when "d" became "D"

Yesterday, as I saw D (my husband, whom I will refer to as D from now on) through the metal grill, which separates the ladies and gents compartments in  Bombay local trains, he came across as the most handsome man in my range of vision. Having told you where I was, you can just imagine the sheer number of mankind there was in this field of view. Now, handsome is not how one can describe my husband usually. Sure, he has a boyish charm and a cute smile but I cant be as unfair as to say that girls will go weak in the knees by just looking at him. He has an endearing personality but you have to know him to like him. He is definitely no M&B man. But yesterday he looked practically dashing! This phenomenon puzzled me and I started to think as to how and when did this happen. This also reminded me why I chose to spend my life with him rather than my previous love interests. And it started looking like a story that I could tell here.
I have grown up in an all girls' convent school and did not have any mention-able interaction with the opposite sex till I was 18. In college, I went through a series of relationships (potential post alert) without much time interval between two. This, I regret. D was my friend for two years before I realized that I cared for him more than a "just friend" would. One day. we were returning after watching a  rom-com and predictably I was thinking about how the couple in the movie were perfect for each other and how similar D and I were to those characters. I just blurted out that "you better get married to me". This worked like a bucket of cold water on his head and he clammed up. I, on the other hand, was slapping myself in my head and thinking just why did I say what I said. After half an hour of a pregnant pause,( if you can call that long a pause a pause), he said to me that he adored me since the last two years and never had the guts to say it to me. He said he couldn't believe his ears and then thought that maybe I was joking as always. Then we both sat in silence and decided that I wasn't joking and this "us" was a good possibility. This is how we started a bit shakily but gradually to fall for each other and after 5 years still haven't touched ground yet.
Now, coming to the sudden improvement in his looks, I feel that since I have been pregnant and since he has realized that he will be a father soon, the boy in him has grown up in leaps and bounds and the man shines through more often. Of course, he is just 28 right now and accepts that it does feel a tad too soon but he also feels that it will be better in the long run for both us and the kid.
I also have this nagging feeling that nature, automatically, makes the father more attractive to the expectant mother and vice versa so that they make safe voyage through this, more or less, sexless time in their relationship. Whatever be the reason but yesterday I felt immensely in love with my man. 

It applies to Diwali too....

Jim, the amazing, has started this great movement against people having to work on Thanksgiving. He, very rightly, says that this malpractice continues because of us, the customers. If we as a group decide to boycott all shops and markets, the owners of these shops will not find it viable to keep their shutters up.
The same principle applies to Diwali. Shops selling sweets, gifts, lanterns, and other such Diwali related, or not related, stuff keep business running till quite late even on Diwali night. This means that their employees too keep working at a time when everybody is enjoying with their families.
Lets decide to not support businesses on a festival eve. In fact, lets ask all the neighboring shops in our respective areas, before hand, to give an early off to their workers. Every little change in the attitude of every single person will eventually change the society as a whole.

Iv got nothing to read!!!

People, suddenly all my favorite blog writers have suddenly gotten terribly busy and that means that their usual a-post-a-day-or-in-two-days schedule has been broken. Now I cant claim to be a regular writer and not that anybody minds, including me, but these people have serious readership. Heck, the first thing I do when I get to office is check my blogger dashboard and read the latest posts. This makes me feel like a regular in blogger world. Since the past three days I've seen no new posts and the teeny-tiny voice of my conscience has been nagging me, "how can you expect people to be regular if you aren't ! They have lives too!" then it gets distracted by the psychedelic colors of my desktop wallpaper, but not for long, and starts again. "Why don't you come up with something to say once in a while? Wasn't that the whole point of starting this exercise?" Now I've heard people talk about the voice in their heads as if its a physical sound, like a song playing in their own private radio station, but this "voice" in my head doesn't sound like anything. Its just written words which pop up at the back of my mind. 

Anyways, so here I am writing about people NOT writing. It does seem like a desperate attempt of a post but I am taking this process one step at a time. Lets see, maybe one day I will awaken to the stories around me that could be told and maybe some people will look forward to my posts as I do for others'. 

P.S. - Check my list of favorite writers and tell me they are not worth waiting for! 

