Naming them would be difficult since the last time I named people on this blog, insecure girlfriends/boyfriends(chuckle ) had them calling me and begging me to remove said reference. Apologies( Do people still Google their friends’ names to find some kind of sneaky scoop on them??  Isn’t Facebook better??)

However I would like to list down some things that I like about these angels, in a futile but emotionally rewarding attempt to honor their place in my life.

With them, I could:

• ramble on about anything that was bothering me and yet be assured that I was not being judged
• call at 3 am in the morning and not hear an irritable voice at the other end of the line
• be a tomboy without wearing a cap and talking about cricket/football
• feel like a girl without being gifted teddy bears
• be woken up every morning to study even though it was a well understood fact that I almost always went back to sleep
• talk about some of the most private and sensitive facets of my life and know that the information would not be used against me
• be taken care of without being made to feel like I was making someone dance to my every beck and call
• share a comfortable silence

I was given:

• loads of attention and pampering
• some solid unbiased advice
• a sound knocking for every moral mistake I made
• some awesome cooking tips and recipes
• unconditional love and unwavering priority
• some beautiful memories involving the best scenery that Goa has to offer

I miss:

• chatting for hours without having to think of topics
• the moral support (for want of better words)
• gentle reprimands and exasperated ‘i told you so’s
• listening to frank sinatra and elvis presley and dancing
• drives and rides that took me all over my beloved goa

It was amazing to have someone mean it when they called:

• a pipsqueak/squirt like me ‘lovely’
• an shipwreck like me ‘strong’
• Dids, TP, Tai, DD

“If there is any possible consolation in the tragedy of losing someone we love very much, it’s the necessary hope that perhaps it was for the best.”
— Paulo Coelho The Witch of Portobello

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,600 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

She wondered how she would sit side saddle on his bike because of the saree. The bike was actually what got her interested in him in the first place. She never grew tired of reminding him. She had always wanted to marry a biker. It was part of their plan. Amass all the wealth that they could, working till the age of 35, and then go road tripping all over India. Bag-pack, shorts and shoes, and a couple of spare shirts. He too cared for his ‘darling’ more than he did for her. She would often crack jokes about his mistress.

Things didn’t go as per plan in the beginning, but then it had all come together magically in the last week or so. They had finally agreed to meet her. Her family had already met him twice. They would no longer have to meet secretly. Maybe she would introduce him to her hostel-mates tomorrow.

Her eyes clouded over suddenly. She got up to leave. She didn’t want the cafe owner to see her crying this time. She knew he wouldn’t come. She knew that the truck that hit him and took his life would never be traced down. Month after month, she had sat and waited for him to come and whisk her away for another ride. She knew it would not happen anymore. But how she wished that he would come and sing those words from their favorite song to her.

These smiling eyes are just a mirror for the sun…

*Based on the true life story of a friend

**Those who enjoyed reading this post, do watch the following video by my friend Akhil Kandeparkar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTBEhXY8yXs

Never will there be a day when I will feel like I am a mature adult, but then, the feeling that the most fun years of my life are slipping by, is hard to ignore. Hence, taking inspiration from a random show that I came acros while I was channel surfing a few days ago, I have decided to compile a list of 30 things that I want to do before I turn 30.

Of course, coming up with 30 things to do in the coming 6 years is going to be difficult; one needs to think practically after all, so maybe I will write down as man as I can think of now, and then I can make corrections as I think of them. The idea is to cross them out one by one, and perhaps each one could lead to an interesting future post

Here goes:

