Category Archives: Life

My Five Little Things of 2014

It only seems like yesterday that we packed our bags and with them our lives to move to London, which by the way was exactly a year ago! Life changed after that 9-hour flight. Settling into a new city, our new home, new jobs, newer (better!) lifestyle, and the totally unpredictable weather was not only challenging but also most remarkable, in every sense of the word.

And as we settled in, I began to appreciate life’s little things a little more, and with them have chanced upon some of life’s important truths too. Perhaps it was the distance from home and loved ones that made me think a lot more and these realizations slowly made their way into me /us.

Here are my top 5 things:

1. Sunshine

Living in the UK definitely makes you appreciate sunshine a lot more than you might have ever done in the past, especially if you have lived closer to the equator before. Longing for some golden rays into your bedroom as you wake up or in your living room as you sip your evening coffee, or even while you step out for a walk in Hyde Park – sunshine makes everything that bit sweeter.

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2. Homemade food

There is absolutely nothing better than a home-cooked meal. But it took me almost 4-5 months to realize this! I used to venture out everyday during lunch – from Habibi’s katsu curry, Whitecross farmers market’s stalls, Pilpel’s falafels to even the light-n-healthy soup-places like Pret and Eat. They sounded fancy, and tasted fancy too but all of them were lost on me in a few months. And eating out adversely affected my health too. Thankfully, Amma’s simple recipes came to my rescue and I began to carry packed lunch from home. Not only do I feel better after eating homemade meals but also have started to enjoy cooking in my kitchen, along with exploring the healthier options from time to time.

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3. Importance of exercise / discipline

I am still quite surprised how almost everyone here has at least one hour dedicated to exercising, every day! It does not come naturally to me at all. But, call it peer pressure or just a sense of inspiration from seeing people all around, I have managed to introduce exercise into my routine, albeit very slowly. I go to practice yoga at the sessions held near my home by www.ourparks.org.uk/ – If you live in London and love group exercise sessions, then you must sign up for these – the best part is they are free!

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4. Ties to our roots

Without sounding too melodramatic about it, I admit that it feels great to celebrate all our festivals no matter where we are. It reminds us of our traditions, our simple joys, our ways to get-together with family and friends and create more memories. Thankfully, London has all the avenues to help you celebrate any Indian festival that you want to. From Mehendis at parlours to Durga Puja pandals to firecrackers and colours of Holi, you name it!

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5. There is no greater support system than Family

I don’t think I need to elaborate much here. We thoroughly enjoyed the numerous skype and facetime sessions, the groups on whatsapp only added more colour to daily conversations and occasional long ones helped me steer away from any self-doubting traps. I cannot emphasize enough how satisfying it is to be close and in constant touch with one’s family and how happy it can make one feel!

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And I’d be lying I didn’t admit and add, that 2014 has only been about London! I constantly looked for newer experiences – whether it was in trying a new cuisine or discovering unusual cafes in the small alleys or the chic champagne bars of the city. More on all of that in a later post. Despite the grave requests from our friends and our own brave attempts, we could not manage to speak the accent (yet!) but we are so chuffed about the progress we’ve made to make our language sound a bit more colloquial! 😀

And with that thought, here’s hoping to an even better 2015!

A Fresh Start

With a pen in her hand

She stared at the blank lines

Waiting for her thoughts to expand

So she could create new rhymes

 

But they stared right back at her

Condensing her thoughts to ice

The lines started to become a blur

And she began to despise

 

Tearfully, she looked away

And her heart ached, like never before

But she knew, she couldn’t leave it astray

And hugged herself with all love & more

 

Although it had been a couple of years

His ridicule had been detrimental

Gulping down the lumps of tears

She told herself to be kind, to be gentle

 

And she resolved to begin again

Wiping those tears she gathered her heart

She knew she had to beat the pain

She scribbled hard on the lines: A Fresh Start

 

She steered away from his words, resonating

And held her hands to the lines, thoughts pouring

Of the vast oceans, blue waters and ships sailing

Of the open skies, white clouds and birds chirping

 

Suddenly, there came upon a little smile

And her cheeks blushed, lighting up her face

She warmly looked at her hands awhile

She felt they began to regain their grace

 

She went back to her lines

They no longer looked empty

Now filled with joy and rhymes

That she believed to be poetry

 

Her heart felt at ease

She had finally won the fight

Oh, how she wanted time to freeze

So she could read and re-read her lines, in utter delight

 

Smiling at her silliness

She put her pen aside

Having reclaimed her happiness

She felt truly gratified

 

Time For Yourself

I thought it’s good to post about what I think can be a good idea to spend your time on, on lazy weekends. Because, these are few of the things that I did today, and considering I feel quite chirpy and cheerful now, these can be my recommendations to the readers of this blog.  
Read a cheerful happy book like one of these (or any other) at a coffee shop:
Watch TBBT’s snippets on Youtube, esp the one on Friendship Algorithm!

