12Sep

In search of passion

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Sometimes, I feel at a stage when one has to be focussed on so many things that HAS to happen in life that one forgets how to be carefree..

Sometimes, I wonder, why is it so hard to be carefree… to do the things that I love.. and run after some MUSTs…

Maybe I lack the courage, maybe I am bounded by fear of the unknown… but I know there will be a time, very soon, this will also pass..

At present I am like a river flowing laboriously with lot of debris and would so like to flow quickly lightly rapidly playing around boulders before merging to the giant sea of consciousness… :)

And this blog just pepped me up which just made me pause and reflect AGAIN what gave me blissful joy in the most mundane manner..

Mundane is what I need right now.. rather than abstract.. :)

What makes you smile?

A beautiful song, a lullaby, my birds, my Ma’s unintended jokes, a smile from someone, good food, a fond memory, memories and spontaniety..

What makes you lose time?

A good book, a song, conversation with close friends, walking down cobbled paths exploring new bits about a new place.. standing still by a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains, jewellery browsing, shopping, traveling.. the journey… listening to wisdom of the ancients,

What comes naturally to you?

Laughing, communicating, exercising influence, getting things done, being a woman, being me :)

What can’t you stop talking about?

Life, being alive, being in the moment, living in the present, beliefs, my fears and how I can overcome them.. how imperfection is the way to learn… and not wallow on it..

What are you really awesome at doing?

Anything that I love doing, the keyword here is love.. :) can be cooking, can be writing, can be communicating, can be counselling, can be managing, can be just being in the moment.

If you knew you could not fail, what would you do?

Write a book. Travel all over and write another book.. :) … and write more books.. :)

What would you do for free because you love it so much?

Counsel women who are yet to make it…. be a coach.. teach..

If you had 12 months to live, would you still be doing what you’re doing now?

Sell all my assets, travel more, meet all my friends, spend more time with my loved ones.. and slowly give away everything till I have nothing left… but the body…

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27Aug

in remembrance

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Forget-me-not

Image by staticgirl via Flickr

That is all we are left with memories and rememberance..

yesterday at 2:05 my dear friend finally succumbed to the pull of bone cancer..  Life and death are not in our hands.. I know.. but somehow, hope is what keeps us going..

Just like life happens, the exit also happens… its the only permanent and definite part of life…

So yes, knowing that this will come to pass, its still difficult to think that I will not hear her voice.. calling me “Jil”, “kaisi hai”

My heart is heavy with remembrance.. its as if, the record is playing back with super fast speed and in my mind I am living the memories again.. but with a finality that this is the only thing I have till this also fades off to only being a cell memory.. where we would just know each other if we met each other again in another life, by virtue of us having lived in this life with each other..

I met R when I was looking for a Apt and I needed a flatmate.

My dear Bro who did not want me to be alone set it up so that I had someone who was responsible and a good companion to live with me.

She lived far off and she was quiet and very pretty.

As far as personality goes, we were poles and lifetimes apart and we did have our fights… :) I remember it fondly when my over extrovertness and damn care attitude clashed with her organized and patient self.

I would dare say that sometimes, I hated her for her calmness and acceptance of things… but reluctantly as I also matured, I also could see that the very qualities, I would not be able to understand, I would learn or imbibe the very qualities… from her unknowingly.

Today I remember her as a woman who has surpassed many obstacles in life specifically, the one stigma of just being a woman..

She was blessed to have  been saved from a pimp who had married Indian women and sold them in the US and then come back to marry again. And yet when this knowledge came to the forefront, in the day of the marriage, it was still her that people blamed… such is the bane of our society towards the women folk.. Damned if you do and damned if you dont..

Not giving up, she came out of that and built a life of her own and that phase we shared our apt with each other.. and went through our daily bits..

Her liking only certain fishes…

her liking only certain parts of chicken

Her doing things in a very perfectionist way..  It used to drive me crazy but I got used to it and started respecting that as well.

If someone would visit us, they could easily differentiate from the chaotic soul that I was and the organized and calm being that she was. Her space would be clean with pastel shades and very minimum things by her side.

