Thoughts

Game of life or Snake and ladders

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The shining sun outside doesn’t reflect the state of mind. The bright sunrays passing through the window is reaching out to me and I almost feel like getting up and catching the dust particles visible through the rays. I realise slowly, my mind is garbled enough not to feel anything. I get up to the mundane routine, and soon feels exhausted. After lunch I lie down for a nap. I slither about at times but the photograph remains the same. Messy bedsheets, curtains pulled wide apart and the messy me.

Life is a jigsaw puzzle

As days go by, I rise and shine some days, write the scribbling that I do, ponder over about it, the fundamentals of human truth as they say in the weekly motivating forwards I receive in email. I close them up and eagerly watch the butterflies and bees that hover around the mealy infected plants of my balcony garden. Do they think too? Do they have emotions? After a while, it pains to think. I close up the laptop and pour myself coffee, and munch on the loaded cream biscuits. It was meant for the kid, but its the inner kid in me that’s relishing them. 

She comes to me to play word games or mind games, and I deny at times, except for the snake and ladders game. That was easy to play. A game based on pure luck with no thinking involved. I wonder now, whether why the game is so popular. We need to free our mind maybe? To rely on “luck” or whatever it is. It’s interesting to see what comes up and put our hopes onto it, when the changes resulting from the same gambling can pull us down and we fight it down resisting. If its a ladder we climb easily, but we see snakes we desist. We cringe. We cry in fear. We runaway. We hide. Yet we slide down unwillingly. Some rise up and look forward to climb the next ladder. Some dont want to climb complaining about their knees. Or we topple the whole game board and we resign. We say we will play ludo instead.

All games are same, no? Or is it my crazy mind showing me unrealistic dreams. The day dreams seem so short after a while, as the sun falls down, and its my time again to sleep. Or wander into dreams.  

Stories

A moment of remembrance

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cheerful mother and daughter with dog in autumnal park

I woke up before the morning alarm. With David out of town for work, its been Mia and me in the house with our new dog, Rosie. The timing couldn’t be more unfortunate. Last night Mia brought her new boyfriend and seeing them kissing got me panicked. Anger was something I always hid behind when I cannot face my fears. David says I am too strict with her for someone in high school. I know it’s true. 

***

As I woke up, I saw the photo next to me. I think I slept with the photo in my hand. A headshot of Rocky. Being the only child, he was my brother, childhood friend and everything. I wonder how it was easy for mom to bring another dog when Rocky passed away. Rosie is perfect for her, quiet and broody unlike my Rocky who was so cheerful and playful all the time. Justin understood my pain. He too had lost his cat but never got another one. The phone next to me rang. It was Justin.

***

I started whipping the batter in the kitchen. The house is too silent today. Did Mia wake up? I went over to her room and knocked on the door.
“Mia, are you awake? You will be late for your classes.” No response.

After few minutes, I move back to kitchen through the hallway. The walls are adorned with the family photos of her childhood. I see it all the time but today, I noticed Mia’s laugh again in one of them with our first dog, Rocky. His licks always made her giggle. That’s what she was doing yesterday too, albeit in a different way. After breakfast maybe I could have a chit chat before she go. 

Mia opened her room in a hurry and walked towards the door. 
“Hey where you going? I am making breakfast.”

“After what happened yesterday, I don’t feel like having anything today. I will rather have something from the canteen. In PEACE !”. Mia replied.

Then she stormed out of the door closing the door with a bang. I stood there in the midst of the house. Rosie kept barking.

***

We had not talked much for these last three months. Ever since I introduced her to Justin, mom is behaving so differently. 
“Did your mom say anything after I left?” Justin asked. 

“Not much. It’s been a long time we had a peaceful conversation.” 

“Maybe she doesn’t like us.”

 I sighed a deep sigh. As if to say “I don’t know what to say”.

“You hungry?”

“Yeah. Can we have peanut butter sandwiches. And maybe some smoothies?”“Your wish is my command, Princess Mia!”.

I smiled. Justin always try to make me smile.

Rocky loved peanut butter. As I relished my breakfast, I remembered making peanut butter cookies for him. A moment of remembrance.

***
Mia loved pancakes. As I had my breakfast in silence later, I remembered how she used to have them with extra syrup on top. A moment of remembrance.

