For the love of anonymity

I'm back on this blog almost a year after I last wrote in it. Call it a sabbatical or just a reclusive act. But now that most of my blog friends have given up on me I feel I am off the radar and ready to roll again. Little did I know that as a blogger I would really prefer anonymity to anything else. Even when I wrote to earn my living, I'd feel a little uncomfortable about being recognized for my work. I wasn't really ashamed or anything of that sort - at least most of the times - but when someone wanted to talk to me about my story, I'd mentally shy away to a corner.
Perhaps I just feel I suffered from some i-know-you-read-it-or-liked-it-but-lets-just-not-discuss-it syndrome. Makes sense? Most likely not.
That reclusiveness, for the the lack of a better word, travelled across to my blogging. Why don't I just write in a different blog, you ask? Well I just feel so attached to my URL.
Anyway, so here's to the joys of a sabbatical, the comfort of anonymity and my own silent comeback.

Trekking with Tom
This was a wierd weekend....fortunately not as much for me and rather unfortunately for people I encountered that day. A new friend in the city called me for a trek to Shenendoah Valley (the White Oak trail). "It's going to be a simple one, the trail"...yeah I should have taken that with a sackful of salt.
The trek started a little late in the afternoon so we already knew we'd never reach the top of the mountain in time to return before sunset. While we caught our breath just before we turned back downhil, little did we know that we'd no longer be walking back as the light-hearted bunch of four who started the trek with a blissful lack of awareness of things to come.
We saw a very worried looking trekker coming down the slope above us with two rucksacks. Obviously the owner of the second sack was in trouble. He sure was, considering that he was a hugely overweight fellow in his mid 40's, who had just puked everything in his system out and was obviously in NO shape to stand, leave alone walk. The trail was narrow and rocky so no chance we could carry him without a stretcher. There was no way we could call the forest rangers -- no phone network -- or ask other descending (and indifferent) trekkers to call for a helicopter to pick him up. The only option left was to accompany the sick fellow and the poor coordinator of the hiking group, down the trail, which by the way, was not a smooth one. We came to know later that Tom, the sick man -- was under medication for depression, after having lost his son a few years back and....was HALF BLIND!!!!!!!!!!!!!! By then, our collective sympathy turned into a big wave of disbelief. I mean, HOW can someone with so many health problems have the guts to turn up on this trek.... WITHOUT any emergency savers in place. The coordinator later told us that Tom had enlisted for the trek saying he was under no medication. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Anyway, what could have been a 45 minute walk downhill turned into a backward stitch operation, wherein we walked in groups of two and the leading group walked ahead only to walk back towards the sick unit group to see if they are ok and go on again...
Anyway we returned to the parking lot only to meet a big family of 8 locked out of their van...and proceeded to help them find a hanger or something to crook open the lock. In the end, a combination of my comb and a metal rod worked.
On our way back, my friend was informed that her apartment had to be abandoned for a few days because it was suddenly infested with 100s of flies....yes, houseflies. The things that happen to people sometimes! No need to mention what I did on sunday. One positive fallout : discovered that pest bombs are not really like hand grenades. The other positive outcome -- got this pic.

It's amazing how the concept of romance, love and contentment changes overtime. My idea of a romantic dinner these days is cooking at home with hubby. Not that I mind candlight dinners (only if hubby responded a little better to any mushy, loving, longer-than-5 seconds look than with just a "what?") but there are benefits of having a man assist you while you float around as sous chef. Here's why:
1. Men tend to be at least a wee bit stronger and hence quicker when it comes to activities such as kneading the dough, slicing some fridge-worn meat, cutting onions and sparing you the tears...
2. For some strange reason, men (at least the few I know of) feel happy about not having to cook the meal which in their books is the harder part of cooking and hence are content with helping you with the actual hard part -- which includes cutting, kneading, preparing and then cleaning up. It's a notion I'd never like to change.
3. By the time they start helping you with prepping for phase two of cooking, they start feeling famished with the thought of all the food that awaits them at the end of the ordeal and thus speed up, quite efficiently, in order to help finish the job faster.
4. They look so cute following instructions :-))))

Ah the joy of coming back to this blog after a much needed break. Like everything else in my life, I needed to get away from it to get back to it again...Anyway, simply said I got a little bored of whispering nothings to particulary noone here.
I have gone completely crazy with my new home. Yes...MY new home...errr our new home, actually. Anyway, the kitchen is going to be a bold grassy green. The hall is split into two colours -- vanilla white and on one wall and brown on the opposite one. And one of the bedroom is a crisp aqua blue....the swimming pool types.
That done, its time for me to get into student life...am not sure if I am fully prepared for it though.

