Enjoying the ride........

I realized some time ago that I was spending a good part of my life in chasing the ghosts of the past. The journey ahead can never be worthwhile if you always keep looking over your shoulder and staring at the wall posts of the past; for that is what exactly they are - stationary wall posts - unwilling and often ill-equipped to move along with you. Life isn't about a single milestone or a single wall post - it is a vibrant collage of beautiful images that make up your life. Sure some images are prominent and life-like, whilst others are hazy recollections of moments best forgotten, but none of them are significant enough to define your life or your existence. People you thought would be a part of your happy ending, often walk away for reasons best known them. People you thought would see you through your lowest lows, sometimes melt away in the face of a tough challenge. You could possibly hate them or hate yourself to rationalize and sometimes intellectually justify the tragic course of events. However, I believe the best way to deal with anger, disappointment and pain is not to throw it in someone else's face or mercilessly crucify yourself, but to let it go; the toughest and ironically the easiest way to deal with it begins with forgiving and embracing yourself. Not even the wisest souls get to live their lives retrospectively; so why must we in our self-deprecating thoughts? Life isn't about 'what Ifs'.

The chosen few

Have you ever gone through a series of bad experiences - unfulfilling relationships - where you've always given more and got very little back in return; which often feel like feeding the bottomless pit of a black hole; disillusioning jobs - where you oscillate between feeling invisible and feeling worthless; fractured relations - where you're always made to feel like a permanent disappointment? Chances are that either you are a sucker for suffering and feed off it or you're wallowing in the deep end of a pool called self-pity. If you're unfortunate enough not to fall into either of the two buckets - then you belong to a celebrated club of a chosen few. The chosen few are oft-tested by destiny because unlike the commoners, they are made of sterner stuff. The chosen few can always weather more storms and always emerge stronger; doesn't matter how much they crib, complain and shed a few tears along the way - the chosen few are human too after all. So the next time you feel resentful about the fat bonus your colleague took home, or the kind boyfriend that your friend has - don't question their deserving quotient. Just remember one thing - people who are often short-changed by destiny are the ones loved by her the most. There is a reason that she wants you to pick up the pebbles along the way, while the others gloat in the discovery of their "gems". There is a reason why they had it easy and you didn't! In the end people don't necessarily get what they deserve, they get what they had the courage and conviction to wait around for....

Hope floats!

There are many people you encounter in life who make you feel that life's not worth living after all...however, for every such person there are atleast two who make you believe that there is sunshine back again :)

Dear Diary….

7:15 am – Alarm goes off...No matter how many times I shuffle the tunes, every sound seems sharp and intrusive early in the morning

7:30 – Stumble out of bed and eat my thyroid medicine….God I do hope that I get a breakthrough end of this month…I cannot imagine waking up to a bottle of Thyronorm on my bedside table every single morning

8:00 – Running late for work and hence I need to stuff my face with breakfast soonish…Non-descript cheela for brekker….Didn’t the hen lay any eggs today?

9:30 – Drift into office at 9:30 wondering the amount of time I waste on the streets of Bangalore, weaving past traffic and hurling abuses at errant drivers (as K would say – son of a b****)

10:30 – Sneak into my J’s shared calendar and block an hour of one-on-one meeting time for my mid-year review. Chuckle to myself at my little victory. I hope J knows that he has unwittingly given me access to his calendar…! My emails are always followed by a little trip down that hallway to “follow-up” if he has read my emails. He usually gives me a warm look of skepticism (almost to say – what does this girl want now!)...Today he tries to mock-wrestle with his door, pushing up against it so that he can block my way! Needless to say the staff is really amused by his little act!

1:00 – Lunch is always a highlight of my day – busy or not. Meals and food according to me are to be celebrated – It’s never a chore (and I guess it shows). Today the caterer has got some delightful rajma-chawal and a cabbage salad…ummm didn’t the doctor tell me to steer clear of that? I brush that thought aside, so that later I can revisit it and blame it on an innocent case of oversight J I enjoy the lunch conversations with my colleagues, at least the bits that don’t get drowned by the rumbling sounds in my stomach…!

3:30 – Finally have a meeting with J regarding my goals and the conversation veers towards the Bollywood starlets flocking him at the Art of Chilling Party in Mumbai (I hope he is going with this somewhere…!) He blames it on his devastating good looks, and I feel that I am certainly not his beholder ;-) Goals get discussed and thrashed out; for the lack of any suitable yardsticks to measure my performance, we decide not to measure it altogether! I have a strong feeling that J has mentally check-marked the box next to a rating of 6 (a superlative performer, who far outperforms expectations)….I blame it on a combination of my devastating good looks and intellect J

4:30 – Set the new goals, and bounce off the email to J, hoping for a revert soon so that I can work towards an untainted rating of 6 ;-) Walking down the hallway, he darts a quick look in my direction and I catch his eye; I am certain he curses himself for making eye-contact, which means more persistent pestering (I am certain he wishes he walked with blinkers on!)

5:30 – It’s time to head to the gym. The first 10 minutes are a punishment, and I really need to drag my heals…However, once I am in the flow it seems all lovely and rhythmic

A letter buried in my inbox.....

Was just talking about Bombay to my friends, chattering away about places and food and people and experiences, when I suddenly realized that there was one common element to my experiences - my lens, that was you. You romanticized everything - the traffic snares, the local trains, the Bombay rains, the street food, the soaring rents, the house help woes, the lack of space just to name a few. I loved my borrowed lens - every color seemed brighter and sharper than before. For the first time, I felt tempted to discard my 'so what' attitude. You made me believe that life is worth embracing in all its glory - the good, the bad and the ugly.

That healing touch

Sometimes in life you come across people who touch your lives in ways which you could have never imagined. It might sound silly and surreal, but I believe that these people are God’s angels. This post is an ode to one such person who touched my life – N. When N and I met, my spirit was broken, my confidence shattered and my faith in people all shaken. I was a self-loathing, frail image of my former confident self whose favorite past time was sulking and favorite adventure modules in self-pity. I was sinking; getting sucked into a vortex of negativity, when he reached out for my hand and yanked me right out of it.

All these years, when I had everything in life that could be imagined by “conventional yardsticks”, the one thing which was always missing – that crucial piece from a jigsaw puzzle – was acceptance. N accepted me with his arms flung wide open – never questioning, never doubtful. He helped me appreciate all the colors from the spectrum (including the daunting shades of grey); he taught me the art of loving others and myself. Most importantly he taught me the meaning of unconditional love and acceptance – beyond the realms of philosophy. My life was never the same. He came along and painted my life a bright sunny yellow with his magical brushstrokes.

Unfortunately, due to the trappings of a bitch called practicality, N is not a part of my life anymore. For the sake of our own sanity, I can’t reach out to him and tell him, how much I prize him and value him; how much I respect him and adore him; and most importantly how much I am grateful to him. About a year and a half back he resuscitated me back to life and gave me happiness that I had never seen before. So for all these things and more N, I would like to say THANK YOU. The words in this post are not enough to measure the depths of gratitude in my heart.

Thought for the day

"People who have the capacity to weather many storms are the ones who are oft-tested by destiny"