Most Cherished

I am trying to recall all the wonderful moments in my life and the list seems endless…
But there is one memory that is crystal clear, even with the passage of time...a memory that I hold dear and that surpass all …

This is when I was studying in Kudremukh, so I must have been in my 4th std.
As I was walking outside my classroom, I get a small tap on my head
I turn around surprised and find my father smiling down at me…

That was and still is the happiest moment in my life.
Though I wish with all my heart…it could happen again…just once I wish…

As they say, life is in the small gestures that leave an impression, even when and maybe more so as the person is so far away from you…yet the memories are strong and they seem to live on.

Words that click

Parts from ‘Vanishing Acts’ by Jodi Picoult on losing your daughter…could associate so much with it that I had to write it down….

When you are pregnant, you can think of nothing but having your body to yourself again; yet after giving birth you realize that the biggest part of you is somehow external, subject to all the dangers of the world, so you spend the rest of your life trying to figure out how to keep her close enough for comfort.
That’s the strange thing about being a mother, until you have a baby, you don’t realize how much you are missing one.

Beautiful words, isn’t it?

Giving way to Tempation

But I gave way to temptation, I did...I sat under the sun, gazing at the sea (in-between the overt peeks at the bodies in abundance, both male and female...)and I loved it! It sure was bliss!
And I have to train my mind to do this difficult task of just doing nothing...
Us women are constantly on our toes, all our lives, be it tending to homes or the husbands and later on the kids... constantly on the move, working...at home, in office and we completely forget to enjoy ourselves.
Living lifes for others, have become our way of life, so much so that we have forgotten what it is to just let go...
But let go I did and enjoyed each moment of it...
Finally and without an inch of guilt...I enjoyed the sun and the ambience. Thank you Chedi and Amouage and finally my job... for giving me this...

Perfect Setting

I have always asked myself, what would I love to do, and in between the chaos at home I used to think of loneliness like a thirty crow dreams for a puddle of water...
And here I am in the most comfortable setting, The Chedi Muscat, and I yearn for the comfort of the sounds of fighting.
It is not the surrounding, it is just what I would have designed, I think...the interplay of the inside with the outside, long courtyards, surronding water space and the link to the sea through these water bodies, it is heavenly...
Unlike the tall towers in Doha, this places takes up more land, spreading itself comfortably into the shape of the landscape at ground level. It is at night though that the beauty is truly exposed through lightings, placed in intelligent nooks...it is one of the most romantic setting, that i have ever seen...
But there is one hitch...it is in the wrong place...and I am here at the wrong time...It is so humid outside u can't even take a single picture without the lens getting misty...
For the westerns, the heat and the sunshine is pure joy, ofcourse, coming from a land where the sun is a luxury, but me, coming from places where there is no shortage of this commodity, I have more than I want. To endure the heat and sit gazing at the sea and the surrounding though tempting, coz of the scantily clad bodies already there, is not my cup of tea...
And so here I am in my room, freezing, on my computer and talking about the sounds that I miss, already.

Comfort comes with a tummy

It happened yet again. The sly look, the understanding nod and the final question, “are you pregnant?”
I squirm in embarrassment but stoically put on a ‘don’t care’ air and say, “Oh, no, it is my tummy.”
There I get my satisfaction, a revenge of sorts for publically commenting on a private part (a part I hold sacred, for it doesn’t diminish …and it held two wonderful human specimens in its folds…or pinnacles to be more specific).
To see the discomfort of the person who asked the question, is a pleasure…They go overboard with their apologies, their explanations, some of which makes me want the earth to rip open at that instant and swallow me up along with the culprit.
Thankfully, all this lasts only for a few minutes, these remarks don’t even leave a lasting impression on my state of mind (like my husband and some close friends would want it to be). For none of this gets me to budge from my state of laziness, the comfort in being the same me with the same protruding tummy…

