Early memories

The earliest memory that I have is waiting at the verandah of amma’s ancestral home for Anuchechi to return from school. Her school was just few buildings away and I could hear the bell ring and almost immediately the flock of kids filled the small lane in front of the house. I’ll be patiently waiting there to get the first glimpse of her and used to jump with joy when I could spot her in the sea of similar looking kids. Anuchechi is my cousin 7 years elder to me and it won’t be wrong if I say I idolize her (even now :P) So I used to feel jealous when I see her with her friends. At least my 2 year old self was conditioned to think that she is MY chechi(yeh private property) and no one should come near her :P In fact my possessiveness towards her was a means for Kuttettan (her younger bro) to pick a fight with me. He knew I will be unfazed whatever he does to me but the moment he does anything to chechi, I’ll be all charged up to fight with him :)

This house which I used to call ‘avva veedu’ (I have no clue why I gave it this name) is in a small village and is very special in my memories. I spent most of my infancy here and later most of my school vacations and even now is ready to give up anything to spend a day there in the same old environment. Amma was working in a school there and we were staying there for the ease of baby sitting I guess. Same was the case with Anuchechi as mema (mom’s sister) was also working and it was not so easy to manage two kids without help. Then there was Acchacchan who was always serious (I have only vague memory of him). I do remember him sitting in the front verandah in the evenings and some or other person will drop in to exchange pleasantries. Some days I used to sit in his lap and listen to their conversations. Amma had told me later that he was a follower of Advaita philosophy and many people in the village considered him quite knowledgeable and used to come to him for advice! Ammamma was always busy with one or other chores – cooking, cows, hens, harvests or making medicines (Acchacchan was an ayurvedic practitioner as well). Valiyammavan was also staying in the house. I can’t remember whether the other two ammavans were also staying there at that time though they used to come there very often. Rather I think they were not staying there as both of them were working in other districts. Can't remember the younger cousins as well. So mostly it was only these many who stayed there :) Acchan used to come on weekends and Anuchechi had told me that she used to long for his arrival as he always came with some goodies to eat. I used to love his arrival coz whenever he comes he used to take us to the paddy fields near by and I used to be so charged up seeing the vast fields. A walk on the muddy and slushy ‘varambu’ was bliss for me :P

The fun time was always in the evenings when the entire family gathered in the courtyard and chit chatted. This courtyard was kind of buzzing all the time. During harvest season,it’ll be full of ladies doing the katta methikkal(the process of removing grains from the paddy by stamping or beating the straw), cheral (removing dirt and stones), nellu puzhungal(boiling the grains before removing the husk), uralil idikkal(manual way of hulling, or removing the husk from rice in a stone gadget) and all such activities related to it. I don’t know if these things are still done anywhere in kerala :( It was such a delightful experience. This was also the place where we used to play and our stage for the extra curricular activities. I still remember the dance that Anuchechi taught me n Kuttettan and she used to make us practice it here. I even remember one step in that where all three of us were going in circles holding a lotus mudra : D Unfortunately only she pursued dance later and we were no where near ;)

PS: I was half way through this post when I got a call from chettan (my brother in law) saying Anuchechi has delivered a baby boy early this morning. Since she is mentioned many a times in this post I thought I'll share the happy news here as well :) I so much yearn to see her and the lil one but unfortunately we are half a globe apart :(

Memoir

Yesterday I had a phone call with a school friend after so many years. We were talking about our class, teachers, different gangs, incidents etc from that time and I realized most of the things I have already forgotten :( Putting down my childhood memories was always in my mind, but it never materialized and this call did give me the much needed trigger to do that. What if I'm following suit Suresh Kalmadi ;)

And when I decided to pen it down ASAP, the first thought was 'where?' and I almost went back to my personal diary as whatever I’m going to write will be relevant only to myself and doesn’t make much sense for any of the readers. It’s just my way to go back to my past and relive those memories. But then for quite sometime I was feeling guilty about abandoning this space and many of my friends were asking me to start writing again. So here I am coming back to this space hoping to stay here for some more time :)

I am planning to write things as and when I remember stuff and so cannot guarantee any sort of continuity. If someone does read this series do forgive me for that :)

Travel companion, anyone?

