Slices of my daily life

A routine is a very efficient tool to use when one wants to overcome trauma. Routines are useful to inculcate habits…though I, personally, don’t seem to incorporate habits even if I incorporate them into my routine. Routines help one feel secure. That is all the utility that routines have. I find routines extremely limiting and suffocating. They are numbing…mind numbing to be precise. They limit my expression, my ability and my space. They suffocate the artist in me. I wish to create a semi-fixed and semi-flexible routine for myself so that I can achieve a healthy balance.

I was flooded with messages and phone calls and work at office. Hence no post yesterday. But as I ended my day, I had a few thoughts that I wanted to share. So I am writing this post for the 30th March. I got birthday wishes from so many people. I was pleasantly surprised that so many people took time out to wish me…so many people think positively about me and for me ! It is quite reassuring. I gratefully reciprocate the love that I receive :)

Today being Gudhi Padwa i.e. the Hindu New Year day I have a holiday. I started my day late but once up, I did some housework and then came to my mother's place for lunch.  Post-lunch I had a very interesting and stimulating discussion with my father. I won't write what that we spoke about because that is not the point of this post. What I want to mentione is that the conversation was varied, very stimulating intellectually and I had a sense of sharing thoughts, ideas and memories with my father. That made me feel very close to him. I like that. I like this day :) 

Today was stupendous in terms of the work I managed to do ! I know that I am capable of a lot of work and also capable of multi-tasking. However, such days that require one to do that, don’t come by very often. Today I’m feeling really satisfied due to all the work I have done…and the promptness with which I have executed all the tasks. Of course, this means that I am sitting late in office and I haven’t checked mails or goofed off even for a couple of minutes post-lunch. Even before lunch I was nearly glued to my chair :) This is one of the days that make you feel good about yourself. Busy days when you have done something that you think is useful or meaningful. Days when you arrive at a solution for a difficult or long-standing problem. Days when you have enriched yourself or others. Today is one such day and I am grateful about it.

It has been a dream of mine since childhood to work with orphaned animals…ranging from dogs to primates to elephants ! :) As a child I was notorious for bringing home stray puppies. I would beg to my mother to allow me to keep it. All I ever succeeded in was feeding the puppy some warm milk and taking it right back to wherever I had found it. The only time I succeeded was when I was in college and this doggy companion stayed with us for her entire life – a very enriching 15 years. My grandmother used to recount an incident of the time when I was 4 years old. She had taken me to watch a movie. It was a story about how elephants are trapped by hunters and how they succeed in getting away. My grandmother told me that when the hunters trapped the elephants, I started bawling at the top of my voice and was inconsolable. She had to drop the movie mid-way and bring me home. For the longest time ever I pestered my parents to get me a baby elephant or at least a chimpanzee or a baboon as a pet ...

Some people get upset with a birthday coming up. It reminds them on their advancing age. Some people are happy when their birthday is coming up. They look forward to being the center of attention and being treated in a special manner. I am not feeling anything ! I don’t feel bad about becoming older. I am not looking forward to receiving special treatment…although I do get it. No excitement, no depression. Somehow it doesn’t feel any different. It feels like just another day. I don’t feel like taking stock of the past or planning for the future like some people do on their birthday. I wonder why. I think one ought to feel something about the day they were born on. Why am I not feeling anything ? Its rather strange, isn’t it ?

…about characters in books and movies and what happened to them after the book or movie ended. For example Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice. …about what babies or even dogs really think when adults talk to them in baby-talk. …what other people really think about me. …why the earth doesn’t fall down and if it did, what it would land upon. and thousands of many other things to which I know I may never get answers…

Somebody had said this to me a long time ago and it has stayed with me since. It seems quite ordinary but is really one of those simple life-truths. Today while having a conversation with C, I remembered it and passed it along. So, I leave it here for you to connect it to your life. “Clean up your closet if you want to fill it with new clothes that fit better” Have a great weekend ! :)

Maybe it happens to everybody or maybe it’s just me. I don’t know. A little while ago P had come to office to visit us all. P worked with us for a year and a half. She left the company a year ago. She belongs to another state. When she left the company, she returned to her native place. We were very good friends when she was here and had a lot of fun together…all the girls in the company. After she left, she used to call on and off. We used to be in touch on the mail, but infrequently. Then a couple of days ago she contacted one of us girls and gave us the good news that she is getting married in April. Then her wedding invitation came on mail. This morning J told us that P was coming to meet us all this afternoon. Then she came. We were all very excited to meet her. We had great fun talking to her. Then as she was leaving, I started feeling a bit upset thinking, “I wonder if we’ll ever meet again”. It’s strange. It happens to me all the time. Whenever anybody leaves the company or the...

When we were deciding the costumes for Achalayatan, we had a lot of ideas but neither S nor A nor I are trained costume designers and do not have in-depth knowledge of tailoring. So P called in R who is a trained costume designer. However she had exams and could only make the designs. We had to get them executed from tailors by instructing them and make the simpler ones ourselves. So two days before the competition show of Achalayatan, C and I were sitting at my place staring at this huge bundle of cloth. We had to make 6 cloth belts of an unusual design. C has absolutely no idea about anything remotely related to stitching. So it fell upon me to take the responsibility. I knew the design and had the measurements. I decided to make a cutting on newspaper first and then trace it on the cloth and finally cut the cloth. I have never done any stitching before. If I made a mistake the cloth would be wasted and precious time too would be lost. So I was very scared of putting scissors to clot...

