Happy Holidays!

With dreams in eyes and hope in heart
Will the next year turn up something apart

Life challenges us to be strong
We need to stand tall, however things go wrong

We need to listen within, to understand what is being told
To find peace inside us before spreading it to the world

With prayers for happiness, peace, health and prosperity
Wishing you all Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Green Thumb

The greatest gift of the garden is the restoration of the five senses. I can't agree more. A beautiful garden is a treat to eyes and medicine to mind. What is more difficult is cultivating and maintaining a good garden. I have always admired people, which include my mom, who are able to maintain greenery in their house. Like any other art, it requires time, money and patience. As always some art suite better than others. I would like to have a nice garden in my home but I know that I do not have enough enthusiasm to take me through. I can work on a garden for a day, two, three days. A week has passed and I am still holding on. Fortnight and you are on your own now. After a month, my guilt starts overcoming me and I would feel terrible for neglecting my plants. Again the cycle would start, my enthusiasm driving me for a week or so and then fading after that. However the plants get watered somehow, either by the Almighty or someone at home.

I subscribe to Home Depot’s gardening magazine on line. I keep getting emails on how I can deck up my patio for a particular season. To be honest, they stay in my inbox till the size of my mail box becomes huge and then move to the trash folder. I haven’t watched much of gardening shows in US. In India, I remember the popular “Krishi Darshan” which used to be telecasted when I was kid. There was another serial that used to show how people decorated their garden. People had styled their homes with rose garden, rock garden and even hanging gardens on their terrace. All of them looked astounding.

Some people do have a green thumb. Whatever they sow grows. Few of my family members have it. Somehow, I don’t seem to have inherited it fine. Whatever I sow grows but not very well. Till now, I have generally grown flowers, foliage and croutons to give a fresh look to the patio. I have never been able to survive any of my plants during winter. That is a huge task of its own. It needs more drive and time precision to keep changing the location of plants so that they get their amount of sunlight. This summer, I was more enthusiastic and sowed few vegetable seeds in a hope to fuel my enthusiasm to last longer. When I see the results that can be eaten, I thought I would be more driven to enhance my gardening skills. I planted 5 varieties and made sure they don’t get dry and had enough sunlight. Rain was a great help. For two weeks, I could forget my watering duty and it rained every second day. All was well and I saw small saplings and new shoots coming out of the mud. What I forgot was to label them. I remember to have planted spinach, tomato, cabbage or cauliflower and I don’t recall the other two. So, I have to wait till they start flowering so see what vegetables come out!

The Art of doing Nothing

All of us crave for some free time doing nothing. Surprisingly, we enjoy these pleasures in childhood without being aware of it and then crave for it all the years of our adulthood. Not to ignite feelings of any of the readers, but it seems to be that guys seem to enjoy it more than girls, in their adolescence.

I was good at it when I was a kid, when I could coolly shut my eyes and ears off to my mom's sermons. Now it seems difficult. If I shut my eyes, everyone else still seems to be watching me. If I shut my ears, actually I would be happy if I could shut it off once in a while, but somehow it doesn't seem to work or I need to learn it again.

As a kid, I have stared in the bright blue sky hours watching the clouds float by. At nights, I used to gaze the stars and the constellations and had dreams of joining NASA. In our 24 hour train journeys, I used to memorize all the stations, including the small ones, where the train would halt. I had even noticed the animals sitting on the train tracks/platforms when the train stopped. To that extent, I and my brother composed a small poem
"Lalitpur ka kauwa,Itarsi ki gai,..(Lalitpur's crow, Itarsi's cow...)"
I have forgotten the other animals in other stations but it was a very fancy song for that summer vacation. You can imagine how much time we had in our hands to while away. Earlier, the earth used to rotate and make the day and night for us. Nowadays, it feels like we are spinning the earth, making the time go faster.

The best part of life when one can idle is the student days. Nowadays, with all the activities and tuition, even that seems to be a far thought. I have enjoyed summer vacations, which seem to drag endlessly, reading books/comics, playing and pestering my mom. I have not enjoyed such a pleasure for a long time but I know the culprit. It is my mind. The "Nothing" in my mind has changed to "Something" and since then, never given me rest. If it ever turns into "anything", I would be more than happy, or at least be at peace with myself.

And Jill came tumbling after...

I grew up in a place where it would be cold enough in winter but would not snow. I would pray for the temperatures to dip sub zeros so that it could snow. Once it went as low as 1C but no snow. I believe it was happening because everyone else was praying for the temperature to rise up and if God is democratic, then of course my prayers could have never been answered.

As a kid, I used to watch all the thriller series of Old Fox, Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Peroit and many others. Since these were European programs, they invariably had a case to solve which would take them to some ski resort, if not Alps. All this would fuel my imagination more and I was determined to learn skiing. Of course, the prerequisite was there has to be a snow slope, which means snow, which means I need to spread my wings as my hometown did not have any snow.

Years later, I did come to a place where it snows and which is close enough to lots of ski resorts that I could go for skiing on weekends. The ease at which I used to see people skiing in the various TV telecasts, I overlooked how the experience would be for the beginners.

