WHEN A GUY DOES NOT WALK INTO A BAR

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In an episode of big bang theory, Raj comes to Sheldon asking for a hug, because he says he is feeling blue, not depressed blue but more like a lonely blue. But that can’t be it; blue is already taken, Sheldon reminds him; so the two decide on orange, and Sheldon goes on, ‘you look positively orange with loneliness’.

I have spent much of 2014 living in a state of perpetual medium-low-level-terror. A sort of fear that would refuse to go or shift even. Waiting for things to go wrong. And then when they did, I’d be dreading the worse.

By the way, how absurd is Facebook’s new feature - ‘it’s been a great year thanks for being a part of it’, which I believe is very popular. Unfathomable. 

It would be flippant to say that 2014 was the worst year of my life. I dare not say that. Let’s just say it was terribly hard.  

And I do get those… look at the glass half full, count your blessings, it’s the darkest before dawn, etcetera. I fought to find some good amid so much bad. Which I did. And thus survived. As I save this final draft, there’s news about the Air Asia debris being discovered.

My glass is half full. Being healthy, being loved and knowing people I love and care for are healthy and happy, and getting to watch walter white and jesse after a somewhat fulfilling day at work, make it more than half full I think. Touché.

2015 will have to be about living, about being easy and fun and about making things possible. Just surviving won’t cut it.

Huffington Post says, life is meant to be abundant and limitless, we create scarcity of hope and ambition by believing in it. Life is supposed to be easy and overflowing with good moments. If life is a constant struggle, you're running on empty and you dread Mondays, it's time to take an honest look at your life -- in a loving way.

Trite. But right. Because it’s the new year’s eve, let’s go with it, shall we?

Three of my several plans/resolutions for the new year – mind my own business and have as much fun as I possibly can. Every. Single. Day.
Set weekly goals.
And people pleasing efforts be damned. Thank you. 

Two O One Five, I am ready whenever you are.

The Kilimanjaro Girl

 We learnt to cycle around the same time. She, a few weeks earlier. And by the time I managed to comfortably get to the seat and pedal, she could double carry her sister. I remember the evening I met her, at her neighbour’s. The first thing she told me was, “oh I have the same skirt; maybe we should wear it on the same day someday.” It was yellow polka dotted skirt with a matching top that had a little bow.

We went to school together, she was my best friend through grades 3, 4 and 5. We got our barbies married and then graduated to paper dolls. Those three years were pretty packed. Under a shaky mulberry tree, we would discuss menus for the aforementioned weddings and what we wanted to be when we grew up. While I would settle for anything ranging from an airhostess to a forensic expert; she was set on being an army doctor, because she would say, her father was in the army and mother a doctor, and hence, wouldn’t like either of them feeling shortchanged. At age 9, it totally made sense.

Endless hours of house-house later we would be mostly quiet. Pretend accents and impromptu adult dialogues can be very exhausting. The town we lived in hadn’t seen a coke or its variant yet. Newspapers were a weekly feature. Every Sunday, we would get the last 7 days newspapers. [If you are curious about the town, it’s Tezu in Arunachal Pradesh, though I doubt its googlability. During the rainy months [9 months a year], it would be cut off from rest of the state and the world.] Yeah so we made do with chilled glasses of kissan orange squash. Deep orange in colour and deeply satisfying. 

She was my first introduction to the cool. Cool in the form of luncheon meat. It was lunchtime. We decided to not go too far into the playground with our lunchboxes. We sat on the edge, where we could discuss grades, the importance of good handwriting and how unimportant boys were; and then she opened her lunch box. I am yet to taste a better sausage. That with some sticky rice, and salad. The perfect lunchbox that I often think about.

We were hardly adventurers but there's this absolutely random thing we did once. On a Diwali night, we overdozed on a certain sweet made with cashews, pistachios and sugar. We just couldn’t stop. Finally, after we could no longer move from our chairs, she looked at me all wide eyed and asked me to stay still, said she was sure the sweets had drugs and our parents would soon find out what we had done and it would all be over for us. The tale of two girls who had ODed on suspicious diwali sweets, disowned by families and friends roamed cities in search of the very sweets that took them down. Noooo, we shook our heads that can’t be our story. I am happy to report, it wasn’t.
   

I remember that moment when we started whispering our borrowed knowledge of periods, breasts and boys. She had an older sister who made us paper dolls and would sometimes would offer sage advice. Wide-eyed, hushed voices, followed by nervous giggle; that was our first real adult conversation. Nine seemed the right age to have that kind of a conversation, especially when done wearing faux-sarees and sitting crossed leg.

