What would you say?

What would you say to Vrushali Junnarkar? #WhatWomenReallyWant @thetrulymadly. Register bit.ly/delhi-women… twitter.com/i/web/status/8…—
Womensweb.in (@womensweb) December 05, 2016

Anyone knows the answer to this? Wanna give it a try and see if you are able to find the answer? 😉

 

Sandy Toes and Salty Kisses

In response to the Earth Day Challenge by K.E. Wilkinson.

I am obsessed with beaches. I just love them. I did a whole series on the various beaches I have visited and how each of them are special to me. I called them ‘Sandy Toes and Salty Kisses‘. I don’t know swimming, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the ocean. Recently someone asked me the question as part of a psychological quiz (and yeah, we know how much I just LOVE them 😉 )  ‘What is your view about the ocean?’. I replied ‘I admire them and find them very peaceful but at the same time a little intimidating too’. It seems how we see the ocean reflects on how you view death. So yeah, I feel the same way about death too.

Here is my photograph of Drake’s beach in USA, where I am planning to visit this time too. I just love this place. I love beaches especially when they are empty. I feel as if the whole place belongs to me. Add a slight drizzle and I am in heaven. I would love to just sit there and stare at the ocean for hours listening to water crashing at the shore. I hope that this time too there will be very very less crowd (or no people at all 😉 ) when I get to visit (fingers crossed)

A Yearly Round Up

A round up of this year’s activities in my blog, because I did a lot than the previous year and I am really glad about it. In fact there are a few more friends of mine who know about this blog than last year and for me that isn’t a small thing. I still don’t want it to be known to my colleagues though. I am still not comfortable revealing my real name, which I sometimes feel that I should do, but I haven’t reached there yet. I am still content with my mask on and the real me is more boring than the virtual me.

So here we go.

I started participating in Steve’s Music Mix / Cosmic Musicology as it is called now, from Feb 03, 2014. Here is my first post. Since then I am a regular for that game. I listen to enough music to play and to use the songs as answers. Just check it out. Its real fun and you are most welcome to join. Thanks Steve for that brilliant idea and I am really sorry I still couldn’t get some good questions for that game.

Started participating in the Stream of Consciousness Saturday post, hosted by Linda, from Mar, 1, 2014 and have continued since then, because it is pure fun and its interesting to see how different people interpret the same prompt and also how people from different parts of the world think and post alike for a given prompt. I am no writer, but am glad to take part in this prompt. Thanks Linda for this wonderful idea and hope to have the same fun in 2015 too. She is also starting a Just Jot It January, if anyone is interested. I am planning to take part, but am not very sure.

Did two mini series this year on my own, just for the heck of it 🙂 One was about the way I got introduced to various genres of the books (which still needs a lot to be covered, but then didn’t want it to be too long a series) and was named Portable Magic and the other one was about my love for beaches and about the various beaches I have been to and my jog through the memory lane which was called Sandy Toes and Salty Kisses.

I did cross 1000 followers this year, Yay!!! and started following some awesome bloggers too. I follow some on Bloglovin’ too. As usual the top 5 posts are related to the Weekly Photography Challenge but this year, the ‘Minimalist‘ Photographs I posted, scored me a lot of comments. I was very happy to see that my favorite photograph was appreciated by all. ‘Baralikadu‘ still seems to be the top search term in my blog (guess no one else wrote about that small quaint eco tourism place) which is followed if not closely by ‘beer shampoo‘ (urgh, I still feel the smell of it) and Chotta Bheem (I ain’t fond of him and his group, even now)

So that is it. I am sure I might have missed a few details here and there, but these are the big ones. Its been an awesome and fun year with respect to blogging and wish the same for 2015 too.

 

Daily Prompt: Journey

When I saw the Daily Prompt – Journey, I was reminded of my shift from Bangalore to my current location Hyderabad. I am slightly deviating from the original purpose of this blog, but I couldn’t resist this.  This is from my personal blog but I wanted to share this here, because this journey, both physically and emotionally, was an important event in my life.

When I decided that I should take a break a from Bangalore and my current way of life, I was asked so many questions as to why I should be changing that is almost stable. And why do I have to decide on a different place just to feel different. I could take a house in a different part of the city and may be in a better apartment and start from there. Was I inconvenient because of my past and was it having an effect on me…. too many questions…

I am one of those people who do not like changes in their lives. I am happy and content with few things and the way those few things give the feeling of stability. I don’t take to changes very well, especially changes that happen within a short span of time where I am unable to make my plans for those changes. It topples me very badly and I know a lot of situations where I have been unable to handle them well. I like to plan, execute them according to plan and be at peace when things work out well, according to the plan..and any deviation due to external factors, I used to be very irritated and angry with the source (be it natural causes or some person)… I know it sounds like a normal thing when we put it this way, but you have no idea how that kind of discipline can make you feel caged at times and how much the plans start to rule your life. Plans became my addiction at one time…

But when my life started taking turns in a very unplanned way, I started to realize that plans are just guidelines to start with and sometimes or most of the times, things do not go the way you want it to and you just have to keep revisiting and readjusting them as and when it comes.. To be very technical, I was following the Waterfall model in my life, and I realized that I should be doing them the Agile way….;) (effect of my recent agile and scrum training… I was sitting in that classroom and was wondering the analogies between the project and the real life with respect to Agile and Scrum … ) I remember even recently when my dad said I was thinking too fast and too far ahead.. 

