Nothing is same without you…

Its May 25th, 2011. A year today since you left me… I think of you everyday and still I miss you. A very very difficult year is behind me. Not knowing you have come into our life, being ignorant and then finally losing you forver…. terrible.

It has been raining since early morning… in sync with my mood today. Not a day passes by without wondering how my life would’ve been if you had decided to stay with me. The pain I went through on that fateful day is only a tit-bit of the agony I go through everyday without you in my arms.

What would you have grown up into? A boy or a girl? Fair skinned or brown? Unruly hair? So many imaginations kept running in my head for a week that I knew  you were within me. I wished you to be a girl and chose the name ‘Samiksha’ and by chance if you were a boy…. sorry, no name was in mind. But then, you decided to crush those happy thoughts and pushed me into an endless abyss from which I am yet to surface.

Life would have been so much better for both of us  if you had stayed around. What was the hurry? Why did you leave? Would be fun if you decide to come back.

Missing you, baby. Please come back….

God!!! We Survived

Guilty as Charged… But never on parole :)

I came across a post in a Discussion Forum reading 'TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70’s!!'

It was all about kids born before 1980 and the joy they felt as born-free humans. I noticed that it was not just me who very often pondered over the memories of childhood (like kolam, bicycle masti, etc).

It is so true that we were more crazy than the kids we see the since the past two decades.

The post had a lot of memories listed down... the few that reminded me of my own childhood are here...

* First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us, giving a chance to our children to be proud that their mother too didn't smoke or drink.

* We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took talking to strangers.

* As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags, just in case someone gave us a car ride.

* We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

* We shared one soft drink with four friends (pitching in everyone's weekend allowance of 1re each), from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

* We ate cakes and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!

* We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

* No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

* The one photo session day in school was one of the most hated days of the year but still we got our uniforms pressed for the great day.

* We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

* We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. Most often, our friends became the doctors treating us ;).. Lest parents knew about it

* We made up games with sticks and rubber balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

* We rode bicycles or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

* This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

* We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

And if YOU are one of them… CONGRATULATIONS!

I wish our kids would get a glimpse of the funny, cranky life we had and know what they actually missed. I bet my life to the fact that all the latest gadgets available could never show them the bliss we experienced years back.

If you remember such events from the past and that which are hard to see in today’s world… do drop a few lines about them. I know each one of you are thinking about them with a smile on your lips .. :)

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars. ~Martin Luther

It is still like yesterday when I first met her and before I could realize, it’s almost 7yrs since I am friends with her. In the past years, her beauty has decreased... like a gracefully aging gal, but I do miss the one I was got acquainted to.

It was a chill evening in December 2001… first day since I came to Bangalore (Indira Nagar). Knowing new place, new people, new responsibility and new friendship all happened on the same day & was too much for me. Planning to take things gradually, I walked out of my cramped up, noisy hostel & a few meters away, saw her & also noticed many being attracted to her. And I was no exception to that.

That day was the birth of a new friend I wud cherish for ever… and I christened her ‘my park’. It was a Sunday & when I reached the park, which was a small abode of beautiful fauna (the chirping of birds can b heard only in the silence of the soul) & flora (which can speak volumes to an admirer), it was dotted with kids, all in various color outfits and most of ‘em younger than 5yrs old. And the kids chaperoned by young parents, hyperactive older siblings, grandmas & grandpas, lovers with hopes & dreams… a lovely sight that was to behold.

It was a chill dusk… all in their sweaters & warmers, but the beauty of this scene was that all wanted to be near the fountain to feel the spray of water on their uncovered face and palms. My fav spot too became the arena bench near the fountain. After that day, every time I’m with my friend ‘my park’, am always in my fav spot or wait until someone who has occupied it to get lost & sit there until the park closes at 7.15pm.

As I sit there, I look at the kids play together with a ball from one household, a bat from another, something else from yet another. Which part of their childhood do kids suddenly get to realize some things belong to THEM? Juz a thot that crossed my mind… I don’t ponder on it much and move on to see the other people in my friend’s stretched out hand.

Bordering the park were few eatery stalls, filled with the teenage crowd happily munching away & I thot, how many of ‘em wud ‘ve got on their mom’s last nerve for not eating even the required serving of home-made food prepared with so much care & affection.

Days fly, I left my friend & with hope I said ‘meet ya soon’. I move to Coimbatore, then Chennai in the following years and also, I move back to Bangalore in December 2004 to build my career. I could’ve settled down anywhere in the wide city but as luck wud‘ve it, I came to Indira Nagar again and closer to my friend.

In the years I missed being with her, I noticed a lot of changes as she would’ve of me. In the place of the fountain, now stood three pipe stumps that remind one of the beauties that once used to attract so many. It was like the crown which an old lady won when she was a titled Miss Beautiful ages ago.

Nothin had changed much… except by the years that‘ve passed by. I met some of the most important people of my life in the same park and all of us cherish the time we spent there. At any moment, be it in the hot sun or the cool evening, I feel a sense of belonging when I’m in that park… feel one with the nature. As William Hazlitt (English essayist, 1778-1830) once quoted -- I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, nature is company enough for me.

Talking about nature, I read a quote …"What a country chooses to save is what a country chooses to say about itself."( Mollie Beattie, Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from 1993-1996). How true. Let us preserve something today for the tomorrow to be proud of.

We generate our own environment. We get exactly what we deserve. How can we resent a life we've created ourselves? Who's to blame, who's to credit but us? Who can change it, anytime we wish, but us?”
Richard Bach quotes (American Writer, author of 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull', b.1936)