Happiness.

I think Happiness is one single thing that could be singled out as just one thing that people singlemindedly pursue, whether it is Beijing, Bangkok, Paris, Sidney, Dublin, New York or Timbuktu. We look around for things that make us happy. A friend to share a joy or sorrow, a new shawl, A tube of sparkly lip gloss, a new shag rug for the living room. M S Subbalakshmi singing "Bahvayami Gopalabalam", a nice book to read, falling in love, owning an Ipod, going on a vacation, getting time to exercise, having a clean home, money, success, fame, health...all these things just lead to one simple feeling - happiness.
I just looked around to see what happiness means to different people. Some find it in working a lot, some find it in shopping, some look for it in creating things, some discover it in depriving others of it :-) But the ultimate destination of all pains taken is to enjoy the fruit of happiness. finding true love, having enough to not worry about finances, having people you love around you, having a pet, being in pink health, having a head of lustrous hair....All these things are just happiness waiting to happen to you around the corner.
But is finding it the ultimate goal of life? Why do religions speak about finding God in pain, why do poets dwell on sorrow and proclaim that the sweetest of songs are about the saddest of thought? Why do tragedies become classics and blockbusters? Is it just the yin and yang of a human brain? Or does it have more to it?
May be all sadness also ultimately leads to one thing - happiness.
The pursuit is on right now, right here in every nook and cranny of the planet. Sometimes compromises are made to get to it - sometimes it is found in the sorrow of others unfortunately, sometimes it just exists there but we are too caught up in finding it that it just doesn't occur to us that it was right there all along.
Before actually going on an odyssey to look for it, we all should just stop and look around. We will be astound by the joy we find in simple things. A flower in bloom, a child's smile or a playful puppy playing with the carpet fringe. Happiness - as complicated as it is simple. But is it not our own mind that makes it look this way or that?

Instrument.

My older sister made me turn a little shade of green when she played a Carnatic composition on veena during my visit to India. She started learning a year ago and is already half way thru being above amateur level. The younger sis is already a trained vocalist and as if it is not enough, she is learning, nay - gulping down piano notes like a glutton. Glutton of music notes that is:-) I see that playing an instrument was a age long dream of mine. I used to yearn to learn how to play Violin. I still do actually. Mandolin Srinivas is an idol I seriously worship. Lisa Robertson of QVC makes me admire her that much more just because she is an accomplished violin player. Give me a trained musician that plays on an instrument and I'll be all over him/her.

Just the other day, on the eve of Christmas, I saw a band of young musicians play Christmas carols in the mall. Sarat and Aarti went for a stroll and I tried and captured as many pictures of them as possible with my SLR. I wish I had a camcorder instead of a camera since the former would have captured the sound waves that penetrated the air making it look and feel like Christmas. I listen to Chaurisia's flute and dream of creating music like him. I would actually easily be impressed if someone would as much as whistle. Music, specially instrumental has always been a magnet that attracts a log of iron (that would be me!)

Sneha's sister plays the Tabla, My maternal uncle learned Mridangam and I actually wanted to learn it with him but I was too young and too ignorant of the fact that one day, very soon, I'd be three decades old and would regret, deeply regret, not learning it. Well, I seem to be surrounded with people who are proficient in one thing or another and I sit here, pondering over what soul-stirring music does to me.

The best visual, actually audio visual that comes to mind when I think of my Jaipur vacation is this grand old man, clad in the dirtiest of dhotis, wearing glasses that seemed to be piles of pieces cut out of a Pepsi bottle, playing a tiny, uncomplicated instrument. I captured it in my camcorder and I can re-live the whole experience of being in Ameri palace just by recollecting that soulful melody. So be it the old man begging for alms or Yanni playing accolades of The Taj - instruments have always been instrumental in inspiring me.
For now, I play the keys on my laptop, envisioning it to be a piano...wait, I am Norah Jones! May be I am not playing music, or may be I am - in my own melodious way! And while I am at it, may I actually ask the audience to leave a trace of their effort of listening to my music?

