Thinkoholic

I have caught myself thinking about things that never was and never will be....I just cannot seem to stop myself from doing this. There is this unquenched longing that haunts my soul. I am unsure if this longing is justified. It only leaves me feeling lost and helpless and sometimes even sorry for myself. The only string that pulls me back to the present-the reality, is my staunch belief that everything happens for a reason and everything happens for the good. Despite this I wonder sometimes what good has shone out of some particular things that have happened and what good could have come out of some things that were just not meant to happen!

Choice

When it is raining outside,
Do you exclaim, ‘Oh s**t I did not get my umbrella!’ ? or
Do you get out and get slapped by the gentle rain?

When you lose a job,
Do you whimper like you have lost a leg? or
Do you just take a deep breath and smile with belief that there is something better out there for you?

When you do not get admission to university,
Do you curse your luck and lose motivation? or
Do you realise that there probably is something more important to be learnt outside uni?

When whom you love does not love you,
Do you lose faith in life and love? or
Do you feel the pinch but still be strong enough to move on?

When you feel other people are leading a better life,
Do you just roll your eyes and continue to feel envious and ignorant? or
Do you try to understand yourself and your life to realise and appreciate what you have?

When your house is burnt down,
Do you play the blame game and feel agitated? or
Do you feel the valuable material loss but still cherish the priceless memories?

When your child drops paint on the floor,
Do you keep the paint box away until your child agrees not to do it again? or
Do you turn on your wild side and offer a wall in the house for your child to paint?

When you are subject to discrimination,
Do you sulk, withdraw and feel inferior? or
Do you feel provoked to prove a positive point and make things clear?

Would you choose to – Smile in the rain, learn to love life, and believe in all that is positive and nice?

Extracts from Kannada poetry

Hendathiyoballu maney.yolagiddarey nanagadu.kooti.roopaee
Hendathi.volumeya bhagyava.narihada gandigey jayavilla :)
- K S Narasimah Swamy - Mysooru Malligey

Just another day

I am just about to write something not so exciting- A day in my life.

It is officially spring here. I like spring for more than once reason. But one delightful reason is flowers. Nature’s way of portraying variety in life is through the myriad colours she has stroked flowers with. All I am trying to say is, it is not as dark as it is in winter at seven in the morning. So getting out of bed shouldn’t be as hard. But a slack that I have become, this act requires a lot of self wheedling. I have noticed that I am a silent alarm myself because I wake up precisely a couple of minutes before my mobile alarm can buzz me out of my sleep. I wait for it to do its job, I turn if off, I turn around and before I have completely turned, I have told myself to wake up after about 10 minutes and I am also stupidly happy that I have nearly forty five minutes to get serious about getting out of bed. Oh dear me, gone are those days when I used to go for a morning walk every day and I so loved doing it. Anyway, I am still on my bed and am way past being nice to myself and I am screaming at my mind to keep my eyes open for just a little longer. I quickly calculate which train I will miss if I stay for some more time on bed and I wonder what time I will reach work if I am late and if a train is cancelled, courtesy Connex. This turns me on and I get out of that warmth.. that lucrative hide-out and I tell my self on a Thursday morning that I have one more morning to survive before I can sleep through this precise time on a Saturday morning when I don’t have to worry about train or time but just enjoy that sadistic pleasure of being on bed and feeling victorious against my alarm clock and that too for a battle I did not even have to fight!

