The Yin and Yang

Courtesy: Google Images

Of late I have not been posting anything on my blog. No specific reason as such. If I wanted, I could have found time to post something. I wanted to but couldn't make myself do it. Though, I do visit my blog at times, I leave without updating it. Recently, a few friends who read my blog, motivated me to blog more often. And encouragements and motivations work well with me. I decided to give my blogging skills a try again.

When I retrospect my life, I feel I have accomplished quite a bit. I don't mean any monetary or material accomplishments. Every day of my life has taught me something or the other. Every year, I have matured. I understand things in a better light. I have been able to analyse and understand people in a better way. Observation has taught me quite a bit. I believe only when one introspects and keep introspecting, one has a lot of insights about oneself.

People around me have also enlightened me a lot. A few experiences have left me baffled and clueless after my interactions with some people. I feel sorry for certain people who are grown up yet not grown up. If I share a few of my thoughts, it is something like this: Some people are always interested in other people's lives, some try to intimidate others to hide their own flaws, some people worship others for reasons only they know, some people lose their individuality and are just superficial existences. Some are so negative that one regrets the time spent with them. Some spend their whole life apple-polishing. Some appear to be so sweet and refined but talk behind your back the moment you leave. Some try their best to camouflage their malice but it spills out and they cannot hide it. Some take pleasure in bossing around people. Their arrogance puts you off. For some, the only existence of life is to GOSSIP. I have also been part of grapevine but it was not my sole objective in life.

I have also had the pleasure of being in the company of people who have made me a better person. Some inspire you by the way they lead their life. Some work so hard that you are motivated to be like them. Some have a strong reason to thrive and survive which makes you find your own reasons. Some are so compassionate, you soften in their presence. Some are so disciplined, you try to find some discipline in your own life. Some are ever so cheerful, it is contagious. Some are so understanding and loving, you can always find them ready to lend an ear. Some are so sensible and level-headed, you can try to be like them. Some are so bold and courageous for all the right reasons, you can follow them.

By sharing this, I don't intend to give anyone even the faintest idea that I am perfect or flawless. I know myself. I have my opinion on things that matters to me. I will never try to persuade or change anyone. No one can change anyone but oneself. So I changed myself. I chose to ignore the negative influences around me. That makes me happier. I was under the impression that I am way beyond silly ego clashes, cat fights and taunts. But I find myself in the midst of it all. NO. I have not indulged in a cat fight yet. I thought I was very adaptable. But I realized no matter how hard one tries to adapt and adjust, there comes a point when one loses all calm and decide to sever ties with people who cannot be tolerated any more. When some people repeatedly try to hit your raw nerve, you might lose your cool which you don't normally do in public. 

So that's it for now. Certain incidents triggered these lines of thought and am happy that I could blog after such a long time. 

 

What's cooking?

It has been a long long long time since I blogged. I owe a bit of it to the hectic schedules at workplace and now at home too. Being a working woman cum housewife is a real big challenge. I have respect for all the women who have managed both effortlessly.

My cooking experiments have started. To be honest, I didn't know the 'a,b,c,d,....' of cooking like most girls of my generation. I was really getting worked up thinking how to go about it. I knew to make omelette, tea and coffee. That's it and I wasn't proud of it. I know of teenagers, even school-going kids who were more knowledgeable than me when it came to cooking. I wasn't interested in cooking. I used to think cooking is not my cup of tea. But the turn of events, fate or whatever you call it compelled me to enter the kitchen. If you have a mom who is a housewife and who is also a very pampering, protective mom, you would end up being like me. No, am not putting the blame on my mom. As I said before, I was not at all interested in cooking and stuff.

Having read somewhere, the way to your man's heart is through his stomach, I was kind of jittery. I wanted to cook well and really well so that I could keep my husband in good spirits. The biggest challenge for me was that he was a really good cook (a specialist in non-veg dishes). His mom too cooks well. Even after one year into our marriage, I hadn't cooked any delicacies for him and that's when he got a transfer to the same place that I work. And that paved way for me to enter the kitchen.. Sigh! But, that gave me an insight into my own abilities in cooking. To say that I was flabbergasted would be an understatement, because I realized I do have the skills to make something tasty. Be it the small dishes with which I started or the more complicated dishes that I mastered over the course, I did make things that were good, palatable and even I started enjoying the stuff that I made. It was actually a welcome change from the hostel food that I was having for past two years in AVVP. Now, I am not bragging about my culinary skills,but I am surprised.

