My changing home

I've been away from home long enough to well understand how much it means. I used to associate home with my house at 21, Nawab Chambers. That little flat out of 40 others in a building in central Bombay (Sorry it's always been Bombay for me! Mumbai doesn't go down well). Anyways, that weird smell every time I entered the building, the noise of my neighbours fighting, the smell of fresh Maharastrian food cooking - all this was my home. No matter how noisy the road in front of my house got (with processions, dances, noisy bands, etc.) I still felt the peace and comfort that comes with being home. For me, home was where my parents lived - my mum always talking about prayer and the Bible, my dad talking about everything under the sun (literally) and my brother not talking anything but just blasting loud music from his electric guitar!

Take away one of them or anything from what I mentioned above and I'd not feel at home.

However, things have changed as they always will. I've been away long enough to forget what that building smells like, to know exactly what my neighbours fight about now or even to get a hint of what's cooking. I haven't heard my brother play and my mother pray in a long time. I haven't argued facts with my dad knowing that he knows best for a really long time.

I've lived in five different houses since I moved to the UK and not one of them made me feel like I did when I was there! Not one had anything I wanted to look forward to. Anyways, I've come to learn that it's not about the place. As in - home is not a place or a group of people. It's this feeling inside you. This feeling that 'I'm okay now', 'I don't have to be restless anymore', 'I won't be judged here', 'I will be loved unconditionally here', 'I can be myself here' and the biggest of all 'I can shed my masks here!'

Strangely, I can only testify to feeling all these feelings when I'm alone and writing stuff like this today. Is this my home? Is being by myself writing and praying and talking to myself my new home? Is confiding in my diary and crying to Jesus my new home? I can't tell. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. I will only find out when I go back to Bombay - to what I used to call 'home'.

Learning them hard!

After many profound brain things in my head (my fav line by the Lemur King in Madagascar)......I have come to understand some important things:

*You are never as good and righteous as you think you are. It takes a hard hitting peek inside yourself to see how messed up you are.
* You can only wish to be the centre of someone else's life. The truth is you never can be! You can only wish! You can only desire to be loved the way you imagine would make you happy.
* No one will listen to everything you say fully and understand it fully the way you want them to. At the end of the day, it is a prayer or a whisper to God that takes that desire for someone to listen to all you have to say out of you!
* Your dreams, your visions, your desires, your thoughts are all best left unsaid. Expressing them to others is useless and pointless. Speak them to God in silence and He will do something about it.
* Don't let yourself be walked over. Everyone will at some point.

I have more but I'll save them for another session.

Barack Obama and a lot of tea! Or non-sense talk? I can’t say!

I happened to be part of an interesting conversation last night. It was a heated deliberation with close friends over lots of tea as to whether Obama would make it to the presidential podium. Views and opinions flew across the room and each one of us had our go at the US electoral candidates. Judging them. Talking about their backgrounds. Their personalities – or what we perceive their personalities to be. What America needs now. What Iraq needs now. Yakety yak yak yak! It was a very engaging conversation indeed.

Don’t get mistaken. I’m not going to blog about the details of the conversation and have my breath wasted on who should be ruling America. I made an editorial decision long back that this blog wouldn’t air my personal political preferences and biases. I am writing about this conversation for other reasons.

I was quite intrigued at how interesting it is to discuss other people. I’ve always consciously or unconsciously been a part of it and it’s never seemed weird. I’m certain that discourse is a healthy thing but where does discourse end and vain talk begin?

Talking about Obama and other personalities like we know them and have the right to judge them all seems totally fine. But it’s amazing how much time we all spend talking about other people. It’s a thing that’s so instilled in us. I think the newspapers and tabloids do it a lot. It’s sort of instilled in us that it is our right to know and discuss about the lives and business of others. While most of this makes for positive speculation and very intelligent tea-talk, I am wondering how much of it is necessary. I know it’s not something that needs to be questioned but sometimes I have these moments when I wonder how many of our conversations really matter. By matter, I mean, how many of our talks affect the people we talk about or affect the issues we talk about?

I am not sure which school I belong to (if there are two schools like the ones I’m going to name now!!!) – the school that believes in don’t talk about people and matters that don’t directly affect you or the school that says let’s discuss everything to the little details and see what happens.

I probably am thinking too much about what maybe seemingly safe and entertaining pass times. But let’s face it. If I don’t write about what I think and feel it’s no point discussing about what other people are supposedly thinking or feeling or doing anyways! So yeah! May be a pointless blog entry but I beg to differ.

Pretending to be sick..I miss that!

Ok. It's good to come out clean someday. It might as well be today. I'll explain why today.

I've been sick since afternoon and feel terribly weak. I have excruitiating pain in my body and my legs feel like they will give way any moment. I want to sleep, to rest, to lay this head down on my bed and just lie there! But ofcourse I can't because I'm at work. I'm about to leave to go home, where I have to cook my own dinner before I take any pills. The luxury of simply lying down will only come at about 11 pm by which time of course, I should be asleep anyways.