And then we moved to different cities. And because it was way before Facebook, we wrote letters. We spent a few birthdays together, eating too much cake, talking too much, listening too little and watching Steffi Graf play Monica Seles. She was a Steffi fan. I was not.

Soon after we got busy with our new lives, newer friends, entrance exams and then jobs. Then I found her on Facebook, spoke a little at first, almost shy, without any idea what to say to each other. And then we spoke about lives, paper dolls, jobs, men and that mulberry tree. She grew up to be a beautiful elegant woman living a very wholesome full life that we often see on pinterest. An experience-rich life. We never got around discussing pinterest. We should have.

She supported Amnesty, baked strawberry sour cream cake, traveled far and wide and climbed the Kilimanjaro, living a very full life. And then she left.

Soon after her climb, which she did as a part of amnesty challenge, I remember telling her how while she was busy doing something as life changing as this, I was busy living a very pedestrian life, chasing the unremarkable and being bothered by things that are trivial. She said we should be more. I told her I want to work towards my very own Mt. Kilimanjaro.

She lived. And she lived it really well.  

I often think of her, picture her in my mind. Not like how she looked on her Facebook albums or atop Mt. Kilimanjaro. I try to think of her in that yellow polka dotted skirt, smiling with her eyes.

a second chance? yes, please.

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so, the world didn't end on the 21st. phew! while i certainly wasn't one of those who believed it would, i am believer of signs. so what could be a bigger sign than this? a sign that says go live a little. a sign that says, this is your second, third, and final chance to be the person you wanted to be. i will take that sign thank you. so yeah, post 21st of december 2012, i have been onto some un-me kind of things. things that i would have forever kept on  a back burner.

few examples -
1 being brasher. i usually have a comeback, but my politeness, dumbness, lack of courage, call it whatever you may, often stops me from mouthing the smart alec rejoinders.
2 dressing out of my comfort zone. tread into a world where less is less. a world where changing the color of your jeans doesn't count as adventurous. a world with ugg boots and long dresses. and orange lips.
3 getting out of my comfort zone. i tend to hover around what's easy to do/get. enough of that. point is to get what i haven't got i ought to do what i have never done.being fitter, or being better writer - requires serious work. back-breaking work.
4 make today count. because how we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives. ain't it. willdoittomorrow is not happening, today is what i got.
5 not be shy. i am not 'shy' shy. but i am a little awkward when the group is big. i forget to hold my own.
6 don't look for approval. not doing so will be very uncharacteristic of me. so un-me that it scares me. but then that was the whole point.
#6 will take care of everything else. it is the most liberating thing ever. just the thought makes me dizzy. :D so, yeah i will take the earth surviving the doomsday as a sign. a sign to be better, have more fun and be what i always wanted to be. and i want to be fierce.

December Challenge: An attempt at living the wholesome life - one pin at a time

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via pinterest

This December I plan to live the Pinterest life. And this is how it works - no matter how busy I get, or how lazy I am on a given day, I would still find time to do and enjoy the good things that I like. And also click a lot of pictures. Pictures of the morning tea in my yellow coffee mug, of my new favorite furniture in the morning light, of the street on my way to work, of the winter mist, of the books I read, of the nice things I buy and of all the cooking I plan to do this month. Yeah thing about cooking is, I enjoy cooking, but like they say life gets in between.
But this December I plan to do a whole lot of cooking. Once every two days, at the very least. And nothing that I have already cooked – all those exotic blog recipes – all those evenings of master chef Australia seasons 1, 2, 3 and 4 and all the Nigella Lawson sumptuousness will now have their moments in my kitchen :D. I will also read a lot. And walk a lot. because i really like to walk. So, essentially Pinterest life to me means - finding time to do what i like, each single day. Trying to be the best I can be – in everything. And taking charge of things – doing things that I want to do – no blame game nothing. And being a little happier perhaps. I will post here every three days – a chronicle of what I am doing to live the Pinterest life. One pin at a time.

Nolen gurer payesh so Thee Bestow Thy Flickering Light Forever.

When it’s a life-gives-you-lemons kind of a day, what do you do? Yeah, apart from making lemonade, what do you do?
I turn to mind-numbing activities and simple, shallow carbohydrates. While my chosen type of carbohydrates relaxes the mind and takes me away from the worries, it also leads me to the land where metabolism is slow and everyone else is fighting to be a size zero. So what do I do?
I watch television. Until my eyes hurt, until I can no more assimilate the stuff that I am watching, until I lose the sense of time and space and till that point when I begin to question my purpose on this planet. As I am rendered wanting of any emotion or capable of thinking, I discover a rare calm. The calm that comes from knowing you have a choice… the choice of being in the impressive pantry of master chef Australia or in the locker room of Seattle Grace. Away from all the lemons of the day…

So, thank you idiot box the greatest of mass media. And if I could I would offer you, to express my utmost gratitude, my favorite dessert, a chilled bowl of nolen gurer payesh.