Few years back, I, H and his friends decided to go for skiing in Poconos. Seeing the snow slopes, I was so excited that I said to H that we should make it an annual affair to come here. H quietly reminded me that I should first learn skiing, see how this experience goes and then make plans for future. I was very confident. I could sense the same thrill that I experienced when I started to learn driving. I have driven in crowded roads and driving in an empty one is a breeze. With that logic, skiing down a scarcely populated slope should be a breeze, right? Well, we'll see..

We had to take a 45 min ski lessons before heading up to the slopes. The lesson was held near the ground where the slope was not steep. In my class of 10, except me and H, others were all kids with age ranging from 5-8 years. Their parents were either in the near by slope skiing or down the slope enjoying snacks.

We let the kids try the slopes first. All of them skied with such elegance and grace that it was a treat to eyes. Then it was my turn. I was making a mental picture of how gracefully I would be skiing down the small slope to the applause of the kids when the reality stuck. As soon as I stood facing downwards to ski, I could not control myself and went down crashing. Forget the applause, I could not even face the kids. H, having tried it before was more careful and skied down pretty fine.

The lessons were over and it was time for us to go up the slopes. We needed to hold on to an escalator that goes up and when it reached the top, we had to hop off and ski down the slope. I could feel pangs of fear creeping in. As I reached towards the top, I was reluctant to let go of the escalator, till the attendant firmly took my hands and made me land on the snow with my skis. I was fine as long as I was looking up the slope. As soon as I turned around and faced downwards, even before I could push myself forward, I came tumbling down, closely followed by my skies. I tried twice or thrice but all in vain. My dreams of skiing zigzagging down the slope, whistling a tune (I cannot whistle but that's besides the point) , all went in a puff.

Our annual visit was just annual, as in just that year. Whenever I recite the nursery rhyme of "Jack and Jill went up the hill" to my sweeties, I get a vivid recollection of my own tumble down. Maybe next year, I'll give another try of making my dream turn into reality. In the meanwhile, I will get my first aid box ready.

Sweet Challenges

I always had a fascination for gowns, lehenga, sharara. When I used to read Jane Austen novels, I would imagine all the female characters in the flowing gowns and would drool at my own imagination. I have seen sharara in very few old Hindi movies like Mere Mehaboob.

Apart from lehenga, I don't think the other two are in fashion any more. The trends might have changed but some of these costumes have been priceless and very feminine. For whatever reasons, I did not get an opportunity to wear lehenga at my brother's or my own wedding. When I figured out that most of my friends and cousins except one have got married, I realised that my opportunities to wear the pretty outfit are dwindling.

I had only one cousin at that time to get married and I knew that I would be attending his wedding, whenever it was decided and wherever it was held. So, I thought I should have my lehenga ready just in case, he announces unexpectedly.

In my last visit to India, my major agenda was to get a lehenga. My mom who was aware of my fascination had already done homework and found out the shop which sold nice (non-wedding) lehengas. I bought 2 beautiful dresses - one in baby pink and other in purple with matching jewelley.

So, I was all set for my cousin to announce his wedding plans. And I was hoping it would be soon so that I could get the chance to flaunt my dress. As luck would have it, we did not have to wait for long and within six months, my cousin got engaged and his wedding was to be held in few months time in Houston, Texas.

We booked our tickets and I started packing our bags. During all these excitement, we realised that I was expecting. My wise cousin asked me to check up with the doctor whether I could travel. Well, travel I would, my bags had been packed even before the bride and the groom started their shopping and I knew exactly what to wear on each occassion. I still checked up with my doc and assured her that I would be fine. So, all was well. We had to leave the following day. I opened up the box to keep cosmetics and brushes and last minute stuff. I saw the pretty lehenga and was beaming at the thought that I would be wearing it soon. I took out the dress to try it out, only to realise that I had outgrown my outfit. And the phase of life I was in, I could not even reduce my weight. Ahh. Life's sweet challenges.

The chocolate keyboard

Who would not love this?

New Year Wishes

New Years are always fascinating, they give us a chance to start everything afresh or with a new outlook, like a reboot of a human system.

As a kid, I used to watch the new year programs, however crappy they were, till midnight and wish a couple of close friends whoever I could contact with traffic on the phone lines being at its peak. At that age, growing was exciting, maybe because all the dreams were associated with "When I grow up, I'll be able to do....." . When I was in primary and middle school, years seemed to be long and never ending. My brother joined college when I was in middle school and I used to envy him for the freedom he acquired. There were rules which I needed to follow, that were optional for him. What I did not realise was that he had gained responsibility which I had no clue about at that time.

In college, I still retained the excitement but gave up watching the crappy new year programs. I was still looking forward in taking up life and discovering it. I had painted a picture of life with colors of success and happiness and was more than willing to be the buyer of such a beautiful painting.

Now I don't realise that a year has started and it comes to an end already. When I commented this to a coworker today morning, he said "You know what is that phenomenon called, right?" . I wasn't sure so I asked him and he said smilingly "Getting older gracefully".

With 2008 around the corner

Here is a wish to all my fellow blogger

Have a fun filled fulfilling year

And may you smile each day ear to ear

I am so happy to have found you here

You definitely make me cheer

With heart full of hope and mind full of dreams

May success and happiness fill us till the brim.