Expect the unexpected :-) :-)

I realized that there are few horror stories that appear in my blog and so here is one for all of you.. at least to me it was.

My life had become so organized that I guess I started casting eyes on myself- how else could I explain what came upon me four weeks ago?

I was regular with my walks, rain or shine, I did it. Even on a Sunday. And I came back so energetic, that I could complete the mundane tasks at home with a song on my lips. The cupboards were organized, laundry done, the cleaning schedule went on without a glitch and my house was sparkling clean, my garden was coming up so well, my fishes were happy, I was running errands without any dependencies cos I was driving and could get everything in order, no backlogs, and I thought I was completely in control.

And it happened. And I didn’t see it coming.

On 26th of July, Saturday, I started my day as usual at 5.30 am, and by around 5.45 I was all set for my morning walk. I was walking out and I heard Joe’s alarm ringing in the living room – it was kept there unusually for charging. I peeped into the bedroom and saw J sleeping and knew he will wake up soon, and so closed his bed room door quietly and switched off the alarm left his mobile in the living room and off I went for my morning walk.

I was crossing the busy highway, which I have crossed so many times – been living there for more than a decade. I almost finished crossing and reached the other side of the road and …..

I realized a two wheeler hitting my leg, I was in air for a few seconds, thrown up a couple of feet and fell in a heap. I thought I was done. I was conscious and I had people gathering around me. I was in shock and was completely disoriented. I repeated Joe’s number again and again to the crowd around and he was not picking the call. Remember the phone was in the living room?

Someone offered water to me, I couldn’t get up from the road I was still sitting there and around 20 odd people looking around and doing nothing. I heard a voice behind me, saying, I know this madam and where she lives. By then there was a cop who called for a rick to take me to the hospital, which was bang opposite this spot where I fell. Till J came in 10 minutes later I had experienced the most lonely moments of my life in a crowd and by then an hour had passed.

After a day in Trauma ICU, and two days in the normal room, and countless tests later, the hospital figured out that they cannot extract anything more from me and declared me under the category “not a patient “ ( this was the words of the physio therapist who helped me walk in the hospital). Thankfully for me there are no fractures or any need for a surgery, which disappointed the hospital quite a bit.

I had muscle injuries and blood clots all over my body and lots and lots of small bruises. I was advised rest and elevation of my right leg so that the swelling subsides. It must have been the exercise and diet that I was following in the last 4 to 5 months, my recovery has been pretty fast. Its been three weeks since I have been working from home, recouped quite a bit, though I am left with remnants of the accident in the form of scars (thankfully all of them are small and not visible at first sight).

I remember telling J in the hospital that things could have been much worse, if not for the Lord holding me in his hands when I went up in air during the accident and the blood clots are the marks of his hand holding me. Though staying positive with nagging pain is an arduous task.

Today I am thankful that I am able to breathe, walk, see normally for the gift of life and sanity. The awareness of what could have happened keeps me in a blessed state. I pray more for the people who are experiencing the appalling war conditions in different parts of the world, the countless children, women, seniors and all others on whom physical and mental pain is inflicted in the name of war for no fault of theirs. I continuously pray for the sick who are suffering in hospitals, the ones who lack financial aid for their cures and the ones who have no one to care for. My own pain has made me aware of those around me.

I am still in the quest for the lesson that I have to take from this incident. Why did this happen to me?

P.S:

• The guy who recognized me was our neighbors driver – I again see Gods hand there. He normally comes around 10 every morning and that particular day was asked to come earlier and was passing by when this accident happened. We got to know all this when our neighbor told us this.
• I am much better now though I haven’t started on my regular routines as yet. It may take a couple of more weeks.
• Thank you all so much – I truly believe it is a lot of prayers and well wishes that saved me.

Driving my way into Spirituality

I was not aware if Driving and Spirituality are connected, but the way I started with driving, I was pretty sure it was.

In the initial days of my driving alone to office, I stood in front of our altar at home everyday, begging Jesus to come with me in the car. I guess he obliged, and I also believe he was the one who drove the car instead of me. Sounds funny right? Before turning on the ignition, I tell Jesus that I am not going to drive, it is he who is driving, so take the complete responsibility.

Every move, every turn, every maneuver, was prefixed with a mild Jesus (which sounded like Jeez) and in crowded and some difficult areas, it became multiples of 2 or 3 or 5 depending on how scared I was. I don’t know if anyone would understand this, but those initial days I was shitting bricks. And then there are times when the difficulty levels were so high, on the road that calling Jesus in multiples of 5 would not suffice and I had to resort to the Malayalam version of the Lords Name, “Eeshoye” which meant I reached my saturation point after which I will lose all control of myself.

I used to call Jesus so much that I truly believed at one point, that out of frustration, he will appear and shock the daylights out of me.

Having not got used to listening to music in the car yet, for obvious reasons like not losing control of the important sounds ( read honking and other noises that need my attention) the music system is normally not switched on. Though I am fine with people talking while in the car, thanks to my driving instructor, Mohan Master, who spoke dime a dozen, to a point that his conversations were a distraction while driving.

Oh and this needs a special mention - I have a particular pair of shoes that I normally drive in, which is flat and something that I cannot wear with most of my clothes that I go to office in, and the car at times looks like a shoe godown, I might end up having more than a few pairs of other shoes that I change into when I get off the car. That’s beside the point though.

So within the confines of the car, I am alone and the only thing that I focus on are my conversations with my Lord. And I think the conversations that I have with Jesus during the drive are the most honest, most intense and that’s why I probably been able to drive, and am able to get out of the fear of driving.

The first week of driving, and my fear was at its peak, the only thing that I kept coming to me once I reached office was, I have to drive back home and once back home, the whole night I was petrified about driving to work the next day. I continued my dialogue with God and continuously conversed with Him to get over this fear. As usual I went to church that Sunday, In fact, Joe made me drive to Church.

