A little world of my own

Eat, pray, love and finding myself..

2011-10-05T12:22:00.002+02:00

In June 2008, a dear friend of mine recommended the book 'Eat, Pray,Love' by Elizabeth Gilbert. I must say I enjoyed the book. Her story resonated with mine in many ways.I wondered about the possibilities in my own life to take a year off and travel to three countries in search of my own self? I thought, 'that would be a far stretched dream.. may be something I might try 10 years down the line when I have more money and luxury to take a year off..' little did I know then, that I would set out on a similar journey in just 2 years time...This is the story of my year off...not exactly along the lines of Elizabeth Gilbert's journey but quite similar to it...

Exactly a year ago, I arrived in Leuven, Belgium. I had made a conscious decision to call off my planned wedding in August that year. It was the most difficult phase of my life. I lost social and family support overnight. 'She is stupid. How can she be afraid of marriage? She has such a loving and understanding fiance and her in-laws love her so much. It must have been all those years away from India that she has become so self-centered. She has destroyed her own happiness'. They all had their opinions and they had loads of criticism for me. I lost my friends almost overnight, both men and women and I became a biggest tragedy in my community for I refused to get married.

I do not want to talk about why I took that decision. That is not important nor relevant anymore. All I want to share here is that the tremendous social and family criticism knocked me out completely. I lost all my self esteem, confidence and I became one miserable woman. I took all the blame and guilt and held myself responsible for everything, my pain, pain of my loved ones and all the financial and relational losses. I internalized the feeling that I am a total failure and extremely weak woman who did not even have courage to get married with a partner she had chosen herself. I did not have courage to set foot out of my house for many weeks that followed as I could not take those looks of mockery and sympathy thrown at me.. I thought.. this is the end of my life story. I have no hope and I am good for nothing.. I could not recognize myself in my feelings, thoughts or even actions.... I lost myself completely...

It was my younger brother who pushed me to get my act together. I had a one year scholarship to study bioethics as a part of Erasmus program. At some point, I was so weak and unsure of myself that I decided to give up my scholarship. I thought, I cant study any more.. and I don't want to fail in academics now after having failed in personal life.But my brother persisted and I started yet another journey.. my year away from home, a journey into healing and self realization.. the time stolen to make peace with myself.. I had no hopes and no expectations but I was happy to realize that I wont be haunted with the questions about my failure to get married at least for a year.. and that was a big relief...

4th October 2010, I 'celebrated' my 31st birthday with floods of tears and no sign of happiness... the same evening I flew out of India and next day early morning I arrived in Belgium... tired, exhausted, weak, unsure,confused and scared. Will I survive this European winter? Will I fall apart emotionally and psychologically through the dark and cold months of winter ahead? Will I be able to study and pass my exams? Those were hard days. I had not slept well for months together, the nightmares kept me company. I had to force myself to eat and I had to make tremendous effort to attend my classes. Nothing discussed in classes made sense.. I was not there.. the words fell on my ears but had no impact. I was sure, I was going to fail all my assignments. My friends in the Netherlands, new classmates got together and they created a support system around me. No weekend was spent without friends visiting me over. zen meditation helped me find some moments of peace and by December, I had at least regularized my daily routine. I could participate in few social occasions. A classmate helped me prepare for my exams. Another friend and her young children provided me with warmth of human interaction. I was slowly able to sleep better and I could feel the initial sings of improvement...

I celebrated the new year in Amsterdam with my friends and next day I moved to Nijmegen, a city in the South of the Netherlands.. from January to March, I stayed in the Netherlands. I am familiar with and in fact fond of Dutch Academic environment. I slowly found my voice in Nijmegen. I also had large network of friends in the Netherlands and for some strange reasons, the Netherlands always felt like home to me. Meditation continued. I was proactive in class discussions. I also conducted a qualitative research on euthanasia during those three months in the Netherlands. This was my first research abroad and it was indeed a fulfilling experience. I enjoyed every bit of it and though the months were full of hard work, I enjoyed every minute of it. By mid March, daffodils started peeping out of the snow covered soil and I could see and feel the arrival of spring around me and also within me. After series of farewell dinners in the Netherlands.. thanks to my wonderful friends... beginning of April,I was south-bound.

The last leg of my studies from April to June was in Padova, Italy. Gilbert's descriptions of Italian pleasures of food and drinks were my everyday experiences in those three months. Italian spring, great food, a culture that ensures pleasure of everyday life..calling it 'Dolce vita'.. i was flowering once again... more classes, more exams but loads of travels... travelling was my priority.. I was lucky to experience Italian hospitality at homes of my Italian friends from Turin to Venice.. I was living that dream life.. I was definitely feeling much better but soon the worries started.. what will happen to me after graduation? end of June will not only mark the end of my academic program but I feared that it will also end my happy life. I feared returning to India. I was not ready yet. I needed more time to gather my strength and to really figure out what is that I wanted. I was not ready to go back home. End of May, and I became desperate... what was I going to do next? A friend of mine in the Netherlands rescued me and offered a place to stay for few months more.. she wanted me to take time off for myself.. no studies, no assignments.. just enjoy European summer...and reflect on my life path ahead..

4th July 2011, I arrived in Groningen and last three months have been the best part of my journey over this year.. what did I do? I ate, I slept many hours, I watched movies, I read many non academic books.. I cooked for hours and we invited our friends over for dinner.. we lingered over food and we talked about our lives. we laughed together and we also cried together.. I was accepted by her friends and family and many new experiences opened up in front of me... Dutch plays, working in the garden, visiting farmer's markets, dancing tango, hosting friends and enjoying sauna.. getting lost in huge public library and binging on fries and chocolates.. I started running with her and for the first time, realized how happy one could feel after a good run.. I started laughing a lot.. I became a child again, curious and open to new experiences, able to amuse myself with little things around me.. roaming through a Dutch farm of 90 cows and jumping on trampoline... enjoying the feel of water while jumping in swimming pool and sometimes the joy of doing nothing.. I was happy again.. I thought, I would never find happiness in my life.. but I was wrong..Once I accepted myself just the way I was with all my strengths and weaknesses, it was easy to find my joy.. and presence of huge circle of friends around me made a significant difference... what I had lost a year ago, I received much more back... the pain of the past became less... the memories started fading away.. the decision to call of the wedding was celebrated at its first anniversary along with a large group of my friends..(refer to the post, Sunday with the stars) I cried a lot but these were the tears of joy.. Last three months here were the most special moments of my life.. they gave me a second life..

I celebrated my 32nd birthday yesterday and I kept reflecting on my own journey over last one year.. yes I lost a few precious people and friends but it taught me to be more open to life, to accept myself and my vulnerabilities and most important was to learn that I am more than my marital status. I am not a wife but I am a great friend to many people and that gives me an immense sense of satisfaction. My circle of friends is constantly expanding and so is the depth of my relationship with the others.. I am working on my fears about love and marriage and I must say when I take one step forward, I see more helping hands stretching towards me.. I feel loved, cherished, nurtured and valued for who I am and not rejected for what I lack... I will hopefully start working in the Netherlands soon but I have already started most important work, to be myself, to find my own calling, to live life to the fullest as if this might be my last chance.. and I feel happy about all the experiences that life has shown me till now...

It really did not take 10 years for me to have 'eat, pray, love' experience but this one year gave me a lot to understand and to learn about...I take this moment to thank all those who have contributed to who I am, who have been my support and strength.. I would not have reached this far.. without your loving presence in my life.. thank you very much...

't Gateauke, delicious and inspiring...

2011-09-04T16:08:00.005+02:00

My trip to Maastricht last weekend was fun for more than one reasons. I want to take you through an extraordinary culinary experience that I bumped into just by chance. Here is my story.

It was raining heavy on Saturday morning. It looked like a late evening when it was just 11am. We were driving through a small village 'Eijsden' near Maastricht. The street was lined by restaurants full of people enjoying their brunch. Bright and pink little cafe caught our eye and we decided to have a warm drink.. a perfect excuse on a rainy morning.

't Gateauke is a little patisserie and a cafe run by a mother-daughter duo. The interiors of the cafe were cozy and bright with floral designs, lovely lamps, beautiful chairs and most important, delicious pastries, cakes, cupcakes and chocolates. It was impossible to resist the temptation to enter this cafe and once in, there is no way one could leave without trying some of their delicacies. The decor of the cafe personifies the warm and friendly ladies who are creating this culinary extravaganza through their work. We settled on a table by the window, busy absorbing the atmosphere and flipping through the menu card. I wanted to order it all and die of over-indulgence of sweets and cakes.. that would be a great death, I thought. Should I order a chocolate cupcake or the muffin? How do I make a choice when everything is so alluring?

We placed our order. I could not stop myself from talking to the ladies, Yvonne and Barbara. They were more than willing to answer my questions. This is how 't Gateauke came into existence.

'My mother was teaching women how to bake cakes and pastries at our home for many years. We realized that with increasing number of women who wanted to learn, our home kitchen was not spacious enough to conduct these courses. Why not start a small patisserie? We started thinking about it and things got moving'. The daughter informed us while bringing our orders.

'We are new. We started this cafe in April this year. It all began in March and as luck would have it, this place became available for renting. It is indeed a perfect location and within a month we opened our doors to the customers. A friend of ours helped us redecorate the old chairs in appropriate fabric. We paid an extra attention on the interiors, the kind of glassware and cutlery we wanted to have. It was a bit expensive as an initial cost but the feel that it created was priceless. Another friend of ours worked on our logo, business cards and also the paintings to go alone the theme of cakes. All these paintings, she did it herself'.

While we were busy listening to the daughter, the mother was instructing a group of about 10-12 women. They were decorating beautiful cakes. It was such a perfect environment. Women's world, infused with love, passion for cooking and an eye for beauty. We savored every bite of our cakes and I took photographs just to keep a memory of this experience. We also discussed a possibility of these two ladies travelling to India to conduct the workshops in baking. It was so easy to feel connected with them. I asked them, if I could write about their patisserie in my blog and they both graciously agreed.

I know the limitations of my words to do justice to their work. You have to try it yourself to believe it but for those who cant travel to Maastrict in near future, please have a look at their website. www.gateauke.nl. You will get the glimpses of how it is in reality through this website. I have been reading about inspired actions and these two ladies were living examples of the same. When we really want to create something with all our passion, things do fall in place and the dreams do come true. I have read similar stories about people who have made it big in their life but still all those personalities felt distant, alien in a way. But Barbara and Yvonne and their story inspired me immensely. Thank you ladies, you indeed made by day last Saturday and gave me food for thought. I am happy that I could write about you through this blog.

I wish them both a successful profession and I am sure they will continue to inspire many people through their art and their personalities. I cant wait to visit you again just for another bout of happiness through food and I must say, I have decided to learn baking myself. Thanks to 't Gateauke!!!

PS. It is a pity that I donot know how to place pictures in a nicer way within the text of this blog. I wish I could do something about it. Any suggestions how can I place pictures in different sections of this blog post?

Maastricht by the river Maas

2011-08-31T16:34:00.003+02:00

I love my life these days for I am enjoying each moment of it. I am living in the Netherlands and I am surrounded by great friends and their families. Most importantly, I am travelling around in this country and exploring cities and towns at my own pace and to my own taste..

I just spent a long weekend in Maastricht. Many beleive that this is the oldest city in the Netherlands but some others argue that it is Nijmegen. I lived in Nijmegen for three months this year and I recently spent three days in Maastricht. My first ever visit to Maastrict. The trip was special for a number of reasons. For the first time I experienced Dutch life in camping cars.. for those of you who are not much in contact with the Dutch, they are fond of their bikes, their boats and kayaks and they cant imagine their summer without their camping cars. By now I had seen a number of camping cars from outside and a few from inside but this time I spent three nights in a camping car. I was excited like a child at this opportunity as carvans and camping cars for me were things to be seen in movies... and there I was living in one... and it was superfun... By the way, I live in Groningen, the city way up in the North and Maastricht is way down south, some 360kms away and Maastricht is a confluence of Germany,Belgium and the Netherlands. This city by the river Maas has acquired a unique character from these cultures and I have more stories to tell you about that...

What else I did in Maastrict apart from enjoying the camping car? Well, I rode an electric bicycle for the first time, I watched first Dutch play. I did not understand the words but I must say I could feel the tension as the play unfolded in front of us. I freaked out in the weekly vegetarian open market for super cheap fresh vegetables but also I could find Okra.. I do not get Okra that easily in the Netherlands, particularly kind of Okra that we get back home. We do get Okra from Suriname which is slightly different but in Maastrict I bought Okra from Kenya.. and I cooked a lovely vegetable out of it. One morning, I woke up by the river and the other day by a lawn with horses. I participated as an enthusiastic audience for a bachelor's party.. and I was overjoyed to take few fabulous shots of thunder storm and lightening... I visited a huge Asian supermarket, I had never seen such a huge Asian market before in this country and guess what, I went to Belgium one morning just to buy fresh bread and some muesli. The food in Belgium tastes so much better... I relived my moments in Leuven. I binged on my favorite apple-cakes. We visited a castle nearby on a Sunday morning, there was no one around.. we were the princesses strolling around. A tree lined canopy fascinated me and we meditated under this arch of green life. It started raining soon, we could hear the rain drops and its intensity but we were safe and dry.. the meditation was refreshing and energizing.

The ease with which we can cross borders within EU still surprises me. I spent an hour with a Belgian family, a family of musicians to be precise. Sunday morning, warm and friendly people and some apple sap... a dog competing to get your attention.. three siblings spending summer together in their Parents house. I met first Cello player in my life, this young, bright and beautiful woman is a professional cello player and has been trained in Brussels and Freiburg and will soon set the sail for Basel. It is a pity that I did not get to experience her music. Her dad is a piano teacher and he tunes the pianos back into melody.. I did not know what is the word for such a person but I did not want to say, he fixes the pianos or treats the ones who are not doing well. One of the brothers is a Kayaker and leads student groups on many expeditions. The family was so special but still so humble, friendly and happy.. I was happy to have met them all... I wish I could spend more time with this family.

The evening turned out special due to performance of the Dutch play. But we also cooked Indian dishes for a group of 60 people. My first cooking stint in such a massive quantity. I was a bit nervous if they would find food spicy but as luck would have it, we ran out of food. People just loved it and we did not even get to taste it. I think it is true that food can connect people.. otherwise how do I explain all the connections I have been making in this country... ohh I love food and I live for food...

Food, that reminds me.. I have to take you on a special culinary experience that I had in Maastricht.. I will do it in my next blog post.. so stay tuned and enjoy every moment of your life...

Love and sunshine from Groningen...Doei....

Sunday with the stars

2011-08-25T09:16:00.002+02:00

Saturday, 20th August 2011, 10pm.

'Hey, we have to take 8.51train to Zwolle. Remember we are visiting Martha in the Hague. And yes, please wear something that you like and feel comfortable in. The weather will be nice so you can even put on a dress', My friend Margreet enthusiastically told me.

Why do I need the dress, we are going to spend the whole day indoors, watching movies, talking, eating, gossiping, just being girls... I was wondering.. I said to her instead..'I have some nice dresses but I don't have shoes'

The excuse of shoes did not work as we both have same shoe size. I took out a beautiful dress that my brother bought for my graduation exactly a year ago and I never wore it. It was too beautiful for me to wear, I thought.. also it is smallest dress I have. I am not used to wearing a dress that is so 'sexy' in a way because I am too conscious of my body image.

Sunday Morning,21st August 2011, 8am

We both were ready, new dress, shoes, matching little sweater and the jewelry. I really felt I was overdressed but then decided not to worry about it.. we strolled happily to the train station, with the cookies and a thermos flask of tea... I wondered why we were not taking a train that directly goes to the Hague.. she had brilliant answer.. because the direct train doesn't work today... We settled in our train to Zwolle. I like to sit by the window in the direction of the train and she sat opposite me. We started chatting about the plans for the day. The train took off from the station and first envelop was pulled out of her bag. 'check this out. Today is your day' She said to me.

Vertrek 8.51 Noord, Zondag 9.10-10.00

The writing on the envelop read. I opened it to find a train itinerary to Nijmegen in the south of the Netherlands, a university town where I studied from January to March 2011. 'You know Martha and Gerard are in Nijmegen since Thursday evening for the Tango festival. Hence we have to meet them there'. I know about the Tango festival and I know how much Martha, Margreet and Gerard love to Tango. To be honest I love it to. I can spend hours together watching the couples Tango and dream that some day I will be able to Tango too. It makes sense, if they are in Nijmegen we have to meet them in Nijmegen. 'I did not bring my dance shoes'.. I looked at her helplessly. She smiles and says, 'I have them here'.... The train brought us to Nijmegen.

El Corte, Nijmegen

I love Nijmegen, the place where I really started recovering from my emotional troubles early this year. I felt bad that I did not contact my dear friends Josephine and Ilona who live in Nijmegen. Margreet said that they were not free today for a family function. Yes, that is true, I knew it too. Too bad that I cant see them today, I thought.

El Corte was beautiful as usual, too warm though.. couples were swirling soaked in sweat.. first I could find Martha in beautiful pink dress dancing and meditating on the dance at the same time.. and there I could see Gerard as well... I must say, I was a bit uncomfortable in my short dress... it definitely looked great and there were many elegantly dressed women.. it was just the nervousness of having worn something different. I watched them dance ... , I did not want to dance because I cant dance yet and el Corte being the Mecca of Tango in the Netherlands, dancers here are fabulous... but I enjoyed watching them dance..

We decided to go for lunch. It was Sunday and it made it difficult to find a restaurant. But we managed. We ordered our food and all four of us got busy chattering. We can talk for hours on various topics, from films to photography to being men and women.. and when I am with these friends, I laugh a lot.. it is impossible to be sad when surrounded by them. The drinks arrived and we raised the glasses towards each other... 'We are here today to celebrate the 'brave decision' that you took a year ago. We are happy because it gave us a chance to meet you and to get to know you. We are proud of you and we hope that you will stay here longer'...

I knew what was it all about.... a brave decision that I took a year ago.. the 1st anniversary of that decision, I could not control my tears but it was ok to fall in arms of these special friends and cry, sob, speak in words that are beyond comprehension in the middle of my tears and laugh at the very next moment. I was loved, protected and cherished all at the same time by my three Dutch friends in Nijmegen.. I felt overwhelmed but in happy ways.. after many more hugs and bouts of laughter, we headed to Nijmegen station.. I knew by then that Margreet must have cooked up some more plans.. I became curious and also excited about the evening but I had no idea what I was getting into...

Voor 15.00 uur, Vertrek 15.18 spoor 4a

This was the next envelop which I could open just before we said goodbye to Gerard and Martha.. it had an itinerary to Amsterdam Centraal... another city which has played significant role in my life... the journey involved two train changes..

15.18 - 15.48

The next envelop came out when the train got out of Nijmegen station. I need not take out the letter completely.. I could see the typed letter in marathi, my language.. and I instantly knew it was a letter from my mother.. My mother has written 100s of letters for me over last 30 years, her letters accompany me on each journey... This year has been especially hard for our relationship with each other, we were avoiding each other and I was clearly running away from her.. I read the letter with great hunger and in the first paragraph itself, I burst into tears. I made no efforts to control that flood. I cried and cried... and felt how stupid I was to avoide my mother all these months. My mother apologized to me through this letter for failing to understand me and support me when I needed her the most but also told me her difficulties to cope with my pace of life. she said she feels tired for two reasons, first for not being able to walk with me in the same pace and second for strong realization of her own inadequacies to support me.. even when she wants to.. Have you ever received such a letter from your mother or a loved one? It breaks your heart but it also melts all the coldness between you... I had to call up my mother, the connection was not great and it was impossible to understand me amongst those tears.. but I did tell her that I am sorry for all my behavior and that I love her dearly.. she told me to enjoy the day ahead and be happy always.. 'she is also part of this conspiracy'.. I could clearly see that.. the journey continued and I continued to cry in arms of Margreet...