A new Love

I really can’t understand this. This sudden love for music. The same person who used to change the channel when there was a song being shown on TV, never hum even in his bath or listen to a beautiful song without doing something else along with it, here he is now sitting still in our living room with an expression of pure amazement! Closing his eyes, as if in a trance and slowly moving with the music. This man who can only sing tunelessly, here he is humming under his breadth, thoroughly enjoying himself…
He beckons with his eyes, imploring me to sit and listen! I comply though my mind aches to protest…
He is listening to the new music system he has splurged on and I am so tense I just can’t enjoy the music. It is not like him to spend on frills like this and music, never, so what has come over him, I wonder!
Finally, I ask him, “What happened, da? Have you found a new love, is there someone new in office.” I can’t help asking the obvious!
Now he sighs and says, “I wish that was true, but it is this,” he says gesturing at the amplifier, “It’s this technology, when you increase the volume, it is the volume that increases and not the sound that increases as in other systems…and isn’t it great?” he asks.
And I can only gape in reply.

On a Lighter Vein

KK to a family who always insisted on calling us over not giving us a chance to call them over…
“Why are you guys like a bank, just one-sided transactions!”

KK on our house in Vashi
“It is so small you have to go out to change your mind.”

KK on having 2-kids:
“Your role then changes from being a parent to a moderator.”

KK on why a baby suddenly looked down after looking up at KK’s face:
“She is searching for the TV remote.”

Me to KK, just before I left for my first work related trips without kids:
“Take care of the kids as if they are your own.”

Will add on…

Kochu Kochu Sandoshangal(It dosen't sound good in English but it translates to Small things, Huge pleasure..)

We watched Ratatouille on our new LCD screen and it was pure heaven, the screen gave a new depth to the movie, something we had missed the first time??
The comforts of technology set me down memory lane… (there I go again)
As kids we watched our favourite TV serials, (if I remember right, there were only two, Buniyaad and Yeh Jo He Zindagee) at our neighbour’s house, it was also a ruse to get to our close friend’s place. These trips had its dual advantages; we could watch the serial and spend time with our friends. I can’t remember pestering my mom for the luxury of having a TV at home, not that she would listen to our rants too…
But sometime when I was in the 10th standard, (on a condition that studies will not be affected) we did get the most coveted item and on the day that it was supposed to come, I remember how both of us literally rolled down the lane to our house after school to see whether Amma had kept her promise. She sure had. She had her own reasons, one of them was to stop our running over to our friend’s house. Television did have its advantages, but it didn’t stop us from running over to Pukalacaud…
Well, there is no Pukalacaud to run to now nor do we live in the same old house, there is no shortage of Televisions or for that matter, even serials now…
But I still yearn for those days when freedom was just a few yards away, when running down that lane was like jumping fences of restrictions, when the few moments gave us both a sense of freedom.
It does seem like another era, when Televisions were deemed as comfort while now it is just another piece of furniture, one you can’t do without…
That, I suppose is technology with all its advantages, it brings continents closer but takes people further away…

To write light...

I wonder, why, I just can’t loosen up and write some lighter stuff, as my well-wishers want me to. All the below blogs does give a grim picture of a suffering, emotionally dependant and maybe mentally deranged person sitting behind her rusty table in a dark, musty smelling old house, jotting away to oblivion! (No, no computers too, it gives the feel of comfort!) Now I get carried away with that image, well, the girl would have her hair spread over her shoulders, and she would use her pencil to scratch her lice-infected hair in-between her scribbling, twitch her tattered cloth around her fingers and mark her punctuations with sighs of pain and discomfort…
Well, those who know me can vouch, I am nowhere close to the image projected, but why the melancholy in the words, wonder others and I do too…
I just have to go home to have a bit, bit would be putting it too mildly, a bit too much, seems more right, of the lighter stuff.
From my younger ones doubts on why her father pees standing up while she has to sit while doing it, to my husbands rejoinders to any word I utter, well, my life is no less dull than an episode of Everybody loves Raymond.
So it might be to give a firmer rein that I plug on to the emotions -- the raw and untouched ones of my life that are instrumental in making me the person I am. But I do intend to add more fun to my writing…

