I always wanted a happy ending... Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.
--Gilda Radner
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Brand New Day
Happy New Year y'all!
How have things been? My year end was super fabulous with family and friends trooping in for the holiday season. Had a fun time chattering away, eating, partying, eating, looking at the lights on Park Street, eating, buying cakes at New market, eating, going to the races and winning (yay!), eating, laughing so much that I could barely catch a breath...I loooooooooooooooove this season.
Another year races past...but this time I have something to show for it.
After months of moaning and groaning about it, I finally changed my job. I am yet to make up my mind about the new place but I am glad to be out of the old one. A change in the professional scene was sorely needed. There is just so much to learn every time one makes a fresh start. Better than feeling jaded. I just wonder why I didn't do this sooner.
I stopped dreaming (only) and started doing some other things also. These may not seem major but are again activities which I had been procrastinating about for ages.
I joined a gym. So far the mental feel-good factor has been higher than the physical one (it's much tougher than I thought) but am glad I went ahead and did something to keep fit. I have also begun to be careful about what I eat, though I must admit that matters have been less than successful. Still, made a start.
Also finally doing something to reignite some half-extinguished linguistic skills. Learning French. This is going well so far though again it is tougher than I imagined (think French grammar).
So all in all, I feel it's been a good year (touchwood!)...family doing okay, made new friends, learnt lots of new things, tried out new stuff...
Mantra for this year: 'every day in every way, I get better and better.' :)
How have things been? My year end was super fabulous with family and friends trooping in for the holiday season. Had a fun time chattering away, eating, partying, eating, looking at the lights on Park Street, eating, buying cakes at New market, eating, going to the races and winning (yay!), eating, laughing so much that I could barely catch a breath...I loooooooooooooooove this season.
Another year races past...but this time I have something to show for it.
After months of moaning and groaning about it, I finally changed my job. I am yet to make up my mind about the new place but I am glad to be out of the old one. A change in the professional scene was sorely needed. There is just so much to learn every time one makes a fresh start. Better than feeling jaded. I just wonder why I didn't do this sooner.
I stopped dreaming (only) and started doing some other things also. These may not seem major but are again activities which I had been procrastinating about for ages.
I joined a gym. So far the mental feel-good factor has been higher than the physical one (it's much tougher than I thought) but am glad I went ahead and did something to keep fit. I have also begun to be careful about what I eat, though I must admit that matters have been less than successful. Still, made a start.
Also finally doing something to reignite some half-extinguished linguistic skills. Learning French. This is going well so far though again it is tougher than I imagined (think French grammar).
So all in all, I feel it's been a good year (touchwood!)...family doing okay, made new friends, learnt lots of new things, tried out new stuff...
Mantra for this year: 'every day in every way, I get better and better.' :)
Friday, December 30, 2011
Achy breaky heart
I feel that heartbreak need not be absolute or immediate. Or about love. Sometimes its just the small things that chip away at you. Till you feel a piece of you crumble. And you know you just lost something irretrievable. A small bit of sunshine and a smile or two.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Non sequitur
Loudspeaker blaring Shehnai music, bunch of labourers apparently annihilating the house next door, Labrador barking itself into a frenzy, train whistle competing for top spot, car honking from alpha to omega...just some of the sounds assailing the ears this morning.
How can I possibly hear myself think!
How can I possibly hear myself think!
******
AMRI fire tragedy a reminder of how close we all walk to the shadow of death. Disaster can strike anytime and at any place. Most of the time we are saved by just dumb luck. And we don't even realise it. But to see the healer turn into hellhound is a betrayal too hard to get over.
******
It's almost the middle of December and winter is yet to visit the city properly. It's just pleasant weather now though some people insist on bringing out the monkey caps. In a strange way its also tedious, this in-between feeling. This is not what we planned for.
Like life.
******
I am doing too many things. Sometimes that's how I want it to be. Sometimes all I want to do is nothing.