Personal/Thoughts

Change cycle of 2020

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2021 is a year of hope for many of us. I am forcing myself to accept the same, and glow in the gratitude of last few months. To see the positivity even when surrounded by negativity. To be grateful that we are still alive, without getting affected by the virus. To be grateful to have jobs, room above us and food in fingertips in form of delivery. To be grateful to have family around me 24/7. Yet, like many People showing invisible symptoms, I am at times suffocated. With the tormenting thoughts of these crazy developments happening in the world like that of vaccination, that of restrictions, that of the new normal with masks, and social distancing keyword, that of stocks, that of bitcoin, that of artificial intelligence, Tesla, and what not. I find a glimpse of how our grandparents or parents find it hard to adjust with new generation. The changes are always for better, but it’s equally hard for us to accept the changes. 

Over the years, I know I have changed my beliefs naturally or by choice. I can say from experience that change is not impossible at all, or accepting the changes is so easy if you are open minded enough. We all think the words like principles, beliefs, values etc are all hard wired and that they will never change till we die. That all happens in movies, and looks good as film quotes, but what we forget is the human adaptability to change. For instance, I never thought while growing up that I will be a stay at home ordinary housewife, especially while pursuing the engineering. I never thought I will be tasting non-veg and alcohol in future, when I was preaching my college mates to be on pure vegetarian diet. I never thought I would stick to one-child policy considering that we are raised with old school traditional beliefs that multiple kids are always better. I never thought I would be agnostic, when I was deeply immersed in Monday fasts, and praying religiously at temples and singing hymns with Amma. I never thought I could be a late sleeper and not an early riser as many of the old roommates thought. Yet here I am. 

What hasn’t changed is the inner most fears like insecurity, perfectionist problem, the disorders which are not recognised as symptoms to diagnose but eventually the result of inner child turmoil, As it’s so hard to work on ourselves and our ego. The external fears of the future, the death, the anxiety of the unknown, the fight and flight response of human beings on a wide range of issues like anxiety to that of real danger. The selfishness when it comes to survival. Maybe these are designed to not change ever so as to sustain our lives in this world. 

Ever get frustrated with these change cycles? Like do you wish to get out of the cycle and thrown out of it like a tangent. When we are not adapting to the sudden changes, we definitely feel like doing that, but in the blink of an eye, we are back circling life in a smooth transition in the new form. In the larger picture, we don’t value the emotions and feelings of day to day life, but when we are in the midst of it, hope is that thread we could hang in there until the changes become part of our life. 

Bangalore life/Thoughts

Special birthday

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Two months to finish off this year. The routine still continues without a change. Of isolation. Of the late sleeping and waking up and the occasional study for the kid. Without any ounce of seriousness. After all who needs more seriousness in this pandemic. It feel so strange and in an alien world to talk about this pandemic as if we have gone years behind and we are talking about war happening elsewhere.

The silence is still not perturbed whole day. Except for the excitement of the kid. As always. Every year. The only thing missing was the cake. I felt it absurd to fulfill the wishes of a kid by either ordering or making the effort to make one considering the circumstances. Not only about the “unprecedented “ situation but also because of the effects of death in the family and the roller coaster effect of it on me. The despair as this article talks about. That’s what been plaguing me for many days now.

There are positives that few people still remember the birthday. A few close wishes which is more than enough. When I hid the birthdate on Facebook this time, the road became very clear. Apart from the usual expected calls and messages no surprises and no awkward conversations. The online gaming still carried on.

That’s how the day went. As usual. Except for the new dress she made me to wear and the mini photo session we had as we could not lose the chance to appreciate the moment where in we dressed up after a long time! And except for the sweet snack made in the evening by her and her grandmother. With a usual birthday card and a makeshift necklace which we both can never use. And that’s how I celebrated my birthday this year! Without any special extravaganza. A special birthday indeed, ain’t it?

Thoughts

Conversations on Death

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Every Indian is helping CBI solve the Sushant Singh Rajput death mystery. News channels are all over it. Covid has taken a back seat as the novelty of the virus and the deaths associated with it has worn off. I guess human beings have always loved solving mysteries which explains the innumerable tv shows and films on murders, crimes, horrors, thrillers and what not. In fact I struggle to find a few good movie for N and myself to watch. Not the childish ones but not yet adult shows. ( Recommendations always welcome!)

