For Whom the bell tolls

HipHop Grandma's post stirred my mind. Like all of us, I have experienced fear after taking a wrong turn on the road or waiting for someone too long. However, many of these fears got diminished with time, maturity and understanding of the situations.

One of my worst nightmares was what I experienced on Nov 1 1984 in New Delhi. The day before, Oct 31 1984 had started out just as any other normal day. At that time and even now my parents live in West Delhi, which has huge Punjabi and Sikh population. I was studying in Grade 4 in school run by a retired Sikh military officer. A year before, my brother had left the school to join a middle school. All of us - my parents, my brother and I used to leave and come home in four different times. We all had spare home keys with us but usually it was me or my mom who would come home first. Few months back our house had got burgled and I developed a fear of entering the house alone. I was able to overcome that fear with time. Hence, many times I would sit in my neighbor’s house waiting for my mom to return and then enter my home.

In the afternoon of On Oct 31, which was a Wednesday, I was sitting in a bamboo chair outside my neighbor’s verandah and doing my homework. I remembered I forgot to get my Moral Science work book from the school after the teacher had corrected it. Just then my mom arrived in an autorickshaw and her face was tensed. She greeted my neighbor and asked her if she knew the news. My neighbor nodded and my mom hurried me home. I understood that the then Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi was assassinated. My mom had heard of some disturbing violence in few places in Delhi. My brother and dad arrived at their usual time home that evening. But the atmosphere in the neighborhood was apprehensive. Nobody could comprehend what an assassination of a Prime Minister would mean. I told my mom about my work book but she mentioned that I would not be going to school for couple of days as they had declared national mourning.

On Nov 1 1984, the newspapers were filled with news about Indira Gandhi and the future of India. After brunch, I was sitting with my parents in their bedroom. My brother was in the next room. My dad was reading the newspaper. I don't remember what my mom was doing exactly but I was reading a book and actually enjoying a sudden vacation in the middle of the week. I had not fully understood how grim the situation was. Suddenly we heard a faint shouting. The cry seemed to become stronger every second. Then my brother came into the room we were all in and all of us went to the front door, opening the door slightly. Our neighbors were also outside. We did not understand what was happening till we saw a huge mob emerging from the nearby streets. This huge crowd surrendered the last house in our street. That house belonged to a Sikh family. Thankfully, the family had escaped the previous evening. The mob broke into the house and took away every thing they found and finally burnt the house.

I was terrified and nobody had any answer. My parents were speechless by such human atrocity. The policemen were standing and staring and did not do anything to curtail the mob's actions. In the evening, we heard that my school was also burnt down. I believe my workbook must have also been reduced to ashes. The next few days were horrific. We heard and saw so much human hatred that I thought the world would come to an end. The sky was dark and gloomy with smoke. I never went back to that school. I joined my brother in his school in the middle of the year.

With years, things slowly returned back to normalcy. In our colony, they built a temple, Gurudwara and Church next to each other to promote communal brotherhood. I have never got answers to such horrific act but they get repeated often in some form in every part of the world. I don’t know how all these would end. But it made me realize to respect the only religion that should prevail the world - humanity.

Brain Drain

"Every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain".
--Homer in Simpson

I can't agree with it more especially when I am experiencing it first hand. Nowadays, whatever I read/learn/talk, stays in my head for two days before bouncing off. You can call it effect of getting older, poor concentration, trying to handle too many tasks before dropping them all, you can pick whatever. I won't remember your choice after two days. I used to be pretty good in remembering stuff. I would retain class teachings in my head for a long time. Not only would I remember what the teacher taught but also her/his gestures and mannerisms. The main reason of why I loved imitating them at home and be an entertainment to my entire family. I never needed assistance in remembering my friend's birthdays or nick names.

But things have obviously changed.

Last week, I bumped into a nice girl with a very familiar face. She beamed at me and greeted me with my name. During the initial conversation, I figured out that I worked with her in one of my previous companies three years back but still could not recall her name. She, on the other hand had an elephantine memory. She remembered my colleagues and the group I worked for. Why she even remembered my personal email id!! I had to stop her there and ask her name. I was getting dizzy talking to a person who remembered so much about me while my brain was coming up with a blank screen when I inquired it who she was.

I heard learning art or language can help keeping brain young. I started taking Violin class again. Only drawback, I didn’t remember everything I needed to practice. Once I told my teacher what I practiced at home only to realize that I practiced what was going to be taught that day!

The other day I got involved in daily chores that I completely ignored my stomach. I wound up the day's work and got ready to hit the bed when I heard rumbling. I had forgotten to eat and of course sleep never embraces an empty stomach.

I figured I need to do something about it. So I started jotting down “to-do" list daily. Now only if I can remember where the list is...

Life on a Refrigerator

Suma tagged couple of weeks ago on the stories told by my fridge. Take a look.



It shows many places that we have visited. There are photos of how my kids looked when they were 2 years old (which is not too long ago). There is a picture of me and my daughter(next to the doll in top left corner) in a county fair. Me and little A were pretty excited as this was the first fair we were attending. I had no expectations but by the end of 3 hours, we had won 20 soft toy as prizes. It was so much for us to carry that we had to get hold of an unused garbage bag to put in all the toys. Incidentally all these soft toys were nice and different. My son at that time was 3 months old and we surprised him by showing a whole soft toy jungle. Since then we have attended 2 more county fairs but no such luck.