It’s never over.

This post has taken me the longest to write. And yet I can’t find the best way to begin. So, I will paraphrase Meredith Grey from Grey’s Anatomy, “And we are adults. When did that happen?”
Really? Who quotes from Grey’s Anatomy? 
Inappropriate quotes apart, the past few weeks have been kind of rough, in a non-tangible kind of way (non-tangible rough is obviously any day better than tangible rough); I have been burdened by the demands of this ideal grown-up world. It’s been feeling a lot hard being a grown-up, a little too overwhelming even. The adult check-list has been too much for me to keep up with; the absence of a coffee table isn’t helping either.
My stream of consciousness goes pretty much – what have I done with my life – what is there to love – is this how it’s going to end – is this the end – don’t I deserve more – don’t I deserve better – why didn’t I know better – what have I gotten myself into? – is that it? – it’s over isn’t it? 
Dark thoughts clouded my mind. Nothing made much sense anymore – late nights – simple yet big ideas – hundred percent at work – 5 servings of fruits and greens – loyalty – being low maintenance - early dinners – crossfit – being good – playing fair – being the good daughter/wife/friend/colleague - none of it made sense. I looked and relooked at my life and questioned my ideas of the good and the bad. I drew a blank, mostly.

And then after a bleak morning and a bleaker afternoon, just like that I came across a documentary on Ian Wright, a Jamaican footballer who played for Arsenal. Now, I am usually not the one to watch documentaries made on footballers, let alone of footballers I’ve never heard of. In the film, Wright talks about his harsh life and how he went on to join Arsenal very late in his life, because that was the only thing he wanted to do. He talked about how he wouldn’t let anyone tell him otherwise. He didn’t let anyone tell him it’s over. Because it’s never over, unless you want it to be. There those worlds – it’s never over. When I heard it for the first time, those words sounded magical. So is that a sign? The sign to stop whining and start shaking things up? The sign that says ‘No matter what’s happened before, you can decide at any moment to become the person you want to be, to do whatever you want to do. Starting now.’

Perhaps, I still have a shot at being the adult I want to be and not try and fail at living everybody else’s idea of an adult-life. I decide the grown-up life I want to lead, I choose the kind of coffee table I want to have.

a name for my today

i wanted to give a name to my today, i didn't want to label it - sad, dull, grey, bad, bitter, no none of that made sense... they ended up being way too harsh or they tried to belittle the way i was feeling.
of course i have no business to be upset about anything on this dark day - the 9/11 day.

so, i was struggling to name this day - nothing too lofty, nothing too tiny, and then pinterest came with the answer - in a picture that almost captures my day.

life isn't fair, fair is where you get cotton candy.



nb. as i click on the publish button my boss just said he loves my radio spot, :) is that my cotton candy for today.

The importance of a sucker punch and why comfort is a bad, bad word.

You are in your sweet little cornucopia... hours, days and months go by, every bit the way you had imagined. You have more than just a vague idea of how the future will look like. Life is predictable, in a good way. And if you are a little lucky, you might just have a few surprises too on the way. Of course there are ups and downs. The ups and downs you have learnt to tread. It's your world after all. 'Lucky me', you gush, follow it with a knock on the wood, or sometimes you just give these rituals a miss. Saving them for those not-so-often celebratory moments of life. Your everyday life isn't nothing special. It's just normal. This is how it's meant to be. This is how it should be. You don't know any other way. You take your life and the people around you for granted, the way you think they have. You don't know better, or worse?... and then something hits you hard. A sucker punch. It'll take you a while to understand what just happened. And when you finally do, you realize, the world that you thought would thrive on its own, has in a way, ended. You look at yourself, closely. You put your every action, every habit, every moment under scrutiny. You start doubting the life you have lived, the choices you've made. You are left with questions, so many of them. You are begging for answers.
And then with time, you emerge from the wreck, not stronger, not wiser, not any less sadder but with a realization, that you've perhaps been a little too comfortable. Too oblivious to the world, that was changing. Comfort pushes you into an unreal world. It's the first step of being in denial. It also numbs you. Comfort makes you forget why you are here. It makes you confuse priorities and fight battles that are of no importance at all. Comfort is a bad word. Don't wish for comfort. It's not going to be pretty.
And as I write this, I realize, I'm dressed rather comfortably.
Tell me stilettos don't hurt.