I don't know how I got here. By here I don't mean this office. I mean this place in my life.

I am painfully reminded of better times when I had the pleasure of pretending to be sick to earn a quick massage from my dad. I had to put up an extremely convincing act to get dad to massage my legs or arms, but he called my bluff more than once. I had to occasionally fake a moan or a forced tear to get that extra five minutes but it worked like a charm sometimes.

Sammy, also, was less convinced by the act. But I must say that I had often managed to attract patrial sympathy from him and get him to run errands for me half-heartedly.

I could get food fed straight to my mouth by mamma, get my hair oiled and combed, get to watch TV and 'rest'...all when I was not really as sick as I portrayed myself to be.

The game is over now though. You can't play pretend forever! The truth is only those who love you notice you when you want them to. It's not even worth trying with others. I just told a friend I was genuinely not feeling well and all I got was a 'AAAAWWWWW....' and what followed was a story of how she had the flu recently, followed by how her mobile contract was running out and how her service provider is rubbish!

So, yah...I miss them pretend days!

Maybe I can pretend they are over :(

Nothing I guess :S

I haven't been faithful to this blog. I haven't done her justice. I'm going to blame it on the fact that I had no internet at home for a really long time (One and a half month is excruitiatingly long).

Anyways, the point is I'm back and while I anticipate some witty comments to flow through my head now. There is nothing. Nothing at all. I have nothing witty to say. But why is there a need to always say something life-changing? Why am I always looking to make a point? Why should everything be profound and deep? Why so many questions? Why is this one? OMG, I need help!

So yeah. This entry is going to be a dry moment for my blog . But, it's to keep the spirit of it alive.

So, live on it will! This over cluttered world of the internet has too many blogs and too much rubbish! I hope to do more than just exist. You don't get noticed when you merely exist. I guess it's when you be brutally honest with what you say and don't care about who is reading or how it will affect the way people see you; that, my friend, is called living it up....web-wise!

Moving on...aaaargggh!!!

Ok. This is probably going to be the biggest highlight of 2008 for me. I am moving. It's not like the move I made in 2006 - across continents. It's just from Bournemouth to London. 106 miles, it seems (according to one website - I like to throw in some statistics into my blog...should be a little educational no?). Anyways, weird blogging aside, this is actually turning out to be a tougher time for me than I assumed it to be.

I always handle things in a much cooler way in my head. I think and rethink conversations that will probably never take place. I work on reactions that I will never give and script sentences, I have never used. Emotional speeches that will invoke love and respect in people's hearts for me. Moreover, I also go ahead and decide what others will say to me and how they will react to my very well imagined lines. Jokes are mostly rehearsed and their very casual delivery is also well practiced.

Needless to say, things never happen the way I fancy them. Not because I don't make an effort. Not because I script them wrong or imagine the impossible (although I have done that sometimes). Not because I forget the way it's supposed to be. SIMPLY BECAUSE --- WE CAN NEVER DECIDE FOR OURSELVES WHAT WILL HAPPEN, WHO WILL SAY WHAT AND HOW WE WILL REACT.

Now why am I saying this? I'm leaving Bournemouth. The place where I learnt the most important lessons in my life. I learnt huge spiritual, emotional and practical lessons here. It's been the place that I moved into when I moved out of my comfort zone two years ago. It's the place that made me cry, made me laugh, made me strong and made me responsible (a little atleast). It was here that I started the excrutiatingly painful process of making new friends, new people who I would share laughter with. Very reluctantly I trust new people with secrets that my old friends knew. They were nothing like my old friends but people aren't the same and that's how it goes. I carefully hand picked a bunch that I would trust through trial and error. They have been with me like my family has been with me.

Then there have been acquaintances. People I met here during my journalistics ventures. Me being me, I let many be more than just acquaintances (I mean, they all ended up being friends as well).

Ok. Now maybe what I am trying to say is I know every third person in Bournemouth by now and it's hard to suddenly go through the whole same process again. It's painstakingly difficult to say good-bye to a place where you are someone and suddenly be lost in a crowded place.

So yeah. I imagined more of a shocking reaction from people when they heard I was moving. I imagined parting gifts and tearful good-byes. Letters and cards and meaningful chats. I carefully decided what to tell everyone. "It's not like im moving continents. Don't be so upset."

AGAIN, needless to say, I haven't used that line yet. I am busy packing and have let everyone know I am going. No cards yet. No gifts. Moreover, no emotional talks (actually I can't say there haven't been any...Ive been giving some away)

I am now sitting at a friend's house. It's my send off party and everyone is watching a movie I don't like. One round of pizza is over and I have learnt something important. I don't have to be the center of everyone's life. I don't have to have a driving need to listen to each and every feeling that everyone feels about me and I don't need to hear from people what I mean to them.

It's a strange thing - PRIDE. I humbly accept I am also a victim sometimes. It creeps into you without warning and usually in disguise. And that's when God says - IT'S TIME TO MOVE!

I shouldn't have to learn this lesson again. You got me this time, Lord!

Measure of Beauty