1. Finish reading Shakespeare in his original prose form
2. Visit my school and talk to all my school teachers again
3. Party all night at a club with chosen friends
4. Write thank you letters to those who have made a difference in my life and may not even be aware of it
5. Learn at least one western dance form
6. Get a tattoo(always wanted one)
7. Sing in front of a live audience again
8. Accompany my mother on a cruise/spa retreat
9. Help my father participate in the cycling marathon of his dreams
10. Write a compilation of short stories
11. Make a home for myself. One in which I can paint my own walls
12. Attend a girl-friend’s wedding and participate in all the filmy goings-on
13. Be a part of a fun pot luck group
14. Understand my own finances
15. Learn to sail
16. Bake an awesome cake and cook a gourmet meal
17. Forgive and let go(perhaps the most difficult item on the list)
18. Learn to ride a geared bike solo
19. Be a part of an active charity
20. Catch my own fish once
21. Own a car
22. Start a book club/library
23. Go on a 1 week fiber diet every quarter
24. Learn Malaylam (this one is carried forward from a previous list )
25. Learn to mix good cocktails
26. Learn to skate properly (another carry forward)
27. Sell something online
28. .
29. .
30. .

The last 3 will be filled out when I turn 30( I hope I am still writing then)

See you 6 years in the future

Here are a few things that I have to do to accept it:

• I have to give credit to the person who nominated me.. many thanks Elizabeth
• I have to write seven things about myself
• I have to nominate others: People whose blogs I enjoy reading

So here are seven things about myself that I may not have expressed before:

1. I love traveling. Not the ‘backpacking-around-the-world’ or ‘visiting different countries’ way, (although that would be great too) but more on the lines of actual movement from one place to another. I like going for drives. I crave bike rides. The overnight journey from my home(Goa) to the place where I work (Pune) is always enjoyable to me. I like watching the world pass by and thinking about all the people that I see; wondering how they must be going about their lives. I can stare out of train windows for hours at a stretch and not get bored.
2. I am a good cook, albeit a lazy one. I might not cook very often, but when I do get down to it, I make some very tasty meals.
3. I like living alone. I might not be great of managing the house, but I like living alone. Perhaps there are some residual feelings of being the only child to parents who never really agreed on anything, or having to sleep alone since I was 8 years old; but I simply love being on my own
4. I’ve learned that some of the most important decisions of my life have been based on the difference between ‘I want to..’ and ‘I have to… ‘
5. I absolutely hate living in a polluted metropolitan, just because of the career opportunities that it offers. Although, I do appreciate the shopping opportunities
6. Some day, I will have a doggie sleeping in my lap while I read my favorite book in my verandah.
7. I have learned that almost nothing in this world depends on skill, proficiency or merit. It all depends on how you handle people.

Now to nominate some others. I nominate:

DELTA1

Moonriver

Maverick

Wet Footprints

Being Shreyas

An earning woman living alone in a metropolitan city: Brings up visuals from Sex and the City, doesn’t it? I wanted to title this post Single in the City, but that too gave the wrong impression. I’m not saying that life is too different from the things portrayed in the series that is watched by more teenagers than adults, and yet its not just that.

This is perhaps the only time in your life when you truly learn to live with yourself. Are you a slob? Do you cook well? At the end of a tiring day, when you have only your own self for company, how do you feel? Some days begin hectic and stay that way; and before you know it, it is night time. Other days involve a lot of coffee drinking and book reading. Still others are spent lazing away in bed or exploring the city.

There is a certain joy in knowing the cost of half a dozen eggs and finally getting the time schedule of the laundry right. Call me narcissist, but the usual trend for girls coming from any Indian background, would be to go from one dependency to another. From being taken care of by parents, moving on to being taken care of by your husband. Some of my readers would be nodding heads, while others would be tch-thcing right now, but even in an era of well educated, career oriented and “practical” women, the case is just that the time period between moving from one dependency to another has increased from a few months to a few years. Even though the males and females contribute equally to a marriage these days, most women would admit that they look at partners more for dependency than for partnership. I have female friends who are waiting for that guy who would give them the respect that most working women expect, and yet I do have other female friends who quit their jobs because they want to be accepted into a joint family and are afraid that living the bachelor life is making them “too independent”.

What is “too independent” anyways? One of those stereotypical soap opera vamps who wear revealing western clothes and steal helpless married women’s husbands?? For me independence is living life my way. Living in a house that I pay for. Sleeping in a blanket that I chose for myself. Cooking for myself when I have the free time. Collecting books and knick-knacks for my shelves. Shopping for myself and my loved ones. Making schedules and sticking to them. Making plans for the future. Growing at work. Having people depend on me in my professional and personal life. Having fun with friends on Saturdays. Lazing away entire Sundays.

