Happy Returns!

To dearest Man Of Mission,

I never knew what “Man of mission” actually meant (I still don’t) but since it is a term you use for yourself.. I bet it means something really awesome because, that’s how incredible you are. I don’t know where to start. To go forward or backward... To start from the times when I used to lisp “kichaa mama” in my baby voice, or from when you turned out to be the biggest inspiration of my life…

You talk on the phone for barely 30 seconds but you care for us exponentially more than that. You get us out of intangible situations, calm people when they get hysteric, and work hard towards whatever you want to achieve. You give me the courage and the confidence that I can do everything and be anything I want. “Never worry about the result as long as you have put in 100% of your effort.”  This is what you have always said. As I begin realizing the value of every statement you utter, I feel lucky.. And I get into the “Gosh! Mama is just so right!” mode.

I have had the fun of my life with you mamu, travelling around so many places, experiencing the best stuff life has to offer. I still remember crying at your wedding yelling, “When mama has his own babies, he won’t love me anymore.” And I laugh so so hard now, remembering those days. Well, this blog post can never entirely contain my emotions for you, and how much you mean to me..

Cheers !To all the soda bottles, submission moves, the one happy family dance, adisayam water rides, and tons of memories I will clutch on to forever.. Happy birthday mama, Love you loads..

The 18th wish? Everything.....

October 3, 2012..

I wake up with a jerk. Kicking off the blanket tangled around my feet,I hastily climb down my bed and pick my marker lying on my desk.

“Check! One month to go!”, I yell , drawing a cross mark across the giant “3” printed on the 2012 calender. I go hug my mom, yelling the same thing over and over again. Okay so, clarification, my birthday falls on November 3. I was gonna turn 16 that following month. Sweet sixteen. It was special indeed.

October 3,2014

It was the same sensational morning all over again. Déjà vu dawned in along with the bright sun. The only difference being the fact that I neither had a marker nor a calendar within close proximity. But I had my thoughts. The unprecedented thoughts to which I have always hugged on to. I impulsively made an air check.

18..It was never a number. It has always been a verge. It is something I have always envisioned. The number that makes you eligible for practically every aspect, from marriage to owning a driving license. “Wow! Will I ever turn 18?” I have bugged mom with this mindless question many a times. Why has it always felt so delusive? Have I got everything I have yearned for? Isn’t it too early to be turning 18?

November 3,2002.

I am zooming around the veranda in my little bike. It is the official present opening time. Daddy unwraps a little rectangular shaped present. He waves it at me. I stop the bike, pause for a second and look at it earnestly . The book  that daddy held that day.. began everything.

“Once upon a time there lived a beautiful girl called Cinderella…”, daddy began narrating. I was already done with asking about a million questions until he reached “.. and they lived happily ever after” . I remember being charmed by the book like every other little girl. I would often go to daddy, hand it over, urging him to read it for me again and again until the book eventually got smeared with crayon marks, dal stains and tore off completely. The book got demolished, and the emotion remained etched in my heart. Like every other girl, I wanted to become a Cinderella. How cliché, right?

Back to October 3,2014

Now, I shook myself. Enough of rewinding and air checking. The Cinderella and the Prince Charming fantasies had died down years ago. Deep within, I had  taken head trips and arrived at the place where I had begun initially…to a world without a Cinderella. 17 whole years of life had passed. I was about to embark upon a new … should I call it journey? Or a life?

Even though  I am deeply apprehensive about the fact that my teenage is officially getting over, I feel happy, because I finally feel a little less delusive. It’s like I can finally start believing in fairy tales again. My perspectives have jumped to a “level 2”. Every emotion seems heightened. It starts from point ‘A’ again, but in a bit more advanced manner. I can finally start dreaming again.. dreaming about travelling around the world, dreaming about falling in love, dreaming about driving a car, dreaming about everything from knitting, baking, sketching, singing to yes… becoming a writer.

I can dream more. But wait. I can easily turn my dreams to reality. Along with dreaming about my birthday dress and the matching jhumkas, I am allowed to dream about every single thing from graduation degrees to wedding dresses. I can care more for people, decode more things about life, magnify every second and live it unanimously. My thirst has been quenched. So, it’s time to be hungry now, to appreciate every single thing that life offers ..to feel the rush, emotions, audacity, turmoil, happiness, disappointements... everything..

With this vitality, I begin the countdown..