Upkeep

It has become almost an ordeal for me to keep the home neat and tidy. I seem to diligently scrub, mop, clean and wash all day only to find more scrubbing, mopping, cleaning and washing waiting to be done. The car gets dirty, the carpet loses its spring, the television screen attracts little specks of dust and the the stainless steel kitchen sink becomes dull and jaded by the end of the day form all the soap scum. I seem to vacuum and scrub, vacuum and scrub, vacuum and scrub ( not in that particular order) whole day and get sick and tired of it.
The upkeep applies to everything. My hair that shines and bounces the day it is washed gets slick with all the overactive oil glands in my scalp the day after it is washed. My skin gets all shiny, flushed and red by the end of the day and the tummy growls of hunger from time to time indicating the want of fuel to keep the body machine going.
Relationships require upkeep as well. I stay in touch with the people I wish to stay in touch with and lose touch with the people I wish to lose touch with. Or it is more like if I maintain the chain of communication the relationship exists - otherwise it vanishes.
So, Maintenance is more of an appropriate word. I cuss about the cleaning ever day and being the order obsessed Virgo I am, I succumb to the pressure of keeping the house clean. Aarti contributes to my nerve grinding by scattering her toys through the length and the breadth of the house, leaving melted ice cream spots on the floor and getting her moonsand into the carpet an area rugs. I am not even mentioning the laundry that gets piled up everyday.
So I just wanted to give maintenance a philosophical twist. What if we let the debris of ill thoughts pile up in our mind? What if we do not give much importance to cleansing our insides that produce toxins of feelings day in and day out? Does our mind require as much upkeep as our bodies and homes demand? Or is it just convenient to mask our mental ugliness with the likes of hypocrisy and false virtues? May be it is. That is probably the reason why we see so much of hate, hard feelings, jealousy, selfishness, vanity and harshness around us. We perhaps spend more time looking without and maintaining the external things that exhibit themselves as a reflection of ours and the soul that actually matters gets tarnished in the heap of filth accumulated form non-maintenance. How wonderful it would be , if we could just take our souls out and rinse them under the tap like those cylinders that come in the home air purifiers? Would all the scum run in water and leave us with crystal clear souls?

I think it is possible. It just requires practice. All we need to do is weed all the bad stuff out and keep our souls clean. Would the world not a wonderful, clean place that way?

There's something about Ash.

I think I'd spent enough time trashing Ash and loving the likes of Shobaa De, Suhasini and Russell Peters to have agreed with me about what they thought of Ash's acting skills. I still want to hold that opinion about her acting skills, but for once I have decided to look at Ash and not hate her for what she cannot do. Instead, I'll look at her and love her for what she has achieved.

Somehow light eyes do not go well with me. May be they do if the eyes in question belong to one Mr. Roshan. But light eyes and ladies with light tan complexions are a bad combo. So I looked at Ash and thought - she is washed out! I looked at her smile and thought, it is too crafted, I looked at the way she giggled and thought, it is too forced. I looked at the way she settled in the Bachchan household and thought she is way too smart. So, since resolved not to judge anyone, I took it seriously and looked at Aishwarya like I'd look at my own elder sister and Lo and behold, she actually is a woman that all women should be proud of.

When did we come across a thirty five year old actress who is not yet demoted to character roles? (discount Sridevi, she is exceptional) When was the last time we saw an Indian woman's face in a global magazine? Well, may be there are some women who won international acclaim but I failed to notice them. The last time I was in Shanghai airport, I stopped and stared at a hoarding of Ash - promoting L'oreal mascara, and felt that Indians are finally making their mark. Then suddenly I am reminded of her acting skills and I force myself to hate her. I went to Walmart one day and bought Aishwarya's lipstick called something like Aishwarya's beige. It gave an immense sense of achievement that an Indian face made mark on the side of the likes of Halley Berry and Kate Moss. I look at her international projects - The Pink Panther for instance and I forget that she is a poor actor and just focus on the long way she had come without any Godfathers in the film industry. We see and accept Shahrukh romancing leading ladies half his age, we approve Chiranjeevi shaking a leg with someone half his age and one fourths his weight. We live in a male dominated society, a male dominated industry and isn't Ash an achievement to all Indian women?

I get turned off by all the hoopla about her being the prettiest woman in the world - Like I said, I find her pretty but not strikingly or stunningly pretty. "You are straight - that's why" my kid bro offers me unwanted explanation. But may be I am just not straight (no pun intended) enough to give credit to where it belongs.