Being set in your ways, however, comes with a downside too. The more time you spend learning to live with yourself, the more you begin to want things ‘just so’. These things can pose problems when you bring into the picture, that one person with whom you want to spend the rest of your life. For example, I already find it a little irritating think of sharing a bed or a bathroom with someone else all my life. There are times when I wonder how I will cope with making compromises and adjustments when the time comes. But for now, I am enjoying doing things ‘just so’ and living with the consequences. And what about the future? Well that part of my life would be called “Companionship”

One person can’t give you everything and nobody is perfect. But that perfection does exist in my life in the form of the reading habit. Books have helped me sleep at night and books have helped me think beyond the realms of our world.  In fact there is nothing that a book cannot provide you.

Starting from the warm feeling that comes with opening a brand new book and ending with the content feeling that comes with finishing the last page, reading a book is indeed a journey that can teach you volumes. If I were a character in the Harry Potter series, and if I smelled a Love potion, I would probably smell the scent of a freshly printed book. In the fascinating world of books, not only do you learn new things every day, but the process lasts a lifetime. The words that you read remain imprinted in your memory and become a part of who you are. Every book that you read, shapes you and your thoughts in an imperceptible way. And yet, when I look back at the thousands of pages that I have read in my life, the gift that every book has given me stand out clearly.

Words have great power. Those in Mein Kampf can open a window into the mind of the man who looked at destruction and re-birth as the same thing. Those in Harry Potter have transported millions to the world of magic, and at the same time, proved that the reading habit is not dead in the new generation. Dickens spoke to me of worlds I knew little of, and yet related to. Enid Blyton had me wanting to go out and explore hidden caves and tall towers. Even the Nancy Drew series played its part by introducing me to the world of ‘grown ups’ in America. Tintin and Asterix and Obelix were hard to put down once picked up and Tinkle and Chacha Chaudhary were not far behind.

As I grew older, Shakespeare helped me deal with the drama of the teen-ages, and E. E. Cummings had me imagining what it was like to fall in love. Then came the age of fiction novels. From time machines to robots, Isaac Asimov left a lot to imagination; while Jeffery Archer and  John Grisham made me the voracious reader I am today. Paulo Coelho introduced me to a side of myself that I never knew existed. I still re-read many of his books and draw a new interpretation every time. The Fountainhead and Shantaram changed the way I looked at people around me.

And as a response to the argument the books draw you away from reality, there were those like The Google Story, The Chicken Soup, Stay Hungry Stay Foolish, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Tuesdays with Morrie, Freakonomics, The Kite Runner and so many more that only brought me closer to the big bad world that I need to live in and taught me how to survive it.

Books are good company, they give good advice and are not preachy. They can make you belive in yourself and teach you about second chances. As you age, so does your love for books. I read To Kill a Mocking Bird when I was 13, and today if I flip through its pages, each one will bring back the strong emotion that I felt back then. What better friendship to have, than one that blossoms into something so precious with time? Indeed, books are my best friends.

One fine day I was guzzling a soft drink in a cafe; my behind plonked properly on the stool, and I realized that the only people (apart from me of course) who were swinging their legs because their feet didn’t quite reach the ground from the high stools were kids from age 8 to 13.

Not that efforts were not made to improve the situation while I was still young and malleable. Skipping, cycling, swimming and brisk walking were exercises chosen with the sole purpose of getting me taller. And yet, the lazy bum in me always blamed the genes and touted that what couldn’t be helped, well, couldn’t be helped! Sometimes I fervently wished that another me in a parallel universe was sweating her way to being some inches closer to the sky, so that I would be spared the effort.

I have been told that India is a better place for short/tiny people than any other counrty. In the US of A, for example, the only size that would fit me is petite, or I would have to shop in the kids section. And yet, in a society that is obsessed with fair skin and long legs, the only real problem that I ever faced because of my height ( or lack of it ) is that stowing my luggage into the over-head compartment in any mode of transport becomes a painful task. Other than that, there are rather a few advantages that I see..

