The Call

The phone rings, wakes her from a deep slumber. She reaches across to the nightstand and checks the readout on the caller ID, what could he possibly want at this time of the night? She considers just ignoring it, pretending not to have heard but she cannot lie to herself even if she could to him. She rises from the bed at the same time as she answers the phone, with just a hint of sleep mixed into the concern in her voice as she asks him what the matter is. ‘Nothing’ apparently is the matter, he just wants to talk and she was the first person he could think of. She smiles and tells him she’s all ears and wanders across to the window and throws it wide open. As the cool night breeze blows in, the voice at the other end of the line begins to tell her of his day and because he is a born storyteller, it immediately becomes exciting and comes alive in front of her eyes as he describes the things that have happened. He finishes and asks about her day, she takes a minute to collect her thoughts and hesitantly proceeds to tell him the bare bones of incidents. He interrupts her with questions about everything until she has made a story of it too, something she finds she is unable to do usually. They both laugh about it; the hour has been well spent. Goodbyes are exchanged and there is a gentle click as he disconnects the phone. She continues to stand still for a few more moments before stepping back from the window, shutting the panes and falling back into bed, falling asleep once again, this time with a smile on her face.

A Different World

Have you ever taken a bus ride in the middle of the day? It's absolute bliss, the roads are practically empty, the bus itself is empty, the world seems bright and shining under the dazzling sunshine and everything seems so peaceful. The bus journey takes me past the Powai lake whose cool blue waters are shimmering and gentle ripples dot the surface, a truly beautiful sight. The trees on the bank are all sporting fresh green leaves which only serves to remind me that my favourite season of the year has arrived. I love the summers, I revel in the heat no matter how scorching. The blast of hot air flowing in through the windows is comforting to me. The bus now passes by a flyover construction where normally the scene would resemble something like a battlefield with cars jam packed bumper to bumper honking in vain but at this time of the day, it's smooth sailing. Now we turn into Aarey Milk Colony, my favourite part of this city. Nowhere else will you find such abundance of greenery stretching around for miles. You could almost forget that you are in the middle of a crowded cosmopolitan, it could be a road on a mountainside or a forest so stark is the contrast. The return to the real world is however inevitable but here again the empty highway stretches ahead as the bus speeds up and brings me closer and closer to home. The familiar landmarks rush by and very soon the magical journey must come to an end. These occasions are rare when things are not exactly like your daily routine. I've learnt to always enjoy them to the fullest and be grateful for just about everything there is.

I'm glad I decided to take the bus today :)

Cheers!
Sent on my BlackBerry® from Vodafone

Rigmarole [Vol II]

(continued from... http://garbbled.wordpress.com/2012/04/01/rigmarole-vol-i/)

...creature called Twerp. He was a strange one, kept to himself, rarely speaking to others and when he did it was only about rainbows. The colours (though he couldn't name them), the beauty (though he couldn't describe it) and the sheer miracle of it. In the land where he lived, people had long given up trying to understand him (they had never seen a rainbow you see), leaving him alone to his mutterings. It wasn't unusual for mothers to pull their children closer or fathers to shut their doors when they heard him approaching. It wasn't that he meant any harm, that was just how he was, and as the years went on, he became more and more of a recluse, seldom seen around until one day he had a dream. He dreamt that the land was in danger and that he would be the one to save all its people from calamity. The next day, he went to the king's court and asked for an audience. Having been granted one, he approached the regent and blurted out, "The land is in danger, we must all leave". The entire court full of people burst out laughing and he was asked to be on his way. There was only one person who did not laugh, who believed in him and who had also been the only one to ever have listened to his stories of the rainbows. His name was Half-Pint and he decided to follow Twerp when he left the courthouse. Together they set off the next day for that land far far away where the rainbows met the earth and where they would be saved from disaster...

(to be continued...http://aishwaryathapa.blogspot.in/2012/04/rigmarole-vol-iii.html)

A new way for a new year...

So I have found the perfect solution to new year resolutions. Make the resolution in January but implement it in April. That way you have three blissful months in which you can just tell yourself that you'll start the next day! Imagine the peace of it and believe me it works, I've been meaning to start a morning walk regimen since the morning of January 1, 2012 (which happened to also be a Sunday) but I finally managed to get myself out in the crisp and cool, early morning air only today. We've heard a lot about the benefits of starting the day early but you only truly understand it if you experience it. Watching the sky get lighter and lighter until the sun is finally up, the lovely weather long before it gets unbearably hot and of course the peace all around, not to mention the fact that the day seems so much longer when you've been up since 6 am. Even that took a while to cultivate, being a person who used to on an average sleep at 3 am every day switching to 12 am was not easy. The first few weeks were accompanied by massive headaches every day since I'm assuming the head probably had no idea what hit it! Change is never easy but if you really want to make it happen, there is a very high chance that you actually will. Some things in life will never change but there are other things, things which have always been a certain way without you questioning it which will not make sense sometimes. It could be a bad habit, a nervous disposition, moody behaviour, an angry countenance or just a certain outlook towards life. The day you realise that it isn't helping you is the day you will set about changing it; it will be a long journey doubtless but when you reach the end it will have been worth it and it will be a lesson learnt for life. Its never too late or too early to change anything, you just have to make up your mind to do it. With that thought, I'm going to go an make my Sunday extremely productive as opposed to extremely lazy so lets how that goes!

Cheers!