recent times. Past could be anything, it could be a lovely relationship to a shady affair. It could be a memorable moment to a ghastly accident. It could just be anything that happened as recent as a second ago. It is a situation which we were part of. Is it necessary for us to run away from these when it turns out to be a miserable past?

Forgetting the bitter moments of our life paves the way for a happier tomorrow but running away from them just makes it harder to forget. Shutting the boundaries of those yesterdays, closing the doors to all those people involved, will push the boundaries and doors so hard that the bricks break and create worse wounds than ever imagined. Bandaging the severed wounds doesn’t help either; the wounds can just come loose and spill out the infection. As the best cure to an injury is to leave the wound open, the best way to heal the terrible moments in life is not to bandage them but to leave them open, time heals everything.

Another chance, just another chance...

As a kid, I always wanted to grow up. I thought college and work would be more fun than going to school in an olive green tunic and white blouse with a school bag on my back and a water bottle slung across my shoulders. I still remember the fantasy lands that my sis, friends and I created as kids imagining ourselves to be working. We called it ‘Office Office’. Now, don’t ask me why the double office. I guess saying office twice helped us believe that we were actually enacting a future real-life situation

Now, getting back to the point, I always wanted to grow up. I wanted to finish school and get to college and then was always looking forward to finish college to start work. Looking back at those twenty odd years of my life, I feel like a moron. How could I ever want to grow out of my childhood? How I wish I could relive all those years? There are so many things that I would like to do better, so many things I wish I hadn’t done, so many people with whom I could have dealt differently and lots of things I would like to do again.

I remember when I was in my final year of graduation, a group of friends sat down and we were reminiscing about our initial years in college, our reaction to certain issues and our immaturity. We believed that we had matured over four years of college, not sure if that is true, though! Now, when my mind wanders to that conversation, I wonder, why can’t I get another chance? A chance, to revisit those situations, to handle them with more maturity; yet, another thought pops into my mind. Why do we always look back at years gone by? Is it so difficult for us to live days as they come by?

I guess, the answer lies in the fact that there is a road taken and a road not taken. Our decision to travel in a particular path is influenced by many factors. Sometimes, emotions have a role to play or it could be practical reasoning or just because it is a road already traveled. However, we are pulled back to old memories and situations because we speculate, as an after thought, the consequence of traversing through the ‘road not taken’. The itch, to relive those moments is nagging as our mind delivers more beautiful results when we enact the role play that never happened. Well, can we do anything about it? I don’t know but all that I can say is:

“Give me some sunshine, Give me some rain; Give me another chance, I wanna grow up once again!!!”

Just a spoon

She was wondering if it was a normal day. The birds were chirping amongst the morning silence, the trees still sleepy, and the sun shining hard on the brown earth. This was how she would describe the morning scene everyday this season. Yet, something seemed very different today. The air was filled with tension and excitement.

As thoughts gushed into her head cramming it with stories from the past, she started to develop a mild headache. “Ah! Not today” she thought and walked back to the bedroom. She popped the pill and the phone rang.

You just read the first paragraph of a short story that I started writing almost a year back. Are you wondering why I haven’t progressed much in a year? Well, as soon as I wrote this small bit I showed it to my hubby and he remarked “hmm, you will make a good mystery story-teller, sweetie”. I was completely taken aback. I intended to write a romantic story and it just turned out to be completely different. Now, every time I sit to complete the story, I am at a loss to go ahead because I am not sure of the genre that I am writing.

I remember when I was about thirteen years old, I rented a movie. My mother saw the movie for two minutes and asked my sister and me not to waste any time watching the movie as she felt it was going to be horrible. As anyone else in their early-teens, I argued with my mother that she cannot judge a movie without watching it completely. She then told me that it takes only a spoon to decide whether a particular dish is tasty or not and you don’t have to eat the entire dish. Somehow, I suddenly remembered this yesterday when I sat down to finish this story. Was my husband right? Did he correctly guess the type of story that I started writing?

Is it possible for someone to judge something by just having a spoon? Wouldn’t that be a great gift especially, when it comes to judging people? I wonder what a person with that quality would be called. We spend years trying to understand a person, yet fail ages down the line. Sometimes, we realize way too late about a person. Wouldn’t that save us from a lot of trouble or pain? How often haven’t we misunderstood people? We think someone is kind and helpful and they turn out to be the most selfish ones in times of need. We also make the mistake of identifying the person as self-centered and he turns out to be a completely different person, contrary to our expectations. I have heard so many people say “Well, when I first met him/her, I never thought we would be the best of friends”. If only they had identified the true personality of that friend at first glance, not a lot of time would have been wasted creating trust. But, I guess that takes the fun out of life. Isn’t life all about meeting people, misconceptions, explanations, forgiveness, vengeance and a whole lot of emotions?

Anyway, now coming back to the premise of my blog, is it as easy to judge people as it is to judge a book? Is the first meeting enough like the first paragraph or just a spoon of the dish? Hmm, answers unknown!! However, can anyone who reads this tell me if my husband was right about the mystery thriller or should I continue writing the romantic story? You just have a spoon of my story to decide!!

Drapes and more!!

I was a little kid, not more than eight years old, when I came across an article in The Reader’s Digest’ by this middle-aged woman, hmm, say forty years or so. It was a nostalgic piece about the importance of curtains in her life. I, a little kid all of eight years, found the article to be very frivolous and the writer, very immature. I didn’t give this piece much thought for a long time. It was tucked away somewhere in the corner amongst the grey cells in my head like the numerous editions of The Reader’s Digest scattered in my mother’s attic.

It was not till about few weeks back that I suddenly remembered this article. I put my curtains for wash and I felt so helpless for those six days. I eagerly waited for the neat and tidy curtains to be hung again, like a kid waiting for her best friend to return from her vacation. I felt a lack of privacy. I felt everything concerning me was visible to people in my neighborhood. Did I have eggs for breakfast or dosa? Was I taking a nap or reading a book cuddled under my quilt? Did I have a face-pack on or have a clean and washed face? Was I alone at home or was my husband already back from work? Everyone around me seemed to know the answers to these questions and I was definitely not comfortable with this feeling. Not that I am a celebrity and everybody was eager to pry on my day-to-day activities, yet it was an eerie feeling. That’s when it struck me how important my drapes were to me.

I spent hours for the first few months after moving into this house designing my drapes, identifying the colours which would match my furniture, the ideal pattern for my bedroom, for my living room and even my bathroom. In fact, I was under the impression that curtains were purely for aesthetic purpose. I didn’t realize that they served more than that. They were the perfect guards, guarding me from my nosy neighbors, kept me away from the eerie darkness that lay behind my open windows, and at the same time allowing sunshine to enter my life as and when required.

Now, this left me wondering, why this didn’t affect me all this time. The answer was simple, as usual; mother-dearest always took care of it. She ensured that every time we moved from one house to another, she would first put up the curtains and create our own cozy nest. The mess of the packaging, the scattered furniture could all be arranged at leisure, once we knew that we were the only ones in control of our house.

As I write this, I wonder, why I have become so fond of my curtains. Is it because I am middle-aged now, like the author of that article? Or have I started just understanding my drapes better? I prefer answer b. It leaves me happy.

Curtains Please!!