Straight face me: “If I was not a Naini girl, I would have been a Cali girl..”
Uncontrollable burst of laughter from the other end of the phone, people do appreciate a good sense of humor!
Every time I visit California I am surprised at my ‘wannabe’ streak. However this idea is not so far-fetched, you are either a city girl or a country girl (for lack of better word for all things ‘nature’).
I am just saying give me some green hills, an orange sun, foaming waters, sandy beaches and I am a very content happy person!
On my flight to LA, I was reading about the scientist Nikola Tesla and his experiments with alternating current, wireless transmission of energy and Tesla prong and I feel somewhat inclined to define happiness in terms of physics. You are in a happy state when you find your resonance with a place, person or activity. You connect at your natural frequency, you are most alive, and your mind is unconsciously taking notes (some call it memories). These memories are like an incoherent map of happiness for future reference, a collage of images and experiences frozen in space and time. (key words-incoherent, frozen)
If I was to make a time-lapse video using images captured during my recent trip, the storyboard would look something like this:
LAX airport- colorful pillars you see just before landing, busy, makeshift structures at the arrival section; LA’s palm trees along the roads, curves, always moving traffic. Hit the freeway in the black shadows of the night against the backdrop of the city light. The black shadow of a hill appears right in front of you and as you race by the hill, it recedes and flanks you on the sides. The hills like the loyal sentinels hide away the ocean; however not for long, even the dark shadows of the night cannot conceal the foamy white waves from sight. You slide down the car windows and smile as the lights of passing cars, the wind, the sound and smell of the ocean all hit you at 80mph!
DSLR geeks tell me that making time lapse videos from RAW images is a lot of work but the human brain is unique, it can store millions of memories and string them together in the most beautiful way. I can close my eyes and see the stories that emerge from the images of the peaceful setting sun at the beach, the competitive full-moon following us all the way from Santa Barbara to LA, the picture-perfect postcard town of Solvang with its foreign Dutch air, the cliff with the view of a serpentine railway track running parallel to the shore, the quite ranches and big houses cleverly hidden behind tall trees.
Hopefully all the driving and parking lessons along the way will also stay in my head, at least till the driving test. Here I am completely banking on my Mind's eye!
I guess I should keep an updatable memoir to keep an account of my experiences of living alone for the first time. Yes I belong to the set of the people who romance the idea of first time. The second time is never like the first! (end of discussion)
This will be like a record of the lessons learnt or changes in behavioral patterns. So here goes the first moment of truth.
1. Living alone makes you cruel!
You no more have the King Arthur roommate who singlehandedly slays the army of multipedes that
invade your living space-the creepy insects with beady eyes in shady corners. You no more have the luxury to be saved, you have to pick up the arms and fight your own devils.
Within a week of moving into my apartment, I have already killed two cockroaches. One brutally drowned in hot water and the other beaten to death. I still have to deal with one dead body when I go back home.
My apartment manager tells me matter of fact, ma'am this is the wild South not the Mid-west.
Well I survived the East without killing a beast, (except for an unfortunate lizard which got squeezed between the door hinges and barred me from entering the room till the last trace of the remains was gone- ofcourse the room mate arranged for that). What memories!
This episode became more gory than intended, but hopefully the next will be uplifting.
2. Living alone makes you 'double-check' your every action..(07/07/2013)
'Dobuul check' is a phrase that I learnt in Kolkata, every time I would run a script or execute a query my team mate was in the habit of asking me to 'dobuuul check'. Well he was in the habit of asking everyone to dobuul check everything in life..
I remembered him, as I got out of my bed at 2am at night to just double check that I had bolted the door. Although I remembered clearly of having done so, I still choose to dobuul check.
I was never the person to check if the cooking gas regulator was closed at night or the doors were latched, there was always someone else to look after these errands. Also if this 'someone' was not around to do the same, I slept and woke up just fine with no care about the door or the gas regulator or anything else.. Now sadly the 'dobuul check' module is loaded, although slightly buggy...
