That kind of day...

There are days like this painting and poem. Quiet, flowing, peaceful. Where you feel you're part of the whole cycle, you know where you're going, where you're coming from. Where the sheer quiet calms you and makes you a happy little part of the world.
Today is NOT one of those days!

{Painting: From the Lake by Georgia O'keefe}

8 months already!!!!

To My Dear and Loving Husband
Anne Bradstreet (1678)

If ever two were one, then surely we.

If ever man were lov’d by wife, then thee.

If ever wife was happy in a man,

Compare with me, ye women, if you can.

I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold

Or all the riches that the East doth hold.

My love is such that Rivers cannot quench,

Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.

Thy love is such I can no way repay.

The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.

Then while we live, in love let’s so persevere

That when we live no more, we may live ever.

Today we complete 8 months of being married!! Who would've thought? Time flies, and so much things change, but you've always been there! Thank you baby! And happy 8 months!! And many many more!!

Something quiet & beautiful

somewhere i have never travelled

by e. e. cummings

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

any experience, your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and

my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility: whose texture

compels me with the colour of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens; only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

Travelling between choices

These past few weeks I have been travelling between choices. And a decision has finally been made. I'm quitting my current job and joining another firm. The commute is lesser, the hours are better, the pay is better. And still, I'm going to miss this place. I will have worked here for about 2 months when I leave, but it feels longer.
Anyway, a choice has been made. And I am renouncing crazy traffic and hours in a bus for an easier life.

Memories of the Future

Those who know me well know how much my grandmother influenced me. She practically brought me up and a lot of what I think in terms of family and responsibility stems from her. Now that I am married and have a family of my own, she is a constant presence in my life, guiding me in ways I wouldn't expect.
I'm not particularly religious or ritualistic, but now I find myself quietly, sometimes even surreptitiously, carrying out the rituals she did. Lighting a lamp in front of our small selection of gods, fasting on days she considered holy, enjoying the kitchen and feeding people.
But by far, the most important lesson she taught me was that of humility and empathy. She was fond of saying, "No matter how big or small a man is, his stomach is always the same size as the next man." And true to her word, every man who came to our table was treated as well as the next, regardless of who he was in the outside world. His worries and achievements were as important as ours. Sometimes even more so. Which is why today, I find myself thinking of what she would do in my place. S, the man who has helped me clean my house once a week for the last seven months is leaving to get married and settle down. He is excited and happy, as he shows me her snap. He says his wife to be is a little fat, but that she's hard-working and that his mother likes her.
And somewhere, I know, my grandmother is grinning down at me in anticipation of a shopping trip for a new bride-to-be.

'Tis the weekend, so be jolly!!

Wild Nights - Wild Nights!
by Emily Dickinson

Wild Nights – Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile – the winds –
To a heart in port –
Done with the compass –
Done with the chart!

Rowing in Eden –
Ah, the sea!
Might I moor – Tonight –
In thee!

The weekend is finally here!! This last week has been particularly long. So I look forward to wild nights!! Although now my idea of a wild night is a fair bit of alcohol and some stimulating conversation! Ah well, the weekend is here and celebrate it I shall!!

On undeserved kindness

Flower in the Crannied Wall
by Lord Alfred Tennyson

Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower -- but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

Peoples' kindnesses are like flowers in crannied walls. If we could examine them for what they were worth, what might we not understand. Some people have been very kind to me over the last few days. And that kindness is even more important, because it was uncalled for. Sometimes, this is enough to make sense of living. To say, I have seen kindness in a fellow human, even when I have not deserved it. And like flowers in the crannied wall, these kindnesses soften the hardness, bring out the colour, and make it all okay. At least for a while.

On Romancing Poetry

Sonnet XVII
by Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other waythan this:

where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Today was a Neruda kind of day. I love the way he molds language. If the english translations are so gorgeous, how layered and divine must the Spanish original sound? Another reason to learn Spanish. So I can read Neruda. :) So I can feel the words running through my mouth the way he meant them to run. The joy of poetry is in saying it aloud. Feeling the syllables tumble and roll in your mouth as you breathe them into life. And surely, a poet as sensual and sensitive as Neruda would attach as much importance to the feel and texture of every word as to its meaning. So I want to learn Spanish, to romance Neruda's poetry.

A state of heart

Reluctance
by Robert Frost

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question 'Whither?'

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

Today, I'm sad. Not for myself. This sorrow isn't even rightfully mine to grieve over selfishly. And yet, it takes over my heart and mind. And I have no comfort for those whom it belongs to, either. How can one be so helpless?

A weekend in Bahrain

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
by Christopher Marlowe

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my love.

The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

Just spent a weekend in Bahrain. It's where AB grew up and where Ma is currently on assignment, so went to see what it's all about.
As countries go, Bahrain is small, petite to be more precise! Traffic is non-existent, almost! And there are only about 5 buildings making up the skyline! After the high-rise craziness that is Dubai, Bahrain was pleasantly dopey and idyllic. The people we visited all lived in spacious villas(that cost less than what we pay for our 1 bedroom in Dubai!!) and some even had gardens!! Where they grew their own veggies!!
Now if, like me, you have grown up on a diet of Enid Blytons, you'll understand my fascination with "sun-ripened tomatoes" and all things home-grown. Can there be anything more satisfying or charming than pickles made out of lemons grown in your kitchen garden? Which also brings me to the point that Bahrain is greener than your average Middle Eastern country. Simply divine!
For the sake of the lemon pickle that isn't yet, but may someday be, I need to figure out a way to get AB to move there!

