Love of water

I'm a water person..I L.O.V.E being in touch with water. Be it drenching in the rain or feeling the crash of waves in the beach or simply washing legs every now and then and allowing the water to dry up by itself, I simply love being in contact with water.  My better half is just the opposite of me. While I love to hold hand in hand and simply feel the waves in the beach, he prefers to stay back and simply enjoy. At home, you can find him frowning when I get don't dry up properly after a wash. I like to allow the wet area to dry up by itself rather than using a towel, especially the legs.

And while cooking, I keep going to the sink every now and then , even to simply re-re wash the washed utensils before using. It's my habit to wash legs before retiring for the day , even during cold winter nights. S hates it when I climb the bed with wet legs. I like to splash water on my face every now and then, just that I forget in the humdrum of everyday routine. Even on the face, I like it when I wipe it off partially and allow droplets of water or the wetness to remain in the face in certain portions sometimes. Just to avoid unnecessary questions from people, I forcefully wipe off all the water. ( I wonder why people have to notice every minute detail and still be vocal about it. Hmph.)

While it  gives me joy is to just take in the drizzle of the rain, the smell of the wet ground just after the rain is something that I love too. Not to mention the cool breeze just before the rain. In Bangalore, I wait for the first rains after the summer months . Even for drinking, I hate colas and would choose water on any day. Rain and Water, please do bless us with the quantity that we require and kindly bestow the wisdom in humans to conserve water.

How were you 2013?

Dear 2013 ,

 Hope you are now taking good rest and browsing/reading through all your report cards from many of us around the world. Even if you dont receive a report card from the rest, please make sure to rewind, introspect what you had done and better give 2014 a sound advice and you need to guide 2014 to not commit the same mistakes that you are your fore-fathers committed. And for all the nice, happy stuff that you have done, please make sure to tell 2014 to double them up. Ok?

You saw us drag the selling of our house and eventually sold it off and we booked a flat in your year. You also saw us move into an apartment and you saw me adjust to living with less privacy than before. Thanks to you, I seem to have adjusted to it decently. You also made us explore the city to quarters that we have not ventured out, especially when it comes to searching a home for us to move in and Thanks to you for providing us an opportunity to live in a residential neighborhood with close proximity to day to day needs.

Job wise, it was a mixed bag. Thanks to you for moving me out of a project that was occupying most of the time that I was awake. You gave me opportunity to interact with seniors and long-timers in the organisation and improve my so called visibility. But, I didn't use it properly cos you put me into a difficult situation of having to decide between job and home. Nevertheless, Thanks for the opportunity given and please provide many such opportunities in the future and help me to make the use of it. A promotion was on the cards, but never happened. It would have been a good recognition if you had provided me one and that would have boosted my morale. You delayed the yearly hike and when it came, it was meagre. This again put me down and made me ponder if there is any use at all to the hard work. Instead may be I should have taken it not-so-seriously and taken care of my personal life.

Health wise, I undertook ayurvedic treatments for 5 months only to have no visible result in the end. Wasted a few months with a Dr who was trying a medication on me. Wish I had the good sense not to get into this one. Exercise was at an all time low and first half of the year I went on to make sure I didnt consume too much of junk food, but later part of the year saw me gorge on anything and everything.

Mental health wise, gosh, 2013, I went into a depression for a few months, those months were pathetic, with no interest in any damn thing, neither did I want to go to office nor be at home. Neither did I feel like going out nor eating. This phase showed visible deterioration in health and I looked literally sick and pathetic to look at myself in the mirror. I understood what real depression means and realised probably this is what drives people to take extreme  decisions in life. Please 2013, ask all of your forthcoming generations to NOT put me into this situation ever. EVER! Ok? I did come out of it , but it was so damn difficult and find that my solace is in spirituality and holding on to the Supreme Power stronger than before.

Spiritually, Thankfully, you gave us the opportunity to visit our Kula Theivam temple after more than 2 years. Dear Sai Baba, from a non-believer (I hate to say this), I moved in to your fold. Please accept me and please dont let go of me. I happened to get to know more about the miracles and wonders by HHMaha Periyavaa  and became his devotee (If I may call myself that, though I dont know if I'm fit enough to call myself thus). Following a few rituals which I believed in helped me tide through the rough patches in 2013 , but there were many moments, where I doubted the existence of any Supreme Power . I went searching for what to hold on to and finally kept coming back to God.

