A wet winter's day

Today has been severely cold and misty. And it has been raining throughout the day. It’s hard to venture out, and is quite amazing how people have had to pull their raincoats out on a December day. However, it seems perfectly 'holidayish' to me, as I continue to stay indoors, and eat, drink and sleep- not necessarily in that order.

I hope tomorrow is a sunny day though. The city looks geared up to celebrate the New Year’s Eve. The morning newspaper was full of advertisements by the top hotels and clubs who are organizing extravagant parties, carnivals, and special dinners. Out in the street, people would revel and cheer, and watch the fireworks go up in the sky at midnight- it wouldn’t be as much fun if it’s raining.

I also hope everyone keeps their resolutions in the New Year. I haven’t made mine yet, but I wonder what could be everyone else’s. Buying a new house or the world’s best smartphone? Traveling to newer destinations? Shop more, shop less? More music, more books? Preparing more edible food? Or losing a few kilos?

Of the ones I heard so far from everyone I know, the prominent one is: losing a few kilos by starting to run and exercise regularly. There you go! A terrific rush at the parks and the gyms- that's January for you!

If you dislike that, till the rush wears off, how about some slimming tea?

Another year is waning away

A few lines I scribbled in the past three days-

Monday:

6:30 PM it is, and I am back home from work. That is fairly quick for a Monday evening, or any evening for that matter, and it turns out to be quite relaxing to reach home early, have a couple of hours to idle, do this, that, and the other, before having to worry about anything as serious as preparing dinner.

Early morning, the commute to work was smooth. Most of the city has journeyed elsewhere, apparently, to spend the Christmas vacation, so there was virtually no traffic anywhere. And the office parking lot was empty, so I got to choose a spot, and reached my desk.

A cup of coffee and barely a dozen of emails later, two of my colleagues and I, decided to step out for lunch (basically eating out is our favourite thing to do under all conditions). We reached the nearest Au Bon Pain, bought some sandwiches and soup, and sat down at a table- mine was a bowl of cream of green pea soup and a vegetable sandwich. Expectedly that wasn’t sufficient, so we further devoured a few slices of plum cake that had a rich content of wine making me feel slightly dizzy, and some freshly baked cookies.

Wrapping up work, while driving back on the ring road, I watched the sun setting in the horizon in front of me with the last of the sparkling rays falling on my windshield. The sky slowly turned from blue to crimson to grey.  Another day waning away, of another year waning away, I thought to myself, looked outstanding!

Tuesday:

Today was unpredictably a busy day, as often happens with the days when you don’t foresee much work but a lot of it suddenly lands up. There were a lot of phone calls, a lot of emails and a lot of follow-ups to complete. Finally when I finished, it was late evening.

Back home, before I went off to sleep, I finished the second of the three chapters of Jonathan Livingston Seagull- it’s a very inspiring tale, and the book has some remarkable photographs accompanying the story. The author, Richard Bach, is one of my favourites. His other book The Bridge Across Forever is one of the most absorbing books I have ever read.

Wednesday:

I am on vacation for the rest of the week. That essentially means that I would get back to work only in the New Year; it sounds like a long time away, and though it is actually not long, I quite like the way it sounds.

In a way, I am often fascinated by how things sound to me- like Prague sounds very mystic and glorious to me, and Budapest sounds stylish and adventurous, while Bali sounds enchanting and limitless, Ulan Bator sounds outlandish and unexplored, again as Guatemala sounds historic and traditional, Viena sounds very contemporary and young. Indeed they make me want to find out for myself, and someday I possibly will, if what they sound like, is similar to how they really are.

And, another word whose sound I forever like is: wonderful. I rather use it too often, possibly to describe a holiday, a dinner, a landscape, a film, a present, a person, or almost any other thing that needs my describing it. Just like now it feels wonderful to string together many incoherent thoughts!

