Staying grounded

The old mosaic floor tiles in my house have annoyed me. They have bared the friction for over three decades, and are way beyond their tenure with very visible cavities in the most evident places; like the one right in the middle of the living room or the one next to the sofa. They have lost their shine and charm, growing darker and out of fashion as they withered through the test of time. It embarrasses me when guests during conversations notice it, stopping for just a jiffy, their eyes narrowing to clarify what they had just seen, and then continuing to talk, as their eyes returned to their original shapes and sizes. Some guests are discrete, dropping subtle hints mentioning how the marbled floors of the rooms on the first floor were so beautifully laid, whereas there are others who are more direct; asking when we planned to change the flooring. I understand in a house that looks recently done up, the old withering mosaic floor tiles look archaic, a total mismatch. It was irritating still, when once in a while, my toe would feel the dent as I paced through the room wanting to fetch a glass of water from the kitchen. The house was built by my father over thirty years ago. It was then a modest domicile; a living room, a kitchen, two bedrooms, and one and a half baths. But dad had spent all of his life’s savings on it. The mosaic floors had been fashionable then and from old Polaroid pictures I gather that they didn’t look as bad; the floor did shine and add some character to the antique furniture that we owned then. But over the years the house has gone through several renovations. Shedding its initial modesty, now it is an elegant duplex with three large bedrooms and spacious baths, a study and beautiful balconies with roses and lilies. The flooring is of marble and granite and in other places of vitrified tiles. But for some reason the mosaic tiles in a part of the house, which hadn’t been pulled down during the renovations had stayed; reminding us of the days spent in the smaller house, when my brother and I shared a room, fought for space, when we all watched TV together, fighting for the remote and finally giving in to watch Pranoy Roy read the news at nine, and of times when we all sat together at the dinner table taking turns to talk about the day gone by; those were days when we seemed to have a lot of time for each other. I have now come to understand the meaning of dad’s silence when enquired about the reason for not stripping the floor off these mosaics. It’s a remnant from our earlier life that he wants to hold onto. For these tiles in many ways have kept us all, like they themselves have been for the last three decades, grounded.

Loss of identity

The water cooler stands in the corner of my room, probably mourning over its own loss of identity. I don’t remember the last time we used it. Summers in Bangalore are not as bad as they are in Madras (now Chennai), where we had bought it over fifteen years ago. The day it arrived had been a day of celebration and even greater relief. It had taken most of the space of our modest bedroom of the company quarters we stayed in.”As long as it helps us survive this summer”, dad had added with a smile after we managed to squeeze it in the corner of my parent’s bedroom. The grey symphony cooler was a sight, with its box like shape and its tall iron stand. Its swinging fan and its ability to convert still water to cool breeze had amazed me. I remember telling my friends with a sense of pride that an air conditioner had arrived at home; little did they know that it was only a cooler, the poor man’s answer to an AC. I had slept with my parents through the summer under the fresh breeze of the cooler, the tank of which I had helped fill with water during late evenings. As much as it embarrassed me, sleeping with parents that is, it was a choice that I was ready to make as opposed to sleeping in the sweltering heat in my bed.
The cooler had been one of the few things that we brought back to Bangalore once dad’s tenure in Madras had ended. Now it stands, dull and old, only as a testament to a summer spent in a land whose scorching heat had managed to drive us back. But yet my parents have cringed at the idea of giving it away, without giving any particular reason. So now it has, I am sure, half heartedly slipped into substitute roles of being a table, a storage stand and sometimes even a temporary seat. Much like many of our own lives, that has forced us into roles that we may not be best suited for, but yet have to partake, for in some ways our loss of identity is someone else’s gain.

