2020 Meanderings

2020 began with thoughts of decades, achievements and general goodwill. Social media was ablaze with the Citizenship Amendment Act and its implications - sometimes it felt as if Apocalypse was at the doorstep so much so that it did not feel like one was heralding a brand new year. It is a new decade and year nevertheless. A new year, no matter what, engages one in introspection and a sense of beginnings. If you are of the reflective kind, then the old giving way to new holds the tugs of your heart's strings and coerces you to look back and forward.

I was thankful for 2019 on a personal level while I was in trepidation about the general happenings around me and my country. While my heart was overflowing with the turn of events in my life, I was unable to savour them because my country was reeling under protests of CAA and related issues. The economy of my country worries me in spite of me not being an economist. Can one be happy about something when the country is at a loss for common sense?

But hope is a good thing and I have it flowing in abundance out of the depths of my being and as long as it is present, I could gladly look forward to 2020.

How was it for you?

May we face the coming year, 2020, with the steady serenity of a tree — that supreme lover of light, always reaching both higher and deeper, rooted in a network of kinship and ringed by a more patient view of time.

(Via Brain Pickings)

Picture Courtesy: Blogger's archive

Sometimes I wish . . .

For the first time, in my four years of blogging, I am participating in a blog event - Blog Tag . . . You're it - a blogging chain event where lovely bloggers from 28 countries around the world are writing on one topic, Sometimes I wish . . .

This post was preceded by Ron Reed, who actually blogs but has titled his blog, IF I HAD A BLOG! He is a very soulful and deep writer who leaves insightful comments whenever he visits your blog. I am glad to be succeeding him in this event.

Sometimes I wish . . .

Having been given to extreme flights of fantasy and day-dreaming, I should mention that I have sometimes wished that I could be given the power of becoming invisible when I choose to be. I could listen in during conversations and hear what moves people, what turns them on, what irritates them and what makes them live the lives they are living.

Being invisible, I would be able to traverse boundaries and mountains without the hassles of visa and money, like Dave so eloquently mentioned in his post. I would sneak into kitchens and discover the secrets behind seductive-looking recipes and steal the cellars for the oldest red wine.

I wouldn't need the trappings of clothes, make-up, bags and shoes to live a life and I would be glad to leave them unattended. 

Being invisible, I can escape without being captured by any camera which I detest and I could enter closed security doors without being detected and change the papers of policy-makers wherever necessary.

I could use the power of being invisible to bring smiles and joy to anyone who is in need of them by giving them surprises when they least expect it.

And, finally, I could sleep perched across a treetop blessed by the touch of dew or in Johnny Depp's home without being traced! What a life that would be! 

This is a wish that has sustained me during many of my vacant hours right from my childhood till date and this wish will always remain a wish. Though the acts that I could have done have changed from time to time, the desire to become invisible has always remained :)

This post will be succeeded by Suzy who blogs at Someday Somewhere. Whenever I land at her place, I start humming the song "Someday . . .," by the cheesy MLTR. Suzy who loves travelling and photographing was born in India and has spent some time in India and during that time fell in love with Bollywood and the many colours of India, some of which are showcased in her blog time to time. Stop by her place for some colour, fun and some interesting stuff from her collection of memories.

Image: Internet 

Looking forward to 2012

This year has been quite eventful in every sphere of my life, I should say. For the first time in my life, I got chicken-pox; After years of toiling, I submitted my Ph.D thesis and I also willingly gave up my single-hood. Well, the aforementioned were the highlights, if I may say so but there there have been other aspects of the year which gave life a wholesome effect. Blogplicity, an interactive blogging community gave me lovely blogger pals and their blogs, this year.

Looking back, I am older than last year and younger than what I will be next year but that has not hindered any process and progress, of course, I have changed my moisturizers and lotions. I have lost touch with people with whom I used to correspond and interact when 2011 began. I do miss them but then life had other paths which were already carved out, for me and them. They will always be on my mind and I wish them good health, prosperity, wholesome life and above all joy in every sphere of their lives.

Learned to compromise in a big way and also learnt that compromise is the only way in which life can go on without much breakdowns. Well, I don't like that word now. It irks me: COMPROMISE.

Reading the variety of blogs that are littered over blogland, I realise how much topics are out there and how much is left to explore. I must say that 2011 has been a boom time for many blogs. Well, well,  . . .

For the first time, I was stranded in a train while the cyclone Thane passed. When I read of the many deaths and destruction caused by the cyclone in today's paper, I realise the intensity of the situation.

I don't know whether I have become wiser this year but I know for sure that life is full of surprises (perhaps, shocks) and those arrive at a time when one least expects them. And that the phrase, 'I have moved on,' and 'Move on with life' is quite overrated. Even some institutions which have been held dear by many are quite overrated. Well, some people don't realise that truth. Good for them. A little funny for people on the other side, like me, for instance.

The world has lost many artists that have coloured my growing up years. Though their deaths didn't affect me personally, I do miss their presence in this world. That they lived in the same world as me gave me solace. But now they are no more. Maybe good for them to have escaped this life.

Inspite of everything, the new year holds promises and new beginnings and I look forward to it with the same child-like pleasure of my early years. The new year does have something, isn't it. William Arthur Ward is just right when he said:

“Another fresh new year is here .
. .
Another year to live!
To banish worry, doubt, and fear,
To love and laugh and give!

This bright new year is given me
To live each day with zest . . .
To daily grow and try to be
My highest and my best!

I have the opportunity
Once more to right some wrongs,
To pray for peace, to plant a tree,
And sing more joyful songs!” 

Image: Internet

Wishes for the season

Dear Readers:

It has been wonderful to interact with you in the past eleven months. I will be away for about ten days now and shall see you just before the year comes to an end. But before I leave, I leave you with best wishes for this lovely season. 

 

Image: Internet

 

The innocence of not knowing prices and value of things

Long ago, when I was a kid, it was wonderful to think that everything was possible and easy in life. For example, it was quite common to think that I will have a house by the sea and have a large telescope in my living room which would enable me to view the craters of the moon. Alas! the world from the eyes of a child is seldom based on practical calculations and pragmatic decisions. That world is Utopia, I reckon.

It is quite amazing to observe that as children, we don't estimate wishes and dreams through money. But that innocence slowly fades when one enters the teens. The harsh reality of money and value seeps into the thoughts and slowly the wishes disappear. All that one wants, as a teenager is something removed from the fantasies of a child. The "house by the sea" slowly vanishes and what is visible is the great idea of a 'career.' The becoming of something (I mean in a profession) is the ultimate beacon to be reached. Parents, teachers and well wishing adults remind us to remember what we have to become in the future. Even the path to a career needs money but that can be attained, anyway.

In the meanwhile, the child that we were talking of in the first paragraph, starts attaching a price to everything material. A house costs a lot of money and a house by the sea costs even more. Dreams have to be dreamt based on the cost price. Then the wishes no longer remain wishes. They become pursuits.

The other day I was thinking of how as a child, I wished for so many things. The wishes were just wishes and not something that I should possess. Wishing is one and possessing is another. I hope you get what I mean. We wished because we liked to pass our idle hours in thinking of something. It used to be a lovely pass time before sleep folded us up in her loving arms. But now, when sleep eludes, I calculate the price and wonder when will I be able to accumulate money to buy X or Y. It is at this juncture, faith enters. As a child there were wishes but no faith but now there are wishes and faith.

I guess the cycle has to go on.

Well, I don't know whether I made sense in this post. If this post kindled something within, then would you care to share what was kindled? I would be all ears . . .

Image: Internet