What will I miss?

I am relieved of my official duties, we have shipped our things, we made our one last final day trip within the UK to a place I wanted to always visit (more on that later in the day trip post on the other blog), we have given away all the things that might be of some use to others, found my plants a new home with my friends, etc. etc. There are a few last-minute bits and pieces left to do until the next weekend when we finally board the plane. But there is one question that a few asked me for which I am trying here to find an answer. What will you miss when you go back to India?

Honestly? I don’t know. Materially I don’t think I would miss anything. Life has taught me (without being too maudlin) that it is easy to replace the material things if you have some savings left with you and you might even come to know if you absolutely needed those things in your life or not. And with the globalisation of things, we can get a lot of stuff that we get here in the UK back in India too (although I should say I remember seeing more American stuff than British stuff… times might have changed…who knows…I will update you if I do see a change 🙂 ) Jokingly, I would say I would miss the concept of a bath. Just soaking in that hot water until I turn into a prune is just heavenly during the winter. I can never have that in my place. Half of the time we have water shortages, especially in the summer. What about English Breakfast? I might have to travel to Bangalore to get one but definitely not in Coimbatore 😀

What did I miss when I moved to the UK? I am sure some folks asked me the same question when I was about to leave India. After living here for 5 years, what did I miss? Did I miss the dosa and paratha or the temples or my travel fridge magnets (100’s of them) that I had collected over the years which are now stored in a locked room? Honestly? No. What then? People in my circle, my very small circle. This circle consists of my close friends and immediate family. Thanks to WhatsApp, Skype, GatherTown, Zoom etc., the distance between them and me seems to be that bit smaller.

Having been here in the UK only for 5 years, my circle is much smaller than the one in India 😀 and since the sudden change of work, place, country etc, is gonna hit me hard next month, I guess I will miss them sharply given the way we have been together. So here is a shout out to those few poor souls who happen to be in my circle and for whose presence I am forever grateful because they made my life a bit more colourful here. (Only pseudonyms in my blog sadly… but I hope you can spot yourself in this post 😀 )

When I moved from software engineering to teaching I didn’t have much help and was floundering to find a way (thanks to some online courses and books) but Mr Millwall came to my rescue with his 30+ years of teaching experience. He just took me under his wing and taught me the ropes of education and became my very close friend. He is also the first to call me if there is some interesting news in the cricket world 🙂 I am glad he is enjoying his retirement and is doing well. Hopefully, he will learn how to call via WhatsApp soon so that I can connect with him.

The tall Croatian teaching assistant has been there to give me an extra hand whenever I needed one and kept me sane. We didn’t have anything in common and in spite o that we bonded very well. Being much more experienced than me both at work and in life, she was a good sounding board and we started hanging out of work too, sharing bus rides and life stories and eventually became friends. I am glad that I could get her a churidar from India last time I was there and she looked absolutely gorgeous in it.

Ms Iskcon was Mr M’s friend but she is now a family friend, thanks to our heritage and shared native language. We used to spend our Christmas Eve at her place playing board games and puzzles with her family, which gave us the feeling of being a part of a big loud, amazing, and chaotic family from now and then. She used to come to our place for the Sunday lunch (she had a knack for calling us exactly at lunchtime and would be invited inevitably 😀 It helped that she lived only a floor below us.) Any time we talk, we end up discussing and debating everything under the sun. I will cherish her ability to discuss anything and everything (spiritual, political, socio-economic, you name it). I sincerely hope that she can visit us in India.

Now comes the group in Swansea 🙂 Who knew that a kick (literally) would start a friendship. I keep telling Mr Half-Trousers that in terms of his age he is closer to my nephew than to me but that has only made the friendship more fun. He has tried to teach me frisbee (emphasis on the word tried…). He has also fed me so much baked stuff it feels like he was fulfilling some debt he owed from his previous life 😀 His sticky toffee pudding is one thing I will never be able to replace. I wish he keeps up with his star baker abilities in spite of his busy software engineering lifestyle, which he has taken up now. He has also been my yoga student for the past 6 months helping me in my journey.