My side would be stacked with books, knick knacks, etc.. hahahah

When she bought her own bike, she was so excited.. but still it would make her comfortable if I rode my Kinetic an she sit as a pillion when we would do our ritualistic temple visits.

yeah she loved temples and had immense faith..

She loved earrings and clothes… and we would have discussions on what we would buy…

Commercial street was our favorite haunt… :) we would love doing our girly stuff..

I think she was forced to open up a lot with me.. forced to accept the crazy me who had no boundaries..

In retrospective, she always reminded me that we had to have some boundaries..

we shared deep dark side of ours… stuff that we would not want to admit to anyone… yet.. it was as if we could trust each other blindly with it.

She loved food like me … ok I gorged on food but she liked good food.. we experimented a lot with our food and ate well… I know it was fun… she would want me to cook the dal the way I made it and I would tell her to make pitla the way she did it.. and if she was very happy, she would have khandvi and dhokla… and we would have a feast… she loved making sweets… as well… My taste for pitla and poha and all things Maharashtrian stemmed from her experiments.. :)

And she would also speak Bengali with me… as she knew that language… made me feel at home as well… :)

Again, through thick and thin, she would be there… nudging me… telling me even the last time I talked to her.. that it will be ok..

Sometimes I think that even though I did not have an elder sister, she was someone I would like to compare one to..

someone I loved, hated, loved, hated, and loved again… and finally accepted that she made sense.. :)

I feel I was the only one going through the see saw.. she was the constant… through my love and hate part, she would be just there… waiting and so forgiving… and yes reprimanding… to a degree that might have been needed… LOL… but it did forge a strong bond…

The good part was that she got a wonderful soul to get married to and had a son… and the life or the ideal American dream…

It was so nice to visit her… and see her happy and settled in her house…

I remember I was so sick when I went to visit her in New Jersey… that she nursed me back to health with her specially made Kadi.

She took me visiting New York and she though not the adventurous kind, took me with her and walked with me all around New York.

When she knew she had bone cancer, it was a cold deep feeling inside me that time was less… and we talked on and off.. through chemo, sessions, her visits to the doc, planned surgeries,…. the fact that surgery could not happen… all of it…

What does one say to someone who knows her time is near ? Sometimes, words left me.. sometimes, I would talk all silly things… and make her laugh… sometimes I would make up…. it was good just to hear her laugh.. It was so painful to hear her… say what would happen to her son when she was not there… so painful….

Sometime, it was just difficult to be positive as we could not ignore what was looming in front of us..

June, she called me for the last time and I was so busy, I could only talk for a short while… thinking I will call her back… and never made it.. July, she deteriorated… till she passed on yesterday 2:05 PM. with her family by her side..

Rita, I would like to thank you for being there in my life and it was a nice journey.. I hope I can meet with you soon…  in the bardo state or in afterlife…

If you meet Ma, do say Hi to her.. :)  You can spend sometime talking to her telling her, I remember her as well… every day… as I will remember you…

May your journey be smooth, may you keep moving to the next purpose without any attachments…  you will be on my thoughts and prayers every moment… till I have this body… :)

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23Aug

Dedication

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Caduceus

Image via Wikipedia

Usually I keep this kind of post till the end of the year but heck I thought I should respect the swarm of events and respect the time and submit my surrender and dedication.

So I have been considering myself to be quite blessed I must say that even with all ups and downs, I have never had to step into a hospital for anything serious and I would keep praying that let that be so for as long as it takes. Oh what vanity I say I had an what a prejudiced way of looking at myself.

I always refer to my body as my temple but even as I say that I do know I give in to so many temptations of the palette and have overdone it so many times, knowing that my time will come and well when the time comes, I know I would have tasted all that was there.. without any remorse..