So things which one thought were impossible earlier, can be made possible. This sure did enhance my confidence. I became a bit proud. Hubby has given various compliments for the things I made in the last eight months. I am happy. I was happy to discover this hidden skill of mine :) A colleague once said, it runs in my genes. My mom is an excellent cook. My Grandpa's favorite hobby was cooking. But I have not reached anywhere near them. Am still in the learning and experimenting mode. But I do sometimes feel lazy as well. Just the thought of surprising him with delicacies for the dinner, kind of motivates me. Yes, I do sound at times like a traditional Indian wife :D.

Random thoughts...

I just thought of my blog and felt compelled to visit it. And when I visited it, I thought I should post something.

I read a few blogs... very few blogs and I am particularly fond of reading a blog by one Ms. Dhanya (My Own Little World). She is a very good writer. Thoughful. Every time she makes a post, it is well thought out, well crafted and she posts  only when she has something to convey to the readers. There is, of course, the makings of a spirited writer in her posts. What I like most is the element of humour and wit that she often plays with in most of her posts. A very chubby and lively person - this is what I could make out after reading a lot of her posts. She is a veteran blogger. One more thing to appreciate about her is the way she has faced all the odds in her life and come out of it all quite boldly. Kudos girl! Well, I really don't know why my post is all about Ms.D. I don't know her personally. Just know her through her blogs and well this is how people get to know each other in blogosphere. I know that she is a serious blogger (unlike me) and also know that she is an engineer by profession and perhaps she is almost my age.Now, I didn't think that engineers could be creative. I felt science was totally cut off from arts and literature. I admit that it was a foolish notion of mine and ever since I started teaching engineering students I got to know that they too are normal people like us "arts graduates". I thought only people with a basic knowledge in Literature would appreciate the products of imagination. Many of my students are good in poetry, well read and some aspire to be novelists or script-writers!!! It was a revelation for me.

Another blog, which touched my heart was the blog by IHM (The Life and Times of an Indian Homemaker). Her accounts of her recently deceased daughter and the girl's remarkable blog (Tejaswee Rao's blog) were heart-rending. There are times when one is forced to think of God's wanton ways with his creations or rather I'm oft reminded of human mortality and frailty in the face of death.

The thought of death suddenly brought back the quick and untimely demise of a colleague. In fact, after attending his funeral rites, I was compelled to think of death and how it affects the dear and near ones of the demised. A shudder goes through my spine and I hate to think of it.

My life is bound, surrounded and engulfed by the dear and near ones in my life. If I am here, it's because of them. If I am happy, it's because of them. If I am anything in my life, it's because of them. I can never part ways with my loved ones. I love them to the core of my heart. Can't express it in words. And to be the part of a loving and caring family is the biggest blessing in life. To get a life partner whom you can trust to the core and love with all your life is again a blessing. I thank God for all that He has given me. I will be thankful ever.

You have to......

These days I don't feel like blogging much. Been very lazy and thoughts seem to be evading me. 

But I felt a strong urge to scribble something today and rather than writing it down I am filling it here.

What will I talk about other than what happens in my little world. To be writing about the outside world and worldly things, I don't think I have the mettle to do that. Besides, I have decided to keep my life simple, devoid of thoughts that are profound and of otherworldly. For the time being, let my thoughts revolve around me and my little world that comprises those few people who matters most to me. 

Life has taken me through its myriad courses. When I look back I realize after all it wasn't that bad and there were many things I learned in this course of my life.

People come in and go out of our life. Some remain as buddies forever...  Some are easily forgotten.  Some teach us a lot about life.  Some give us a purpose for our life.  Some motivate us.  Some cheer us.  Some pull us down.  Some stay with us forever. Yes, this 'some' includes my family, friends, relatives, and almost everyone who has come into contact with me in this short life of mine. People who stay in our minds for a long time are the ones who have influenced us the most. They are the ones who must have been the very reason for our existence. I'm really lucky to have met some really good people like that. But such people are very less and very rare to find.

I often wonder how human beings influence each other so much so that their lives becomes so intertwined and can never be separated. When we look at the lives of animals, the influence they have on the other members of their own species are not so complex and bounding like what we find in human lives. It's very minimal. God is really strange to have created this human species without which the world would have been very very different place.

I wonder why is it that Yours Truly has become so thoughtful and philosophical today. But she is sometimes. Can't help it.

The 'Low' Episode

Well, back again with a bang!!!

:D ..My own attempts at making my blog entry a little dramatic... A blog with practically no readers but myself needs some self-boosting. But I love this, my blog and its uniqueness- In the sense that I am recording my thoughts in this blog of mine which could be read by some dear and close friends to whom I have shared the link. Though I don't have any regular readers to my blog, it is good. I am in love with my own blog :-) :-o I guess that's called 'pygmalionism.'