It’s really long since I have paid a visit to this space and I know I don’t even deserve any apologies :( And considering I was someone who was addicted to internet at one point of time and had to struggle to discipline myself to distribute my time and energy to other activities, it is very weird that now a days I hardly switch on the comp after I come back home. Strange are the ways of human mind!!! Btw I have a feeling that something has hit the whole blogworld - except for a very few consistent ones almost everyone in my blogroll seems to be silent… So it’s not just me after all (you need some excuses right) ;)

I know I failed to keep my promise about the VoF trip travelogue. I don’t know if it makes sense even if I try to complete it now as the continuity is totally gone :( In the meanwhile I went for two more awesome long trips – one was Delhi-Madhura-Vrindavan-Agra-Dehradun-Mussorie during March-April 2010. It was more of a leisurely trip just to break the routine. Next was Rajastan during Oct-Nov 2010. That was a hectic but very enjoyable trip and we covered Jaipur-Pushkar-Chittaur-Udaipur-Mt Abu Ranakpur-Jodhpur-Jaisalmer-Sam Dunes camp-Bikaner(Phew). Now if you are wondering why I am suddenly in a trip mode – yeh I am planning my next trip ;) This time it is Europe and I’m planning to cover Amsterdam (Keukenhof gardens which is the main motivation for this trip, Volendam, Marken and the Windmill village), Swiss(hopefully all of it), and south east France (Nice, Monte Carlo, Eze, Cannes, CHAMONIX, Annecy). Planning to leave by May 5th 2011and will be back by around end of May. So the purpose of this post is to check if I have any readers who are as crazy as me who would like to join this journey (whole or partial) :P Do mail me if you are interested, but soon :)

The Journey Begins!

[If you are interested in the rest of this memoir please click here]

In the railway station we had a quick intro to the rest of the group. Frankly that time I couldn't get anyone's name properly. Only thing I noticed was that there were too many ishs what with ishviene, ishrat, isha , aisha etc. In fact for the initial few days we were referring to them as "one of the ish's" as the names were too confusing ;) And the group was also very peculiar. For a Himalayan trek like this, I was expecting mostly guys who are into hardcore trekking and I was scared that I will be the only one left behind. But thankfully except for our two guides, there was only a sole male member and all others were ladies and most of them much older than me(but much fitter). I am not sure at their age whether I will be able to walk within my courtyard itself!!

We did an overnight train journey to Haridwar and then it was a long bus journey to Joshimat.



The route was picturesque though most of us resorted to sleeping.

There were few landslides on the way but it got cleared soon and we reached Joshimat by around 10 PM.

We were put up in a dormitory but thankfully the guest-house people gave us some rooms to freshen up. After a nice hot bath(that was the last proper bath for the next few days) all of us soon retired to relax before all the fun and excitement awaiting us the next day...

Glimpses of Delhi and a mad rush!!

[This is a memoir of one of the dream trips I have gone. If you are interested in reading the first part here is the link
Jul 31 : Kickstart]

The next day (1st Aug) we got up late and after breakfast checked out from the rooms as advised by the manager. He promised to give us a room to freshen up once we come back after the Delhi tour. The taxi driver was waiting for us. Thankfully it was the same English speaking driver. He then told us where he will drop us in the evening and how we should come back to the hotel. We also confirmed how far the railway station is and he told that it's just 2 mins walk down the road. We were relieved and decided to roam around till 6 PM, come back, freshen up and reach the station at 7 PM.



Our first stop was Lakshmi-Narayan Temple (also called Birla Mandir). It is made of mostly white marbles and red sand stone and the architecture although good was too modern for a temple (at least that's what I felt and I have the same opinion about Iskon temples. Problem of growing up in kerala amongst the ancient temples I guess.)