15.53- 16.51 1st letter

By now, I was happy to change the trains, as it meant, I would receive my next envelop.. and there it was.. this time, I received a beautiful, light hearted and yet thoughtful letter from my brother.. my brother has always been my biggest support.. he stood by me in every difficult situation and he was the one who encouraged me to take the necessary step last year.. he kept his word and he stood there rock-solid by my side.. in fact he also encouraged me to return to Europe.. this time, I did not cry as much but I had a constant smile on my face.. how does one feel when your younger brother who knows you so well writes a letter to you on such a special occasion?

15.53 -16.52 2nd Letter

Dutch trains often have problems and this is particularly true when the weather is bad or on weekend... we had to take one train extra.. it was not in our plan but as luck would have it, Margreet had one more letter waiting for me.. it was a poem.. and there was no name of the sender.. my eyes caught one word in the poem and I said to Margreet..'This is from Madhavi, How did you contact her in China?'... Gosh.. Margreet has really been up for a task..

Madhavi's words were so genuine and straight from heart, I have received many handwritten letters and poems from her since our medical school days.. I can feel Madhavi in each of her words... but her unconditional support went beyond words and poems.. she gave me a shelter in her house in China when I was falling apart in Mumbai in those early days.. She said, 'look I have two kids and my house is a mess but please come and stay with us.. a change of place will do you better and you have never been to China..'Ohh Madhavi.. you were with me then and you are with me now..

I was in thoughts of my friends and family from different parts of the world at the same time and they were reaching out to me through their own innovative ways through Margreet.. I felt showered in much love and affection.. I was speechless.. and I saw Margreet busy texting on phone.. yes of course, there were more surprises ahead of us.. we saw the Nemo through the train and she pulled out the next envelop..

Before entering Amsterdam..

This envelop was empty... may be that was part of the surprise.. we got off the train.. and I saw Katrine walking towards us on the platform.. I saw her but I could not believe it was her.. was I seeing a ghost?.. no it was Katrine... we hugged and I started crying again and thanking her for being there and she kept saying.. 'wait and watch.. this is just getting started..' and right at that moment.. our Chinese friends Peggy and Olivia came running towards us on the platform... big hugs followed, accompanied by laughter and joy...

Where in Amsterdam

Take tram 4 towards station Rai, get off at Fredreikspleine, walk through the park with a tree painted red and walk towards Utrechtstraat.. there you will find vegetarian restaurant 'de golden temple'..

Five of us followed the directions together... my friends know how much I love food... as we reached the restaurant... I saw Nuria hanging around on the street looking for someone.. I knew what was going on there.. they had mobilized all my friends in Amsterdam to meet at this place..

Nuria kept pretending that it was just a chance but we all knew it by then.. we settled in the cozy restaurant, had our tea and lassis.. hellos and catching up with each other.. and there walks in Anisha.. wowwww I kept wondering who else is coming in.. Nasima and Rhona arrived and we became a full house.. 9 lovely ladies in for a great feast...

We placed orders for food.. and my friends took over.. first came out a box, beautiful pink box.. they thought I need a box to put all those envelops and all other letters and cards which were coming my way.. they named it 'my good luck box'. Each girl brought out her card and little goodies they thought I would enjoy.. Anisha gave me a beautiful painting, painted by her.. a sea shore with rocks where a small daizy bloomed happily.. she said.. however rocky the situation may be around me, I have to remember my potential to bloom like this daizy.. Katrine gave me a card with bright sunflower and a small sticker to be ironed on my jacket or backpack.. all happy images and also funny.. my friends know I love flowers.. Peggy and Olivia gave me little pouch and a wooden seal to make my personalized stamp.. may be with my new name.. lovely.. Nasima gave me a little pebble with inscription 'friends for ever'.. Nuria was the messenger of Julia, Piet and Sjaak as well.. Julia and Piet sent me a card and beautiful little idol of Ganesha.. and Sjaak sent me a bottle of jam that he himself made with ruberb and strawberries.. he knows we both love that jam. The card he chose for me came from Poznan, in Poland and has a bronze statue of a man with a bicycle on it..'I chose this card for your love for the bicycle', the message read.. Nuria's card came from Bremen, a place where we traveled together in winter of 2009 and she gave me a pair of earnings with butterfly wings.. beautiful.. it also states that the butterflies were not killed for the purpose of making these ornaments.. I think they are the most unique earrings in my collection and it is true that I have been facinated by butterflies these days..

My box got full but more importantly my heart overflowed with joy and gratitude towards these special women..my friend Nasima called it 'a constellation of stars' the stars which are on move to and from different parts of the world but who come together and form meaningful shapes and structures.. the most important is gigantic support structures that we form..

The food came in and we ate it all.. we just loved it.. that was the only time we fell silent.. our Chinese friends tasted Indian food for the first time..I realized that it was me and Nasima who knew all the ladies present in the group and many women did not know each other that well.. that is when we started a new idea.. together we described each woman, the way we had met her, understood her and her unique qualities that we had noticed and experienced.. and that was a fabulous idea.. we had so many things to share and highlight about each other.. we were indeed stars but most of us felt that we were just ordinary people... that evening proved to us beyond doubts that there is extraordinary in each ordinary thing or a person. All we need is a perspective to feel the extraordinary facets.. the evening grew young.. the restaurant gave us space and freedom.. we spent about 4 hours there but soon we had to say goodbye..

Me and Margreet had the lonest travel home. Nasima was leaving for Bangladesh the very next morning.. Olivia burst into tears to say goodbye to all these friends she made in one evening and Peggy pondered..'have I ever made such special friends in my life?' Rhona responded, 'my dear quality and depth of friendship changes as we grow older. The things that mattered in the beginning, the competetion with fellow women doesnt matter anymore and we start appreciating friends just the way they are..' I thought that was the best words Peggy could have received in an answer.. so reassuring and comforting..

I am blessed with such lovely gang of friends.. I cant beleive that I had one or two friends max till the age of 23 .. I have been a slow starter but now, I feel it was totally worth it.. better late than never.. I wondered why am I blessed with such lovely friends... and my friends responded... 'are you kidding? Just look at you. we feel enriched to be here' 'you have great friends because of the way you are' 'oh we did nothing, mobilizing this party was such fun and easy because each person contacted bounced back with equal energy as they all wanted to be there for you..'

All I can say is thank you everyone .. for being there for me, spending your sunday evening to be with me, to prepare a good luck box for me .. I just have to open this box whenever I feel low and left out in life and all of you will spring out of the box.. It was this very same blog where I cried my lungs out last year.. when friends rejected me on facebook and I was almost an outcast for the circle of friends back home and it is one year and I am surrounded by much stronger bonds of friendship.. thank you, thank you, thank you very much...

Just before we left the restaurant, after series of hugs and kisses and goodbyes and wishes.. there came another envelop..

Planning last train home

Last train from Amsterdam to Groningen noord takes about 3 hours.. which meant we had ample time to reflect on.. just to let all the feelings and emotions sink in.. just feel happy and blessed.. we took the tram to the station.. if all train connection go as planned, we would be home by 1am. Both me and Margreet were visibly tired.. she had taken immense effort to plan this day... but she was happy...

Terugreis

Return journey in Dutch is called terug reis.. was it really a return journey for me? I think it was a new journey home.. yes I was coming home finally.. after feeling homeless in many ways for last one year.. where is my home? I am not referring to my home in Groningen Noord or for that matter in Mumbai.. I carry my home with me.. my home is my family of friends... friends across all age groups, all cultures and from across the globe.. some I meet in person and some keep shining the light of their love on me from the distance.. like madhavi shining from China... all my struggles and self doubt about my life altering decision vanished.. I finally made peace with myself and my life.. it was such an incredible feeling...

there she brings out yet another envelop... I open it with tears of joy.. I knew.. it was her letter.. the woman who did everything silently.. but with so much love and care.. she was speaking her heart to me through this last letter.. she thanked me for giving them all a chance to plan this day for me.. she thanked me for opening my world of friends in front of her.. she was happy to have interacted with my mother and brother and to have met all the special friends of mine in the Netherlands.. she oppologized for not being able to contact Leen in Leuven who gave me immense support in the winter last year.. I was speechless.. now I really started crying.. I hugged her and just kept saying thank you.. Thank you Margreet for all that you have done for me...

Special note:
The idea was conceptualized by Nasima and Margreet and they contacted all the friends who have been a great support for me in last one year.. I am extremely grateful to all of you (Margreet, Martha, Gerard, Josephine, Ilona, Nasima, prats, aai, Madhavi, Katrine, Olivia, Peggy, Nuria, Nasima, Rhona, Leen, Sjaak, Julia, Piet, Jan and all of you that are not listed here but are definitely in my thoughts.. you all have seen my roller coaster ride in last one year).. thanks a million for being there in so many ways for me...

The 'brave decision' that we celebrated this Sunday was to not get married when I was not ready for it. I wont discuss why I took that decision and how it must have hurt the people around me. I have apologized to everyone hurt in the process but do not know if I would ever be forgiven. On Sunday, I decided not to talk about that episode again but take the lessons learned with me for the life ahead..

This was a rather long but beautiful story of my 'Sunday with the stars..' This blog gave me a means of expression in those hard, gloomy days.. and I had to now share my happiness through the same blog.. we the gang of girls are planning something larger.. a sort of online community of friends.. who have supported us.. we want to share our stories and also the stories of special women we have met in our lives.. who continue to inspire us in different ways.. we are planning to be up and running by October this year.. so stay tuned..

The lady with the shell necklace who served our food in the restaurant has taken a lovely picture of the entire gang.. but I did not post it here.. friends, I hope you don't mind me using your first names in this blog. I did not want to change your names and nor did I want to write about M1, M2 M3 and R and K.. Please let me know if you disagree with me on using your first names..

Loads of love to you all...

I am off to Maastricht for yet another adventure this sunday and I will be back next week with more stories..

Till then take care...

String of beads...

2011-08-14T13:31:00.004+02:00

I have no good reasons to be dormant on this blog for yet another month. There were number on inspiring thoughts, events, meetings with people and experiences. It was just that I felt too lazy to write about it. But here I am again writing to you all from Amsterdam.

I have been living in Groningen for last 6 weeks and I love this city in the north of the Netherlands, cozy, comfortable and friendly.This university town has 190000 residents out of which 50000 are students. The students are mostly gone for it is summer holiday but soon the city will start buzzing with students again. I love my quite and peaceful life in groningen. I live in a silent residential neighborhood which has no shops. The city center is 10 minutes by bike and the huge public park is a stone throw away. I already feel connected with the fresh fruit and vegetable market, the neighbors and the city skyscape. The weather has not been great but that is the situation all across the country. This has been the wettest summer in years, rain everyday, dark gloomy sky and cold wind. But I am not at all depressed or low, instead I feel light like warm air. I am surrounded by friends and we cook great meals each day and then spend hours talking over the dinner table.. I have been having little adventures almost everyday and bouts of laughter on silly things. I cant imagine it is almost a year since that disastrous time in my personal life. I think I have found my old self back. Finally I have made peace with myself, all the guilt, pain and self-blame has gone away..

Yesterday I took a four hour train ride from Groningen to Alkmaar, to be at a friend's art gallery opening. It is always enriching to be surrounded by these special friends of mine in the Netherlands. Artists, painters, writers, copy editors, chefs and budding models.. I don't think I knew one in Mumbai, let alone being invited for such events. The art gallery going crowd looked so far out of my reach and here I am being one of them in a new country. I do not understand much in art, be it painting or music but I like being with people, all sorts of people, observe them and listen to them. What seems common in all of them is that they are not afraid to dream and to put their dreams in actions. They do not hold themselves back. Why is is that I am so afraid to dream? I always wanted to make some strokes of colour on a canvas. Now I have a friend who offered me the canvas, the paint and the paintbrushes. I could spoil one canvas without worrying too much about it but I do not have courage even to take the paintbrush in my hand. Why is it so? What is it that I am afraid of? Not being good enough? Not being gifted artist?Not wanting to waste a canvas? What is it that stops me when I have perfect opportunity? There is some kind of fear.. I feel it all the time. What I don't know is how to address that fear. how to take a step forward.

The other day, a friend of mine gave me a box of glass beads to make jewellery. 'Do what you like with this. Let the imagination flow..' I froze. I was happy to see the box coming out of nowhere. Was it not that I always wanted to try it out? Now I could. I expected myself to jump at the opportunity. Instead, I kept looking at the box and the beads. 'You don't know how to combine right colours. Look for similar beads. It should look symmetrical. No whatever you make will look ridiculously childish. Don't waste the beads and your time.' My mind started gushing out all the reasons why I should not give it a try. What would have happened if indeed my attempts turned out to be a disaster? The world was not going to fall apart nor was I going to incur huge losses. I was not going to harm anyone and what's wrong if my creation looks ridiculously childish? If I were a child, I am sure I would not have thought for a second before starting to make the string of beads, from one end of the living room to the other. Who cares about the colours, and harmony, symmetry and structure and child looks back at his/her own creation with great pride and satisfaction. When did I loose that ability in pursuit of growing into adult age? Can I get that ability back? Can I be a child again?

The box remained untouched for two days before I made an entry in my list of things to do. That's right! I have to make it to do list to be involved in some activity that could give me happiness. When anything gets on that list, I know it gets done and it did get done. After struggling with my overtly critical mind, i made a string of beads. I was far from satisfied with my work. The colours were not right, some beads looked so out of shape that they distorted the structure of the necklace. I lost my interest in it. I did not even tie the end-piece. I left it by the window, totally neglected and prematurely abandoned. We had a friend over for dinner the same evening. The necklace caught her eye and she seemed to love it. She gave me great compliments. I heard those words but could not feel it at all. I was so convinced that it is one of the stupidest things I have ever made. She could feel it in my voice and body language. I so wanted to feel good about her words of praise but I just could not. I offered her the necklace. 'She appreciated it more than I did. She will put it to a good use'. I thought to myself. She was happy to hear that and immediately tied it across her neck. The evening continued with food, conversations and sharing our life stories.. she kept touching her necklace with fingers whenever she was talking about something every emotional and personal. The evening light through the window started shining on her face and rays of light reflecting through the beads.. I must say I kept looking at her neck adorned with my necklace. It indeed look beautiful. She looked beautiful. Why was it that I could not see it that way before.. why was I so stubborn with the idea that it was no good...

I learned a valuable lesson.. it is important to appreciate myself, to love my abilities however poor they may be, to be able to do things without hesitation and self doubt as long as I was not harming others.. I have to really make conscious effort to love myself and my life. I don't need to be always critical of myself. It is ok to be not perfect, it is perfect to make mistakes and be like a child. It is essential to dream and not be afraid of dreaming... that is what I am trying these days.. and guess what this is the testimony.. I always thought that macbook is something from different planet as compared to my ordinary laptop.. I started with shaky hands working on this macbook.. at a friend's place in Amsterdam... and now I realize, it is not some rocket science. I still don't know how to use right-click on mac to correct the spelling but apart from that it all seems ok.. the important thing was to gather courage to work with unknown, work on unknown and work for unknown... sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.. but then I will try again.. someday I will get there...

Do you ever have any such fears and inhibitions that hold you back? What do you do to overcome those? I am eager to know your stories and also the solutions you devised.. so feel free to respond...

Well done Abba!!

2011-07-17T22:10:00.003+02:00

Yet another fun day!! flirtatious sunshine and juicy lemon slices, cleaning the house and little bit of work but the best time of the day was the movie time with chocolate chip ice creme. I watched 'Well done Abba!', subtle comedy by no other than Shyam Benegal.

Armaan Ali, a middle aged common man speaking strong Andhra flavoured Hindi and working in Mumbai as a personal driver of a rich business fellow. Armaan Ali never went to school. On his return to the native village 'cheekatpalli' he finds himself in a bizzare situation. He realizes how all the schemes for the poor in the country are misused by the politicians and corrupt government machinary. With the help of his college going daughter Muskaan and using 'right to information act' he finds his voice and right as an ordinary citizen.

The movie is a political satire on corruption in Indian society. The humor of the script and the story line is such that anyone who has experienced this side of Indian life could easily relate to it. The movie also evoked the memories of yet another film, 'Khosla ka Ghosala' set in Delhi and surrounding areas and exposing the fake housing and land schemes. No wonder the movie won the national award for the best film on social issue for the year 2009. Boman Irani's Armaan Ali was indeed a performance to watch and he was very well supported by all the other actors. The music of the movie slowly grows on you. Comedy can be effective tool to make the viewers reflect on how we all are responsible for the corruption. I think the movie delivers this message quite successfully. But what I enjoyed the most is that strong Andhra falour in the dialogues, it took me back to those days when I travelled into the interiors of Andhra for work, visiting clinics and talking to men and women. The word garu is so familiar, a respectful way of addressing someone like an elder brother and amma, similar way of addressing the women. My male colleagues were always addressed with their name followed by garu but I don't remember, I being called Priyamma.

It was a fun movie and I would definitely recommend it to those who appreciate and enjoy cinema. I wish one day, I can use film to express myself, may be simple but still powerful like the one I just watched. Yet another dream to my already long list of things on the bucket list.. here is the link for the movie for those who are interested.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_Done_Abba

Have a lovely week ahead!! I am off to Nijmegen, the city that I left three months ago and I am looking forward to it. More stories from my side on Tuesday.. till then have fun and keep smiling...

Have you seen a blue butterfly recently?

2011-07-16T21:35:00.003+02:00

I am finding joy in little things around me and I am slowly getting drawn into it. What did I do all day today? Well lingered in the bed reading a book. Title of the book: 'My mother my self'. One of the seminal books on mother daughter relationship written in the 70s arguing for the need of separation at a psychological level between the mother and the daughter for the woman to fully realize her own unique personality. I am not sure what exactly I feel about the book, even difficult to say what I agree with and what I disagree. One thing is for sure though, many parts of the book, and particularly narratives of women remind me and make me reflect on my own life story and my relationship with my mother. I fell asleep while reading the book at 11am in my cozy and comfortable bed. That was fun.

The sun did not show up all day today and I knew it would rain in the evening. I have been feeling lazy to go out. I wanted to get some nice green chilies and fresh curry leaves from a Turkish store in the city center. He gets these 'typical' Indian things from London and he gets fresh stock on Friday late evening. I love the flavor and aroma of fresh curry leaves in my cooking and how can I make Kanda pohe without those little green chilies and freshly grated coconut. Food always motivates me and I biked to the city center this afternoon to get my coveted ingredients.It was totally worth it for two reasons. First I could locate the shop without any troubles and map was not needed. My memory and the little area in the brain which helps us with directions was functional 200% this afternoon. I felt so proud of myself. Second, how can I not feel happy to hold those fresh curry leaves on their twigs in my hand. They are my prized possession, worth of diamonds in some ways. Gosh, I will use fresh curry leaves after almost five months. I am so excited for all the upcoming cooking. I remembered my excitement in London in May this year when I was strolling around in predominantly Indian area. It felt as if I was walking in Mumbai. No wonder they call it 'little India'. I came home and first made sure that my little green diamonds were stored safely so that I can retain their freshness and use it in upcoming weeks. My dinner this evening had extra taste of all the spices and the house still smells of the same.