My prayers were intense than usual and I in all earnestness laid down in front of Altar all the doubts and fears that I had and told him He has to help me get over the fear of driving.

During the Eucharistic ceremony of the mass, this is where the bread and wine are distributed to the congregation as the body and blood of Christ and the song played by choir was one of my favorite.

The song begins like this,

                      O the word of my Lord

                      Deep within my being,

                      Oh the word of my Lord,

                      You have filled my mind.

As usual I was singing this song along with the choir, of course loudly, and then there was this para where the Lord spoke to me directly. He couldn’t have said this any more directly than this and the para goes like this.

                       And everywhere you are to go

                       My hand will follow you;

                       You will not be alone.

                       In all the danger that you fear

                       You’ll find me very near,

                       Your words my own.

By the time I reached the last line of this para, I was crying. I do not know if this makes sense, but I felt that while I called out to him in my helplessness, He strengthened me through these words.

Glad that Driving has helped me get one step closer to God.

P.S:

I am gotten over the fear of driving now, well almost.

I still pray before I drive.

I still converse with Jesus during the drive.

I still do not switch on any music. Yet.

In tribute of the love you guys show me dear Ramesh and Rekha

I am such a lousy blogger and yet the love I get from my blog friends, especially Ramesh and Rekha has been tremendous.  I read your comments for the earlier post and I thought I should put this down for you :-)

This one is for the encouragement you give me to blog more :-) 

There is a recent, new found Joy in my life, which has been pending to be a post for a while :-) as usual.

Infact, from the day one, of finding this out, I have been planning on writing a post about this, but by now, you must be quite aware of my skills in procrastination and my wayward ways of coming up with a post.

Every morning for the last three or four months, I wake up at 5.30 am – yes I know it is an ungodly hour, but if there is a will there is a way :)

In around 10 – 12 minutes I am all ready to go for my Morning Walk , a time I spend with my own thoughts, converse with myself, thank god for all the mercies I have received in life and generally do some introspection.

It all started when J and I thought whatever we little we ate was just accumulating in the wrong places on our bodies and our lack of exercise was showing up much more than ever. We decided to go for brisk morning walks everyday.

And then we went around for almost a month trying out different routes around our place for a peaceful walk and from where our house was located to anywhere close to 6 – 7 kms was chaotic traffic, narrow roads and walking was a herculean task. And this was at around 5.45 am in the morning. 300 meters from our home is a national highway where vehicles in their maddening rush to reach destinations, and also taking advantage of the lean traffic in the morning, speed past creating a racing scene. Coming back home alive and in one piece was becoming an every day achievement. And moreover we felt more hassled than relaxed. We continued our pursuit for a quieter place for a walk and then we found this blissful route completely out of the blue.

Somehow, with all his reviews / intermittent official trips that he takes, J lost interest and dropped off from this routine, but will join me once in a while. now and then.

This place where I go for a walk now is approximately little over a kilometer from my place and once I enter the route it is pure Joy. Peace takes over, allowing me to linger on some natural sounds of some unknown birds and insects, warm sunshine, and fragrance of a variety of wild flowers along the path, setting in serenity and giving the much needed replenishment to continue through the day.

I guess this walk way comes under the jurisdiction of the Officers Training Academy, Chennai as I hear the soliders shouting in cadence while marching, as I walk along, and I also see some of the uniformed officers in bikes, sometimes in horses and sometimes they ride together in bicycles / motorcycles as part of their daily routine in a road perpendicular to the road that I take.

It is so amazing, for a while I forget that i live in a Metropolitan city. I will stop here and put up some pictures  to do further talking.



River on my right side, thick grwoth of tress and bushes on the left side, thats how this path starts and this is how the skyline is on some days.



My feet - enjoying the walk



The rustic walking track

Isnt this place asking you walk more?



The picture says it all!!



Wild flowers on a particular strech in the walkway

Most part of the walk way is lined with this wild flowers - miles and miles of it.

a close up shot of these wild flowers - arent they pretty?

A little of this and a little of that – in my life

I woke up with an early morning call today. The caller was from another end of the world, the person very close to me. Someone who I can call in the middle of the night, without thinking twice and doubly sure will pick my call up. The voice was ecstatic and told me that her first born has completed his engineering degree. She then started crying and told me how I have been her support all along. Beyond that I could not decipher much because by then she was sobbing. I just listened, few words were making sense and I realized that it is important just to hang in there on the line. Anyways I understood what she was saying.

I tried reassuring that she was a great mom and how she has been my inspiration all along, but she continued sobbing and words mired into the sob. After I kept the phone down I realized my cheeks were wet and I couldn’t stop crying myself. I didn’t know why I was crying – I only know I felt so good crying along with her. I knew even after the phone was disconnected, she must have been crying.

She seems to have actually sent a mail first before calling me, and here is the excerpts from the email. And now those bits and pieces of words that she was trying to string together came to me :-)

Siddu has completed his Engineering. I got the information early this morning. I wanted to share this happy news and this moment with you . I still remember us going to St.Joseph’s to check out on the college. Thank you for being such an integral part of my life . For being there and supporting me when I needed support most or just a person who I could share my worries, fears, happiness and joy without any inhibitions .

While feeling on top of the world, I also need to tell her that I am so lucky to have her as my friend.

_____________________________________________________________________

A Young management trainee, smart and intelligent one at that, who was part of our team, is leaving the organisation. She was not my reportee, but I had to work with her without a reporting managers’ clout. We had real good fun working together.

As is the practice there was a lovely common mail sent to everyone in the team including me and she sent an individual mail to me.

Brought a smile to my face and thought of sharing it with you.

Here’s something I wanted to tell you before I become too emotional and delirious -

Vincy, you’ve been a breath of fresh air for me in a team like XXXX. You are someone I look up to, and someone I aspire to be. You’ve always guided and supported me and have ensured we have fun along with work.