We then headed towards the Indira Gandhi museum passing through Parliament House Rashtrapati Bhawan etc but unfortunately we couldn't get down. I am not sure if it was not allowed or our driver cum guide didn't want to stop. So I could only steal some pictures from the moving car :( But that route impressed all of us - Wide roads, nice neem tree coverings on either sides, no traffic jams. We almost concluded that Delhi is much better than B'lore infrastructure wise :)

Anyway we soon reached the Indira Gandhi Memorial Museum which is actually the sprawling yet simple white bungalow where Indira Gandhi lived. I think one of the first biographies that I read as an Amar Chitra Kadha was that of Mrs.Gandhi's when I was 6 or 7 yrs old and from that time I am a huge fan of her strong character. I still remember the pain that I felt when I read that she burnt her foreign toys and clothes in support of the Swadeshi movement!

This museum has a collection of her personal belongings and it gives a visual narration of her life from childhood to her last days in such a manner that they are rendered alive by merely their presentation. The saddest part is that this includes the blood stained sari, which she wore on the day she was assassinated. It also contains the personal exhibits of Rajeev Gandhi. There also along with his photographs and other personal possessions, depicting the happy times of his life, there were the burnt clothes and shoes that he wore when he was assassinated in the bomb blast :( Then once you enter the gardens outside the museum, the place where Indira Gandhi finally fell after being shot has been marked, which also has few dried blood spots. I guess even if you have a totally different political view, no one can come out of that place without feeling the strong presence that this family has in the Indian History and appreciating their sacrifices for the country.

We then headed to Kutab Minar where our history books came alive. It was really hot but we enjoyed the time we spent there.




After an elaborate lunch we went to India Gate and spent sometime there - a leisurely walk, ice-cream and cotton candies:).
Our next destination was chandni chowk and then back to hotel. Btw on the way to chandni chowk we realized actual Delhi is not the beautiful Delhi that we experienced before. It was on the way to chandni chowk that the sisters got a phone call from home and she was explaining where all we went and where we are heading to and then the train. Our driver was listening to the conversation and suddenly he asked us ‘From which station is your train?’ and we were like isn’t it the station near our hotel? He then told us that there are many stations and not all trains come to all the stations. He said if our train is by any chance from old Delhi, after picking the luggage from hotel we are not going to reach there by 7 PM which was the designated reporting time. Unfortunately the organizers had not mentioned the train no or name or the specific station and we didn’t clarify it either as we assumed it is the one near the hotel. So we desperately tried to contact them but in vain. After 1 hr or so, when we finally got through the number, our worst fears came true. It was indeed the old Delhi station but thankfully he said the train is at 10 PM and only the reporting time was 7 PM. So thanking our stars we rushed back to hotel, freshened up and got ready but then the next hurdle - The taxi had left as he was not willing to come to old Delhi again and so we had to find another one. The hotel guy assured us he will arrange another soon. But the ‘soon’ didn’t happen very soon and finally by the time we left it was already past 8 PM. We were desperately asking them how much time it will take to reach the station and they were like normally 20-30 mins but in traffic it can stretch to even 3 hrs. Our heart sank! In between there was another tiff because the driver the hotel person had arranged who was the fastest had already some passengers and they were in no mood to shift to another vehicle. No other drivers were confident enough to get us there on time!!! Finally that was resolved and the driver kaka drove, rather flew, us to the station. I have not seen anyone driving so fast in such crazy traffic. No wonder the hotel guy picked him. He dropped us and then the vehicle refused to start again. Thank God it happened only after we reached. We then met the organizers and realized train is at mid-night and all the tension was not really worth it!! (Lesson learnt: Do your homework even though everything is supposedly taken care by someone else). Btw one more incident happened – one of the sisters lost her mobile. She had spoken in the car and so we realized it has fallen in the car itself. We tried calling the number but the car was no where to be seen. We almost thought we had lost it when we saw the cab coming back again. The driver heard the ring and he came back to return the phone. Honest people are not so rare in this world right?