I have been wondering about little things that could make me happy. For example a blue butterfly. Have you seen one recently? I came across a visualization exercise and I have been wondering what would I like to come across? the little things.. For a while, I was confused. I could not pick up one thing.. rainbow.. yes I would love to see a rainbow. may be even a double rainbow! Did you know that the second rainbow is much faint and its color spectrum is in the reverse direction as compared to the primary rainbow? I learned it this afternoon, while googling double rainbow. I would like to see a butterfly, a blue one in particular. I love butterflies, their colors, their delicate wings, their fondness of sunshine.. I love it all. If I ever get a tattoo, I think it will be a butterfly. But it is unlikely that I would get a tattoo made. I also thought about a unique pendant, may be shaped like a butterfly? and then all I could think about was food. I could visualize kanda bhajji, pav bhaji, chole bhature, bhendi masala, gulab jamuns, thalipeeth and so many things.. I got totally distracted and started feeling hungry.. I had to consciously bring my mind back to the blue butterfly... one day soon I am sure, I will come across one. I have no doubt about it...

is there something that you want to come across?

Out of dormancy

2011-07-15T08:59:00.004+02:00

I am back with a new post exactly after a month. It was a month of yet another transition from the active student life to a life of conscious summer break of two months. I thought taking a break was easy but it was not. It was my own mind and anxieties about what my future will hold made it difficult than anything else. I moved from beautiful, warm and friendly Italy to stunning, comfortable, windy and rainy Groningen in the north of the Netherlands. My dear friend who is hosting my stay for two months did so many things to make my life comfortable before she left for a three week road trip to Norway. So finally after years of living in small rented apartments in the cities that I worked in or living in tiny student apartments in Amsterdam, Leuven, Nijmegen and Padova, I find myself in this comfortable, two storied Dutch house. It was a big change to get used to all the space and privacy I have, the fully equipped kitchen that I could cook in, my favorite gas flame stove and slowly the feeling sank in. I was in 'my' temporary home, getting used to it and the home getting used to me.

Over time, I understood the details of everyday life, the grocery stores, fresh fruits and vegetable markets, the garbage disposal system and I must say people around here are very friendly. I stand in my balcony and talk to my neighbor, i waved a hello at another neighbor across the street, I bike around, sometimes getting lost but sometimes finding my way without any troubles. The days have been mostly windy, rainy and dark but I needed some time to hibernate like a frog. I cooked my Indian food, ate as much I liked and slept for hours, sometimes 10 hours at night and couple of hours in the afternoon. It felt as if my body was physically tired and needed some rest. I watched movies with a tub of ice-creme in my hand. I always dreamt of this kind of relaxed life, where you are alone, you have friends around if you feel like going out but it is also perfectly ok if you dont want to. Wake up at your own times, have your lunch at 3pm if you like. You are not answerable to anyone and you have no deadlines. In short, I have been dormant, lazy, far from work and productivity. Ohh there was one task I was actively doing, understanding the needs of different plants indoors and outdoors. I am taking care of her greens and I must say i freak out at the prospect of little ones giving up their life under my care. My initial days caring for them were hard, almost like a new mother, I would worry if I see slightest sign of leaves drooping. But now I think I have figured it out, they are doing great and I am trying to do the same.

But it was still hard to accept that I had consciously chosen not to do anything for two months. Why do I think taking absolutely necessary rest is not doing anything? That is a different question. But I am an obsessive worker and a person who always worries about the future. I cant sit still and I cant relax even on a five star Cruise liner. I am like a scared little mouse running around trying to figure out an escape but I often ask myself what is it that I am trying to find escape from? Well, I have been actively thinking about it in these days. What is it that I am running away from? I am running away from my fear, anxiety and worries about the future. I am running away from myself who has immense self doubt and low self esteem even though people I am with never notice that. I am running away from my present and my future. In fact I am running away from my own life. Why? that is even bigger question, I cant even put a finger on that. May be because of previous experiences in childhood and adult life. I don't know. May be because I am afraid of failure, any sort, but mostly the failures in personal life, as being a daughter, sister, a partner and so on. I am not so good in these relationships, I tend to keep myself as far away from these commitments and responsibilities as I can but I worry about these all the time. I think I am also too critical of myself. I hardly appreciate my own life and things I could make out of it. But ask me to list some shortcomings, I bet that would be a long one. I procrastinate that I can be happy when all my financial needs are taken care of and that I have a smooth life to sail in. But who has such a smooth life anyways. For example for last fifteen days, I was almost tearing myself down with the realization that with three masters degrees and numerous awards and honors under my belt, with six years of substantial work experience, I am without a job right now. I killed myself by thinking about it over and over again. But did I not take this break consciously because I felt the need to slow down and take some time off for myself? Why such blame on myself then? Why cant I just enjoy the break that I have taken without worrying about where life might take me in September. It all makes sense at rational intellectual level but I must admit, I have not been much of a fun person and a sport in last two weeks that I am living in the Netherlands. I have felt depressed and sad and I have also shed some tears on the matter.

But then I made a decision, to consciously try and enjoy every moment as it comes. To work at being happy. To do things that I have not done before and I could do while I am here. So that I can look back at these remaining six weeks and say, 'ohhh boy that was such a fun time in my life. I am glad I did that'. So what are the plans? First plan is to start taking care of myself, I am starting with my feet, most neglected part of my body. Soaking them, moisturizing them and taking care of them, the feet that I stand on and the feet that take me all around the world. I want to see them beautifully transformed when I step into my dance shoes in tango salon with my friends in two weeks time. I plan to read a book while soaking in a bubble bath as I have seen in numerous Hollywood films. I want to start physical training and running if the rain stops a bit. I have already started my yoga practice and must say that my body already feels better in terms of flexibility and muscle tone. We are going to sail end of this month and I have never sailed before in my life. I am immersed in real Dutch life here, no more as a student of international program. I want to start taking some basic Dutch lessons in coming weeks. Last and the most important is that I am going to work with my friend in building her house, the wood, the electric fitting, the painting and fitting toilet accessories and plumbing lines. I am most excited about this aspect of my life. Gosh, I have never done anything with my hands except some surgeries, some cooking and eating. Most of my work has been with my head. But I cant wait to put on oldest of clothes and get stained in color and covered with the dirt and make mistakes and disasters while being an apprentice with my friend and her father. I can almost see myself, tired and sweaty with all that physical work but at the end of it, admiring my own little piece of art, one ply of wood that I could cut properly, a small patch of the wall that I could paint beautifully, the little towel holding rings that I could fix on the wall.. that will be awesome. I am not good at sitting still and relaxing. I think only way I could relax is by doing different things, the things that I have not done before and fortunately in this world there are more things that I have not done than the things that I have done.. which means I will have ample time to relax.

In two weeks time

2011-06-15T22:31:00.002+02:00

We are writing our exams and this is not a very nice feeling to be reading, studying and wondering how the exam questions will be like.. so like true Italians, we decided to go for a gelato at our favorite gelataria Grom at Piazza de Segnori. Gelato always works, no wonder why these Italians seem happy all the time, nicely dressed and enjoying drinks and food in company of their friends and family...

On way back home, we realized that exactly in 2 weeks time at the very same moment we will be enjoying our graduation dinner.. what they call proclamation here.. wow, the year has come to an end. Travelling to three countries, studying at three different universities.. it all started in Sept last year.. and it is already over.. hard to accept. Soon, the gang of friends will disperse, flights will take us away in different directions, emails and facebook will keep us connected for a while, there will be excitement of being home but at the same time we wont be the same us.. spending a year away from home changes lot within us, how we think, how we react, what we like to eat and what we dislike.. some of us even might face the reverse culture shock.. I have always shocked my mother when I returned home after a considerable period of time and I am sure it will be the same this time...but I would never want to give up opportunity to cross my own borders, both national and personal moral and explore the world beyond.. the 'new world'.

So on 29th evening, we graduate, we are expected to be ready to take up the task of being bioethicists in our own settings.. it is another ethical debate, how ready we feel to fulfill this responsibility.. I am asking myself, what did I really gain in this period of 10 months. This is my third masters degree, I experienced a lot of new things, made new friends, also learned some very new, interesting perspectives, i strongly feel that all the studies I have done up till now are somehow interlinked and they are slowly providing me with a wider view to look at the health problems but I often feel that I remain at the surface, I hardly acquire the depth of understanding on a particular topic.. what am I going to do next? What is my next destination? It is so open and unclear right now, almost like a blank slate.. the difference this time is that I want to go out there with a fresh mind and a positive attitude and believe that I will be ok whatever I chose to do and wherever I decide to settle down.. I accept myself just the way I am and I am ready to embrace the life fully..

By the way, I continue to explore Italy and Italian life in my last weeks here.. I am doing very well on that front. Last week I had a fabulous holiday to Torino.. three days of friends, family, food and happiness.. I came back to Padua feeling fresh and happy to face the exams... I have 2 more weeks ahead before I head to Amsterdam.. what is the best way to utilize these weeks ahead? What should I do next? As the day to say goodbye is approaching,I realize that Italy and Italians have started growing on me...I will definitely want to return to Italy in years ahead and these memories of three months of being a student in Italy will always bring a smile on my face...

Now back to Public health ethics, tomorrows exam paper.. goodnite Padua...

Understanding the 'other'

2011-06-04T22:51:00.004+02:00

I want to better understand her. I need to bridge the rift which has developed between us over the past few years. She is the one whom I owe my being. She made me who I am, she shaped my life and my personality. But at some point in time, I outgrew her expectations and she started struggling to cope with the rapid change in my thoughts, ideology and pace of life, particularly my focussed attention on career.

Yes I am talking about my mother and I am referring to the most delicate but complicated relationship between the mother and the daughter. She will turn 60 in six months time. 60 is not really old age for most Western world but in India, 60 is when you start getting the benefits of being a 'senior citizen'. I always believed that our age is what we feel and to my dismay my mother has given up to this wonder figure of 60 as an impending gradual loss of physical and mental abilities. Everyday she gets shaky when she experiences her 'failing' abilities. Sometimes its mental confusion or sometimes it is lack of grip in her fingers that makes it hard for her to write. She always loved writing. She has been such a story teller. She inspired me to write and my story telling skills I owe to her.

I did not imagine my mother to go so weak at 60s. I think I envisioned her as this strong woman who would now live every moment and make all those unfulfilled personal dreams a reality. Like many other Indian women, she sacrificed all her dreams due to family responsibilities, or financial constraints and most importantly for us.. so that we could have brilliant educational opportunities. I wanted her to live for herself after her retirement... travel around the world, read what she likes, write about her life, develop a balcony garden.. i wanted her to do things that give meaning to her life and in the process give her joy, happiness and sense of personal achievement.

She served in a government hospital for 38 years and her pension is going to support her all her life. She is not dependent on me financially but she is extremely dependent on me for emotional support.. this is precisely what is the root cause of our conflict.. she wants me to be with her in physical proximity and care for her, not so much physical care but give her a patient ear, listen to her worries, concerns, problems and sometimes her happiness too.. according to her, her expectations are not only realistic but they are also things that she deserves.. rather she has earned that care through her decades of hard work of raising us..

I am not denying it.. but what do I do if my ideas of meaningful life take me away from home, away from her..I refused to marry, she took it as her personal failure in my upbringing. I started living as away from her as I could and she understood it in terms of 'we not needing her anymore'. She still worries a lot about what the society will say about any of her personal choices and I say ' I dont care about the views of society as long as I take full responsibility of my choices and I do not harm the others as a consequence of my choices'. When we are together, we only fight and argue and to be honest those arguments end up being emotional battles and floods of tears.. the distance between us is more than geographical.. we are moving apart from each other emotionally at the speed of light.. I dread calling her, sometimes I avoid calling her just because i am not prepared to listen to her constant stream of complaints and dissatisfaction towards life.I find it so uncomfortable when we reach these silent zones in our phone conversation.. i do not know what to say next and that silence and inability to continue the conversation scares me.... When did I become so cold towards the woman who gave me birth and made me who I am. I failed her in few occasions, I could not stand up to her expectations. I am not denying it but I also feel that she failed my expectation that my mother if not anyone else will always make efforts to understand me...

Did I expect too much out of her? Did I make ambitious plans for her retired life which were never hers but projections of my dreams on her life? When we were kids, we often heard that parents impose their ideas and dreams on their kid's professional and vocational choices.. am I doing the same mistake? But it always seemed as if she enjoyed writing, reading and travelling.. was I wrong in thinking that way...? Am I underestimating the impact of old age on the physical and emotional abilities and coping mechanisms of a person? May be her ideas of beautiful old age were ...'her married daughter will visit her once in a while, she will be involved in her daughter's pregnancy.. she will be actively involved in raising the grandkids...and so on'. I took away this possibility from her... by refusing to marry, I took away a sense of meaning from her life, the way she had imagined it...

But am I not suppose to be honest to my own callings, fears, dreams and aspirations? I am caught up badly in the responsibility towards her and towards myself. For myself, I want the sense of freedom, freedom to make choices about my life like relationships, marriage, childbirth, career and so on.. I feel it is important that I listen to my inner voice and follow my heart.. I am also responsible rather obliged (according to Indian culture) to 'care' for my mother. But there is a conflict of interest here.. How do I solve this dilemma? How do I make a right choice here.. If I go back to India and try and care for her, I know I will be unhappy and angry at myself for not doing what I really want to do.. if I decide to go by my own callings and stay away from India, I might have bright career possibilities but this guilt that I left my mother alone in pain, aching for my physical and emotional companionship... i left her alone to die..... it will be even harder to forgive myself. For me, both these situations are extremely painful and I dont know what is the way out....

I have said this before... whenever I have a dilemma about existential life issue.. I feel the need to do a scholarly research.. I did the same when I was about to get married and the we all have seen the impact of that research.. now with my relationship with my mother becoming difficult each day,I am almost determined to understand old age from the perspective of all those Indian middle class parents, both married and widowed.. who are left behind in India.. they are financially stable.. their children are abroad.. well settled.. these parents make foreign trips almost every year or once in two years.. they are also quite healthy... they have everything but the actual company of their children and grandchildren...how do they perceive this life of theirs? Are they happy about it? What are their fears and worries? What helps them cope with this loneliness if they ever find themselves lonely? What could we (the children) do to help our parents age successfully and still retain quality and meaning in life? It all boils down to my personal moral dilemma.. what could I do to help my mother and also help myself in the process.. just taking this issue beyond my personal life and applying to a larger universe..

I am sure my mother is not the only one suffering.. there are many like her out there just the way there are many like me.. does anyone have any suggestions for me to strengthen my relationship with my mother? I am more than willing to listen to the perspective from the elderly.. their stories.. is it just an intergenerational conflict or something more than that... I really hope to find these answers in years to come and I hope I am not too late.. I would like to see the difference in our relationship while my mother is still alive.. can anyone help me on this?

Dolce Vita

2011-06-04T00:12:00.003+02:00

Yet another day of relaxation and good times. It feels great when I am able to relax. Hours of afternoon nap, a beautiful Bollywood movie, nice warm Indian dinner and then a drink with a bunch of friends in the city center.. cant ask for more.

The movie I watched is called 'Dhobi Ghat'. It is an unusual bollywood film, far from those dance song family dramas. It explores lives and life of Mumbai through the lens of an ordinary person. Four main characters and their life stories intertwined, great backdrop of the real city settings. I really felt that Mumbai came alive through the movie. Mumbai is my city, but in recent years, after having gone places, my relationship with Mumbai has grown colder and distant. There are more things that I dont like about Mumbai than the things that I adore and admire about her. The movies like this, connect me with my city, its people and life running around the clock. Suddenly I feel my place in this megacity, I am part of her and she is as much a character of me. I cant be separated from her, however further away I might move from her. I loved this film for its unusual handling and all the emotions that it brought to my mind. Here is the wikipedia link for the movie if someone is interested. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhobi_Ghat_(film). By the way Dhobi Ghat means the common places where hundreds of washer men do Mumbai's laundry... It is one of the tourist attractions in Mumbai. I have never been there but someday soon I will make it a point to visit the place.

I think the other aspect of the film that I liked was photography. It is much easier to explore the places and its people from behind the camera.. I loved some of the shots.. the people captured on the film looked so real, so natural, so at peace with themselves and the chaos around. I suddenly had a bright idea. I have to go out there in my city with a camera and try to discover new angles to the city and life within. I could also do photographs of elderly people.. capturing old age in Mumbai through images.. I think that will be a project worthwhile considering... another thing to my list of things to do.. Mumbai and its people from behind the lens.

This evening I had my first spritz, a padovian drink that I often saw around me but never tested before. I think I liked it but the best was the atmosphere. It was 24 C, cool breeze and loads of people around, after all it was a Friday night.. I got some beautiful shots in that area... cant wait to view them all..

What I am realizing each day is that life is really beautiful if I let it be that way.. Dolce Vita as they say it in Italian... I am glad that I have started taking baby steps towards accepting the life and enjoying its beauty.. and I must say I am loving it...

Goodnight my friends...

Joy of doing nothing

2011-06-02T22:11:00.003+02:00

Today was a lazy day. I did nothing from the academic point of view. I spent hours shining my room, organizing the closet and cleaning up the study desk. The room looks and feels heavenly and the cool breeze through the window makes it even more magical. I decided not to study or read. Today was my day off. A day to spend doing nothing really important or relevant. I lingered over breakfast for almost an hour and same was the case with the lunch.

This evening, we decided to have dinner in a Chinese restaurant. The four of us, the Asians, two Indians, one Philippino and one Indonesian. The dinner stretched over three hours and it ended with Gelato. I cant forget I am in Italy so Gelato at the end of a good meal is a must. On my way to the restaurants, I was taking pictures as usual. I get intrigued by few things and I take hundreds of shots of these things. For example, the clouds in the sky, the old buildings, beautiful designs of the doors and the windows and the curtains... Padova is heaven for these pictures.. the windows small and big, greens and blues, the iron gates and old old houses. Today is a public holiday in Italy and it was visible in the city center. Everyone was out on the streets, eating drinking, eating gelato, relaxing with families, all the people, the young and the old alike.

These days, I have this strange urge to take pictures of people walking on the street in a natural moment. I get fascinated by the people who walk by, the way they are dressed, their facial expressions and it almost feels as I know their story through their eyes. Looking straight at them might make them uncomfortable and that is when camera comes in handy. In a way I can hide behind the lens and still get their story, still see through their life but without making it obvious. But I must say I am afraid.. am I impinging their privacy? Am I being too intrusive? Would they take offense of it? Is it ok if I can walk up to them and ask for permission? But taking permission means you lose the natural moment.. and I believe those are the best shots, when the person is unaware.. capturing the candid moments... what should I do? I never felt so compelled to take pictures of people. I have always been more interested in taking landscapes and sky... do we go through these phases even in our interest in photography? Does this change mean anything? Am I becoming more interested in social human life around me? I don't have answers for any of these nor do I need to know them immediately. But i only hope that I will find the most ethical way to photograph people in coming days without being a paparazzi...

I must say that my day was relaxing and i wont mind having such periodic breaks of 'doing nothing' to keep myself optimally functional.. what do you do when you want to take a break.. what helps you recharge your batteries?

