Distance

It is a relaxed Saturday evening, just the way it should be. With pretty much nothing to do, but recuperate from the effects of a long and tiring week, I wait to hear from my brother who is out on a holiday. Even as I wait for him to text me of his whereabouts, I find my fingers slipping on to the Facebook app on my mobile phone and even before I know it, I am browsing through my brother’s profile on Facebook.

Distance makes the heart grow fonder.

I feel an inexplicable urge to know more about his college life. I want to see the posts that he has been sharing. I find myself wanting to know who his new friends are. I want to read all the comments on his posts to see what his friends talk about. I find myself eagerly running through his timeline – wanting to read about events scheduled to happen at his college.. or maybe about something funny that happened during a lecture that are all joking about..or some mention about something that they’re all looking forward to. I continue to browse further, with lighted eyes, hopeful of finding a photo or two of him with friends. I can sense myself trying to look for indications that he is indeed having a good time away from home.

I find myself yearning to know how he spends his time there – Which part of the campus is he staying on, what his new room looks like, how many more dogs has he petted in his campus, who are these new friends whose names keep appearing on his timeline – and suddenly I am flooded with a strange emotion. How does he feel about all of us back home? I want to know if he feels homesick sometimes…or at all. I am also trying to look for ways to confirm that misses our ‘ghar ka khaana’ 🙂

It’s funny how just a Facebook profile can invoke so many thoughts inside my head. Until a few years back, every time I saw my friends get too emotional while seeing off their siblings, I couldn’t really understand what the fuss was about. But I did find myself weeping away after seeing my brother off at his hostel for the first time. So I guess I do have a fair amount of clarity about what a big deal it is to part ways with your sibling just when you’re beginning to develop a bond with him and getting to know him better.

Even as I finish with my endevour to try and keep updated with all the happenings in his life, I realise that distance does make the heart grow fonder… and Facebook helps me confirm that 🙂

Santa on Wheels!

This gallery contains 4 photos.

“Giving frees us from the familiar territory of our own needs by opening our mind to the unexplained worlds occupied by the needs of others.” – Barbara Bush This year, I had been waiting for Santa on Wheels (SoW) since October. Having missed it in all the previous years, I just knew for a fact […]

Alive and kicking! :D

Hello All!

I know I have been terribly late with this blog update.
I know I haven’t filled this space in the longest time (The blog archive speaks for itself).
I know I have had this writer’s block. Again.

It has been very disappointing for me, too…not writing and all.
So here I am, filling you in with all the happenings of the last two months and letting you know that I *am* very much alive, and kicking! 😉

So while I was combating the writer’s block, there was another form of creativity that I (re)ventured into – Art.
Having not touched a paint-brush or crayons or paints for almost six years now, taking to art was a welcome change!
I could feel the creativity inside me and even after all this while and it just made me so happy to get back to doing something that I always loved back in my school days!

I ain’t no photographer (which means the photos are unedited and badly clicked), but here are a few photos of what I managed to do during the last few days! Dekko Dekko!

 

My first work, after six long years 🙂

 

 

A mug and a marker is all you need!

 

 

And finally…diwali cards and goodies!

 

 

So maybe you should try getting back to doing something that you really loved, once upon a time? A few years back, or maybe when you were a kid? Cooking, sewing, playing a sport that you no longer play, photography, feeding stray animals…just about anything!
Because when you do that, the flow of creativity will be unhindered…and the happiness that you feel will be real! 🙂

 

Creatively, until next time (which will be soon!)
Kalindi

STAR-STRUCK! :D

Ok so there are days when you wake up and the first thing you do is..SMILE. Well, for me, today was one such day.
I am yet to understand if the early morning ‘smile’ is any kind of indication from God about how awesome the day is going to be, but if the ‘smile’ can really turn the day into being anything close to today, I’d smile to myself every single morning!!

So just because I am hyper-ventilating already and this post is coming at the cost of some much needed sleep (and not needed dark circles), let’s just get to the point : Discussing how fantabulously awesome my day was!

1. Went to college after so long! If meeting all my friends after two months made me so emotional, I wonder how I’m going to deal with the void that sets in once college ends..which is like in 3 months 😦

2. My audit place had a diwali celebration today! Besides the fact that everyone was dressed in their blingy best and kuch kaam nahi kiya and I took a half day and left office due to lack of work (for once), MY AUDITEES LOADED ME WITH DIWALI CHOCOLATES!!! Now, can it get better? (Ans: Yes 😛 )

3. Went to Prithvi theatre to watch a play- Between the Lines. This was the first time I was watching one! So my excitement obviously knew no bounds – I’d been *waiting* to watch a play since ages AND I was *finally* at Prithvi: One place I was longing to visit!!
Yes, so while I wait in the serpentine queue and strategize about how to get the best seats in the theatre, someone shouts ‘Dia Mirza!’. That one shout was enough to have all heads turned towards the pretty lady.
Once we got in and found ourselves some great seats, just a cursory glance behind made me realise that there were so many stars – not just inside my head – but also on the seats behind me! Vishal Bharadwaj, Alyque Padamsee, Prasoon Joshi, Ila Arun, Dia Mirza..all together!