Dream Valley Tales

It's exactly one year since we did the VoF trip. I know I had promised to write a travelogue and even started it soon after the trip. But I was not in a position to complete it then. For me, if I give a word I am adamant that I stick to it and make sure I do everything in my power to make it happen. So here I am again in an attempt to fulfill my promise :)

I know it is not an easy option to recollect the feelings and experience after one whole year. I can only say that I will try my best. Probably it is good in a way since only the good memories linger for long and you will be saved of the boring details ;) Although I will be doing it on a day-to-day account, some days were only travel and I might just choose to club them with other days.

Today's experience is already here :)
Jul 31 : Kickstart

To be continued...
This time for sure ;)

Today I am grateful for.. - Day 7

We always tend to complain about the ‘nothingness’ in our life and forget to appreciate the simple pleasures and happiness around. Today is the last day of this experiment and I am so glad I took it up as this helped me look at the things I was ignoring. It's like the whole day you tend to search for that lil bit of happiness in whatever you do or encounter. I am planning to continue this as a gratitude journal from tomorrow :)

These are my 5 Hi points of today:
1) When my office was in MG Road, there was lot of scope for 'roaming around' - be it a leisure walk in the pretty Brunton road, window shopping in the near by malls or lunch outs in all possible places. We missed all these luxuries so much once the office shifted to the outskirts of the city. Other than a food court which you need to walk some 1.5 km in the hot sun, there is no place to hangout. So today after lunch we decided to go for a walk around the place. This is the first time we are venturing out since we shifted here 2 months back. It wasn't very sunny and at some point we even got a light drizzle which felt more like a sprinkle when u go near a fountain and we throughly enjoyed the walk :)

2) I finished reading the book EPL - an elegantly narrated memoir. It is inspiring, funny and engaging. It assures that there is a peaceful tomorrow for all your troubles but she also clarifies - "I was not rescued by a prince; I was the administrator of my own rescue." which is so true. Who else other than yourself can save you? Now I can't wait to go to Bali and meet Ketut and Wayan and Mario ;)

3) I was totally surprised when a cab mate told me that he 'heard' I am a very good photographer! The funny part is I hardly know this person or the group of people from whom he heard this news. He said there was a discussion about photography and my name popped up first and he was like she is my cab mate but he never knew this. Not sure if he'll change his opinion once he sees my photos :P Anyways a compliment always makes your day right?

4) Got a personal mail from a friend. I realized now a days it's so rare for someone to write a mail. We mostly communicate via social networking sites or a chat window. But a mail/letter makes so much of difference. Moreover I am thankful for so many lovely people in my life that always cares for me..

5) And it's Friday and the weekend is already here... Yay :)

Today I am grateful for... - Day 6

It is always a good feeling to know that something that you have done/doing is inspiring others. I can't emphasize how this small exercise here has changed and helped me to be a better person. And mind you how much ever points you ‘think’, putting it in paper and seeing it in front of you does wonders. You will be amazed at the change in you. So if you haven't tried this yet, please do. You can use this facebook page if you don’t have a blog..

1) I am thankful for my landlords, uncle n aunty as I call them. They are an old couple in their late seventies living alone. Everyone tells me that you have got a second home and pseudo parents and they are just that for me. They make sure they are on the balcony 5 mins before my cab time to see me off. Same way they will be there at the time I come back home to check how my day was. Whenever anyone opens my gate they make sure it is someone I know and ward off any unnecessary nuisances. They even take care of all my bill payments too!!

