Scribbles on the wall

A pat on the head....

2012-11-05T08:10:00.001-08:00

As a kid, I was at work on my first serious piece of art. I had successfully passed “Basics of scribbling” and here I was attempting to draw a snake and his lunch – a bowl of peas paying tribute both to the peas Amma had given me and to the visit to the Snake park earlier that week. Amma swings by and finds my snake at one end of the picture and the bowl of peas on the other end. She gently enquires, “Very nice, but how will the snake eat the peas?”. I realize the flaw in the picture. I immediately extend the snake’s “neck”, add a spoon to the bowl and also very considerately throw in a cup with handles with a beverage in it. Never mind that I didn’t factor the snake’s lack to dexterity to work with the spoon or the ‘handle’ in the cup. But here it was, my first masterpiece .. a snake with a clearly distended and dislocated neck and his delightfully appetizing bowl of peas. Amma smiled, gave me a pat of my head and went ahead to preserve her little Pablo Picasso’s first piece of art, only to…. I think severely embarrass me by showing it to my friends through teenage and adulthood. I knew amma had a vicious plan….i should have seen it coming..

Here I am several years later, looking at Abhi’s drawing which seems to be a collection of fingerprints gathered in the shape of a tree or bush. I feel the need to preserve it. :)

But nevertheless, the pat had one effect…it encouraged me …to draw…and derive some sense of accomplishment as I drew. The pats I had received did not create any dents in the world of art, but nevertheless they have encouraged me to have a hobby that I could immerse myself in peaceful distraction …To that end, they were completely worth it.

And so, I shall write today about encouragement and support…the little pats on the head…

I am not implying that we need to make this world one big happy family that it probably isn’t. In a scenario of competitive evaluation, there is a need to preserve our winning advantage or protect the recipe for the secret sauce. But everywhere else, effective successful partnerships be it personal or professional involve us working together mindful of a common goal, valuing each other and extending that encouragement and support when needed. We often remember these when we are playing as a team or working as a team. But its equally and sometimes more important to mirror this spirit in personal lives too. We don’t thank as much, express our gratitude as much to the people most important in our lives for their presence and support. Sometimes we need to thank them for just being themselves.

Learning on a job is not trivial. And here I am on one of my most important and toughest jobs that I have no clue of…Being a mother. There are moments of success, moving targets, forgotten glories, dealing with a very tough but small person, a whole big mess, déjà vu of cleaning all the time, getting acclimatized to voice frequencies only bats used to hear earlier and much more….and every mom reading this will relate to what I say.

After a 2.5 hour battle with Abhi at his bath tub, I finally dressed him up…Abhi was pretty upset, I was too…Feeling sucked up of all energy, I sank into the couch silent, contemplative and stressed next to B who was thoroughly immersed in his new TV series. With Abhi next to me still in an angry and sad whimper, I slowly start ranting about how stressed I am and that ‘everyone else’ is happily watching TV while I still need to load the dishwasher and it goes on and on…With the TV paused, B turns around and gives me a little pep talk on how awesome a mother I am, how far I have come along, all the positive moments, and that we can go out for dinner :) ….and finally sweetly manipulates me to load the dishwasher while he finishes up with just a tiny ‘10 minutes’ of his TV show. As much of sweet manipulation that it could have been, it served as the pat on the head, a reminder that someone is watching and stopped short to encourage.

Abhi doesn’t speak a whole lot…or as much as I want to hear him, but strangely in the last 5 days, he has been chanting two songs non stop “is-see bis-see pider” and “Appe-thi-thi-yee-yaw” …He hasn’t quite comprehended what ‘Piders’ are or what birthdays are or that Amma’s bday was coming up…But he sang his Happy Bday to you (also sounds as Appe-thi-thi-yee-yaw) to its full glory. It served as that pat on the head that something is going right.

Over the last couple of months, I have been preoccupied on several fronts…A big move, some new challenges and lots of uncertainty. I haven’t written much in this space. This post is in gratitude to an encouraging pat from a friend who stumbled on this page. Thank you!! :)

Kitchen Counter wisdom!

2012-06-06T17:02:00.000-07:00

Couldn’t help putting them down anyway..Have a read..smile and move on :)..

I started my cooking lessons early into middle school. I was amma’s sous chef doing all the chopping, peeling..and then she taught me the first practical lesson on ratios and proportions when I made a classic “kanji” (porridge)…when asked to cook some rice on a day she was unwell. Appa stirred in some pickle into it and literally drank the overcooked rice that evening. Amma always used visual estimates and not measuring cups and I blamed that for my culinary accident. Well, let’s say, from then the kitchen wisdom helped my math. Let’s also say my initial mysore pak attempts have been valuable contributions to structural engineering. And that Wrigley's signed an undeclared contract after a specimen of my halwa. So you are catching my drift with this right!….Cooking wasn’t the first of my passions or talents…But oh hell, so what… But from then to now, I have grown and graduated into a pretty good cook. …..I can’t still think of spending too much time in the kitchen if I am by myself. It feels like a chore. But cooking is something I have started enjoying lot more after having a family of my own. And that the family also enjoyed the cooking helped.

I am blessed with a picky eater like many other moms. He nibbles his way around things like a little squirrel and I end up experimenting in the kitchen to please my nearly 3 ft tall food critic. While at it, the kitchen counter has also been a place of learning life’s lessons…so to say, if u coexist with the tomatoes, onions, bell peppers and eggplants, get thrown into dishes, get swirled around in soups…it’s a little journey of learning, cooking and eating..:)..Hence presenting my Kitchen counter wisdom…

1. All elements have to go in ..the sweet, salty, the sour, the spicy ..But that’s what makes the soup flavorful.

We tend to hold on to the perception that life will get to a point of feeling all settled in and then we can then make the best of the time ….There shall be little problems, little things constantly throwing off the picture from the perfect setting. But in them is the learning and the experience. Life needs a little bit of everything for us to appreciate or cherish the good moments.

2. If you didn’t wait for the mustard to crackle, you are going to bite into a bitter seed.

Ever had a spoonful of a perfectly good dish, just to bite into a bitter mustard seed? Hot oil makes the mustard crackle, but once it’s crackled it seasons the dish. Sometimes you need to wait and get to hear the complaints, grievances and the crackling, because getting them out is better in the longer run.

3. Patience goes a long way.

Ever tried cooking for a party in a hurry and ended up spending more time fixing the dish than u did making it in the first place. Sometimes a little patience takes u farther and to a better place.

4. If there is too less salt, add it …If there is too much salt, don’t fret …use a potato to soak it all away

There are always solutions. More salt is always a more difficult situation than less…but there are still solutions. They may just not be obvious!!

5. A little lemon on the onion helps u tear up less.

I cry buckets while chopping onions…For those of u that don’t know, Bed Bath & Beyond carries ‘Onion Goggles’ which B bought for me to preserve his marital vows of not seeing me tear up!! But this little tip went a step further in holding the dam together. There is always a softer way to deliver a hard message. There are ways to retain the value of the message but reduce its acidity.

6. Dishes that tend to be sticky need to be stirred often. Else they’ll either burn or get lumpy

Some issues are sticky and complicated and our impulse leads us to avoid thinking about them purely because we are not sure how to fix them. When in reality all they need a little more attention and patience.

7. Baking makes the fruits sweeter.

Like baking brings out the flavor in several things, some experiences make u better, stronger and bring out your core qualities…Even the not so sweet blueberries taste sweeter when baked.

8. It's OK to start over again.

Sometimes over correcting a dish beyond a point does not fix it but makes it a bigger disaster. A mistake is a mistake. Acknowledge and start over again.

9. Perseverance pays off

From carving out continents on atta and seriously contemplating starting an Organic Frisbee business, I have come a long long way in these years and have improved my chappati’s in shape and texture.. I still hold my breath as it beautifully puffs up and bend down in curtsy. Like anything, some aspects of cooking need some perseverance if u don’t have the natural talent.

10. Forget the bad dish, don’t forget the lesson

The household kitchen table is a learning ground…a place of mistakes and lessons… a place to grow up. You are not expected to be perfect all the time. So make mistakes, forget the bad dish, but hold onto the learning.

11. End with a desert.

End with a positive thought…end a fight with a hug….A little sweetness in the end makes the whole meal worthwhile.

And lastly….

12. Murphy enters ur kitchen on the day you have invited a lot of people over for lunch

No comments on this!!

If u stayed with me through this, Thanks for reading…:)!

Lost and Found!

2012-03-27T17:30:00.006-07:00

Are there things you lose and find only to lose them when u need them most again. You see it all the time and just when u want it, it has magically walked out. I agree that u feel curious about my ‘old age concerns’ right now. But no, I am not yet that old and have no signs of amnesia temporary or permanent. Let’s just say I am a little jinxed.

I have been losing a lot of things lately….That I have a super active toddler at home is purely a coincidence!

For a week straight, I couldn’t find my office badge and in the process of getting a temp badge every day, I got to know my office security much better. As our ‘friendship grew’ ….You should just request for a new one he advised gently. ‘No, I am sure it’s in my house. I just need to find it over the weekend’…I replied …I did find it over the weekend very carefully sandwiched between the old car seat and its base into a groove where something a hairline thicker couldn’t have fit. Nevertheless I found it. The next week it was the phone. Mid-week I stopped even searching. I knew it was too safely stowed away to be found. Then I found it switched off and stuffed into a lil sock and buried into a bin of towels with utmost care. I also found that the Donald soft toy had two of the hair clips I had been searching clamped to his beak. When I have visitors at home, I have strongly started encouraging treasure hunt as an icebreaker. Also like pulling a rabbit out of a hat, pulling stuff out of the sides of the couch is added for special entertainment.

