tham thika thika thai..

finally...! i did it. after years of talking about wanting to dance, i finally took the crucial step and attended my first lesson. it was good enough to get me grinning gleefully for an hour on end. i was so excited that i came back and decided right away to buy a full length mirror so i can practice at home. i've decided right away to practice an hour each day. oh boy, oh boy!! and to think that the source of all this happiness was away from women until just five decades back. hmmm. that kind of makes it even more exciting. i never could bear the - women can't do this talk. and it was the - "men should lead and women follow" philosophy of salsa which irritated me no end in the beginning. eventually though i couldn't really help loving the rhythm and the flow. so on that note, here is to the hope that i live and love kuchipudi!! yaaay!!

of ramblings and rumblings..

we took a trip. an all girls no-shopping, only sight-seeing trip. to the places we have all been to before. but found something new anyways. so, the trio visited trinity church & st.paul's chapel & museum of american history & battery park & finally wound back home in the very same path train. we saw innumerous memorabilia which celebrated the spirit of america that kicked in after the 9/11 attacks. riding on the back of all the osama controversy, i could see to a degree how much it mattered to the teenaged crowd which chanted "U-S-A U-S-A" just this last sunday. i'm sure all the memorabilia i saw had some of their tears or pain in it somewhere.

the find of the day was however this pic. of all the statues and figures this is one i totally love. when the twin towers crashed a decade back, this sycamore tree was uprooted right by the trinity church. and its roots ensured minimal damage to the adjoining graveyard. later an artist created a figure of the roots of this uprooted tree and this is placed right by the trinity church. and somehow, i cannot but love this one. this here is the budday gurl gundu and arya right by these roots.

oh yeah.. the rumblings were solely of the empty tummy. there was no discontent brewing in these hearts. the word was added to the post as a poetic liberty to maintain the rhyme and the meter. maybe i should have called it the ramblings and only the ramblings. anyways.

i'll blog, coz i can..!

i think of my wildest dreams about having a fun time. it'd definitely involve - NO WORK, a new place, new people, doing a 100 things i had always wanted to do. and now, for the very first time, i have the time to do it. :) joblessness means that i've finally run out of excuses not to do the things i always said i'd like to. see new places, learn a foreign language, learn dance, help out in a social organization. and most of all. blog. why? coz i've all the time in the world. so what would be a jobless day if you've not stopped by to admire a beautiful scene, read a line that just shook you up, seen a movie that you felt so damn good about. especially if the only task you're entrusted with is to make your days fruitful without a single money making activity involved in it. so, today i hereby declare that i'm setting off to do exactly that. i've also decided that i'll share at least one thing a day which i liked. life changing or otherwise. like today's non-life-changing series. a musician who had perched himself right next to a trashcan in the middle of central park. his music on the other hand was very non-trashy. i sat there and enjoyed his strumming for a while. quite some while. a very very long while. eventually i decided i might as well repay him in a very small manner. without drawing attention i grabbed some money in my hand and stooped discreetly to drop it into the black bag at his feet. at this point, this oriental gentleman who played divine music, snapped back at me as he took me for someone about to steal his well earned money. ah well. i later comforted myself that he was saying "thank you" in a chinky accent. i'm still not sure.




this entire sweet lil drama also gave me enough time to snap weird angled shots of this imposing building right across the street. the next time, i'll make sure to find out what this was. meantime, tomorrow and today, it's Gundu's b'day. here is to all the b'days we have spent together. including the one in hostel when we gifted you what YOU thought was a frog. hahahaha.. :) happy 25th b'day!!

lost in my memories..

goodbyes make you want to somehow take everything around you and preserve it all. for posterity. it makes you fonder of the places and the faces you'll soon leave. makes the people seem gentler and nicer and the place more beautiful. most of all it just makes you look with new eyes at this place you may never see again. and so it was that i ended up taking this photograph of a place which would be my idyllic dream spot on any starry night.
but while i was there, i've never spent a nite out there. the fact that this is in the middle of a golf course with 'no trespassers' written in bold, is just half of the reason. the other half is that i never really realized it. until goodbye.

all through it i took comfort in the truth that i wasn't the only one. i remember this takes-a-goodbye-to-make-it-priceless is an endemic collegiate sickness. found particularly in all final years. i say this from experience when i say that no one loves college the way someone does who is about to leave it. people who have left it, well.. they don't love college. they just love their memories of it. the nostalgia and feel.

dispensable..

being on the wrong side of 25 has its fair share of advantages. one of which is that you've said enough number of goodbyes to make it a non-subject and a known subject. but it takes a while to realize that nothin makes it less painful. not even having sad more goodbyes than one can care to count.

last week was my last week with my firm. well ah.. just a job change. but then, this was my very first job and the only one i've ever known. kinda made it a real big deal. it also made me think a lot. about people, places and goodbyes. more importantly, it made me think about the word dispensable. a colleague of mine told me what he thought of it - most people who once thought they were indispensable are now resting in their graves. :) but when you're 21 and at your first job, you're naive enough to disbelieve that. four years into it, when you first decide to call it quits, in your heart of hearts you know nothing is going to stop or change. but somewhere deep you also wish something would. eventually, nothing does.