Gravity

If there was a competition for the most popular word in October, my money would be on 'Gravity'. Let’s keep the rules simple, we decide popularity just based on online count of a word most used/searched/hash-tagged in October.

Just for curiosity sake I googled the string 'most popular word' but it looks like this pageantry has not yet made its debut. Imagine if there was a stock index for words based on the trading (conversations) we do as a society; we have been trading money and words for ages but the written and spoken word has no real (quantifiable) value. We could change all that!
I'll leave this bizarre idea to rest at this point and assuming that a competition did exist, this is why I would vote for gravity. Recently the word gravity pulled me in the following three ways:

• The movie Gravity ( the movie will get all the credit for bringing the 3D spot light on the lowly word gravity and getting all the online votes for our champion word. The movie is an impressive visual treat, kudos to the power of imagination and the hard work to execute it)
• FedEx living PSP session ( there are some aspects of corporate culture that are beyond the control of an individual, you just have to live with it. Interesting choice of word there for all things 'Gravity')
• I went skydiving last weekend and with all the talk about weightlessness and free fall gravity was self-implied.

I didn't think of the competition idea when I was suspended in mid-air and I definitely did not sing 'it’s funny how falling feels like flying for a little while' when I was ‘up’ there. My mind was mostly blank at that point, I wasn't really thinking of scary 'what-if' scenarios but in all honesty there was one thought that did cross my mind.

After the adrenaline of the free fall part had subsided, and I was peacefully suspended holding the parachute. I looked down and realized that one of my shoe laces was open and flying freely in the air. With a whoosh the ‘what-if’ thought flashed in my head, what if I trip and fall on my open shoe lace when we land? I wasn’t too pleased with myself to be hanging in mid-air with a lousy open shoe lace.
Later when I went running the next day, I took extra care to lace up my shoes.  Did I just develop a new paranoia after the sky diving experience (even when I didn’t trip on my shoe laces)? Hopefully not!

But there was one explanation that I found more plausible. I wasn't too nervous about the jump because in my mind I had reposed all responsibilities to the instructor. He was going to do all the heavyweight lifting and I just had to hang in there. People have different comfort levels when it comes to letting go of control and trust the other person to  save your a** when things are beyond your expertise. With tandem skydiving they don’t require you to have any skills to survive, they just expect you to trust the intelligence of another individual and make the jump. I could muster that trust, so I wasn’t too anxious about the jump.
However seeing the open shoe lace, the ownership of responsibility changed, it was something in my control and my mind quickly raced to do the ‘what-if’ scenario evaluation.
So the simple moral of the story is ‘tie your shoelaces’ and the not so simple analogy is about trust, responsibility and letting go. I don’t trust people blindly but when I do, I just let go of my control and no doubt I have landed either upstream or downstream on the Nile and it’s not a just world at both ends and remember it’s the wild Nile..

I have harked a bit far south here, however in the end my final vote is gravity and just to tilt the scale in my favor, I have already used the word 10 times in my blog (there is one in the label) :)

In case you would like to hear the song referenced above:

The Cobbled Road..

A pair of high heels on cobbled streets always attract attention; it is almost like the clatter of the heels wakes up the sleepy road and all the sleepy folks living on it. The lazy eyed old man sitting by the side of the road lifts up his half open eyes from his lazy newspaper to look at the noisy passerby disapprovingly.
The undulating cobbled pathway adds an extra spring to the gait of the high heeled stranger. She does the hop skip and jump as she walks and the locals glance at her disapprovingly as they firmly plant their feet and walk steadily along.
The extra inches make her tower over the rest; it is almost like she unabashedly seeks attention. She must be a snob to walk all tall when the rest of the crowd unpretentiously walks in lowly pair of sneakers on cobbled road.

The old worn out cobbled streets in the hills are the most judgmental of all; they know the old regulars from the occasional visitors and can get nasty with the new folks. Yes she was new to this queer little town and she could sense that the meandering streets here didn't want to make friends with her- the high heeled snob on her high horse!

She tried to block out the nasty remarks of the street and steadied her pace for she had a rendezvous to keep. She still had a long winding distance to cover and she was afraid that she might not reach there in time- It is never a good idea to keep people waiting for long; they ultimately give up on you.

However the disapproval weighed down on her and gnawed at her will to walk further. Was it just the cobbled street that was being unreasonably prejudiced towards her or had she deserving earned the disapproval with her purple plume and high heels?
The chatter in her head kept getting louder, it was disapproval mixed with self-doubt and the fear of failing to make the appointed hour. Her pace slowed and she faltered, overwhelmed by a shortness of breath. Then in a split second she stopped completely turned around and ran as fast as she could in the opposite direction. There was no one to call her back now, she would not stop. Her fears had taken the better of her and she was again the fragile kid who knows nothing better than to run back home when a bully stops her midway on the cobbled road…

Peachy Affair

Almost two years ago I bought peaches from the grocery store’s local produce section here in US. There was something about the peaches that caught my attention, I can swear they had a golden glow (but I guess that will be easily discounted as hyperbole).

The peaches had the freshness and smell that brought back some childhood memories. They almost reminded me of the earthly smell of early monsoon back home in India. You can only romanticize the smells at the onset of monsoon; later the damp smell feel stale and overbearing as the rains and fog envelop you constantly for the next three months.The other good part about early monsoons was the fruity tradition, a carton of freshly picked peaches, apricots, plums & pears- the 'Pahari' fruits made their way from Nani’s orchards in Paharpani all the way to Nainital for us kids.

Needless to say, there was just no way that I could ignore the urge to put some in my shopping cart. They looked good, even better than the ones that made the hilly trek back home and I was already counting the odds if they could rival the old ones in taste. Sometimes you wish your guardian angels can step in and hold you back before you make such comparative tests of character- even if it is just peaches.

Those peaches were heavenly just like the ones from my Nani’s farm. They had the perfect smell and the perfect peachy juiciness. I ate all but one, I wanted to share it with my roommate who was not much of a fruit enthusiast but I was almost certain she would turn a new leaf when she tasted one of these. My enthusiasm knew no bounds and I called up my mom to tell her of my discovery.

I again went later in the week to get some more of those godly peaches, but I didn't get the same ones. They felt drier-almost drained of their juiciness. My quest continued, my roommate introduced me to peach yogurt as a substitute. I also experimented with peach ice-cream for a while, but you can’t fill a void with yogurt or ice-cream. I took this obsession to the next level with peach long island and Snapple peach black tea. But to no avail..

And since that day I am the cursed ones, looking for those same peaches and having never found them again. I buy them each time only to be let down, I have three peaches in my refrigerator but there are nowhere close to the ones I am seeking.

When I dig deeper about my Peach-fanaticism, I can clearly see how the germ entered my system, as a child I was not a big peach fan. When I was leaving India towards the end of July and I was doing my list of things to eat before I leave, my mom especially bought me some Pahari apricots (we no more have Monsoon fruit basket coming from my Nani’s orchard, that tradition slowly ended with her death). I believe those apricots were just my mom’s way to reconnect with a childhood tradition. With that one gesture she had triggered something else. It was not really about peaches or apricots anymore, it was love for a shared inheritance.

So I understand that this peach quest might be a bigger metaphor in my life, but currently my search is on a purely fruity level at least that’s what I want to believe..