One of my favorite ear rings….one of a pair went missing. I was a little sad, it was a gift and I dint want it lost. Thankfully that was easy to find as I heard it rattle inside the dryer.

After a week of pulling up an empty wrist involuntarily to check the time, the last hunt was for my wrist watch. And I finally did find it in the fridge inside a cup of yogurt as I cleaned that out. Someone has been pretty thorough to tell u in mild terms. And the frozen yogurtized watch had stopped for obvious reasons. So I put it to rest in peace. That’s also why I have stopped buying anything expensive.

Amma advised me ‘U always have to have the bottom up approach…search at ground zero and move upwards. He is small, so search at his level first’ ….And this approach was working fine enough till someone got into a complete monkey business. Somebody has been climbing a lot and that’s not making the wild goose chase any easier.

Today’s was the kicker….My laptop was missing… :O!!…I could imagine a phone, trinkets, watches walking away in tiny hands….but a laptop..Oh hell NOO! Clearly flustered and wanting to get out of home on time, clearly panicked, I searched all over….under the couch, under every piece of furniture…It was a scene from CSI.. The crime scene had to be thoroughly searched and we had a SWAT team in place employing force and tact to the investigation…me, Appa and the nanny…while Abhi sat innocently watching the chaos and licking his sippy cup. Appa clearly wanting to pacify me suggests “why don’t u go to work and we will take care of this for u”…”Appa..thats my office laptop that is missing :O!” I squealed!!! We scrambled and squeezed ourselves into all corners ‘mission impossible style’ to locate it…Abhi was completely unfazed and getting his Santa Baby toy to squeal “I am a Santa Baby..wish u a merry christmas” in the end of March. And as we are combing down the apartment with military precision, a diaper situation called in for some breaks and re-strategizing. I put Abhi down and roll my hand into the Huggies box …to find it warm!! Warm….?!?..why warm!?.. I found the laptop slid sideways into the Huggies box warming up the diapers. With a little boy at home, I don’t have to search for adventure outside!!!

Stress Busters...

2012-03-19T19:16:00.001-07:00

All of us have a degree of stress and our own ways to handle them…Sharing some of mine…

1. Turn on the humidifier with Menthol vapors…Even if u don’t have a cold or sinus…warm mist and menthol vapors have a tendency to calm u down

2. Maggi noodles… not the thousand variations of flavors, just the plain good old Maggi masala noodles.

3. Cuddling with my lil boy and tickling him into a giggle…its immensely relaxing

4. Listening to my favorite instrumental themes

5. Chocolate glazed Donuts ….Dark Chocolate too..

6. The tranquil mint Stress Relief lotion on my hands

7. Presence of the ocean….Sound of the ocean…if nothing else, at least ocean sounds from a sound machine

8. Music…gentle or peppy but definitely not sad…

9. Fresh cool breeze on the face…

10. A long drive …with no destination in mind…

11. Looking at photographs…

12. Talking to my favorite people..

So why suddenly….

I have been so stressed of late……There’s so much up in the air and a sense of helplessness and inability to either fix them or let go. Time is the key a friend tells me…U just have to wait something out. I understand that its true…but that’s the hardest part…how long is long ?....Have I or have I not waited long enough…? its getting hard to say that clearly..

At the bottom of it, one of the important ways to stay less stressed is to be flexible and mindful of the fact that a lot of things will not turn out the way you want for them to turn out.

The small joys!

2012-03-08T15:52:00.002-08:00

Sometimes we are so self-absorbed in the big things and big goals that the little ones get forgotten...This week I had a gentle reminder to slow down. A reminder that didn’t come in a form I expected or desired. But in hearing something terrible happen to someone else. A single moment changes the course of life and life doesn’t always provide for a life jackets and parachutes to help u land safely. A single moment helps us realize how frivolous and superficial most aspects of our lives are and to focus on what really matters.

The little moments in life bring u the happiness. Not the big expensive vacations, not the big gifts...the little moments stay with you forever. The one moment of happiness is that anchor to providing the strength to withstand everything life has to offer.

May we learn to appreciate those moments and cherish them.

The morning cup of sunshine!

2012-02-02T21:50:00.000-08:00

Woke up late…my alarm aka phone was completely out of charge…Opened the fridge to see that I ran out of milk. There was a tad bit just enough for Abhi when he wakes up…and I had a 9AM meeting which means I had just about time to shower, buy milk and drop it off at home and rush. And I was completely zoned out and out of energy. Abhi woke up in the middle of the night and insisted that he would only sleep on my shoulder and only with me walking up and down for the next 3 hours. And I have a boot up problem, without my morning coffee my brain won’t start.

And to add to this, I had to wash and dry my hair as well. Not that I have these long enviable tresses that demand lots of attention….But that day, I looked like I had dunked my head into Ali-Baba’s oil pot thanks to Amma’s long advise on skype the previous evening. So I had to wash it….And when I wash it on such a day and dry it in a hurry, I look like freshly electrocuted or something. (I apologize for the very disturbing image!!). Abhi woke up just in time to add to the chaos and I was warming up his milk and couldn’t find my scrunchie or clip to tie up the storm on my head. I quickly grabbed what I got from over the dryer and tied it. (I shall tell u “what” very soon, and also keep in mind; this is not how I get ready for work every day!!!)

The ice skin on my windshield was the next battle. The glacial pace at which this was melting and the poetry surrounding it didn’t help my BP. That I succumbed to the temptation of parking right in front of my apartment instead of the covered carport was biting me back. I am normally a friendly person, but I think I almost barked a quick bye in response to a surprised neighbor’s pleasantries. She is possibly not going to talk to me in the near future!

I was then standing at the Whole Foods counter when the cashier checked out my milk with a broad grin ….I just thought he was a pleasant guy having a great start to the day, unlike me of course!! This was till he blurted out in a half-giggle “Do u have a socks on ur head???”…Aww, great…that was what I grabbed..i thought it was one of those thin scarves!! And this pleasant cashier was having a great start to that day thanks to me!! Silver Lining: At least I didn’t walk into a conference room full of people with a stocking on my hair.

Then I found parking in the next zip code I think …and scrambled down checking the meeting room while my phone was breathing its last on the one drop of charge that I managed to squeeze into it that morning.

I paced myself through the meeting trying to sound half intelligent. As I mentioned, I have some start up trouble without the early morning fuel. My colleague had a candid and not to mention “timely and appropriate” sense of humor, “Do u want a hat?” he asked!! No, I actually preferred a bucket, so that I could hide my face as well.

Dashed to the coffee machine right after that to find it out of order…..Made do with chai instead.

I also made some interesting and far from happy discoveries through the day. That all the stuff I ran the last evening had to be re-done because it was not the correct setup. And everything either refused to work or worked when it wasn’t supposed to. It seemed all my little failures were lining up in front of me.

After a friend pointed out, I realized Abhi had left in some of his “pappu-mammu and beans ka” paw marks from the last evening on my fleece jacket. For those who don’t know ….turmeric is one of the stubborn stains to remove….Not wanting to look like someone homeless and also not wanting to reveal intricate details of my son’s dinner to my work world, I took off the fleece jacket…and roamed around like it was mid-summer. Only that it didn’t feel like mid-summer.

I checked my email; one of my close friends chose this day to tell me how angry she was at me for not returning her calls. Felt downright miserable by now. I wanted to get the stuff out of the way and the day out of the way. It was gloomy and pouring outside and all I wanted to do was finish my work and hide in the closet.

B’s email with a gentlest of reminders on two things I needed to finish was replied in a snap with an ‘I am stressed, the world is on my shoulder’ type of response …enough to make him retract and go “its Ok, its Ok, it’s not important. Take care of the other stuff”…I wish I could pull that off with everyone else ;) ;)

Having a dozen to-do’s and follow ups to catch up on, I finished what I could and drove home. It was like having an giant octopus sitting on my head pointing in all possible directions. Abhi was well rested and ready to greet me onto my second job.

My recipe for a bad day was to lounge down for some sitcom therapy…with our TV boxed up for close to two years now (I record that as an achievement!) that wasn’t possible. Abhi’s annoying fascination with replaying talking tom’s version of chammak challo non stop was not helping. Not that I like the original, but the cats version of it is pure unadulterated torture!! He then tore up the dosa I made for him into a million pieces, rolled them into tiny balls and lined them up against the wall. My energizer bunny also wanted to climb all over the sofa and dive down. After some long drawn chasing and feeding I was finally done with his dinner, and I settled down…

I wanted to cheer myself up. Buzzed some of my favorite people and most of them were busy or unavailable. Finally just as I was about to close shop and crash when my friend buzzed back.

X: Hey, u OK?

Me: Nope, I am down in the gutter, make me smile.

X: make u smile or make u laugh?

Me: Is that a choice??? Make me die laughing!!

In the next 15 minutes, I smiled, giggled, laughed…and the day seemed OK…a little bad, but far from how I felt a little while back…The baggage on my head felt a little lighter…Thank God for the internet and my friendly angels!!

Surprisingly Abhi slept like a baby that night….a real baby that is! I caught up with my sleep and the next day was definitely a better one.

Moral of the story: Don’t miss ur sleep, if u have no choice on that, don’t miss ur morning coffee!

One step at a time....