J'apprends le francais. I am learning French. I had a sort of crash course during my post grads but it was more like a fling than a serious affair. But I like languages and I thought I would love to learn this one better. I am enjoying the classes having finally made time for them. The fly in the ointment are the timings - I spend half of my weekends in French class. Not a model that can be sustained for long methinks.
Sometimes I want to go to all the parties this season, visit all the fetes and galas, listen to the choirs...I don't know how else I will really be able to feel this season.
Sometimes I want to just take a long break from work and sit quietly warming my toes in the sun or reading a novel snuggled up in bed...I don't know how else I will really be able to feel this season.
******
The other morning I hopped on to a rickshaw since I was getting late for work. As it wound through some narrow side streets, I suddenly heard someone singing loudly.."Jaane kahaan gaye woh din..."(wonder where those days have gone). I turned to see who it was - the local butcher sitting in his dingy workroom slaughtering chickens.
Life can be so surreal sometimes.
******
Monday, October 24, 2011
Excess baggage
Much to my surprise, I have begun to gain weight.
The surprise stems from the fact that I have spent several of my growing years bracketed as ‘skinny’ before reaching respectable proportions. When I was in school, my mother tried feeding me every weight gain potion and tonic she could find. I did my bit by doing weightlifting with water bottles and trying to develop a love for food apart from French fries. Finally, by the time I started my post grads, I had reached a stage where I no longer needed to celebrate the emergence of a new kg on the weighing scale. (Earlier I used to treat my friends to chocolates when this happened!)
Once I started working, I thought nothing of eating out at the drop of a hat. I love cheese and junk food and saw no reason not to indulge myself. I knew weight gain was not something that came easily to me. The battle of the bulge was the farthest thing from my mind much to the envy of my peer group. I say all this to give some idea of how alien my current situation feels to me. It is only in the last couple of years that I have begun to feel a slowdown in my metabolism. It took me a while to accept the idea that, yes, I was indeed sliding down the road to plumpness. The numbers on the weighing scale are inching upwards as the cheeseburst pizzas and zinger burgers begin to catch up with me.
For a long while it was just enough to look at people around me and think that at least I was not ‘that’ fat (you know what I mean?). But I couldn’t deceive myself any longer after I realized I could no longer wear some of my favourite clothes. After spending months simply ‘thinking’ about diet and exercise, I joined a gym. I decided that food was one of the greatest pleasures left to man and I couldn’t, simply couldn’t, starve myself or stay away from my favourite dishes. I joined the neighbourhood gym with a lot of gusto, the vision of a slimmer me, crystal clear in my head.
My enthusiasm and energy didn’t last long. I was waking up at the unearthly hour of 7am to go to the gym which was run by a couple of ladies in their home. The challenge of waking early was daunting enough. Coupled with a ‘no pressure’, homely atmosphere it led to a serious lack of enthusiasm. I needed to know that I was burning fat, I wanted to know which muscles I was building up, I needed something more motivating. So I dropped out after a couple of weeks and began to search in earnest for a ‘proper’ gym. After much research and deliberation, I joined a gym near my office. I reasoned it had to be close to my home or my office if I was going to go there regularly. I also decided to go after work to avoid the problem of waking up early.
This gym has all the works. (Which it should, considering that it’s the most expensive one in the whole city!) They have the latest machines, a trainer to guide you and monitor your progress, steam rooms etc. Once I make it there, it’s all good. I exercise for nearly an hour and a half and while my body realizes just how out of shape it is, I get the satisfaction of knowing that I am actually doing something to correct the problem. Afterward, I drag my exhausted self into a cab and lie there like a zombie as some semblance of life slowly creeps back into me.
But. This entire scenario only works if I actually make it to the gym. I have discovered in myself an unfortunate tendency to dream up a multitude of reasons not to exercise on any given day. More often than not, I feel sorry for my poor self stuck in office the whole day. A minion of the corporate powers, my salvation seems to lie in making a run for home and hearth as soon as possible (or having a Wicked Brownie at the nearby Barista). So now I spend a bomb on my gym membership to satisfy some twisted part of my mind. My exercise in the last week has been confined to shopping for gym clothes and reading articles on the internet about treadmills and exercycles and lat pulleys…
But ……….today is a new day and as I write this, the spirit of my slimmer self is strong in me. I want to be her again…Watch out gym, here I come!