Thank you for telling me I couldn't leave when I broke the news to you about my resignation. That certainly made me feel special and appreciated! Also, thank you for always having such an upbeat attitude. I've never seen you in a grumpy mood or act irritated or impatient with anyone. Every time I see you, you have a smile on your face and a cheerful comment. Keep up the positivity!

The chapter of our lives where we work together might be over, but this certainly isn't the end of our friendship. I’ll miss you loads. Take good care of yourself  :-)

I am going to miss this girl a lot:-)

________________________________________________

I have lived most of life along the coast of Bay of Bengal and I have good memories of the beach. I was in a conference that warranted my stay at a sea side resort and beach brought back some lovely memories of the seaside. It also brought memories of a friend who loves the sea. I messaged this friend about how sea brings

the memories of our friendship, and guess what? absolutely no response from my friend.

I was upset but my work for the conference didn’t allow me to wallow in this thought.

I got a message this morning ( after close to three weeks),
 “ saying that it reminded you of me, because it was fishy? "

Now that’s a perspective. And a good joke. Just that it took a long time to reach me. Laughing at the myriad set of my friends and their oddities :-)

__________________________________________________

Fighting the ghosts in my mind

We all have these monsters in our head that keeps giving us the wrong messages time and again. The funny part is we would listen to those voices and believe them so much that we defy common sense and fall prey to their words - such is the power of these monsters.

Recently, after a 12 year long light with those unknown ghosts in my mind, I finally overcame them and got back to my senses.

Truly a moment of great achievement in life and how can I not share it with you all?

I first went for my driving classes after much persuasion from J, enrolled into a popular  institute in chennai and didn’t complete the course. The driver was a rude fellow, with absolutely no respect for other human beings and at the slightest mistake would be screaming at me. With great difficulty I put up with him for around 9 days or so. One day in the middle of the road, I stopped the car, yeah in the middle of the road, somewhere near T.Nagar, in moderate traffic (thankfully) and told to him to mind his words and also remember telling him, experts would never come to learn from him, and I have come because I don’t know how to drive. I don’t think anyone has spoken to him that way, I still remember the shell shocked expression on his face and also remember he didn’t speak a word for the rest of the class. But I stopped going for the class.

Didn’t think of driving for another 7 years, and again after some goading from J, enrolled into yet, another driving institute, luckily this time, I had a very good instructor and I cleared my driving tests, in the first attempt itself. Didn’t feel too good about getting the license though, because I still was too unsure of myself when it came to driving.

I attempted to drive a couple of times with the help of some drivers later and sometimes with J, but didn’t get into full fledged driving. In 2011, I remember telling J that I want to drive and I need him to come with me so on a Sunday afternoon took the car and drove for around 9 to 10 kms. J was impressed, and said I was driving smoothly. And then it happened. I was taking a small road and had to take a left turn and instead of applying the brake, stepped on the accelerator, thankfully in first gear, and banged on a stationary wall and gate and damaged the front bonnet of our car. I also broke a small portion of the gate too. ( nothing to be feel proud of, just keeping you all posted !)

J got out of the car with a smiling face, and said, why don’t you get down, I will drive. And didn’t say anything else. I wished he said something angrily to me which he didn’t till date. My fear increased multi fold after that incident and didn’t feel like driving again.

Two years went past and the longing to drive returned, but I did nothing about it. It was during this time, I was given an intro about a driving instructor who specializes in making sure women who have licenses can drive. I told myself this is my last chance and went ahead and called this person and he agreed to tutor me. I am planning to write down my experiences with Mohan master in separate blog post and so we will look at it later. I went with him for around 12 classes and after a while I felt I was making no progress at all. Mohan master is a deeply religious person and during the month of March he undertook a pilgrimage to the Himalayas, ( look what I am capable of – I made my instructor take a trip to the Himalayas all the way from chennai – that’s how good I am in driving) and my sessions had to break inbetween. A good friend offered to come with me, to and fro from the office, for few days until I am confident about driving. Poor soul. I developed dependency on him and felt if he is around I would drive. It so happened one of the days, last Friday to be precise, he had to work from another office and called up in the morning to tell me that. I made up my mind to take my usual rick, and was telling that to J, when he said, nothing doing, please take the car. Worse come worse you will bang somewhere, but for the speed with which you are going, you will not harm anyone Vincy.

Armed with confidence from my dear hubby, I drove alone. Voila!!!Yes I DROVE on my own. Without any incident. And I drove back home too that evening.

Folks I have been driving on my own now this last week. I also took a complete detour from my office yesterday – had to finalise a venue for our team meeting and have a look at it, so I drove to the hotel, parked the car and finished my work and came back home on a completely new route that I had not driven before.

If you ask me if I am feeling good, yes I am. Mighty thrilled that I can drive. Especially when I drove on cathedral road, the road that I am so familiar with ( My college where I did my UG is there), felt so damn good. but am I enjoying the drive, not yet. I am a bit tensed, worried and instead of driving pleasure I sure do go through Driving Pressure. But I am certain I will get over it.

The most important thing is I am able to drive and that is all that matters right now.

Touching a virtual friend!

I was excited, to say the least. Like a school girl, I would say. I know I know, it’s a tad bit late for all those days, but still.

I was flying to Delhi and had plans to meet a friend. Hadnt informed this friend about it and was planning to call, as soon as I landed there. It will be a complete surprise for this friend.

And the best part was this friend was someone who I had met through my blog, a virtual space. Now in Delhi, we had common roots, from the land of coconuts and lungis ( now that a lungi is famous across India, after the Lungi dance).  We had earlier, sometime last year, connected up over phone and this friend’s voice was an amazingly smooth and comforting one, that I could easily relate to. We could go on forever speaking as if we were bosom friends from childhood. I had not thought of how this friend looks and it didn’t matter – all that mattered was that I will meet someone who had a special place in my heart and my life.

Strange how my blog friends have become so much part of my life now. Including the others I have not met. :-)

So right from the moment I left home, I was thinking about how this meeting is going to happen, ambiguity and absolute lack of planning, adding to the excitement.