Now that things in my life were going without any plan, and since I was feeling unexcited with my life, I wanted to try a change.. not too big and not too trivial… Changing to a different apartment in Bangalore to start with would have been trivial for me.. No big change there.. I had done that….I still would have to think about how I would handle my flat etc..and that will be there at the back of my head all the time.. Working from home at this project juncture was not welcome by my managers, because of the importance of the project and the need to put in more hours.. and I know that working from my home town, will be a challenge with the longer power cuts and with two nieces at home. I wanted to be away for a while, alone surrounded with new faces, where I can become a nobody. I have been in this place for too long and I have become somebody to all those people… Its good to belong somewhere..but it also important for me, to be a nobody from time to time…just to .. I don’t know how to put it.. I want to be anonymous at times.. Even if it is for some time (can be weeks, months or years)… I want that break in between…When I discussed about this with my manager, they gave me two options, Noida and Hyderabad. Noida is too far away from my home town.. even though I want to be anonymous or a nobody I would love to go home to my parents and those kids from time to time.. So I chose Hyderabad…. Not too near and not too far…

The work pressure did not even give me enough room to think or panic about the change.. I got my guest house booked and hadn’t even packed till the day of my flight..i.e. last Sunday  I had no time to think if I was doing the right thing or not… I know my friends were apprehensive of this decision and they thought that I was doing this without any reason (they were concerned that I was putting myself under unnecessary pressure about my life at this point of time…and that changing the place isn’t going to change anything). And 🙂 they are pretty damn sure that I will come running back to Bangalore at the earliest.

When I left my home with bare minimum necessities that can sustain me for 2 weeks or so, I was blank. I wasn’t expecting anything from this new place.. I didn’t want to think. I didn’t want to feel…For a moment, I thought I would feel something..but there was nothing.. And I had this dramatic scene that got played.. just like in movies.. except that in movies they show this scene in slow motion for better effects…When I was coming to the main road in the cab (on my way to the airport) the person, whom I wanted to say good bye in my life but can never say it..the person who was once a very important part of it and now a unknown, was coming in the direction of the taxi.. And when our paths crossed, I was surprised to feel no emotion what so ever. There used to be a time when I used to feel a small pain in my heart whenever our paths crossed. Irrespective of whatever happened, both of us have our own pains and both of us were responsible for where we are right now. But now, it was as if this was my final good bye to this person….. I know it sounds bit melodramatic..but it did happen..and I felt good about the blankness..

When the flight landed in Hyderabad  it was like going to U.S for the official trip.. Took a cab, gave the address of the guest house and landed in my room. That was when I smiled. Because I wasn’t sure of myself I guess..But this city surprised me.. It had grown by leaps and bounds over these years…and there are so many things I wanted to write about my first impressions here.. some other post for that.. this one is already too long.Now that I have almost finalized on a PG accommodation (too costly..but it has its own comfort and nothing is free here)  let us see how things go from here. I have no deadline on this place and I have a home back in Bangalore and in Coimbatore and I can chose to go to any of these two whenever I choose to. There is so much to explore in this new place (even though I had lived here for 2 years way back in 1999, this place has changed upside down)

There is a instinct which tells me that I will find something else here..what is it .. I am not sure.. but that feeling is there in the back of my head and as much as I doubt it I don’t want to dwell on it.. So by writing it down I am letting it go and gonna get busy 🙂 I am not ready for any drastic changes for now.. Slow and steady is my mantra… Let us see.. This sure is another leg of my journey (my life).

Hasta pronto…

 

I had written this almost 7 months ago. Looking back, it looks like I have been here forever. I have made many new friends here, have opened up a little bit more, relaxed a lot inspite of intense work pressure. Sometime, the physical journey gives you a whole new perspective, emotionally too. I know, somewhere deep in my bones, that I am not meant to be here. I am not sure where I will finally settle down. But more than anything else, I love the journey part of it.

Just like the picture below, I don’t see what lies ahead, but that’s the most beautiful part of life, the expectation, even though its scary.

 

“Whither will my path yet lead me? This path is stupid, it goes in spirals, perhaps in circles, but whichever way it goes, I will follow it.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddharta