....and all that jazZ

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Mood Swings

On Sunday I came back to an empty home, exhausted from a 3 year olds birthday party. "Can I have the flower on the cake?", "Hi clown", "I love bubbles", "Lukey, give me a hug". kids are just priceless. Anyhow, I come home tired and flop on the couch and I know exactly what I have to watch on TV. The last two episodes of The Wire season 1. Why ? Because it is absolutely one of the most intelligent, gripping, entertaining, thought provoking dramas on TV. I then proceed to pick up my book club read. Three very interesting pages later i need a nap. I wake up and its about 6:30 pm. Its Sunday night. I am not hungry enough to cook. I don't feel like watching any more TV. And I don't want to read. I don't want to do anything. I call Coolboy, and he doesn't want to talk. I browse the web, listen to some music and all it does is make me more restless than ever.

And just like that I decide to go for Garba all by myself. Take a shower, rummage through a closet full of nothing to wear, throw something on. As I Kohl line my eyes, the pace picks up. Jewellery, hair all in place, i grab my keys and run out. I cant wait.

I reach the mandir and as I park I can feel the excitement. My heart is already beating to the tune. The hour that followed is a blur. I know I was happy. I smiled at strangers, chatted with people I didn't know that much, danced like there was no Monday, prayed like my life depended on it and when I got home I cried.

The circle of life. The circle you trace with your feet as you dance. The circle you draw with your outstretched arms. Your personal space. The space you keep your most sacred thoughts, cherished dreams, memories and secret fears. And the dreaded truth that you don't need any one to make you happy but yourself.

So if you are low on spirits, go dance your heart out. Its 9 nights a year that the joy of the festivities can make you feel heady and you can give yourself up to all the beautiful emotions joys an sorrows alike that make us so alive !!

P.S:

It was a year ago this time that I flew down to see Patti. I wonder if I will ever get some of those images out of my head. The thing is I dont want to. Some moments are etched forever in my head and I replay them and carve them deeper and deeper so that i may not ever forget the pain. So that i feel the shock, the loss and the anguish every day, every moment. Because it is in that deep sorrow of my loss that the memories of happiest moments of my life are kept alive. I dont know how to better phrase it, but thats that. From that grief stems now my own single greatest desire to live my life fully and wholly without repent or regret.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

How I Wish !

As we drove home from DFW airport, I stared into the night and the vastness of the city that is multiplied by its lack of trees. In the blackness of the sky , as I stared on at nothing, listening to Sac chatter nineteenth to a dozen, my brain registered a shooting star. "Oh my God a shooting star, look loook" i grabbed sac who was driving. "Make a wish, you are supposed to make a wish.. quick quick, .." and my brain froze. What should I wish for? what do i want? no, what do i want most, Oh no, God its fading away. Just as the star faded away, in the final moments of its existence, i quickly made a wish for whatever popped into my head. No, I wont tell you what it is, because then it wont come true.

Later at leisure, I thought about the wish I made. "Sac, i wish I had wished for something else. Something better". As the words came out of my mouth, I smiled at my own childish greed. Hell, I was getting a wish for free, may as well have wished for the heaven and the earth. It is never enough. is it ? I am not rich enough, not thin enough, not young enough, not old enough, not clever enough.. its never ending.

Thinking more about the wish I finally made, I actually surprised myself. Of all the things that I could have thought of, this was the first and foremost. That told me a little about myself and what I really care about the most. About what actually makes me happy.

Life could always be better, but for today, to quote Kau, "Thank God, I have enough".