I wish...

A neighbour left today- her husband has been transferred to Mumbai, and she’s going to join him . Its been only a year since I got to know her- she came here to live in this apartment after her marriage last year. She is a sweet girl, very witty, charming and exudes warmth and cheer around her. Today, she came home to say Goodbye- and suddenly I wished I had taken more effort and time to know her better- I had always felt that she would be great person to get to know more- she had such a cheerful, endearing demeanour- I wished I had endeavoured to go beyond the ‘Hi’s” and casual banter- but I had always thought there was plenty of time left- and today as we said our Goodbyes, I’m filled with regret- and like in the story of the ‘sour grapes’ ,I tell myself- well, if we had got too friendly this parting would’ve been even more painful- still I wish…

Out of Touch

The past week went by without net access- and I survived becos of my dance classes. The pain in my legs is still there but lesser. And one day I lost my purse- a big one – it just disappeared from within my handbag- everything else intact. I had not had an inkling of how it could’ve just disappeared. In fact when I first noticed that it was missing, I thought I might have forgotten to take it from home in the first place- that it could’ve been stolen seemed impossible. But when I looked for it high and low in my home- it was not there- there had been some loose change, a strip of Dart and another of Crocin- and a little metal idol of Vinayaka given to me by my Vallyamma (MIL). I did feel rather desolate abt the loss but my son and husband consoled me-

First my PC crashed. I was busy composing a comment on one of my friend’s blogs- and the screen froze. I proceeded to reboot the pc but it refused to come alive.
The technicians appeared after much pestering and took away the CPU. I suspected some viral mischief but thankfully only a benign fault was diagnosed. However, as usual we got the CPU only after a couple of days.

Next, our Broad band connexn failed to link- now I had to pester the network people- sometimes the line never went thru, sometimes when it did go thru- they never picked the phone- and then they went for lunch for over 2 hours- and eventually if somebody did pick up the phone out of sheer boredom- they asked me to check all the connexns, tug this wire, press that button- and then pronounced the profound judgment that something was wrong with our PC. I requested them to send someone over to check the connexns, but no- they want to set things right sitting right where they were- i.e.- abt 16 kms away from where my pc was located.
It had been a week now since I had lost touch with the world and I was seriously beginning to show withdrawal symptoms…all that I had learnt abt tolerance and patience from my Art of Living Classes was beginning to evaporate- breathing deep- musing over the transience of all things esp. something as ephemeral as virtual world was increasingly becoming difficult to accept- Maintaining a cheerful countenance was becoming impossible and my husband began to recognize the danger signals. He became desperate too that I gain access to the virtual world- to ensure domestic peace in real life…He succeeded in coercing the computer people to come over- and when this angel in disguise came and after twiddling with the pc, wires and hardware managed to set things right- I was overcome with gratitude- I thanked him profusely- and he realized what a messiah he had proved to be to this household!

I first went over to chek the comments to my last blog- and wowo! Felt great to read the feedback..talk abt ego gratification! thank you friends…

However all is not hunky dory as yet- my broadband connexn keeps going down- and I’m breathing deeply…
So when everything is fine- I’ll be languishing in the virtual world- reading blogs, trying to comment and otherwise its inhaaaaaaaaaaaale…exhaaaaaaaale…

Rediscovering Old passions!

Last Friday, I joined Dance classes- after a gap of 16 years, I’m coercing my feet to dance to the beat of the “Nattuvangam”- the rhythmic recitation of the dance steps .Tho my feet did find it difficult to keep pace at first, they soon found wings- and the Happiness, the Thrill, the ecstasy that I felt cannot be expressed in words. My feet was in agony for the first two days, but I was too happy to care.

This is how it came about:
Last Sunday, I was watching a programme on T.V- a Classical Dance Competition- the judge was from Trichy- and on an impulse I googled her name on the net- got her address and phone number, spoke to her, met her and she asked me to come on the coming Friday. She is much younger than me- and I guess I must be one of her oldest students. :-)

Her dance school is far from where I live- I’ve to reach there by 2 buses. On the first day, my elder son accompanied me until the 2nd bus stand- and would not leave until the bus left the stand. He is so worried if I’ll be able to go on my own and has been drawing maps and trying to teach me which bus to board, which direction to wait for the bus.

Just the prev week I had come across an article posted by a friend regarding discovering guidelines to identify one’s passion, and I found out mine- I knew it always but just reconfirmed it.
If anyone is interested, these are the questions:

How Do You Know When You've Found your Passion?
If you answer yes to most of these questions, you've found an activity you love. When you pursue what you are passionate about, your spirit is energized and renewed.

Do you lose track of time doing this activity?

Do you get excited just thinking about it?

Do you feel energized by it?

Do you dream about it?

Do you lose self-consciousness doing it?

Do you perform beyond your usual abilities when engaged in it?

Has your enthusiasm remained high over a period of time?

Do you seek out people who share this interest?

And also saw a movie on T.V on somewhat similar lines!

Shall we dance-

starring Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez, Susan Sarandon.

Richard is happily married to Susan- has 2 grown up kids- life is pretty smooth, except that Richard feels a vague discontent- every day as he came home from work in a tram, he would notice a window on a building- a Dance school- and the silhouette of a young woman in the window- one evening on an impulse he gets down- goes up into the building and enrolls for dance classes- his tutor is an older woman- needless to say he’s disappointed that its not the young woman- Jen Lopez who is teaching him- after initial awkwardness, he begins to enjoy his classes a lot- he becomes more lively at home too- and his wife is surprised- she wonders if he’s having some affair and after much deliberation appoints a detective to trail her husband.

