10 words to describe a 30-something me!

So, the prompt today asked me to describe myself in 10 words.

Tough task that is!

A long time back I had written this blog post – THIS IS ME.

Of course, over the years it has seen a few iterations and over the last couple of years plenty more, though they haven’t been updated on that post. But most of the stuff in that post, still holds true, even if it does come across as narcissistic, bordering on false perfection.

Describing myself in 10 words is by far one of the hardest posts I have ever had to write.

The below are the top 10 words that would describe me NOW at this point of time.

Dancer. Reader. Closet Writer. Pragmatist. Stubborn. Travel-holic. Trivia Addict. Pluviophile. Materialistic. INTROVERT.

The top 4 are the ones that I identify with the most. The first 3 have now become my individuality.

The 5^th one, I’d rather prefer what Amma says about me. She says I have a lot of will-power when I need to get something done, but of course, that something has to be something that I need / want / desire / must-have. And I always disagreed with her until recent times, when I see myself doing things that I really really want and seeing the stubbornness reflected.

The 6^th one is a recent addition, thanks to the privilege of being in a place that has access to visit most of the South-East Asian countries, at a reasonable price. And I hope it increases in fervour as the years pass by.

The 7^th is as a result of my something a good friend of mine told me in MBA. Of course, me being me, took it a little too harshly, but once I started doing those random readings, web-hopping, it caught on like wild-fire. Suffice to say, I thrive on trivia these days.

The 8th I have expounded on enough here. :-)

The 9th of course is something that is inherent in me. I hate change. I like my things how they are, and how they have been for years. Force of habit you could say, and in that sense alone, I am extremely materialistic when it comes to my comfort zone.  I like comfort, I like security and I definitely need to know where the next paycheck is coming from to keep my creature comforts.

The 10^th is something I realized when I reached my wise old years – the 30s. :) It was brought on by a conversation I had with a very good friend. We were discussing mutual friends and who was an introvert and who was an extrovert. Up until that point, I was under the impression that I was an AMBIVERT. You know, it sounded cool so to say and being an introvert is almost always looked upon in a negative connotation. This is now changing thanks to social media. So all along, while my heart knew that I was an introvert and that I regained my energies in solitude, my ego never let me admit it. And when he told me that I was an introvert, for a long time, I tried to defend it. But like I said, in my previous post, acceptance is the first step to everything. When I accepted, and embraced the fact that I was actually an introvert, it didn’t really seem so bad, you know. So, what?  We have our good qualities and our moments, except that most happen in solitude or with a very small group of people. Quality over quantity you see! ;)

So that’s me in a nutshell, as of now, for you ;)

And for some reason, I hope these qualities of mine never change. And that I will keep adding more as the years go by.

One can, of course, always hope can’t they ;) 

A.C.C.E.P.T.A.N.C.E.

Of the person you are and what makes you, Y.O.U.

Of shortcomings that you have tried many a time to change. Of baggage that weighs you down.

Of fears, flaws and failures. And of awareness of those debacles.

Of understanding the puzzles of the jigsaw, trying to see the bigger picture.

Of knowing that some paths may not always lead you down the road you want. 

Of the middle road that you embark on trying to strike a balance.

Of the journey that has been, the one that is prevailing and the one that is yet to originate.

Of learning when to hold on and when to let go.

Of knowing that sometimes you have to put yourself first, and sometimes you can’t always fix what’s wrong.

Of trudging along picking up the pieces, stringing them together in the coloured shards of your life. 

Of insights that what you start may not be finished, of intuitions that what you create may not see the light.

And so, as always, here we are, in the last month of this year.  

A time for reflection, review and to look back on what this year has brought, what to be thankful for and what to learn from …

Happy December Y’All..  

Guess what!! :-) We are now T.E.N. Years & Counting!!!

Let’s celebrate people…

*pop the champagne*

*bring out the glasses*

*raise a toast*

Here’s to…

10 Y.E.A.R.S. of My Expression! My Life!!

Here’s to a DECADE OF BLOGGING!

From cringe-worthy posts to fluff pieces … gap-filler tags and random reviews …

From irrelevant rants to solid issues … from scribbling something for the sake of it to writing something that makes me satisfied with the content ...

From finding myself in others’ words and expressing it by putting a spin on it …

From Knitted Yarn to the Mahabharata Chronicles...