Mr Tall and Grumpy (I can say this and get away with it because he knows he is, lol) was that person whom I thought would the quiet and studious one but turned out that he is all that and also the naughtiest. Both him and Mr Half-Trousers have been the reason I am known in my team for throwing squishy toys at people. They drove me nuts with their antics 😀 but he was also my partner in crime at work. We taught together quite a lot and that gave us a lot to share in terms of knowledge and experience. I am very glad he is having a stint at the industry now and I will miss seeing his daughter grow (hopefully he will keep me posted on that and would take a trip to India and go on a good food tour).

Mr Badmintennis is one of a kind. An old soul trapped in a very young body. He amazes me with his knowledge of all things old and historic. I should call him Mr Minecraft or Mr Gamemaker because he is very well known for that but more than that he is/was my badminton/tennis partner. We have been playing the game for a while now and I hope he continues to play it with the rest of the group. I am sure I will engage his expertise in my new job when I have to do something in Minecraft or even take us on a virtual tour of computers.

Ms OrganizedArtist joined us during the first lockdown and so there has been a delay in getting to know her but my god, she is talented. I am always happy to be associated with very artistic friends like her and Anita. They bring a lot of colour in my life 🙂 She is the second person in my life (after my friend in Bangalore) with whom I haven’t felt any reservations whatsoever, while being before their camera and knowing that they are taking my photograph. She is yet to perfect her art of hitting Mr Badmintennis on his head during the tennis/badminton games but I am sure she will get there with a little bit more practice 😉 (make sure you let me know when that happens, girl!) She did a painting of my portrait which is available on my Instagram and I am very thankful for that. It is definitely getting framed. I am sure she will definitely make her way to South India and I will get to visit her home country (Ukraine) soon.

There are a couple more people I know and are part of that small circle but this is my group whom I would like to keep in touch with no matter where I go and what I do (assuming that they feel the same 😀 ) I am again hoping that the various communication channels that helped me keep in touch with my group in India while I was in the UK would help me do the same with this lot. This is also my way of conveying my thanks to them for being part of my journey and saying a proper goodbye I guess, even though we did say our goodbyes by doing a South Indian food tour and what a day it was 🙂 So much fun.

Diolch yn fawr for everything and hopefully we will get to meet again sooner rather than later.

Crikey!

My first thought when I read the prompt was ‘Linda is just taking the piss out of me‘ 😉 I have recently started to hear about these slang words but this one (ta, of course) takes the biscuit.

I was about to waffle regarding Taal and how that word in Indian classical music means rhythm and all that. But now I am going to table that topic for another day. I think I have sorted out the prompt with enough British slangs and words that start with ‘ta’. So,  ta-ta for now. Catch you all later 😉

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Post for this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt.

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “ta.” The word, “ta,” is British slang for thank you: use it this way, or find any other word that starts with those two letters. Enjoy!

 

SoCS Badge by HopeFloats@ My Leaky Boat

Returning Thanks

No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks. – James Allen

OM aka Jason (I don’t know why but I have never been able to call him Jason ever since he announced his real name) is moving to a new place in the blogosphere. I think it is my duty (as the quote above says) to return my Thanks to him for all the ways he has helped me with blogging. Its been three years and even though I have already said this before in some older posts I would like to say this again that he is the first person ever who made me feel comfortable to actually open up and speak to other bloggers through comments.

I was quite shy when I joined WordPress. I had a blog in blogspot  (the blog is still active but no action takes place there)  but I wanted a better blogging space hence, I moved to WordPress. I was my quiet self, observing and checking blogs and enjoying the blogosphere in my own silent way. I am never a conversation starter. It always was the other person’s work.  But that changed a bit when I started following OM. I felt comfortable to voice what I think, even though it may be something quirky, something unimportant or just a plain smile. If you have been following him, you would know that he does write posts on how to blog without fear. Well, something must have rubbed off on me, because I started slowly and steadily to check out more blogs, comment on them and even interact. I also made some friends online. Go figure!