Family: Sister joined post-grad and she moved from home to stay in hostel. So, both of us having flown the nest, Amma and Appa found it a bit difficult and kept calling us to visit every now and then. I made few visits this years compared to the past , but went on a longer duration than before. But, time is never enough when you visit parents and I seem to get more home-sick these days more than I ever felt at college. Sigh! I would like to think S and I fought less this year , though I'm not sure if S would agree to this. Rather I should say, I reconciled soon after a fight or argument and made peace :):) Relationship with MIL did not improve to a great extent, but nevertheless, I have come to accept the way she is and am training myself to ignore those that I dont like and not to judge . Long to way, but still, attempting..

Food : I cooked more than the previous years during the weekends ,attempted to be better than previous years, not too many new restaurants were tried, (a separate post on this), we kept going back to Rajdhani if we craved for North Indian fare. Otherwise, kept visiting the places where we have tried and tested to satisfy the sudden craving every now and then.

I lost a dear family friend who joined our family to look after my fathers mother. she jelled with our family too quickly and was so sweet a lady who was always smiling and had a cheerful disposition all the time. Her thoughts continue to linger in our minds and I hope she comes back as my daughter. Anandhi aaaya, you are loved and please do come back as my daughter to be with us.

2013, I wished you blessed me with a child , nevertheless, please do guide make sure 2014 showers us this Blessing , ok?

Bye 2013, Welcome 2014. Here's to good health, peace and happiness for one and all.

Welcome 2014 !!

And May 2014 bring out the best in all of us in what we do and may it shower us good health, peace and happiness :)

SM's Must-follow resolutions for 2014:

•  Have unwavering faith and Trust in the Supreme Power and have faith that He will take care of you and develop the courage and will to accept whatever he gives You.
• Try and Be Positive . Look at glass a half-full. Be grateful and thankful for what you have
• Dont brood about the past or worry about the future. Try and Live in the present.
• Temper: Try to take control over temper. Take a deep breath, drink water, close your eyes and look through the situation or whatever tactic you want to use, use it and just don't allow temper to take control of you. 

Miscellaneous resolutions which are also a "must-do"

• Exercise regularly : Do yoga and walking at least 5 days a week
• Cut down on junk food
• Dont bother what MIL will say or the world will say. Just do your duty, dont worry about what others will say or do.

Resolutions: This very word has been a part of my life not only on New Years, but on many occasions. I'm known to making resolutions starting from "I wont log in to facebook for next 2 months", "I will not eat junk food for next 2 weeks", "I will try and control my temper and not utter pessimistic words for next 10 days in a row", "S, I wont fight with you, ie, I will not start a fight with you for next 1 month :)", "S, I wont ask you for any help like filling the water in the jug at night ", "I will keep my cup-board clean for next 1 month" etc..While I should say I have attempted to keep up with these resolutions most of the times, I have slipped or given up many times and made re-resolutions too:) . The resolution which I have consistently not tried following is " being in touch with friends/family/well-wishers".My very limited well wishers have got pissed off with me because I dont keep in touch with them often. I would like to change this a bit this year. 

So, lets hope all of us try our best to keep up our resolutions and reap all the goodness coming from it :) Hers to 2014 :) :)

7-12-13

On a cool Saturday morning, I woke up early and took over the kitchen (It has become more a routine that , especially during weekends, whosoever starts any work related to cooking first, gets to finish it too:), Yes, incentive for initiating the process :)). In an attempt to give the MIL a break and to let S and MIL have the honor (in reality, its giving them a punishment) of eating food cooked by moi, I try as much as possible to wake up early and take over the kitchen on weekends. One such cold Saturday was last one where I started making mental preparation of what to cook, which utensils to use, in which order to cook etc. I wanted to make use of the fresh veggies that I had bought during my trip to Malleshwaram and started with full gusto. I was in full swing pelting out curries, sambhar and when it was time for rasam, I wanted to make tangy lemon rasam and looked up at few cooking blogs to look out for which I could follow..And all was ready and I put the "eeya sombu" in the gas and poured a little ghee in it and before I could just lift my eyes and take the tomato crush and pour in it, I saw that the base of the sombu had become separated from the top portion..Let me post the picture here, later. What a shocker!! I was so scared to inform this to MIL , for this one, I knew it was gifted to her by her maternal side. S was so cool and just dismissed off and went back to watching cricket after commenting "This is just a piece of utensil, forget it,lets buy a new one".  The fact that a utensil has got burnt and has become unusable did nt bother me as much as the piece being a gift/ome sentiments attached to it. Anyways, I revealed this super duper act of mine and mil was quite cool. She just said that we need to be careful with "eeya paathrams" as they get burned quite easily if kept empty  in the gas stove. The first thing she asked when she saw was "Did you keep the paathram without water/contents in the stove"? , and I simply had to nod my head :)

In my culinary experiments (btw, I have never touched the stove or had anything to do with cooking before wedding.) so far, I have had quite a few adventures with utensils getting burnt, cooker included, milk overflowing, having a mini fire while doing the tadka etc, but never rendering a utensil unusable ..And so this is also marked off. ..So, whoever reads this, please be careful if you use "eeya pathram". Probably, this advice needs to be given only to me., that everyone else is well aware of this :)

5-12-13

I better mark this, before I forget..

