Sunday, June 19, 2011

Birthday blah blah

I know I am growing old, because more than the friends and family’s wishes I had sms’s from Banks, insurance companies, shopping malls, mutual funds wishing me on my birthday – Luckily these wishes did not outnumber my family and friends circle. Small mercies in life.

I woke up this morning from a pleasant dream and lots of hugs from J and D, < Have I mentioned this before, I am sucker for hugs – People around me get tired of my requests for hugs and today, mind you only today, they were quite generous with it) and I had a smile playing on my face the entire day.

I am reminded of a quote “growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional”! And I guess this holds true for me in particular. :-) :-) Am I saying this with pride? May be.. I am 41 today ( OMG !!!), but I am not letting that come in the way of my attitude or in the way I lead my life and I have no qualms of accepting my age in any forum, not just in the blogosphere.

So here I am still feeling the need to wear new clothes ( I still get excited about new clothes – proof no one for not growing up !!) on my birthday and made sure I had plenty of them this time. I remember a couple of times, when I didn’t wear new clothes for my birthday in the past ( after marriage) I was overcome by enormous self pity later, and blew up exorbitant amount of money in gifts for myself. I am not taking a chance this time, am I?

J and D were so nice to me – anything was okay today and I did take a wee bit ( honestly, a wee bit) advantage of the fact that it was my birthday. J surprised me earlier this week with a lovely gift of a Kanchipuram saree ( which I would precisely wear once or twice). Infact, I had stopped picking up sarees for myself as I thought it is a lot of waste of money - 1. They are so difficult to wear and maintain 2. Once you wear a saree for an occasion you cannot wear it again ( a logic that J is never able to fathom, but I am sure many women would instinctively understand where I come from). J Keeps telling me that it is a criminal waste of money to buy sarees and just wear them only once.

Anyway I was surprised that J came up with this idea and I am still getting over the guilty pangs of picking up a saree which is the most expensive one in my wardrobe right now, and you know from the corner of my little heart, there were thoughts about killing so many silk worms, that I trying not to focus on…But I think I liked it. And J mentioned that he is so impressed with all the efforts had put in getting my little one prepare for his board exams. ( Pat on the back, moist eyes and play a melody in the background )

I had to go to office today as there was relaunch of an initiative from the unit that I work with and so I was at office in the city and spent my morning with a lot of kids and families of our organization. The little ones ( especially the girls and especially one little fellow) kept all of us on toes and made sure the morning was a pleasant and enjoyable one.

We had lunch together, J made sure he took a break from work during lunch time. I should have started my day with a mass, but it had to wait till evening. A cake cutting after church ( cake selected, ordered and brought home by D) completed my birthday. This is the first time, I had so many wishes on Facebook and I thanked each and every one.

All through the day, calls from loved ones kept me busy and everytime there was a call, I was ever so grateful. Rosanna played a song over phone on her Piano and really made me feel special, couple of other calls from onsite ( hey stop, onsite ??? or is it freinds abroad - occupationational hazards on being in IT) and some really close friends' calls made me feel so happy. 

And there was something else that made me really feel happy. A couple of days ago, I guess it was on Monday, I lost a gold pendant at home. Actually the hook of my chain had come off, and this pendant must have slipped out. It was a nice heart and was gift from a couple of my close friends for a birthday two years ago. When I opened the door for my cook in the morning, I felt something slip in my neck and realized it was the chain and by then, the pendant was not there. I really felt bad about losing the pendant one because it was a gift from some close friends and two because I making losing gold a habit offlate. Though I was pretty sure about losing the pendant at home and finding it someday, this was on my thoughts constantly.

J has given up on me and after checking a couple of times stopped asking about it. I had told my maid about this and she did a clean sweep with no pendant in all the dust. Today D was in a hurry dressing up, as he was coming with me to my office and he called out saying Mamma, I got your pendant. It was in his shoes. I was so happy that I got it back and made a mental note to be careful with my belongings in the future.

Isnt that lovely, that I had to get this back on my birthday ? I feel a strong presence of my Lord in my life and feel when I pray he truly listens !!!!

Thursday, June 09, 2011

Enigma

It is difficult to believe
You are so much part of my thoughts

It is difficult to believe
The Joy you bring to my being

It is difficult to believe the
Wonder of your love

It is difficult to believe that you
appeared from nowhere Serendipitously

It is difficult to believe the
Innocuous smiles that you bring to my face

It is difficult to believe that
You made me love myself

It is difficult to believe the ubiquitousness
Of you inspite of absence

It is difficult to believe that
I’ve met none as enchanting as you

It is difficult to believe you always
come up with tricks & trivia that never fail to surprise me

It is difficult to believe I still am in
complete awe of what you are

Its difficult to believe I treasure every single memory
That defies all these disbeliefs

Saturday, June 04, 2011

How can you not forgive?

( If a post script is written even before completion of main content, can we call it pre script?  If yes, here is a prescript - This post was written a couple of days back and I hadnt published it.)

I tried changing views of a person, a very close family member about his views on another family member. My intention was not to fight, but it turned out to be just that. All I wanted was harmony around and ensure everyone was happy in the family. Not only did this person misunderstand me completely, it so happened that we did disagree on some things.

And the constant pain of the conversation kept nagging me all through the day, inspite of my intense work schedule. It is just not going away from my mind. I am saddened that I had to disagree, in an attempt to bring joy in the family, I have done just the opposite and I love everyone that I don’t want to win some and lose the others.
What I just cannot comprehend or fathom is the fact that how anyone harbor anger for years together ? How can you move on in life with resentment about an incident or a person? Why cant you simply forgive and forget? Is it Ego? Is it your cultural upbringing ? Is it the religion, values or society? Any of these or all of these put together cannot and should not compete with Love. And if Love was present all these should just obscure into oblivion. Shouldn’t it?
Life is short, so small compared to the huge expanse of the milkyway and our lives in this universe is just a miniscule of a moment – generations come and go and people get angry over some insignificant stuff in life.

Forgiving someone is easily said than done. I know it. I have gone through the terrible grind of this – I almost have become insane doing it. But let me tell you its worth it. Worth every bit of it.

If not for others, for your own self, forgiving and moving on is worth its salt.