2012-01-06T11:27:00.000-08:00

A year ago I wrote about how me and my little son started our baby steps and our wobbly walking…2011 has seen us climbing ….all over the place…I squeal to him every time he challenges himself to jump up multiple steps, in fear of him tripping or tumbling down..”One step..don’t u jump…one step at a time..” And I have been telling myself the same thing all through this year. Sometimes we all are impatient and try to jump multiple steps with the hope that the destination is closer… There are times when having a plan or looking a little ahead doesn’t seem to work as well as being in the moment and let every moment pass by one at a time…

2011 started for me in mid-air in a flight with the flight attendant announcing the break of the new year. I was travelling alone with my 9 month old to India feeling incredibly nervous and anxious about the journey. Why so? Ask any mom boarding a flight with a baby that’s figured out the wonders of mobility. Strapping them down is like trying to hold a mouse in your hand. Sleeping, watching movies, reading books or spacing out in thought was no longer an option…A wink of sleep if at all was honestly a blessing.

My single fellow passenger who took the adjacent seat was absolutely delighted with the extra leg room till he realized he had no chance of overhead bin space around the family seating area. He calmed himself down and gave the babies, toddlers, kids all a stern look while they smiled back at him sweetly…extra sweetly as if to say “Stare all u want buddy, just u wait!”..I watched the myriad of emotions on his face as his happiness over the extra leg room faded when a glorified cardboard box in a frill frock – a bassinet was stuck in front of him and he looked eye to eye with a very naughty baby. Abhi politely even offered to share his pacifier to help! My fellow passenger moved through the 5 stages of grief over his 10 hour plight to be surrounded by 3 babies in his row…denial, anger, negotiation, depression and finally calm acceptance as if in knowledge of the cycle of karma that led to this day, this moment…He smiled back towards the end of the journey and introduced himself, had a small chat, double checked his next boarding pass to make sure he was not again in the family seating area, waved abhi a buh-byee and left. May his peace stay with him!

As for me, I desperately tried to put a tired, cranky baby to sleep amid all the star wars lighting. When overwhelmed, I told myself one hour at a time…When he refused to sleep and I walked down the aisle sleep deprived myself, catching the stuff/toys/pacifiers that went flying around. The good side was that in that process I had made enough friends by the end of the flight, and there were more people staring at me out of sympathy than irritation. As I arrived at the airport …Amma jokingly commented “Unna naalu per adichu potta madhiri irukku” translated as “It looks like 4 people bashed you up”…”It was one person Amma, one little person” I replied gladly offloading the precious bundle to the much thrilled grandparents. One hour at a time and the day long journey was survived.

From there on, it’s been an interesting year…and has led me to believe that what you do on the new year day does indeed set the tone for the whole year :)

I found a new job in a city I least expected to be in…and sooner than I thought. Cross country hopping with a one year old to a new city without B around was overwhelming in its own way... Should I take it up, could I manage, how will I do this…after numerous questions, none of which were completely answered ….a commit point was reached. It was just a leap …no.. a bungee jump of faith. Settling into a new city was a tough …There are moments when I sank down and thought if I bit off a lot more than I could possibly chew. Moving and settling in has a lot of detail management involved and my brain seemed to have shrunk. Re-discovering the world from your child’s eyes and appreciating the little things around you and experiencing one of the most unconditional of relationships developing makes it one of the most gratifying experiences. Yet sleep training, handling a picky eater, toddler moods and fussiness …brought a new experience every day. Some blissfully whizzed past in poetry and some days felt like banging against a brick wall. It was hard to predict much less plan what the next day would offer. And hence every day was spent one day at a time.

Abhi seemed to have fallen in love with every bug in town. The fact that I could understand more and more of the tongue twisting medical lingo that my doc bro was throwing at me was disturbing. Dealing with weeklong toddlers sickness, praying for every cold, cursing every virus…and celebrating the end of every sickness with quiet calm relief, baby chatter and a side of maggi. Through moments of feeling very lonely to feeling more hopeful as normalcy returned…., every week was survived…one week at a time.

The last year has been a lesson in patience…Not saying I am way more patient now than before…but that’s just a reflection of how good a student I am than of the lesson itself. Patience is to hold on and persist in efforts when it’s hardest to do so. Its waiting the longest and hardest you can for something and then deciding to wait longer...Like the donkey in Shrek…I found myself repeatedly asking “Are we there yet?”

Patience with others is Love, Patience with self is Hope, Patience with God is Faith. - Adel Bestavros

December was a promised month…A 3 week vacation from school was a huge huge bonus compared to the 1.5 day long cross country trips every month. I was peacefully occupied in the kitchen trying to make something fit for the moment and Abhi and B are chattering away with no clue of what the other person is talking about….nothing fancy, nothing fantastic to do..and yet there was a quiet contentment and happiness and the urge to make time stop right there. December was like the slide in the playground..after a yearlong climb up the stairs, now we could whoosh down without holding, relaxing and glad to let go of everything……So in the promise of December, midst the numerous vent outs, tears, hang-in-there’s, baby-sickness-blues….the months flew…one month at a time.

Not to say that this was just a tough year… But it has been a beautiful year in seeing my lil boy grow up…. This year has taught me patience while it’s not all figured out, taught me to hold onto what I care about when I just feel like giving up and to be present in the moment. It has taught me mental acceptance of everything that’s different from what I hoped for it to be. It’s given me some new dear friends…and made me treasure moments with my family. Happy moments zip past; it’s the tougher ones that teach you something.

So 2011 has passed on one hour, one day, one week and one month at a time…Now I am sure of one thing……No more new years on a plane!

Happy New Year everyone! May this New Year bring love, laughter and the company of wonderful people to share it with!

Hue is it ?

2011-12-06T13:44:00.000-08:00

No, I am not clinically color blind...Actually my vision is pretty good…color wise and other wise…I am the resident expert at home to pick that right shade of paint to mask the blotch on the wall. But I am verbally challenged when it comes to colors…I can’t name them!!

To make it worse, I am strangely surrounded by men who are spectrum experts. Let me explain…

We are cramming in my team with a deadline and I get a high importance flagged email the last minute from a colleague with a spreadsheet attached and a single line. “All the cells highlighted in fuchsia need to be removed from the test chip”. I open the spreadsheet and see at least 19 different colored highlights. “Fuchsia??!! Which one of these is fuchsia??, How am I supposed to recognize fuchsia with a gun on my head and a deadline tomorrow”. Thank God for Google. He could have just called it pink and not named it like a Japanese tree!

I have a color cop right at home. B introduced me to the color espresso. It’s the dark black-brown shade which I end up picking for furniture. Only that I never called it espresso or compared it with coffee beans.

My colleague gets a new Lexus and I am like this school kid telling B everything that happened at work while he maintains his highly programmed nod every 10 seconds. And I am talking about the car, B suddenly asks “oh, cool, what color”…”Dark red”, I reply, happy that he is actually listening :). B didn’t lift his head or bat an eyelid. His attention was 10% with what I was talking about and 90% onto his Ipad. But he replied in a snap “Burgundy” before I could even complete my thought …”Hunh?” I respond, “Burgundy is the color” he clarified and continued teasing his new toy. I wished I at least said maroon instead of dark red!!!

I am at a nearby furniture store looking for something and check with the store assistant. Sorry about stereotyping, but he was this 6 ft tall burly looking guy and I hardly expected to have this conversation with him. I ask him for what I need and he goes “Ohh, you go down this aisle and do u see those couches, by those..” he quips…”By the brown couches?” I point and ask to confirm. “By the butterscotch ones, not the tan ones” he replied quickly circling my color insensitivity. ‘Butterscotch???!!, are we discussing ice cream or color???’ ..I think to myself and walk down trying to eye closely the difference between butterscotch and tan and trying to explain to myself why they couldn’t be called brown!! While I am at this distracted from my actual shopping, the next store assistant comes up to me “Need help with something”. I am instinctively thinking ‘Maybe I should pop quiz this guy ..which one is butterscotch, which is tan….maybe I will put him in a spot and feel better…maybe it was just one freak show’…Trying to look very educated about the topic, I start asking him about the hues and shades. Sadly he knew it, and started talking one step ahead about some color texturing ‘Damn!! ‘

Maybe it’s a generational shift…maybe by some complex code of evolution, men picked up the 256 color detecting gene and women dropped it. Maybe all women are now like me verbally-color-impaired…As fate had it…to answer my question, I had to talk to my friend who was getting married and in the middle of her shopping …., We get into the deep discussions of her reception attire and the conversation tosses around the accessory-matching-miseries and color coordination involving shades of violet, purple and indigo. That drove me to my fragile tipping point.

It’s just me, me alone in this twilight zone, color illiterate.

Never mind the elephant, let’s just talk...

2011-11-28T14:28:00.000-08:00

Two is a company, three is a crowd…especially when the third person is a huge elephant sitting by your side and cramming into your conversation uninvited. You are jammed into a corner deprived of space, and obviously uncomfortable to be your natural self and yet have to appear completely oblivious to the huge companion because no one else sees him. Or they don’t want to admit they know he is there.

Sometimes, do u worry about how the very obvious things are ignored or set aside and people talk as if they came out of a bubble in space with no memory whatsoever of anything that happened earlier. The mammal weighs its way into the conversation or discussion and is flat out ignored.

What’s prompting me to write this is more of inter-personal situations where sometimes there is reluctance to address things explicitly, clear the tables when needed, and have the conversations that need to be had.

Wish life was like movies… the way movies end…a dozen happy faces, all good people prevail, all loopholes closed, all questions answered, all issues settled, there is bliss and the hope of continued bliss and “The End” flashes in front of it… well, unless there is a sequel and the tiny hint they throw at u…No matter how clichéd that sounds, we have no open ends gnawing into our mind..

Truth is things aren’t so and without a worried director to close things and explain the unexplained for us…we need to do it ourselves…set things straight…Some questions will never get asked and some will never get answered.