Thoughts on Christmas Eve

The days got shorter. The nights got darker. And both the days and the nights got colder. I haven’t walked up to the fridge for a bottle of juice in the last few weeks. Instead, I stuck to tons of steaming hot beverages at all hours. It’s been a cold December. And tonight, I think a delicious soup packed with seasonal vegetables for a starter would be a comforting winter warmer as I step out for dinner with friends- it’s the Christmas Eve!

The city is painted in red and white and green. The shops, the pubs, the eateries are decked with colourful lights. Christmas trees, images of Santa Claus, and carols playing all around have added to the grandeur. Shoppers are out on the downtown streets store-hopping and picking up the best bargains. Friends, family and loved ones are who everyone is reaching out to, to party, exchange gifts and good wishes, and celebrate the festival together. It's very Christmassy!

There’s going to be virtually no one at work through the next week. I have taken off for most of the days as well. It’s going to be different from the otherwise madly-rushing-through-life schedules and that’s the nicest thing. I have bought a few books which I plan to read. I would listen to some music. I will write if I am able to gather some thoughts. Or I would take the car and drive down to nowhere.

And be back in the New Year. I will, by then, have made my resolutions for 2012, and hopefully would have made a note before I fail to recall any of them!

Around the world

I am going through my credit card statement that has arrived for the month. I cannot remember all my expenses, so this is quite useful at helping me remember them (and pay up, amicably, before the due date). I pour myself a bowl of milk and I look for the cornflakes. But I can’t seem to find them. I keep looking. And it’s a bit strange (and entirely pointless), but let me tell you what comes to my mind at this moment. I think of what must be going on around the world in these few minutes that I am searching for my cornflakes.

A tram with the tinkling bells, somewhere, would have set out cutting through the city’s early morning mist, and the quietness. Somewhere else, a couple would have finished supper, and sitting by the fireplace, would be talking about putting out the Christmas lights on the outside of the house. People would have woken up, at another place, with dreams stills smeared on their eyes, and layers of snow on their doorstep. At yet another place, individuals must be hastening to work, boarding the trains and the buses, with their backpacks, and music plugged in their ears. Flocks of birds would be flying however many miles to reach their wintering sites. Travelers would be trotting around the world climbing mountains, camping on an island, or visiting a museum or a monument.  It must be the breakfast news on the BBC in one city. In another city, Carrefour would be filling shelves by the night. KFC’s must be opening or shutting down in different corners of the planet. FedEx would be handing over countless packages around the world. Hundreds of airplanes must be in the sky, flying across continents.  A restaurant must be taking the last orders, somewhere. A congregation would be offering a noon prayer at a countryside chapel, somewhere else. And still somewhere else, a mall would be bustling with morning shoppers and children playing on the bouncy castle. And I finally find them (the cornflakes- well done for paying attention), or this probably could go on.

You must be thinking what is it with a person who cannot remember his expenses, or find his cornflakes, and pointlessly wonders? There are days like this when it takes me a few long hours to completely wake up, after having impulsively got out of bed!

We all have stories to tell

My mother would handknit a sweater for me every winter when I was a kid. Winters were what I looked forward to also because it would be time to pull out of the cupboard my full pants and wear them- I was always so thrilled and I felt like a grown-up when I wore them. On the last day at school, I was almost in tears, imagining that from the next day I would no more get to meet all my friends- friends who I have been with from my kindergarten, friends who have been friends for nearly my whole life. I would get several boxes of firecrackers, during the festivities, and light them. I kept groping for rhyming words at my first attempt to compose a poem. Time and again, I bossed over my pets as they were the only ones younger to me at home. These are bits and pieces of my story.

And it must be similar to yours. So frequently, do we all not talk about our childhood pride of owning a bicycle, and riding down miles into the woods with friends, for a picnic on the New Year’s Day? And the small pocket money, as a young boy, and a bigger list to spend on? Or our remarkable efforts, much later, at gaining a foothold in life? It is only instinctive for us to be wanting to tell our stories!