The moment I managed to give directions in my broken Hindi to the non-english speaking and a slightly rude cabbie, I called up this friend. Vincyyyyyyyyyy came the reply.. don’t tell me you are here. And we went on as usual. The concern in the voice, the gentle admonition for not keeping posted about the trip, the long awaited meeting – I was falling in love with it all.

And taking into consideration the time constraints we planned to meet the next day. And this is the first time I was coming to this sector in Noida, no clue about the places and locations around and again completely unplanned. What coincidence, the office that I was going to from my organisation was just a stone’s throw away from the office of this friend. Our meeting was destined to happen.

My session was in the morning, and it went on well, and before leaving to the airport, I went to the office where my Virtual friend was working.

I could feel the adrenaline pumping when I was in the lobby and the receptionists were giving me a weird look, probably my wide grin on the face. Remember the school girl bit? Wish I could act my age at times :-) In a few seconds there was an equally smiling beautiful girl in front of me – we hugged and hugged and continued hugging. We pinched to see if it was true.. Yeah all in the lobby, and realized that we were being dramatic and moved out quietly. We spoke, we touched, we giggled, we laughed and sure enough didn’t get enough of each other even after 15 minutes. By any standards 15 mins is too less a time. From a school girl, we both got a couple of years younger and became little girls – She was equally cheerful as me.

I still remember the perfect eyebrows that she has, shaped like a bow, exactly the way poets describe a woman’s eyebrow, the glowing eyes and a smile that can illuminate the entire place. I am smiling as I key in this, the memories still fresh and alive.

Its more than a couple of months now and I am still relishing the gift, virtual world has brought to me.

Rekha, here’s to the wonderful YOU, the love we share and to the virtual universe that brought us together.

你想念我 (Nǐ xiǎngniàn wǒ?)

For seemingly simple questions of life in general, there are no easy answers, worser still, there are no answers at all.

Do any of us have answers for these atrociously simple questions?

Which came first Chicken or Egg?

Why is Yawning contagious?

or Why didn’t I blog so long?

So, you get the point right? Just like you, I do not have answers for any of these questions.

While I faintly considered options of quitting, the lure of each one of you who come in here and read me, and those who also leave me such wonderful comments, didn’t help me visualize that as a great choice. Just a while ago, with absolutely nothing in mind for a blog, I decided to get back here and make a fresh new start ( well almost). Don’t they say, Better later than Never?

And so folks, here I am with a heart full of wishes and prayers that we continue to do well in whatever we do, this year too. Happy New Year to you all.

As I keyed in these words, I am feeling absolutely silly for even have thought of quitting as an option.

For those you are wondering what the title of this blog is, its yet another simple question, which asks you “ Did you Miss me ?” in Chinese.

Please say YES in a language of your choice :-)

Mommys Day out

There was a time, when I used to take my son around everywhere – shopping, for “girls-only” get togethers, programs organized on weekends from office, church and wherever, to office if I had to work on weekends, any party that I was invited then, why even official get togethers. Dennu used to love it and there was a time when my earlier organisation used to allow kids to workplace, especially when the kids had vacations. My condition to everyone around me was, if you want me on the weekend, I come as a package. They had to put up with my live wire and what a dynamite he was!. I was simply helping the guilty soul of a working mother, by this act of kindness to myself.

He continued this until he was in high school and when he reached his 10th grade, he kind of showed signs of disinterest and wanted to stay back home alone, keeping himself occupied with the different gadgets he had at hand. Offlate, he even hesitates to come with us for movies, on the contrary, is very willing to go with his friends anywhere. He is growing up, I know. But as a mother, it is a bit difficult to digest, and I try to remind myself that is no more a little kid.

Having said that, there are many moments, I miss being with him. As a mother, I need to learn to let go, right? I am learning it, but doubt if I will ever master that!

This weekend however was different, we have been planning for Christmas shopping for him, somehow, it just wasn’t happening - either there were some get-togethers at home, or on the days we didn’t, he had classes and it kept postponing. It now came to a stage that we cannot postone it any more and so off we went for shopping after Sunday Mass this weekend, the father had other engagements, and could not make it. He however, dropped us of at the Mall which Dennu wanted to shop.

I realized how nice it was to spend that time together with him. I was enjoying every moment together. As a grown up boy he had his own choices, but was willing to listen to me to try out stuff and once he came back and told me, Ma, your choices are good. I did a mental Yahooooo and a high five for myself, while appearing to be calm and cool. I made sure we took as much time as we could, strolling around the stores, pursuing him to try out stuff, and being there at his beck and call. This may sound simple, but as much as I was a mother, I am a woman too, which means, I had to truly control the reigns my own shopping spree, avoiding even looking at the womens’ section let alone try them, lest my sonny boy would get bored.

As he called out to show me some funny quotes on T-Shirts, and ended up laughing our heads off, I was thinking next year or the year after next, maybe he will tell us, Please give me the money and I will go shopping with friends.  May be!

I thought to myself, let me not worry about it now, and went on with our shopping. I could see he was liking it too, as he was smiling and chattering with me through out without any loss of attention to his gadgets. Oh the word Attention, reminds of a Quote that we both laughed about – I am so broke, that I cant even pay attention!

And then finally we finished shopping, I paid the bills and gave the bag of his stuff to him and the most unthinkable happened. He gave me a hug and kiss, in the store, right in front of all those people around us and said Thank you Ma and Merry Christmas. I will tell you why this simple thing is unthinkable to me, this boy does not like any physical show of affection, I have to bribe him already for a hug and kiss even at home and he hates being touched. So its rare that he will hold hands or hug in front of people.

Now, who kind of initiated the hug is besides the point. But this was a nice weekend memory to cherish for the ( always guilty soul of a working) mother in me. Don’t you agree?

I had to show this to you all

Most of the time that make up my weekends, are spent in the tiny green space around home, that I am desperately trying to sustain. 