What then stops us from having an honest conversation…and not beat all around the bush hoping to rattle a poor bird when the elephant is still sitting by our side with a smile? What makes us ignore him….Fear to deal with issues sometimes leading to the denial of their existence. Or ego wherein we know they exist, we know they must be addressed, but it hurts our ego to be making that explicit effort for whatever reason.

The problems that I see existing in such communication are…

Pretending that a problem doesn’t exist when it does…This is not helping anyone. Problems just don’t go away or resolve themselves. Inaction is not a solution though it’s often an easier option. The perception that there is no real necessity to fix something that’s not totally broken and need driven band aids can help keep things together needs to change.

Subtlety is a bigger devil than inaction. A conversation with subtexts hints at something, but these hints are perceived differently by different people and can be completely and totally misinterpreted. With people we love, we push ego’s aside and reach out to resolve the differences, we reach out in case they don’t and we explain till they understand. The underlying value of the relationship is much more than the assumed correctness of our opinion. But in relationships where that trust and understanding remains to be established, the challenges come in, ego plays a bigger role and things are further muddied by subtlety. A complex implied and subtle communication with subtexts flying around needs to be correctly interpreted and addressed.

Don’t let the elephant stay in for too long….he then becomes like family…its harder to show him the door. He’s now become so much a part of the conversation that we feel downright guilty to even get rid of him.

Our huge companions need an audience. We have a small room and the only way they are going out and giving us back the space is if they are addressed. Be it professional or personal conversations, sad attention seeking elephants in the room cannot help us move ahead or decide anything sensibly.

So the next time there is an elephant in the room, in the conversation…show him some respect…Address him if u need to set things straight.

Aeeeeiooooo !!!!

2011-11-08T11:17:00.000-08:00

Right after college with a lot of time to spare, I found myself getting a membership to British Council…The pretext and intent was to browse for grad school info, SOP tips, resume tips and also have some step-out-of-home time.. I would come down there every day, hang in till around lunch and then get back home….Not completely sure of what my purpose was but to kill time…That’s where I met M……M brought her 5 yr old son Vinay every day and studied while he got busy with his books. A cute little child with a wink and a naughty smile ....his little eyes spoke for themselves, he was a handful. As adorable as I found him, I now understand why M was so exasperated. Being a mom is always different. Vinu’s company was the most welcome distraction for me and M was always more than relieved to see me. So it worked both ways. My British Council visits increased for no technical reason whatsoever. I just enjoyed being there. It was a bubble to escape into, distract me from what’s ahead in my own life and my own little confusions….

A month of these library trysts later, Vinay and I are busy picking the next story book to read...when suddenly Vinay says “I love you”…My jaw drops and I am looking at the cutest being ever that has said that to me …and he smiled and continued with his books....so matter of fact like nothing just happened :)!! Guys..i tell u…even these tiny ones have no idea of how they let ur heart flutter :)…M’s parents came to Chennai to help her out in the next few months, her British council visits stopped…and I lost interest in going to the library myself…

It’s been several years …I email M once in a while and she has managed to set herself on a great career……and Vinu has forgotten me and moved on to the real things in life …And I miss those times….those library visits.. :D!....But isn’t that life !!

The last couple of weeks have been pensive, thoughtful and difficult for several reasons…The one person I can call anytime and bother has also been busy with his studies….and I have busied myself with sketching…..to escape into a bubble again…

Then on Monday, my nanny called in sick and I had a super active toddler with a cold, lots of work to finish and not the best of spirits to handle. One at a time …one at a time …I tell myself as I finish work, chase him down for each meal, put him to sleep, reply to emails, finish the action items….and I felt overwhelmed…

Towards late evening he was tired, I was tired …All the skype calls for the day were over…We settle in quietly and talking tom gives us company…One thing leads to another and Abhi and I are on a giggle train…I am hugging him, swinging him, kissing him ..and I said “I love uuuuu”…and we chase each other around the couch for the next 5 minutes. Then suddenly Abhi is looking at me with his sweet few toothed grin and says…”Aeeeeiooooo”…It was the most beautiful moment….Most endearing…

My lil son just told me his first “I love you”…i think :) ..Dear dear crazy world, I am ready for you again!!

Tech-plosion!

2011-09-26T18:07:00.001-07:00

Have you grown up feeling annoyed when your grandparents or parents comment on how things were in those days as opposed to now? Many a day have I gotten mad at my mom for making an ‘unjust’ comparison of things when she started out as “andha kaaluthala” (translated to: in those years).

But…………………………….

Is it just me or did we just explode into a new universe…

Reminiscing through my childhood, didn’t we look forward to the Disney cartoons on Sunday morning and weren’t we excited when TV opened up He-Man, Shazam, Glo worms and Tom&Jerry. Giant Robot was the coolest thing ever and StreetHawk was super uber-cool. Cable TV was strictly prohibited till we got into college. So I did live off Doordarshan and Channel 2 was by itself a bonus. Chitrahaar and Super Hit Muquabla was our music destination and our cassette collection was the treasured hobby. Now we are bombarded with a plethora of options, 24 hour cartoon channels, unlimited music downloads, online, streaming blah blah blah..and we need google and bing to help us through the options. We have tons of remotes to keep track of and tons of buttons in them that justify an extra thick manual. BTW, everything comes with a manual these days, even my son’s toy telephone. When Abhi was born, B commented on how a ‘user-guide’ would be handy. That’s us geeky confused new parents for you folks! Anyways I digress….Technology rubs on everyone.. My mom was super thrilled to watch her Zee soaps on DVR where she could rewind and hear the dialogues without missing them. B’s ears were up in smoke as he lost out his ‘24’ slot to the re-runs of ‘Pavitra Rishta’ but nevertheless. Technology has its pros and cons :)!!

My first home computer which was seen as an extravagant purchase by a seemingly money-indifferent younger generation justified only and only by the fact it was being used for my GRE preparation. Having a 20GB Pentium 2 processor was a huge step (BTW, I think the P2 had the shortest life span in the market and was the in-thing at that narrow moment of time). I had to make sure a technical looking screen was always up and my skills at Alt-Tab were good to make sure my dad was convinced that the computer was being put to ‘good use’. We also had rationed hours on the computer. ”Romba use panna kettu poidum” (Loosely translated: It will go bad if used for too long). Same was stated for the telephone. I would place my electronics and communications books and swear on the education I received that the telephone wouldn’t wear out with longer hours of talking..:)..No..i am just kidding, my parents knew that, it was more of discipline thing for them. My friends knew these and stuck to me in thick and thin even with no talking :D.I love you all :D! Anyways I won’t generalize. I was brought up in a stricter home with more rules than average. …But in hindsight, I would have a liked a cell phone then, it would have certainly been handy :)…but those were ‘those days’.

I didn’t have my first cell phone till I started looking for jobs in grad school. Bought one of those free after rebate ‘bricks’ which btw has stood the test of time …Brick it is ..solid and strong even now..Drop it, dunk it in water..it still works ;)! I educated myself on the coolness of Iphones and ‘smart’phones from the younger kids back home when I visited India.

Much as I was aware of a constant generational shift, my prof in grad school once calls me home for dinner and in a conversation with his wife, I slip on my own ice. She told me she didn’t have a cell phone even then and I opened my mouth wide enough for the world to be seen and quipped “what would you do if you car breaks down in a highway, how do u manage without a cell phone”. “How did we manage, all these years, when there were no cell phones?” she quipped, jamming my mouth shut and went to explain those blue pillars that I never bothered to look closely were call phones on the highway.

Tech Industry creates luxuries, makes us believe that we can’t live without them and eventually we all need them. Oh yes, they make life a lot simpler for us. Being right in the tech world, I support their noble objective “Necessity is not the mother of invention…Invention is the grandmother of necessity”. All of us have fallen in love with the change. B handed the Iphone to an endlessly-crying son as a new dad and looked up and said “God bless Technology” when that calmed him down instantly.

Yes, God bless technology indeed. I couldn’t have imagined so much information being available right in my lap in my early school years. I went over endless magazines collecting info and scrapbooking aspiring to be an interior designer some day. Well, that didn’t happen, but I can’t imagine submitting even a half decent thesis if it involved tearing down a library searching for information instead of googling it.

This information explosion also results in greater awareness as the generations’ progress and greater comfort with the increased awareness. Which may be good or bad..i don’t know! Right out of a college…I went to a particularly queasy movie with my friend, her sister and her sister’s college friends. I ended up watching the movie feeling more uneasy and squeamish than the kid sister and her friends all 4-5 years younger than me. I also realized these kids were way smarter than I was at their age. They all planned their future much more than I did and understood the choices in front of them. Thanks to the wealth of information available right in front of them, they didn’t jump and hope to land on their feet :)! Anyways we never stop learning, even if it’s from people younger than us!!!
In our parent’s eyes, we also sometimes fell as overconfident, confused kids with an attitude. My dad was a bit confused when two colleagues of mine from an Indian company where I briefly worked came home and discussed in detail on the x-figure salary that they so much deserved 6 months after college. To him, it took years to get there…’Appa, its all bcos of conversion currency, Suddenly our salaries look to have scaled much more’ I mention, as he pulls me aside. Anyways, I do think our perceptions have gotten modified a bit too in the process and our parents do find us insensitive to their spending habits. When parents come over and quiz you on how much you pay for produce (not as a whole, each one of them I mean), it threw light on my ignorance. It’s a card driven world, so much that it’s impossible to find a single men’s wallet that has room for change.