I was speaking with one of my newer colleagues the other day who recently came back to India. She was in the US for a couple of years with her husband who had taken up a job there. She was at home with plenty of free time. And she decided to practise painting. With the Michaels Store in the same lane as she lived, she picked up her colours, brushes, charcoal and canvasses, and painted for hours every day. I looked at her blog site and I found she uploaded more than 400 sketches which she created during that time- they are absolutely brilliant ones, and most notably, each one has a story to tell. She must have had a lot to share!

We all do. We write books, publish blogs and make films because we all have stories to tell. The boatmen as they ferry or the minstrels as they wander on the paths of the hamlets sing, telling their tales. It is why Paulo Coelho does what he does. We accumulate our lives’ anecdotes of triumphs and embarrassments, faithfulness and refusal, bitterness and love, to narrate them. Events intervene, and thus, continues our enchanting storytelling.

Autumn longings

The umbrellas are still out. The sky is crammed with clouds, fat and thin. The rains have been erratic. The streets are wet. Speeding vehicles splash water on the footpath. The backyard is muddy. The monsoon is unrelenting, though it should have been autumn now. It should have been cloudless, blue skies, the air laden with mellow quietude, and the thought of blooming catkins and slumbering fields making me want to run a long way away to the countryside, that’s the effect autumn has on me.

Though I have mostly lived in the cities I am not a city boy through-and-through. I am forever fascinated by the sound of the word ‘countryside’- it sounds very languid, and restful, and tranquil. And ‘city’ sounds sophisticated, and speedy, and machinelike. Don’t get me wrong, but I find the countryside irresistibly and indescribably beautiful.

The stretches of yellow and green fields and the scarecrows, the cluster of bamboo trees and the stacks of hay, the chocolate box mountains and the curving streams, the farms and the cottages, their low-rise wooden fences and the odd-shaped mossy lawns, the flocks of cranes and the fragrance of the wild flowers, the wide open spaces and the unhurried pace of life have a thing about them that never fails to enthrall me.

I am imagining waking up to the chirping of the birds, going for a long walk down the meandering paths, photographing the landscapes, watching the whistling train in the distance, picnicking on the riverbank, and witnessing the reddish light of the low-sun catching the universe at dusk.

I am so restless. I am breathlessly waiting for the rains to stop.

If you get any closer

It’s a clear day. It’s sunny and a bit windy. It isn’t so warm but very bright. I finished booking my flight tickets for a trip to my native city next month. So now, I am happy, and broke. Travel isn’t a low-cost affair ever!

I am on the Internet discovering palindromes- sentences (or words) which read the same forward as they do backward- surely, you would know about them; I knew about them too but I didn’t know they were called palindromes. Anyway, here’s one for you: Madam, I’m Adam. Read it backwards. It reads exactly the same. Fun? Good, here’s one more then: Was it a car or a cat I saw? And one more: Never odd or even. The last one: A Toyota’s a Toyota!

The last one reminds me that I have got to buy a Toyota some day. Meanwhile, the one car that I own badly needs a wash. It has accumulated so many layers of dirt that one could create on it a reverse graffiti (that’s a new English word I learned, and I finally used it, but more about that later).

One of my friends came back from a trip to Malaysia last week and presented me a sign, like the ones placed in the back window of an automobile with ‘Baby on Board’ message on it, except that this one has got nothing to do with a baby (and definitely sounds more
grown-up); this one reads, in somewhat smaller fonts: If you get any closer you will have to marry me! A brilliant one, I thought, and quite a bold one at that. I am not very brave but I suppose I am going to put it up anyway (that’s one reason I am getting my car washed so that an unclean car doesn’t put anyone off who is considering coming close and… you don’t think I am serious, do you?).

I am very watchful of and I enjoy reading such smart signs and bumper stickers on the rears of other vehicles. One read: I may be slow but I’m ahead of you. Another one read: Drink coffee and drive. Yet another one, on the rear of a small car, read: My other car is a BMW. I probably will share some more as I recollect- my memory isn’t the same it used to be.