The surprise stems from the fact that I have spent several of my growing years bracketed as ‘skinny’ before reaching respectable proportions. When I was in school, my mother tried feeding me every weight gain potion and tonic she could find. I did my bit by doing weightlifting with water bottles and trying to develop a love for food apart from French fries. Finally, by the time I started my post grads, I had reached a stage where I no longer needed to celebrate the emergence of a new kg on the weighing scale. (Earlier I used to treat my friends to chocolates when this happened!)
Once I started working, I thought nothing of eating out at the drop of a hat. I love cheese and junk food and saw no reason not to indulge myself. I knew weight gain was not something that came easily to me. The battle of the bulge was the farthest thing from my mind much to the envy of my peer group. I say all this to give some idea of how alien my current situation feels to me. It is only in the last couple of years that I have begun to feel a slowdown in my metabolism. It took me a while to accept the idea that, yes, I was indeed sliding down the road to plumpness. The numbers on the weighing scale are inching upwards as the cheeseburst pizzas and zinger burgers begin to catch up with me.
For a long while it was just enough to look at people around me and think that at least I was not ‘that’ fat (you know what I mean?). But I couldn’t deceive myself any longer after I realized I could no longer wear some of my favourite clothes. After spending months simply ‘thinking’ about diet and exercise, I joined a gym. I decided that food was one of the greatest pleasures left to man and I couldn’t, simply couldn’t, starve myself or stay away from my favourite dishes. I joined the neighbourhood gym with a lot of gusto, the vision of a slimmer me, crystal clear in my head.
My enthusiasm and energy didn’t last long. I was waking up at the unearthly hour of 7am to go to the gym which was run by a couple of ladies in their home. The challenge of waking early was daunting enough. Coupled with a ‘no pressure’, homely atmosphere it led to a serious lack of enthusiasm. I needed to know that I was burning fat, I wanted to know which muscles I was building up, I needed something more motivating. So I dropped out after a couple of weeks and began to search in earnest for a ‘proper’ gym. After much research and deliberation, I joined a gym near my office. I reasoned it had to be close to my home or my office if I was going to go there regularly. I also decided to go after work to avoid the problem of waking up early.
This gym has all the works. (Which it should, considering that it’s the most expensive one in the whole city!) They have the latest machines, a trainer to guide you and monitor your progress, steam rooms etc. Once I make it there, it’s all good. I exercise for nearly an hour and a half and while my body realizes just how out of shape it is, I get the satisfaction of knowing that I am actually doing something to correct the problem. Afterward, I drag my exhausted self into a cab and lie there like a zombie as some semblance of life slowly creeps back into me.
But. This entire scenario only works if I actually make it to the gym. I have discovered in myself an unfortunate tendency to dream up a multitude of reasons not to exercise on any given day. More often than not, I feel sorry for my poor self stuck in office the whole day. A minion of the corporate powers, my salvation seems to lie in making a run for home and hearth as soon as possible (or having a Wicked Brownie at the nearby Barista). So now I spend a bomb on my gym membership to satisfy some twisted part of my mind. My exercise in the last week has been confined to shopping for gym clothes and reading articles on the internet about treadmills and exercycles and lat pulleys…
But ……….today is a new day and as I write this, the spirit of my slimmer self is strong in me. I want to be her again…Watch out gym, here I come!
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Oh Captain, my Captain!
Recently saw Captain America: The first Avenger. While the movie wasn't so great (even though am a sucker for superheroes), I rediscovered Chris Evans.
Is he a fine piece of eye candy or what? :)
Image courtesy: Google
Is he a fine piece of eye candy or what? :)
Image courtesy: Google
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