Faking it for real

I love decorating my house with fresh flowers, buying them from the local florist and then meticulously putting them in glass vases filled with water, adding a pinch of salt to make sure they last longer and then placing them at various places across the house; roses and carnations for the living room and lilies for the bedrooms. My love for natural flowers is only beatable by my mother’s love for the fake ones. Her interest had begun when I’d taken her to a store that sold these fake flowers a few years ago, a decision that I would regret for the rest of my life. She had stood there amazed admiring the beauty of the fake roses, lilies, chrysanthemums, lotuses and hibiscus. She had told me that she had seen many fake flowers but none had been as close to the real ones. She touched them over and over again, sometimes even picking a few to smell them to confirm that they are only a replica. She spent over three hours in the store, picking up a bunch of the roses for the center table in the living room, as we left. Before I knew it, in a few weeks time, the house was filled with flowers bought from the same store. They were all over the house, to my horror, making their presence felt even in the bathroom. I would wince with disgust and request her to put them away. But by then it was too late, she had even inspired a few friends to do the same. Soon more flowers started to arrive as gifts or discount buys. I pointed out to my mother how the house looked like the Lal Bagh fake flower show exhibition had shifted its venue, but all that criticism was only falling to deaf ears.
It’s been a few years since all this happened, and I wish I could tell you that things have changed, that my mother finally grew tired of them and gave them away or a part of the house caught fire and they were all destroyed. But the truth is none of that happened, god did not heed to my prayers. However, I have changed; well not as drastically as liking the fake flowers, but my tolerance towards them has improved. Now I neither detest nor admire them. However, even now, once in a while I walk up to the local florist to buy a bunch of lilies that I place at the most visible part of the living room, admiring it from a distance, knowing that the others can only be substandard substitutes aspiring to match up to its beauty and elegance.

Swatch it

It was a surprise birthday gift, the watch. And it was a Swatch, and a beautiful one, to add to it. With its large round black dial and metallic body, it was exactly what I would have reached out for on the shelf myself. The black square shaped crystals along the strap and the dial, added just the right amount of glamour, without making it over the top. And it did fit perfectly as well, comfortably falling along my wrist.
I have never been into brands, and have lived wearing stuff I pick off the streets, it allows me the bargain, something I enjoyed more than the buy. But then I married a man who was close to crazy about branded watches and owned a collection of it himself. I still remember the look on his face when I told him that I don’t wear watches. I saw him almost reconsider his decision to marry me.
My last watch was my mother’s and I wore it to school. It had stopped working before I left school, but by then I had given up wearing watches. As much as was thrilled to have it, I complained that I was bad at taking care of such expensive gifts. My husband had then disappointedly suggested exchanging it for something else. But when I considered how my otherwise unromantic husband had taken the pain of not only buying the gift in advance but had also waited till the clock stuck twelve on my birthday and given it with a bunch of flowers; I felt that there could be nothing more precious than this.
Since then I wear the watch regularly when I go out. It tells me more than the time of the day, reminding me of all the times that I shared with my husband, the good and the bad, the fights, the resolutions, the love and the laughs. In short, it reminds me that I am very married.
Since then, I received two more watches, both on birthdays. Well, I am not complaining.

30 Things I want to do before I am 30

It's the beginning of another year, and it's over 2 years that I blogged. So I thought I should start off with something exciting. I turned 28 just a month ago. I remember, it was onlya few years ago that I thought that 28 was really old, I would call a 28 year old 'aunty'. Today I am quite there. Don't get me wrong, I am not the kind who dislikes aging, more like I am waiting to grey :P , buts it’s the pace of time that fascinates me. So, in another 2 years I will be 30, and that's when life really begins! So here are a few thingsI want to to prepare for that day...Happy New year guys!

30 Things I want to do before I am 30

1. Do some social work that can light up a few lives
2. Send dad and mom on a vacation.
3. Be a better writer.
4. Run a marathon
5. Seawalk in Bali
6. Bungee Jump
7. Make a snowman
8. Create a dream home: Simple and sweet
9. Read more
10. Take a holiday alone
11. Do my masters
12. Learn to swim
13. Travel: Calcutta, Paris , Italy and Safari in Africa
14. Throw a party and invite all those who matter the most
15. Go back to learning French
16. Quit the job that I dislike
17. Learn a musical instrument
18. Hit my ideal weight
19. Plant at least 50 trees , and care for them
20. Take a break from work
21. Pull off a surprise party for S
22. Worry less, enjoy more
23. Learn to cook a decent meal
24. Get a makeover
25. Witness a meteor shower
26. Ride an elephant
27. Fly
28. Practice Yoga
29. Learn to drive a car…again
30. Adopt a child :)

Builders and Planters

An anonymous text from the tradition says that , in life, each person can take one of the two attitudes:to build or to plan.The builders might take years over their tasks , but one day, they finish what they are doing.Then they find they have hemmed in by their own walls.Life looses its meaning when the building stops.
Then there are those who plant.They endure storms and all the many vicissitudes of the season, and they rarely rest. But unlike a building, a garden never stops growing.And while it requires the gardener's constant attention, it also allows life for the gardener to be a great adventure.
Gardeners always recognize each other, because they know that in teh history of each plant lies the growth of the whole world.
From current read:Brida by Paulo Coelho

HAVE A GREAT DAY!

Happy Onam

Wish u all a onam filled with Flowers,prayers,laughters and a yummmy onasadya :)