I head to the kitchen and get the glasses of milk out of the refrigerator. I look at the clock in the kitchen which I bought from a $2 shop and I am surprisingly surprised that it is working. But each time I see this clock it is either really around 7 in the morning or 7 in the evening, I cannot remember checking this clock at any other time of the day, so suddenly for a fraction of a second, I doubt if it the clock is tricking me. It is not hard to trick me especially when I just out of bed. I stop to listen to the ticks of the clock, feel a bit sane and head to the bathroom. It is not a very encouraging thing to check your (my) face in the mirror first thing in the bathroom. I console myself thinking what I see in the mirror is after all gods creation. I have this dental cavity which has not been worked on efficiently by two sophisticated dentists, so I feel that painful vibration each time there is a gush of cold water hitting that tooth. I turn on the hot water to help myself feel better and brush my teeth at least for the sake of fellow human beings who will have the blessed opportunity to talk to me during the day. I also carry a mint box, just in case…Standing under the shower washes away my sleep and I feel chirped up after singing like I deserve an Academy award. I walk out of the bathroom dreaming that one day I will win…something in the warm water coming out of the shower, I guess…suddenly I transform into this austere figure offering prayers…I see god (photo) as soon as I get up, and I wonder whom does god see? I realise myself standing in front of God and feel sorry for him….I quickly head out and check the weather and then decide what to wear. Not that I have a wardrobe like Angie’s and definitely not so trusting on Melbourne weather…just an amateur attempt at being weather-monitored-fashion savvy. I prepare sandwich for breakfast…alas; I am no more that lucky mama’s girl who has her brekkie hot from pan, thanks to mummy dear. I kiss my DH good bye (this is the only truthful moment all morning) and head out to the train station…Most of the days I cannot afford to walk to the station because the train driver is not my fan who would care to wait for me….so I literally run. It is a delight for DH to watch me run to station since he finds my running (and sometimes my walking) hilarious….you bet I don’t miss out on any opportunity I get to pull his leg…anyway, as history has it, the days I am early to station, the train is late and definitely the vice-versa applies too. I look around to find the usual familiar faces at the station; check out what some smart ladies are wearing and note it down if it looks good. Occasionally I remember to check that smart guy whom I once saw and I couldn’t help looking back at him…yeah, u guessed it…it was just my second look at him and I no longer see him at the station….the train creeps in…I am standing at the exact spot where the door would open…sometimes it’s a miss calculation, I blame it on an inexperienced driver…we are all learners. I get in and look around hopefully for a place to sit…sometimes I find and sometimes I am surrounded by these huge Aussies whose physicality reminds me that I am a meek veggie. Inside the train I am interestingly keener on people’s hair style. It keeps me occupied, along with a novel that I always carry even if I have it open to read and all I do is doze. Finally the train reaches Flinders station. I hop out and run to the next platform for a connecting train. I look at the display clock and barge in to a train ready to depart. In the next station I get off feeling flushed after realising it was the wrong train…the train driver is no way close to being my fan! This leg of the journey is long depending on which train I get. So I am either looking out of the window with a thousand thoughts drumming in my head or I just decide to continue reading an interesting novel or I just listen to music and get carried away into a far away land (some place like Madagascar)….soon, not so far away I can see my office. I approach the door and try my pass and it does not work…I realise I have the wrong one (one from an old client place…its all about making customers happy) and finally get in and wish a few people a good morning with enough enthusiasm to startle them.
My day officially begins at office and some days time flies and some days each time I look at the clock I am amazed it is always twin time…10.10...11.11…03.03….do you reckon this is some kind of a message…but trust me I am still working on decoding it. Post 04.04 pm, my productivity dips…and I start thinking about the menu for dinner….a menu to cook not chose! I decide based on some calculations and visualisation of my refrigerator and soon I am back at the station heading towards home. I call DH to find out where he is and ask him what he wants for dinner…he usually says anything and that’s exactly what I wish to hear…because I have planned it all prior to asking him….sometimes I am proud of my smartness…We reach home and I head to the kitchen and cook like in a rapid fire round of a quiz…it is truly a matter of chance that the dish turns out well…and to make DH happy going by law of probability it will turn out well at least once….if friends who stay close by are daring enough, they drop by for dinner. We eat together and have some good time. It is soon time for a good nights sleep and I take my mobile to make sure the alarm is turned on for 06.06 am :)

In case you have still not figured out what DH could be...Dear husband

Unity in Diversity

I am about to 'hit the ground running'...oh these Aussie phrases!
PS:Do not become temperamental by getting sentimental. If you do, it is your problem.

Here are some comments or statements made by my fellow countrymen living here in Melbourne :)

To A: So, you people down south worship Ravan?
To A: So, you don’t speak Tamil? I thought you do because you are from the south.
To A: You don’t like tea, right? Because in the South they drink Coffee
To A: Your (south) cooking is so laborious...idli, dosa, oh my god!
Introducing S to X by Y: He speaks Tamil; he is from Kerela and belongs to Yel.T.T.EE

There are so many more hilarious incidents, but unable to recollect at this exact moment.
If you have any contributions to make, please leave them as comments and I will add them if appropriate with your name
as 'Courtesy'

Serendipity

There are these moments in your life when you feel a lump in your throat. You like it or not, these moments are meant to happen. You can call it destiny or choice or just….life.
A time in life which echos a moment when you have to depart from some one you love, someone ordinary who has effortlessly created extraordinary memories for you and with you, someone with whom you have spent an unforgettable time in your life, someone with whom you could have just spent a few months but who makes you feel like it was forever, someone with whom there was this vibe you just melted into and it makes it hard for you to believe that it occurred so unnoticed and you gelled into the relationship so smoothly.
In my personal opinion such relationships happen rarely. It is sweet serendipity. It also seems to come with a price tag of ‘all good things come to an end’. It is this period of parting ways that halts you on your track. It is this period you see the sombre side of life. This is when you have a smile on your face and mist in your eyes, a longing heart and a racing mind.

I do not know if I will ever happen to meet this ‘someone’ again in my lives journey.
I do not know if this ‘someone’ thinks the same way about me. I do not know what time and life has in store for me. My mind wiggles with this uncertainty but my heart is consoled by the fact that I have met such people and that they part and leave me with loving memories to cherish…….

"For you, a thousand times over"

Each time I think about the story narrated by Khaled Hosseini in his book, ‘The Kite Runner’ only one statement rings in my head -“For you, a thousand times over”….

Have you ever told this to someone…or at least felt this way for someone?
I am amazed and ashamed at the same time when I read about someone who can do anything for the one they love; anywhere, anytime….for a thousand times over….and with such grave intensity that it makes it hard to believe(If you have read the book, you will understand how intense the intensity I am referring to is).

We all have a lot of friends, enough to categorise them in a social network site. How many in that list have made you experience friendship so disconnected from adultery, so simple, so genuine, so delightful, and so innocent? How many friendships have you nurtured your heart out to? For how many have you gone that extra mile with minimal expectations of acknowledgment? For how many have you replied lack of reciprocation with continual stoicism? For how many have you passed situations when you have not wondered ‘Why should I always do it?’ For how many have you dared to go past norms just to have ‘been there and done that’? For how many have you broken your routine, just to experience the aberrant? For how many have you kept aside what is important to you? For how many have you not given lame excuses to avoid moments of togetherness? For how many have you dared risks just to keep your friendship soaring high? For how many have you done simple things to avoid complex consequences?

Friendship is like love…you never know when it happens and you can never measure its growth…all you ever have to know is it shapes your existence and that you should forever treasure its grace.