I love how dads and grand-dads have upgraded themselves to Mac and get into the Mac-PC debates. The Kindled grand-dads reading ‘Ponniyin Selvan’ off their recent handheld reader win my admiration. They have transitioned gracefully into this whole new cyber driven world. What could be more classic than the grocer (read maligai kadai karan) next to my home promoting his new online website for door-delivery and how I can go on a ‘church-engine’ to find it!! Honestly, I was more amazed than amused. But that’s a classic exhibit of how far we have come.

My son has held an Iphone since he was 3 months old. He has since then used it as a teether, a white noise machine, a music system, he has made calls to several people (including Amex and a recent one to my boss) and he has figured his way around with the apps… and I wonder if I am going to tell him a story one day “Once upon a time, when there was no internet….”..There shall be times when I am appalled at what he says and have the urge to go “Andha kaalathula….”

Amma shall be laughing out loud somewhere in my head when I do so!! Life comes a full circle!

Ahh Damn!!! I am growing old :(!

Wo’Me’n and Machines!

2011-07-26T11:13:00.001-07:00

Machines and I have had a love-hate relationship. I love how they run my life making it so much easier for me. I hate feeling helpless when they let me down. My friend and I once tried to repair a wet grinder, the motivation being home-made-dosas-on-a-budget. We ended up with a couple of bruises and scratches plus a dented grinder. Not to mention the urad dal missiles that fired around while testing it. I keep writing a note to self “Don’t even try things you are not good at” …but again, maybe I should get it tattooed in my hand or something, so that I remember.

Is this something fundamental in women…or is it just me :)…No offense at all, if you are one of those girls that figured these things out, I downright admire you, want to be you…it’s just probably going to take me more than just effort to get there. I initially got admitted into Mechanical Engineering…And am thanking the heavens that I switched into Electronics eventually. Would I have failed as a mechanical engineer, or would I have battled and survived it is one of those questions that will never get answered. I was never the girly-girl sorts who can’t stand a little grease on their hands. I think most girls with a brother don’t end up being that. I wasn’t the tomboy types either. I can hold a spanner or a hammer and even do a decent job with some assembly stuff…But there it ends…When it comes to actual machines, vehicles I have a brain-freeze. My problem hasn’t been so much with my outlook to doing these things as much as it’s about my ability to do it. Hence it’s my perception that there is some built in gender superiority when it comes to having the “iron-thumb” as I call it.

My dad is an engineer and he is one of the most hands on person that I know. Though a mechanical engineer by profession, he would try to fix every electrical and even electronic issue we had at home. I grew up helping him fix fans, fix the bore well, even try fixing the TV and spent hours listening to him talk about engines. Lots of times, it would whoosh over my head, but I would just listen. When he served at the IAF, he made sure that the fighter jets and helicopters were cleared for flying. He looks at the stuff that I do, and he thinks it’s cool..I think what he did was far cooler, interesting and challenging.

My brother got those genes…I missed them. My brother and I opened up the tape recorder as kids. After putting it back together, he slipped the seemingly “extra screws and random stuff” into his pocket. I would eye that tape recorder suspiciously after that wondering when it would break. He would always be so confident that it will still work while I was amazed it was still working. It’s all perspective I think.

My son has got his grand-dad’s genes for sure. I was busy fixing the shelves at home and he sprinted and grabbed the pencil lying on the floor and stuffed it into every hole in the wooden plank and started turning it around. He seemed to enjoy it so much! Grand-dad will be so proud!

As for me, I think that part of my brain didn’t develop much. I worked in a university fab with these huge furnaces and stations and would feel so insecure when something broke down. My Russian friend and lab mate used to say “Priya, just learn how to pull apart a car and put it together, you will learn anything”…I was totally awed and intimidated..Again this was not a guy who said that to sound cool. I have actually seen him work with his old car and with the furnaces that broke down in the lab. I would most intently slurp into my coke in the hope of catching a few extra minutes to think anything even remotely intelligent to say when he asked me questions as we(he) fixed the things.

So why suddenly am I thinking about this…. I was talking to my neighbor and he is thinking of buying a plane. OK, not even just that. “You can get a kit for a single seater private plane for 20 grand and you can build it”...he tells me. My mouth still wide open…, “Where will you park it” I ask like a meek kid. “At the Hangar of course”, he quips and I feel silly for even asking. I just couldn’t resist having the mental image of my accord parked next to a plane :) !! And he is taking pilot training now. And he is that absolutely down to earth and simple software engineer who is pursuing his passion. I instantly admired him for that. Fixing a plane from a kit….really!!!! ..And having the guts to sit inside it and fly it requires both competence and confidence.

After that conversation, I went home inspired to fix Abhi’s orange-berry toy. He loved it till it worked and now sits by it and presses the buttons hoping to hear something. I feel sad for him. If my neighbor can build a plane, I can repair Abhi’s toy. I will start with small baby steps and one day will get better :) ! So I get to it. Brought my tool kit and readied myself for the project…

B always tells me I pull a bazooka at a mosquito..He says that for different reasons. But now it sounded so appropriate. Huge tools, little toy, focused mom, anxious son, amused grand-dad.

After 2 hours of meddling around..with constant running commentary from appa of-course..Abhi came and patted the toy gently and sympathetically, pressed its buttons and looked at me…the verdict was out…

I try not to fall bang in the middle of such clichés but honestly for me, it’s like having two left feet and trying to dance. Pulled out my scribble pad from the handbag and started writing “To buy: Onions, cilantro, milk, new blackberry toy for Abhi!!”

Every artichoke has a tender heart

2011-07-11T19:24:00.000-07:00

I have never had an artichoke till now..At the grocers, I have looked at it and wondered what to even make of it and put it back right where it belonged…the shelves. I don’t know of any Indian cooking that uses it..I am no expert..but having seen both my mom and my mom-in-law giving it a suspicious stare, I am sure they weren’t acquainted either..

So a friend of mine comes in with a suggestion. ”Let’s make an artichoke custard"..Custard ??!!? My eyes pop out.. :S !!.I have taken risks in life..But this is one I really wouldn’t want to...I just blurted out a few minutes earlier to her, that I am open to exploring new cuisines to get Abhi interested in food and wished so much now that I could have taped my mouth shut. She leaves the bag of artichokes at my counter and steps out with my son.

I eye this curious vegetable (or fruit ??!!? I thought we made custard with fruits!). It looked so prickly and harsh... Custard really!! With you?? I make nice warm paneer paratas for Abhi and he doesn’t seem to get interested in food...And we are going try to make artichoke custard to get him excited. It just seems soooo wrong!

The afternoon tryst with the artichoke was something to remember. So it was me, my friend and our little sous-chef trying to make artichoke custard. Abhi was interested in playing with this curious vegetable. He liked to hold it with the stem and bang it on the fridge door. Was he thinking "If I could just smash you, then these two women would spare me from eating u" ..My dad comes by the kitchen and I hear him murmur to himself "Custard? Custard?" in disbelief as he steps out ...A few min later, he comes back...”U are making this only for kuzhandhai right? “looking very concerned...And then he tells me, "I feel like taking a long walk" and walks out of the door. Lucky You!! Appa…

I looked at this abandoned vegetable (I am still trying to wrap my head around how to drop u in custard)...but nevertheless I am more sympathetic now. A friend calls in and while in conversation reminds me of my last post on how I should give the imperfect thing a chance, laughs out loud and hangs up....What timing...Me and my big mouth I think!! This is why I shouldn’t be writing philosophy!! This is y I shouldn’t be writing at all...

Then it gets even better, she pulls out a spinach bunch...And I am pretending to make something good with it hoping to distract her from her “main dish”. She goes “Nooo, this is for the custard”…Huuunhh!!??!! First it was artichoke and then its spinach and we are making custard ?! ? By now I am almost at her feet begging “I will make amends for any mistake of mine…Why ….why are we doing this..and why abhi…poor little thing, what did he do, cant u see his innocent little face ” …Its almost like she read my mind. “Priya, don’t worry, it’s made with salt not sugar” and she smiled at me like my main concern was addressed. “Why do we call it custard?”..I innocently ask..; “A custard doesn’t have to be sweet..You have savory custards, it’s like a quiche and we shall bake it” she quipped.

What’s in a name...u may ask..A name is everything. A name is an identity and if your identity just got switched a 180o, then it’s not a good thing. Thou shalt not be a custard to me ….In my mind, a custard has fruits and is not baked…Thou shalt never be custard to me.. Thou shalt be a quiche….And I closed my heart and moved on..We dropped in butter, cheese, eggs, nutmeg, and spinach. Then we were going through the motions of peeling off the leaves in the artichoke and fuddled with the soft and squishy inside when my friend mentions “Every artichoke has a tender heart…Its almost like a person…rough on the exterior, soft inside”. A giggle slipped out of me …the kitchen is such a great place for philosophy…if only we didn’t have to eat all of them.

So what happened at last….Yes, a spinach-artichoke-cheese-quiche came out of the oven..I couldn’t tell where the artichoke was..It was like me searching for the ladys-finger in the tiramisu. It wasn’t bad, but it wouldn’t find its way into my favorite dishes either …Abhi couldn’t care less..he bit into it, squished it with his hand and rubbed it all over the high chair and was ready to play. My dad was so relieved that no one forced him to eat it and passed on an empathetic stare to Abhi. It was a funny evening in hind sight and I learnt something. That custard is not always sweet and an artichoke is like a person – hard on the outside, with a tender heart inside. And I shall not make fun of it ever again…In this post, yes !! but no …never again :)

Give me a chance!

2011-07-09T10:36:00.000-07:00

Have you ever felt that you didn’t get that one chance to prove it to someone you were worth it...?