After toiling for a few years and with support from my mom, I had a nice garden couple of years back and I had to let go off this green space, when I shifted home for Sonny boy's schooling.  My biggest sense of loss was losing this green patch, when I shifted to the apartment. I still took with me around 6 pots that had my favorite plants and had to forego the rest.  Luckily my neighbor, offered to take care of my fishes and the tank.

The last six months after shifting back to our own house was struggle without any of my plants. The empty places where my plants used to be, was an eyesore and I began my work on recreating my space.  It took so much effort, and especially since i was an DIY enthusiasit, I started with  painting all my pots and fish tank, making sure the potting soil is fit for planting - had to dry the soil for a week and add store brought organic manure and finally choosing plants and taking care of them.

Somehow in six months time, the plants grew under my care and though it is not as good as I want it to be, I thought I will show you all the little plants that give me so much Joy and much needed stress releif.

I will start with my plants on the terrace, mostly flowering ones.  The Christ thorns ( Euphorbia) is a fighter, she is the only one who has not been repotted and now is in full bloom.  I had left this plant back since it was too big for us to put anywhere in the apartment we had moved in then.

Infact, when we wer back this plant was full of leaves and thorns and in a months time it started flowering and was in full bloom in a few weeks.  and it is continuing to flower.

Let me show you another one from my terrace, yellow roses.  Isnt she a beauty?  At one time, there were more than 7 roses on this little plant. Couldn't take the pictures then. 

This is yet another smaller vareity of Christ thorns which is just growing up.  Its a tiny plant but has decided to flower and I love the bright red colour of the flowers.

This is another shot of the bigger Euphorbia - this was a new bunch of flowers and thanks to Dennu for the pictures.

This is yet another new plant on the terrace called Vinca.  This plant has adapted well to our garden and continues to bloom and comes with bigger flowers too.  At one point in time, this plant had more than a dozen flowers - again couldnt click a picture then.

Let me now bring to our ground floor corner where I mostly some ornamental plants.  here are a few shots

Another of my favorites - Coleus. Earlier I had so many varieties of it, but now I just have 2 of them.

And finally here is my revamped open air fish tank - the big fish there is a homeless shark, a good neighbor passed on to me and two gold fish, need to bring in more fishes in there.  Some more work to be completed in the fish tank and next time when I take you around my tiny green patch, I hope, I will have  more plants and more fishes. 

Shall I call it a short term blessing?

Well, you know the weather in otherwise hot and humid Chennai is really pleasant. It is quite cool and this morning, the breeze that hit me was a bit chiller than what I expected. The sun was just soft and warm – it is rare that the weather in the part of the globe that I live in, Chennai, is so kind to us. Oh! And that’s not the short term blessing that I was going to write about.

Growing up in Chennai, one of the so called Metro’s in India, my home was always in the suburbs ( before and after marriage that is). Living in the suburbs has its own benefits, like for example, I grew up in a community that had a lot of my relatives and cousins of my own age, instead of an apartment we got to live in houses that were individual and had some space for us to play within the compound and ofcourse space for a garden. But it also meant that the schools colleges and our offices were farther away and we had to travel long distances to reach those places.

While in school, I had to travel 2 hours everyday and when I got to college it increased by an hour and to add to my woes, my college would commence at 8.00 am and I had to leave by 6.30 am. And well this is not a complaint at all, as I got used to travel and infact, have ended up really loving these travels. I had a good group of friends in school and while in College, and these travels turned out to be rather a lot of fun. I read a lot and mastered the art of reading in a moving bus and train, mostly novels and during exam times, I got solid time to prepare for the examination too. How cool is that. So, when people tell me you travelled that long? I am like, yeah, but that was fun. There are many who cannot comprehend to this logic.

So when I finished college and had to travel to office, it didn’t seem a trouble at all. After marriage it was a little better with a chauffer to drive me around.  but things started to change when most IT organisations started moving out of the city and soon I was travelling more than 50kms ( both ways together), a few years back and the traffic was getting worser by the day. When life’s priorities were changing., these long travels were no more fun. One day, after a terrible evening of travelling back from Old Mahabalipuram Road after work, J asked me if it is all worth it? When the traffic was bad I had to travel for more than 4 hours in a day. I quit the organisation I was working in, for 13 years, in a week's time. That probably was not the only reason though.

When I chose my current role in the organisation that I am with, my first requirement was that my travel outside Chennai had to be curtailed –Sonny boy was in std X1 in a new school and me being there when he came back home was a much needed comfort. J also travels a lot and it does not help to have both parents travelling all the while. My travel is curtailed so much that I have begun to long for travel – I do travel though on work atleast once in 3 months which is nothing compared to what I used to do in my earlier organisation.

Restricting travel also meant, commuting less  within the city for everyday work and among the options I had, one of the primary reasons to choose my current organisation was that it has 26 offices (covering probably the entire city) in Chennai and I had the permission to work from whichever office I chose to. A Big blessing right? So when I started at my current organisation, we had moved closer to Sonny boy’s school and chose an office close to that house. A 5 km drive everyday looked definitely like a bliss. When Sonny boys’ schooling was done, one of his requests was to get back to our own house and I chose to go to the office near my current home. Can you imagine my happiness, when I figured out, that my office was less than 3 kms? Blessing was an understatement. So from June I was overjoyed, I could reach my office in less than 7 minutes by car ( if J is driving that is ) and I didn’t have to cross a single traffic signal.

In my entire life in Chennai, I have never lived this close to any of the places that I had to go regularly. Be it school, college or office. But I knew this for sure – My current organisation like every other Indian Software company is consolidating and moving to Special Economic Zones (SEZ”s) to enjoy the tax benefits. And they were closing down the Guindy office. Yes. This week my blessing is coming to an end so rather than Crying that its over, I am smiling that it happened.