My friend and I sneaked from the office (hey, it was actually not bunking, instead of returing home after the team outing, we went on or girls outing :):) and went on half-a-day outing to Malleshwaram.

 We have been planning this for a year now and finally, we made it on this day. and I'm going out with a girl - friend company after a very long time . With no laptop bags to carry, it was such a cool thing to simply roam around, check out things, debate what we were going to buy, when to buy (buy now or buy when we come the next round:) ), impulsive shopping, window shopping, bargaining, a quick bite here and there, my friend filling me with details of her regular haunts , and finally reaching home at 8:30 in the night! We behaved like college going girls , didnt bother to inform  our families and roamed around in a slow, lesiurely pace..What fun it was..Do I need to mention what a good break it was from the regular routine..

Yay!! My first blog award!!

Thanks a ton, Tharani !! Tharani of  Roller Coaster Ride fame  fame gave me the first award in the blog world! :) . I'm all glee. And sorry , sorry for being so late (: in receiving and acknowledging  the first award..

Without much ado, let me take the award and do the tag .



The rules are:

Rule 1: Each nominee must link back the person who nominated them.
           Linked above in my Thank you note :)
Rule 2: Answer 10 questions given to you by the nominator

Q 1)  What does your name mean?
           I have two names, one is the name of a Goddess and the meaning of other name is "beautiful, elegant" (ahem, ahem).

Q 2) What are your hobbies?
            Hobbies vary from time to time. Last few years, it has been books, very recently, some dabbling with painting, prior to that, was hooked to music.

Q 3) According to you, what was the driving force that let you into the blogging world?
           My husband , S introduced me to the blog world,he himself had a blog where he religiously wrote about cricket and some more cricket and economics and some general stuff. During my miscarriages, I've been hooked to mommy-blogs and in an attempt to jot down all the rambling that goes in my mind, I started various blogs, deleted them in due course and finally trying to stick on here. In short, driving force is : I like the idea of having an online journal to vent, to record whats happening in my life and what goes on in my mind.

Q 4) What was the most recent compliment you’ve received and savoured?
            Most recent one(y'day) was that one of my team members said he felt good being in my company. I felt glad hearing this .

Q 5) What are the top three qualities that draw you to someone new?
             Honesty, sense of humor, and being simple without showing any airs.

Q 6) If you could eliminate one weakness or limitation in your life, what would it be?
             Indecisiveness!! Ahhh.A few years back, I would have said , temper. Not that I have become all that patient and saadhu-sant types, but life has thrown me many a lemony situations and I've tried to be patient and hope to get better at it..But this one, the indecisiveness, I need to start doing something about it.

Q 7)  What was the best news you ever received?
            Quite some , like when I topped the class/school/district in 10th/12th, on seeing two pink lines (though the news was a happy one only for a short duration, the first time I saw, it was indeed the best news) in the preg test card, when sis got through the B-school etc. But, at this point, I would say, still waiting for the bestest news :)

Q 8) If you could hold on to just one memory from your life forever, what would that be?
             Again, quite a few, cant pin-point on one (: . But one memory that is probably in the top few is : When my rakhi brother (We were colleagues turned friends turned brother-sister)  said to a U.S colleague that he and I have two mothers. That particular incident, the way he casually and instantly  made this statement simply touched me.

Q 9) What’s your favorite dessert?
             I have a sweet-tooth and hence will name a few: The most favorite changes from season-to-season. The current one is Chocolate Burfi from Krishna sweets . Otherwise, it is  Jangiri  (from Sumathy Sweets), Carrot Halwa, Fig-o-Honey Icecream from Corner House, Amritsar Ki Pinni (from Anand Sweets) .

Q 10) What are the top three things on your bucket list?
           - To wake up early and go for a walk,if not everyday, atleast 5 days a week.
           - Train my mind to be optimistic always,try to see the glass as half-full
           - Learn a foreign language

Rule 3: Nominate up to 10 other bloggers for this award who have less than 200 followers.
            I pass on this award to :
            Sri ,
            Visha and
            Kismi
All of them are great bloggers and words simply flow from them wonderfully.