Meanwhile Richard tries to talk to Jen Lopez- but she stays aloof- and tells him not to come back for classes if he has not joined for the passion of dance- Richard almost stops his classes, but at the last moment he realizes he has come to love dancing- and Jen Lopez is also happy- a special bonding evolves between the two and she teaches him specially for a competition-
Meanwhile Susan is informed abt her husbands dance classes and she comes to see him perform at the competition with her daughter. Mother and daughter are amazed at his graceful dancing and the daughter cheers him loudly – Richard is distracted and fumbles- causing his dance partner to fall- and it ends up a total fiasco.

Susan is hurt that Richard had not told her abt his classes and Richard does not know what to say- he stops going to the classes-
Meanwhile, Jen Lopez is going abroad to study more dancing- and she writes to Richard saying that he danced really well- and she thanks him for helping her realize that it was Dance that she wanted to excel in- she shares with him her sad experience of the previous year where she and her partner had failed miserably in an International competition- and she had been so ashamed that she was hiding in this obscure dance school- now with Richard’s help, she realized that she wanted to go back to Dance- would he please come to the farewell party to dance just once more with her?

Richard shows the letter to Susan- and tells her he wont be going for the party- he also summons the courage to tell her, that he was so grateful to Susan for being so completely happy and satisfied with him- and he was afraid and ashamed to tell her- the person whom he loved the most, that there was a vague discontent within him- Susan understands- and next morning she leaves a tuxedo and dancing shoes for him and asks him to go and enjoy at the party.
Richard wears the tuxedo, shoes , gets a single red rose, goes to the place where Susan is working , gives her a rose and asks her to dance with him- Susan is overwhelmed- and they dance right there .
Later, they both go to the farewell party- where Lopez was waiting with the other dancer friends- Richard and Jen Lopez and dance together-
And they say their Goodbyes-
At home Richard begins to teach Susan to dance- and they love it-
In the closing scene we find the detective whom Susan had employed joining the dance classes!

The Hols are over...

I had been away on vacation...

The hols are over…and its back to Home sweet home…these hols were hectic filled with family functions and lots of travel- a bit of sickness thrown in…

First kids and me spent 10 days with my parents in Kerala, then we came back to Trichy becos we had planned a tour to Kolkotta, Darjeeling, Puri with 3 other families here. Two days before we were to start my husband came down with yet another spasm of kidney stone. While one doctor advised us to cancel our trip, another senior urologis gave us the go ahead- he asked to just carry painkiller tabs and injections- intra muscular with us. We almost decided to cancel our trip and the kids and our friends were totally disappointed- those 2 days were so filled with confusion and chaos- my husband was ready to go ahead. But I was apprehensive- anyways, we finally decided to go on- taking with us the painkillers- I decided to just go with the flow and surrender myself to the Almighty’s will…

The trip went fine- of course hubby did get pain attacks during the tour- and once he had to inject himself too- he was pretty brave thru the ordeal, our friends were very caring and attentive- and I found it very, very difficult to put on a brave, cheerful countenance whenever he was in pain…

Kolkotta and Puri was very warm, still we managed to do sight seeing- The serene and beautiful Birla Mandir, The Science City, Jain Temple, Dakshineswar, Belur Math, Kali Temple- just wished the streets were cleaner- and just as in other places in India , here too tourists were being fleeced even in the name of God.

Darjeeling was heavenly- but brrrr…it was sooooo cold- and I’m a person who finds trichy winters unbearable at times- so you can imagine my plight- our place of stay was divine- but it was just too, too cold- that one cannot think of anything beyond keeping warm- we did not take the famous toy train to save time- but the road was just as picturesque- the landscape, the monasteries, Padmaja Wild Life sanctuary- here, the environs were so beautiful- the animals so well kept and healthy- and the climate too was comfortable that day.

We went to the Tiger Hills to view the sunrise- at an unearthly hour 0f 3.30 a.m- the place was crowded- the trudge uphill was slippery- and we were breathless- there were local women- so fair and pretty cheerfully selling hot cups of coffee/tea- from huge flasks- As everyone waited for the sun break in the east- horizon- first , the clouds were lined with a brilliant auzure lining- and suddenly the sun erupted in a glorious burning globule- there rose an involuntary gasp from the people gathered- and everyone was cheering- all this in a second- before the sun disappeared behind the clouds again- but the whole place was bathed in sunlight- at such an early hour- tho there was no trace of the sun anymore- The magical moment had been so transient that looking back I wondered if I did see anything so specatacular-

We saw the Nepal India border, Gurkha War Memorial- The Batisia Loop,- indeed it was memorable trip.

At Puri, we stayed at a resort facing the beach- We visited the Jagannath temple, the beach, Konarak temple- Nandan Kanan Wild Life sanctuary- on our last day there, we were caught in a heavy cyclonic rain storm of unbelievable intensity - but thankfully it lasted for a very short time-

Thus we reached back safely- tired but happy- and I waas grateful that there was not too much of trouble – nothing more than we could manage…

and thank you all of you who have been wondering about my absence from the virtual world for their concern and enquiries abt my well being- I'm glad to be back in blogdom- and sooo many blogs to catch up with...

p.s: the tiny stone that was causing my husband so much agony came out soon after we reached trichy- he called up my parents and informed them: "your son –in- law delivered a healthy stone safely"