Wonder

The prompt for the day is 'Wonder'. How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year?

I wonder about so many things in life but most of the times, it remains at the level of curiosity and then I typically tell myself, 'stop being a child. you are suppose to behave like a grown up.' But no one has told me that adults cant wonder like a child. It is just something that I have imposed on myself because I want to be taken seriously as an adult by the larger society. I have been wondering for last whole week about what makes snow come down the way it does. May be child in this part of the world will give me all the scientific details about temperature, humidity, direction of wind, condensation and so on. I never had to study it when i was a child as snow is unheard of in Mumbai. Two days ago, I saw a father-daughter duo starting their day. Father probably going to work and on the way dropping the daughter to her school. There was thick 10 cms layer of snow and the girl had a little wooden sledge which was being pulled by the father. I wondered how would it feel for me to be on such (a bit bigger) sledge and being pulled by someone so that I could go to school. I did not dare to even talk this thought aloud but I kept staring at this father daughter duo as if I was seeing 8th wonder of the world. I loved listening the little girl laugh, and instruct her father to pull her sledge appropriately. She was the queen of the moment with her beautiful bunny ear winter cap. I wanted to be like her, happy, free, enjoying life and giggling hard. Yesterday on my way home from school, a friend showed me a shorter route home. There was a lovely snow covered slope and there were steps to climb down. The steps as expected were cleared of snow. I for sure wanted to slide down the snow covered hill even if it meant hardships for my bottom but the adult in me took over and I silently took the steps, followed my friend. I felt so miserable later having lost a wonderful chance. There was no one else but me and my friend, so no one would have laughed at me. Even if I would have got wet with that soft snow, I was anyways going home, I could have immediately changed into something warm. Why did I not follow my wish? I will try 2row.

On my way to school, the two large construction sites are active right now. They have those huge cranes for lifting and moving construction material. It has been my wish for years to be on that top end of the crane, not where the man operating it sits but the other end which has a hook hanging down. I always wonder how would the world look from that elevation. Two of my classmates know about this deep desire of mine and every time they see something where I could hang down from, they point it out to me.

Recently I have been wondering a lot about what it means to bake a bread. I eat such delicious variety of bread here and I have been following blogs which have so many recipes which require baking, I am aching to try out those 'herb dinner rolls'. I must confess that in India, we do not bake much so baking bread, cakes, cookies is like wonderland for me. I do not have a little oven here but I am hoping there will be one in Nijmegen and I have already convinced a friend who has some baking experience to be my mentor.

I have been making soap bubbles for many years now and I know how physics explains the rainbow colors on bubbles with laws of reflection and principle of surface tension but even today, the colorful soap bubbles fill my heart with so much happiness and excitement. Soap bubble solution goes with me everywhere, the bottle is right next to my computer.

I wonder what it means to be a painter. Let me tell you that I understand nothing in paintings, nor have I an eye or ability to appreciate paintings but I have a painter friend and I have many friends who love visiting painting exhibits. Every time I walk through the medical center here, I see both sides of the corridors adorned with beautiful paintings, some abstract, some which I can recognize as horse, an apple or a flower and so on. I have not seen a public hospital in my little experience in India which has hundreds of paintings in its corridors. I like the fact that these paintings give the hospital vitality and vibrancy unlike those disinfected white walls in hospitals I am used to. So I am going to spoil a couple of blank canvases and make some strokes of paint just to see if I have any potential to feel how it feels to be a painter.

There are more things I wish to try out but i am either afraid of it or I dont have means for it. For example, I really want to try and skate on ice but I am too afraid that I will fall and hurt myself. I want to jump with a parachute some day but that day still seems far into future. I wonder how the soft clay feels on your palms when one makes a pot on the traditional wheel. I wonder how those two little green leaves bring their heads above soil when the seed germinates or when the bud slowly blooms into a flower or when the leaves change color, fall off and then blossom again in the beginning of spring. I can spend hours together looking at the clouds floating through the sky and I imagine different shapes in them and an aeroplane going above my head equally makes me excited thinking about how does this big fat machine with all the people inside defy the law of gravity and manage to fly at 30000 feet and above. When the volcano in Iceland erupted this April, I wondered how it might feel to climb up a volcano crater or to float on the dead sea

I wonder how it feels to be standing on the north and south pole, all that ice, the glaciers, the northern lights, the penguins, the seals and other animals. I have planned to visit both these places in next 10 years. When I was a child and I did not really know the law of gravity, I used to feel that I would fall down into nothingness if I stand on the south pole as it was perceived as the bottom of the earth based on little replica of revolving globe of earth. Now I am completely ready to fall into nothingness from the south pole after having fallen into nothingness in spite of perfectly knowing how gravitational force keeps us all where we are in my non-polar life.

I wondered how one could eat in complete darkness and my friends in Amsterdam made my wish come true. We went for dinner at 'C Taste', a restaurant which serves you a three course meal in complete darkness. We struggled a bit initially but then realized once we accepted the darkness and made no efforts to see, other senses took over and we appreciated flavors and textures of food much better. Eating was not at all difficult but communicating with one another in the dark was hard as we could not understand how to communicate effectively without those non verbal clues. It was fun experience.

Last week in Amsterdam, I went for a show of 'Cirque du soleil'. It was an experience of intense stimulation of senses, the music, the light effects and off course watching the bodies in action. At some point, I could not decide what component of larger performance I should focus on. I wondered the human relationships amongst the circus actors. The kind of coordination, trust and confidence they needed with one another to put up a successful performance. One little mistake and a life is at risk. One may not have such confidence with each other even in families. How do then these people from different continents of the world, speaking different languages and sharing different beliefs coordinate with each other so perfectly to unfold such extra ordinary performance?

Every time I see little children sitting on those airport luggage trolleys I feel a bit jealous. I was not flying with my parents at that age so never had this chance. So many times, I decided to use a trolley from the supermarket that some one in my apartment had somehow hijacked but I never had courage to do so. This year in august, at a farm house of a friend, finally my wish came true and I had my little 'ahhhaaa' moment.

I also did some not so nice things in this year just to satisfy my wonder lust mind. I tried magical mushrooms to know what it really means when they say the colors come more alive, the sounds sound more musical and the shapes and forms dance around you. To be honest I did not believe these descriptions but now i can tell you it really works. The green looked greener and the clouds actually danced in front of my eyes to my own imaginary tunes. I loved that experience.

Finally I wonder, will there be a day when I will understand a philosophical theory? Hahahhaha this brings me back to reality after wandering in wonderland. I have to return to preparation of exam on this Monday.