Letting go

Ramesh, this one goes out to you again.  Thank you for that gentle nudge to write more.

 

For all the other readers ( I am being flamboyant here again, in assuming that I have too many of you, but the ones who read, trust me, you are precious to me) the earlier two posts are about our all girls trip to Thailand.

 

Letting go on Day 2 -  Part 1

 

Our plan for the second day was simple, unlike the earlier day. First half of the day at Coral Island and then back to Bangkok.  But what did not anticipate was all the adventure that was awaiting us at Coral Island.

First things First, we met our guide for the day, this time a petite woman who had the name tag on her which read LINRY, but this is how she introduced herself to us ( please read with a sing song tune)  Iiiiiiiii Lilllyyyy.. your guideee… A friendly woman who repeatedly assured us No Wollies… ( for the uninitiated, what she meant was no Worries). Figured out most of the Thai population cannot pronounce “r” and the “r” is invariably replaced with a “l” so tomorrow is always tomollow. Safari world is Safali wolld… you get the drift right?. That however is not the point in discussion, isn’t it?

 

We are not the only ones who are to be guided by Linry, she has a group of Indians. Ok we were a little surprised to see a whole bunch of Indians along with us. Most of them as families, grim faced and quiet. And while the men tried to look cool, the women looked jealous. How can these women ( us ) have so much fun?

 

But that realisation was only momentary and we were ushered into the thin silver sands on the beach, by the time we could take a few pictures, we had to wade into the crystal clear sea water which was a never ending aqua marine colour in front of us. That blue blue colour is something that I have seen only in movie song sequences. We clamoured up the speed boat in which there were people taking our pictures, we did pose for them too… Later we realised at the end of the ride, we will have to pay and take the prints or else they will just tear it up and throw it away.

Sudha & Me posing before we clamoured up the speed boat

 

We were instructed to wear life jackets in the speed boat and were eager and animated as the boat leapt above the water only to come down on the water with a stomach-churning thud. Laughter and chatter of four women filled the speed boat. I guess the laughter was more about hiding our fear for water. None of us knew swimming.



 

Our Speed boat leaving the bay

 The speed boats’ first stop was for parasailing. We moved from the speed boat to the large floating platform that provides a clear view of the bay and the city’s skyline. But who had the time to watch all that. Linry handed us over, to the care of some young men and she assured “no Wollies” once again, when we looked at our bags promising to look after our belongings. Sudha had already done the parasailing earlier in Andaman and hence she chose to be our photographer. Her DSLR was put to good use. our special thanks to Sudha, if not for her, our memories would not have been captured so beautifully.

 

We were watching people floating a hundred feet over the water held by a parachute and driven by a speed boat. Since I could see the harness being tightened on each person and is safely secured on to the parachute, logic was in place and except for a couple of butterflies in my stomach, I wasn’t worried.

 

My turn came and two of the gentlemen fastened the life jacket with the harness that can clasp the parachute. And then I was given the instruction to run on the floating platform as they strap the Parachute’s metal clasps onto me. In my mind, I was instructing myself to be ready to let go of the solid surface beneath me.

Waiting in the queue for our turn to be parachuted :-) & finding safety in a group :-)

Instructing myself to let go  just before giving my control to the parachute & speed boat

My heart was beating fast when they were strapping my parachute and before I could finish a couple of huge steps I realised I was airborne. It is an amazing feeling to let go of the land beneath your legs and float in the sky. While the speed boat seems to be moving pretty fast, I was floating in the air with almost no movement at all. The air up above was noisy, not very happy about my intrusion into its space and was hitting me hard. My heart started fluttering.

Airborne



Letting go



waving to Sudha while landing

A minute of being airborne, I found myself at peace, looked around and loved the skyline of Pattaya, the sea front looked far away and the unending aquamarine looked fabulous. I could also see few small islands’ and wondered if anyone lives there. And then overcome by some strange emotion, I let out a loud noise, my voice only to be drowned by the sound of air and the speeding motorboat in front of me. I let my hands off the parachute straps, freely flying in the air enjoying every bit of the experience.

By now, I was landing back onto the platform and I could see Sudha focussing her DSLR on me and I waved to her. I didn’t want to land, but I could see the speedboat manoeuvring itself to the spot for me to land. Two gentlemen helped me land smoothly. 

 

Harness removed, parachute off, the speed boat gone, I realised in my head I was still flying.

Networking sites and their small mercies in life

While my head and heart are still reeling under the pain of a good friend’s father diagnosed with cancer, I seem to be unconsciously calling the Lord and saying little prayers for strength for their family members to go through these moments of despair. The surgery is tomorrow and whatever I do, this thought stays in the background. I am trying to get away from thoughts of complete helplessness and am hoping & sincerely praying everything goes on well tomorrow and beyond.

I had been postponing a call to a friend, its been quite hectic at work front, ( kind of lost and found – I lost contacts with this friend after school and found her through Facebook) and decided that I have to do it today and so I called her ( lets call her L) with a lot of excitement. I am speaking to her after around 23 years and it was amazing how we could connect instantly with each other after sooooo long. I met L when I moved from a CBSE school near my house to a school in the city in std VI and we studied together till std XII and we remained good friends during that period. While I had other friends L was someone I stuck onto for most of the time.