And if none of those work, 
Just sit by the bedroom window and stare:
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It is important to spend a slice of time, at least every week, to do an activity that you like. I often go for walks, in the big beautiful parks here and reflect on my life, think about my friends and family, think about my work and every tiny detail attached to my life. Some bring a smile, some pour out a longing, and some leave behind a restless feeling; but in a nut shell the quiet time that I do spend, just sitting by myself, helps distill out the unnecessary clutter I collect on my way and helps me put the shine back on.
I have read Eat Pray Love a couple of times and I enjoy revisiting Liz’s journey to finding herself through food and loneliness in Italy, chaos and companionship in India, and love and longing in Bali – the book does what it’s supposed to do best – make me think! I have watched the film on the book Julie & Julia, and my stomach jumps with joy when I look at all those delicious food being shown, written and spoken about in the movie and in the way that every character becomes secondary to the food in every single frame! The Big Bang Theory is the latest entry into the many things I love watching online these days, they are hilarious, they are nerdy and we love them all; watching snippet after snippet only reminds me of geeky friends I have; and if nothing of the above works for me at any point in time, I enjoy sitting with a coffee mug by my bedroom window and staring into the stillness of life outside and after a while my own mind begins to resonate the stillness.

We all have our ways to spend the leisure time we get, and as long as we remember to not while it away in boredom, I think we will be able to keep in touch with our inner self.

Colours called F.R.I.E.N.D.S

Life can get busy, and sometimes you feel out of place, out of pace in it yourself. And, you find yourself in times when you stand in front of the mirror and ask, ‘umm, where are you headed? what are you doing? is this what you want?’ and go on till you find yourself exhausted. It is quite ordinary though to have these questions pop up, every once in a while, and experience might suggest that such episodes allow you to reflect, retrospect; you tap your compass a couple of times and set it back to the right direction. I think not only is this natural, but also absolutely necessary to happen.
And, people have different and personal formulae to react to these questions. Some take a few days off work to relax and unwind; some visit family & relatives; some take to traveling to a new place by themselves; and some meet friends. I fall into the last category. Almost always.
Call it a miracle, every time I have felt the slightest discomfort and an eerie uneasiness about life, these few friends – my core group – suddenly decide to appear (or join me, meet me wherever I am.) Friends from all over the country and the world come together, and voila! – you find yourself amidst laughter, poorest of jokes, lots of camera clicks and the warm feeling that life’s back on track again begins to sow its seeds. Of course, it is not something I can quantify very easily. This core group that I speak of, is made up of choicest gems of people I have met in the last 8 years. Some at the very beginning of my glory days (read: engineering college!), and some I met along the journey that I started those 8 years back. I must also add, I have been blessed with the time and energy to make it to these meets that are so meticulously planned, which only goes to add the adequate dose of colours in my life!
I am not going to write a thank-you note for my core group here, or go on to acknowledge how special these bunch of people are to me (I call it core, it is only redundant to type anything further!). This post is only to reiterate to myself and my readers how friendship is perhaps the most important ingredient of life’s rich recipe, and how liberating it is to celebrate its bright presence in our lives, every once in a while!

After all, someone rightly said – Friends only know to walk into our lives, and thereon to just stay!

Quote Un-quote

It is one of those kinds of days, I guess, when you find yourself wondering, if it’s one of those kinds of lives. I sat down to write and instead ended up reading a lot of quotes and interesting things some very creative people had to say. All of these, I have collected over time; and I sifted through them all evening and took a walk down the memory lane. Memories of how I had come to collect each one of these quotes. From who, where, and when. Some of them were from the newspapers (I think I still have the cuttings somewhere). Times of India’s Sunday edition always carried some interesting lines on page 17. A friend of mine and I would often sms each other “Page 17, TOI” and then it became sort of a subtle competition as to who would read them first and tell the other. Then, there were these days when something somewhere I read would remain in thoughts for the whole day – and every time I thought about it, it would turn out to mean something different. Soon, it would be shared over Pine with this friend and smiles exchanged! This habit continued for quite some time after BITS too. When I was at home, I had indulged myself in a lot of books and these would inevitably lead to a lot of discussions over gtalk chats with this friend again. Of course, this was the time when it was not just limited to reading quotes and adding them to my collection, it was about putting my mind to it and wondering about it too. I enjoyed that a lot. 

These days, it is not so much about that any more. So, as I came across these lines today I just smiled at the me back in that time. It felt good. 

Here are some lines from my collection that I felt I should share:
2007, ToI – “It doesn’t take any longer for an enlightened to get a an intuitive grasp of what it’s all about and that grasp that they get is so fundamental, so comprehensive and so deeply internalised thereafter that virtually nothing can shake their faith in it. but ask any of them to explain their particular thin slice, they would run out of words to do so. or if they did manage to speak about it, the essence would suddenly go missing – even to themselves. that’s because the power of thinking with thinking belongs to scientific world of empiricism and rationality which always acts on the “more information is better” principle.”

By Nora Ephron – 

“Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy.”
“I am continually fascinated at the difficulty intelligent people have in distinguishing what is controversial from what is merely offensive.”

Food for thought, eh!