It surely isn’t. I had nearly forgotten to wish a friend whose birthday was earlier this week. In the middle of the day when I very, very unexpectedly logged in to check my personal emails, a reminder from Facebook luckily caught my attention. I got together the others (who too had forgotten about it), made a call, very enthusiastically and authentically conveyed our birthday wishes, not in the least making it evident how relieved we were to have not completely missed it! I think we did a good job. But now that I have confessed it here, I hope my friend doesn’t read this post!

Now, let me get back to reverse graffiti. Reverse graffiti, as a word, has been around for only a few years or so, and is a way of creating temporary images on the walls or other surfaces by removing dirt from the surface, often by removing the dirt with the fingertip. For example, someone may write on a dirty vehicle “wash me” or “I hate my owner”. Beware! Another word I learned which too is of somewhat recent origin is retail therapy. Retail therapy is particularly the shopping one does while being in a depression (or while being in a not very good mood), with the sole purpose of feeling better. If you just received your increment and are disappointed with it, you could go for a retail therapy. That would be quite paradoxical though! My favourite among all the newer words I learned is muffin top. The spilling over of the bulge of flesh above low-waisted trousers or skirts is now called a muffin top. It has got a lot to do with the shape of a muffin, of course. If you have a muffin top and have not been able to go for your early morning run, try wearing long T-shirts to hide them!

That last paragraph virtually seemed like an English lesson. But good we did quickly get over it. By the way, if you are really looking for a bold message for your bumper sticker, I recollect one more: Mother-in-law in Trunk.

Plum cakes

If I wasn’t doing what I am doing, I would be in a distant country, in an unknown town, in front of a classroom full of students, teaching! If you were in my class, you would consider me a loveable teacher- I am usually kind, and patient, prepared and punctual, and I wouldn’t overburden you with loads of homework (I didn’t enjoy them myself when in school, and always struggled to complete them). I would consider you loveable too if you weren’t too outrageous- the kind that hates school, hides in the cupboards or jumps out of the windows to escape! I get slightly nervous while dealing with outrageous people but that’s another story.

I might even be a lighthouse keeper. And from the top, like from a Gold Class seat, I would watch the furthest stretch of the sea on a clear morning. I would watch the sun rise and set. I would watch the ships fade into the horizon, and others appear from nowhere in their rush to head back to the shore. I would watch the sky, on a starry night, lit up like a chandelier of a billion lights, so close above!

Or I might even run a bookstore café with heaps of books, old and new, where you could read sitting out in the courtyard, while I offer you some great coffee, and some croissants, and plum cakes.

But why am I wondering about such things? Good question.

It’s a Saturday. I slept for long, and didn’t wake up bleary-eyed like other days. I don’t have to go to work. I will step out for lunch later- that means I don’t have to cook. So I am relaxed, and a bit lazy, seated and wondering.  And when I am wondering, there’s mostly no pattern, or logic, or boundaries. Fair enough!

I will write a bit more about plum cakes now because I love plum cakes. They remind me of Christmas, and I suppose they smell and taste more delicious when it gets so festive all around. I remember last December when I ate an awful lot of plum cakes for a fortnight or so. I ate them possibly from every cubicle at work, bought them at the cafés, picked them up from the supermarkets, and anyone who sort of wanted to return a favour or buy me a gift,  I asked them for plum cakes! They were so insanely delicious. They made me so happy. They made me so generous too (I thanked everyone who gave me plum cakes). I loved them!

There isn't anything else coming to my mind at the moment. So, that’s it. And it’s quite inappropriate, and it indeed seems like getting carried away, but I am still naming this post: plum cakes.

Better at planning than at executing

Ecstasies ballet, thoughts meander, dreams age and fade, spirits soar, reasons err, and faith stands and waits forever.

I don’t believe I wrote that line. Because I don’t think I am capable of getting so unusually serious while writing (I don’t think I am capable of getting so unusually serious while at anything!). I guess it’s a one-off, and thankfully, it was just one line. It sounds quite heavy, I recognize, but don’t worry - everything is alright!

