Starry destiny

I do not believe that someone can foretell your future...what is destined for you. Nonetheless I am curious by constitution. So I'd be lying if I told you I have never been to a soothsayer. It's amazing how they predict what lies in store in your future. Sometimes, it's utterly untrue, as has happened in several instances, and on some rare occasions they actually turn out to be true. And the latter part is what fascinates me the most. Can our stars/planetary positions indeed determine our destiny. Are we destined in merely the starry way? The answer, I believe, isn't so simplistic. I hear there's science involved. But if one could foretell one's destiny ever so nonchalantly, as someone did, very recently, what is it that i can do to make my own destiny? Can I never make my own destiny? Are we, really always, born with it? I still wonder at that unnerving thought...the idea that I have no control over my future, it's predetermined, preordained and that possibility is jarring indeed.

Blissfulness

Bliss...

1) Sitting in a shack, by the sea, and absolutely doing nothing (imagine Goa!)

2) Lying next to my partner, when my eyes meet his...no words said, yet meaning the world.

3) Feeling the happiness of my parents when I am around.

4) The pride in delivering a successful project at work after sleepless days and nights.

5) Travelling to places just to explore, experience and absorb.

6) A meetha paan after a heavy meal.

7) Just his smile, when he's happy, and when we are together.

8) Feeling wanted and needed by best friend.

9) Kadak masala chai on a monsoon ridden day.

10) Just being 'me' with people I love.

Motion

Even when I am surrounded by family and friends, I feel dislocated. It haunts me...this itchiness of not belonging anywhere, yet being somewhere. I try my level best to consume my surroundings, be a part of where I am, but incongruably I can never feel static. It's motion that drives me, gearing for the next big challenge, the next big change...will there ever come a time when I want to halt, take a breather, live life in one place...I doubt if that time's going to be anytime soon...

Adios, London.

I leave London day after. I have been in this city for more than a year, and to say the least, this place has taught me, given me a new horizon to a life I had never seen before. As I head back home, I know I have grown as a person...I have actually blossomed into who I want to be, have realised what really makes me happy, and what brings me happiness. I would always be grateful for the opportunity of having been here. Exposure nonetheless, I have learnt to value the smaller things of life...value where I truly belong and value things that I have always ignored before.
I don't know if London has made me a better person, but it has indeed aided me to becoming more complete. Understanding priorities, being self-reliant, loving and being loved too...
Adios to one of the most expensive cities of the world, and one that you need to explore yourself to know what life here really holds and what you ultimately want...

MUM-LHR-MUM

So, I was just lazing on the couch, flipping around with a zippo and leafing through FB pages, when my partner asked this rather humble, but indescribably deep question: 'Your heart isn't here [London], right? You want to be in B'bay...that's where your heart is...'
My first reaction was: I wish even I knew where my heart belonged.
Will my heart, actually ever belong to a particular city, location, destination?
I grew up and so far spent the better half of my life in Kolkata, literally 'grew up' in Pune, matured in Mumbai, learnt and experienced in London...and now back to same old B'bay. The question is, this time around how much more mature will the 'city of dreams' make me?
Growing up, indeed, am sure will continue in B'bay...but is that where my heart truly belongs, then? I wish I knew. But until then, probably it's my next, but not last stop. It's only a stopover.
And the day I figure what I want/desire as my city, my destination, I will not be the same nomadic soul...

The calm

The sudden calm encapsulates you, driving you towards numbness. Do you like it, enjoy it, be one with the subliminal being of not who you are? Not really. But you continue, hoping that the storm can be stalled...forever. One can only hope that the gush of wind doesn't drive you away, from where you cannot be brought back...too far away...out of reach and out of sight....

Dilemma

It's strange...the ways of life and the very essence of living. A winding path that brings you to a threshold that you least expected. Certain ways of your very being will change forever, giving you a perspective of life that you chose to experience...will that change who you really are?I hope not.

A legendary date

The melee of people would have otherwise been claustrophobic. But today was a different day. If you are an admirer of musical legends, then this would be one of those days when everything's 'wonderful' with 'layla' and 'cocaine'.
For me, it was an impulse buy - a ticket to the concert at Hyde Park featuring Eric Clapton on June 28, 2008. I am in London and it's my first summer here, so I just wanted to experience the outdoors in the typically 'London fashion'. Be out in the sun, picnic-ing in the park with friends and listening to some classic music.
The doors to the Hard Rock concert opened at 1 pm sharp. It was an atypical bright and hot day. The crowd only got thicker with every passing hour. My friend and I were in by 2.30. We found ourselves a delectable location (it was right in front of the big screen!) and suitably positioned ourselves to experience the legend.
John Mayer came and so did Sheryl Crow soaking up the sun. By this time, unwantingly tanning myself (read: burning myself) in the utterly scorching English June sun, I waited for the Man. No money in tow (I'd overspent buying the ticket), all I could afford was a measly couple of beers trying vainly to beat the heat. And vain, it indeed was...I was dark brown by the time the legend took to stage.
But if you were to ask me, was all the gruelling pain and fun worth it, after all. Yes, it totally was! Coz it was a legendary date. The electrifying fingers and the mellifluous melody were enough to make it all worthwhile. Some people reign the world with only talent. Eric Clapton is one of them and to witness a legend perform live is an experience to be treasured forever.
It was 'wonderful tonight' with 'cocaine'.

