To the Girls –I would always love to call my friends!

We may be living in different cities and not being able to meet everyday as we used to do like 10 years ago.

We may be keeping tap of each others' lives through social media and sharing delightful messages showing our incessant love.

Family priorities might have taken a front seat in our lives, but girls I miss you. I miss the incidences which brought you in my life, making you my friends I would never like to go.

Every time a photo from past rolls before my eyes, I reminisce the good times, we spent together. The laughs we shared and the cold wars we embroiled in with others, most of the time because the person has annoyed you for some reason. 

Every time I see teenage girls riding scooties, it makes me remember the tripling rides we used to take. I may be taking movie dates quite frequently now, but the first one with our group has always been a sweet memory. 

I miss the days when our major heartbreak was getting low marks in Literature. I miss eating lunch in the back seat just because one of us was hungry. Sometimes the bittersweet nostalgia is so strong, I can almost taste it through my tears.

Life has showed how fast it can become, as our elders used to say. Over the years that followed after we made our separate choices that took us in different directions, we made new friends and colleagues, some of them close enough. We may not be able to make time for each other like before, sometimes almost none. Our friendship might have taken a new age route- mostly through text messages and Facebook posts. We might go days, weeks even years without face-to-face conversations- but once we are back , we are back being like before.

Only God knows if we will be able to find time like before and recreate the magic, but I would always cherish those memories. 


I will always miss our days! 

Saturday Date with creepy Crawly!

I desperately need a day between Saturday and Sunday.


Yes, I do and especially now when they have started visiting me twice in a month (the off ones).


Saturdays and that too the off ones have lately become like my prayers these days. After all I am not in Sweden, where people are moving to six-hour working schedule to improve productivity, I am in India where we believe in stretching ourselves till we become devoid of everything (ideas and energy).


Well this Saturday, it was an altogether different story. I was totally elated when I realized that it was an off one which meant an extra sleep of two hours. But my subconscious was surely not in the mood of seeing me happy and thus sent me the thoughts of messing-with-soiled-and-smelly-pieces which needed my attention immediately. So after making several efforts at ditching the idea and actually convincing myself, I finally realized I had to get involved into the irksome job of washing the clothes, if I do not want to cancel the plans for an evening out due to the lack of proper clothes.


As I made my way to the machine, she was waiting for me right there!


I squeaked quite eloquently enough to send few faint hearts racing, and wooh...., suddenly realized that I was alone and the realization sent mine soaring instead. Yet she was there,not moving an inch, daring me as if she knew how much I despised her.

Yes I am talking abut none other than those creepy crawlies who seem to have made a comeback in almost all houses after their winter sabbatical. Those manner-less Lizards- who are not an inch like their ancestors known for their demeanor for safe hideouts instead of scaring the hell out of homeowners by roaming around the territory swaying their equally despicable tails.


Well I noticed her presence quite a few days back when I had to open the windows for coolers last month, thus providing her an easy escape into my house. But instead of honoring my benevolence, she seems to be quite adept at freaking me out quite often. My assumption of her nuisance to be short-lived was totally proved wrong when I found her presence in kitchen and even bathrooms. Google might also seem to be conspiring against me as I could not get any reliable method to get rid of her and the few which were listed proved to be worthless. Ultimately I had to shoo around her braving my instincts to show her the exit route from my home. To my utter disbelief, I found her wagging her tail after two days crawling on the walls of my bedroom as if teasing me... see I am back!

How could she remember the way to my house? Does she have a brain?


And again she was there anticipating to spoil my precious Saturday off. An attempt at long awaiting revival of my book-reading was mercilessly disrupted by this creepy fellow, when I found her silently making her way towards my chair. That made me hopping like an idiot and finally settling on bed. She might me in love with my library as I found her there next day too.


Extensive research about the methods to get rid of lizards showed me an article quoting “We need to share our planet with some creatures if they are not quite harmful to us.”

God she is, she is harmful to the peace of my mind and seriously doesn't seem to mind her business at hiding.


I think we, me and her, would be at a quite more comfortable level if she tends to mind her business and stop stalking me everywhere I go. But she seems to be an intrusive fellow and that makes all the difference.

Image Source: Google

Linking to #MondayMusings

Idea of Positivity: Not positive enough!

Last week while we poor Delhities were battling the heat wave and showing solidarity through funny takes at Facebook and twitter, I was made to book an appointment with my gynecologist, which I was conveniently procrastinating for almost a month. 

If you are not in a mood of getting paid for your share of global warming, metro makes the best sense and avoiding the peak office hours can also reward you with a seat. Carefully avoiding the reserved ones, I got the most loved corner seat as I was planning to catch on some sleep during the one and a half hour journey.

But my plans were not going to work as I was joined by one of my closest friends at the very next station. Although I never mind sacrificing my sleep for a lovely company and that too when we were meeting after a long time, probably a year. After few doses of formal interactions, I heard her sobbing about the extremely distressing circumstances she found herself trapped in. I was a little surprised to know the situation as she had always been the confident one, usually the ones who seem to have solutions to every problem. We seriously used to respect and adore her for that.