Drifter

I have lived through three different states in India through my life of 29 years, Delhi (10 years), Maharashtra ( 18 years) and Gujarat (1 year). I have lived, worked and studied in two of the largest cities in the world, Delhi and Bombay. My parents belong to Uttar Pradesh, another different state. That means I have grown up in a predominantly North Indian (Hindu) environment inside the house and exposed to something else outside. For my non-Indian friends, I would like to explain that cultures in different states of India are shockingly different. Both linguistically as well as way of life. Festivals brought this out quite sharply in my childhood days as we didn't live in a metropolitan city.
I grew up in a small town in Maharashtra. Even though it resulted in a good exposure to a variety of food, religious practices and languages, I always felt like an outsider as a kid. All my relatives were back in my native state and we met only once a year or less. This meant that most of my days were spent with school friends and neighbors. School was always a great equalizer but the real tussle was with neighbors. I was always made fun of because of the way I spoke Hindi (too correct) or because of the way I couldn't laugh to other kids' jokes (she just wont get it). Frankly, I didn't mind. Never enjoying a large group of friends I was okay with it. Plus, I had a great younger sister for company.
As I grew up, I noticed that people have these separate fallback groups. Childhood friends from school, friends from places they have spent all their lives in, friends as kids from parents' friends, etc. I, on the other hand, having drifted from one house to another even within a city couldn't boast of any lasting relationships with other children. This also developed my nature of letting go of people who I didn't see everyday. Today, I don't have a single friend who I want to connect to or meet up just to have a good time. I enjoy the company of my closest family or just me.
This doesn't mean that I am not jealous of people who have this amazing network of relationships which act as support groups for both them and their parents in old age. I do miss that "strength in numbers" feeling once in a while. Sometimes I wonder is it because I was always a loner at heart or is this a natural progression in behavior because of the "circumstances", as my sister is quite the opposite.
Do share if you have similar experiences.
P.S.: I have realized that I am really bad at giving titles. Plain simple numbers from here on, I guess. 

Coming soon...

Its been almost a month since my last post. I'm going to post soon and it will be about migration, feeling rootless and the all the good and bad that go with it. The idea came to me when Jim, the amazing, told me about the Latvian shot in His Wife's blood. Do drop in guys because I will need responses on this one. I need to know whether you have similar or not stories to tell.
Stick around.

The one in which Europe and America dissolve their differences and join forces to make the day of an unknown Indian girl.(The title will have more alphabets than the post today)

I know I will lose the little readership I had today but IT STILL FASCINATES ME!
I promise my next post will not feature the world map. 

US rules....(my page) !!!

I hope I have better things to write about. But right now I am taken up with the stats! I check the stats page everyday. Its fascinating when people far off read you and you get to know their location. The latest news is that.......

US of A wins....!!!!!

Thanks you ...(tears of joy and gratitude streaming my down my face). I hope that didn't sound sarcastic. I was merely exaggerating.

I like Latvia

I have decided that I like Latvia. I have come to this conclusion after some research and a very selfish purpose. I will present some of the facts I found about Latvia below and the selfish reason will be revealed in the later half of the post.

• Latvia seems to be a beautiful country. Check it out here.
• Wikipedia says that, with 2,070,371 inhabitants^[5] and a territory of 64,589 km² (24,938 sq mi)^[8] it is one of the least populous and least densely populated countries of the European Union. This brings the density to 32 people/ sq.km. [Being from India, you can realise how highly I regard this fact. Indian population density stands at 365 ppl/sq.km.]
• Latvia is a country in the "Baltic" region of Northern Europe with their major language being Latvian.[ Latvian is an Indo-European language."Baltic" can be roughly translated into Hindi as "of the bucket". It seemed to be an important cross-reference. ]
• Latvia was first declared independent on 18th of November 1918. [I was married on 18th of November 2010! See the connection?]
• Latvia was recognised as a nation on January 26, 1921. [India became a Republic on January 26 1950. I'm telling you, I was destined to like Latvia.]
• They even had a cool Singing Revolution to reclaim their independence between 1987 and 1991! [I have a deep love of singing and a singing revolution seems to be THE perfect type of protest to me. Even so, I feel they must have used some really bad singers to force an issue of independence down the Russian throats.]

There are some more cool facts but you will have to do your own research for that. Now, coming to the selfish reason for liking Latvia.

Do you see? The Latvians make up the majority of my readers. I thank them from the bottom of my heart for dropping by. But I would really like to know what drew them here. If any of my Latvian readers are reading this then please let me know. 

I also want to ask my fellow bloggers if they have come across such interesting statistics. 

Help.....

I have tried to change the layout of my blog. Its coming out fine except the list of my favorite bloggers hanging like a sword on the head of my posts. Even though I love all these people "literally", it has screwed up the whole arrangement of my page. The worst part is I dont know how they got there. Please help me to give them their own respectable place and a nonthreatening position.