My 'stop to smell the roses' edition.

My apartment isn't anywhere near spectacular, in fact I have multiple issues with it – the closets don't close, one of the basins acts funny every time it's used, water isn't ample though leakages and damp spots are, there isn't enough light and the lights are too bright. Okay, now that I am done with my clever wordplay, I will tell you one adorable thing about where I live.

During the fall-winter season (That's so yves saint laurent no?), the trees lining the apartment buildings bloom. And bloom they do. The flowers are a lovely pinkish-purple. Google tells me it could be Southern Crabapple. I am not sure. The trees are covered with these flowers, and when I say, a single leaf isn't visible, I am not taking any poetic license. But the best part isn't the pink-purple spread. It's those tiny little things that would come visiting every morning. Humming birds. The prettiest humming birds resting on pinkness laden branches. It was beautiful. I wish I had seen more of it. But the fact that I use a getty image here, tells you I was too busy tiding up my bed, while gulping down the cold morning tea. Because I always thought I could catch the humming birds sitting pretty on the branches the next morning or the morning after that. But then the next morning and the one after came with its yellow to dos and messy closets. And then one morning just like that the flowers were gone so were the birds (yes, it was that dramatic). I stared at the bare brown branches and wished I had called in sick, on one of the mornings.

Days when you need a pick-me-up

Life or if I were to use a less dramatic word - the week so far has been less than great. Nothing killing [thank god for that], but stuff I could have been much happier without. You know nagging things... that are not there on your face. Yet lurking somewhere. Hmm that's the kind of troubles I have been talking about. There goes a saying 'don't sweat the small stuff'. How? Pray tell me how? How can you not sweat about things at work that are beyond your control [not talking about the looming deadlines]. How can you not sweat about untimely rains that make your commute a big hell. How can you not sweat about a sad roommate? How can you not sweat when uncertainties outweigh certainties?

The point is we do sweat the small stuff. Such days demand a pick-me-up. Do you have a pick-me-up? A stuff that always works? I do. Yes, sir I do.

www.dailymail.co.uk rocks my world. It always does. Try it on a day, when things are grey and sad. When monstrous clients seem like angels, and your cubicle companion plays the screaming demon. On a day when no planning seems like the best planning. On a day when waking up in the morning was possibly the worst thing you could do. Yes on that kind of a day. Do try dailymail.

After all, how can your world be difficult when in this very world Hugh Hefner's runaway bride decides to bare it all in a tell-all realty show. A world where Britney goes flab to flat, in three days flat and then back to flab again. A world where 'friends with benefits' or the 'no strings
attached' models work perfectly. A world where pretty young things sue their moms over misused funds. A world where Cheryl Cole keeps falling for her love rat multiple-time-cheater ex-husband.
Do give dailymail a try. On a day like today.


n.b. the dark brown stuff above works as well.

Mary had a little lamb

My friends who have pets now, have always had pets when they were growing up. Pet(s) featured in their family albums, vacations, birthdays, mostly everywhere. The pet had its birthday too. And gifts during special occasions. Visiting aunts and uncles would never forget to pack something for them. Dare they. Now my friends' pets have moved from the dusty velvet albums to facebook, from pretty collars to fancy tweeter accounts. And nicer names too. Hobbes has replaced snowy. Rio is the new Pluto. Harper 7 anyone?

And people with pets, are different kind of people I've heard. Quite like athletes. No it's not about them being like athletes. It's about them being a little different from the rest of us, the way athletes are. Pet owners are kinder, friendlier and kind of nicer no? Not the ones with pet caretakers. They don't count. For them I'm guessing, having a pet is part of the checklist process. Penthouse check. Picket fences check. Monthly parties check. Pet check. Weekly spa check. They don't count.

I've always wanted to have a pet, but not badly enough to have fought my mom's hygiene concerns or father's transferable job factors. And now my own issues of not having enough time or space, or that green patch, or crazy hours at work. There will always be excuses. To not have a pet. Or to not live your life.

How will you measure your life?

The graduating class of 2010 at Harvard Business School, was given an assignment. The assignment required the students to answer three questions.
First, how can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career? Second, how can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness? Third, how can I be sure I’ll stay out of jail? Seemed funny, but not so. Apparently 2 in a class of 32 had done time in jail. On the first read, the assignment sounded incomplete and lame. But on reading the questions again, I found that yeah, that's all you need to figure out about your life, to measure your life.

Happy in career would mean, you would go on to be successful and make money. Successful gets you power. Power to get back at that sassy showoff from college. Or buy out your ex-flame's dwindling business. Making money would mean, you would have all the pretty things and the comforts that the swanky malls and delicate mannequins have to over. Sometimes peace of mind too [there's nothing a spa in the Himalayas can't fix.]