As the sobbing continued, I heard her complaining how everyone around her was advising her to be ‘a little positive’ and that it was simply not working. I found myself spending the next thirty minutes explaining her why the mere idea of positivity will not work and she had to take some stand, and how the other people can keep the idea of her not being positive at bay. I pitied her for her situation, and I pitied her more for choosing the wrong counsel. 

For once and all, we have to understand that positivity may be a way or potential tool to nourish the broken hopes and dreams but definitely not a solution to anxiety or any distressing situations in life.

Even after she got off the cart, it all kept looming on my mind.

Are we not being a little too decisive and hopping the fence immediately inspite of helping the person in question to do the same, when we simply say 'try some positivity'?

My always brimming curiosity made me google the facts and I came to know that we females, are actually more prone to depression and other anxiety related issues which might be quite damaging to some souls than the other. Science blamed our erratic hormones and self blaming tendencies for the same. Very few would admit it, but we all are a little bit insecure and there lays the foundation stone of all stress and anxiety, which cultivated over a period of time takes shape of something more fatal for our core.

It can be anything- from academic and professional performance, need to get acceptance from in-laws, unstable finances, incompetence to manage professional and personal lives, or simply a non supportive work environment. 

The fact is that life not only throws the losses but also the healing resources. Many of us are fortunate enough to have strong support systems which suck out the negativity creeping in us. A partner who steps in, a manager who understands that you can get sick at times or a reliable friend who does not advise positivity alone, but also shows how it is done and eventually hangs around.

While some of us don't have the fortune of those replenishing resources and self exhaustion takes over. Every missed opportunity and every snub from a relative force us to question our capabilities, often sending messages like 'You are failing at it terribly'. Listening “Try some positivity” acts like salt on the wounds. No matter how honest the intentions are, those words are like grief upon grief. Its like implying your vision is flawed, just keep on going until one day when everything would fall in place and you would actually start living.

It's like being trapped in a dark room and people telling you there is light outside but not showing you how to open the window. The mere description of light won't help. Saying to imagine it simply does not work, especially for someone who has lost the idea of light. Demonstrating the light of love is on the other hand, not just telling how the light actually looks like, but offering to absorb some of the exhaustion/darkness and actually leading her the path towards that window.

Merely pointing towards the ladder is not enough. It's more of holding the ladder and keeping it steady for her while she makes her way up.

What did I do? 
Well I saved her number and put it in speed dial and try to make time for at least a weekly chat about how she was progressing, and yes I made to that appointment and was advised for some tests and ultrasounds before the lady with stethoscope could come to any verdict. So that demands a second visit! 

Image Source: facebook and Google

Remembering YOU!

Crossing street can be quite a daunting task especially in the morning hours when the maddening traffic would turn into a nightmare on Delhi Streets. But unfortunately everyone of us has to do that and then would have to complain about the same too.

Usually cars do not catch my fancy.

While juggling to cross the street this morning, a car zipped past me on the street. Nothing special, just a usual car but what caught my attention was the sticker displayed on it. I shook my head when I saw an "In Loving Memory" sticker plastered across its rear window.

What a strange place for a memoriam, I thought. I've thought this dozens of times.

I have often seen messages and names engraved and plastered all over the screens and often have made fun of them too along with my siblings, usually my partners -in- crime. But for the first time saw this kind of message.

For some reason, seeing the lettering fade into the distance on the car jarred me.

In some ways, that's the perfect place for a reminder.

Grief can feel like a deep, unmoving, unmoveable eternity.

But when we start pushing against it, defeating the feeling of losing someone, it begins the natural progression towards a greater movement beyond.

Losing or not losing a loved one is entirely our own prerogative. And when we have made the decision of not losing on love and affection, we can see glimmers of how we carry that person with us in our love.

Adorning the car with something powerful like this is simply great......

and a beautiful way to remind that though I may not hug you again, I still feel you, remember you and take you with me …..everywhere, every moment!

Dadi wala Room!

Two little wrinkled eyes, somewhat sleepy too, waiting for my arrival whenever I was late. The affectionate hands always ready to give me a nice head massage and kick that headache away. My true knight in shining armor, only she had the power to save me from my dad's wrath, even when I did something terribly wrong. My savior when I got really bad grades to even wring my mom's moods. Such is the love of grandma, totally unconditional and colossal. If you have got grandma, you must be knowing the feeling of being pampered and spoilt even if you are not worth it.

Walking through the drawing room is never gonna be same. Because there will be no one now to call my name again and again until I reach her bed post. Because there will be no one who will talk endlessly to me, without listening to my statements, sometimes irritating me but all the time giving endless love. There will be no one who will complain about the salt and spices in the food. There will be no one who will drag the whole house to watch the Mahabharat episode.

Today even after 2 years, since she left us, Dadi ka room has always been and will be Dadi ka room, Dadi ka bed has always been and always will be Dadi ka bed. Slowly we all have become accustomed to live without her but she has been and always will be present in all our joys and celebrations, in our present and future not just as a name but a memory which remains alive as long as we are!