Everything isn’t entirely alright though! My back is hurting. It’s probably from the chair I sit on; I spend most of my day at my desk in front of the computer. And I am worried thinking that when I buy a house for myself and bend down, in the front garden, to dig up the flower beds, putting in the daffodils and the white roses, chopping the hedges and pruning the grasses, making them all look clean and right, I might be struggling with the muscles in my back and neck getting knotted up.

Yes, that’s correct. I would love to do a lot of gardening when I have my own house (with plenty of space) and when I am retired (with plenty of free time). I work long hours and I live in an apartment now (with a just few flower pots), so there isn’t the scope to do a lot at the moment. But I am excited to think of all the work I would get to do in my garden from choosing the plants to preparing the beds to taking care of them, until much later, when all the flowers flower in spring- and what a fantastic pay-off would it be after the wait!

And we could all, my friends, then meet in my garden, in a sort of a reunion, in our 50 or

60-somethings, sit out in the sun, catch up on each other’s lives, play the music of our times, and relive our youth! I will set up the barbeque and arrange for some red wine!

Getting back to the present, my backache reminds me that I haven’t exercised in a long while! I bought a pair of running shoes almost three months back, and it’s a shame, I haven’t gone for a run since then. When it comes to things like a fitness regime, I am much better at planning than at executing! Strange! Is it the same with many of you, or do you have a recommendation for me to become more disciplined?

I just looked out of the window. It’s a beautiful evening, bathed in the last light of the day, quiet as a midsummer afternoon, and mellow because the autumn isn’t far away! I am going for a run!

Life

I walked the path for many miles. And realized it wasn’t the trail to walk by. I smiled, to hold back my tears. I then discovered the other course, pulled myself up, said a short prayer, set out again, and went wrong. I wondered: is this life a beta version?

[I wrote this on the idea of a ‘minisaga’. A minisaga, I recently read, is a short piece of writing containing exactly 50 words plus a title. It’s a story in just those many words. I was excited to learn about it. I quickly decided to try writing one myself].

P.S.

Microsoft Word Count shows my explanation of a minisaga within the brackets above, is exactly 50 words, again! Coincidental?

The morning after the rains

It has been raining incessantly for a few days now. I don’t quite like it this way. The entire world seems damp, and cluttered, and grey. The streets are nearly flooded. It’s hard to commute to work, and is equally hard to stay back at home, alone. And find the right ingredients to make your own cup of coffee. At work, life is easier with the coffee machine. And it feels good to meet and say hello to people (with the same purpose) who gather around it.

But I quite like the morning after the rains. It is always so tranquil, and clear, and vibrant. The water droplets on the windowpane sparkle like jewels. The puddles still joyfully show off the fading ripples. The trees appear greener, as if they have changed into brand-new pullovers, and the fallen leaves beneath look like a cozy bedside rug, glistening with the wetness. Every small thing, all around, seems to be slightly more at peace than the usual, a little more graceful than the ordinary- you will always recognize these mornings by the trace the rains leave behind them. This is perhaps like how you will always recognize a Libra woman by the nice fragrance she leaves behind her (I was reading Linda Goodman last night, and that is where this comes from!).

I hadn’t seen much of the mornings as a young boy. I struggled to get up from bed early. My parents weren’t particularly impressed with this. They were certain, people who couldn’t wake up early, plan their day, and work hard to achieve their dreams would never make it big in life (I didn't, they proved right, and we now have a consensus on this at home). But as I grew up, I started doing better on the waking-up-early part occasionally, and I discovered how beautiful mornings really could be!

And there’s this one thing that I find so outstandingly beautiful - I wonder if you have ever witnessed the first light of the morning shine on a huge stained glass window of a church, illuminating it in many colours; the motifs distinctly emerging in countless shades, brilliant and subtle, and soon turning gorgeous, seeming like a finely woven fabric with strands of a million colours held against the sunlight; the images interweaving to evoke a theme, the figures of the saints and their disciples quintessentially narrating an episode, and the most elegant of floral paintings adding opulently to the magnificence!