Breathing and Living in the not-so-yet-so- urbane way

I am not a starfish anymore.

I remind myself every night relentlessly as the moonlight seeps in through the cement stained windows. Fighting back the stupor crawling involuntarily into my body, I shift and fidget about until that "Ouch!" strikes. 

Sleeping on a bunker is more or less like sleeping in an elevated crib. But the steel bars end up bruising you (at least me) apart from fulfilling their conventional purpose of guarding you against a miserable fall. 

“Freaking shit, its 7 already!”, I croak every morning( except that I don’t say freaking) clutching the damned steel rods as I descend down my bed, simultaneously trying to get hold of my glasses, hairband, cellphone, water bottle, blinds and million other things that  nap with me indolently.

Jo walks in through the door, with her flip flops flapping against the floor, the bucket trailing behind. Akansha’s phone keeps ringing wildly and mind is battling against the deep urge to throw at her, the heaviest thing that my hands can get a hold of..Probably Jo’s bucket, if she would let me do the honour . But seeing akrati didi sprawled up in her sheets sleeping like a little baby in a “Bhag Milkha bhag” pose , the feeling vanishes..I wake Aishu up, practically drag her out of the bed, and march down for breakfast. Finally, after getting ready, while walking beneath the blazing hot “Chennai” sun( as I call it) having the power to ruin the 17 years of sweat and cash my mom spent on lotions, facemasks and homeopathy, I search for reasons..

A million reasons to hate Chennai.. To despise the very chunk of earth I was standing on..But in vain.,

I knew I was loving every bit of it, relishing the scorching heat, the musky scents, the dust pollution and even the tiny beads of perspiration gliding smoothly down my back. And then the question pops up…

Why?

I have never lived in Chennai. I missed my mom..Her oil smeared dosais with onion-tomato chutney and molagaipodi, the perfume of her medimix soap followed by fair & lovely and the way she keenly listened to my long screeching concerts, the old spb and ilayaraja songs playing in the kitchen, her bhajanais and the murungakais in her vattakozhambu..I missed all that..Yet, I didn’t hate Chennai.

Did I miss Tarapur? Though I badly wanted to, I couldn’t. It was the place where I scribbled my first alphabets,sang my first song, played my first game,got my first bruise, and had my last success. I remember my childhood, trudging in mud, playing with Barbie, plucking berries from trees, dancing on gulmohar’s flower beds, those  empty lanes flanked with ashoka trees ,singing and freaking out the snoozing watchmen and listening to the random melodious tunes in which the birds chirped. I just remembered…I couldn’t yet miss it..

What is so special about Chennai, you ask?

Everything. This is where my father was born, my mamas got married, my cousins studied, and everything. But what connection do I have with Chennai? After all, it was Trichy’s air that I had first inhaled as a baby to burst into tears. Where did Chennai come into the picture?

I love everything about Chennai. I am inadvertently drawn to every single element of this suburb. From the climate, the bustling crowd, the random cinema posters parked across lanes, the way winds drummed against my cheeks, the refreshing fragrance of “malligai poo”, to the most significant aspect of it, the people who speak this beautiful “Tamizh” language. They freak out seeing me speak in Tamizh, a pale faced girl sporting a western outfit, which makes it even more amusing. Ahh,the wonderful feeling of being one of a kind, feels somewhat plausible..

So yaa, I pause amidst the crowd walking under the blazing Chennai sun, laugh at Soundie cloaked in a Talibani attire and Shuchu trying to protect her umbrella against the winds and throw my arms open bellowing “Come on ! Make me as ugly as you can.” Soundie gives her dimpled grin, Shuchu nods her head to and fro and we burst out laughing. The blithesome laughter echoes in my head every time I search for more reasons. I don’t mind at all. I would gladly suppress the desire to fling stuff at annoying people, to sew few mouths that speak bitter words and to jeer at the noses always lying high in the air.

Because.. I am in Chennai. This is where I now belong/always belonged.. Ahh, the wonderful feeling of being as snug as a bug in a rug… I get it here…

One million candy cables

Relationship.. When I was little, I used to feel that this word conveyed something very profound. Something that had to be rigorously maintained and kept to word like some sort of a pinky promise. Something related to blood-and-kin. It was only later that I realized that a relationship is nothing but a bond. A bond between two hearts. Dim-witted as the statement sounds, most of us are oblivious of the fact that bonds are not that easily formed.