Now, coming to my title The 'Low' Episode. Yes, let me explain a little here. It refers to my bouts of low BP tendencies in the past two or three weeks. This low BP episode has become the talk of my colleagues the moment they see me around. The various and numerous advices and suggestions I have been receiving for the past few weeks to increase my BP to its normal -stable level has been tremendous and humongous!!! I mean whenever I meet a colleague or friend of mine who knows about this low BP episode of mine would start giving me suggestions on improving my diet. So much so that now I can advise anyone on the diet for a person with low BP.

To make it clear, it all started with a fainting episode one early morning (few weeks back) followed  by a BP check-up which showed it to be very low. After that incident, whenever I feel dizzy and tired in the middle of the day or in the evening or at times, in the morning itself, I just walk into the clinic in our campus and just get my BP checked by the nurses there. Every time, I get to see a wrinkled brow, a frown, or some strange not-so-fine expression on their faces. They would ask me, "Hey, you don't eat or what? Have lime juice with salt in it!!! Eat loads ma..Have fruits...take care..Have food from canteen".. so on and so forth. After checking a few times, I just stopped going there. Even when I feel dizzy or tired. I would just try my own methods to increase my BP and guess at times I succeed too.

After a few bouts of self-treatment I fell sick again. I mean veryyy low BP this time and finally decided to get home and be done with a thorough medical examination. Well, Dad was summoned as I wasn't allowed to travel alone. Poor Dad, with two daughters, always on wheels to fetch us, drop us, accompany us wherever, whatever and whenever. It feels good to be in the warm security of our dear and near ones. But quite often I do feel guilty for troubling them. Can't help it. I mean in our place a woman can't travel alone after 6pm. We can't take chances by traveling alone early in the morning before sunrise. If we do, then we would be nothing more than the hot topic of discussion in the next day's newspapers and TV channels. People from Kerala will understand why???

Well, coming back to the "Low Episode". I got a thorough medical check up -- blood tests, X-Ray, ECG, Scanning and what not. Spent four thousand bucks. And the results: I'm perfectly ok. No solid reason could be found out for the bouts of Low BP except that my pleasure of skipping my meals and breakfasts of and on was the villain. And Yes, I don't have enough Calcium in my body. I was prescribed to take Ca tablets for a month!

So here goes my anecdote, the low episode of my life! Hopefully bored my readers to death!

Halo - We miss u....

Halo....is now a sweet memory. I had always thought of writing about him. I saw him for the first time when he was just a few weeks old. Chubby, cute and tiny- he was like a mass of white snow. Bringing him home was the topic of discussion for many a days in our home and finally one evening without getting the final confirmation from the lady of the house, my dad decided to bring him as a surprise. He was for sure that on seeing this cute, little thing my mom cannot even think of rejecting him.

My mom's first reaction on seeing him was "How could he survive without his mother's milk and care?" Well, dad had solutions for everything. We were asked to give him milk with glucose powder mixed in it. That was Halo's main food for many days from then on. He used to drink it from his small plate and his stomach alone would grow in size disproportionate to his body mass. The stomach used to be like the kernel of a small coconut or a small sized ball. When he scrawled in our sitting room after this feast of milk+glucose, it was almost like a small ball rolling on. Biscuits soaked in milk was also his favourite then. So that was the first few days of Halo's life. We used to take the measurements of his legs, ears, and tail. He was so tiny that we could hold him in one palm. That was how we started liking and playing with our first ever puppy. His breed was Pomeranian and he was quite majestic looking when compared to other dogs of his breed. He was from a noble dog family, his dad and mom living in the same home and his mother was notorious for her ferocity. Some of those genes were transferred onto our Halo as well which we realized later.

Halo was very soon a part of our family...feeding him, attending to him, taking him for walk, playing with him - all this had become a part of our daily routine and yes... it added a special warmth to our lives. It was like having a new member in the family. One day ma decided to make him a little aggressive in character which I didn't encourage but which was ultimately implemented. To make him angry, Ma used to tie a biscuit on a small thread and swing it in front of Halo and when he jumps to get it she would pull it away, thus making him angry and he also started giving tiny little barks as he grew restless. However such efforts of my Ma resulted in Halo being a very short tempered and ferocious dog. Though, all these attributes of his was never tried on anyone of us. He never tolerated strangers, especially if they were shabbily dressed or if they carried any big baggage with them. He liked kids to some extent and he used to scold (bark at) them when they run around and make noise. It was more like the attitude of an elder brother who didn't wish the kids to fall down and break their legs. Halo was quite adjusting as well. When we decided to keep a few cats as our pets, he was initially hostile to them. But later on, he took it upon himself to safeguard the kittens and bring them up. He knew exactly which were the cats that belonged to the household and which were the ones that were wild and naughty. Sweety and Manu's kittens were treated like his own puppies. Nandu was the last kitten that was brought up by him. They used to snuggle and sleep in his thick hair. Halo's hair was of an off-white colour with a tinge of light brown on his back.