And well, the next office I am moving is within the city again and is just around 6 kms. So Until that closes down somewhere mid next year, I will keep smiling, that I am able to beat all the traffic and distance woes that most people in software industry complain about. :-)

I got tagged :-)

Seema is my blog friend from Horizon, a very high energy gal and a young mother, who tagged me to these questions that she has for some of her "good" friends ( I hope you have not missed the word within quotes).  Seema, this is the first time I am ever getting tagged.  I am only answering your questions here and not the others and there goes my answers. 

Thank you Seema, I enjoyed going back to some of my memories.

1) What is your favorite word or phrase?

Love you

2) What holiday makes you sad?
How can holidays make you sad?

3) What is the most cheekiest thing you have done till date?
I got to admit that I haven’t done too many cheeky stuff, but here is one – on a day that I was too bored to listen to my friend, after college, while sitting in the last seat of a metro bus, I looked squarely at a pillion rider on a motorbike, parallel to my bus ( which were all moving) and winked. Before I could be content and Smug with the cheap thrill, I realized there was a traffic jam and pillion rider was saying something to the rider, got off the bike and was walking towards my bus. My heart in mouth, I wished the bus would swallow me – he came around climbed the first step, second step, third step and stood there. It must have been the fear and sheepishness on my face, he just got off the bus came around to the window where I was sitting and said “got scared eh! Don’t worry” with the largest grin I have ever seen.

4) What is the last meal that you made for yourself?
Boiled eggs and steamed banana ( Nendhra pazham puzhungiyathu )

5) What was your best birthday ? Why?

My 25th birthday, the one that I celebrated first after my marriage. Joe was in Ooty for a review meet from office and was not supposed to return till the next day. He sent me gifts through courier and in the evening when I reached home, I saw him there (back on special permission), the house decorated for my birthday the cake ready and I thought that was nice a surprise. A little later, my parents and joe’s cousins joined the party. That was a really memorable one.

6) What would you do if you won the lottery?
Faint first and will go crazy later.:-)

7) If you had a warning label, what would urs say?
Chatterbox – listen at your own peril.

8) Have you ever got sweet revenge on someone?
Sweet surprises no revenges.

9) Who was your first best friend?

In the true sense of it, ML was my first best friend. She was my classmate from Std VI and we continued till std XII and then lost touch completely. We found each other again later through FB. I was so touched that she still has a handmade birthday card that I presented her in std VII or VIII. I have written a post about that here

10) What is the most scariest thing you have ever done?
Crossing a Burma bridge. It shook the life out of me. Realized I had a fear for heights.

With due apologies

I put that title in there and I realised I first owe an apology to my dear readers for being such an inconsistent blogger. :-(

The original apology was intended to the parishoners (people) who sit near me in our church. As usual I was singing loudly and saying all my prayers as loud as I can :-) My son was very upset about the fact that one of his favorite star Paul Walker had passed away and was not into any of his antics that he would do, when he hears me sing. He later told me he prayed for Paul Walker’s soul, which made my heart swell in pride, for I felt that was a good sign of bringing him up in right Christian values. ( ok atleast one !)

So after the Sunday mass, as we were talking to our friends and acquaintances, we had someone come out of the blue and loudly call Joe’s name and my otherwise composed hubby dear going gaga over his long lost friend from his first organisation. They both were completely unaware of any of us around for a couple of minutes, having found each other after some 15 years or so. That’s when J realized that D and I were watching him with amusement and he introduced us to his friend. And this friend whom I have never met, went on and said this, which kind of put me in complete disbelief – he said, yeah I noticed that she sings beautifully and I could hear her so well. These days people hesitate to sing and pray loudly, and I was really impressed that she was doing it. This friend was obviously sitting in the pews ahead of us. Through the corner of my eyets I could see J, looking a bit surprised himself and D trying to compress a smile.

I quitely took in that compliment, got back to my senses and told him, yeah in the church I don’t care that I cannot sing, coz’ it just between me and the lord. And silently apologized to all others who were around me yesterday.

Trust me, I cannot sing for my life and this is first time I ever got a compliment for singing :-) :-)

Going Gaga over friendships.

This post is dedicated to my good friend N, from Relections ( her humourous ways of accounting day to day happenings will keep you hooked to her writing for sure) - It is her gentle reprimand ( BTW, you want to call that gentle? I literally can see her hands on hips and nose in the air, saying that comment, especially the words huh, huh) that made me come up with this post. If you want to read that comment you will have to go here and read the last comment there by N.

But Nancy, you will not know what difference that comment made to me. I felt so good that there was one soul who wanted me to write. And you know what? this comment came when I was physically and emotionally down. A simple ear problem, that led me to the ENT Surgeon, who with all her gentleness tried putting the scalpel, forceps, water jet and suction in and out of my ear to clear my ear problem – can you believe I had to go for four sittings to get all the damn ear wax cleared. The only other option was to surgically remove it under General anesthesia, which was not an option. Two weeks of pain, anxiety and horror ( due to the pain), and immediately a bout of Viral fever for a week and then a relapse of the same Viral after a week. I started speaking about my funeral plans with Joe, who thought I lost my mind. The large doses of painkillers and antibiotics was giving me Insomnia, making me feel creepy in the nights. Ok these are all not excuses, but it was during such a time, I got this comment and now, it is as though I have gotten well all of a sudden. So Nancy, this post as I said is a tribute to your prodding .:-)

Then there was Rekha, from Balancing Act, We have been interacting over the comment section of our blogs, I was so drawn to some of her intense poems and there we were exchanging mail ids, writing to each other and Rekha gave me her number.  I wanted to surprise her and called her on the pretext of offering her a bank loan or something like that and she was a smart one, somehow figured out it was me and we hit it off, like a house on fire. There were so many coincidences in our life, at one point it was getting too hard for both of us to believe. My best memories of Kerala and hers were from almost the same place, we were in sync with each other on many other stuff, and we were talking to each other as if we had known each other for a long time. That warm fuzzy feeling of a good friend comes to me whenever I think of Rekha. Feel lucky to have found you, Rekha dear.