Ciao...

30 days in Padova

2011-06-01T20:14:00.005+02:00

I have been silent for more than a month. Feels really strange. I was not feeling inspired to write. Yesterday a friend of mine made me realize that this blog is more than a personal journal. I felt the need to go through my own posts and reflect on how life has taken turns since the catastrophe in August 2010. Writing and blogging helped me not only reflect but also to remain sane in the madness going on around me that time. But as I started feeling better, I stopped blogging. Almost same is the case when the patients stop their treatment when they start feeling better and symptoms are less.

I decided to start writing again. It is my last month in lovely Padova. The months have just flown by. Soon we all will part our ways and face the reality of working world. Saying goodbye to places and people has always been hard for me but this time i want to make most of it. In 30 days ahead, I want to absorb as much Padova and Italian life as I can. I want to live every moment and go home with bags full of good times, memories and experiences.

We woke up to a beautiful rainy morning today, I opened the window and spent five minutes staring at the rain drops making ripples in little puddle of water just outside my window. It was a magical moment to watch these ripples form, spread and then either disappear or merge into other ripples. Is life not the same? Everything happening, both happy and sad is transitory, like the ripples and it always makes a beautiful design and then fades away. I have a tendency to hold on to life events but only when i let go off them, I will be open to new ripples forming and new experiences coming my way.

I feel sorry that I did not make enough effort to connect with the locals here. Padova is a tiny student town, people are very friendly but language poses a significant barrier. I know that communication is not just about spoken words. What about that group of elderly women who enthusiastically tried to communicate with me with words, gestures and touch the other evening? They admired my black and gray hair, they were curious to know where I am from and what brings me to Padova, they were all talking at the same time. We were in chaos but there was a song of connectedness in that chaos. We were women, the young and the old, appreciating each others skin, hair, dress and smiles. I so wanted all silver hair like them and they wanted to have the tone of my skin. We took pictures, hands going around hands and shoulders and big smiles. I am sure if I hang around that piazza regularly, I will be easily accepted as one of them. I can sit there and listen to them. The elderly men were a bit distant but the ladies were just wonderful and beautiful. Elderly women inspire me, they make me want to grow old fast but like a mature wine, happy and content about life spent and optimistic and hopeful about the days ahead. I want to be a happy old woman. Did I tell you that Italian women are the most elegant women I have ever met. They may be young or old but they carry themselves so elegantly. The way they combine their dresses and accessories and off course their best accessories are their confidence and innate charm. I can spend hours together watching them walk by in public places. I have this immense urge to ask them, 'will you give me basic lessons in grooming and being like you?' Have you ever noticed this pair of twinkling eyes from the wrinkled face? I have no words to express that twinkle, that face and the story of life behind those pair of eyes. Each is like an open book ready to be read through the eyes of the individual.

This evening on our way back from Asian Grocery store, three (girls)of us decided to go for a drink. The evening breeze was perfect to relax and enjoy a drink outside and there are lovely tiny cafes all around the city. We had fun time, the girl talks, the gossips and hot chocolate along with the live music being played. We all realized that the time is slipping out of our hands just like the sand from a closed fist. We have to make sure to enjoy these little pleasures of student life in an Italian summer.. and why not? How many people get to go places like we did? How many get to be in Italy for 3 months in the best season of the year? How many of us get to make friends from across continents, fight and argue with them, cook and eat together and laugh and cry with each other?

I must say I am blessed. Life has always opened up beautiful opportunities in front of me. What made the difference is my attitude towards life and its opportunities. Every time I went and greeted life with open arms, eyes and mind, I got ample love, warmth and affection in return, more than what I probably gave. But if I was skeptical and closed for whatever reasons, things always turned out differently. I have every reason to believe in goodness that life brings and that is what I am going to do for coming 30 days.. embrace the life with an open mind.

My wishes for 2day are.. I want to grow into elegant, mature and beautiful woman like the Italian ladies, the young and the old. And I want to take pleasure in small joys of life, like a hot chocolate with girl friends or a smile from an elderly woman just crossing the path. It doesn't cost a penny but it is the best therapy to feel happy...

what is your wish for the day friends....

From Sunny Padova

2011-04-26T18:25:00.002+02:00

Yes, I am in Padova. It is more than three weeks now. The move from the Netherlands to Italy was not simple but I must say I am doing OK. I always wanted to visit Italy and here I am, not just visiting Italy but living in Italy, studying at one of the world's oldest University, surrounded by friends, blessed with loads of sunshine and cool breeze in the evening.

I do miss my friends in the Netherlands and Belgium a lot. I am not able to use Skype or VOIP as I would have liked to use. That makes it a bit harder. But I often write to them and they write me back. My school has started, in fact we finished the first module already. I have already visited two Italian Hospitals, the university hospital here and the other one in Vicenza. I must say there are some striking differences and similarities when it comes to hospitals in Italy and in India but that is not what I want to talk about.

Padova is a beautiful city, a student town to be honest. Heritage buildings, historic walkways, the paths paved with stones which make it impossible to wear high heels, the fashion boutiques sprawling all over the town, tiny bakeries and cafes, big open air fruit and vegetable market in the city square, the book shops and the print shops. We have all that we need to lead comfortable student life. The weather has been perfect, warm but not unbearable, evenings are particularly pleasant. I often go for long walks in the evening. The city has old buildings and monuments, particularly interesting is the heritage building of the university which boasts teachers like Galileo Galilee, Copernico, Harvey, Morgagni and Fallopio just to list a few. The world's first anatomical theater was built in this university and can be visited as a guided tour till date. The university also has the honor of having first woman graduate of the world, who graduated in Philosophy in 1672. I felt so proud to be part of this rich tradition and history. I am looking forward to my graduation which will take place in the Aula of the university on 29th June 2011. One more step completed, the question is, what do I want to do next?

I have already been to Rome, Venice and Verona. Each city has her own charm. It was relaxing and rejuvenating to connect with the history. I spent hours contemplating and reflecting on my life, my future, just watching the sky grow orange red with sunset, feeling the evening chill sitting on a bench under a tree, enjoyed the boat rides and also had pleasure of getting lost a bit in Rome. I have tried different flavors of Gelato, had all that I could amongst vegetarian options of pasta and pizza. I also tried to learn Italian a bit but was not very successful.

By now, you have noticed that I did everything but studies. That is true. Now the pressure is building up. The course work, the assignments, the thesis and searching for future options, all needs to go hand in hand. I cant neglect any of these activities. But to be honest, all I want to do is be lazy and do nothing. The joy of doing nothing. The problem is I can never do it without having guilt after that. The fear starts clouding again, so does the guilt. Why am I wasting time? I should have been working hard. Why do I not feel inspired at all? Why do I worry about July 2011 when I have still May and June to enjoy? Why can I not be assured that I will find my ways as I have always done before, whether it is a job opportunity or starting something on my own? Why do I always feel skeptical and pessimistic about what I can do?

I want to feel confident of my future. I want to enjoy life every single day irrespective of whether I am in Italy or in any other part of the world. I want to be happy without feeling guilty of these small pleasures of life. I do not want to constantly worry about my future, my family responsibility and my financial situation. I want to be free like a bird. But are birds really free? I dont know for sure. I think too much. Can I modulate my thoughts? Can I turn them into positive thoughts, one filled with hope and dreams without loosing the ground under my feet? Can I be myself, ready to take new challenges, exploring new horizons, trying things that I have never done before and eager to learn from each of these life experiences.

That is who I aspire to be but I dont know how to be that girl. Where do I begin? I often have more questions but may be questioning starts the process already... who knows, the time will tell what i make out of my life opportunities. I hope I make something meaningful and simple out of it.

Three months in the Netherlands: absorbing pleasures of food and friendship.

2011-03-20T18:48:00.005+01:00

Here I am, again. Had a long busy week and I have to read some 200 pages in order to pass the exam tomorrow. But I feel ok. I just now made myself lovely dinner. I enjoyed it while listening to my favorite audio book, 'eat pray and love'. I am meeting a friend for dinner this Tuesday evening and I have just spent three lovely though action packed days with my six friends in Amsterdam amidst my research interviews.

I was depressed, sad, worried and lonely when I boarded a wrong train to Amsterdam on Wednesday evening. That is what happens when you have not been sleeping well and you are perpetually worried about following your deadlines. I had a huge suitcase with me, moving part of my belongings which I wont need in Italy to a friend's apartment in Amsterdam. Finally when I got in the right train, I just collapsed in a chair and felt all the energy depleted from me. 'What are you running away from? What are you running after? Do you have any idea?', I kept asking myself. I was tired, I wanted to fall asleep. My eyes were burning in pain and my head was hurting but I could not sleep, I could not stop worrying and I could not distract my mind from those depressing thoughts. I knew that depression had caught up with me yet again. 'Off course it has, you stopped meditation immediately when you started feeling better', I almost scolded myself. It was a cold and windy evening in Amsterdam. I somehow made it to my friend's apartment totally exhausted and she had one look at my face and she understood it all.

I have started valuing my friends like never before. In fact the three months in Netherlands is all about friendship, warmth and unconditional support I received from my friends. I am not used to such affection. Did I ever tell you that I had great difficulty in making friends, even harder was to make friends with fellow women. I never fully understood the reasons. I was 23 when I actually could start connecting with friends and before that I had only two friends. I am still not sure if I understand the concept of friendship completely. May be I should read Aristotle's thoughts on friendship. But I must say over the years, I am blessed with wonderful friends scattered all over the world. They are away from me but they are still connected with me in very subtle ways.

My last trip to Amsterdam was special in many ways. I finished my last research interviews. I had first job interview in Leiden and four friends of mine all gathered in a common friend's place over an Indian dinner so that I could meet them all and say goodbye to them in one go before heading to Italy. Another friend of mine printed out maps for me to reach my respondents without getting lost. He knows very well how disoriented I can be even in ordinary situations, and that gets accentuated when I am terribly stressed or worried. All three evenings in Amsterdam were dedicated to friends and food, two of my life saving interventions. I had Chinese food with a great friend of mine, my first gastronomic experience of asparagus with garlic and oyster sauce in a fancy and floating Chinese restaurant 'Sea Palace' in Amsterdam. Later a Chinese friend of mine told me that the tourists visiting Amsterdam believe that the trip is incomplete without a meal in 'Sea Palace'. Another friend prepared a French salad and spinach and mushroom soup. In the mega Indian meal, we had Kadhai Paneer, Gobi and Laccha Paratha, Baigun Bhajja and Dudhi Halwa. On the last day I had a tiramisu in a small cafe next to central station in Amsterdam with another dear friend of mine who traveled all the way from Groningen to spend some time with me. I said before, this trip was all about friends and food.

The days were not always easy. One of my PhD application was rejected this week. There was way too much I had committed myself to on work front and I began to see how impossible it is to complete all that I had planned. I am travelling to Krakow, Poland in two days and how will I ever manage to finish all the work. I do not want to travel with work hanging on my head. I want to relax and feel free and may be I would do nothing in Poland but sit and eat or sleep or read or do whatever I feel like doing. I must say I was also nervous about the job interview. Last time I was interviewed for a job was way back in December 2006. I felt that I have forgotten all about interviews. This is my first formal interview in the Netherlands, how was I going to be myself. I dont even have a formal dress. Again my friends barged in with help, I had someone's formal dress, someone's blazer, ohh yes how can I forget the formal shoes with the heel given by another friend and a office bag given by the other. I always see myself in my jeans and sneakers with a backpack. That is my universal image. These girls converted me into someone that I could not recognize myself. I was everything and everyone but me, nervous like hell and upset with myself to be so less prepared for the challenges of 'real' world. How could I be thirty one and not have a business dress assembled? My wardrobe over flows with clothes but nothing I could wear for this formal event. I need to go shopping and I need a gang of my girlfriends to teach me basic grooming and dressing tricks.

After initial meltdown, I must say I recovered much fast this time, thanks to constant presence of my friends around me, supporting me and encouraging me. We spent hours talking each night, pondering over our life stories, making jokes about our past, dreaming about futures and being 'girls'. The candles and French and Argentinian wine made it even more magnificent. I think this time I handled a temporary setback (rejected application) better than ever before. It is hard for me to cope with situations which do not go as per my plans. May be I am finally becoming wiser. We will see how long this wisdom lasts, i hope it not only lasts but grows more profound.

Yesterday evening as I began my journey back home to Nijmegen, there were more hugs and tearful goodbyes by my friends. Many have promised to visit me in Padova. If even half of them actually make it to Italy, I know for sure that my days in Italy will be full with fun. Some of my friends have already graciously connected me with their own Italian friends. I so love my friends. I remembered how heavily I sobbed in the arms of my gray lotuses in the meditation group in Leuven. The thought of leaving them was unbearable. I often miss my friends from Leuven but the girlfriends in the Netherlands took away all those tears, they made my days in Nijmegen special and wonderful. I met so many wonderful people in my school, during my research, in my tango classes. Now I have to say goodbye to them as well and move on further. Surprisingly I did not cry like the way I cried in Leuven. Dont know what to make out of it.

But I am ready to move on. One last exam, one last Indian dinner with a friend in Nijmegen and I am off on a holiday to Poland. I will soon start the journey to Italy but I know for sure I will come back to the Netherlands. I have such strange but strong connection with this country and I will never be able to explain it even to myself. I will be back in the Netherlands in July and a very dear friend of mine has already planted a seed of travelling to Norway together this summer. Norway... wow, i never dreamed that some day I would travel to Norway that too in a camping car through Germany and Denmark. So in days to come, you will read about Poland, then my Italian adventures and my summer dreams of Norwegian travels and tango...

Vulnerability of life

2011-03-11T22:57:00.002+01:00

I spent whole day being glued to BBC trying to follow the news from Japan. I have no words to express what I feel about the devastation the earthquake and the tsunami has caused. I felt totally helpless, engulfed in grief and sorrow. I am far from it and I am safe but still the images were so powerful that I felt terribly sad and depressed all through the day.

an earthquake lasting for few minutes has caused such devastation, has changed the life of many beyond recognition. The realization of impermanence of life hit me real hard. Why do I give so much of importance to the things that are not at all important. Why do I make such a fuss about my personal sorrows and set backs. Why do I hold the anger in my mind about some people even though the event has occurred years ago? Why do I fail to let go? I felt ashamed of myself for having remained stuck with insignificant things for so long and in the process having lost the sight of what is most crucial in life. I have always over analyzed my past and excessively worried about my future. But I have never expressed my gratitude for the present moment that I am alive, for my loving mother and my brother, for my supportive friends, for the opportunities that have opened up in front of me and for the possibilities that life has created for me. Today's disaster was a big slap on my face, a wake up call to tell me not to remain tangled in things that do not matter.

I want to live fully in today. I want to forgive all those who have hurt me and need to be forgiven by those hurt by me. I want to forgive myself for being so stupid and ignorant most of my life. I want to reach out to all those around me who need me, in more than one ways possible. I want to live this moment without drifting into the past or the future. I do not want to live everyday in the shadow of my past and ghosts in my life that are unresolved. I want to be me and I want to accept and love myself just the way I am. I want to be open to life, I want to live life as if this is the last day of my life so that I can die happily and in peace.

The heater trouble

2011-03-10T20:58:00.002+01:00

It is windy and rainy since this morning. The wind is so strong that I can hear it through my closed windows. I have been feeling quite cold inside my apartment and that is strange because generally heating in my room is comfortable, rather bit on warm side. I touched the heater panel and found it ice cold. That explains it all, why my room feels cold. But it doesn't explain why in first place the heater has stopped functioning. I adjust the knob, no change. I checked it after 30 minutes, hoping that slowly it would start heating up. Just the way body tissue starts showing life slowly as the blood flow is streamlined. But no, something is wrong with my heater and he is not working.

When in trouble with household appliances, what do you do? Well you go and knock on your neighbors' door. I tried that. None of my neighbors are home. The heater in the lobby is emitting good amount of heat, the lobby of my apartment is warmer than my room. May be I should take my chair outside, sit there and read. But that is not a convenient option. May be I should just wait for my neighbors to return home. I must be attentive to sound, I generally hear the main door in the lobby being opened and shut. The residence caretaker can only be contacted twice a week that too for an hour, from 4 to 5 pm by phone. None of my emails written to him in English ever got reply. I do not see much help coming from that end.

Nonfunctional heater seems such a non significant trouble but the fact is it is causing me some serious worries. I know very well that I could not sleep all night just a month ago for feeling very cold. It was only in the morning I realized that my heater had given away. I am so hoping that suddenly my heater will start breathing life, the warm water will start circulating through its channels heating up the metallic body and radiating heat. A patient which has gone in cardiac arrest and is successfully defibrillated or a person who is drowning has been brought to shore, and the water from the lungs is squeezed out.. that first breath of air.. that cough.. it gives a sign that the life is saved.. a happy cough.. i need something similar to happen for my heater. But I dont know if he needs a defibrillator or just squeezing water out... whatever it may be, I just hope that he will suddenly come alive, warm up my room and also warm up my life in metaphoric ways...

Do I have some heater specialist, technicians, heater expert in this universe who can help me fix this problem?

There is a bone in my heart and kidney in my brain

2011-03-09T18:40:00.002+01:00

Dont get surprised by the title of this blog. I have not lost my sanity or hit the blues yet again. Rather the opposite. We had quite a day at school. It started with a lecture on stem cell therapy and we moved on to nanotechnology. Both lectures were fascinating, at moments I felt as if I was listening to a science fiction. I also had hearty laugh when there was discussion of creating 'non sticky glue' or water resistant/stain proof/ bacteria resistant clothes using nano technology. It is amazing how rapidly the science and technology is changing around us and how hard it is to get correct and sound information from this explosion of information. We are floating in this ocean of information, most of the times being quite unsure about how to process this information and how can we best use this technology.

Today, I got one clarification which I have been struggling with for quite some time. I wont need to store cord blood of my babies as there is no direct and real benefit of it, is expensive and there are huge doubts about the collection process, storage and overall quality assurance of such bio-banks. I remembered a number of my girlfriends who have invested a lot of money in storing these samples for their children. India is always quick to accept, integrate and indegenize a new technology. We have these cord blood banks mushrooming everywhere, their glossy pamphlets and brochures and celestial promises and hopes for a bright healthy future for the child. Decisions are not always easy unless you have access to true experts who can differential facts from the myths in a way that general population can understand. Stem cell therapy is classic example, we learned about false claims made by some clinics endangering the lives of patients who sought services at such clinics and what do you do if these clinics pop up first on the Google search results. The message today was clear, dont be fooled by the claims. Be aware, well informed client/customer.

One of my teachers always urged me to acquire the skills to communicate most complicated scientific data to the lay man in simplest language and yet get the point across. Speak to the audiences, make these distant technical domains into a reality that everyone can feel part of. Write books for larger audiences, beyond the academia, use whatever means one needs to reach out to the people who need correct yet simplified information. Today, I really felt the importance of it. As a person not involved in stem cell research or nano technology, it was easy to get lost or to feel terribly and misleadingly impressed with all the claims of such development. I think both my teachers today did a fantastic job of simplifying the most technical and complex discussions into something very simple, easy to understand yet very technical and sound. They also made us look at these technologies with critical eye and to be aware of ethical/moral dilemmas that are being created in the process. I some day hope to be able to teach like that.. whatever field that may be, medicine, public health, anthropology or ethics. I want to be a teacher, the kind of teachers that shaped my life. I want to pay it forward.