When I think about Halo, the first thing that comes to mind would be his lovely dark eyes. He used to converse with those eyes. He conveyed all his feelings through those black eyes. It used to become misty when he was happy or sad. I wonder when I started admiring animals. But as far as I could remember, I always loved animals, birds, nature and almost everything that was natural. But I had really felt the love of an animal from Halo, my first pet. The love that he gave us was untainted, selfless and devoid of any selfish design The utter faith, the complete trust the pets have for us is something worth learning from them. They are so innocent. The love they have for their master and his family cannot be bribed or altered. Even if we hurt them they never try to hurt us back. People say animals are uncouth and wild. But I feel they are more civil than us. It is not for the food and shelter we give them, it is for the love that we give which makes them attached to us. Halo never trusted anyone outside our close family circle. He wouldn't touch the food offered by a stranger even if it was his favorite one. I could read his body language. I could understand his different styles of bark Yes, I know all pet lovers can do that. Halo even used to smile at us. "It was really comfortable spending time with you, Halo! You used to listen to everything I said."

How I remember his embarrassment when I surprised him one afternoon during his nap. He used to know of our home-coming even before we turned the road to our home. He used to smell our arrival even before he saw us. The best thing about having a pet is forgetting all your worries in its presence. Halo was quite possessive about us, especially the two of us - me and my sis. In his childhood he was like our little brother. When he grew older, he used to behave like our elder brother. He was very mature and stopped all his childish pranks. We were surprised by his transformation. My sis being the youngest in the family, he wasn't very obedient to her. He used to play with her and never obeyed her orders. They both used to run around the courtyard in the evenings. Later when she moved on to higher classes, she couldn't spend more time with him. That was how he started losing on the exercises and slightly gained weight. This led to increase of cholesterol and eventually to a heart disease. If we had given him some more exercises, we could have had him longer. He left us when he was nine. True to his name, he was spreading light and sunshine when he was around. After he left, my mother never allowed us to keep another pet. It was like the loss of a close family member. It took many days for us to come out of it.

I remember reading a short story wherein a lonely old lady was worried about being separated from her pet dogs after her death. She kept asking her doctor whether dogs had souls. The doctor consoled her by saying that she could meet them in heaven after her death. I too wonder whether they have souls. I do believe they have. I also feel Halo would know when I am thinking about him. I hope I will meet him again sometime in some other world.

Mazha

"ee mazhanoolil enikku oru oonjaal kettanam
kanda swapnangal ellam cherthu oru mazha aayi peyyanam"

- Lines by a Malayalam poet whose name I don't remember....

Mazha/ rain/ baarish/ mallai (he he... the word 'rain' rendered in all the languages I know) has been the subject of many a poems and stories that I have read. Especially in Indian literature, the monsoons are an integral part of our lives. I am reminded of a Hindi play titled -" Ashad ka ek din" by Mohan Rakesh.  It was a prescribed text in Second Language during my graduation. Somehow this play with its description of ashad (ashad means rain) and its association with the central characters is touching and captivating. It is a tragedy (and I don't like tragedies). But the plot has remained in my mind for a long time.

 I am not that fascinated by the monsoons. I like it if I get to be at home when it rains. I hate to be out when it is raining. I prefer being at the cosiness of my room, watching the rain from windows or balcony, from where I make sure not a single drop wets me. I love watching the rain. I like the look of leaves and plants that are rain-washed and shining. I like it when it feels like all the trees and plants have taken a bath :) Oh! I do like to watch the rain falling on the ground, making patterns and ripples, the sound of rain, musical and lilting, different every time it rains.

My sis and I used to make paper boats and float it in the water that had accumulated in the courtyard of my mom's ancestral home. That was an interesting and fascinating game. I didn't mind getting drenched then. It was just awesome. The very feel and thought of it makes me very nostalgic. Those childhood fantasies and memories... no wonder rain makes people nostalgic and sentimental.

But now, I am very particular and obstinate of the fact that I like monsoon only if I am allowed to stay at home and watch it from a distance. It is so comfortable to cuddle and sleep in your cosy bed when it rains outside.I know I know what you are thinking "Such a lazy goose this female is!!"  :))