Through my tumultuous twenties, over different geographies, different sets of people, different workplaces …

To the terrific thirties where I am much more sure of who I am and what I want to be…

This blog has seen it all… and much more…

For something that started off as a hobby and another avenue to pass time, it has become a part of my identity and strength.

Here’s to more blogging, more writing and more expressing!

And here’s a BIG BIG BBBBBBIIIIIIGGGGG THANK YOU to all you wonderful people who have taken the time out to read through what I have written, commented on it, inspired it and critiqued it!

I love you all!!!

10 YEARS People… WOOHOO!!! 

Subhadra - The Mahabharata Chronicles #11

Her eyes kept following the toddler as he made his way through the room. He was crawling towards Panchali who was cooing to him and beckoning him forth. He tried to stand up, took a few tentative steps and wobbled as he was reaching towards her.  Instinctively, her reflexes sprung and she rushed to catch him before he fell.

She needn’t have worried. Draupadi’s strong hands had already caught him.

Her gaze turned towards the First Lady of Hastinapura. The Iron-woman herself. Her luscious hair now tinged grey, the regal bearing intact, she was now cajoling the baby into eating something.

She remembered the first time she had met the queen who reigned over the Pandavas.  The derisive gaze, the haughtiness in her stance, the underlying anger at the new entrant into Arjuna’s life. For her part, she had been meek and subservient, just as Arjuna had asked her to be. Over time, she had formed a cordial yet endearing bond with her. And over the years she had realized that they had much more in common than just Arjuna.

After all, their lives were guided by the same person. Keshava, the unification of the lord of creation and the lord of destruction.

The One who made sure they followed the path of Dharma. At least the Dharma that he said they had to adhere to.

They had both given up their first loves upon his word. They had both let their progeny ride in to the war, knowing fully well that they were riding into meet their death, upon his word.

But now, thinking back she wondered if it had been the right thing. If they should have stood up to him and not just taken him at his word. If all these adversities and the conflict could have been averted had they been allowed to be with the one who had usurped their hearts. But then, Krishna could be more convincing and persuasive than anyone else she knew. She could imagine how he must have persuaded Draupadi to choose Arjuna over Karna, just as he had persuaded her to choose Arjuna over Suyodhana.

Suyodhana.

Even after all these years, her heart skipped a beat when she thought about him.

Her first love. Him with his gentle demeanour and soft nature. Her happiest moments were with him, sitting by the riverside, his head in her lap, talking about all things substantial and trivial, the spells few and far between. He confided everything in her. Of the Pandavas bullying him and his brothers, of the Gurus favouring Arjuna over anyone else, of his immense respect for her eldest brother, Balarama, and about how he had tried everything in his might to ensure cordial relations between the cousins and yet somehow, his plans were foiled every single time.

And then like a flood, the memories fast-forwarded to their home in Dwaraka and Krishna talking to her in that soothing mellifluous voice of his. Persuading her to sacrifice her love for the greater good. Stressing upon her, the part she was tasked to fulfil in the purging of the evil in the world, gently revealing to her who she really was and how she came upon to her present avatar, confiding in her about the manifestations of the Gods and Goddesses and the role they had to play during the transition of the yugas, from the Treta Yuga to the Kali Yuga.

[Pic courtesy: Maha Maya - https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vHKdkS5OZoQ/hqdefault.jpg]

Swayed, she had sacrificed her love for him and embraced the love of another. For the greater good. For that choice of hers was the focal point of gentle Suyodhanas’s transformation to his present moniker, Duryodhana. She had sent Abhimanyu into the war, with a mustered bravado and blessing for a long life which she knew would never ensue. For his demise would be the pivot motivating Arjuna to wreak havoc upon the so-called enemies, his own kith and kin.

And as for Arjuna, even though she was his favoured one, her respect for him diminished that fateful day in the Sabha. The day, the man touted to be the greatest archer, failed to stand up for his first love – Draupadi, succumbing to the actions of the depraved men, binding himself to the trivial words of a king who had staked his own wife as wager in a wrongful game of dice.

She remembered the hollow look in the proud queen’s eyes, the pale face and the simmering rage within. She recalled taking her cold hands into her own, putting her to sleep like she would a small child. She thought of how the once statuesque queen had whimpered and convulsed, reliving those appalling moments.

Like a mother would care for her young, Yoga Maya had comforted the manifestation of Shakti.

And so, it had all begun and ended as the wheel of fate had spun her life into unmanageable twists and turns.

Yet here she was, now a grandmother.