The voice of God

[December 24, 1924 to July 31, 1980 (pic courtesy: http://www.last.fm/music/Mohammed+Rafi)]

I have always been in awe of Mohd. Rafi. No amount of adjectives can do justice to the quality of his voice. So I'l avoid them and just say that his voice touches my heart like nothing else. He transformed mundane even poor lyrics into beautiful songs and if the poetry was good, he would just do magic with it. His versatility amazes me. He could sing for different types of actors in different roles and portray what the story wanted just right. There are many examples where the actor has in fact failed to do justice to the emotion in the song but its Rafi's voice which talked to the audience. I have laughed, cried and been inspired by his songs innumerable times. His soul shone through his voice which was what set him apart from his contemporaries. His was known to be a shy man of few words even within his family. He rarely talked about his feelings or lost his temper. People who were fortunate enough to have been close to him say that he withdrew into his shell if hurt or angry but could never talk it out. But when he sang, you not only listened to the lyrics but the story behind the choice of those words too. In fact, he was the greatest actor ever if acting means portraying a character other than yourself. His humility is legendary even now. While some singers wanted a share in the profits if a certain song became a hit, he felt that the composer had chosen him to sing without asking for any guarantees so the fee for it couldn't be tampered with later. He felt it was extortion. He maintained this opinion even if it meant alienation from a sector of the Indian film industry. He was an icon for many exemplary singers and the "Voice of God" for the audience. 

If I had to recommend just 5 songs for somebody who wants to reacquaint himself with his voice, this would be my list.

1) Ye duniya agar mil bhi jaye to kya hai  (Pyaasa -1957) 

2) Tum mujhe yu bhula na paaoge            (Pagla kahin ka - 1970)

3) Din dhal jaye                                       (Guide - 1963)

4) Aana hai to aa raah me                        (Naya daur- 1957)

5) Jo vaada kiya vo nibhana padega         (Taj Mahal - 1963)

(Please search for these in YouTube because I'm unable to insert links for whatever reasons.)

Its advantage Nature

Some of the holiest of places for a number of us were washed away in a freak of a natural disaster in the last few days. Places where people go to ask for forgiveness, blessings, jobs, children, return of a lost loved one, peace for the ones they know will never return, became the cause of their own deaths. These were places which have been with us since the beginning of time itself. They have been known for their powers of healing, of solace. They are supposed to have been established by men of God who wanted to spread peace and spirituality to the rest of us. We who have no time to establish a gradual and consistent relationship with the Almighty. We who want to hop skip and run to "holy places" for instant gratification. 

Kedarnath Aerial view during the floods (courtesy economic times)

Kedarnath befire and after the flash floods (courtesy spiritIndia)

Hemkund Sahib (courtesy globalGujratnews)

The road to Hemkund Sahib washed away (courtesy Babushashi)

These were places which have been "made convenient to access" so that every year an increasing number of "devotees" can come and worship their respective Gods. This has been achieved with the help of a number of facilitators like builders, religious trusts, local residents who are there just so that we all have food to eat and places to stay when we go there in thousands everyday. The state governments provide all possible support to these good Samaritans because its a democracy and their motto is "of the people, by the people, for the people". 

Does this look like a mountain side city fabric ???? (courtesy hindustantimes)

Were these places chosen originally for their central location and ease of access? No. Were these places suitable for such large scale and rampant "development" (for the lack of a polite word to express my true inner feelings) ? No. In fact, I do have to use the word which is appropriate. Rape. We, as citizens and as  governments,  have raped these places of all the dignity and respect they deserve and got at a certain point in history.

I believe Nature and not Shiva was the God there. Nature was the one we should have worshiped. It was the very ecology of these places that provided peace and solace to us. We sensed spiritual presence from the purity of air and water there. 

 

Giant Shiva statue in Rishikesh flooded (courtesy ibnlive network) (for the life of me  I'm unable to move this to the center)

It is very insensitive and politically incorrect for me to say this, but when I first heard of the disaster, I had this really strange sort of a happy feeling which you get when you finally get revenge. I am very pained and sad to see the loss of human life in this tragedy. But, if this is how we measure the enormity of a disaster, then all those departed souls served their purpose by grabbing us by our eyeballs. Nature used the only tool or voice it had to express its rage over its mindless exploitation. I salute the force and strength of this voice and pray that it be heard.

A few more questions trouble me. Where are the numerous "guardians" of Hinduism now? Where are the organisations and pundits who proclaim it holy and auspicious when a marble statue "drinks milk" or "cries" ? Why don't they find a religious interpretation to this destruction and say that this is God's way of telling us that we be more sensitive to our mountains and rivers and trees? How do they condone wasting several crores worth of oil and milk as ways of veneration on one side and not derive a meaning from this HUGE catastrophic event on the other? How can we, as a historically educated and developed civilization, still keep faith in such organisations and keep pumping our hard earned money into them? how can we give them the right to be our spokesperson? 