Since I am celebrating my friends, I cannot miss out on a stalwart, who is close to my heart. Ramesh from Business Musings, is a great thinker, with business insights that goes beyond my comprehension, and I truly admire him for what he is. I cannot even fathom the depth of his knowledge in the business world. Such an imminent person, never misses to comment on my blog every time I put up a post, however irrelevant or silly. Ramesh, I did ask for your picture once and immediately after posting the comment in your blog, I googled and got you. Now I have a face to your name. Thank you Ramesh for being you. :-)

Dan is one of my long time friends from the first organisation I started my career in. We lost touch in between and got back to each other after an interval of some 6 – 7 years. He calls me regularly, atleast once a week and most often than not, he is the caller and a shameless woman that I am, never return his calls, in case I miss them. Dan would call me again after a few days, and start the call with a couple of cuss words and I allow him to pour his heart out… The last one and half months there were countless calls of his that I missed, that he really was worried. Once he messaged me saying why the hell don’t you atleast message me back and say if all is well? I am truly blessed to have him as a friend and I know I can depend on as the saying goes – a friend in need is a friend indeed. I truly wish I can be a good friend to him, just the way he is to me. He is in the UK for a few weeks now and wanted to pass on the message to me, since he may not call me from there and I as usual, was not picking his calls, and he messaged me that he is travelled that weekend. The next day he promptly called me and asked me if I had got the message and also told there is no point in talking to me about phone etiquettes. I know I take him for granted, don’t we all take the ones who are really close to us that way?

How can I miss out on Petula – she is my pillar of support. Couldn’t answer many of her calls that she dropped in home one of the days to check in on me. It was a working day and I was getting ready to go to office, that she ended up making breakfast for me. Pets has always been on the plumpier side and had a bone of contention that I am thinner than her. She came in and looked at me and said “Woman, you got to eat well and have some flesh around you, to make yourself strong like me. It does not pay well to look slim and thin” inbetween bouts of laughter and ended it with a wink. Love her for being the mother hen to me even today. :-)

As I put this down here, I feel blessed to have these wonderful people in my life – Nothing wrong in going GaGa over them. Don’t you agree?

Once more !!!

I must have been 7 or may be 8 or a year more… not definitely more than that. And I distinctly remember the taste. I had never seen that big a chocolate till then. That chocolate was melting in the mouth. And can you believe I couldn’t eat one fully. Though I liked it, I very unwillingly gave the remaining to my brother to eat. By the time, I ate three fourths of it, I was becoming sick of all that sweetness. Strange I remember how I was lying down with my legs on the side stand of our cot, even today.

It was Cadburys dairy milk bar – I didn’t know the name of it, then.

And they were brought to us by my Uncle, my moms brother. We had two uncles and this was the older one from Bangalore. He was a man of few words and we were actually a little scared of him. Whenever he came home, ( be it to chennai or to Kerala, he made sure he visited when we were spending holidays in our maternal home), he brought large cartons of fruits and lots and lots of chocolates.

There was another memory associated with him. I remember he used to bring a bundle of change and we children were allowed to take as much change we could with our hands. Cousins of my age, who used to spend our holidays with, then, fought with each other lovingly, to grab as much as we can, ( which anyway later went to our mothers, as there was no concept of pocket money )

All these memories came flooding to my mind when I was again at my maternal home couple of weeks back. These were memories stashed away in some corner of the mind and I almost didn’t know they even existed.

When I saw him lying there, in the same place, where Ammama was lying, just 10 months back, it all came back from nowhere just to haunt me for having forgotten them all these years. Weird.

All I can do now is Pray for his soul to rest in peace. 

The simple Graffiti man of Chennai

It was a text from a close friend who is also an HR head in a non-IT corporate that brought up this barrage of memories about a particular sight that we used to often subconsciously ignore, because we have seen it so many times on almost every free square inch wall of Chennai.

This was the exact text – "Hey hi, Sorry to text so late… Can you pls share any contact for organizing kids events at corporate shows". This obviously was a late night text and I was dead tired, as I was returning home after yet another shopping parade for furnishing at home. This text brought a smile to my face – this friend who texted me was my first boss in the organisation I had started my career first and is a friend, philosopher, guide kind of person and one strong member in my circle of “girl friends”. The number of escapades and the fun we have had together in the organisation we worked next ( oh yes, we worked together subsequently in yet another organisation too, for almost 13 years) is countless.

Infact, the 100th post was dedicated to my “Gurl friends” and you can read it here . I honestly feel this was the most underrated post of mine. ;-(

Dragging myself back to the current post – this message as I was telling you brought this smile because I remembered a name out of the blue and I immediately messaged her back and this was my reply.

P James Magic Show

And we had a great laugh together. Oh not P James and me, I shared the laughter with my good ol'friend.

It was one such kids event that this friend in discussion and I were organizing in our earlier organisation, for the children of employees somewhere in 2003. We couldn’t find a person who could entertain the kids and we actually called P James Magic Show.

I have very clear memories of two things that he brought with him – an undersized coat that he wore during the magic show which had accumulated dust from half a century and a barely alive snake, that even I was not scared of it. The magic show itself was kind of mediocre, for corporate standards, but it definitely entertained the little ones. I remember discussing about helping this guy with more contacts from our corporate friends, he seemed to live in a state of penury with a large family, but I do not remember what we did for him. I remember he was an educated chap, but chose this profession that was kind of ancestral – his father and grand father were magicians. He also told us how he goes around Chennai city in the night, on a bicycle and paints the graffiti himself without any help.

If you have ever lived in Chennai, probably a few years back, you wouldn’t have missed this graffiti of P James magic show along with a phone number on the walls of Chennai. This guy believes in marketing by spamming on the walls of chennai. It was difficult to miss these stuff then on the walls, junction boxes and literally everywhere. I was surprised to see a Wikipedia link to P James Magic Show, that you can see here. Having seen and interacted with this guy, its so amazing to see the crude kind of hard work he puts in to manage his living. And in a way, created one of the sights and memories of Chennai for some hardcore Chennaiites like me.