Re-reading my blog is like re-examining my thoughts...and I felt I did not do justice to my closest friend...my soul mate...
20 years or more of friendship, of soul examining, of discussing issues that concern us and others, spiced up with fights followed by making-ups and then again another round of the same...
Well, how could I forget this constant factor in my life...our circumstances might have changed from staying together in a joint family to the jerky life of a shippie, back to sound grounds in Bombay and then later a shift to a ME...but through all this our friendship has blossomed. Storms have been incessant but we have tided through them, and gathered strength to face more.
Well, how could I not mention this important factor who constantly reminds me of the funny part of life and makes me smile (and sometimes cring, when the jabs are directed at well-meaning friends and family).
So to this person who makes me laugh, who has changed the course of my life, who constantly reminds me that money comes only to those who take good care of it...and I yet again forget the advices, here is a toast to our friendship, here is wishing us smooth sailing...

A friend in need

My editor picked a beautiful Arabic proverb for an article that says, “A friend is one to whom one may pour out all the contents of one’s heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping and with a breadth of kindness blow the rest away.”
Reading this made me long for a friend…
My friend-list is limited to my daughter’s friend’s mother or my husband’s friend’s wife…
Well, I do have friends in office… But I am constantly on guard here, where you just can’t let your heart rule over the head and pour the contents out, be it chaff or grain, for there might be someone, who would take offence …
And it is not because I haven’t tried. I had a close friend from REC, with whom I could converse with for hours…but we have lost touch. For years, I tried to find her, a number, an email but all efforts went fruitless and now I just don’t look. And there is another friend and we are trying to go back in time, to be the friends we were then…
Marriage has that effect; it makes everything around look unimportant. I didn’t want anything else but the comfort of companionship that comes with marriage which later and inevitably went on to the role of a mother…
And that is a one role every woman cherishes, that of a mother. The happiness of seeing a part of you in flesh and blood, the innocence, the dependency, the complete trust that you see in the eyes of your child, is all consuming. It obliterates everything else. Who remembers friends, relatives or other duties then?
Well, we all pass through these phases, but it the clever ones who maintains all these the different facets -- the ever encompassing role of a mother, a wife, a friend, a companion, separate each entity from the other, yet bind them together to form the character, that is you…
No, I don’t regret living each of my roles, a little more profoundly than necessary but I surely miss my friends of college… and I vow to hunt them down …

What I love and hate about living here

I love
The sand dunes and the sight of camels walking past them lazily…
I hate
The monotony of the sands, the bare and harsh brown landscape, that continues on and on…

I love
The absence of relatives and the freedom that gives me to do what I want…
I hate
The detachment that makes me lonely sometimes for the love of relatives and close ones…

I love
The clean roads and organised traffic
I hate
The people who feel they own the road

I love
The sanitised food
I hate
The absence of spicy smells and the lip-smacking tastes…

I love
The absence of chaos
I hate
The same absence of chaos…

Because
I also miss
The chaos, the crowded streets, the smell of the local thatu kada and the green landscape….

A bond growing stronger

I had all intentions to hate her. My mind was made up. I would hate this intruder who was going to uproot me from my current status as the reigning queen of the family… But the first glimpse of the chubby innocent face melted barriers inside. But, No, I wasn’t going to let go of my intentions, I thought firmly, that is as firm as a 7-year old can.
The tiny plump hands, pink and warm, the smell, did make the resolution weak, but I held on.
When the whole family ooh-aahed over the tiny bundle, I seethed inside and once, when there was no one around, pinched the tiny hands and watched horrified as the smiley innocent face dissolved into wrinkles of pain… I escaped from the scene, but the guilt remained.
But the hate dissolved gradually and was replaced with more positive feelings of love…I couldn’t help it, the smiles specially reserved for me(when she could just do that), the coos of recognition and the spark that lit up her eye when she saw me. The thought of being needed by this tiny figure was indeed a high for the 7-year old, me.
Some memories never fade, like her first day in school, when she wouldn’t let go of my skirt and cried miserably when I went to my own class.
Later on dependency gave way to friendship, when we walked down to the bus stand on the way to school(almost 2km away), the long gap between our ages never a barrier. We amused each other with the jokes we invented, read aloud our lessons to compete with each other and giggled afterwards when mom scolded. When we both were caught red-handed for going to our neighbours to watch TV and came back late, we stood with our hands entwined and took the punishment melted out as stoically as possible and later cried hugging each other.
The instances are many and the bond stronger. From being dependant, the little girl is now on her own and sometimes it is me who takes her council…