And by jove the time of reckoning has finally come.. and am glad in a way, its come sooner than I expected…. so that I can plan my exit better :) buhahahah !!! well I do want a smooth exit finally…

So where was I ? Dedication :)

Yeah, I dedicate 2011 to hospitals, medicines and all kinds of ailments, sprains, injuries, you name it…

So I bow down and surrender and accept that my body is a mere machine and it does start making you aware that life as I know it has to be lived with so much more awareness and thankfulness and every second is taking me closer to my final destination and the joy has to begin… with the whittling of self as I perceived it in my imagination. Not that I was unaware of it all, have been in and out of ailments but one at a time or a year but this beats it..

And I must thank the universe as it pushed me with various messages to start with it all.

So I abhor hospitals, needles, the wait , the tests, blood and the bit…

Interestingly, as you know with law of attraction, what one loves one gets and more than that what one fears also one gets..

Now, I think I have passed my examination… all that I hate have become my friends… close friends I must say :)

My fear of needles is gone as I get to prick myself and be pricked so many times that I welcome them as my best pals… LOL

Clinic 1 - well this is comfortable and the wait is very interesting if I take a book, find a corner to nap till my name is called. And also be like that still camera which takes in all that is going in and out.

Dalals who usher in rich shiekhs and their burkah clad wives for some or the other treatment.

A naughty child, Krishna,  who comes in with his pregnant mom and Dad. Dad has to run around behind the child. He peeps in near me and longingly looks at my phone and makes cute eyes at me just in the hope that I give him to play with it. When he is bored, he goes to the reception and starts picking up the phone there and says hello puts down the phone and then picks it up again. The father, exasperated just wants to be done with it yet has to keep him but Krishna is not in the mood to oblige.

The lab assistant, who is convincing someone on the other end of the phone why the blood tests are what it was and how she knows best.. Then preening about her knowledge to the juniors.

The receptionist who tells me that my own report is confidential .. GAWK.. I am like its my report and my body, my tests… so what is confidential about it.. and finally getting an answer that the doc will get the inside report… so that I can proceed… well thank god for small mercies..

The gentleman arguing about medical insurance… and then talking to his wife to get the papers which is missing from the cupboard and after half an hour of arguing and searching for it via the phone with the help of his wife, deciding to quit and go… in a huff since he will not get a discount..

All this while, yours truly, quietly observing and thinking.. its all temporary… and waits for her turn…

The end at one is worth it since the doc is really good.

Clinic – 2 

I get a notebook and a file. I feel like a child going back to school. Have to fill in my particulars all over again.. Do I get up in the middle of the night, do I have this, do I have that.. I do heave a relief that most of the questions are “No”.

Yet this is a tricky one.

So I wait and I wait and I wait and maybe an hour and a half later, inspite of an appointment, I get to meet this good doc, who seems to be very good. She comes highly reccomended. I notice that I have to take leave because it took up more than half of my day. I think maybe its because its my first time there.

I come back after 2 weeks and I wait and I wait and I wait and this time the wait is so long… I lose it… 2 and a half hours… and its dawning on me that this is a trend. I am not wasting another leave and reschedule and never mind the fact that I lost my way and spend another half an hour just finding the clinic which is just under the nose yet… when days are bad, they tend to be worse.. :)

So next time I quickly adapt with some observation that some buttering and some nudging is required to get to see the doc early.. so I go in early, make sure I am there before many and finally have to wait maybe half an hour to talk to the doc..

observing myself I was going through the throes of rejection by the doc depression syndrome..  when I saw the ladies there ignoring my file since I gave all of them a piece of my mind the other day.. yet I am stoic and steady… telling myself that its all fine.. and I need patience..

Finally, the receptionist, asks me to go inside and sit. It almost brings tears to my eyes when I see the doc.. .. I never thought that getting to see the doc would bring such a relief..

Clinic 3 

I rush to this eye hospital and as instructed by Rocks, I stand in the queue fill in my forms and since I have been here before with my Dad, for his operation, I am ok with the scene. I wait and wait till my name is called. My name is called and I am taken in… and when they know I have contact lenses, they ask me to open it and wait for another half an hour.. I am like… why did you not tell me this before… I am getting pissed slowly  but I smile and i do it.