A couple of weeks ago I was at my wits end with getting my son to adjust to his daycare. The inconsolable crying broke me, but I tried being strong. I would walk out trying not to look back, drive an extra loop to calm myself down, tell myself it will all work out and pull into work. But then he fell sick all the time and I was done with long doses of antibiotics one after another. I had to pull him out every time he fell sick. And getting any work done with a crying sick child was impossible. I was in a new job and there is not too much room for slack. I needed a solution….I started a nanny search again, interviewed people ..but nothing really worked out. It’s hard to hire someone to take care of this little person u love so much by just pruning through the paper resumes. Some of the best sounding resumes were just examples of good writing abilities….

Then I found this girl...She didnt have a strong resume, but she had a unique circumstance, and she connected so well with him. She didn’t come with the pre-requisites I had in mind for the ideal person. B & I talked to her and just as much as we liked her at the outset, we had an equal sense of apprehension again because of her unique story and how different she was from what we sought. There appeared to be something genuine and sincere about what she said, but I really couldn’t put a finger on what that was. It was a decision that was left to me. Everyone decided to trust my judgment, while I didn’t. My instinct asked me to go with her, my head wouldn’t agree with the decision. There was fear that it would be the wrong decision for me, for my little love. But as much as I wanted to judge and evaluate her, I also wanted for her to succeed.

If we could decide everything for ourselves with just logic and reason, life would be so much simpler, so much more robotic and more predictable. But its when the heart rules the head, life is spontaneous. Yes, to all the men from Mars ..I am one of those women from Venus and happy being that way. I was born with brains and I do use them...but it just doesnt win every battle. :). After several hours of brooding over the next couple of days, i decided to give her a chance. It was purely a decision based on my instinct.

Now, she is trying hard..harder than usual to keep me happy. More important than anything else, my little baby feels happy with her. She expresses her gratitude in several ways everyday for giving her a chance. And that gets me thinking about the people that have given a chance, an opportunity at several points when I probably wasn’t shining at my best and how I continue to walk that extra mile for them...and of the times when i missed that one chance that I really wanted so much. Whatever be the context, giving someone a chance is a risk you take for yourself or your firm or whatever it is that they have control over. And it may not always work out, but sometimes I think we should also set aside our impulse to seek out that perfect and ideal solution for us and give the seemingly imperfect solution a shot. It might teach us something and that lesson is worth it.

Don’t get me wrong…I am not advocating going with impulsive decisions, but sometimes and just once in awhile, we have to give someone who doesn’t present that perfect picture, a chance...and who knows, we may be pleasantly surprised at how happy we would be with it.

The tiny sapling that finds its way out of a concrete floor is the chance that nature gives it to live...

I may be wrong...don’t take me seriously if you think differently….This is just a random scribble on the wall :)

Baby steps into the unknown…

2010-11-04T15:21:00.000-07:00

After a year I decided to clean up…dust the cobwebs, wipe the wall clean and scribble again…What a year it has been …:)!!!...

I was staying at one of the nicest cities around, B & me working in the same firm and could sometimes go home from office for a nice lunch faster than we could get to restaurants. Wonderful set of friends and SD was home sweet home… Life was peaceful and the sailing was smooth and we decided to change it :D!!..Toss in a B school, a baby, moving to a much colder city, much smaller place and to ice it all up, look for another job ….and some salt to taste....and this went from a warm soup to a cold sandwich. We are definitely out of the comfort zone…And hoping that it teaches us something important to carry forward…

A friend once told me a couple of years back…’I would never do three changes simultaneously…a new city, new job and new man in your life’….Months later, I did it and …here I am doing it for the second time around…new city, a new job search, a brand new little man in my life…

It’s been an interesting phase ..There is just so much happening that I constantly feel am running to catch up. So many changes that there is no frame of reference…I feel challenged and overwhelmed.. There’s B’s 3 lil words that come to rescue…nah…not those…but ‘Keep the faith’…and those of’course……I am taking baby steps into the unknown and so is my son…And truth be told, he is handling it far better than I am :)

Motherhood is teaching me so many things, some new and some things about myself. Life has changed….My little boy is teaching me persistence and resilience..He keeps trying everything non stop…Hes so fascinated by the world around him that I am giving the old polythene bag that keeps giggling at some second thoughts… Its teaching me to remove myself from the picture..As finicky as I could get about how things should be set around the home, my lil boy is in charge now…So my espresso coordinated room took a drastic dive to all colors with my boy’s wet stamp of approval all around!! B & I break each other’s records in time to change a diaper (And Yes, Of course I have the lead). Folks yet to be parents – this is info us rookies weren’t privy to …diapering needs to get done in single digit seconds..esp when ur boy learns to roll over, ur disaster radius just spread multi fold. And if u don’t like wet and dirty…u have a big problem..buy/rent a home that can be hosed down! Of course, with an indoor laundry……Moving from in-door laundry to a building laundry is a huge change esp if u have a baby…I am squandering and scavenging quarters all the time… And my handbag hasn’t jiggled away so loudly for a long time..But after the endless cleaning up after, his innocent smile is more than a reward. And lastly I have become one of those women who cant stop talking about ‘him’.

I am auditing some courses and get to school and can’t tell u how apart these two worlds are. Do u remember the last time u looked at a colony of ants and wondered why they keep bumping into each other and they move around business like….B School is like that. There is so much of an urgency to meet and know as many people within the shortest time frame that it almost looks robotic..Time is premium and there is a whole lot to accomplish…. There is no room for waiting… That’s a familiar world and I used to live like that…Of course I didn’t attend B school, but aren’t we all geared up to believe that we can plan every minute of our day and accomplish what we wanted if we just put our minds to it. As I get back home, the other world reminds me of the truth that no matter how much u try, u also need to learn to wait …wait patiently for things to turn around. I wait patiently for my son to willingly open his mouth for the next spoonful as rushing doesn’t work and being on a timetable doesn’t work. I walk him up and down till he falls asleep on my shoulder. And that is so true of life that, you can persevere, but you need a lot of patience to pull through the real tests in life, a lot of years for dreams to fulfill, a lot of years for prayers to get answered, a lot of years for true love to win….Life’s first lesson is patience and there is no timetable and my little son is teaching me that :).

This new phase is also giving me time to reflect on several things…on myself, my relationships, my strengths and my weaknesses…While I am trying to figure my present and future all together, I have decided that writing probably would help me fit the puzzle together.

A Box of chocolates and a bag of nuts ….

2009-09-02T16:25:00.000-07:00

Mama says "life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get." ~ Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump

A couple of years in the corporate world opens your eyes to a potpourri of people. While you could meet them anywhere, work is where you spend most of your weekdays and you need to co-exist with people who can be very very different.

While some are like the box of chocolates.. some that inspire you, some who you love working with, some that end up being great friends at work and some even outside of work.....

…and there are a whole bunch of others you just observe, who amuse you or annoy you…..

Presenting exhibits A through Q….the bag of nuts, some sweet, some spicy and some absolutely nutty...

A) The Echo Generator: The guy who wishes to drive and have control of every discussion thread, but drives you crazy by just agreeing and repeating exactly what you said, right after you did. Dude, if you do want to summarize the discussion every 2 min – you should paraphrase...do not repeat verbatim….His motto: Reinforcing a thought is a good idea and most probably people werent listening the first time it was said.

B) The Attention Hogger: You will see him in as many meetings as there can possibly be. He loves sending emails around that you wonder where he finds time to actually work. Its all about visibility. His motto: The more time you spend in reporting on what you are doing, the less time you have to do anything. Stability is achieved when you spend all your time doing nothing but reporting on the nothing you are doing.~ Cohn's Law

C) The Saint: He sits in a corner. A deep intellectual…No amount of commotion tends to faze him a bit. He won’t bat an eyelid and you would think he has given up on his work. He lives the Zen way of life. And absolute disaster has to strike for him to come and speak and he can stun you. His philosophy: When the student is ready, the master appears. ~Buddhist Proverb

D) The Gossiper: The one with the entire scoop. Your easiest point of access to the local newsroom. Your one point window to all professional gossip. His motto: Gossip needn't be false to be evil - there's a lot of truth that shouldn't be passed around. ~Frank A. Clark

E) The Midas: His touch is definitely magical but not so necessarily golden. He complains that somehow things never work for him, while they work for everyone else. His touch is his destiny...His thought: From error to error, one discovers the entire truth ~ Sigmund Freud.

F) The Complainer/Whiner: After a point, what he speaks is like white noise..You have heard it over and over again..About how he has an unfair share of burden to carry, how his tools don’t work when they need to…His philosophy: Every Morning, I rise and whine.

G) The Over eager Newcomer: This one is like Aladdin’s Genie…. And is definitely a blessing if he is working with you on something. He keeps working non stop till he gets burnt out (You don’t even have to rub the lamp and ask for a wish)…Completely bubbl-acious with excitement he sometimes works too hard that he makes everyone else look bad.

H) The Invisible one: You see him now, and a second later he is gone. He has telepathic abilities to sense if a load of work is coming his way. You wonder if he actually has a cloak that will render him invisible in the middle of the meeting… His philosophy: Hi, I'm not available right now but my answering machine is, so you can talk to it instead. Wait for the beep.

I) The Blamestormer: You would think he’s thinking more of his back up blame strategy than his actual task. He begins and ends with a defensive note. He truly lives by his philosophy “To err is human, To find the right person to blame for it is strategic”

J) The Life balancer: The one who makes you understand what you are missing while working hard. He teaches you the importance of seeking out your hobbies, having an active life. His philosophy: His motto: A job is nice but it interferes with my life.