3. GoodNight-GoodMorning system break-down..(11/11/2013)
If you can fall off asleep at night as soon as you get into the bed and
close your eyes. Life is good.
If you can wake up at the sound of your alarm without getting too 'alarmed’.
Life is good.
Needless to say that life is not good when the above 'ifs' don't hold true.
Now there might not be a direct correlation between GoodNight & GoodMorning
system break down scenarios and living alone but I do see a pattern.
I have come to realize the importance of the ‘good-night’ chat for a good
sleep.
Back in the engineering days when we were not copying assignments, a bunch
of us would be huddled together watching ‘Friends’- lack of resources for the communal
watching. And as you walked back to your room with your roomie, you had the
5mins of good night chat about ‘today’ and ‘tomorrow’.
Kolkata & Hyderabad followed the same pattern, though Kolkata was more
fun-it was the time to curse the fools at work- ‘the today’ and making weekend shopping
plans ‘the only tomorrow you cared for’.
MBA good night chats were about ‘submissions for today’ and ‘assignments for
tomorrow’ at least for the first year.
The point is these ‘today-tomorrow’ chats gave a closure to the day and I
could snore away peacefully having told all the stories/complains that I wanted
to tell for the day!
Now when I find myself struggling to sleep, I have to pick up the phone and
think of the nocturnal people I know. So living alone makes you understand the
value of nocturnal friends to complete your ‘GoodNight’ ritual.
Same is true about the morning ritual, at least for lazy people like me.
Sometimes you come across another lazy soul like you and you instantly sign the
most sanctus unspoken agreement about waking up late in the morning without ‘feeling
guilty’ about it. There is unconditional
moral support when you miss morning class, show up late at work or improvise a
super lazy Sunday morning record, and in some instances a partner in crime!
There are virtues of an early riser roommate as well, occasionally her
goodness rubs on you and you have a proud day in a month! She is also your
safety net when you fall too deep in slumber on an important morning.
Living alone you have to perform both the above roles by yourself to keep
the ‘GoodMorning’ system running smoothly..- Not an easy task!
Walls stand silently for their entire life-they don’t move, they don’t make funny noises of their own but I have come across many a creaking doors and windows in my life. The best the walls can muster is to fail to block out the outside noise; however each door and window has its characteristic voice-the sound of unlatching and then the sound of force as it snaps open. You can also sense seasonal modulation if you are living in a place that receives heavy rainfall (moisture rich environment).
Walls stare back at you blankly, you don’t gaze at walls and ceilings unless you are really sad and then also the best the walls can muster is their stoic disposition-unaffected gaze. Walls hide away things- block them away from sight.
Walls define space; doors and windows represent a possibility to look beyond the confines of your space. Walls represent inflexible boundaries; doors and windows represent flexibility and freedom..
There are a lot of differences that one can create and write about but essentially the question is when do you create walls to shut out people and when do you leave a door or window of hope ajar?
photo credit sr
After a lot of knocking she finally sent me some pictures from her recent Jaipur visit.
Interestingly Jaipur is a perfect example of how walls(Jaipur city wall) with its seven gates(doors) and windows(hawa mahal) together give the city its unique character- Padharo mhare des!
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:
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…
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..
Someone always tells you what the best part would be when you start out with something new..
Yesterday learning to float on my back for the first time, I was remembering an old conversation. In his characteristic excited style, dost A had told me long back-"Back-floating is the best part"..Its a weirdly amusing feeling to let go of yourself and be water borne on your back, i couldn't agree less.
And then I was thinking no one can ever tell you what the worst part will be..you have to take the fall yourself to realize how hard it hurts and if you can stay afloat in the end..
I have just too many thoughts when I swim..
When i am swimming outdoors I tend to think about the universe and the bigger things in life and when I swim indoors my thoughts tend to be more inwardly focussed-the petty challenges of day to day life.
I like to believe that swimming is like a zen state for me with wise floating thoughts!
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