The nest is empty......but does my life have to be so ?

Soumya's going away  to the University was tough....
rather I made Soumya's leaving for the University tough for myself!

Initially I would spend time in her room
to feel her presence and to fill the void,
reminiscing over the times we spent together...
brooding over the emptiness I felt in her absence.

I tried
retail therapy
mindless chatter on whatsapp

just something
to fill the hours which
seemed
to stretch on and on

Over the weeks, months and years 
I realised how much I had used my daughter as a surrogate, 
to define and live my short term goals and long term dreams!

No one asked me to do so,
it just felt easy :

in the Comfort Zone ...
playing the Mommy !

being worried about the grades, courses to take in the university, emotional highs and lows in school and the junk food intake of a growing teenager....

rather than looking at deeper, maybe more real questions of life, for myself :

How do I add more meaning to my life and to those of others around me?

What work/role brings joy to me 
and more importantly , what am I doing to pursue it?

Slowly it has begun dawning on me that
loneliness and restlessness inside of me are
nothing
but

a Reality Check to connect to

Who I really am :

Beyond
a friend
a daughter
a team player
a lover
a wife
and a mother.....

Some use travel, others mindless chatter, food, templatized fun life....
to deflect from visiting this space of inquiry of truly who they are , sans all the roles and titles

I have used my motherhood!

The nest may be empty today...
but life is still full of all the meaning that I can choose to create in it now!

Every cup of tea has a story to tell

a tentative girl of eight, measuring one teaspoon of tea leaves, a quarter teaspoon of sugar and half a cup of milk for the chai...then gingerly carrying the same on a steel tray and two white cups to her parents on their wedding anniversary!



a tired hostelite sipping her nth cup of black tea in the wee hours of the morning, sleep long forgotten-adrenaline and fear her only companion, apart from the warmth from the chipped ceramic mug



an enthusiastic twenty something intern learning the ropes of corporate life, on the road side tapri outside the office...A glass of cutting chai in hand...All differences forgotten whilst bonding over sweet, over-boiled oh-so-familiar-glass of masala chai and office gossip, along with her colleagues!



a newly wed wife missing her husband in his nth tour away from the city...weaving dreams of future with her boyfriend-turned-spouse, as she sat with her cup of elaichi, adrak and saunf chai and Mariegold biscuit, body wrapped in a tight shawl that Bangalore winter...pining away for together times...



a harried multitasking mom sipping her semi-cold cup of tea, as she juggled to get her daughter ready for school...savoring the familiar warmth of the morning tea, slowing going down the throat, as she revised the notes with her teenager before the Annual exams.



a beaming with pride mother sitting with hot cuppa Earl Grey with scones and clotted cream , in an unfamiliar town , far far away from her home, near her daughter's dormitory...soaking in the sight of neat, yet small tea-house...and that of her daughter all grown up, mature...talking to her like an equal



a friend connecting with another school friend, after thirty odd years...over a pot of slowly brewed chamomile...much like the love and connection over all the years of friendship - calming and soothing....and very distinct!



a pensive and quiet forty-five something, thinking about different flavors of life gone by ..into the wee hours of night...strongly brewed like tulsi-cinnamon flavored tea, relaxing like lavender chamomile, invigorating like ginseng oolong or just downright bitter like moringa tea...


Every cup of tea has a story to tell...



I am fortunate I have begun to enjoy and listen to mine ,
without rushing towards the future!







"Drink your tea slowly and reverently,

as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves -

slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.

Live the actual moment. Only this moment is life."


- Thich Nhat Hanh

Noticing what surprises and disturbs me.....

"Noticing what surprises and disturbs me has been a very useful way to see invisible beliefs. If what you say surprises me, I must have been assuming something else was true. If what you say disturbs me, I must believe something contrary to you. My shock at your position exposes my own position. 

When I hear myself saying, “How could anyone believe something like that?” a light comes on for me to see my own beliefs. 

These moments are great gifts. 

If I can see my beliefs and assumptions, I can decide whether I still value them.

I hope you’ll begin a conversation, listening for what’s new. 
Listen as best you can for what’s different, for what surprises you. 

See if this practice helps you learn something new..." 

~Margaret Wheatley~

Regular, boring, mundane chores.....

"An act in totality is reward in itself.

When your act is total, there is no reward except itself.


Whether you are drinking tea or painting a great painting

or playing music...

if the act is total, it is your reward."