Now I can’t help but think you think I am thinking way too seriously about these mornings. I indeed am. I am even considering the possibility of starting to plan my day, and working hard to achieve my dreams, a plenty of them. I have miles to go before I sleep (that’s my favourite Robert Frost line, and the only line I can remember from the poems in school- embarrassing!).

Strength with age

It's already August. Some say it appears like it was January just the other day. Actually it wasn't. January was way back in January. It has been a fairly long year since then. I vouch for this because the astrological predications were that I was to have a great 2011; eight months into the year, it has been nowhere close to great. On the contrary, it has been moderate to severely turbulent. I have had to keep my seat belts fastened, and an oxygen mask will automatically appear, when I need to pull it the most, I hope. And hopes are the essence, so, I am keeping at it!

But what do you do when the going gets so tough? In all likelihood, you go in for a bit of self-indulgence. The most regular form of that I guess is to go for shopping. I have friends who do this all the time. They are shopaholics! They could even go shopping at 3 PM, in the middle of a working day, and as always, inevitably, end up feeling better at the end of it (even if they were feeling perfectly alright earlier!). Now, I am not a shopaholic, but since I had a lot of free time over the long weekend, I decided to have a crack at it!

I drove downtown, checked into a store, and looked at this carbon blue T-shirt which had some incredible stuff written on it: ‘Strength with Age’. I fell for it. I smiled, and I thought it tells my story. I just got a year older earlier this month, and what better to boast growing older? I picked it up. I felt good at the end of it (I suppose this doesn’t sound like I am going down the same course, I am not!).

On my way back, I realized, I picked up another T-shirt that’s blue in colour. Historically, the statistics has been quite uncomplicated: 8 out of 10 times I have bought an apparel, it has been blue in colour (the remaining 2 times, it has been grey or black). This may lead you to conceive how predictable I am, but it is not that you could tell entirely about a person by merely looking at his wardrobe. There are people who normally don’t, but are quite capable, of doing outstanding things! One of these days, I plan to go back to that store and buy myself a dazzling pink T-shirt, just to establish a point!

About me

What could possibly be interesting about me? I am a human resource professional. I live in Bangalore. I work long hours, and I love my work. I have never loved working such long hours when in school though. I hated the mathematics tests. And the history tests. I hated the chemistry tests too. But most of all, I hated the…. I think I hated all the tests!

I am an August born. I am a Leo. My friends think I am not a true Leo- I don’t show traits of aggression, or pride, or dominance. I tell them I am an old Leo, somewhat tamed, rather disciplined! I suppose that’s the only thing I could say to avoid seeming incapable, and we have a good laugh. The point though really is that I am not very old (and you have got to start believing people who say that!).

Originally I am from Siliguri, a small city in the foothills of the Himalayan mountain ranges, in the north eastern part of the country. I have lived in Bangalore for the last ten years. I came here to earn my Master’s in Business Administration degree, and found the city very welcoming. I have, by now, totally fallen in love with this metropolis. I like the buzz. I like the people. I like the food.  

I like reading. I like driving. I like mountains. I like the winter (see, that’s very unlike old people!). I like the sun-drenched mornings. I like tea. I love listening to music. I grew up yearning to buy myself a ‘proper’ music system when I start earning a decent salary. And I bought one within a couple of months of getting into my first job (that was significantly early, considering that I still don’t earn a decent salary!). I like watching films. Films could make me cry, particularly one with sentimental songs! And then, I cry when I sing as well. I don’t sing well!

I get itchy feet each time I look at the Lonely Planet travel guides in the bookstore, graciously stacked on the shelves in plenty! There are 192 countries according to The United Nations, and I must see as many of these amazing countries as I can- that is my favourite dream! My other dream is to give up drinking tea, and switch to coffee as Starbucks opens a store in my neighborhood!

My third dream is to be able to write shorter “about me” descriptions! Understandably!