Scrolling through corona updates on Twitter, it did shock me to read about Sushant Singh! Not that I’m interested in how he died but the death itself! I was neither a fan of him or his work, but our connection started from his first work, the tv show Pavitra Rishta. I was newly married, recently shifted to Bangalore and jobless playing with TV remote whole day. I accidentally started following the tv show from the start as the female lead was also named “Archana”! Though I discontinued it when the Saas Bahu drama strengthened, I kept following the fresh duo (or Best Jodi as they say) and their journey from being on screen lovers to a real couple. As like any other fan girl, I was thrilled to know Ankita and Sushant were dating in real life! I couldn’t follow much on their dance reality shows due to timing mismatch, but was disheartened to know that they broke up after so many years! Also, “Kai Po Che” was one of the rare movies we saw in theatres, as mostly it was an adaptation of Chetan Bhagat book (as part of the CB book phase) and also because of Sushant!Continue reading →

Bangalore life/Mélange – Random Tidbits/Thoughts

Ten thought Tuesday

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Never knew there was a popular tag in blogging world to jot down random tidbits which I frequently do on this blog. After a very long time I wrote today the real “morning pages”. Writing in the balcony, breathing in fresh breezy cold air with chirping birds for company, feels like catching up with a long lost friend!

  1. If I reflect back to my initial blog posts, I realise I was too carefree to bother about the implications of what others will think. For me, blogs was a medium of sharing your thoughts and musings about things that you loved or about day to day activities but over the time I feel it became less personal and strategically written essays of money making business “content”.
  2. The corona effect maybe playing havoc on my mind as I am deeply immersed in distractive techniques like playing games on tablet! Specifically Cooking Diary and Farmville 2 Country escape! Earlier it was films, tv shows or web series which has now shifted to these iOS games! I wonder everyone would have similar guilty pleasures which they doesn’t share much in public. Or am I the only one to feel shy and awkward about it?
  3. That reminds me of the mindset due to our conditioning. As you search more on self help, you stumble across some words like ego healing, inner child nourishment, mindfulness etc. I end up nodding my head every time I read those articles. We all have been through a similar emotional journey, and yet not willing to change ourselves due to the hard work involved.
  4. Amidst the corona times as we had to travel back and forth, my balcony garden has gone for a toss. Not that I had much to begin with but when you have very less plants and they dry up, you are left with lots of pots and hard soil! Like a dried up desert within a city!
  5. The good thing about the travel was that I ended up reading few books on kindle as internet was slower in Kerala than a snail in the garden. Not that I saw a snail either but yes, we did saw chameleon and variety of birds of which I don’t know the name. Piggybacking on my habit, the kid too ended up reading on kindle a bit too much!
  6. Twitter has been my solace to rant about in these months. The only reason to tweet is that I have not personally known any of the people from the twitter world. The comfort of the unknown when it’s the most dangerous thing you would not let your child to do. Does it sound like a shady business? Okay let me try stop labelling myself!
  7. And the one habit that has been slipping from my hands often is the meditation practice. Heard and read lot much about it and even experienced a feel-good calmness feeling after doing it for few days too. Yet I still struggle to make it a daily practice. Neither the “power of habit” or any “atomic habits” will help me bring the change unless I make up my mind about it. Have you struggled with any habits?
  8. The overdose of fitness freaks doing gym, yoga and marathoners are making me go blind. I wonder is it my state of mind of rejection which is shutting out these inspirations or helping me identify and be aware of the bubble they are in. Isn’t excess of anything worrisome?
  9. The free time has made my ruminations much more deeper though without action. For example, is a purpose really needed to live a life? I have always struggled with that one. I am close to realising that it can be a mirage for a few people, which is also a possibility why some others end up chasing it. The strong willed trees on the roadside grow large enough to provide shade and fruits while some can walk along on the empty road without a destination too. Isn’t that possible?
  10. The one thing which is constant before and after corona is my cooking skills. The chore has never interested me and I still go nuts deciding what to make everyday. With all the extra help in the house (read as the other half) it still seems like one activity I detest. No escaping it though and have to bear it like the ramblings of the ageing friend mainly due to survival reasons.

Have you noticed how this blog came to a new life in these months? Changes in life clearly creates ripples everywhere, even the smallest crevices!