If you look into the comment section of the posts of  Doing Jalsa Showing Jilpa blog of Krish Ashok, here, who calls himself a humorist and blogger, needless to say he is a very popular blogger, ( and I really like his way of writing), you will find comments, which simply says P James Magic Show. Goes on to show the impact this guy and his marketing technique has had on chennaiites. I am sure that comment is put up there by some mutual fan of P James and Krish Ashok :-)

Wonder what Kennedy aka P James is doing right now.

Laughter – the best medicine.

I am sure we all agree laughter is the best medicine. But the time and place has to be definitely appropriate otherwise the one who is laughing will make a fool of oneself.

Have I told you before, that I rarely miss my Sunday Mass? There was a time when I used to attend daily mass, but for whatever reasons, laziness being the best of all reasons, I have not been able to continue the practice.

A little note to those who do not know about a Mass  is all about – A holy Mass is a religious practice as ancient as the catholic church itself, that I belong to, and is the central act of worship for us. It generally lasts for an hour or so, and includes bible readings, sermon and a communion service lead by a Priest or a deacon. According to the church a Sunday mass is an obligation that every Christian has to fulfill and being raised by staunch catholic parents, I have till date relentlessly followed this practice of not missing a Sunday mass. Of course, I have missed some Sunday masses when I was sick or lets say if I was travelling, but otherwise it is a strict no-no, not just out of practice, but because of the energy and strength I derive out of a mass. A Sunday mass, keeps me going through the week and if I do not attend one, there is this big feeling of guilt that consumes me for that entire week.

The mass is also the time, when I do not attend any calls. To me, it is the time I am with the creator and that time is dedicated only for my LORD. Most of the times, I leave the mobile in the car and never bother to even take it to the church.

Luckily for me, J also has similar backgrounds, and would never miss a Sunday mass, but going for daily mass is definitely not his cup of tea. Oh, and there is yet another thing, Both Dennu and Joe, hate sitting for a mass in the front rows – I am yet to find out the reason for this but they warn me not to sit in the front rows. Given a choice D would be a back bencher, but J would love to be in the centre and become one in the crowd. I prefer to be seated in the front ( not exactly the first row, but definitely in the first five rows). Joe tells D, If you allow your mother she will  be on the altar with the priest :-) which is truly an exaggeration.

The Mass also involves a fair amount of singing songs, primarily by the church choir, and the laity sing along during the service. I am familiar with mass in the latin and Syrian rites ( they are different forms of mass) and well versed in English, Malayalam and Tamil forms of mass. Oh I do actively sing along in the mass. Not that I am good at singing, infact, I am not even a great bathroom singer, but Church is always an exception. Its not to evaluate my singing, but I sing for my Lord and I don’t care who is next to me, because in a church it is just between me and the Lord.

J puts up with my singing, because I give him all these fundas and he is kind of sold on them. Dennu sometimes rolls his eyes and keeps laughing at me, but over the years I have learnt to  ignore his tactics. And he does not get any support in this matter from his dad dearest.

So, this Sunday as usual, I was belting it out in the church. Dennu was next to me, probably rolling his eyes, which I didn’t realize. Towards the end of the mass, during the final song, he came close to me, and whispered, looking at the crucifix on the altar – Ma, he is already bleeding, and if you sing anymore you will find him missing on the cross !!

Took me a few seconds to realize what he was saying and the context, but after that I could not sing ‘coz I was laughing uncontrollably, despite the stares from J :-)

Some trivial stuff

Eat, Pray, Love- the beautiful book by Elizabeth Gilbert has been going with me for a long time now, wherever I went. My son, commented the other day, how long have been reading this book ma? I took an atrocious 3 months or more to complete this book. I enjoyed this book and loved the way Liz could just put down all about her without inhibitions for the whole world to see. This book is an extensive, i guess unadulterated account of her very extraordinary journey for more than a year to three different places.

Some day I wish I could do something like her - travelling for my own sake. :-) I still dont know if I would even enjoy that, but I know if I have to travel it would be across Europe, a back packing trip.

What struck me most was this Italian term Attraversiamo which means Lets Cross over.

I have been lately struggling with a specific relationship with a long time friend. I know we were drifting apart for some time now, but the question is am I giving in too much to keep that friendship just alive. I am not even able to make out if it is an one sided effort. I find myself at an impasse with this friend.

There seems to be a hundred reasons for me to give up on this person, but am I, the only person looking for that one reason to keep this friendship going? To what level should I give in? I keep telling myself, that I do not expect anything out of this friendship, which to a large extent is true. But when you do not expect anything from a friendship, you dont expect to be hurt either, dont you?

I dont deny the fact that there are some wonderful memories that I cannot afford to forget or be thankful for. and the best part is this person has no clue on how I feel, and that is solely because I dont let this person know - my point is may be I am not comfortable with letting this person know how I feel.

Doesn’t that mean, its not a strong friendship? Doesn’t that mean this relationship is falling apart?

I can fight my gut out with my 'true' friends, and go back with a sheepish grin anytime. or I can just decide not to speak and tell my true friends that, and I can undoubtedly believe, that when I make that one call, after months, my true friend will pick that call, even if its midnight and say ' so your time has come baby?' and go on like there was not a break. My true friends figure out there is something wrong with me when I utter the first word.

True friends are a blessing. I try hard to be that true friend to most of the people I believe are my friends.

I wish I could do the Attraversiamo. To just move on, to get to another place, leave behind some good memories of a happy friendship.

Attraversiamo, my friend - Let us cross over. I dont want to get hurt anymore, or dwell on negativity, just trying to keep an one sided friendship alive.

P.S:

I keep most of my confusions / doubts / fears and transitions to myself. Some of them surface in my conversations. Very few come up in my blog.

I would get over this too. :-)  It may take a while longer to get over Liz though!