I remember after finishing school, the last time we met was when we came to take our marksheets and I was surprised to hear that L was going to work and do her graduation through correspondence course.  I had enrolled into SMC for my graduation and later was invited by my school to receive the awards for getting first mark in Language and English in the board examinations for plus two.  I think it was because of my semester exam at college or so, I didnt go to school for receiving that award.  and I also knew that none of my friends would have been there.  Whatever, I didnt make it that day for the awards.  I continued writing to her, but by the time I was into the second year or so I lost contacts with her and I was also enjoying college life, I had so many friends, and some of my cousins ( from our place in Ennore)  were in the same college and we were freaking out and we did have a terrific time together at college.

Coming to think of it, I realized today that she was someone who accepted me without any inhibitions, for what I am because I remember  back then, I was, so naïve, so very bare and had no pretensions about what and who I was. Completely in a new environment at school, I remember she gave the solace of a very good friend. We went to each others houses, though our homes were far, our parents knew each other and we got to know each other’s families.

While we were talking over phone we recollected incidents of school days and how we enjoyed ourselves at school, discussed teachers, other friends, the scoldings that we got from teachers, punishments, assignments at school and what not.. I was telling her, even recently I was narrating an incident about how L’s brother was in Ohio and sent a Christmas card from Ohio and that was the first time I heard this name and I pronounced it so funnily and L corrected me and taught me how to pronounce it the right way. I am glad I have not forgotten that.

And L recollected how good my handwriting always was, when I mentioned about a common friend’s good handwriting at school and she also remembered how I used to leave handmade Birthday greetings in her bag as a surprise and she used to wait to come to school the next day to thank me for it. Honestly, I had forgotten that – she said I used to do it from std VIII and also said I used to be good in drawing and painting. How true. Am I not continuing that legacy through glass painting now?

We laughed about the style of Sr.Concordia and how I used to get scolded by Ms.Pearly, the terror at school ( she was our english teacher in plus one and two & she just hated me for whatever reasons and never gave me the first mark in the class tests and I feel good that I got the first mark in the board exams), my craze for plants and about lots of our friends. Sadly both of us are not in touch with any of our other friends – we spoke about our families, our jobs, our routines. It was so nice to recollect those days of innocence, love and camaraderie.

We spoke for quite some time and even after I disconnected a whole lot of memories of those days came flooding to my mind like the time we both bought same type of dresses and came to school on those rare occasions when " colour dress " was allowed in those similar clothes, how we both continued to sob and cry, much after the movie “ Passion of Christ “ was screened during the retreat at school and my feeling of complete safety and trust with this girl.

I remembered her second sister pretty well, she was an aspiring actress, extremely stylish for those days with fringes adorning her forehead and I remember she wore stilettos and I used to look at her with a lot of awe for her style and persona. Infact everytime I wear a stiletto myself these days I used to remember her – sadly both sisters of L had passed away in the last one and half years and L was telling me that her second sister used to like me a lot. The liking was mutual and she had just passed away a month back. :-(

I also remembered she was the one to whom I confided ( the only one those days - I was so scared to tell even my parents) about the guy who was following me in Std IX, who we used refer as "blackie". Blackie followed me from Std IX to Std XII and he very stupidly (?) never attempted to speak to me or ask my name or even smile at me.  This guy just used to gape at me and kept following me from my bus stop to my house ( Phew !!! thats quite a distance)  in the evenings every single day ( sometimes in the same bus that I was travelling and when I started travelling in a ladies special, he followed my bus in a scooter) and in the mornings he will stand in the balcony of his house while I pass his house from bus stand to my school.   I used to so scared of this guy there were many days I got down in the earlier bus stop and walked 15 minutes to reach the school just to avoid being spotted by this guy and he cracked my secret in a couple of weeks.

What a waste of time, energy and resources!! I still wonder what was the reason behind this kind of behaviour. Blackie's sister studied in my school in a different section and i dont remember her name, I remember they were muslims.  L used to make fun of me calling her my sis-in-law and I used to get so irritated with her about that.  And L also gets so excited when blackie misses to see me pass his house ( which was quite rare)  and will be waiting in the balcony much after I reach school.  Infact, the initial years 9th and 10th I used to be so petrified about this guy following me, that I used to cry when i was alone and then by 11th and 12th I sort of got used to this routine.  In fact, I think many people got to know about this guy in my bus ( ladies special) because this guy will follow the bus in a scooter on the side I am sitting and will keep turning around half the time to look at me.  ha ha ha ..  I sometimes have wondered how in the world he drove with head turned sideways.  Surprisingly I had no soft corner for this chap .. all i had was contempt because he was coming behind a girl like an idiot ( imagine the kind of carbon foot print he must have had then..) and I guess I was tough nut too... Ahhh.. those days...

L and I have planned to meet up some time (after a couple of weeks) my weekends are completely engaged for the next three weeks and yes, I look forward to meeting L after 23 years.