1. You can sit in the most cramped buses with ease.
2. It is very amusing talking to every one when they are listening to you with bowed heads
3. (I have actually seen a friend do this) When it has been a rainy day and your hair is wet, you can stoop just a wee bit and dry your hair under the hand drier!
4. Who wants the scary amusement park rides anyways
5. You get to be in the front of every queue in school
6. You get to strut around in expensive heels without it biting on your conscious much
7. Lets not forget the chivalrous tall dudes who always help you with your luggage
8. You don’t have to ‘Watch Your Head’ everywhere you go
9. You don’t need to spoil your posture stooping all the time, unlike your lanky counterparts
10. And last but not the least, it is the worlds most awesome feeling to feel like a kid again when a hug means that your get to be swept right off your feet and swung around like a kid

From Shivaji Maharaj to Napoleon, us short people are a force to reckon with and that will always be something that comes to mind when I think of height henceforth. And all the rest of the world who are a couple of inches closer to God than me, can go ahead and convey my thanks to him

Dear 16 year old T,

Learn to forgive those who made the last few years of your life hell. And stop feeling like the victim. You will laugh at it in some years, and even come to befriend one of them.

Learn to forgive her and try to treat her with some patience. She needs love just like you do. The next 7 years are going to change her life just as much as they will change yours. Perhaps more. You will find many who can tide you through, she wont be so lucky. Be her friend and help her as much as you can.

You are going to fall in love soon. He will be no superman, but he will still sweep you off your feet. Enjoy it while it lasts

You will lose quite a few gems from your life. Try not to blame yourself for it. The scars you carry will only help you.

Don’t give up on your music. Don’t lose touch. Don’t let yourself regret your choices though. No-one can take the music out of you.

Read more, laugh more, be kinder to those who respect you or you will lose that respect.

Take control, take decisions, make choices. Dont just let life happen to you. You will find that the choices that you make actively will be so much more satisfying, even if they may be the wrong ones.

And dont obsess so much about life. Chill… enjoyy…make friends..partyyy..Enjoy Goa..you will miss it when you move.

Take care of yourself.

See you after 7 years.

Love,

T

When I was back, the conversation flowed in Marathi:

Him: How much did one ticket cost?

Me: Rs. 180

Him: And how many did you buy?

Me: Two. I am taking my mother out for a movie.

Him: That makes it Rs. 360. (slaps forehead) Why do you kids want to waste so much money these days? Back in 1980, my earnings for the month were close to that figure and I lived my life with ease! Have you seen any old movies? Back then the songs made sense, and I can remember every word. Now you people listen to dogs whining and pay money for it too! You should save money my child!

Me: In the year 1980, I was not even born.

Him: So when were you born?

Me: In 1987.

Him: Ah..  I was married in the year 1986. So you must be 23 now.. Do you have a companion in your life? You must have one. Let me tell you my child, it is ok to spend time with someone at this age.. but mind you, Do not spend any money with him! If he is paying, it is fine, but if he asks you to pay, tell him you don’t have any money to spend.

Me: (laughing uncontrollably) Ok, I will keep that in mind

Him: Dont laugh my child, when you will be old and when you need money, you will remember that once upon a time, one rickshaw driver had told you these words of wisdom.. Save money!

Me: Okay!

Him: Since when did we start celebrating birthdays! I’ll tell you when, when the Englishmen came in our country. How can one celebrate the fact the there is now one less year to live? All these grand parties that you throw, you could donate the money to an orphanage instead, and the good will that you will accumulate will be so much more that you get through all these parties. All that senseless clapping hands and singing songs!

Me: But when your grandchildren will celebrate their birthdays, you too will clap your hands and sing songs. You can stop here, this is where I need to alight.

Him: One has got to change with the times, my child.. But do remember these words from someone who has seen a lot many more seasons changing that you have… Save money!