Rule 4: Create 10 questions for your nominees to answer.
    I give them all the freedom to add more questions to the above list :) :)

Rule 5. Let the nominees know that they have been nominated by going to their blog and notifying them.
     Going to their blog now to inform them.

Thank you again Tharani :) 

And then, we moved - Here's to new beginnings

 After half  decade of living  in the previous house , we shifted our residence this November. After deliberating over it for a loong time, the need to move , where to move etc, we finally found our new home and moved in the first week of November. Since it had been a loong time since we did the packing-unpacking settling business, I kept pushing away the thoughts until the day of the shifting ..S, who is generally a systematic person also didn't bother about it until the last day.

Only when we started packing , did we realize how much of material stuff have we accumulated over the years. We did isolate the stuff that needs to be given away , even after this, there were mounds and piles of stuff that needed to be carried to the new house.

I was constantly admonished for collecting stuff and not letting-go of stuff. What can I do about the little souvenirs, knick-knacks that serve as memories of growing up years, gifts given by friends - though you don't use them, don't want to throw or give away as you want to keep them in their remembrance, the phone diary which you used when you were a teenager , the steel eating plate that your grandma had given lovingly , the first gift that you got from your rakhi-brother (though the top has become faded and one size shorter ), S's T-shirt which I love the most (he handed me this and a couple more to be given away 2 years ago, but I'm unable to let-go of it), and the list goes on.. Not to mention the stack of greeting cards,letters and other random stuff.

It wouldn't take a minute to just let-go of all of these, but will I willingly do it? Am I a hoarder? Why am I clinging to all of these? I wouldn't have even bothered to take a look at most of these all these years, but the thought that they are "there" seems to be satisfying. I need to consciously try and de-clutter. On a deeper look, I'm not sure if I'm attaching myself to all of these materialistic stuff, for as I mentioned earlier, I wouldn't have a taken a second look at most of these in the past. If this not attachment, what is it? Is it just hoarding stuff? I don't know. But , need to de-clutter, even if the process is slow, needs to be done.

I deliberated a lot on this movement, because if I can attach myself to all these silly stuff, what about the house that we have lived for years? And it will not be complete if I don't mention the fear of change. Although there was a status-quo , I seemed to have gotten comfortable in the status-quo though I would talk at length about wanting a pleasant change from the routine. Change of house, change of surroundings, new people should be a change, isn't it? But, deep inside there was a fear of change. And there was a fear of loss of privacy. In our previous house , rooms were organised such that there was privacy for S and I. So, we had our moments of laughter and fights too. But, here, the layout does not allow privacy. lets see how we manage :)

We did not make many friends in the neighborhood in the previous place. Yes, we used to be in a hi-bye relationship with the occupants of the neighboring houses and whenever a help to be taken or given, all of us were forth coming. beyond that, there was not much of socializing. The only socializing with the neighbors was with the one neighbor in the opposite house which happened during festive occasions, especially during Deepavali when we used to come out to fire crackers. So, while I told the neighbors that we were moving out, they invited us and the Aunty whom I have not spoken beyond "Chenna githeera" or " Tindi Aayitha", (in the mornings if I bump into her when the palak wala comes in during weekends) was so welcoming and gave us a grand breakfast. She opened up her story and that is a mater for another post. The point is , I regretted for having missed the opportunity to socialize and be on more talking and visiting terms.  Though I got more philosophical and comforted myself that life's like that, you only realize the value of people/things when they are not there etc, there is a lesson that I should not miss to learn. That I should open up and not be in a cocoon. Most of all, stop assuming. I have had many experiences where people first ask how many kids I have or which Dr I consult and they recommend Dr's and prayers which has yielded child boon to  all their relatives. I was traumatized so much that I didn't bother to get out of my self-imposed cocoon.  I should change, so what if people are going to throw questions or give suggestions. Just give me them a smile, nod your head and move on. This is my life and I live the way I want to. I have not done any crime to be shut myself away from society.

Coming to the new house, this one is in an apartment complex, which is thriving with lots of social activity. I have not lived in an apartment , so this is a first for me. Our stuff were not unloaded from the truck , but the maids,paper-wala, flower-seller, milkman started queuing outside the house. That ways, when some carpentry or plumbing needs to be done, they are all one phone call away. I see that kids have a gala time in the complex, what with after-school plays , combined home-work etc. I will know its 3 PM when I start hearing kids chatter. And I will know its 7PM when the boys cycle in the corridor. Here's wishing us lots of happiness in this new place:)