The other thing that fascinated me today was the NEJM publication of corneal implant from limbal stem cells in Italy. I kept dreaming with my open eyes how much blindness can be corrected in my country if we can make this technology accessible and affordable in vast majority of India, both urban and rural. Corneal opacity is the leading cause of blindness in India, also in children. Some of it can be prevented by timely supplement of vitamin A but we still have lot of children going blind. Adults with traumatic eye injury, chemical burns and acid attacks.. I could not keep my excitement in control thinking about these future possibilities. I know I have to be realistic and there are still many challenges to overcome but is it wrong to dream about a healthier future? I am well aware that health for all is still a far fetched dream for many people in this world, but I dont want to turn a blind eye to every other advance till we achieve basic health care for all.

Yesterday I wrote about what kind of future I see for myself as a woman both professionally and personally. I had a living example of kind of woman I want to be in next 20 years. I want to be like the professor we had this morning. Her personality, style, ability to explain and teach, everything was fascinating. I kept looking at her with great respect and inspiration. I really want to be like her, a complete woman, strong, gentle, articulate, beautiful, intelligent.. all in one...I have a role model now.. I cant wait to hug the future me....

Being a woman...

2011-03-08T17:48:00.002+01:00

Today we mark the centenary celebration of International women's day. The newspapers and media are writing about women, their achievements, some are also focusing on challenges that lay ahead especially for women in the developing countries. The social networking sites are being used enthusiastically to wish the women 'happy women's day'. Some men are also acknowledging the role played by women in their lives. There is ongoing debate whether we need feminism in todays age as if we have achieved everything that we needed to achieve for all the women in this world. I keep thinking, what does womanhood mean to me? I am not going to write about gender and feminist theory, I am not even talking about global issues related to women. I want to take this moment to reflect upon my life as a woman, what has it provided me with? what are the challenges ahead? How do I perceive myself as a woman at this point of time and how do I want to be in coming years.

I must say that I am lucky. I was born in middle class family in urban India. My parents celebrated my birth though some relatives were a bit disappointed. Growing up in this family, I never felt I was any different because I was a woman because my father took equal share of household responsibility including looking after us and my brother was raised in the same fashion. There was one difference though. I was taught basic self defense skills in order to protect myself in the society around me. I was taught to be alert and watchful while being out in the world. I was taught to distinguish healthy 'gaze' from an unhealthy uncomfortable 'stare'. I was told to dress appropriately so that I do not attract or invite trouble for myself. Growing up in this safe neighborhood in suburban Mumbai, I did encounter some incidences which made me realize that it is a bit different to be a young woman as compared to being a young man. There are some things that I could do to prevent harm/assault but I cant fully neutralize my risks simply because I cant hide the fact that I am a woman.

As a young woman, I started thinking .. what else I could do to 'protect' myself? Do not trust the men blindly. Be alert and cautious. Stay away from 'boys trouble'. Make your boundaries very clear. Be strong,physically and emotionally. Be independent financially and physically. Learn to make your own decisions and take the responsibility of your decisions. Do not let fear overcome you. You can be all that you want to be, all you need is to work very hard. For a middle class woman, not 'beautiful' by standard norms of beauty in my society, education is a strong way out. I studied and studied and till date I continue to study. Education showed me the path out. I became financially stable. Many new opportunities opened up in front of me, thanks to my qualifications. But the walls of defense also grew taller. In the pursuit of being a strong, self reliant woman, I almost ceased being a woman. Android soul in a woman's body. Strange indeed, that way, I could neither be fully man in men's world and I had lost the essence of being a woman. I grew increasingly lonely as I could not fit in either world and both men and women found me unapproachable, that 'weird' woman out there.

So, on this evening, I want to think about ways to 'feel' my femininity. Feminity is being more than being charming, genttle, delicate and soft woman clad in fancy clothes and adorned with jwellary, protected by men all her life. Femininity for me means finding the essence of being a woman and being comfortable in my skin. I do not feel that I have lost something for being a woman. Rather the contrary. I have gained more for being a woman. My sensitivity towards the others, my ability to connect with the other, caring nature has helped me in every walk of life, both personally and professionally. Please do not read these lines as if these characters are only found in women. No, I am aware of men men who are gentle, soft, tender, sensitive and caring. My aim is not to reify 'men' and 'women'. All I want is to bring in best of both the sides and imbibe those qualities and values. I do not know how to go about it but I think reflecting on it is already a step forward.

I want to cherish the fact that I am a woman. It does not mean, I am going to use my gender as a tool but it gives a meaning to my life, it is part of being me and I do not want to forget that. I do not want to reject all the facets of being woman because of the hues of dependence, weakness and softness that it projects. Rather my task is to find the balance. I want to be strong in soul and spirit but not intimidating. I want to be flexible depending on context. Gentle touch could be a biggest strength in some situations and strong decisions are critically needed in some other delicate situations. I do not want to be isolated island, the far stretched effect of strong individualism and independence. At the same time I dont want to be dependent on the others at all times and in extreme ways and lose my voice and own thought process. I prefer to be interdependent, with myself and the fellow beings around me, striking a balance in this web of life. I want to trust myself and my abilities. I want to rely on my strengths at the same time be aware of my weaknesses. I want to regain my faith in life and in fellow human beings and nothing should stop me from acknowledging, accepting my troubles and seeking help. I want to be part of everyone and larger community around me but at the same time i want to retain my 'me'ness. This is not arrogance. It is a hope that I could dissolve with the others like the spoon of sugar in the milk but still impart my distinct taste to the milk. I do not want to feel afraid in any settings just because I am a woman. I do not want to restrict my dreams because I am a woman. I do not want to create boundaries for myself nor would I accept the boundaries made by the others and roles defined for me by the others. I want to destroy many norms, hierarchies, discriminations and divisions but I want to create life and cherish humanity. I want to laugh and feel light and relaxed, not as obsessive type A alpha woman. Nothing against alpha women, it is just that I am trying to break these stereotypes. Because, whenever we have such categories, we try to fit ourselves in one or the other. If we do not fit in any, we start feeling uncomfortable and start chopping off our appendages and our being to fit at least in one norm, the category where we could fit with the least damage. I do not see men as my competitors rather i want to have them in my life as a compliment, making us a complete, mutually supportive beings. I do want to be one with all the women, in each continent, in each circumstances as however different we may be on the surface, we all have something common, the essence of being a woman and that is what i want to celebrate, not just today but every single day.

It is such a hard task to express my feelings and thoughts and I am not satisfied with my own expression. May be it is my limited capacity or it is vastness of the concept .. not all concepts could be easily describe.. and how do I even begin to describe the meaning of being a woman when it is my very existence.. I cant step out of it for a moment, look at 'it' as an observer and then report back on it.. this methodology wont make justice to the purpose. Rather I would accept, this defective attempt to reflect on how i see and understand myself being a woman and on the eve of women's day and every single day that follows.....

March 2011 Day 2

2011-03-02T21:29:00.003+01:00

A day of relaxation led to a day of utter panic and anxiety. I have to present a paper arguing life fatigue as justification for euthanasia in current Dutch law. It is killing me thinking about how will it go tomorrow. I know most of my classmates are strictly against euthanasia, no matter what. The sanctity of life and inviolability of life prevails. Well, I understand their view point but i cant make it my view point. I believe in context and I feel that each person is capable enough to make a choice whether the life is still worth living or not. The trouble is, i don't have bioethical principles to defend my position. Let me put it this way, typical pro-euthanasia arguments have been thrashed many times before. There is unsettled tension between pro and contra euthanasia lobby and I hang somewhere in between these two.

How am I going to present tomorrow? One way of looking at it is to encourage my classmates to criticize my arguments. That way I can listen to their objections, without taking them personally. Later, I could sit down and think about those objections and try and answer those to defend my position.

Why is it so hard to be criticized? I am not just talking about being criticized for argument sake but also in life. I find it hard to remain neutral and not get defensive when i am being criticized. I think it is high time to learn this essential competence, being able to accept the criticism with open mind. Being able to see through the criticism and reevaluate it in my own context. I take all criticism too seriously, sometimes I don't even challenge it, just accept it and almost internalize it. I am going to give it a serious try tomorrow. Remain calm, smile and thank everyone whoever has critical suggestion or argument against my argument. We will see how well i manage to do it.

I am getting addicted to lays classic salted chips. It gets worse when I am stressed. I gulped the entire packet of 250 gms of lays in one day along with 200 gms bar of a dark chocolate. This is definitely not going in right direction. Be aware for health reasons, I tell myself but it falls on deaf ears.

I still have to write two page summary of the article I am reviewing and then work on ethical case that I am presenting Friday morning. Already thinking of the weekend. My friends are coming over and we all are looking forward to a well deserved break. No more euthanasia talks, no more life problems. It is time to unwind and enjoy ourselves, laugh and sing and dance together, be crazy and have fun. Can I fast forward the time to Friday evening? That way, i dont need to present the article nor do I need to deliberate a clinical ethical dilemma.

is there a smart idea to take little power breaks like power naps? Taking a big break yesterday doesn't seem like a very fruitful idea if i see how stressed I have been all day today....well, all I can tell myself is that it is just a presentation to my class, not a life and death situation. Give it a try and even if it goes bad, tell myself.. 'shit happens sometime'. but to be honest these word do not reach that panicky, shaky soul of mine, atleast not at this point in time.

March 2011 Day 1

2011-03-01T17:59:00.002+01:00

I feel sad and overwhelmed as my days in Nijmegen are coming to an end. Part of it could be uncertainty of what future holds but is that not universal? Who knows what unexpected turns and crossroads await our seemingly routine life? I have been thinking a lot about ways to change this feeling of blue and turning it into something fun, memorable and worth trying for.

Yesterday i was flipping through some of the blogs from the bloggers that I follow and it became clear that many bloggers go through the feelings i am struggling with right now. They have been creative about finding answers and some of them have gone a step further and shared it with others through their blog. One such idea I found fascinating is called Project 365 in collaboration with flickr. It asks people to take a picture a day, capture different themes, moods and try to summarize your day either through the picture itself or through little description of what made you capture that moment in a picture. There were some examples posted about various participants of project 365 and I must say it was interesting way to keep oneself motivated. It also feels like a nice, systematic way of creating a pictorial memoir to reflect on, few years down the line.

I woke up this morning and started fiddling with my list of things to do. That is how generally i start my day. Today I decided to start my day differently, no lists to follow, no tasks to complete. I was going to do nothing as per the plan. I decided to surprise myself and allow my body and mind to tell me what I should do and how I should spend my day. Spending a day this way was not hard but I think what was hard was not to feel guilty for having wasted a day. This concept waste is such a problematic concept anyways! who decides what is waste? in what context and from what perspective? No more task oriented activities today. I asked myself what do I want to do today?

First I downloaded pictures from my camera onto laptop, I have lost interest in taking pictures for about 8 months now, this has to change I told myself. I flipped through some of my photo collections, off course some painful memories came back but to be honest, i also had many moments of smile just looking at the pictures and reliving those moments and the happy moments outweighed the sad memories for sure. Then I decided to put some of those pictures on facebook. I have been consciously avoiding facebook but today I decided to change my cautionary approach to facebook into one with excitement and enthusiasm. The first picture that went alive was of my dinner plate from last night. Spinach, spicy potato vegetable with cumin seeds and beautiful golden coloured soft phulka.. I had a perfect meal last night and though I was hungry, something compelled me to take a picture before eating it. Must be the inspiration of project 365. I looked at the picture and at food in particular with love and tenderness of the kind that a mother might look at the picture of her new born baby. I smiled to myself. I knew it was working magic in some ways. Immediately there were pop -ups of friends liking the picture from different corners of the world, Nijmegen, Nepal and Nigeria to be precise. I knew why facebook becomes so addictive, this immediate thumbs-up that you receive across world wide web, across national borders and oceans. Soon Spain, Zambia and Bolivia followed. I could only laugh at my own silliness and the happiness that i felt through this silly encouragement and appreciation.

Next I decided to let my hair loose and dance a bit in my apartment. I put my favourite music on, closed the window, pulled the curtains, closed my eyes and started swirling to the music. Closing eyes always helps. I was sure no body from outside could see me dance alone, even i myself could not see me dancing. That would have made me very uncomfortable. It was my body and music , no rules, no aims, no goals just the sheer joy of dancing to the tunes of music and it felt magical. I was happy and light as a feather with a smile stretching from ear to ear. This was Tara, who had inspired me to try dancing for myself through her blog Tea and Cookies. Thank you Tara, I know this works. All I need to do is to remember this joyous moment when I am feeling low and depressed. In those moments, I can hardly remember things that make me feel good. I get engulfed into darkness, vacuum, meaninglessness.

There is a beautiful graveyard near my house. Something that scares me when i have to bike home after dark. My friends know about this fear and some of them have been throwing ideas at me to overcome this fear. Today I decided to meet this fear head on. I walked to the gate of the graveyard with a friend of mine, opened the gate and walked in. My friend followed me. I was surprised that there was no sign of fear. It got totally replaced by calmness and curiosity. I felt free. It was incredible. I needed no assistance from my friend though i must say his presence with me helped me take the first step. It was huge, different kind of graves, marbles and granites and flowers, fake and real. There were some symbolic things all around, some angels, some birds, some sculptures and carvings. I heard soft wind chymes from a corner and i was pulled in the direction of the sound. A tree was studded with wind chymes, different shapes, materials and different kinds. I stood there speechless, experiencing amazing sense of peace within. I could have spend whole afternoon in this graveyard, exploring, experiencing, absorbing this aspect and image of death. Some roses were still fresh, some candles were still burning. I saw a man watering the plants around the graves, he waved a friendly hello and i waved back.

I saw swings into one corner. I love swings, i got curious why there would be swings in the graveyard. I started walking towards it and soon understood this was the section of graveyard where children were buried. Few days, weeks, months and then few year old children. Some graves had markings of two siblings buried together in matter of few years. I kept thinking how hard it must be for the parents and other family members to deal with the loss of two children in a family over few years. The graves in this section were different. There were soft toys, and butterflies, and birds and little angels, the flowers, the balloons and the beads. They almost looked like a child's room. I started getting overwhelmed. I can understand the death of an adult in more rational way but dying child, i feel terribly helpless and emotional. I cant handle it at all. I started feeling weak in my knees and had to struggle to not cry. What about all those classroom discussions, end of life decisions in neonatal intensive care units? The babies born with serious illnesses that would make their life a source of constant suffering if at all they survive. At that moment, I knew nothing mattered. I cant be rational in any ways when it comes to death of a child. Younger the child, worse it will grow I guess and what if it is my child? That was it. I had to get out of that area. For the first time I stood next to a swing but did not swing on it. I felt this swing was for the souls of those little children buried there. Who knows they may be swinging right there. I cant see them but may be they can see me. I faintly waved at them and walked away.

I really wanted to make one of the pictures from the graveyard as my picture for the day. But i wont. But the visit to graveyard was the highlight of my day. After quite a struggle, i finally found my picture. What is your picture for the day?

Time to move again

2011-02-17T11:09:00.002+01:00

I can tell you the spring is in the air.. I see little snowbells popping up from the ground along with other purple little flowers raising their heads. I think in few weeks time, Daffodils will make their presence visible and slowly there will be life resonating all around. the Bosweg near my house will boast its tress with large green foliage, the gardens and terraces will demonstrate riot of colorful flowers, the parks will bloom with happy people basking in the sun and children running around in enthusiasm but i wont be there to witness this all.....

I will be soon on a new move. This morning I received an email from my housing agency that I need to vacate my apartment before 12 noon on 31st March 2011. I need to start organizing my belongings if I do not want to get stressed like in Leuven. I know where I am heading for next three months but I don't know what future holds after July 2011. Where do I make my next home? I see it unlikely that I will settle down in Italy for longer than three months. Yes it is a place I want to be in, for its pleasure of food and relaxed life style but I don't see myself leading an Italian life for ever. I am too restless a person to live in Italy in long run. But very soon, I am going to embark on a new journey, some 1200 kms of road trip from Nijmegen in south eastern border of the Netherlands to Padova in Northern Italy. April to June, destination Padova, wonder how different is Italian Spring?

I sat on my reclining chair, staring blindly at the roof of my apartment. It is already six weeks that I am here and in another six weeks, it is time to say goodbye. I feel overwhelmed at the thought of saying goodbyes. Nijmegen, what do I say about you. After gloomy depressed winter of my life in Leuven, I slowly found my strength and voice in Nijmegen, surely irritated some of my classmates. Nijmegen became integral part of my plans for ethics research, numerous emails and phone calls to set appointments with my Dutch research respondents. In next few weeks, my research will take me all over Netherlands, Amsterdam, Den Haag, Haarlem, Delft... This is my first research outside my country and I am looking forward to this experience. The topic is fascinating, quite at the heart of Dutch Public Debate these days and I am impressed with the cooperation that I receive from people around me. I have never had so many doors opened for me in India, but here, they are more than willing to collaborate with me and are curious why I should feel so interested in this Dutch topic. Being a foreigner definitely has some advantage here. There are few other cities on my list now apart from Amsterdam who have potential to become my next home. Maastricht, Leiden, Groningen, each place has offered me something new but I really do not know what will materialize in coming days. I am open to them all.

I am officially going to be homeless on 31st March by 12 noon as our Journey to Padova starts on 2nd April. I am not sure yet, which city will I spend my last two nights in. Choice needs to be made. But before that, I need to move my belongings. Some things might remain with a friend in Amsterdam, my books and my bike will probably find refuge in Leiden, my cooking world and guitar will make its way to Groningen. There is a song about 'suitcase in Berlin', I have my suitcases all over the place and interestingly, I feel I have no home any more.

I want to visit Leuven before heading to Italy. I want to spend time with my angel and gray lotuses in Begijnhof. I want to cook Indian food with my dear friend Lee. I want to visit Holy Spirit Collage for one last time, may be should make a confession for all my sinful behavior.... Leuven, to be honest, though it was not the best time of my life, I do miss Leuven, not so much fr the city but for the warmth, love and affection that I received from these leuveners. The warmth that helped me tide over extreme cold phase in my personal life.

I never thought my dream of visiting Italy will come true so soon, now when it is just round the corner, i have questions in my mind. Yes dreams do come true but one must be able to accept the change life circumstances that go hand in hand with dreams coming true. I really want to accept my changed life circumstances and be open to its ever changing nature. Life has to move on, not just in literal way but also in metaphysical way... see, I told you I am studying ethics these days.. words like metaphysical, phenomenological, deontological and so on have already made place in my vocabulary.

Thank you all for being my strength, hope and reason to live on...

Moral dilemma about some facebook friends

2011-02-10T18:00:00.002+01:00

I do not know who my readers are, nor do I know who am I writing to. But I have a serious trouble with some 'friends' on facebook. The ostracization on facebook still continues, it is still a strong way that some people are telling me 'to buzz off' from their lives. It almost feels like a slow social death, I wish there was concept of dying with dignity even in these virtual communities but there seems none unless I do something drastic and remove these so called 'Friends' from my lists.. it almost seems like active or passive euthanasia debate that I have been reading for the exams tomorrow..

Let me try Nijmegen method of Moral case deliberation. It starts with postulating the moral dilemma. My moral dilemma is:

'Do I need these 'friends' on facebook that are his friends in first place but who one by one take pleasure in removing me from their facebook and still cause pain at the end of six months?'