Aishwarya Rai is a role model to all Indian women. She made our country proud. She is the first international face India had produced. She has made it on her own. She is a bad actor but that is okay.
Yeah, that is really okay!

Ash, I think I liked you all these days. I was just a little hypocrite:-))

A New Beginning

Somethings about New Years is fresh, anticipating, hopeful and exciting. It is like getting promoted to a higher grade. It is like the excitement my siblings and I had on the first day of school. We would talk about the location of the class room, the view from the generous windows, our teachers and our bench mates. We would be excited about what we have on our plates and speculate about how the new Math teacher would be - strict and grumpy or friendly and easy to get along with! We would make plans to utilise our time well and resolve to top the class, brush our grammar and math and give it our best shot - strangely similar to how we look forward to live a New year and how we find ourselves a little nostalgic about the past year and how we grow up and mature in the process of living another year of our lives.

I look back to get a recap of the year that was. I think I'd evolved more in 2008 than in any other year in the recent past. I took that extra step to go and pursue a project in Advertising - something that I'd dreamed of doing all my life. I was there in the midst of a terrorist attack in Mumbai and saw what it can mean first hand and wondered what the world was going to!

My family had lost a member - my uncle Murali Krishna Mocherla (who also happens to be my dad's cousin and best friend in growing years). It stuck me how our time here is transient and how we should just live our lives and love all we can while we are here:-)

So the year itself was a mixed bag. I learnt that we are the only people that come between ourselves and our dreams and we do not do something only because we don't want to do it.

Aarti grew up - turned a year older and lost that baby fat and is blabbering a lot of sense. She is ready to be a pre-schooler and has emerged a personality of her own. I am thankful that I finally see traces of me in my baby. She seems to be a bigger bathroom singer than her mom and is very very artistically inclined. I just hope that I can get her to write as well..but that has to wait for some more years:-)0

For the year coming, I should probably and ideally say that I'll be more productive, lose all that weight I wanted to lose, keep my home "better homes and gardens" perfect, write and read every day, keep in touch with all my friends and family, vacuum my house twice a week, spend more time with Aarti, not crib about Sarat's late hours , to write the book I always wanted to write (not sure if it would fiction or non- fiction. LOL) to learn a foreign language, to travel to Europe, to take a terrific roller coaster ride and to properly learn a fine art.

But practically I just want to make the right choices. The choice of spending time praying instead of Internet browsing, the choice of eating right, living healthy, talking only things that are fair, making people around me happy and living a life that is meaningful. I resolve not to be the best person around, but to just be my personal best!

I resolve to age well and gracefully as in accepting my stray greys and piling up birthdays, I resolve to be a child at heart and a grown up in my thinking. I resolve to smile more, to crib less and to compliment others often. I also resolve to take time for myself, to go on a walk and actually stop to listen to the birds and to get a clear connection with my Heavenly father. I resolve to be more open minded, less judgemental and genuinely interested in people around me. I resolve to listen more, talk less and make people around me happy for choosing to be around me:-) I resolve to give more and make a difference in a stranger's life. To spread my love beyond my family and give a piece of my heart to people who need it.

I probably will blog more, read all the New Yorkers that are piled up in hope of being read one day and spend my time wisely.

New Years are new hopes, new avenues to explore our true potential, new chapters, new anticipations. Here's hoping 2009 will make all your dreams and resolutions come true.

God Bless you all!

The nonagenarian beauty.

Sometimes it is hard to associate old age and beauty, specially when the old age in question is actually 92 years. That is ancient by all standards. Isn't it? So what comes to mind when you hear 92 years? Scantily clad scalp with a handful of sparkling silver strands. Texture - texture and texture. As in well defined wrinkles on skin that hangs loose on a thin frame, hard hearing, poor eyesight and immobility. Well, it is pretty much how I imagined it till I met this nonagenarian beauty.

I found out her name in our second meeting. Kumudamma. So Kumudamma can give Aarti a run for her money in enthusiasm and curiosity department. Her gaze looked preoccupied but she spoke pristine English. Yeah, English of all the languages which made my interaction with the Tamil speaking beauty possible. I found on in our eventual meetings that she speaks Hindi too with the same ease. She used to narrate her visits to the USA. The way she went to New Orleans for MadriGras and saw Niagara, Disney land and all tourist attractions in the USA for that matter. She used to ask endless questions and tell endless stories though some of them were repetitive. Her zeal never died out though...she would tell her twentieth story with the same animation as she would tell her first. From our conversation I'd learnt about her Doctor daughter and son and numerous grand kids and great grand kids.

She would sit there on the garden bench every evening, the garden that looked like a mini oasis in the concrete jungle of Mumbai. "What a wonderful place to be" she would exclaim - looking at the expanse of the lush green lawn before us.

One day I helped her stand. She stood tall though she wasn't very tall:-) The texture of her skin felt like that of a plush toy. She was as frail as a new born, as curious as a toddler, as inquisitive as a child, as enthusiastic as a teenager, as active as a young mom and as wise as a 92 year old. Kumudamma taught me one thing - that age is indeed a number and a life well lived has more to it than a huge landmark birthday.

She taught me to look at life from a different perspective. To actually stop and enjoy the cool evening breeze or to be genuinely interested in the person you are talking to. She personifies to me beauty, strength and a fighting spirit. Above all, her love for life is infectious.

The many lines on her face and body unfolded to me the joys and sorrows she must have lived, the love she must have spread and the inspiration she had given to numerous people like me that had crossed her path.

My ubiquitous camera captured a few of her images. "You are beautiful" I meant and exclaimed as I took a close shot of hers. "Thank you" she giggled with stars twinkling in those pre-occupied eyes. I am sure I did not imagine that color in her cheeks as she thanked me:-)

pic 1 - Kumudamma lounging in the garden amid the concrete around.

pic 2 - The beauty herself.

The chili red Chantal.

It's brewing time. Meet the new accessory on my stove top. An actual tea kettle. Who'd have guessed that I'd develop a passion for tea since coffee and tea were never a habit?
I fell in love with the architecture of the kettle, the loop, the silhouette and most importantly the color. Red, the color of passion brews passion. Chamomile, herbal blend, green tea bags immersed in hot water form this slick pot... Ah, the simple pleasures of life!

Here I come 2009.

A fresh new way of reviving my teens is right here. Though the pleasure of running the fingers through a sleek key board is irreplaceable, there is something more satisfying and fulfilling. Yes, notebooks! The one I scored today is a 2009 engagement calender that features the immortal Frank Lloyd wright and his works are placed there in an almost three-dimensional glory, thanks to the photographer Alan Weintraub. Like most of us do on most new year eves, I had decided to write this coming year and write on a real paper with a real pen.

I said this will help me to relive my teens and tweens since writing journals was a passion that dated back to those times. I used to hug the brand new diaries my Dad used to give me every year. Used to smell the pages. Some had smells that would make me remember the days of kindergarten when I used to open my texts and inhale the aroma of a new book.

A pen and a book is probably the best marriage ever. And to commemorate this holy matrimony moi decided to write - not write as a writer does, but scribble, doodle and etch as a confused creative would do. I am in love with my new diary. My biggest score of the month. Now I just need to find a smooth pen and a little something to scribble about ;-)

And no prizes for guessing what I wanted form Santa... Notebooks! Are'nt I uncomplicated?

Here's more info abt my little hardbound treasure.

Photographs by Alan Weintraub This calendar's thirty-two color photographs by Alan Weintraub show houses built by Wright all across the United States. Each photograph is annotated with historical information and accompanied by a quotation from the master builder. Also included are a brief essay about Wright, fifty-four weekly grids, twelve full-page monthly grids, lists of international holidays and international calling codes/time differences, double-page spreads of 2009 and 2010 yearly grids, pages for notes, and a personal information page. Size: 6 5/8 x 8 in.; 112 pages; hardcover Wire-O bound.