2) At office we have a rooftop canteen and on normal days you can see as far as MG Road/UB City. Today at lunch time there was a heavy downpour and the view was just fantastic. It had a dreamy feel since it wrapped all the buildings with a misty cover and I just loved the sight. In fact, the view through the window from my seat is also beautiful especially when there is a build-up of clouds as the precursor to a downpour over the city. I have always loved the sky and what's in it - the clouds, planes, birds, stars and the moon. I guess no matter how old I get, I will always be a kid watching my sky – it's my way of growing older better.
Cause when I look to the sky something tells me you're here with me
And you make everything alright
And when I feel like I'm lost something tells me you're here with me
And I can always find my way when you are here
Train - When I Look To The Sky

3) Today morning I was reading Shruthi's UK Files and I remembered how we used to be dependent on the weather and how many trip plans had to be cancelled because of the weather. I could so much relate to that state and is so thankful that the place I am living has a moderate weather all year through. Think anyone who has lived in extreme weather conditions will know what I mean.

4) Back in my hometown every year an exhibition will be held at the Thekkinkad Maidanam as part of the Thrissur Pooram celebrations which is one of the most spectacular festivals in the world (more info). The city will be in jubilant mood since the opening of the exhibition as those days not many traveled outside the town and this gave them an opportunity to know the flavors/things/sights of the outside world. Since it happens during the summer vacation time, you can see families spending their evenings enjoying the various rides and doing heavy shopping. One thing that attracted me every year to this fair was the popcorn!! Yeh you heard it right. I think the popcorn stall was always the 5th or 6th and the aroma of fresh popcorns used to welcome you as soon as you enter the place. I guess since corn is not cultivated much in kerala that was the only time we got it. And you crave for things you can't get hold of easily na ;) If you are wondering why I told this totally unrelated story now - I made popcorn at home today. It's amazing how things change with the passing of time and something you used to get once a year has become something that you can make in just 3 mins at the comfort of your home.

5) In yesterday's post I had mentioned that I came across many people who were reading my blog and today some more friends gave their attendance :) So out of curiosity when I checked the site statistics today, I realized that I have almost 100 visitors a day with more than 1K visits and 2K page views this month. I know it is not a big number for popular blogs but for me it really is a big achievement especially after such a long dormant period :)

Today I am grateful for... - Day 5

I've come to realize the difference in success, or failure, is not how you look, not how you dress and not even how you're educated. It's how you think.
I can't overstate the importance of being able to maintain a positive attitude, but I'm the first one to admit...it's not easy

An excerpt from Attitude is Everything
by Vicki Hitzges

1) At least 6-7 people told me today that they read my blog and is happy that I restarted blogging and is able to carry out this attitude and become a 'transformed & positive girl' :) I had no idea all these people were reading my blog and is happy that I have accomplished this 'not easy' task :)

2) Had a loooooooong phone call with a friend and you know harmless gossip always refreshes you ;)

3) I have always loved rain. So how can I be not happy at the unexpected shower in the evening?

4) I am currently reading Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love and loved the concept of four brothers. I have always yearned to have a brother may be coz I almost had one. The very thought that 'The brothers can be called upon in any critical situation for rescue and assistance' is so reassuring Na?

5) Got some 'Me’ time to read and study. I always love it when there is no pressure and you are free to read anything at your own pace :P

Today I am grateful for.. - Day 4

Wow I’m already on Day 4 and I love it so much. It really is good fun and a great mood booster :) Why don’t you try it out yourself(if you haven't started it yet)? If you don’t have a blog you can write in the facebook group

1) There are some people with whom even if you don't talk for a long time, when you connect with them again you just pick from where you left as if it were yesterday that you last spoke. Today after I came home and found this old friend online. We haven't met for about 10 years and completely lost touch for some 3-4 years. He is now in UK and I felt so nice to reconnect with him :)

2) Today Sid and I sat together and finalized this year’s long trip - The vibrant Rajasthan. We had booked the flight tickets few weeks back and were in the process of deciding the stay and commute. Now waiting for Oct end... :)

3) Today got the info about the next cycling event this weekend. This looks lil tougher than the moonlight ride. But who's complaining? We are for it :)

4) I learned that there are some fans for my adopted pet sheep who likes to pat and feed her :P And for those of you who hate her sound, the mute button comes in handy ;)

5) And looks like my day is never complete without a delicacy and what best other than a scrumptious black forest cake? No wonder that I have all size zero obsessed clothes ;)