I am back. To blogging. To Bombay. To everything I did not think I was too used to but I am. Unlike what people told me I would feel, I felt good as I inhaled the smell-filled air when I landed. The sight of the unbelievably small roads and crowded slums before the plane landed. I enjoyed it as the humid air hugged me tight. And the honking and sounds of people talking aloud....And I felt my system welcoming all this like it was a part of my system that had gone missing for ages.
It's not like I've been away for too long. In fact I haven't. But there comes a time in your life when you take a barrage of life-changing decisions. In my case, there has been marriage, moving into a new country, life on a dependant visa, deciding to do a MBA instead of taking the comfortable path and do a master's in journalism, a profession that I have grown into over 6 long years. And I did not realise how weary all the changes left me, simply because they all chose to happen at the same time. Marriage I would say has been the easiest choice to transition into and I love it but not life on a dependant visa. I wish I knew it would be so difficult to be completely happy with.
In the beginning, when you leave everything you are so familiar with, you are excited at the prospect of "change" and "newness"... After a while you just want to cosy up with things you find predictable. Like the protective coddling from your parents (however irritating it gets after day 2) or the clutter in your small room which you share with your sibling. My home (I mean, the one I live with the other half) is exactly the way I wanted it but the almost-perfectness also feels wierd.
It's funny how its possible to feel divided too. Between your old life and new. They are two different lives I am leading now. And I have realised that no matter which side I am, I'll keep wanting a bit of the other in the one I am leading at any given time.

These days I don't blog much because I spend much of my time being as busy as an unemployed person can be. And trust me, that's a lot of work. Because being unemployed-and-about-get-a-new-job means that you are suddenly pushed onto this vast, open (and empty) road with no signboards and lots of bends and twists. Anyway, thats not the point. The point is I've become so busy doing this and many more things that I sleep like a log. And have stopped dreaming, or the dreams have stopped coming, whichever is the right way to say it. Or even talking in my sleep. But a strange, strange thing happened last night. A certain someone I know, who is sure to throw a fit if he knows I spoke of this incident, shocked me with behaviour that I am usually known to exhibit. Somewhere nearing dawn, I was woken up by strange sounds of laughter coming from the only person other than me in the room. I first thought I was dreaming, then I realised that I was not. The more I identified the sounds to be that of laughter, the more worried I got...and I sat up. "I was dreaming and it was so funny that I laughed my head off and woke up laughing," he explained in a sleepy voice. He proceeded to tell me that he dreamt that he was playing cricket with... Rajesh Khanna (err???????) and found the situation so hilarious that he ran through the course of the dream laughing and woke up laughing. I don't know how funny you might find it, but I certainly did not. And fell back on my cushion, fuming. The things people do, at times. Grrr... Especially when you're used to be the only one doing those things!

Completely Bostoned: Am I so citified? And by that I don't mean landscapes full of glitzy, glass buildings, speedy cars, clean roads yada yada kind of citified... I mean crowded and sometimes dirty streets, noisy traffic and bunched up apartment buildings types. It somehow makes me feel at ease. I spent a long weekend in Boston and that's where this comes from... For some strange reason, I felt at home with the city from the minute I stepped on Bostonian turf to the day I flew out. From my limited-but-growing knowledge of American cities, I can safely conclude it is the city closest to good old Bombay. In fact a little of Pune and Bombay rolled into one... Bombay because of the victorian buildings- some of them are much older than those in Bombay of course, the somewhat disorganised city planning, small and densely populated suburbs. And Pune because of the students who seem to dominate the population of the city. Look anywhere and you see young students... there are there everywhere. Obviously no surprise since the city is home to Harvard, MIT, Boston University among numberous other educational institutions. But I guess it struck me prominently because I landed on the day most students were moving into apartments as the academic year started couple of days later. It was a scene worth capturing but sadly no camera that day... Everywhere you looked -- ALL over the city -- you saw trucks and tempos offloading furniture, families gathered on streets, apartment corridors filled with stuff waiting to be carried inside....Phew! In many places the city is not even as clean as most American cities I've seen so far...But the crowded streets and choas and of course the T (tram) felt oh so like home!! Maybe I am just too Bombay-fied.