On one evening when he was in his romantic best, he handed over to me in a symbolic way his best friends saying 'my life is now yours and my friends are also yours'. Now, it was my stupidity that I believed both these statements. I should have known from my own life experience that we make our own friends, we grow in friendship and friends are not commodities that can be exchanged along with vows of love. But I was blind in love and I was suddenly trilled to be connected with these bunch of bright, smart and intelligent group of friends from very diverse professional backgrounds than mine. I felt I would grow in their company and I would also find their support and friendship.

I dont know if my expectation of being supported by his friends was realistic. Now looking back at time, I feel I was stupid yet again. We suddenly had a number of common friends and what best way can we have to be connected other than facebook. So I had some 20 odd friends of his as my friends on facebook and he had some similar no of my friends. First thing he did after our troubles in relationship was to block me on the facebook.. next to go were my friends who were on his list. He actively blocked us all. The message was clear, I do not want to hear anything about you, you may live or die, I dont care. I still did not give up my hope of reconciling through communication again. The man is silent for almost six months now and I admire his strength and determination not to communicate with me come what may.

But I never wanted to use the same tactics as him. I do not see a point in blocking people off on facebook. I am a strong believer in channels of communication and I feel that every problem can be discussed amongst sensible adults. But, his friends who are on my list of friends do not seem to buy my logic. One by one whenever they feel like or they remember this one name on their facebook list of few hundred friends, they just block me out. How do I know? Well I see my number of friends going down and it is always one of his friends who has decided to do so in response to some post notifications about my life on their facebooks. Within seconds, I can figure out who is gone this time and this has happened now 6th or 7th time but it still hurts. It hurts to know that I am not wanted even in virtual life of some people. It feels like being ostracized, untouchable, dangerous, virulent virus. Sometime 2day, a bright woman whom I thought would be the last person to do this blocking/removing business has chosen to do so.. I am surprised and I must say I am a bit sad.. but I understand, for all of them, I am the criminal and their friend is the poor victim. Off course their loyalties are for him.

My question then is why should I have these remaining 14 'friends' on my list. They do feel intense pain for sure when they see my pictures tagged or read my updates. I have caused intense pain to their friend and I am causing even more pain just because I am trying to be happy again, I am trying to live again. I should have been and should remain devastated, sad, sorry for myself. I have no moral right to live my life after having destroyed life of their friend. What is stopping me then from taking the required action.

I think what stops me is this strong notion that I should not act the way they are acting. Then there is no difference between them and me. I know that just being a friend on facebook means nothing if there is no trust whatsoever or even willingness to try and understand the other side of the story. But same applies to me. I still hope some day I would understand their side of the story, why they did what they did.

I have two options to be precise. First, continue with my life and the facebook. If they cant take that anymore, they have their agency and autonomy to remove me from facebook and I will have to accept it and get used to it. The fact is at this moment, I am far from accepting it and it causes me a lot of pain. Second option is, I use my agency and autonomy and remove these so called 'friends' from my list in one go and end the matter. I am free then to live my life and continue on my path without feeling being judged by someone who mattered to me once upon a time. When the man in question has chosen to stay out of my life and out of communication, what could I expect from his friends? Why hold on to them? I dont think they will ever try and understand my story. They wont because they are not my friends in first place, they are friends by association. I should read more about Aristotelian concept of friendship. Wonder what category of friendship these kind of facebook friends will fall in to? May be contractual? I am not sure but I am very sure it is not a friendship based on a virtue.

To be honest, I am so angry right now that I just want to block each one of them one by one at this very moment and make them feel the pain that it causes me. But First of all, it is more like taking a revenge and second, it may not cause them any pain. They might have a sign of relief or they may further have their opinion strengthened 'what a selfish woman, she has no emotions whatsoever. Thank god she is out of our friend's life or he was destined to doom'.

Last option is I stay out of facebook. But then what about my other friends who have stood by me in ups and down and who reach out to me through facebook from different corners of the world. I believe in communication, so how can I cut of this very means of communication?

If I have to use analogy of euthanasia jargon right now, the choices I have are active euthanasia (me removing these friends), passive euthanasia (allowing them to take the decision for themselves and accept the fact that they will block me whenever they feel like and live everyday with that threat/fear) or suicide (deleting my profile from facebook).

The choice is tough and to be honest I don't know how to make one.

India and her untouchables

2011-01-24T19:31:00.002+01:00

The title of this blog post is strikingly different than all other posts on this blog. To understand its origins, I need to take you through a conversation i had with my classmates this afternoon on lunch table. This is how it started.

After writing an exam, we (my classmates) decided to go to a nearby Indonesian restaurant for Lunch. People were tired and hence wanted some change of environment, no more student cafeteria, we wanted to have real lunch. I shared my table with three other ladies, from Philippines, Indonesia and south Korea. My classmate from South Korea is here with her nine year old son. It must be quite a challenge but at the same time very interesting for mother and the child to go to their respective schools together. At least that is what, an outsider, independent 'professional student' like me can think of. Her son goes to international school here in Arnhem.

This semester, her son is going to study about India and my friend told me about one particular assignment on India that had significant impact on her son. Her son was asked to write a diary of his everyday life experience and his dreams and aspirations about life assuming that he is a son of poor untouchable Indian family and he has to help his father clean toilets so that he and his family can have some food to eat. She used the word 'Dalit' and she knew from her son that this is the lowest social class in India.

Her son wrote the plight of the life of this boy in every day life in his diary. On one page, he described how terrible he feels when he has to have his meal while having to clean toilets. The smells, the discrimination, the shame, it all made into the narrative of this boy as written by a south Korean child of same age who has probably never imagined something like that. She said, her son felt overwhelmed and helpless regarding this dalit boy but in his diary he gave the story a twist. His diary has a strong commitment on part of this boy to get out of this marginalization, to stand on his own feet, to gain honor and respect, the boy is working very hard, he studies very hard because he wants to become a scientist. He wants to raise himself and his family from this tabooed life of being untouchables in India.

Don't we find this narrative quite familiar? Here it is about cast and social class difference, but for many Indians, it is our hard work and academic excellence, that helps us raise above our status, get out of poverty, make something substantial out of our life. My friend wanted to know if we are still so divided as a society. She has read recent articles reporting on going social discrimination based on caste in India. I did not have easy answers for her and at the same time, I could not deny her questions. I felt responsible for still existing social evils like caste politics. I am very much aware of centuries of discrimination of lower casts and classes by the upper castes and I am of honest opinion that having reservations in educational institutes, government jobs and parliamentary are not enough to do justice for our actions that took away their humanity for centuries. But still this conversation haunted me for two important reasons.

First, lets think about this south Korean boy. He is nine, this is perfect age to get strong imprints on your mind. From his mother's story it was clear that he was affected by this whole story of untouchables and the assignment he had to write. May be this episode will have a lasting impact on his mind and will permanently shape his impressions about India. He may forget everything about India that he learned at age of nine, but this dalit boy would continue to remain with him as he grows old. India might automatically get linked with the plight of this dalit boy in the mind of this Korean child. I am not concerned if American children think of India and Indians as people who are likely to take away their jobs in future but something disturbed me to think of this Korean boy associating India with its untouchables, something that he learned about in an international school in the Netherlands.

This story also affected me in number of ways. I have been complimented many times by others for being from India, for various reasons, for its fast growing economy, for its brainy people, for its information technology power-hub, for its spirituality and for it being a largest functional democracy. I politely accepted those compliments but I have never felt the way I felt today, I almost felt as if I was shown a mirror to reflect at and to question myself, what India I am seeing in this mirror? Who am I not even bothered to look at? Who do not exist in my image of India and what are the reasons for the same? When I talk about India, which India I am talking about, the economic power of early 21st century or the India that is talked about in the textbook of this Korean boy?

I know that India is too vast and too complex to be answered in such simple ways but I need to find answers for myself. How do I understand India and how do I understand myself as an Indian. Questions to mule over and quests for life time wait ahead for me. Thanks to this Korean boy for shaking up my sleeping soul.

Legally Blonde

2011-01-19T22:19:00.002+01:00

I love watching movies and movies are my therapy when I am feeling low and depressed. Yesterday was a nightmare, being accused by a friend for not caring for someone that I really cared for. I do not know why, I cant detach myself from such accusations. Why is it that all the criticism I take seriously even when I know that the criticism is not valid but on the other hand, i find it extremely hard to accept a genuine compliment. I spent whole of yesterday feeling guilty,blaming myself and crying.

Two hours ago, I suddenly remembered my favorite film and I decided to watch it again. Trust me, this movie always helps. I think I watched it for the fourth or fifth time but it works magic. Elle Woodes. In real life, I am far from that character in many ways but at the same time there are many qualities of hers that I recognize in myself. I am not blonde (in terms of my hair colour) but I feel I am dumb in many practical and crucial aspects of life where Elle is an ace. I so love her character, her passion for life, and her empathy towards the others. She is smart, she speaks her heart, she is genuine and she does win people's heart. She was humiliated time and again and she was isolated by most 'elite' Harvard law students but she persists and perseveres. She lives by her values and wont compromise with them at any cost. The secrets of her friends are safe with her. What I admire about her the most is that she is comfortable in her own skin, she doesn't care about what other's have to say about her most of the time but gets terribly hurt when a senior colleague appreciates her not for her intelligence and wit but for her beauty and body.

I want to be like Elle Woodes. I want to be myself, not someone who is bogged down by what people have assumed about me, or what they have to say about me. I must know who I am and not wait for people to validate my goodness. I know I am not selfish, I know I care for my loved ones and my friends. Why do I have to feel dejected by the accusations made by others every now and then? How many more months and years, I am going to torment myself to be accepted by the people who do not see any real value in me? Elle Woodes, I owe you this one. You made me smile again. You reminded me what is important and worth aspiring at and what should be out of my life. Thank you girl for being the ray of light in that darkness.

Nijmegen, life skills and walking on ice

2011-01-06T14:58:00.002+01:00

'Start Again' is really my word for now. I moved to Nijmegen, a university town in the Netherlands almost on German border. I had so much of belongings that a professor had to drove me down with all my bags and baggages. We still could not bring along my bike. The two hour road drive from Amsterdam to Nijmegen was a feast of thoughts and discussions. I talked nonstop, about my meditation experience, my upcoming thesis, my classmates and how nostalgic i still feel about Amsterdam. The registration at university was smooth walk, so was signing of new housing contract and finding my apartment. Thanks to a dutch guide who almost became my companion for the day in moving and starting a new life. We spent some time setting up my place and more talks followed over dutch dinner of bread, cheese and tea. First meal in my new apartment. I have lost track of how many times I have moved places in last one year. Each new place and I have to start organizing my life all over again, find the grocery stores, figure out my way to the school, befriend the 'cooking stove' and finally make new social contacts. In Nijmegen, I have just begun and I am already liking the place.

Nijmegen is the oldest city in the Netherlands, almost 2000 years old which makes it comparable to places like Varanasi in India. Whatever little I have seen around me here in last two days, the city has her own charm. There is some sort of predetermined plan that I am staying in very 'spiritual' apartment complexes. First it was beautiful medieval Groot Begijnhof and now it is Westerhelling, an old monastery in the woods converted into student housing. Bosweg, a street nearby indicates the presence of woods which are right now just leafless and life less trees and ice. But I can visualize how this neighborhood will look in the summer or spring. We are also situated on a bit of a hill as compared to other areas and that makes it even more special. The walkways in this city are right now dangerous due to ice, very slippery and scary. I have never watched my step so carefully ever in my life the way I do here. May be not true, i took similar care while trekking in Himalayas at 17000 feet but here one wrong step and a terrible fall will follow. It seems the city has ran out of salt to sprinkle on the roads. I so terribly miss my bike, i need her urgently. I might bring her home this weekend. One could ask why not rent a new bike in Nijmegen? Well it is a good question and probably wise thing to do but I need 'my' bike, I have a strange connection with her. I got used to her and feel confident that with her I am safe. I want to explore Nijmegen on the same bike that I explored Amsterdam with. She is my metonymic connection with freedom, with being myself. Other reason which is equally valid is that i get to go to Amsterdam where I have such rich social life, great friends and hours of great conversations over food. I feel like Amsterdam girl and it is going to be a challenge to control my urges to run to Amsterdam at every single opportunity. I want to make Nijmegen my new home, new comfort zone for next few months and I need to find an Asian grocery store nearby, or you might find me visiting Amsterdam to buy some lentils or very specific Indian food products and groceries.

Let me tell you about another very important insight I had in recent days. I lack certain life skills completely. For example, though, I have been constantly on a move, I do not know how to read maps and follow the directions. I just do not have faculty in my brain required to interpret those complex maps and find my way around. I have a potential to get lost in my neighborhood even after a month long stay. I do not know how to swim, that is another big deficiency in my life skills and worst is the fact that I do not know how to drive. Driving stresses me out completely. I become a nightmare for the person driving the car if i am the one sitting next to him or her. Ask my professor, I not only get stressed myself as if i am watching a horror movie but I completely stress out the driver. I do not know how he could remain so calm with my irrational stress about driving and being driven. I was equally bad when I started riding a bike in Amsterdam, most prone to falls, getting scared if a big car comes from front, worried to cross each signal and trust me Netherlands is probably most safe place to ride a bike, there are clear bike paths, the signals are well marked but still I would just fall for no reason or bump into lamp posts or road blockers. That is me. I feel only thing I am good at is walking in terms of mobility if i do not get lost. Learning to swim and drive will have to wait but in Nijmegen, I decided to learn how to find my way using a map. I am serious about it. By the end of Nijmegen stay, I am going to be expert in reading and following maps.

Y'day morning I started 75 minutes before classes, keeping enough buffer time for getting lost on my way to school. I looked at google maps, the city maps, chalked out my path, remembered all the names of streets i will cross and at 7.30am, i started from home. Came out of my apartment complex, it was pitch dark, the path was slippery, no names of the roads and streets could be found but i was confident about my chalked out path using maps. I started walking in high spirits but nothing looked familiar. No human beings around and no cars would stop for me to ask them directions. I kept walking, slowly getting concerned. Finally I saw a man on the bike, I stopped him and asked if I was on the right path and he smiled and said, 'No, you are walking in opposite direction'. Do you see how good I am at reading the maps. I started in wrong direction. Then he explained to me in ley man's language, 'walk straight, right, another right and then left and then walk straight' but I had to walk 1.5 kms to reach the point where I started in wrong direction. I walked and every time I crossed a little street mentioned in the map, my heart started jumping with joy. The maps are correct, so are all the signals and the crossings, they follow the map or rather maps perfectly represent the roads and crossings. I knew they were correct but now I was experiencing it and that was a great 'moral' experience of my body I guess, to know from experience that the map is not only correct but can also get me to the right destination if I follow it correctly. What an empowering feeling. I loved it. I walked for an hour and fifteen minutes, through snow and ice and along the bike paths where I am not suppose to walk in ordinary days but at the end of it, I was happy. I did not feel tired, there was no sensation of cold. I was rather warm and sweaty with all that walking. I entered the class with that stupid grin on my face, the joy of finding my way. Realizing that however lost I might feel in general, if I determine, I can find my way out in most hazy, unclear and confusing walks of life. From that moment on, the day unfolded in such a beautiful way, everything just fell in right place. Great class, interesting discussions. I have found my voice again. I have found my interest in the subject again. My head was buzzing with thoughts and ideas and i walked home with much higher confidence thinking and smiling to myself..this seems like real new start of my life. I am curious where will this journey take me?

Opnieuw beginnen

2011-01-01T22:06:00.002+01:00

Some words keep humming in our heads as if this is 'our word' for the moment. Last ten days in the silent meditation retreat, I found my word-' Beginnen Opnieuw'. The dutch way of saying 'Start Again'. For the meditation students, it meant start the process of meditation again and by the last day, most of us started smiling on hearing these very words, relating to them in some strange ways. I am taking these words beyond meditation now and this is going to be my Mantra for the year ahead. Start again, almost like a gentle reminder for me who often falls back into the memories of past and completely looses track of the present.

The year that passed by was invaluable in more than one ways. I needed to sit back and really take a stock of where I was heading. I have been avoiding it for many years now, trying not to face some deep rooted conflicts or hoping that by keeping myself busy and occupied, I will get over my blues. Focusing on work or studies helped but in my enthusiasm of overdoing everything, I burnt out myself. All I have been doing for last many years is to set goals and achieve them but I realized I never felt happy at the end of it. Rather each accomplishment created such a vacuum in my life that I had to set yet another goal to escape confronting this emptiness.

I also noticed how desperately I seek approval of people around me for my actions. I wonder when did this start? Since when I needed others to assure me that I was doing 'ok'? I still have not found the exact moment but I could clearly see how I created more troubles for myself for trying to do things which I clearly did not believe in wholeheartedly just because I wanted to make others happy. Can I ever make other's happy especially if our ideas of happiness are absolutely conflicting with the other? My rational mind tells me one thing but then I act and behave in totally counterintuitive ways. I want to learn to be comfortable in my own skin. I do not want to try and be the person I am not and this is what I am going to do consciously every single day ahead. I am not hoping to convince others about what I believe, nor do I expect them to understand my views but I am not going to force myself to 'fit' a certain norm in which I absolutely do not fit.

I am going to live for myself. Yes It could sound selfish but I feel it is essential for me to follow my heart in days ahead. I am really at a moment right now where I have immense freedom and flexibility to choose my own path, I have enough friends to support and guide me through and hence I think it is best time to do things that I have been long avoiding. It is time to start again. Start to read, start my Bharatnatyam riyaz again, start writing again, travelling again. I almost planned a trip to Hungary this evening on the dinner table to meet and spend some time with a teacher who is expert in Bharatnatyam and who teaches the dance.

Months ahead are going to be superbusy with school work, thesis, assignments and exams but I am ready for it. In fact I am looking forward to this new beginning. There are more parties lined up in days ahead and it seems finally I will have more Dutch friends. In Amsterdam, I made many friends but hardly any locals, this is quite unlike of what happened in Leuven. But last ten days connected me with so many dutch people from Rotterdam to Freisland from Groningen to Delft that I have to plan my weekends very carefully. After all I have only three months in the Netherlands before I head further south.

Thus, 'start again' is my word for the days ahead, what's yours?

Off into silence retreat for 10 days

2010-12-20T09:46:00.002+01:00

I have been silent for many days now but I am alive and kicking. It was first the exams then move to Holland, Catching up with friends in Amsterdam completely disrupted by the snow, a couple of bad falls on the slow, it was all my mistake, over excitement of the white snow covered land and not wearing proper shoes/boots.. but now I feel much better and in fact I am embarking on yet another adventure.. something that I have never done before and I feel this is the best way to say goodbye to 2010 and welcome the year ahead with new found self..

I leave in 30 minutes for a small place in the woods near Armersfort for 10 days meditation. No cel phones, no internet, disciplined life that starts from 4am and ends at 9.30. Turning the mind inwards and resolving all the conflicts. I do not know how I will be in this program but I am really inspired and curious to be part of this. This is going to be an experience of life time but I am not even allowed to have a pen and paper to make notes about the days. I have to fully experience this state of being and i may write about it later..

so to all my readers warm holiday greetings from the snow covered amsterdam.. see you all in the new year..

Chao

Action

2010-12-13T20:39:00.002+01:00

December 13 – Action When it comes to aspirations, it’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen. What’s your next step?