Happiness from your spouse and family, well, well, well. Basically, you really can't do much about this. Being a good woman/man brings you a good husband/wifey, if you believe in that, then perhaps you also believe in good karma. Ergo, you are also into the past-life-this-life thing. Doesn't quite work that way does it? So, be good, do not cheat, and what? Keep your mouth shut?. I guess. Family, if you are born into one that's loving, caring, sharing and all things sweet, then knock on the wood. That's it. Else, it's sad and let's not go there. Alright, that was about being born into the family, what happens when you have to raise one? It's then all up to you, the aforesaid spouse and genes.

Staying out of jail. Okay sitting in our cubicles, doing extremely mundane and harmless work, looking out of the window, to a view that's as boring as the last meeting, and then walking up to the vending machine for coffee that's insipid, it's tempting to pass the last question as lame. Crazy or comic even. But in our cubicle, there's so much more we could be doing. Thinking for instance. Thinking up plans. Evil plans that involve people who are part of our everyday, every night. Or that guy who takes up the parking area every morning. Or just a momentary lapse of judgment could do us in. Thing is crap happens [Jailed abroad on Nat Geo is scary, after every episode you have to look heavenwards and say thanks. Thanks to be just getting to sit in your dilapidated sofa in your living room and watch some primetime television]. You can just not take anything for granted. But what you can do is be cautious. Cautious not paranoid. Spontaneous caution anyone?
And never forget to pray.

Another sign your life sucks

when you have no use, absolutely no use of iPhone's newest app :)

7 signs your life sucks

when someone asks you about your weekend plans, you say 'groceries'

when facebook album updates of your friends mean the world to you

when you think of work 17 hours a day

when everyone expects you to think of work 17 hours a day

when you develop an unhealthy love for travel magazines

when you call fellow bloggers friends

when you mark your calendar as per starworld's program schedule

“I hope I have it easy, for the first time in my life.”

- An American Idol hopeful.

She did not have it easy. She did not make it to the top 24 of American Idol. After all the hard work, struggle, hope, she is out. And now her entire struggle will cease to matter. Of course she is a very gifted young singer, she has all the time in the world, and this is only the beginning, and how there are so many opportunities and all that soothing signoffs that people tell you. But the thing is, those opportunities will bring another round struggle, pain and hope. It isn’t going to be easy.

Why do some of us have to work so hard? And some just have it so easy? Yeah I am all for hard work and dedication and all that, but just sometimes, I wish I could have it easy like so many others. I envy them. There’s was this girl in my class, she had all the fun that school goers hope to have, and she very effortlessly got the marks that I did, while depriving myself of the fun. And there have been many such instances, at work, at gym and I am going to skip those because they bring back unpleasant memories. Yep, enough has been said about life not being fair, life being random, etcetera. But, don’t you just wish, you had it easy? I do. I am sure there’s a pattern that we are missing. I am going to figure that out, and hopefully before I am spent.

As Calvin put it, “Why should I have to work for everything? It’s like saying I don’t deserve it!”

'In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.'

When a quote like this starts to make sense, all is not quite well, is it? Will it be a good idea to talk about it on a public space? I don't know. But here I go. I have been feeling miserable lately. Nothing earth shattering, thank God, but it's just a feeling of nothing happening, part bored, part depressed, part frustrated. You know that bleak feeling, of nothing to look forward to, yeah that feeling. Strangely, retail therapy or gym hasn't upped my endorphin levels.

However, I am thankful that I have a home to take care of and a job to go to each morning. It would have been very insane otherwise, with all the free time, I would have killed myself just thinking and thinking more. Thinking is not a good thing you know. I know. But how can one not think, guess it's about exercising a control over what you think. It means being conscious and be aware of what to think. Complicated... but I guess I will eventually figure this out.

Now, not to belittle my state, here are few of the good symptoms
We (husband & I) went to Lifestyle, and came back without even checking out the women's section. (now, can u beat that?)

No 3 pm junk craving (I know, I know I am lucky, No under stress binge for me).

I have taken to cooking, big time.

While I am no Whiskey drinker, and while I am on quotes, I like this one - What Whiskey will not cure, has no cure for.

A woman can dream...

I dream of a slower life, the life with more square feet, the life with a little garden, a dog house and a dog, the life closer to parents and friends, the life with lazy breakfasts and long showers and quick meetings.
The life without rude auto drivers, crazy tele-callers and husband having to work weird hours. The life without limited leaves and obscene airfares.

I dream of that life you know. Yeah that life.