Travel makes one young and liberal. We come to learn new culture, get a taste of new cuisine and experience the life of locals. Of the 28 Indian states and 7 Union territories, I have visited 12 of them and lived in one of them. Of the 50 US states, I have visited 20 and am living in one. Hopefully I will be able to cover many, if not all the 195 countries in this life.

I am very excited about collecting a souvenir where ever I go, fridge magnets if possible. In fact I would like to have a world map and fill in the places we have visited with a souvenir brought from there. I remember once when visiting Sumana in Chicago, I drove everyone crazy shopping for an appropriate souvenir. People like to collect different things, one person I know likes to collect caps from places visited and the other likes to collect Tshirts. What do you like to collect?

I pass on the tag to Monika, Prats, Sumana, Arc, Archana and anyone else who would like to pick it up.

PS: I took the photo from my phone camera. Will post a clearer picture taken from a regular camera soon.

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!

Write-a-thon

Among other things, this generation will be remembered for its obsession to physical fitness. Almost every person who maintains a reasonable standard of living must be working out or at least experienced it once. They in fact burn their calories even before their food is digested. So much is the fascination that even donations are related to exercise of some sort. There are marathons, walk-a-thon, hop-a-thon, bike rides happening frequently all around the world. Recently I heard of a person raising money by climbing the stairs of Sears Towers in Chicago. So now we have climb-a-thon for the enthusiastic stair climbers. I read in a story about charity fundraising through bungee/plane jumping. Not sure if that got implemented in the real life. I realized the library close to my home had a weekend reading. Basically, you come to the library and read for 48 hours to your heart’s content. I doubt whether it was a fundraiser.

My workout till now has lasted a day. I do have taken part in couple of activities at school. Not sure if these will be counted. As kids, we used to have silly contests amongst ourselves such as who takes the lecture notes fastest or who can write in smallest handwriting or how much of lecture notes one can scramble in one page or how many books/comics can be finished in the 30 minute library time. I can’t say how much went inside our heads but these were fun nonetheless. The contests used to continue as who would reach home first without running and things of that order.

This brings out the basic nature of humans of getting involved. People nowadays are obliged not only to give money but also calories for a good cause. I wonder whether we will ever have cook-a-thon (you get to give money as well as food), meditate-a-thon or skip-a-thon. One thing that will never surface out is sleep-a-thon, which anyone will be too pleased to oblige.

Time Travel

Suma tagged me to reveal what I did 10 years ago and plan to do 14 years hence.

Two questions in each category answer them and then tag your friends from the blog-o-sphere. (Simple enough right) Leave a comment on their blog letting them know they have been tagged and you are all set.
Yesterday - Your oldest memory - What were you doing 10 years ago?
Today -Your first thought today morning - If you built a time capsule today what would it contain?
Tomorrow - This year ….What do you see yourself doing 14 years from now?

Yesterday:
Oldest Memory: When I was a first grader, I had a school uniform tunic, into which I could get in easily but had great difficulty taking it out. Every afternoon after my mom was back from work, we had a comic scene at home when my grad pa will hold my hands and my mom would use her full force to take the tunic off my head.

10 years ago: Oct 1998. My friends and me got our job placements and we went to Shimla on a class trip. There are wonderful memories of endless chat, playing cards late into mid night and singing for 8 hours straight while travelling in a bus.

Today:
First thought in the morning: Woke up smiling. Did not have any dream but something is giving me peace.

In a time capsule: All the wonderful moments in my life which I would like to treasure for ever with the same fervor.

Tomorrow:
This Year: I would become an aunt in couple of weeks. I am looking forward to meet the new arrival.

14 years hence: If I could.... Okay let me be practical. Hopefully I would still be writing something. I wonder if travel to Antarctica or moon would have become affordable.

I tag Arc, Archana, Madhu, Dinker, Subha and any one else who wants to take it up.

Interpreter of dreams

A beautiful dream is worth thousand thoughts. I have not read Freud and other psychological geniuses but dreams have always amazed me. For most mornings, I forget what I dreamt at night. To be honest I don't know whether I dream or not everyday. I think we need to dream in some time period at night to remember it in the morning.

I used to have a friend whose dreams came true, literally. She would have dreams like one of her friends or family getting sick or how she would fare in a future exam. Once she actually figured out her grandma’s death. This is actually little eerie. Though we all love to know our future, it is the uncertainty that keeps us going. Another friend of mine would have funnier dreams about the characters she read in books. When Delhi was under terrorist threat, she dreamt how she used machine guns to keep her place safe from invaders.

The dreams become bizarre when we try to link things not related to each other. We can laugh at these as we know they do not convey much meaning. But there are some, which help us steer in the right direction. If my mind is disturbed for sometime, many times I have found answer in my dreams. I have actually solved few of my physics problems like that. I have also read that many solutions dawn human mind when mind is at rest. May be that is the state when our conscience is in play and it advices us what is right for us. Whether the answer is in favor or not, there is peace in heart and this feeling can be a cure to depression.

I have never tried to interpret my dreams too much because I feel sometimes over analysis deviate from the path of actual cause. It is just the moment of tranquility in the morning that I look for. We seek for peace outside because there is so much chaos within us but the reality is peace is within us.