Exactly a year ago I started this blog in the memory of my father. The blog and writing has kept me great company throughout the year. I realize that sometimes writing has effects similar to therapy on me. I am feeling much better and in control even though there are issues that are still not addressed. I am looking forward to the life ahead and that is already an action and not just the idea or inspiration.

I received valuable feedback on my research proposal this morning. My proposal is well received and I feel motivated to go about it. My informal efforts around conducting the research might start on the new year's party. I have a couple of interviews lined up thanks to great friends in Amsterdam. The three months in Nijmegen are going to be crucial for my data collection but i am confident that with systematic planning, i will be able to manage the ongoing course work and conducting interviews. I plan to cut down the hours I spend on the internet, that aimless surfing which leads to nothing.. I have realized that if i do not have my mail box open while working, I work much better with less distractions. Otherwise, every time a new mail pops in, I tend to get distracted. A simple thing like not having some sites book marked has also helped. The social networking sites, some news sites, if i have to type in the web address, i found out, i do not feel that eager to do it. So 2day I have removed all such book marked pages that I really do not need to see. I am planning my days better. my list of things to do is now organized in groups of activities that can be carried out together and thus will be more efficient.

I want to be more outgoing, taking initiative to talk to people, to learn some networking skills. I understand that as long as i let the others speak, it is not all that bad to approach people. I am scared to start a conversation with people especially with those that i hardly know and even worse with those that I do not know. So i hang around only with people that I know and soon realize that I have nothing new to talk to them about. This new year's party at a friend's place, i aim to talk to at least 5 new people that I have never met before. In fact on 17th of this month, I am attending another party for opening of art exhibition by my painter friend. I might start with 2 or 3 people there itself. Someone, recently told me, if u do not speak up, no one is going to make efforts to read your mind. It is ok to approach people in a culturally appropriate way and either you would click with them in conversations or u wont but at least you would have made efforts rather than standing in a corner and feeling bored.

I plan to read a lot in coming months, my course related readers, readings for the thesis, and other interesting books and articles. It almost feels like a little adventure now to read an article looking for a central theme and making sure i got it right by confirming with the others. On my train ride from Leiden to Leuven yesterday, I read a nice article on ethical challenges in conducting research in non western contexts. The article was written in a very simple language and the reality described in there was almost similar to what we face back home, so it was easy to relate to it. For the first time, I also felt that I could write a similar article (not on the same topic) but in a similar simple language and building on my personal experience and that was an empowering feeling indeed. Reading and writing are the two areas that I am going to concentrate on in coming months.

Back to philosophical theories now, I have an exam on Wednesday and slowly there seem to be some threads of comfort between me, Levinas, Lacan and Gaita. But we have a long way to go to make meaningful bonds.

Body Integration

2010-12-12T18:36:00.003+01:00

Body Integration This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present?

This is definitely not an easy one. I never feel like one cohesive unit of body and mind. For me, these two are always running in opposite direction. hmmmm this reverb 10 is getting tougher each day.. is this the serious reflection we are expected to do as the year 2010 gives birth to the year ahead?

I can think of two moments in the entire year when I felt 'one'. The two situations are so unlike the other. One was when I had magic mushrooms and that effect lasted almost for an hour. Conflict-free oneness of the body and mind with the psychodelic effects of the mushrooms. The other one came on the beginning of zen meditation but it barely lasted for a minute or even less. It felt wonderful and it kept me motivated to keep practicing it. I must be honest though, I never had that feeling again. It felt as if it was a 'promotion' offer on that particular day to have me in, knowing very well that this is the only way I will continue my inward search... through Zen meditation

Ohhh no.. that is not true.. I had just this moment yesterday evening, biking towards the lake in a small country side village near Leiden. The evening was setting in, the birds were returning home, there were geese and the storks. They were flying in such a disciplined and organized structures, the atmosphere was serene and calm and I could hear the clutter of the wings of hundreds of birds flying above my head as I was biking though the small lanes of the countryside. The lake was beautiful, there was a little island in the middle with a little house on it. The house is aptly called 'oneness', it is a literal meaning of the original dutch name "eenzaamheid" but it meant, 'being alone' Now I can think of that tiny house on the island as 'oneness' in truest sense. Being one with the self, the island, the lake, the sky. Is this not what we are talking about. Being integrated, being one. There were no human beings around, the wind was bringing in the sound of the traffic from Leiden, there were 4 traditional windmills that we could see around us. On Saturdays, for touristic reasons, they allow the traditional windmills to work on the wind. For the first time, in my life, I had a closer view of the windmill, I could peep through the closed window, I could see the wheel pulling out water from the polder into the canals. What a beautiful mechanism, again being one, the wind and the water.. integrated keeping the water levels in control. We sat by the lake, I was all ears just listening to the beautiful music of waves of the lake. The wind and the water again.. wind producing waves and waves splashing to the shore.. creating this magnificent melody of life. Just like the wind and the water, my body and mind were one, even though it was for a short while.. we walked and walked and we talked.. our footsteps were enough to alert the birds and they took off together creating again a huge clutter of the wings against the wind.. another kind of music got created. The evening grew dark, the sky displayed beautiful colors and shapes.. the windmills created magical moments on the backdrop of horizon... there was oneness in every aspect of life there.. there was silence and the silence sometimes turned into music... for the souls who could appreciate it.

We could see little moon in the sky.. we biked home without the lights on our bike, depending on our senses just not to have a fall. We could not see much and our eyes and the body had to be one to bike home.. it was beautiful how our senses concentrate without a slightest distraction in such moments... we were home and the old 'grandfather's clock' struck six. The evening grew even darker and colder over delicious pumpkin soup and some more interesting conversations.. late into night when I went to bed, I had a window opening to the sky, through which i could see the stars making an entry on this huge stage of the sky.. I had never seen something like that before.. falling asleep with a blanket of clouds and stars.. i wish I had better eyesight as it was impossible to feel them without my glasses on. My body and mind at that moment, could not be one without the assistance of a pair of glasses.. the wind brought in the beats of music from nearby house.. the fluffy clouds were floating by and I kept trying to see the stars without my glasses on.. at some point, I surrendered to sleep... and turned into another beautiful experience of oneness of my body and mind..

Wisdom

2010-12-10T17:51:00.003+01:00

December 10 – Wisdom. What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out?

This year has not been really an year of wisdom, in fact it was year of making mistakes after mistakes and finding myself in deep trouble. I could argue that I learned my lessons from each of those mistakes and then made a few other mistake so in a way i gathered a lot of wisdom but that is too simplistic way of looking at it.

I think the wisest decision I made was to take a pause and ask myself what do I really want to do with my life? The trouble was that this pause came at a very tricky moment in time but still it was essential. If I would not have taken that pause, my life story would have been completely different, it could also have been for good but I dont think I was ready for that goodness ahead in time. I had not understood the value of that goodness. I needed time to learn to respect and value what I have been given by the loved ones and by the life.

I stopped and i started reflecting on my life. I almost took a count of all those years, the things achieved, the failures and the success stories, the meaningful relationships formed and friends and family members who were left behind. For a while, I did nothing but allowed the reality around me to sink into me. It was essential to face the facts around me and about me. This confrontation with the self was needed. The restful moment was critical to see where I was heading and I felt I was heading towards total burn out. I have been neglecting those warning symptoms for way too long. I was training NGO staff on how to protect themselves against burn out. How could I not see it engulfing me slowly over years? Finally it hit me hard and I was turned into nothingness. I needed to set realistic goals and expectations for my life.

I did my SWOT analysis, I applied those self help techniques for my own life. I wrote my thoughts out like a mad woman, almost letting all the internal storms out on paper and I spent hours together looking at that mess that I had made of my life, in my efforts to overdo and over improvise everything. The most humbling realization was that I needed serious help to get out of the troubles and I accepted that I needed help. I found that help amongst my friends and family. I decided to take things slowly. I decided to make effort to relax. I decided to start walking again at slow but constant pace and that was the wisest thing I did. Last 11 weeks have been those little steps towards rediscovering my lost sense of self. Meditation, writing a blog, being in new place, making new friends and challenging myself with philosophical theories, it all had its own little effects. Slowly I have started getting little better sleep. My appetite for food and life is returning slowly. My attention span is improving and I feel I am able to take things in much lighter way than ever before. There are still moments that come in unannounced when i feel panicky, restless, helpless and lost but i accept those moments rather than fighting them back and I have learned that sometimes things unfold in their own course of time and they do get taken care of. That has been a valuable lesson indeed but totally worth it. I hope to continue my journey on this path and may be the year ahead will bring in new wisdom and new light.

Party

2010-12-09T22:03:00.002+01:00

December 9 – Party Prompt: Party. What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, shenanigans.

Of all the posts up till now, this one is the most difficult. I am not a party person at all. I stay as far away from parties as possible. Forget about the year 2010, I dont have example of one social gathering that I thoroughly enjoyed in all my adult life. Another insight into 'being me' for sure.

I tried hard to remember, any form of social gathering, may it be in my high school, amongst friends, in medical school, at work.. I have never been in a fun party. First of all I try and avoid going to the parties as I invariably end in a corner where I can hide myself. I feel very conscious of my lack of socializing skills. I do not know how to start talking with strangers and I think even bigger trouble is how to talk about something light, funny and casual. I have terrible sense of humour,most of the time I dont get the jokes at all. if there is a loud music in the party, it makes it even worse. I can barely hear others talking and that makes conversations harder. I have been caught yawning in some corner in parties on pictures by my friends. I can not dance, that is another difficulty. I am not at all confident and want to disappear somewhere or go invisible.My party discomforts are so well known in my social circle that these days I hardly get invites.

May be this should change in the year ahead. I want to experience this party life. I have had friends in Mumbai, who partied 5 nights a week. It is quite funny but I have never experienced night life in Mumbai even though I spent 23 years of my life in this city. It is time to catch up. I have not seen the night life of Amsterdam either. I am not a night person. I prefer to stay at home with a book or just have a friend or two over for dinner or drink and that is my idea of a nice evening. I need to explore this aspect of life before rejecting it completely. 2011 will be a big party time for me and it starts from the new year's eve. I will be with my very close friends in Amsterdam bringing in the new year..

Where is the party tonite?

Beautifully different

2010-12-08T19:44:00.002+01:00

Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful.

This morning when I read the prompt of the day, I smiled at myself. That was a very special and meaningful smile reminding me how badly I needed to reflect on my personality being different and learn to see and accept the beauty that lies hidden under those differences. Thank you for this prompt. Last few months, I have been extremely hard on myself for not being able to achieve an important transition of human life. Marriage. I felt I lacked something that was very important to be like all other girlfriends of mine, who are married and are raising children and balancing the professional and personal life so beautifully. I know their life is tough but I also want to have that family life and balance it with my work. I still want to experience the feeling of being with someone and raising a family with him. But when I grew cold feet at the most decisive moment, I nosedived into hopelessness, nothingness and self-doubt.

So starting with that, my first difference is that I am single at 31 because i did not feel confident to get married. In marriage context back home, the best description for me will be highly qualified, career oriented, self made over aged woman. I am ambitious, I know what I want in life. I have clear boundaries when and to what extent I can compromise but when I need to put my foot down and stand by what I believe even if it means that I might be left alone guarding my position. Power or money can not buy my loyalty. I am not afraid to raise my voice. I have strong opinions about most of the things but I am open to discuss and argue and I do change my opinion if one can convince me theirs is better argument than mine.

I am fiercely independent and I have been so since my childhood. I have accomplished many things that could be seen as a big milestones but with each step up, I find myself increasingly lonely and isolated. I am passionate about my work which has primarily been in Public Health. I have traveled to so many places for work against travel advisories and rules. I have survived curphews and social unrest in my work life in northeast of India but these challenges made me want to do it even more. I wanted to face it head on as I could not see how we can turn a blind eye to the suffering of our fellow beings. I dream of working in Afghanistan and as a school friend of mine once said, 'I sniff for dangerous places to be in and then I make sure I get to work there'.

I do not fuss about how I look, how I dress. I am not into elaborate romantic dates or fancy restaurants but one to one conversation about something thought provoking is enough for me to feel alive. I easily get bored in artificial environments. I cant put fake smile and pretend i am happy. My face reveals how I feel so easily that sometimes I get in deep trouble. I do not have champaign tastes. I am happy with simple vegetarian food and in fact fancy places make me a bit uncomfortable as I feel I am a misfit there.

I hate money being wasted under whatever justification, I cant stand double standards. I do not like people who use words without meaning even one single word out of it, whether on political level or personal level. I can talk passionately about many aspects of my work life about HIV, sexuality, female foeticide, inequality in access to health care and gender differences which are present all around me. I am not a radical activist but I do feel that sometimes activism is required to bring out a change.

I love travelling and when I travel I try and mingle with the local life. I absorb as much of the place and the people as I can. I have not been in one place for last eight years. The fact that I am constantly on move gives me a reason to live, explore and experience life. Idea of travelling to polar regions or Bolivian altiplano can literally infuse me with new energy for life. I am a crazy dreamer and I have made most of my dreams come true. The trouble is, ten more dreams are conceived in my mind as i fulfill one and there goes the gypsy all over again.

Wherever I go, I make wonderful friends in all age groups but I get along best with people much older to me. My friends are my biggest strengths and I go out of my ways to be with them in toughest times. As a friend, one would hardly expect me to be by their side in the happy moments, but I am always there when they are in the rough waters. My friends can totally depend on me. Their secrets are protected with all my might.

I am passionate about movies and I dream of being a movie maker someday and these dreams are endless. I want to be so many different things, be in so many different place in the same life that sometime my life tires out people around me. I try and organize every aspect of my life, I am a bit obsessed about doing everything perfectly and efficiently. I dont accept 'this is our culture/tradition' justification for everything that you dont want to change.

I value financial stability and good financial planning. I prefer honest and open communication rather than nodding head in agreement when you dont really believe in it. I find myself in a tricky situation, if people around me are reluctant to make certain difficult decisions or to take a crucial stand. I cant completely accept 'why care about tomorrow, lets fully live in today' approach to life. I beleive nothing comes your way just because you deserve it but you have to work towards it. That is when I got my second nick name.. 'control freak/ obsessive planner'. Well, if one can convince me that things will automatically fall in right place without you doing anything about it, I am curious to understand that point of view.

I have a brilliant smile, I think my smile can really light up the life around me. Trouble is I need to feel completely at peace and only then I can experience and express that dazzling smile. My friends who have experienced those moments will vouch for this. I have child like excitement and curiosity about life. I do not like any limits put on to me by the others or being restricted or treated differently just because i am a woman in both professional and personal life. I want to try different things even when there may not seem any immediate relevance and I want to learn all my life. These days I am called a 'professional student'.

These are my differences to which many got attracted over last few years but none could completely accept this 'beautifully different' me. In fact the same differences to which they got attracted in first place became my biggest faults later on. She is too strong, too independent, it is hard to live with someone like that. The question for me now is, do I want to give away these differences which actually make me who I am just so that someone will accept me (i hardly will be real me then) or I should remain 'beautifully different' even if it means being unattached most of the times. I hope there is a middle answer somewhere just like my hope that someday i will find a way to strike a balance between meaningful work and raising a healthy family.

Thats me 'beautifully different' sowing seeds to yet another dream.......

Community

2010-12-07T23:22:00.002+01:00

Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?

I transitioned through 3 real communities in the year 2010 and I think I will be again transitioning through 3 yet another communities in 2011. The year 2010 also showed me how virtual communities can outcast you when you make a mistake. This is how my story goes.

From January to August 2010, I was integral part of student community at University of Amsterdam. To define my community or probably what could be called a little family, it was my class at AMMA, the medical anthropology program that we were part of. 15 of us, 11 nationalities, 4 continents and many more subcultures within us and we were studying anthropology in one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world, Amsterdam. If I remember correctly, I read that persons from 139 different nationalities live in this city. Life in this community was extremely comfortable, warm, accepting and friendly in spite of all the stress of student life.

August and September, I was back in India, amidst my family and about to merge with other family through matrimony. But when things did not go as planned, I was to experience what it means to threaten the norms of community and society and the the aftereffects of it. The same happened with the online community, like facebook. Suddenly there was a wave of 'block/remove' this person from friends list campaign and the members of 'our common' community shrunk in number almost overnight. One actually wonders, how social networking sites and online communities do have a powerful way of telling you 'you are not required in their life any more'. The friends suddenly cease to be your friends as if you never existed and it is just a click of mouse but can have same effect as being ostracized in real community life. I realized borders between the real and virtual communities are very unclear and same is the distinction between the communities you are born and raised within and communities that you create around you or become part of.

From October onwards, I am in this tiny student town in Belgium, surrounded by fellow classmates from diverse nationalities. This is my current community which has brought out some healing effect on my emotional wounds. How can I forget the community of 'Gray Lotuses' at my meditation center, now we also have some lotus buds in this community but all these guys made life so much livable. All the warmth and care they showed to me is beyond words and may be that is why it hurts so much that the next Tuesday will be my last day with these gray lotuses. Beginning of the new year, i will be transitioning into a new community in Nijmegen and then yet another transition in Padova.

Wonder what community means to me. It is a group of people where I feel comfortable and at peace. Where I can be who I am, express my joys and fears, sorrows and concerns. Where I could laugh with the others and I could also cry. Why is it that I find it easy to connect with people who are complete strangers to me but fail to do so within my inner circles of the family. Why i share my secrets and worries with friends who could be from absolutely different culture and outlook but not with a cousin or some aunt? Why I feel so isolated within my extended family but I am completely integrated into these transitory communities. I do not know the answer. May be it is about difference. Being with people with such diverse backgrounds allows me to fit with them in some strange ways. I do not have to be like the others as it is impossible to be like the others but you loose that privilege in your own socio-cultural setting. May be more stringent norms apply to you when you are in your home land and that is not the case when you are out of it. It probably is also easy to walk out of communities that you by choice became part of but may not be so for the communities in which you are born and raised.

I am also slowly becoming part of this new found 'blogger's community'. I read their blogs and smile as i see those recurring themes in the writing. It makes no difference where you are from and what you do but it seems all of us who are blogging, we feel this intense need to share our lives, thoughts, joys, worries and fears with some 'stranger' in this world wide web who actually might know you better just through your words. You start to pick up, their likes and dislikes and what makes them happy and what their struggles are. yet another form of community, quite scattered but still intricately connected to each other through those 'webs of significance'.

One thing is for sure, I was wrong when I thought I could be happy on my own without much social/communal backing. Over years I have understood, I need much more communal support to redefine myself and grow in the process but what is flexible here is the kind of community I need to be part of. The community which is open, accommodative, challenging, encouraging, stimulating at the same time giving me a strong sense of belonging. In short, it has to be a community that I choose to be part of and not one where I am expected to belong. I must say, I have been lucky to always have some sort of 'community' standing by my side even in worst of times and I am grateful for their support.

Make

2010-12-06T16:53:00.003+01:00

December 6 – Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?

There are so many things that I want to make, I keep listing them down so that I dont forget but I hardly ever look at that list again. No object on that list got removed out because I did it. I am thinking hard, what was the last thing I made? I think I made nothing new in very long time. I have not cooked a new recipe, I have really not tried something new. Strange. ohhh there is one silly thing that I could write about. In my early days in Amsterdam, must be October 2009, I turned a little egg packaging box (those paper boxes in which eggs are sold in the supermarkets) into a box for my earrings. My creativity ended there. I could see a potential use in that particular packing and I used it to serve my purpose. I did not decorate it, paint it, put some little starts on it.. no , i did nothing. It was all about fulfilling a function, thats all.. no fun intended, no aesthetic sense involved. Will that be counted in 'making'? The other silly thing I did around the same time last year was to use a nice circular paper which I think came as a base for a cake that we bought for someone's birthday to write down my dreams and wish list. I wrote it all at one go on that little oily paper, I was just so happy with that paper and I pasted it above my study table. I still remember many of the things on that circular wish list.