How do you know you are actually connected to someone? When you close your eyes and realize that you actually "give a damn" as to what they do, when your heart glows in their jubilance and aches in their woes, when a prayer touches your lips whenever you think of the hard time they are going through and when you feel unhappy as they seek disappointment in their endeavors. That's when you know that you are connected. But still, we tend to cloak our genuine affection in a false garb of kinship. In that way, loving your chacha-chachi-foofa-foofi becomes a duty. Which reduces a relationship to a mere duty, which it certainly isn't.

There's a dialogue from the show "The Big Bang Theory" that I find really humorous. It is a conversation between Penny and Leonard. 

Penny: How did Raj and Howard become friends with Sheldon?

Leonard: I don't know! How do carbon atoms form a benzene ring? Proximity and valence electrons.

Listening to it makes me giggle and wish relationships were that simple. In my life, every relationship is unique and nourishing  in its own way. From my baby cousin who asks me earnestly, "Does a shark eat an octopus or does an octopus eat a shark?" to the biggies who ask with concern, "What do you plan to pursue in your life?", everyone means a lot to me and I can't even imagine my life without them.

                                                        Life is topsy-turvy. Some people enter your life like a tornado and surprisingly end up pacifying and stabilizing it instead. They teach you to deal with rejection and encourage you to brush the dust off and begin afresh. People who have "been there and done that", stand by your side, making sure you take up the right track. Some choose to be brutally honest and some prefer not to demoralize you. You always have a shoulder to cry on, a hand to tickle you to laughter, a finger to wipe your tears, a shadow that walks side by side and a voice that says "I will love you no matter what". 

So, what is a relationship actually? It is something that stands unbattered against the blows of time, distance and misunderstandings. A relationship is fabric knitted with love and embroidered with experiences, good and bad. Pulling out a single thread has the potential to dismantle the entire fabric but it can always be woven back as long as the love remains. 

Always give your relationships the highest priority, never prioritize them. Whether it's your disobedient puppy or an annoying aunt or some Parnani-ki-bhanji-ka-pota, cherish every relationship that has made you feel blessed. 

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Leaping high

The water was gleaming with the reflection of the deliciously round moon and the bright lights parked at the edges of the swimming pool.  I dipped my toe in the water gently, feeling its lukewarm temperature. I was debating whether or not to dive in. I wasn’t much of a swimmer that time, so I stood there, in a dilemma. My friend had sprained her hip a couple of days ago, attempting to dive in a wrong posture. Eventually, I climbed down the steel ladder and made a lame dip at the pool. There were little kids shrieking at the top of their voices and jumping in the pool merrily. A moment later, I questioned myself, “Why did I not take the plunge?”

There are so many moments in life, when you feel like doing something, but never do it, fearing rejection or failure. Before beginning to write this, I asked few people a common question, “Are you a risk taker or do you play safe in life?” Very surprisingly, every one gave the same lame answer “Depends on the circumstance!” I do not blame them for not being able to give a lucid answer, because the truth is that most of the time, we unknowingly play safe.

When you see a man raising his voice against someone smoking in a public place or, a guy proposing to a girl by singing loudly in a park or, an Indian girl bringing her boyfriend home to introduce him to her parents or, a Saas bluntly shouting at her Bahu “Oh Savitri! Itna kharch karegi tho dheere dheere mere bête ko barbaad hi kar degi”, then… knock knock, you my friend, are watching a Bollywood movie. Conventionally, such stuff doesn’t happen in the real world. Most of us lack guts to take the plunge.

Why so? Because, the first question that pops in the mind is “What will they think?” This “they” play major roles in our life. We weigh every decision of ours based on how we think “they” might interpret it. My chachi thinks mushroom is non-vegetarian, so I won’t eat it or my nana thinks that all doctors do is cutting stomachs, so I don’t wanna be one. I am just giving silly examples but we actually take many solemn decisions of our lives looking through someone else’s glasses, using someone else’s perspective.

I don’t mean to say we must act like complete daredevils and take irrational decisions. All we must do is think about the consequences of our decisions on a bigger scale. “What is the worst that can happen?” and “What is the best that can happen?” are two questions that must run parallel in our minds.

Life is too short and valuable to be spent in regression. Our dreams transmute rapidly, failure voraciously waits like a devil on the doorstep, success plays “hard to get” and opportunity knocks only once. So go ahead, stretch yourself up and take the plunge.

 “Life’s a climb, but the view is good” - Miley Cyrus