Travelling around

Just read Mridula’s piece about her trip to Goa on GoNomad. I and Sajju were planning on taking that very same YHAI trip, but never did.

We both keep talking about travelling in India. But somehow all our time seems to just go in visiting family back home in Bombay and Pune. We travelled so much while we lived in the US. That’s the teeny bit trouble about living in India. I am so emotional about family all I want to do is be with them and then I sulk that I don’t get to travel. Slowly but steadily am trying to change all that. We did goto Ajanta and Ellora as well as Matheran this year! Next year I hope to travel more. There is just so much to explore in India. Each state with its own unique topography and social customs. I know if I want to visit each state in the country and understand just a little bit about them all, this lifetime won’t be enough. Maybe I’ll start with a dozen unvisited states first. What say?

Being inspired and doing good

There is so much that inspires me. So many people that I see on the TV or read about or have had the fortune to meet. People who in their simple ways have created profound impacts.

Recently on oprah, (an old rerun) they ran a show about women you must know. Featured it in was Sabriye Tenberken. Blinded at the age of 12, she stood as a stellar example of what moral fire can do. While studying for her masters she helped develop a Braille script for Tibetian. And then at age 26, she went alone to Tibet and set up the first ever school there for blind children, travelling across the country alone. She has helped establish Braille Without Borders, a NGO that works in Tibet and is in the process of establishing an International school in India to train blind people to help establish their own organizations for people with blindness and other disabilities.

It was just so wonderful watching her speak on Oprah. She spoke for all of two minutes and they featured her organization for about 5 minutes. But it was enough to make me admire tremendously her gut and instinct. Faith can work wonders. All you need to do is believe. But isn’t that what we let go off firstly? We stop believing in ourselves and it is from that juncture, when you stop believing in the possibility of the potential within you that life goes haywire. All other actions are justified on the basis on that disbelief in your own inherent potential.

But does it truly matter if you impact one life or one million? Does it gain you more good karma if you give more good to people you don’t know rather than your own people? Is it more important to go through your life not harming anyone or anything or is it more important to do something in your life that positively changes thousands or maybe just tens or hundreds of lives. How do people figure this out? Me, I am still trying to find my path. Meanwhile all I can do is to ensure I am true to me, good to the people around me and do my utmost for the ones I love and whom I have the opportunity to serve. But some strange restlessness prevails, always does. Watching people like Sabriye and my CF friends though makes me believe, in me and in the potential of others.

Old or new words?

I was tempted to pick my diary up and just post something that was already there previously but I resisted my errant impulses. What is there in the diary, I already know. The joy of this blog is in me discovering the new words that pop out of my mind and err.. fingers as I sit and type. I never know whats coming next. It’s a game of cops and robbers. I wait and they don’t arrive. I sigh and pause and suddenly then my fingers start flying wildly down the keyboard, trying to outdo my mind.

I have been introspecting extensively lately, when I am not working my back off (That’s the only part of my body that’s getting worked out currently, as I sit in front of the comp all day long. My mind too off course. He he.) I am a little more at peace with myself offlate and apparently that’s showing! I feel better and have been told I look better (Hurray!)

This happens to me in cycles. Though I am so stressed about something things, I have this sense of purpose and calm that tells me this too is something I am meant to deal with. A few days ago I got bold and submitted one of my short-stories to a literary magazine. I don’t care if I get a rejection slip (yeah .. right like I wont sob my hearts out), I am honestly glad that I found to courage to move beyond my block and face rejection if needed. I have been a journalist and writer from long. Now I am a communications specialist. It was time I faced my fears, chased my dreams and checked if I was any good as a fiction writer (No, I don’t write Jackie Collins style romances).

The colour in my mind right now is a bright fresh green. The colour of fresh blooms, of newborn grass, of blossoming optimism.

I am still here

There is no way to instil discipline in myself, is there? I don’t know what it will take to make me stick to regular blogging. A huge blog traffic maybe? Ha ha. But I love this. Though I do feel I am talking to myself, it’s a lovely release.

I have been upto a lot in the past one month. Work has been a discovery with its ups and downs. Had a lovely week in Bombay for Diwali with family and friends though. Sairam has become as impish as can be and I came back depressed as can be. I hate living away from my family and to come back to this cold? Its freezing here in Hyderabad. Temperature last night was apparently around 12.5 degrees. It surely wasn’t as cold as it was last year, this time around.

But I am running away from words again. But my pictures can speak right?