Osho


I have been noticing how I start something with great gusto...
but the interest wanes as soon as something
more "profound"
more "glamorous "
or that which will get me more "taalis" comes up...

Regular, boring, mundane chores...

at home or work are usually ignored
and/or dealt with half-heartedness
and many a times

even dropped off like an orphan :)

There is obviously a hierarchy in my mind of what is important and not important !

Creating workshop collaterals for clients becomes more important
than cleaning the wardrobe.
Making that all important presentation for Social Media obviously gets priority
vis-a vis the daily meditation practice,
Bills are almost always paid last minute...
with the slowest of internet speed, buffering my irritation...
as I forgot where the minutes flew by in the all engrossing chat in the WhatsApp group !


In my mind some tasks will help me shine ,
others are the not-so-important irritants which need to be dealt with

Yet,
I do wonder...

If you can't take on the simple tasks in totality as you can, how can you conquer the big things? 

Reject or Accept : Rumbling Bumbling Cutie pie!

In another plane, another reality

I would be a slim, elegant lady
Waxing eloquent on philosophies of life...

Draped in a crisp off-white, silk sari
Not a hair out of place..
Just filling the room with her grace!

Rather than a Rumbling Bumbling Cutie pie....

My tears would be quietly and surreptitiously dabbed
with a tissue paper, from my waterproof-kohl lined eyes.
No dark, ungainly smudges there...

and no wiping the running nose with hands, for sure!

My slightly curved smile would make it to the cover of Vogue.
My husky measured voice would cause many a-hearts-a flutter,
And not go berserk in the loud hysterical sobs
or guffaws which shake the furniture!

My arguments would be clever and well articulated,
And not tumble out of my mouth
In sometimes shrill,
     sometimes garbled mess, with a life of their own!

My demeanour would be poised,
my emotions draped well on my body,
     well modulated, cohesive and controlled!
Not messy, chaotic and argumentative
     like a lady haggling in Versova fish market!

Yet the person staring at me in the mirror is :

Thodi plump
Thodi defiant
Sometimes messy...or bitchy,
with a dollop of mean streak ...

With a fiercely possessive heart....

AND.....

a

Rumbling Bumbling Cutie pie!

“I knew there was something peculiar about you," she said.
"And I mean that as the highest compliment."
I'd always known I was strange.
I never dreamed I was peculiar.
~Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Ransom Riggs~

Famous : Just being myself

Almost nearing the golden jubilee of existence....
still wonder sometimes at what does
being Famous or
being Successful mean....

These words by Naomi Shihab Nye resound in my heart with their authenticity.

Famous 

"The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,

which knew it would inherit the earth

before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds

watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom

is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,

more famous than the dress shoe,

which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it

and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men

who smile while crossing streets,

sticky children in grocery lines,

famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,

or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,

but because it never forgot what it could do."

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,

or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,

but because it never forgot what it could do.

Whats Appening in your life ?

Connections are simple..

Today, even more so!

With the click of a button, 
an emoji, 
or a like on a Facebook page,
you can “ chat” and get away with it!

I have made some awesome connections through Social Media : 
Facebook, Instagram or Whatsapp groups - connections and reconnections...

Old school friends, crushes who can now be safely shifted to category of bff 's , long forgotten cousins, uncles and aunts with whom I don't recall sharing too many conversations in childhood, but share good morning messages now; 
and ofcourse the jolly old office colleagues from twenty five years back !

They are all there....
with their 
Forwards 
Opinions 
Selfies
and Gyaan !

From their professional updates 
to daily shares of moods 
or the check-ins at some airport, 
flying to some exotic locales and eating food with unpronounceable names 
and living up their 'perfect' lives with 'perfect pouts' to match !

Our social lives and our "conversations" are perhaps more frequent, pithy, photoshopped  
and regularly updated now...

Maybe not in person, but definitely on the facebook wall !

In this cacophony of coiffeured, polished  and filtered chats

I do miss the simplicity of  the Pre- Social Media era...

where you sat 

and chatted 

and talked 

and vented 

and laughed

and cried 

and expressed 

and 

where you were listened to, 

or scolded and reprimanded....

with all the compassion
care
bitchiness,
fears
insecurities
upsets
love
support …

Simple unplanned, rough-edged and free flowing conversations

Where there was time to listen and be heard and not be dismissed with a click, a swipe or a 'brb'

Where you could always pick up the phone and unblock the misunderstandings,

Where moments of silence, boredom and restlessness did not have to filled in with everyone checking their Insta updates!

Where hands held each other and not the smartphones...