K) The Orator Coordinator: He gets to talk his way through his job. His job is to make people work which he disrupts by talking to them in the name of coordinating. His philosophy: “Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say.” (Marketing executive, Citrix Corporation)

L) The Stalker: Before you can complete reading his email on what he would like your help with, he has sent 3 follow up emails, buzzed you on messenger, left you a voice messages and is at your door. Worst part, the stuff isnt even urgent. He wants to know if there any issues in getting this done…Biggest issue – YOU…Go back to your office and it will get done.

M) The Olfactory Offender: You would love to group gift him a box of socks and perfume. But who shall bell the cat ?. His Motto: None…I hope he thinks….

N) The Sick One: Ohh…he is not really sick..He’s mastered a bunch of high sounding medical terminology. And if you did ask him what happened, he can blow your brains away with the details. He knows what can cover for a day or a weeks absence…Never mind that he doesn’t miss his tennis sessions, his gym or his late evening bar dates. His motto: I always arrive late to work, but I make up for it by leaving early.

O) The Drama Queen/King: If all the world is a stage and we are all actors, this guy did take that way too seriously. Life is often much simpler than the tele-serials. Disaster Scenario’s are all he thinks about. His dictionary has only superlatives… His ideology: “We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”- Kurt Vonnegut

P) The Martyr: This one makes you feel like he wants the Param-Veer-Chakra or something…You end up hearing over and over again as to how he put himself in the firing line , solved the problems (that quite a few times he had created !!) and saved everyone of the incurring the wrath. Sometimes that whole jig was a result of a completely unnecessary creation of his and all that was required was to involve the members working on the details offer a much clearer explanation of why certain actions were taken.

And finally …

Q) The Boss Figure: His philosophy: What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will encounter. ~Lykes Lines Shipping

I had a colleague who told me once that the corporate life was a huge chess game, there are no friends….there are just games and one should learn to start playing them. While I don’t agree with that thought entirely, I can agree to the point that there are people playing games, and you need to be a little more aware of the strategies they have than just work your butt off and expect due returns.

At the end of the day, it’s no longer a simple story of the ant and the grasshopper. But at least you have a bunch of chocolates around to help you pull through…..

That stranger is an old friend…

2009-08-27T17:12:00.001-07:00

I was talking to a R this week and somewhere during the conversation I just thought off how long I had known her…..and it was a whopping 24 years that we had been friends…

That thought triggered two reactions….

Really…Have I grown that old …and

Wow, I know her almost as long as I can remember…The only people who have known me for longer are my parents and my brother…

While some friendships sustain themselves through years (Touchwood and Hugs to you R), that brings me to writing about some that sadly don’t….

Sometimes it takes just a few conversations or a few weeks for someone to become one of your best friends. Some people endear themselves to you the moment you meet them.. Some friendships grow through knowing and understanding a person with time. Some have even come about when I read their blogs and saw a side to that person I dint realize existed.

And then….

Sometimes with time and distance, things change drastically and for no particular reason. You see yourself drifting farther away and suddenly he/she feels a lot different from the friend you had known... You hesitate to call that person, you used to pour out your thoughts to, who would be the first one to know you’re excited or sad about anything, who you wait to call and talk to, whose phone number and bday you can never quite forget ….And eventually that feels quite normal. You have a new friend who has stepped into those shoes and life goes on…

Why do some relationships change….What can make friends un-friend themselves…And when distance and time was all that was needed to change the chemistry, why do I miss that friend ?

Friends are a part of your memories of your childhood, your teens and your adult life….When we look back on the memories, it feels incomplete if that the face that smiled once in it, doesn’t smile anymore. Sometimes it feels weird to the point that you try to block off the memory of that period.

I don’t think friendships die. I don’t think we can suddenly stop caring about someone we cared about. And a friendship can’t reduce to nothingness for no reason. When our lives can get as different as they do, with some people you always know that they are really just a call away and you can pick up your conversation right where you left even if was a couple of years back.

With some there’s a lot more effort needed to sustain a friendship and with time I have realized, it is not something one can accomplish alone. It needs two minds to work together on getting back. When one individual doesn’t quite share the same memory you have cherished, it becomes difficult and next to impossible to get the weirdness out of the system. And eventually you have to move on to say..”That stranger is an old friend”…..

A blast from the past ….

2009-08-27T10:28:00.000-07:00

Stumbled onto this song, thanks to M…One of my favorites, A great song, beautiful lyrics, No stereotype dance sequences with uniformed extras, simple yet beautiful picturization....

Whats in a name?....

2009-07-20T17:04:00.000-07:00

A week of making phone calls, making appointments, cancelling some, verifying some charges, creating some new accounts…, all of which got me to the familiar ordeal…

Voice on the other end of the phone: May I have your full name
Me: It is PR……., Should I spell that out for you…
Voice..: (sounding particularly tired and annoyed at the length of it ..) : yes Please …
Me: P as in Paul, R as in……, (thinking: With 19 letters in my full name, it’s a total alphabet soup…My parents could have taught me ABCD with just this….)

I empathize with the “Anan”’s of the world (the Narayanan’s if you don’t know what I mean)….because I too have the a’s generously spilt around in my name and frequently hear the other person..”Ohhhh..thats another ‘a’.., I thought u were just repeating the first one..”

Duh !!…She spaced out before I could complete spelling out my name…

Is it because Indian kids are exposed to these long names that they are good at spelling bee…

Nevertheless moving on, I married someone who could understand my plight…as he battled not only with a long surname but had a middle name too…And u guessed it right…he knew the plight of an “anan”…

How many folks have their last name truncated by expedia bcos of a word limit on the field…

When my parents decided to christen me with a Sanskrit name, they prided themselves for their meaningful pick. The journey, then on has been interesting…

Despite not being a totally uncommon name, I have never personally known someone with the same name. Through school, my friends caught on to the ‘vada’ in my name …due to their fondness for the south indian savoury delight, my name transformed with dahi and sambhar to their taste. An extra ‘h’ would have saved my name from that, but my dear mother preferred to hold on to the grammatical correctness of “it’s the first dha, not the second, and that singularly would transform the meaning of my name from ‘one who speaks with affection’ to ‘one who kills with affection’ ”..Hence in the greater interest, the ‘h’ was never inserted.

Undergrad saw some Profs struggle with my name and me standing up waiting for them to finish reading it, whilst being a curious exhibit fielding stares from fellow classmates. Relief crept in finally when they ended their struggle and called me ‘37’ instead. My name definitely wasn’t he longest around. The struggle to an unfamiliar soul though was how to pronounce the M followed by VA without sounding like a kitten. I shortened my name in Grad school to save myself and others of the agony. But it didn’t end there …

I chose a Starbucks name after my coffee cup came out being marked “BIRA”..That day I christened myself Ria for the restaurant world.

My world is filled with news of newborns now and I notice that 6 letters seems to the longest a name can get….And given that limitation, the names tend to repeat more often. Theres only so much you can do to get a meaningful name that’s not way too common within 6 letters.

And I am thinking, as names get shorter and shorter…we may end up with abbreviations for names, or will we get as tired as the guy who named a road Zzyzx on the way to Vegas.

Somewhere over the rainbow…..

2009-05-17T18:59:00.000-07:00

It sucks !!...Two people very dear to me are going through troubled times and much as I want to help them, there’s nothing I can do but offer a shoulder to lean on and promise to listen. I wish God shows them brighter days soon! Their circle of life seems just stuck at one point for too long…. :(…

And when you are down in dumps that you can’t do anything about, there is not much faith or positive energy you can summon. Your belief system breaks down into cynicism and frustration. And there is a question “Why?” that howers around.

I have no answers, but I still believe that things will be OK, even when u strain your eyes to look for that silver lining and seem to find none. I don’t believe in miracles, but I believe things have a way of happening that you can’t explain at the moment, but seem to fit in a bigger picture that we see much later.

In prayer….

10 min of Spam Face

2009-05-11T11:24:00.000-07:00

My morning coffee time ritual of deleting spam messages got me thinking into what kind of person I would be if I were my spam face.

First off, I will save thousands and no one will know. Someone will help me do that.
I will get 70% off discounts on several stuff which I would never want.
Someone wants to mail me free trial weight loss capsules.
Dozen emails need my attention or my urgent answer.
Several others tell me I have made a payment or to check on an invoice status or my payment was rejected.
Some prod me to go get an online degree in minutes
Some get me gender confused.
Some tell me all my worries are over …

Some obviously think I love watches.

I am this insecure person who sends myself emails..
And I have 90% discount on ordering Acai berry supplements.

Spam Face obviously has a dozen people in her/his (?!?) life to help her solve all worries, get killer deal discounts and degrees with least effort. And also has financial issues with payments getting rejected and unauthorized payments being made.

I am happy I get to be spam face only for the few minutes I spend deleting her emails.

De-Clutter....aka Domestic Dieting !!

2009-05-05T20:04:00.002-07:00

The last month has been a roller coaster by itself...my first promotion, thinking of paati, having lots of visitors, signing up for a 3K walk and trying to get others hooked to it, accepting the fact that B’s iphone shall become an official member of the family ...and we were too occupied in it all that we forgot that our lease expired. After paying an unneccessary extra month-to-month fee, we finally signed the lease again….Mostly due to the nightmarish feel a move would give us. That tied with the amount of stuff we've managed to accumulate over the last 2 years...

Rewind to March 2007.., we moved into this place 4 months after our wedding. It was a nice apartment..Nothing ultra-cool about it, but was a welcome change with so many windows after my last apartment. I like the fact that my patio gives me the "interesting" view of the parking lot which i prefer a lot more than a view into my neighbor’s kitchen. Also the number of windows and loads of light made me discover that i am a very photosensitive being whose cheer index is deeply wound to the amount of sunshine around. Thank God for this city!!...The fact that i have an obstruction less view of the moon from my room lent a special touch. And in the process of making this place our home, our favorite abode to return to after long trips, after tiring days at work...we ended up buying so much of stuff...