Dancing to the beat

It's strange how you meet people and then there comes a point in time you know you will probably not meet them ever...in your lifetime. And nothing seems to change, you just move on with the flow, get back to normalcy and meet some more people.
In the last few months I have met so many such people, seen so many faces. And yet I know, only a few I will remember and even fewer I will be in touch with. Are we living in a superficial world imbued with cynicism. I know not if its generic. But it definitley seems relevant to me.
As I said earlier, life goes on...unstoppable...in its own rhythm and we all try too hard to dance right to that beat.

Tiring tides

Have you ever reached a point in your life when all you want to do is just go to sleep? And you don't quite know when you'd actually want to wake up. That state, whether it's common or not, is something I am desperately experiencing now, today, this hour, this minute and moment.
I just want to stop. Like how a period works at the end of a sentence. I am exhausted. And that's probably an understatement. I have reached the state of zombie-dom!
It's that point when you want to give up on everything, and it stems, I realise from tiredness - the energy to push yourself beyond and reach out satiated, you no longer have the urge to do the 'pushing' anymore.
And God knows, I really have no idea how to 'push' myself now. Should I just let go, let things be, let calm encompass me the way destiny holds, or should I still fight?
Exhausted indeed, I am.

Balancing act

I am exhausted. Simply trying to balance - balance work with school, balance health with household chores, balance relationships and balance life. Just how easy is it for people to say: Balance is the key! Prioritise! For anyone and everyone who ever reads this, if balance was so smooth and so effortless to muster, there'd be no imbalance in life, would there? And trust me, balance is not something that's easy to come.
Balancing the thread of life - I just hope I learn that soon enough. I still struggle, and desperately so. I'm still wearing my balancing shoes and I have a few more lessons to go before I become a pro. If I ever do, that is...

Existentialism

It's actually been a while since I last hit upon 'my' site! So tonight, I decided to give myself some time. I have been in London for more than six months and sometimes it feels like an era...and at times, I feel like running back to what I left. And then there are times when, in the hustle bustle of 'life', you just forget to live. Am I living? I mean yes...breathing, eating, sleeping, working, and doing the normal things. But the question is: Am I living my life? Or am I wasting it fearing about the future, contemplating about the present and recuperating from the nostalgia of the past.
So what next? And therein lies the mysteries of existence...what tomorrow holds, you'll never know today, and if you do, then what's the point of living tommorrow. Vague? I am.

Bitter pill

Life often has this obnoxious habit of bringing you to a threshold...a crossing where every direction seems to take you nowhere. And that situation, simply put, is frustrating. The bitter pill!
Sometimes I actually envy people living in oblivion...and I know a couple of such beings. I often wonder what's in their constitution and if I could emulate even a tiny bit, I'd probably not be sitting here, writing this. Life would be so much simpler.
But then again, I'd not be me, then, would I? Who cares either way? Or does someone?

'Me' paradise!

The tumultous wait, the arbid conversations, the haphazard planning, the impromptu decisions and all of these put together led me to Goa. It's one of those places I can never get enough of...the more I go there, the more the place enchants me, trapping me in this seminal state where I just want to be in 'my' paradise.
The Konkan rail ride was less than exotic. Travelling in sleeper class, bumping into strange faces, not wasting more than a minute for nature's calls...trying to avoid the cockroach infested bunks and beating the cold in the night weren't a good start. Strangely enough, for me, it was. Coz the guileless want to reach the destination was undesigned. It was beautiful and fun and amusing.
As I sat in the 10-seater matador (which by the way we managed to get at a steal price), headed towards Calangute, my eyes spanned the Goa landscape...the fields, the coconut plantations, the tiny by-lanes and the delectable cottages...what more can you picture in a paradise. Till you hit the sea and beach!
What's amazing about this location is that its eclectic, versatile, mindboggling. On the one hand, you experience peace and quiet, sit back on a leaning chair in the Candolim beach, sip some fresh coconut water, watch the sun set and life comes to a perfect stand still. On the other end of the spectrum, in Anjuna, people rave till dawn, past midday and sunset. And what bewilders me is this one place can make anyone under the bright red sun happy and blissful.
Goa, for me, was a mixed bag of memories. Some that I will cherish forever. The never-ending walk with my friends trying to locate an elusive shack, the unforgettable kinetic ride with my partner, treasured moments as we walked down the beach on a starry night in search of solitude and yes, of course some 'crazy' parties!
I have realised I will probably never feel so free spirited anywhere else in the world but Goa, in spite of all the obvious obligations. I can't explain why. Probably its the atmosphere and the environs that blow me away. The timelessness of waves, the setting sun, the first ray of light hitting upon the sand and the rocks, the maze of open fields...Paradise! I probably love Goa more, not because of what it is, but the capacity it has to make me what I am when I'm there...a free bird.