I just can’t think of anything to write today and time is at a premium. So here is some borrowed wisdom: You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was. -Abraham Lincoln Most of us often try to HAVE more things in order to DO more of what we want, so that we will BE happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first BE who you really are, then DO what you need to do in order to HAVE what you want. -Anonymous If you have a reason, you don't need to shout. -Zen proverb Pain is inevitable, suffering is not. -Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

Almost all people I have met, regardless of their age, would love to indulge in creative pursuits, given the opportunity. People who want to maintain a clean image and will take extreme measures for that and try to please everybody they know, will, in fact, succeed in doing just the opposite. I feel extremely embarrassed when somebody introduces me in glowing terms and I am totally incapable of receiving a compliment since it makes me feel very shy and totally speechless. It takes half the time and energy to think about the consequences of our actions before we actually do them than to think of justifications and offer explanations for them after they are done. Most people will react to ‘how’ you put across an idea, an emotion, a thought rather than the actual idea or feeling or thought. Not looking at a problem does not make it go away. It only delays its resolution. In everybody’s life there are some people with whom one connects at the same intimate frequency, unfailingly, regardles...

A few months ago I had stated an intent and actively sought somebody’s guidance to fulfill it. I got a lot more help from this person than I had anticipated. I even started out on the track indicated by this person. Things have slowly begun to change. For the last couple of days I was feeling a little slack. My energy applied to this intent was dwindling. I was beginning to doubt or have negative thoughts about my abilities. Suddenly this morning, a timely reminder…a little push…a small reassurance came from somebody with whom I have never had such interactions before and it happened out of the blue…when the topic was not even remotely being discussed ! This time too I got quite a lot. I have been thinking why this help has come to me without asking for it. I think I needed a little bit right now and hence it came to me even though I had not asked for it. Also, I think I may not have consciously asked for it, but the other day I made a bucket list and I must have written or intended t...

Yesterday at lunch some colleagues started discussing about some political events, especially with reference to the current situation in Pakistan. They were all telling each other what was said in a certain TV program although all of them had seen the same TV program and knew very well what was said in it. L and I found this very funny. Then they started expressing their anger and strong opinions about ‘what I would have done, had I been present at that political function’ etc. After a point, this discussion too started sounding funny and it was going in circles. So L and I started throwing in some universal or generic reaction phrases into the conversation. Actually neither had we listened to the conversation well nor were we aware of that political situation in detail. Yet the phrases were making perfect sense. R caught the drift and she too joined in. Then P also found out what we were doing and started adding to the generic comments. For the longest time ever we kept up this game a...

Today we had great fun at office. We had given each team a colour to be dressed in. So we had 5 teams dressed in 5 colours. In the evening, we held a debate between teams. Each team had to prove why their own colour was the best and why others colours were no good. It was a very noisy debate with all kinds of logical and illogical, relevant and irrelevant arguments. In the past, I used to take these things very seriously. So if anybody wasn’t fair or didn’t play the game seriously, I would get very upset. But after I started working, I felt that the whole purpose of playing the game is not actually playing the game. The point is to have some high-spirited fun, some togetherness. That’s all. So now I am really cool about it. I find it great fun to observe how people behave in different situations…how their responses change or how ‘a leopard never changes it’s spots’. Today too I got to see so many characteristics of people. I see some people who are in a phase I used to be in, or reacti...

I received a mail from my cousin about a movie he saw and loved. The movie is called "The Bucket List" starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. For those of you who haven't seen the movie, the story is something like this: Two guys who discover that they are terminally ill decide to make the most of their remaining months. This they do by making a 'Bucket List' i.e. a list containing all their unfulfilled dreams, desires and ambitions. One by one and with the help of each other they end up fulfiling all of them, the last one tragically being fulfilled after their death. My brother was impressed with the movie. It inspired him to create his own bucket list. He thought, why wait till a 'situation' arises ! Why not create and begin fulfilling your own bucket list now ? Reading that mail, I too was inspired to create mine. I believe that once you state your intention by making your list, you will consciously and sub-conscioulsy start working towards it. You...

The other day I met a dear friend after a very long time. He was telling me of somebody who is behaving in a vengeful manner and some incidents of the vengefulness and it's ultimate futility. I remarked to him that it is very unfortunate that the person doesn't realise that this behaviour is harming themselves more than others. I remembered a story I read in Chicken Soup for the Soul (I think) and recounted it to him as best as I could. In a class of second standard students, there were a lot of quarrels going on for a couple of weeks. Many students had unpleasant feelings for other students. One Friday the class teacher announced that she had a two week assignment for the class, beginning Monday. On Monday each student was supposed to bring with them to school, one kilogram of potatoes in a plastic bag. She would tell the remainder of the assignment on Monday. So on Monday all students were carrying with them a plastic bag of one kilogram of potatoes. The class teacher then to...

Hi. I am trying to get into the habit of writing. Also, they say if you write regularly, you will get better at it. So I am going to try. I have many ideas for stories. But so far I have been too lazy to write them. The speed at which I write is not even a hundredth of the speed of my thoughts. So the mental buffer is constantly jammed and overflows and after a point of time I get fed up of tracking it and trying to keep pace ! So I don't write at all ! I have a couple of half-written stories that I want to complete. So this will be my practice blog. I shall write every weekday. It could be as less as one line, but each weekday I shall write. And what shall I write ? Anything that comes to my mind. Slices of my daily life. I often wonder how, every few days, one feels very lazy to do anything. Or bored. Or plain tired. Then one feels like or takes a break, goes away somewhere and returns, seemingly refreshed...and this cycle repeats with a certain frequency. So, there is thing that...