sometime back i lost my earlier gmail account, as a result of which my original blogs also got lost in this world wide web. after trying in vain to get my blogs linked back to my new gmail account etc etc, i gave up. the links to those old blogs still work but i cannot use/work on them anymore. which is ok for now, but i think years down the line, i may suffer from loss of memory while trying to remember the dead blog names. so i've decided to paste any old entries which i would still like under 'one-roof' in this new blog.

i just realised to my utter dismay that this is probably the first time in my working life that i'm sitting farthest from the windows. no wonder i've been feeling so caged and morose :(

reminiscing

for the greenery that once was and hopefully will not disappear as the concrete structures sprout up everywhere.
for the fact that every corner of the city is reachable.
for the lovely little cafes and old bakeries still going strong.
for the loyalty that a lot of places enjoy.
for being full of mixed crowds everywhere.
for being one of the safest cities still.
for easily being one of the few places where even if you're alone, you'll not feel totally lost. there's a very homely air to it.
for looking beautiful in the monsoons.
for having one of the most non-interfering crowds - you can simply be.
for being one of the very few rare places where you're not worried over the fact that you're a girl every moment.
for being that rare place where wealth or wealthy people are not in your face. (anyone who's lived in delhi would understand what i mean)
for being the kind of place where you'd want to spend as much time outdoors as indoors.
for being a place where you find as many old couples/friends hanging out as the younger ones.
for being by and large an educated city.
for being a place where you can still encounter kindness and honesty.

i love pune for the small town feel but big city perks it offers.
it will always hold a special place in my heart for making me grow into the person i am today.
i wonder when and if i'll ever get to go back...it's easily one of the best places to live in india. where it lacks, most other places lack too (goes with the general state of infrastructure/administration/traffic etc in the country), but what it offers is unique, simple but proud.

i wonder if our behaviour would be different if we could see our own smiles - if we'd be kinder or more considerate or simply more pleasant and welcoming of the world and its people

how is it that i know what i want in life as a whole, yet i do not earnestly find the ways towards what i want. why do i spend every day and the next one continuing to do what i just happen to do. practicality is a huge deterrant for you've got to pay the bills unless you were a born millionaire! i am sure there is a wiser, smarter way around this whole elusive thing, maybe the key word being - balancing. i am sure it is achievable. it also requires a huge leap of faith. i've been pondering over the fact that maybe when you 'connect' with the job with you, it becomes easier atleast half the way. as then you'll find some sense or purpose for doing what you do. the only reason why i do what i do now is practicality, and it tears my heart to know that i am not leading myself into anything where i feel some purpose is achieved, or a real connect with the real world. i've surrounded myself with artificial intelligence and find myself deep in commerce - which i am sure was not what life and its soul intended to be at the center of the universe and everything that's in it. to put it better - commerce without any sense of purpose or passion.
i'm facing such a severe disconnect that i really need to figure out a way out of this, this emptiness which has started knocking very, very hard since a while.

i spend considerable time and thoughts on observing the patterns in my life. i firmly believe that no one teaches you better than your own past, if only you care enough to observe it well. if you take a time period in your life, and flashback to it, you will find that more often than not, there were clues spread all around which you could have picked up to shape a better future. it's almost like life is a puzzle with generous clues spread all around - and it's on us how well we can find them to keep shaping a better present/tomorrow for ourselves. this is very different from simply dwelling in one's past and getting stuck in it - what i mean is that like you go back to your archives in your accounts to know your finances and the amounts you spend to be able to plan your future spendings, it hugely, gravely helps and affects the outcome if you'd spend some time looking at your life's archives every once in a while. in fact this is a much better substitute than reading self help books off the shelf - getting inspired is one thing, but you cannot possibly lead your life reading someone else's experiences of life. one's future, unless one is in a fairy tale, is largely dependant on the choices one has made in one's past - be them in career, living, love, friends or beliefs. there is also significant scientific reason behind observing one's life and reading patterns - it is linked to intuition, which is said to get better the more you learn to read your own life patterns. especially go back to join the points which made no sense or poor sense in the past
- you'll find why things happened and what purpose they achieved having happened the way they did. in my own life until now, i've seen this distinct 4-5 year pattern where i can reflect back and find total meaning in why something happened in a certain way all that time back and what consequence it resulted into in my present. it astonishingly makes total sense - even if it didn't back then! whether the outcome was to my liking or not, the learning is invaluable, always helping me make better choices in the future, always keeping my faith alive. it's like knowing the
reasons of why something happened in a certain way (be them good or bad to one's liking) - it leaves you at rest, in peace, and with a better sense to guide your own life in its present or future.

i do think places are 'alive' and that each place has a strong vibe to it. i've been to many places, both at home and abroad, and what i've experienced is that, the first vibes you get in a new place are more often than not pretty accurate. every place has a soul, and the first few days/weeks in a place either make you fall in love with the place, or make you simply comfortable enough to exist in the place, or on the worse side give you a total dislike! like when i first came to pune, fresh out of school, i fell in love with it, and pune 10 years back was a lot more appealing than what it is now...it's still more wonderful than loads of other indian cities/towns. pune has a quiet vibrance to it, a very homecoming feel to it. it embraces you altogether and even after living there for a decade, i could happily return and live there anytime. like when i went to the UK for the first time, i fell in love with it - and the love carried on for all the time i was there. its my favorite place in all the world. when i went to the great big land of america for the first time, although i did not fall in absolute love with it, but it was still very exciting, a positive vibe to whatever was waiting to unfold. i remember going to amritsar for the first time when my dad was posted on the border there - it was the first time i felt like a true punjabi being there. everything about that town is lovely - the food, the people, the lanes, the colors, the dhabas...there are so many places apart from these that i've lived in, some i liked, some i loved, while others just became phases in my life....now that i find myself in singapore, a very very organised, very beautiful and very comfortable place, with nothing to complain at all till now, i just don't find myself falling in love with it...i just don't get that vibe here....it doesn't flutter my heart or my spirit....it's just not love at first sight! i so hope that this first vibe, or lack of it turns out to be an exception.

a new beat

I've been thinking on the importance which language plays in a culture. Newly settled in Singapore, primarily inhabited by the Chinese, I'm realizing perhaps for the first time, how acutely language is at the forefront of breaking into any culture. While I've lived abroad before, i only realize now that having lived abroad but only in English speaking countries/cultures is way different then being in the opposite. In many ways, to me, this feels like my first "foreign" experience. While it was easy to blend in the UK and US, thanks to having English as more of a mother tongue than Hindi (as i neither think nor write in Hindi), it is a completely different experience coming to a place where there are no necessary substitutes in English to understanding the local plethora - be it local food, local music, local movies, local TV et all. I've always believed just living somewhere with no experience or understanding of the local culture is such a waste of having got the opportunity of being in an altogether different place. At the root of all of these, is the total lack of my understanding of the language. And this has made me question, in my very first few days of being here, whether until this barrier is broken somehow, will i ever really be able to enjoy this culture - or will i just live here, frequenting my life around events, either Indian or English, but never getting to know the local culture. This is perhaps an initial thought (or shock), as I've been here less than two weeks - so maybe I'll find ways and means to understand the local culture somehow! I'll have to wait and watch i guess.

I find it very hard to believe that people are not paradoxical. I don't see being non-paradoxical as having clarity of thought, that's different and mostly dependant on the situation at hand, more like having that ability. But on the whole, we're all paradoxical, there isn't another explanation. Look around..