it's been such a long time

it's been such a long long time since i wrote. i've just spent over two hours going through the posts and comments of my old blog. and, o my god, how things have changed since then. i can't say that i can't relate to who i was then, it was, after all, me! but i was so different!

and that, dear friends, is the royal retunr of the lietmotif of my life. change. i'm so different from who i used to be.
i'd written of my doubts about getting married. and here i am, married for almost two years. missing my husband if he leaves town even for a day. missing him like no one's business if he leaves me for 11 days! and today he'll finally be back. it's as if he'd been gone for a year. may that never happen!

i'm scared to talk about how happy we are. is it wrong to share it with people? is it true that the more you share the news of your happiness, the more chances grow of it getting ruined?

he's lovely. and i'm the same - messy, loving, we're both funny. and we enjoy every minute of it. now, when we fight, we start laughing because it's so funny to hear each other shouting.

this doesn't sound like me!!!! i'm writing after such a long time, i've become so unfamiliar with myself. the most heartening fact is that the people who were around when i started writing, are still around!! thank you so much for everything!

i hope to write more.. but it'll take some time.

write what you know

they said that: write what you know

What i know, what i feel, and what i am: these three things are so interrelated that what i know, and what i am become what i feel, and what i feel becomes what i am, creating a whirlwind in a teacup.

from my train window

Train journeys
a hiatus, a period of no - of hanging in between - a little away from everything, ipod plugged in - book in lap, magazine in rack, looking out of the window at the scenery passing by, growing into homeland turf. i have always been undecided about journeys. they are from something i have grown to love to something i have already loved, or loved once, to somewhere i want to be, or somewhere i have dreamt of being, or wished fervently never to return to...

it is always a different me who boards a train - transformed from the bubbly awkward college grad to a slightly shaken, overexposed, as we call it - person.

trains mean a time to gauge my place in life, my place in the scheme of things. and it never ceases to amaze me how fickle the scheme is. how it always seems to keep changing. or maybe it is just that i can never quite catch the essence of it. of the scheme, or the changes around it. i feel a step behind things. by the time i catch up with what's happening around me, by the time i start falling into place, all the pieces start changing places around me. like a whatshisname - Rubik'?s cube? in which the colours jump from a box to another, or one of those slide puzzles... except that the picture keeps metamorphosing into something else.

right now, it's as if we've returned from a honeymoon, all loved up. precious feeling. i should treasure it, wrap it up in my crinkly paper and store it deep inside! so that when the need arises it can cheer me up with the promise of more love to come.

or rather, i should give it wings and let it fly, so that it spreads everywhere.

please take me out for a holiday.

anywhere.

now.

after reading

To be one with krishna. To know him intimately. For him to know you. Me. He who is with us before we are and after we are done with being. Being whoever He wanted us to be. Whoever and however. Everytime you think of him, if you can think like her, so strongly of him, he will be there.

That was an impression after reading The Palace of Illusions - a review - Although the book was nice, it was extremely limited in the way it tried to capture the whole span of the Mahabharata.

The one thing I loved however was Paanchali's relationship with Krishna. As if you were talking to the Angushtha-matra inside your own self. (But this'soul' or 'jiva' is a spark of the divine, and its seat in the body is supposed to be centered in the heart region. In the upanishads it is called the 'hiranmaya purusha' or tha 'angushtha-matra' purusha.) Loving Krishna is ... like loving the Lord in all his playfulness and He loves you back.

I never thought there would be God stuff on my blog! To think of it, there's nothing much to see on the blog anymore, 24 posts in a year? shameful!

fluff

he who flibbertigibbet exercises gibbertyflibbet government by means of his gobbeldygook virtue undooloobundoo may be compared hubballulloo to the antiwanty north polar flybyday star, which jollywelly keeps its flipperywooly place and all wappatabbit the stars turn oooviroo towards it.
-Confucius, philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)

You of course have heard of anti-matter??? We have taken it one step further. We are so insignificant in the scheme of things that we have what is known as doesn'tmatter. . . Instead of . . . destroying any matter we come in contact with, no one notices."

just a writing exercise

Through the thin wall I heard the clinking of spoons as my maid wiped them and put them back in the kitchen drawer. Tossing and turning didn't help, and I was awake. I turned to look at M, he was facing the other side and seemed half awake. I leaned over and glanced at his clock, reminding myself to put a new battery in mine, it was not even seven. Still, awake, I plodded barefoot to the loo, and freshened up, changed and gathered my keys and money, for, oh, how exciting, there were no veggies for the day. Eyes barely open, I walked past the kitchen, mumbled in response to Ranima's cheery goodmorningdidi. Mom and dad were busy in their usual schedule downstairs. Mom was winding up her day's cooking because her day was already half over. Dad was outside watering the garden. A goodmorning to each one of them, and I was out. Ah, my own car was the most difficult to take out, since it was first in line. M's  was, fortunately, last. So I got to take the Formula one car, as he puts it, for bhaji shopping.

Hmmm, milk, veggies, summers had begun. Apart from a handful of things, none of which was a favorite with M, there was nothing else. No karelas, no parmals, nothing. Watermelon for me, milk, eggs, finally the navratras were over, some bread and the usual aloo pyaz business later I was home. M up, about, cold coffee drunk, was on the throne. Ranima had just finished making my tea and had put it on the table with the mandatory jug of water, glass, soaked anjeer, 2 biscuits and vitamins. She was now wondering what to do about M's lunch, and I was wondering about his breakfast…