She was drawn back into the present-day, by the young one pulling at her saree, pleading with her to play with him. Her grand-son.

The one who wrested over death while in the womb itself. The one who survived.

For in him, ran the blood of the Matsyas, the Kurus and the Yadavas.

Abhimanyu’s progeny. Parikshit. 

Ramblings of a recent pluviophile.

Some days you get up with a glorious sense of purpose, filled with positivity and an urge to complete all the pending tasks, take on new ones and have a productive, energized day where at the end of it you feel satisfied with the accomplishments of said day and a sense of fulfilment.

Today is NOT one of those days for me. I have them on and off, but not today.

Today is one of those days, where I want the dull overcast skies to open up and browbeat us into submission, into taking shelter and watching the rains pelt down.

Today is one of those days where I want to laze about my cosy flat, sipping endless cups of masala chai, observing the clouds pass by, munching on potato chips and surrendering myself to binge-watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

You, of course can see where I am going with this right!

I miss the rains. I am not a true blue pluviophile. Rather I am a recent convert.

For the longest time ever I hated the rains. Hate is a very strong word though; I just didn’t like them rains. And being from a place that worships and heralds the showers, I didn’t quite understand the whole fuss about it except that the crops and the running water depended on it.  To me, the rains were symbolic of early morning cuddling inside the bedsheet, not wanting to go to school, uniforms that never dried and the slush and mud that soaked through the shoes and socks. School always reopened after the summer vacation at the outbreak of the monsoons and it was simply uncanny how it always used to end up raining exactly around the time we had to leave for school.

But off late, I crave for these bursts. Being in a place where rains are more like ‘switch-on-switch-off’ phenomenon, I miss the monsoons back home dreadfully. In fact, my whirlwind trip this time home had a specific wish attached to it. R.A.I.N.S. And I got my wish and quite a lot of it too. :)

(C) Aishwarya Ananth

I think there is a deep bond that is attached to it, that I have discovered recently.

The smell of the earth, the feel of those first few beads hitting you squarely, the first blast of the chillness that knocks into you, the puddles, the splashes, the leaves tinged with the dewy droplets, the feet that get wet soaked through the sandals that you wear, the sense of calmness that pervades you, the beating heart that settles into the rhythm of the pitter-patters on the rooftop, the nostalgia that engulfs you, the feeling of freshness, new starts and that of washing away vestiges of despair and ire. …. I can go on and on… and of course curling up with a hot tea, a book and enjoying the rains never really hurt anyone, did it? ;) :)

(c) Aishwarya Ananth 

I understand that feeling now. The fuss that people back home make about the rainstorms. There really is no comparison, is there? I have seen and felt the rains at plenty of places. But nothing really compares to the feeling that you get when you enjoy it back at the hometown – the place that you are born and raised.

And that my dear friends, is a feeling akin to nothing else. 

Because you can't really make me stay away from a tag about books :)

Do you have a certain place at home for reading?

Nope. I have a few favourite places but I read almost everywhere :D

Bookmark or random piece of paper?

Used to be bookmarks. But now as much as I hate to admit it, dog ears :(

Can you just stop reading or do you have to stop after a chapter/a certain amount of pages?

Depends on the book honestly. If it’s highly engrossing, I keep saying to myself – just another chapter. Just one more! But otherwise I can just stop mostly after a chapter though.

Do you eat or drink while reading?

Yes! Yes!

Multitasking: Music or TV while reading?

Nope. No TV definitely. Mostly none. Sometimes music in the background.

One book at a time or several at once?

Used to be a stickler to one book at a time, but now several at once.

Reading at home or everywhere?

Everywhere :)

Reading out loud or silently in your head?

Silently in my head.

Do you read ahead or even skip pages?

I don’t ever skip pages or read ahead, but I may skim the content.

Breaking the spine or keeping it like new?

Keeping it like new of course. Breaking the spine sounds too gruesome to hear! :-/

Do you write in your books?

Sometimes.

If you could invite one author and one of their fictional characters to lunch, who would you invite and why?

Mario Puzo and Michael Corleone. Without a doubt! :) Can you imagine the conversations that can take place.

Godfather has been one of the most engrossing and one of my most favourite books of all time! It kind of heralded my start into reading bigger and better novels.

What book do you wish the author would write a prequel for?

Harry Potter. I would really like to know more about James, Lily and the gang.

Which two characters (not from the same book) would make a good couple?