My earliest and undoubtedly easiest way to remove clutter was to stuff them all up in the cupboard and slam the door tight and shut...The avalanche that gets out when an unsuspecting victim (mostly my mother) opens the door is another story..

Since then, I have grown and matured..I have resorted to distributing my junk around into shelves, over the door hangers, beds and ottomans with storage; under the bed boxes...I obsess on furniture with extra storage. I seem to use every bit of them. We picked up this tall armoire from Ikea which seemed to be my dream to get all our clutter hidden in one location, safe and secure and from every one's sight. One slight miscalculation i made was to compare IKEA ceilings to my apartments’. After a pretty loud “aan-haan..I now get it” to a weary B who explained to me how the longest diagonal of this newly purchased cuboid was taller than our ceiling and hence even though the armoire as such was shorter, we cudnt assemble it down and lift it up..We assembled it vertically telling ourselves that we would never do this again..ever!!. But our weekend of weightlifting has so far paid back its price in full.

I am not exactly a conventional shopaholic…its just cool gizmo’s and spacesavers/organizers I seem to have an addiction for. The oxymoron that it may seem, the net result of it is that my home is cluttered with space savers that encourage u to buy more junk with the excuse that they shall still be easily organized and retrievable on the rainy day when I want to find a need for them.

But after one nailbiting experience searching for an important document, I resolved to change... having realized that the clutter in my room has direct correlation to the clutter in my mind. Hence the project Domestic dieting….

What followed on our path of self realization were numerous donations made to GoodWill. After a whirlwind of donations, the guy there started giving us this smile of familiarity that said "See u tomorrow"...

The next was the motto Go green, Go Electronic, and Go Minimalist…

And as is with real dieting, domestic dieting doesn’t work….atleast by itself.

We adopted a minimalist regime to see if our "accumalation tendencies" can be curbed. We cut short the 5 varieties of cereal we have to 2 (I couldnt get myself to eat the wheat bran stuff B does even if it means I would be much healthier)...cut down 5 pickle, 3 sauce combinations to one. We avoided stocking the 4 brands of tea we dont drink. I tried doing my grocery shopping on weekdays after work, so I would be too tired to overbuy. I am also going electronic on everything - winding up with the innumerable CDs I have that I have stopped playing thanks to the ipod era. We have a bunch of tech books in computer science which we plan to dump on B's poor sis for her only fault of having graduated with a degree in comp science. I resolved to get myself a new t-shirt only if throw two out. Net result, my colleague thinks I don’t have clothes now :( !!

This attempt to donate, sell and pawn off the stuff I have, has taught me that I am never going to be a minimalist. I still love cool gizmos…..I still like to mix things up a bit starting from cereals to placemats. So the next time I decide to move, I just plan to move to a place with a garage and lots of storage and I will stuff all my odds and ends there out of everyone’s sight…Childhood ways are hard to change.

Memories of an Angel...

2009-04-20T17:26:00.000-07:00

An angel left to become a star
Memories are all that are left behind..
Yet, while away you watch me on ..
So when i am in darkness, be a guiding light.

Every sweetness you embodied, ever so warm
In my every laugh and cry you joined..
With the wisdom of a teacher,with love of a friend
Every fault you did forgive, every kindness did remind.

You spread ur wings to cover us all...
You brought hearts together, that were distant to bind
Amidst any sadness, a happiness u did find
A heart far bigger than ur home, u always had..

A silver lining you always sought
Ushered beauty into life with an income so few
Cheer and smiles you had always brought
Despite much in life u had been through

I saw u sit and watch me become a bride.
Frail, weak and weary u had become
U watched me with all happiness and pride
Your legacy of strength, I shall hope to carry

Much was different from what you had prayed..
But full of hope and faith, u still stayed..
The sun had set, and will not rise tomorrow...
I look at the skies, and know u shall prevail..

I knew that this day would be seen
Yet bitter is the pill to swallow.
I have your memories to cherish and keep
Dearest paati, will always love u...

150 Things to Do Before You Turn Thirty

2009-03-17T21:37:00.000-07:00

My friend tagged me on this list. And though I guess this list was tailored for an american lifestyle, was glad that I had done a couple of things :)… Have 7 more months and a long way to go…

The rules are:
The things you have already done - make them bold.
Blue is for things that you are dying to do!

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and didn’t care who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Taken a midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theatre
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on a television news program as an “expert”
83. Gotten flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
98. Passed out cold
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking with the windows open – not exactly, but almost :)
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a TV game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for 30 hours in a 48 hour period
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. States
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad and The Odyssey
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone’s life

Dance like no one's watching...

2009-03-15T17:49:00.000-07:00

Most of us have been stuck in transit waiting for connecting trains, planes or buses and spent that time looking around us, observing people as they walk by, picked up a magazine that we dont typically don’t read, paid more attention to whats around. If so, why do we find it hard to apply it back to life.

Its been a week of serious conversations for me, mostly talking to my friends ‘stuck in transit’ in real life, some poised to move on to the next phase, some struggling with issues with the current and looking to hit a fast forward button, some regret missing out on something, wishing they had done things differently…

One of my dearest friends was caught up feeling miserable about the whole process of finding someone and getting married...One wants to switch her jobs badly because she is not happy with it, one is wondering why he left a good job and took up an MBA to graduate at a point when everything looks so bleak.

Somehow we are constantly in pursuit of something… As kids in high school we want to get past the boards and into good colleges. Then it’s about jobs, higher degrees, better jobs, finding the right person and getting married, wanting a home, kids and then we get so buried in our work and kids that we wait for them to get somewhere before we can take a break and do something we have always wanted to do. The present remains mostly an investment for our future, grading ourselves based on our progress..We are unhappy if we are stuck somewhere in this natural progression... To give a sense of the conversation with my friend….

Me: Its not about you…Take it easy, don’t bring it down on urself..
She: No, it’s got to be about me that I am still here; I am investing so much time and energy.

Its in our psyche that we have to be somewhere, have some goals all the time. If not, we are somehow not successful..If we constantly latch onto the next journey the moment we get to a destination ....then, when do we actually sit down and enjoy the present? Can we actually free our minds from the thought of ‘what next’..?Can we actually get a blank mind and soak it in today…live today to the fullest…

And then I read these lines…

"Work like you don't need money,

Love like you've never been hurt,

And dance like no one's watching."
--- Satchel Paige

This whole thought is fascinating and infectious….Could we detach ourselves from our expectation and fear that we might fall short of it – getting rewarded, getting loved back, getting a word of praise, and leave judgments aside and throw ourselves completely into something?

Work like you don’t need money….I wish I could do that :)….I really don’t have a hobby that would pay me anything but satisfaction. And we need to pay the bills ….But surely, one thing I have been missing is taking time out for in the recent years is my hobbies. Someone recently asked me what my hobbies were, and I had difficulty in putting my finger on one thing that I had actively pursued in the last 5 years…It was embarrassing and awkward….. But I had hobbies which I loved. I used to love sketching and painting, I danced for 10 straight years, I had a major liking for interior design that I almost studied it. Now my hobbies have degenerated into watching sitcoms, listening to music, window shopping and watching more sitcoms….The only worthwhile thing I have taken up more seriously of late is cooking. I have started to slow down and enjoying cooking instead of taking it as a task that I need to perfect. I have stopped relying on my 20 min rush recipes. I have started to observe the spices I use and the flavors they have, and have started to experiment with understanding (or so I believe!!). I bought myself a keyboard (casio) a year back in the hope that it will be my sweet diversion, my new hobby. I have yet to find time to take it as a serious pursuit…..

Hobbies make our life more fulfilling. Its something we enjoy, we don’t have any targets or expectations. Its our creative vent out and we can give ourselves as many chances we need to perfect it out, and there is no fear of failure (I don’t like the look on B’s face as I say this and cook…but never mind him…); Its working like you don’t need the money…

Love like you have never been hurt….If a past of hurt shadows ur emotion, you are just pulling back in defense. There should be no reservations in love, no preconditions, no fear. Don’t lock yourself up, Go with an open heart. Will I get hurt again; Yes, I may …but atleast I will know that I gave it my all. And there shall be no regrets.

And then there’s my favorite line..Dance like no one’s watching..
Observing young children teaches you one thing. They have no fear …of falling, of getting embarrassed, of trying new things. I have always had a hundred thoughts zipping in my head when I held a microphone and looked up at a room full of people. And yes, it took me blurting out “Good Evening everybody” a couple of times during bright early mornings and flashing a foolish giddy smile when I realize this and my many other bloopers to finally get comfortable standing over there.

Its that constant sense of “will I be able to keep this conversation interesting”, “will someone laugh if i told them a joke now”, “will I meet my own expectations” “Am I nervous and will it show” and “OMG, did everyone notice that I blurted something wrong”…….and It takes me a while before I get comfortable chattering away without watching (Sometimes, that hasn’t worked out so well…:) but still..). I have also learnt over the years that being able to laugh at ourselves is a skill that makes us feel less intimidated by the situation….So let go of inhibitions, don’t always seek approval, Dance away to express yourselves, like no one’s watching …. If someone see’s you falling flat on ur face, just smile back and it wont matter as much….

Sometimes we just need to slow down…. Scenic drives aren’t freeways, they are these windy roads telling people to slow down and watch around. And when we are stuck at a transit point in life by something we cant control, we need to drop the sense of urgency to be somewhere and live the moment… Spend some time to enjoy the little somethings of ur life.