I've done so earlier to as many people as I can and want to again use this blog as a medium to urge people to not support these pseudo-spiritual organizations. Please do not use helicopters to go to Vaishno-Devi. You never know the din of the chopper might trigger a landslide.  Please visit these sensitive places of worship as sensitive and intelligent human beings and not like sheep with a herd-mentality. God has created us to be "us". Let's be.

There's always a new trek at the end of one

I love walking. If my shoes aren't killing me, which they rarely do because i do not associate with shoes with violent tendencies in the first place, and if its not too hot outside I prefer walking to any public or private transport. And that's the reason why treks are my favorite kind of holiday activity. Fortunately, I have a pretty good group of such aficionados in my office. This group, my husband and I went for a short trek a few days ago to a place called Sandhan valley. It was out of this world! Of course not literally because we didn't even step out of our state (yes it was THAT close to Bombay. And yes I am gloating).

from left- my husband Dipanjan, Mayekar and me

The scale of the space will be clear in the next few pictures

It is more a crack in a plateau than a valley formed by centuries of gushing run-offs from the plateau during the monsoons.  But I would like to believe that its been born out of a dhoti clad, Indian style Gandalf's staff while stopping a menacing demon. We even had a "YOU SHALL NOT PAAAAAAAAAASS!!!" reenactment. At the start of the walk (I will replace this word appropriately in the later phase when it ceased to be a walk) we were like Tom Cruise in M.I. and Daniel Craig in Casino Royale all rolled into one. Except that we had foolish grins pasted on us. 

little did we know what lay ahead.....

The trek grew steep and we city bred mortals had a hard time coordinating all the unknown little pieces of muscles we had. Gradually, I realized that my body was behaving like my brain does on a rare Sunday in office. Lazy, disoriented and uncooperative. My legs would give way quite a few times on the extremely slippery stones and would fall in a undignified heap. Thankfully, the rest too were having a tough time keeping their balance or else we would have a lot more pictures of me lounging uncomfortably between the rocks. More than half of the trek we were just dragging our asses from rock to rock. I kid you not when i say this but the only difference between us and a scooting dog was that we had some clothes on. Again thankfully we have no photographic evidence of the said posture. 

This resulted in a rebellion by my shorts. And now that we have all established how thankful I am, let me just say that my dignity was protected by the sheer foresight of my husband. He had packed an extra pair for himself! The flab on my midriff played an important part here in preventing the 2 sizes too big shorts from sliding off.  I hope this post does not portray that we did not have fun. We HAD fun. Big time. I cant put into words how the sound of a woodpecker or one of those whistling birds sounded within those huge rocky walls. The softly falling rain and the dripping water from the sides of the valley, it was all deeply magical. Actually this place is also described as the Grand Canyon of India. Of course, topographically only. 

Il leave you with some pics here before I come to the climax of the whole post because then you will be able to place the whole revelation into perspective.

   

A 30 feet rappelling was also on the menu

that's me lying face down while everybody else had lunch

We found this amazing pond with an awesome view at the fag end of the trek and jumped right in. 

THE VIEW....!

A week after this I came to know that I was pregnant. I mean I AM pregnant. Apparently the young one is quite a tough cookie and of course loves to walk too!!! YAAAAAAYY..... we are going to have a baby!!!

Finally....

What sort of a title is that for a first post?! I'l tell you how it came to be. "Your first post should be funny, attractive, entertaining or too tragic to catch attention and sustain it". This was my first thought about my very first blog post. Sadly, I couldn't think of any thing. I'm usually not at a loss for words but i simply couldn't think of a single starting point for my, hopefully soon to be immensely popular, blogging life. Then came THE DRAFT. I have it, with all the punctuation in place, in front of me which I'm not following here. It was very neutral, almost castrated, to say the least. But at least it was a start. Travel, music, people crossed my mind as potential subjects. Places where i'v been to, places i would like to visit, people i absolutely love, people i love in bits and parts, singers, musicians, my recent infatuation with violins, everything just came crashing down inside my head. It was like pulling out a file from a huge pile of files and feeling them all falling on you. 

I am scared, anxious, feeling vulnerable, as well as very very "untalented". Maybe speech is my thing. Writing's not. The scariest part is I will find this out in public. But find it I will. Hello web world and the off chance visitor. 

[I would like to thank suldog, pink india ink (sadly,she has discontinued her blog), shane, thesimpledude, my husband and all the people who have motivated me to start.Most of you have done so unknowingly and might regret it.(At last, i was able to slip in a self-deprecating joke. I hope it establishes me endearing.)]