Forevermore

The lady who'd lost her 4 carat De Beers Diamond in a museum recently said that she wanted to give the diamond to her grand daughter and when the museum staff looked for the lost diamond rummaging through the contents of the vacuum bags and found the rock, the woman was ecstatic. "It kind of denoted that a diamond is forever" she said.
So, friends, what stays forever? Definitely not us - mortal beings. But don't we seem to plan and work things out in our mind's map day in and day out like we are here to stay? We live in an illusion that we are forever. The irony is that we kind of subconsciously acknowledge that we'll go away, but we still hold on to silly things - grudges, heart breaks, disappointments, worldly possessions, feelings and many more things. We can look around our adobes and finds tons of things that we hoard. Things that could be given away, that could make a difference to some one else. Things that can open up our space and de-clutter it if we let them go. Things that simply our lives and lighten our baggage both physical and emotional. Let go of those hard feelings, forgive and forget. Give and live. We all seem to know this. But we just hoard stuff like we need them since we are here forevermore.
We plan young. This necklace will go to my eldest daughter. My mom used to plan and decide what she wanted to give to each of her daughters when she was the age I am right now. I do my own plans for that matter. I look at each piece of my jewelry and foresee that Aarti will one day wear it or just put it in her curio since they will be too outdated for adornment. I look at the letters Sarat and I had written to each other and hope that a grandson would stumble upon them and get to know a love story. I plan for the day I'll have to leave but hold on to the first jeans I'd bought in the USA, the many little clothes that Aarti had worn in her initial months, the numerous quilts and comforters that do not co-ordinate with the size or the color of my current bedroom just because I might need them if a guest comes and decides to sleep on the couch watching TV. I imagine having another child or one of my sisters or cousins having a girl to use those clothes Aarti had long out grown, and a guest that would want to sleep on the couch just because I cannot let go of the things that I own. But I do plan on giving away the more precious stuff since all of us, not just me, know that we are not forevermore.
I lightened the burden of this house by a few tens of pounds since I donated Aarti's outgrown clothes, toys and all those quilts and comforters and also those Sunscreens and extra baby cremes that would hit the trash if they are hoarded for another year. Somewhere a little girl might need those clothes, a baby somewhere doesn't have a single toy perhaps. And what will all these possessions mean in the big picture? Yeah, nothing!

Memories are meant to be the ones that linger in the heart. May be an occasional dress or a trinket that was bought on a special occasion can be hoarded. But the rest will not mean a zilch once the person that deems those things as something meaningful is gone.

We hoard, pile things and emotions up making us weak, placing us in an enchantment that makes us consciously act like we are forevermore. A diamond could probably stay for ever - the person who wears it will not. Just like the things we plan to pass on, we should probably plan to pass on the love and lead a life a little selfless and a lot less self centered.

We take with us what we give away. What we keep will just stay back right where we left them.

TV time.

Television (often abbreviated to TV, T.V.; sometimes called , telly or the tube, bloob tube or boob tube, or idiot box in British English) is a widely used telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures and sound over a distance. Right? wait....it has more to it.

Not too long ago, or a couple of days ago to be very precise, I was one of those moms that would proudly proclaim that my kid watches no TV at all. Change is the only thing that is constant they say and so the status quo of my proclamation has changed over the couple of days. Since it can get pretty stressful to manage a two going on three, "curious George's cousin" toddler whole day, I caved in and switched on the TV and made my little girl sit before that dinosaur (in shocking purple and green) from some one's imagination. Barney craze caught with Aarti like a house on fire and ever since she started negotiating TV time with daily activities like eating, taking vitamins and finishing the fruit snack. "I'll eat if I can watch Barney" she would exercise her new fond negotiation skills to get to watch her new fond friend in purple and green and I give in now and then - just to cut the stress off of dealing with a toddler that has thrown herself on the floor wailing in an uncontrollable fit of tears. To my good fortune, she doesn't yet understand that after the 15-20 mt program is over, the telly could still entertain her if her mom picks up the remote and punches a few "on demand" buttons. Needless to say, I am worried. I definitely do not want her to glue herself to the telly watching Barney marathons back to back and the only way I can get her to not do that is by stopping all my things and read her Dr.Seuss for the n th time or play with moonsand along with her or worse yet, tell her the story of a little baby named Aarti in an infinite loop. I do all of the above just in a hope to keep her from getting addicted to TV or getting addicted to swapping her TV time for my peace of mind.