Then he started a project called Project O (O for Opinion). I was very hesitant, but then he gave me the courage to join it. It was a real fun experience to be able to interact with bloggers from so many different places and their views on various questions related to opinion. It also gave me boost not only in terms of personal encouragement to be more active with my blogging, but also a lot of followers. I also found a lot of fellow minded people whom I still follow, even though a couple of them blog no more.

I have also had the pleasure of being his Guest Blogger a couple of times and they were fun too. It is quite intimidating for me to be able to post something for such a big audience. But since I use images rather than words, I know my poor grammar skills wont be noticed 😉 I know that he is one of those bloggers who blogs not only for fun but they also build a platform, a community and encourage others in the process. I know that he is an inspiration to a lot.

His work of building the platform that he has now with his blog might look like an easy walk, but it was quite an hike. There were some skids and falls but as the quote goes ‘It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.’ he has always got up, got up pretty fast and kept treading on.

Moving to a new place isn’t all easy and nice, even though it is quite exciting. I wish him all the luck with his efforts and hope that it works out well for him and the transition goes smoothly. I will still be following him in his new domain but I wanted to make sure I don’t forget to let him know how much his personal efforts to build such a comfortable space in the big world of blogs has made a lasting impact on one of the bloggers and how grateful I am for those efforts.

Thank you OM 🙂 and God Bless You!

It will be happier…

WordPress review was a good measurement, but I couldn’t add much to it. So here is my personal review.

Baralikadu still reigns. After all these years (That post was posted on Feb 2013…) it is still the first in the search terms and always get the max views on my blog. Never would I have thought of that when I posted those photographs of a very small and quaint place near my hometown (Coimbatore). I guess I should start charging the folks at Baralikadu some commission if my post is earning them visits 🙂

This year I crossed 1500 followers…Yay!!! Thank you all!!! And hearty welcome to all the new people who have joined this journey! Hope you find my blog(s) interesting and entertaining 🙂

I finally made my blog an ‘awards free blog’ ( more out of laziness than anything else) but then as I say on my picture (down below the page if you scroll down)

“No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks.” Thanks for being part of my blogging journey.

and the best award for me is your time!

Took part in a couple of new prompts, apart from the ones I was already participating.

Finally got around to complete my Cambodia and Bali tour report a couple of days before on my travel blog. Failed to do one for my US trip I did this year (i.e. 2015) , but will finish it in a week.

On a personal level, I had to send off three of my friends to different places (and countries) for better opportunities (and I hate send offs even though I am very happy for them), was a witness to two of my gay friends marriage (can’t say how happy I was for them and I was their official photographer too , yay!!!), did two international trips this year (as opposed to one every year), ticked Sky Diving from my imaginary to-do list, got my tattoo done, tried my hands at dating and found someone too, spent more than I earned ;), worked out harder and got around to fix some of my long term health issues (will write about one particular issue in detail later) and on my way to fix a few more things for a healthier life style, took it easy at work (had to balance it somewhere), made some new friends, got a little bit more confident of self…well, that is all I think 🙂

With that, good bye 2015 and Hi there 2016! , Welcome!

Wishing you all a Very Happy and Joyful New Year. May your dreams come true and you stay happy, content, and hopeful. 

Take care and see you all next year! Happy Blogging! 🙂

Thank you!

Whoa! Its been three years already ? Didn’t realize it until I saw the notification from WordPress.

Interesting that it would be on a Thanksgiving day. I would like to take this opportunity to Thank one and all who have been with me in this blogging journey. I am glad to have made some wonderful friends, acquaintances and have had the opportunity to take part in some interesting projects and prompts.

I recently made this blog an awards free blog, but I do thank every one who bestowed this blog and myself, any award. I am grateful that you were here in this small virtual space of mine and thought it worthy enough, and let me know your appreciation. And that in itself is an award for me. As they say, ‘You gave me your Time, which is the greatest gift of all’

Again, THANK YOU ! and I hope you do come back from time to time. Take care. Happy Thanksgiving and Keep Blogging.