I am blind as a bat without my lenses and I curse my inability to see.. after I remove my lenses, wishing that I wore my spectacles inside.. .but I had to do this.. so I wait and read my book.. I can read without my lenses, thank God for that.. so as I am going deeper into the plot,  turning off the crowds, irate patients, etc.. and an excited Bengali patient pointing at the TV and commenting on the bear who is climbing up a pole and is stuck there.. some Animal Planet stuff and I smile at her amusement.. Humor always makes me feel good..

I get called finally by the intern and I get the sight tests done and my power is the same … so I feel another relief…

Finally I get to wait for a while before I meet the doc… the same one who operated on my dad’ s eyes and she is talking about dilating my pupils…

NOOOOOOOOO !!! I realise my folly. I have driven by myself and I have to go cook for Dad and with Dilation, I will be stuck for like another 5 hours without anyone to drive me back….

this after 3 hours.. I tell the doc my predicament and reschedule.. which I have not met out of sheer unwillingness to get into the hospital again..

Clinic 4

I sprain my wrist picking up some heavy vegetable bags and walking through smelly slushy vegetable market…. YUCK I so hate it.

And wake up to an excruciating pain… knowing that I have to go to the hospital YET AGAIN.. And I am not able to move it at all. I fear something is broken as the pain is unbelievable..

I expect something similar, wait, wait then do some tests then wait…

BUT VIOLA !!! I must say this was a smoothie.. and it made me happy.. I sailed into emergency, got an attendant Geeta who bless her soul, took me very speedily to the X RAY dept and got me quickly to the attending ortho.. and in a jiffy I have a splint and me feeling much better..

Clinic 5 

Since I was having a good day, I decide to go to my favorite Dentist.. :) I had a broken tooth.. but was scared that I had to do another root canal which was like I did not want to revisit until sometime… but the result was just another filling and some clean up..

YAYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Points to ponder 

  • i would really like to thank the souls who have been very encouraging via emails, via chat, via just one word…… who have been consistently showing me the positives even when I fell through the cracks of helplessness.. but it helped to ever hear the encouraging nudge and to keep at my belief that all things are temporary and it all has a positive result at the end of the day.. 
  • I know even though I like to think I am strong but I hate being sick and words of encouragement really helps me go the extra mile. 
  • Rocks has been my pillar and could not have done without him.. muaaahhh to you… 
  • its always nice to share, am not one to share my downs… except with the very few.. but that very few made my day… its nice to share.. without prejudice… :)  
  • It has pushed me to live more consciously and welcome this with lot of acceptance and the will to live free of this.. at the same time.. some Huna here and some positive visualisation here.. helps me go forward.. 
  • Because of this, the sloth in me has disappeared completely and its not me but my small family who are getting fitter with me.. 
  • Morning walks with Dad and Rocks is the best time of the day.. Walks, meditation, ground me and keeps me light… I love the bonding time. 
  • Food is still a favorite but I eat with more awareness.. I gorged on the beautiful bday cake and I am ok… buhhahaa !!! 
  • My food preferences have changed for the better… 
  • And my reading has picked up speed. I finished 4 books this whole period.. and 2 more to go… The best part of this is that its reconnected me to the world of words and stories which I so love.. 
  • I am glad for the whole experience since its with prevention, that I will know how to lead a good life.. and then have a smooth death.. :) ( remembering mom here ) 
  • And I remember all my friends who were fighting some battle of the body/health in some way or the other and appreciate their resilience and patience and the perseverance. All their thoughts make my experience very inconsequential and I am humbled… and even though I have always respected their stand and have supported them, I do so even more now…  I pray for them even more now… its an immensely internal experience and it needs lot of fortitude.. 
  • its a phase we all have to go through… and how we do it matters, what lessons we learn matters, because there is a lesson in all experience.. patience, tolerance, the whole bit… :)  
  • I am so glad now that I got to do all this now… when my bones are still holding me up… ( touch wood !!! ) so though I am not looking for more,… have enough to deal with on my plate, I would say, that if I can breathe smoothly, sleep peacefully, and eat with care, I am going to be ok for now…
  • I know not what the future brings but I know, the present is what I need to take care… moment to moment to moment :)  
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