TV is bad for everyone, not just kids. I feel it is such a timewaster. Time killer, to be more accurate. Most housewives in India are addicted to those all-defying plots of the likes of Ekta kapoor that has lady villains dressed like drag queens weaving one conspiracy after the other. Actually, it is not completely their fault. I feel that there is something compelling about watching TV with special reference to soaps. I remember how I used to watch Jassi every day - with more devotion than I said my daily prayers. The Virgo in me does think that watching TV is a waste of time though... and I want the Capricorn growing up in the house to think the same. I want her to be more imaginative, invent her own toys and find her own ways to keep herself entertained. May be I started seeing why Monica thought I'd be an ambitious mom. Or am I just being sensible without actually being too pushy on the little one?

I can either substitute TV with me or me with the TV and I choose the latter. So I just should get a cup of chamomile tea, sniff some lavender, take a deep breath, relax and go on telling the story of a little girl name Aarti for the fifty sixth time without losing enthu or compromising on the animation till Aarti is out and about in a preschool :-)

Ambition

A friend once told me, long before I had my little girl, that I'd be a very ambitious mother. I did not know why she would think that way since I was at the juncture where I was newly married and my only ambition in life was to cook two meals a day and find my way into my hubby's heart (probably thru his tummy. LOL - JK on that, since we courted a good number of years before we got hitched and I made sure that I found the way to his heart and settled there with a sleeping bag, reluctant to budge! Thankfully I am still there!)
Anyway, Ambition and I are not a good pair. I was more of a dreamer than an achiever. I remember how I dreamed about being an astronaut when my idea about ambition was still hazy. I was this little girl in primary school and everyone made a hue and cry about how a certain Mr.Rakesh Sharma sang "saare jahan se atcha hindusita hamara" when asked about how he thought the space looked! That is quiet corny if I think now after getting on to the wrong side of 30, but when you are not yet a decade old, you probably like such things! Like them enough to do them one day :-)
Then I dreamed of being like Komal G B singh, the English news reader on DD1. My mom somehow thought that I looked like her and I though she had such a cool diction, so somewhere in between resembling her and wanting to pronounce like her, I smuggled newspapers into the toilet and whispered the news out loud - trying to sound cool when mispronouncing words that were too hard to read, let alone comprehend. Thus, a loo bookworm was born. I suspect if this is a genetic thing since Aarti wants her Shiny Dinah book every time she makes a visit to the powder room. Isn't that cute? For some reason, my mom didn't think I was cute like I think Aarti is. Probably because you cease to be less and less cute as you age. And eleven and a newspaper in the toilet is a wrong picture - at least it was, to my mom who is modern enough by all standards. So I had to shun my dreams to be a news reader. Then of course, I dreamed of being a Doc... The inspiration? Tanvi Azmi in Life Line (again a soap on DD1)
That didn't last long since I figured that being a doctor has more to it than lounging around the hospital ward in a cool white coat and a stethoscope :-)) yeah, who would dissect all those worms and cockroaches? Not a faint hearted idiot like me. So that dream was shelved before it actually emerged a full fledged dream.
In between, I dreamed of writing poetry, ( I still dream of writing poetry and also prose, thanks to Mr. Arvind Adiga, the recent one to have taken home a Booker. I did dream about writing when Ms. Roy won, Ms. Lahari won too... so I still am stuck on that particular dream ) being a photographer, painter, journalist and teacher.
Anyway, it gets back to the title...so where is ambition featured in all this evolution? I fail to see it. I am by far, the most non - ambitious person I'd ever had the pleasure of knowing. At the most I dream - Dream about losing weight, writing 1000 words each day, bringing home the Pulitzer or Booker, being an interior designer, a mural artist, opening a fusion restaurant,being a poet or a desi version of Martha Stewart, the domestic goddess. In fact, I was mighty inspired by her till she found herself in the middle of that stock fiasco.... But I still think she is a great role model:-)
I dunno if I will be an ambitious mom like Monica predicted I'd be. May be I will, may be I won't. I will surely let Aarti dream and decide the course of her own life. If she thinks being a nurse-practitioner better suits her than being a doc, or chooses to be a teacher instead of a prof, I'll let her be who she wants to be. I think the only thing I'd tell her is to be the best nurse or the best teacher she can be. I'll encourage her to dream and find her destiny. May be, she'll be a writer and bring home the Booker. I'll do just fine even if she doesn't become a book lover for that matter... it is her life.
But dreaming - it will come, like the urge to read "shiny Dinah" when in the restroom...after all inheritance is something. isn't it?