Just when I finished whispering to my friend about Vishal Bharadwaj sitting right behind us, the audience suddenly started clapping. On looking up, we realized that the subject of all the adulation was none other than Mr. Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan! OH MY GOD.
Although, I’ve never been much of a ‘star-admirer’, seeing Mr. Bachchan there just got my eyes popped up wide open (quite literally!)
His stature, humility, how he smiled at the fans and everything about him just had everyone zapped! Of course, the first thing I did was to tweet about it 😛
Donning the ‘English Vinglish look’, he humbly obliged fans with autographs and handshakes during the break while the awestruck audience just stared at him or discussed his movies.
As soon as the brilliant Nandita Das written play ended, almost everyone in the audience started following ‘Big B’ on his way out.
Boy, believe me, this was the first time I experienced the ‘papparazzi’! A wall of sophisticated cameras and ultra enthusiastic fans gathered around the gates, eager eyes waiting to catch a glimpse of the man himself. Once Big B was out, the media guys went berserk with the ferocious clicking of their cameras and fans running up and down to catch a glimpse of India’s favourite star.
Withing no time, Mr. and Mrs. Bachchan disappeared into their car – away from all the frenzy and away from all the starstruck fans.

I don’t know why, but star presence hardly affects me. But then today was something different altogether! Getting to meet and shake hands with Amitabh Bachchan is a big deal, after all. Again, smiling days like this don’t really happen all that often. But then, today was one such day 🙂

Photo credits : Trilok Ashpal..thanks to his iPhone 😉

Stop. Feel. Live.

I must agree that the last few weeks have taken a toll on me. Sleepless nights, project completions, burning deadlines, presentations, exams and life in general.
I am assuming that is a common man’s definition of being ‘stressed’.

So yesterday, I was all sleepy and slow, and I realized how fast everyone else was. Everyday!
Maybe I took a couple of seconds more to get the cash out of my wallet to pay the rickshaw-waala when I saw him make a face. I was waiting at station, waiting for my train to arrive and I couldn’t help noticing all those passing by. Someone was busy shouting over the phone, someone engaged in an animated conversation with a friend, someone listening to music and rushing to climb the bridge, hordes of people climbing down the bridge, numerous passengers walking in to station and so many people walking out. So many people, so many lives. Yet none of them bothered to look up. Neither of them saw the trains or each other. Each of them just looked down and walked. Rushed, to live their busy lives.

Ah! I was a little slower than the rest as far boarding the train was concerned. But I bet I felt someone push me in. Maybe I was a bit slow in getting off, but that was enough for the ladies behind to push me and make their way out fast! Time was indeed precious, wasn’t it? And here I always wondered what difference a couple of seconds would make to anyone’s life.

It was yesterday that I really thought about how our city is often addressed as the city that never sleeps. Well, maybe it doesn’t breathe either!
Given a chance, our idea of the best birthday gift would be an off from work, to constantly pray to God to give us longer days & shorter nights and to hope against hope that we’ll be robotic enough and never miss our daily train!

Conclusion:

We’re all in a hurry. All the time. We rush to sleep late at night, hurry once we wake up, run to college, then rush to office, then finish our work in haste and then we try and rush out of office as fast as we can, run to catch the train to be able to reach home on time, hurry to the best seat in the bus so that we can read that book we’ve wanted to read all day long, rush through dinner because we want to complete our assignments, hurry with the assignments because we want to watch that favorite TV show and then rush to sleep again because we have to haste through another long day!

Moreover, I think  we’ve become so used to the rush, the haste and the hurry that we don’t even mind missing out on some of the most intricate and beautiful moments of life. Moments that will never come back to us again. Moments, that we will only wish we had lived a little longer. Moments that we will wish we had lived at all.

Maybe we need to stop worrying about when we’ll reach office or when we’ll leave. We need to stop thinking about the long day that awaits us or the pending work.
Maybe we just need to cherish all the little joys that we so easily overlook. Maybe we need to just live life as it comes. It’s OK to miss a train or two sometimes, isn’t it? It’s OK to bunk work and go for a movie instead.
Maybe we just need to do what we FEEL like. Maybe we need to spend some time figuring ourselves out and not the train schedules. Maybe we just need to stop, feel and live.

PS : This was just a random thought. I felt like penning it down. So I did!

PPS : I plan to follow this post with a poem (which is currently half written.) I felt the poem would make a lot more sense after reading this post. Hoping to finish writing it soon and I hope you liked this post!

Have you seen the stars in the sky?

Just general notes I’d like to make in public. Yeah. They’re absolutely not related to the title of this blog.

 

1. Did you, by any chance, happen to see the sky today? Boy! It looked beautiful, as always. 🙂

2. Dear awesome new shoes,
I paid a bomb for you to look awesome on my feet. NOT for you to give me those painful and ugly shoe bites. No.

3. I saw Vicky Donor today! SO what if I went to watch it straight from work along with my auditee? At least I watched it! Hah.

4. Will I ever get to watch a match LIVE in the stadium? Well, if they keep selling tickets costing 500 bucks for 1500 in black, maybe I never will.

5. Oh yes. I watched two awesome movies yesterday – The Departed and Following. If you haven’t watched these already, then go watch. NOW.

6. Another general question – Do stat auditors *have* to be respected more than internal auditors? That’s a rhetorical question. DOn’t answer. Please.

7. My next post will probably be a poem on stars or something else more Luna Lovegoody.

8. And if you think I need to stop this torture and go get a life, then maybe you should pray to God to give me a little bit of sarcasm, too. I’ve been praying for it for quite some time now.
Not that I want to be nasty or something, but I’ve just generally been wanting to drip with sarcasm ever since I started reading Ashish Shakya. You won’t blame me for that, I’m sure.  Being mean is fun sometimes, isn’t it 😉

9. Some posts don’t have a reason, nor do they have a story. This is one of those.
Bye Bye.
Happy reading. Happy praying (sarcasm, remember? *runs away*)