Ok, I will go with my top 2 favourite characters, but I don’t really want them to be a couple.

Lisbeth Salander and Michael Corleone.

If you ran into your favourite author on the subway and only could say one sentence to them, who is it and what, would it be?

Err. I have so many of them. But if I have to go with one, I’d pick Steig Larsson and at the risk of sounding flabbergasted, I’d ask – “Lisbeth Salander?  How did you even think up of such a character! Whoa!”

What book made you a reader and why?

Oh plenty, starting right from the Tinkles, Gokulams and Champaks to the Enid Blytons, Nancy Drews, etc.

Gives me a nice escape into another world!

Incendio!
Your bookshelf just caught fire. Show the book you’d save.

Don’t you mean books? And don’t you mean shelves as well!

Which dystopian world would you want to live in if you had to choose one? Why?

The magical world of Harry Potter :)

What is your most epic read of all time?

Can’t bring myself to think of just one. I’ll go with my top 5.

Godfather – for taking me into worlds beyond Sidney Sheldon and Mary Higgins Clark

Steig Larsson – The Millennium trilogy!

Harry Potter – for providing me with an escape into a world quite unlike and unusual.

Kane and Abel – For being the first ever book I couldn’t really put down, in spite of having my board exams at the time!

Palace of Illusions – for showing me different perspectives of an epic I have come to love.

When the mind goes a-wandering…

Sometimes I miss home. Mostly those days when I am feeling a bit under the weather and sick. But those are the times that I crave for Amma’s cuddle or Appa’s fretfulness at what might just be a headache.

Days when I am bogged down at work, or I feel unbelievable amounts of stress for no particular reason, my mind starts wandering. I reminisce about Kalam. About old childhood memories.

Have I told you about Kalam?

It was this large family home where I and Achu spent the better part of our childhood.  The house is no longer standing; we razed it down as it was getting difficult to maintain it, what with the termites and other small reptiles making it their home. But it was such a beautiful sprawling house. I make it a point to visit it every time I am at Palghat. A walk through the winding trails, through the bushes, an almost dry canal, into the rubber trees, and back to the base finishing off with an elaneer or two, is a standing practice these days. I have very fond memories of the place.

Appa’s Rajdoot bike parked in a corner.  Sargent our dog, who used to  make himself comfortable beside the bike.  Achu wearing my blue frock and coming down the stairs at Kalam.  Amma chasing us all around the house with books in one hand, trying to make us sit and study.  Ammamma holding a long stick in her hands, trying to hunt down the snake that appeared in the store-room amidst the dry coconut husks.  Sahadevan’s auto.  The Chembaka tree in front and the smell of the flowers. The Krishna idol that stands tall and the bench where Thatha used to sit.  The parrot cage hanging in front of the pillars outside with the cawing of the bird and me trying to teach the bird to sing / talk / repeat after me. Skinned knees from the trips down to the ‘parakulam’.  Amma wrapping me and Achu in one big towel after our baths.  The huge Aatukattil in the hall.  The cool floors inside where Thatha used to lie down in the afternoons and let us kids climb all over him.  The office rooms at the end of each side where chithappa and thatha sat doing their work.  The bell that Thatha jangled when he did the poojai.  The old bathrooms with their creaky taps.  The naripaarai where foxes used to come at night.  The attic where one had to crawl up a flight of stairs, almost like transporting us into a fabled other world.  The bats that used to be seen in the attic sometimes.  The granary inside the house where they used to store rice and other items.  The thair-kadayal that happened religiously every day.  The vadaams and koozhumaavu that Ammamma dried on the terrace.  The rubber sheets and the smokehouse.  The cowshed and the cows that grazed around.  The chakkai’s during the season. And the mambazhams. The elaneer that Sahadevan prised off the coconut trees. The bilvam leaves. The odds and ends, nooks and crannies, the water tanks. The rubber trees. The canal that ran by the side of it. The ball badminton ground. The Vishnu temple.

You know how they say; you never know value of what you have until you lose it?

Kalam for me is an example of that. Sometimes I wish the place was still there or that we had kept it and maintained it for what it was worth. 

I wish I was there now.

At Kalam. Or at least what’s left of it.  

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Translations: 

elaneer - tender coconut juice, chembaka - champak tree, aatukattil - traditional swinging bed, naripaarai - fox hillock (literal translation), thayir-kadayal - churning of the milk to get curd, chakkai - jackfruit, mambazham- mangoes, paarakulam - rock pond.