and such is love...

Started reading Suketu Mehta's Maximum City - Bombay Lost and Found, last night. IN the first 100 pages the author has summed 21 years of my existence. In trying to adjust to the Bambaiyya lifestyle..after living in NY for 20 odd years, the author with great panache and humour describes the ordeals of living in the city. A city that one can only grow to love by living it not just living in it. Everything that seems an adjustment to an outsider is a part of who I am today and I hold on to memories of it for dear life. The pollution. Clogged drains making it impossible to walk in the monsoons, the bipolar distribution of wealth, the middle class, the snobs and the reverse snobs. The incessant ringing of the door bell, the haggling with the sabziwaala for every rupee that doesnt really mean much other than "I will only pay what I think is right.. try ripping someone else off". A neighbour whose kitchen pipes leak making your walls damp.. people peering into your home from every given window, lack of privacy, Bollywood, mafia, actors turned politicians and vice versa. How I love it all.

Love is such a strange emotion. It makes the most despicable qualities in one endearing in another. Loving a place one has grown up in is like your first love. All flaws are adjusted to. You bicker, you complain, you fight, you threaten to leave, but you never do. And when you do, the fragrance of the attachment always lingers on.

On a tangent, once you love someone, how easy it is to forgive them their flaws. Forgive them that annoying slurping habit, that paunch you hate in everyone else, the horrible shoes, unreturned calls, even a forgotten birthday present. :-). All these are endearing. But its wishful thinking. I am just optimistic today. If it was that easy.. wouldnt love always last forever and tide over everything else ? What happens when you part ways... where does all that love go ?

Finding Neverland

Excellent movie. To anyone who knows me knows I believe in Fairies and Pixies and Neverland and what it means to me. Believing , I cant say it enough, is what makes life so beautiful. In the strange wonders. IN everything magical. In all that is innocent.

"You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies."

" . . . every time a child says, `I don't believe in fairies,' there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead."

In the same train of thought is Life of Pi ( remember... the dry yeastless vs the better story )... a Peter Pan for adults !

V once told me " If you wait at a place for long enough, the right time will come." But how do i know its the right place ? How do I believe that the right time has not passed me by ? Right place and Right time, made by celestial permutations, of which I have no clue. Can you have multiple of the much elusive combination in one lifetime. I think so. How many chances do I get ? Infinite is my guess. Because with each passing season, I change and my so do the lines on my palm as do my needs wants and sense of right time and right place.

My blog as you can see is becoming more and more an ode to my favourite poets and poems. Here is one more :

Where Shadow Chases Light

This is my delight,
thus to wait and watch at the wayside
where shadow chases light
and the rain comes in the wake of the summer.

Messengers, with tidings from unknown skies,
greet me and speed along the road.
My heart is glad within,
and the breath of the passing breeze is sweet.

From dawn till dusk I sit here before my door,
and I know that of a sudden
the happy moment will arrive when I shall see.

In the meanwhile I smile and I sing all alone.
In the meanwhile the air is filling with the perfume of promise.

-- Rabindranath Tagore

.....And what a weekend !

It put a tiring week to shame ! But was so much fun. Cooked lunch on sunday for baby Radhika and her mommy, went out friday night and saturday night. Laughed till I lost my voice... Worked out and went to dance practice... and managed to clean my room do laundry etc etc as well.

Have you heard Jagjit Singh sing "Yaad kiya dil ne kahan ho tum ?" Soooo beautiful !

Impossibly Impossible Trivia !

So every morning on KYXY they have this trivia quiz as I drive to work, and they give away a trip to hawaii and things like that. So this one really intrigues me...

Which is the Beatle's most played song ever ?? (radios ads elevators lobbys all included )

I guessed every song.. but the right one !!!!

Ans : Yesterday

I would have never thought of that as their most played song .... Huh... interesting right ? ! :-)

I had an awesome weeked in Dallas. The vacation hangover continues... !! :-)
Went to a club after a long time. Was fun. Was seeing Sac after a year. Hanging out with him was like going back two years in time. Nothing had changed between us except that we had grown up a little bit. Talked seriously about life and where we want it to take us. And what we are going to do about it. Its been a while since i had such a open and nice discussion with anyone. He said something that hit me though.. that however close i get to someone, my thoughts are still hidden and for me alone. It stung me because for a while I have been feeling like i am hiding within myself. Its time to break out I guess.

Here I come :-) !!!!

The Land of Beyond

Have you ever heard of the Land of Beyond,
That dream at the gates of the day?
Alluring it lies at the skirts of the skies,
And ever so far away;
Alluring it calls: O ye yoke of galls,
And ye of the trails overfond,
With saddle and pack, by paddle and track,
Let’s go to the Land of Beyond!

Have ever you stood where the silences brood,
And vast the horizons begin,
At the dawn of the day to behold far away
The goal you would strive for and win?
Yet ah! in the night when you gain to the height,
With the vast pool of heaven star-spawned,
Afar and agleam, like a valley of dream,
Still mocks you the Land of Beyond.

Thank God! there is always the Land of Beyond
For us who are true to the trail;
A vision to seek, a beckoning peak,
A fairness that never will fail;
A proud in our soul that mocks at a goal,
A manhood that irks at a bond,
And try how we will, unattainable still,
Behold it, our Land of Beyond!

-- Robert Service

Been a while ! So much to say so much to tell and words are failing me. The euphoria has faded and I have hit the ground. Where should i start ? To sum it up, I have made my peace. With everything. Most importantly with myself.
Moving ahead, Bring it on 2005 !!!!