Money, Money, Money!

Money, its a crime.
Share it fairly but dont take a slice of my pie.
Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil today.
But if you ask for a raise its no surprise that they're
Giving none away.

Somewhere on the blogosphere someone is venting about capitalism and how money is the root of all evil. I don't know about money. Haven't worked out my attitude to it as yet. I like it for it does for me, of course. But how much of it do I want? How much of it do I need? Dubai is such a place of class consciousness that money is hard to ignore. Whenever I say, "Money doesn't really matter." AB says it's because I've always had enough of it. Does that mean I should value money more? Or less?
I've been suffering recently from a dilemma of sorts. On the one hand is money and boredom, and on the other is the possibility of interesting, hard-working times, with much less monetary benefits. What do I find myself swaying towards? I don't know. Ideally, I'd like everything, thank you very much! However, the world is anything but ideal. So, in the mean time, I listen to Abba singing of a rich man's world, and Floyd on how money's a gas, and hope like hell that this dilemma is resolved by someone else. What do you think?

Utter Nonsense!

Nobody loves me, everybody hates me
Think I'll go and eat worms
Long ones, short ones, fat ones, thin ones
See how they wriggle and squirm
I bite off the heads, and suck out the juice
And throw the skins away
Nobody knows how fat I grow
On worms three times a day

Ohh...nobody loves me.

That's one of my favorite refrains these days! People don't call, don't orkut, don't mail, or text at their own peril! You are warned, I will eat worms and make sure you do too!!
There's a little bit happening in the background, but more on that later! In the meanwhile, stay in touch!

It's a BOY!!

Infant Joy
by Wiliam Blake

"I have no name:
I am but two days old."
What shall I call thee?
"I happy am,
Joy is my name."
Sweet joy befall thee!

Pretty joy!
Sweet joy, but two days old.
Sweet Joy I call thee:
Thou dost smile,
I sing the while;
Sweet joy befall thee!

And there's sweet joy all around!! This morning, colleagues, friends and family all across the world woke up to the brilliant news that G, (an old boss), has just had a baby boy! What fun! Before I knew it I had pictures of the little one as well! All the old cliches are simply begging to crawl out of the bag!
The one thing that amazed me though was how delightful it was to live in the digital age! Right from the onset of labor to the birth, updates by sms and email made sure that those of us who were far away, never felt the distance.
As for G, his new job as Dad will be unlike anything he's done before I'm sure :) Although he might say that he did baby us for a while. So, with full hearts, here's wishing him and his wife, the very best. May they always have a helping hand with the diapers!

They're leaving on a jet plane!

Somewhere over the arabian sea right about now is an airplane that carries my mom, dad and grand-dad as they head back after being here with AB and me in Dubai for just a week. It was a crazy week to say the least. We visited as many malls as we could in 5 days and did all the standard things tourists in Dubai are supposed to do. We went on a dhow cruise, saw Sheikh zayed road in all it's lit-up glory (at great leisure since we were stuck in traffic!) and did the desert safari. Where my 84 yr-old grand-dad insisted on dune-bashing, pace-maker be damned! He really made this trip memorable for me. Every time I see him I think of my gran and how much fun she would have had and thank god for him. I know he watches me with her eyes as well as his own.
And now after a week of crowding into our 1BHK, they're gone. After a week of waking at 7 to my dad's rather rambunctious enthusiasm, Sonal's masala chai, Pulin's droll humour, my grand-dad's chanting before every meal and my mom just being my mom, they've all left to go back. And although now we can go to the bathroom any time we like, and run around in various states of undress, the house seems so much the emptier.

Postscript

A Book of Verse
by Omar Khayyam

A book of verse, underneath the bough,
A jug of wine, a loaf of bread - and thou
Beside me singing in the wilderness -
Ah, wilderness were paradise enow!

And that is my only excuse for not posting for such a long time!! Plus, of course, the lack of net access! Hopefully, I'll be writing much more often now that we do have a connection! See ya around!

On Being Married & Happy!

Sonnet CXVI
by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love,
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
Oh, no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests.. and is never shaken.
It is the star to every wandering bark
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love is not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out.. even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Ah well, It's been a long, long time since I last wrote and much has happened. A wedding took place, a marriage was embarked on, a house was chosen, a home was made, and a whole new lifestyle was welcomed into a whole new year. :)
And never before have I been happier. Before I got married, a lot of people frightened me. I was told it would be hard to adjust to a new place, new responsibilities, new families, and new (obnoxious!) habits! Yes, sometimes, things are tough. But most of the time, they're a dream. Nobody told me of the utter unadultrated joy of seeing someone I really like at the end of every single day. No one mentioned the happy surge of pride I feel every time I walk into our house. No one spoke of the quiet feeling of contentment that sneaks up on me on chilly winter afternoons, when I read with a cup of hot tea or cook to the sounds of the radio.
Am back in Mumbai after 5 months and people tell me I look remarkably well. That I'm healthy and seem to have lost some weight. Some of them wink and suggest that most Indian of questions, "Good news??" I want to say, yes, it is good news, I'm happy and in love.