A sad picture

Well, Kottayam, the land of letters, has a sad face to present to the world. Awareness and education has always helped man, but not in Kerala...Here, it is not a boon but a burden on the systems.
The centre of the town is the bus stand and the road around it was to be expanded. Some shops had to be demolished or pulled back to give the roads more breadth. And this was being done when a responsisble civic person(they are in abundance here) put a stay to the work which had started in earnest. With the rubble and the garbage collecting over it, the roads are still incomplete and the city wears a untidy look.
The beautiful Thirunnakkarra temple just beyond the bus stand with the long streach of steps and a beutiful facade is now a thing of the past. The beautiful facade is now blocked with some incomplete form of construction. Another aftermath of a stay order. The order could be for a better structure or to solve some issue but then the issue has to be solved not left behind unresolved for years...
I am not a political person, my views are that of a common man who loves her home town with all its smells and sights. And this sight does bother me...

For a reason or no reason at all?

Why do I love the temples in Kerala? I am not an religious person, not in the strict sense of the word. Ofcourse I believe in God and pray, do my morning pooja systematically, but I don't follow all the rituals to the core. And that in part is my religion, the freedom to talk to my God, when I please and not as per a rule written long before...
Coming back to the question, so why do I love these temples? There are enough reasons to avoid going there, like the huge crowd waiting in a queue outside Guruvayoor Temple to get a glance of the Almighty..., the oil mixed with rainwater makes the pathway quite slippery and could well be a chance of getting closest to the Gods, the ridiculous overpass where you climb the stairway with numerous other devottes, all equally anxious to see their Lord. To keep yourself apart from the pushing sweaty mass as well as move ahead in the queue with all your parts untouched and unharmed, is indeed a feat.
With all these hitches, why do I still go there, yearly?
Here I have no qualms in admitting that yes, that one small moment when I get near the main shrine is so divine, it makes me come back again. It could be because of the time factor(you are allowed to stand in front for less than a second) or the skills of the chandam charthal, the sculpture is carved out in chandan by expert hands, or it could be something unexplainable...
This is for Guruyaoor, but what about the temple, I frequent, which is like my next door neighbour!
Here it is the comfort of coming home, the memories of a time gone by, when going to the temple, was part of the morning ritual...
And here is where I talk to God, to my Thirunakkara devar, as I call him...I tell him what I have been doing, what I want him to do...no, no huge want list...just to keep an eye on my mom, who lives close...
Here is where I invented small Malyalam keertans, because I didnt know any other bhajans of the God in question, the paths I had formed, the footprints which later paved way to a concrete path, the water puddles I jumped over and sometimes washed my feet...
This is my comfort place, this temple where I had prayed lightly during a normal day, more frevently during exams and sometimes forgot myself standing there, just talking to my very own God!

A new me?

Life in the Middle East is counted from the day you come back from your hometown after the monthly vacations, to the next year when your vacations start. Everything in between in a blur, as days pass by in a fast forward mode, from a friday to the next. You count months and then weeks, days and finally hours before you go on your next vacations. It is not entirely because you hate the country you work in, but it is a combination of factors. For me the magnetic pull of my home country is hard to resist... the abundant and heavenly nature, the ever friendly country men(even a stranger will want to know more about you and won't hesitate asking you), the aromatic smell of Indian food mingling with the not so pleasant smells of the streets and the sounds of life... The list is endless but the strings they pull are strong...it makes you want to go back, yet again. There are other emotional strings attached like family who always pull you back for duties abundant...
Well, I am back from yet another emotional yearly trip! But the effect is obvious, I feel fresh and clean, ready to tackle the pressures of the job, family and even more. I have a lot to do this year, till my next rejenuvation trip.
And this blog is my first step...Hence it is natural that I write about my place, my hometown that yearly cleanses me and fills me with NEW hopes and aspirations, makes me go on with the rut that is life...
Let me go down memory lane... the thoughts, the scenes, the smells...all that makes me the person I am.