I have a keen eye on seeing utility in things which generally get thrown away. Different shapes, colors and textures attach my attention. I love collecting little glass bottles in different shapes, initially it was the jam, pesto bottles, these days I am really getting fascinated by the different kind of bottles used by liquor industry. Just two days ago, I saw a bottle of 'Tatratea', a Slovakian liquor, this bottle without a neck was so beautiful. The other day at Magritte museum, I saw two painted wine bottles on display and I wondered if I could try something similar. It may not be as famous as those by Magritte but I can try it out.

I want to learn how to make beads using clay. One of my friends makes such beautiful pieces of jewelery using hand made beads.. some years ago, an american friend on her trip to Indonesia bought some lovely necklaces with colorful glass beads, very cheap and affordable but extremely beautiful and unique. It turned out that there is a woman's group in Indonesia who collect glass bottles of different colors, including wine bottles, melt it down and mix these different colored molten glass together to make those beads. I was so inspired to learn the technique. This afternoon, Leen gave me some children's candies. I forgot the dutch/Belgian name for it. The candies were little elongated, almost egg shaped but a bit flat.. but the color was perfect Turquoise. I did not want to eat them. I wanted to put a string through them and make a necklace from it and it would have looked perfect against Leen's skin tone.

I am fascinated with the idea that at some time in my life I am going to learn making mud pottery traditional way. I want to learn how to make lace, I think that inspiration comes from seeing stores here selling Belgian lace which is so expensive for my 'student' pocket. Same thing happens when I go to toy stores. The variety of toys and children's books, their touch and textures, the colours and sounds.. it is whole new world there that I want to have it all but I can barely afford any of it. My heart almost sinks to accept that I cant afford it and knowing fully well that I dont need these toys but how do children accept this hard reality. I feel toys and books should be available for children at an affordable price. but i know millions of children in this world do not have either of these. Some day I want to make these things available to all the children of this world. I dont know how I will do it but I will for sure.

I really want to develop my creative skills as I feel extremely satisfied if I can make something useful and beautiful using my senses and with magic touch of my fingers... the desire is there but i dont know the means.. there is some thinking that is needed here.

December 5: Let go

2010-12-05T22:16:00.002+01:00

Just a few days ago, I think sometime in November, I had a blog post with the same title, explaining how I cant let go off anything.

The word for today is 'Let go' and I am going to write about what are the things that I am going to try and let go in days ahead.

First of all, I want to let go off all the limits and constraints I impose on myself.This is closely linked with my low self esteem most of the time. I doubt myself and my abilities to such an extent that I undermine my own potential simply because I dont believe I can do it. I want to change this facet of my personality.

I want to let go off my worries. I worry too much about everything and when one spends so much of conscious thinking time on worrying about things, one exhausts their energy for nothing. Sometimes I feel totally tired just because of constant worries in my head.

Then I want to let go off all my negative thoughts about myself and my life situation. I always see possible hurdles in every situation but hardly take count of what factors are on my side. If I think carefully, it is very clear that my advantages are more than difficulties. But generally my first reaction always is, 'it wont happen', 'I cant make it' and thoughts like those. I create blocks on my own path.

I try to control, plan and systematically organize every aspect of my life. Once upon a time, I believed it was my asset but now I have come to see it as a weakness. Now planning and organization has taken over my ability to relax to such an extent that I am on my toes even in most relaxed situation. I feel I should be 'fully prepared' for any unforeseen calamity. Most of the time, there is no such calamity but, i want to be ready to deal with, so I miss the fun of living that moment completely.

I want to set the standards of quality a bit lower than usual. I set such high goals and I am so critical of myself that i make it really hard for me to live everyday with a positive wibe. These are good qualities to have only when they are in moderation. But I am almost getting on the pathological side of it.

I want to let go off my obsession to do everything perfectly, to be always correct and nice and kind hearted. It is ok to fail once in a while, it is ok to make mistakes or to hurt people inadvertently. I want to learn to accept kindness and support others can offer me. I want to strike a balance between giving and receiving.

I want to let go off my fears, my constant walls of defense. I want to trust people and life again. I want to live naturally even if it means letting my vulnerability visible. Its ok not to be always strong and it is fine to depend on others for love, energy and motivation. I am tired of being a strong woman and I want to be just 'a woman'. I am not sure what exactly it means though to be a woman.

Wonder

2010-12-04T18:43:00.002+01:00

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.

'One word' December 1st

2010-12-03T22:22:00.002+01:00

December 1 - One Word. Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

My word for the year 2010 is fear. Yes that is the best word to describe how I spent the year in absolute fear of various kinds.

January: I was afraid to say goodbye to him after having spent lovely Christmas and new year together. The fear became more intense when there was a complete silence on his side for almost 10 days after returning to India. Somehow we regained our communication and I accepted his proposal on his birthday. I had accepted something that I was most afraid about, the prospects of getting married and he knew about it all along how scared I am to think of marriage but I felt confident that with him by my side, I will be able to overcome my fears.

February and March: I was afraid of my thesis and whether I will be able to do justice to what I was undertaking. I had fear that I wont feel as happy as I was in Amsterdam on returning to India. I could see I had changed significantly in mere few months and I was not sure how will I cope with again another transition in my life. I have been constantly on move since 2003 to various states within India and abroad. I do not really know what it means to settle done in one place and marriage somehow also implied settling down in one place. I was scared that I am going to be a terrible wife, someone focussed too much on her individuality and career and following her dreams.

April: I was determined to settle down so I started looking for jobs in India. No vacancy sounded interesting enough even to apply. But I needed a job urgently. I had a loan on my apartment back home and I had taken a year away from work to study. It practically meant I had no income but had financial responsibility. I am too independent a person, thought of being financially dependent even on my future husband was good enough reason to scare me.

May, June: I flew home to carry out field work for my thesis. To understand what it means to be married for elderly Indian women. How stupid I was to think that conducting research in this topic will make me feel more confident to get married. The stories I heard were mostly so painful that I started doubting whether I was doing a right thing to get married. I got another scholarship to study for 9 months in Europe and I could not say No to it. In fact that seemed like my lifeline not to be drowned in the family and societal expectations of being a married woman. Selfish woman was ready to come back and study immediately after marriage. My marriage was planned in August 2010 between the two programs. The families went over their heads in excitement planning the big 'traditional Indian wedding' in spite of my constant expressions of fears and not wanting such an elaborate wedding and preference for small very private affair. I was told that this is where the happiness of everyone lies and it was my duty to give the parents the happiness they deserve. I started chocking with suffocation, fears, nervousness but no one including my mother could see it all in the excitement that her daughter finally agreed to marry. I felt no one understood my fears, including him. They blamed it all on my research interviews and i withdrew myself into shell even more. I dreaded those 2 months back home when at one end I was listening to women telling their most private stories within marriage and the other end my family making big plans for my marriage in spite of seeing me feeling more and more lost, unhappy and in despair. I still did not have courage to take a stand and say no. I wanted to make everyone happy even if it meant I was terribly unhappy. Is this not what my women told me in those interviews? To make a marriage work, woman should have low expectations, should be ready for extreme compromises, should prioritize the family over the self and should demonstrate acceptance in every walk of life. I knew for sure I had none of these qualities but I was soon going to get married. I was the happiest on the evening when I flew out of Mumbai to Amsterdam. I so wanted to take refuge in my tiny apartment in meer en vaart where I could finally be myself.

July: It was time to write my thesis, I was listening to my audiotaped interviews and was analyzing the themes in it. All the courage I had put together all this while, fell apart and I went into a phase of deep depression. I could not work on my thesis anymore. I was scared I wont be able to complete my thesis and I wont graduate on time. I have never failed in my academic life uptill now but this time I was sure this is what I was destined to get into. I hoped he would understand my situation and help me come out of this black hole but it felt as if he moved further away. Our communication became less and less frequent and very impersonal. All i got to hear about is the progress of the wedding arrangements. I knew I was completely alone and no one really understood me. I spent sleepless nights weeks after weeks, fearing that I was failing not only in my studies but also in personal life. Was I not suppose to feel very excited and happy about getting married? Why was i feeling so skeptical and disillusioned even before getting married? All my fears of failing in marriage engulfed me further and pushed me down into the black hole. Nuria was the only one I could talk to but we all were struggling with our thesis work. I felt he was changed completely and may be he felt the same too. Where was the energetic, happy, strong woman he fell in love with? Here was a woman who was beyond recognition, depressed, bitten, negative, scared, unsure with her self-esteem gone to the dogs. But we still were going to get married.

August: My brother flew in to be with me on my graduation. He saw me in real terrible state, almost on the verge of breakdown and he was the first one to realize I needed help. He took over the responsibility of caring for me, cooked for me, stopped me from writing for few days completely. Meanwhile he read all my interviews and he at once knew what was happening inside my head. He could feel my fear as a tender boil in the ear. He told me it was ok to fail in my thesis and to not get married and assured me that he would stand by my decision if I decide not to get married. He kept his word all through months ahead. It was with the support of my teachers, him and Nuria, I managed to complete my thesis and I graduated on time. I left Amsterdam the very next day of graduation with a heavy heart and I was to be married in exactly a week ahead. That week was most difficult time of my life. I could sense the widened distance between the two of us but he insisted it was my illusion. What followed ahead was my biggest failure in personal life. I could not get married and the decision though taken mutually to not get married the next day came in very late, a day before marriage. What I did not understand then was that my relationship had also met premature death with that decision. He systematically cut all the channels of communication and our relationship got suspended in a strange ending. I faced immense criticism from every one around. I was called stupid, irrational, selfish, timid. I fell apart once again, this time the downfall was even stronger as I had very weak support system. I kept asking myself what made me act the way I acted? Where I went wrong? I blamed myself for my failed relationship. I begged him and his family for forgiveness. I was a terrible infection in his life now and his family and friends almost quarantined me from entering into their world again. I do take all the responsibility of what happened, I accept that I caused them pain and suffering but was I totally at fault?

September through December: Everyday I battle with my fears, fear of loneliness, fear that I will never be able to find my self again, I will never be able to trust anyone again, i will never have a meaningful relationship. Fear that I will never have resolution on this issue, i will never have a single word of communication from him. Fear of going back to Mumbai, India. Fear of being considered a looser, a woman who could not get married. Fear is the word that I live by every single day, fear in different forms. Sometimes I dont even understand what is it exactly that I am afraid of.

So my word for the year 2011 is 'trust'. I need to trust myself again and trust the world around. I need to trust my future and that I will soon find my own self. I will regain my energy and the confidence and i will accept myself with all my strengths and weaknesses. I will find reasons to smile and to laugh. I will make new friends, i will explore new places and be open to range of experiences life has potential to offer me. I trust that there would be a day when I wont break into tears and there would be a night when I will fall asleep like a baby without being afraid and feeling guilty. I hope to bloom again as a person and make meaningful change in my life project. 2011 will be my transition from world of intense of fear to one with the trust, hope and abundance.

Reverb 10 December 2nd Writing

2010-12-03T21:56:00.003+01:00

What comes in my way to writing every day? Can I change it?

Hmmmm, I think the first thing that comes in my way is being simply lazy. I can talk for hours together and describe vividly simplest of a thing but ask me to write and I am sure half of my thoughts will never see the day light. They just disappear at the back of my mind.

It gets even worse when I have to write academically. I hate it, that is the word. The reason I hate it is probably to do with the fact that I have almost convinced myself that I do not have ability to write academically. Those scholarly articles and long convoluted sentences studded with words that I have never heard. I have this trouble for many years now, most of my teachers have given up on me and even my bosses highly disapproved that quality in me. Here, in Leuven we were told the mantra of surviving academic world, 'publish or perish'. By that account I am already perished, I have never published anything of serious nature in my life. Will this blog be considered a serious writing effort? I do not know.

My second limitation in writing is that it is more like a story telling, describing great details which may be completely irrelevant. Recently I discussed my narrative style rather than the argument based or critical writing with my ghost. I aspire to be a teacher someday and we both worry that this way I will never make it there. May be I should change my profession in time rather than feeling disappointed having failed to realize my dream of being in academia.

Writing I think needs to be developed like a skill. One needs to be patient and persistent. One has to work hard on getting it right. I lack that patience. None of my assignments get read once more the moment I feel I am done enough to pass the exam. Just yesterday we worked on my messy references and i made a point that I should pay attention to it. In a way it is interesting that yesterday we were discussing about writing and the theme on Reverb 10 for yesterday was the same.

Last I think is that I get distracted with so many things that are going on simultaneously in my head. I am writing a paper and then suddenly I remember I wanted to read something else or had to run some errands. Because writing is not the best of my comfort zone, sometimes it feels as if I am looking for an excuse to run away from it. I probably need to take out strict time slot for writing and not allow myself to get away from it.

I can hardly do anything about the 7 years of my academic and professional life that are almost perished for lack of publications but the point now is what I can do to change the situation. I think I am in the right place, I have necessary assistance just across the border and i have enough reasons to feel inspired. I will soon be writing my thesis on ethical reasoning on 'Dying out of free will'. I have my another thesis just sitting there idle about women's experiences in long term marriages in India and I hope to turn it into a little book. That is my first little goal. I have all the assistance needed to realize this goal, all I need is taking the first step forward. I am determined to have a career in Academia (in spite of my innate fears of failing miserably at it) but i would try and fail better at it. I am going to read more inorder to understand how others write and even while reading I am going to make conscious effort to understand the central argument and how was it supported or refuted? I read things like stories again giving attention to descriptions which are probably just to support the argument and in the process i completely miss the argument. Thus I need to learn how to read correctly and systematically to get better at writing.

What else I could do to write better? I dont know. May be I will get more ideas for the same through the blogs of others. I am looking forward to it.

Moment

2010-12-03T20:35:00.003+01:00

I am not quite sure I understand how it works but I signed up for an initiative 'reverb10'. It seemed like an interesting idea to help me reflect on the year passed and the year ahead of me rather than just feeling sad, gloomy and helpless.

A friend yesterday asked me to be an active agent for change in my life rather than playing the victim. Here is my first step towards that new found agency in my life.

So today I am suppose to describe a moment when I felt completely alive in the year 2010. It is hard task. I can write atleast 10 moments in the year with all the details of smells, textures and sounds of feeling like a complete looser and hopeless, selfish creature but really cant think of one moment when I felt alive. But why am I insisting that feeling alive only has to be understood when you feel positively alive? Why it cant be a moment when you felt most alive thanks to feeling intensely miserable, in pain and helpless? Is this not equally important dimension of feeling alive? Something to reflect on but let me think about a moment of positively feeling alive.

It has to be that solo bike ride at night from Bijltjespad along Prins Hendrikade to Rambrantpleine on 25th November. I was in Amsterdam visiting friends. Just the fact that I was surrounded by my friends gave me so much relief in those 4 magical days. The Christmas lights went up that evening at Dam square and there was a small music concert. My friend, Nuria had made sure that I will have my old bike to move around in Amsterdam during those 4 days. This bike, named 'Sally' has become my metonymic connection with Amsterdam. This was the bike that made me feel independent, free and autonomous in that one year. I had multiple falls but she always protected me and soon my bike became my means to feel light like a bird and to glide through those biking lanes in the city, the commonest commute was from meer en vaart (my apartment) to school which was near the city center. We preferred the path which goes through Vondel park and I started my day taking the same route. The park was beautiful as usual, very familiar and hence comforting, soothing and healing. I never had a fall in this park. Thanks to broad lanes for bikers and pedestrians. I have seen this park change its form from autumn, to winter to spring. I think right now this park must be covered in snow. That was the first moment I felt alive after many many months and the entire day ahead brought out more such moments.

Though I had biked in Amsterdam for a year, I think it was always restricted to certain paths. For example, I never biked from my school to station or from Dam square to beyond Amstel towards Hermitage. Amsterdam in my mind came to an abrupt end along the same lines. The city ended where I stopped biking. Strange, isnt it? But I realized it during this trip. Suddenly I understood how close Hermitage museum is from the waterloopliene and how easy and fast it is to bike to centraal station from my school. So from Dam square, I biked to Bijltjespad without having ever done it before and without having looked at biking directions on google map. All I had was an sms describing how to get there from the bus stop along the way. From the station, I started along Prins Hendrikade, I crossed the path that I once took with my ghost to go to the central library, then came my old student apartment where I stayed for a month in the summer of 2008, further on my left was the Chinese restaurant almost floating on the water, many old ships lined up (I had found a ship that had gone to India), then was NEMO the science museum with its characteristic architecture. That is where my previous familiarity ended. I had never ventured beyond that big folding bridge on the amstel. I remembered having read about the fears of the sailors when they believed that the earth is flat and not round and hence the ship would fall into nothingness at the edge of this flat earth. I cant get all the right details of this discovery of round earth and the sailors, a figure I used to draw of a little ship and the globe of earth when i was 6 years old for a school assignment. It was funny to stretch beyond my 'flat' idea of Amsterdam coming to an abrupt end. On that absolutely traffic less path, I biked further, turned to the left and crossed the Amstel that was flowing peacefully giving me company. I did make it to my friend's apartment, someone whom I saw after 4 years. We are very close friends and we remained in touch through these four years via internet but seeing her again was indeed a beautiful moment. First thing I noticed while giving her a hug was that she was wearing my old brown sweater, the same sweater that i wore almost every day at home in Amsterdam last year. We girls have been literally carrying bits and pieces of each other in our current life. Nid's belongings are all around us. Me and Nuria have so many things of each other and that of Nid's. Just holding Nid's back pack in my hand, I felt I was actually feeling her presence. Now I saw Nasima carrying my life in Amsterdam through that brown sweater. I hope that this sweater will keep her warm and give her happiness and energy which i got all across the year in this city. I had never noticed that I am taller than her. she surprised me with the fact that she cooked dinner for us. I never saw her as someone who would take interest in cooking. We had so much to talk about that we could not understand where to start. So at some point, we decided to remain silent and just feel the presence of each other. A lot has changed in our lives both personally and professionally but being in love and having lost it is one common theme that connects us strongly. We both are at different levels on our path to recovery and healing. We both are again at a crucial point in our life projects and we have to soon make very pertinent decisions. Through her window, I could see the Amstel and there she sat by the window smoking cigarette and I instantly went back to that huge football ground in Sawar, Bangladesh where the two of us used to walk and discuss and share our hearts out to each other.

I had to leave her soon as few other friends were waiting for me at the Christmas Market in Rambrantpleine. Mayank the philosopher, an indian friend whom I met in Amsterdam and Nuria. We were the three buddies and we wanted to meet up again for a drink in Amsterdam. This was our only chance as Nuria was soon leaving Amsterdam. It was good to see him again and it was even better to listen to this composed man and his perspective from a man's point of view about recent disaster in my personal life. The gluhwein and the Bailey's. The place was warm but smelled a bit funny must be all that wine. Mayank was most bothered by it. The wine was so strong in its aroma that we had to struggle to drink it, the fumes would straight hit the brain through nose before the drink could make it to the mouth. We talked and we drank. We girls were faster than Mayank, I think he did not like it that much. Then came a round of Baileys and he refused to believe that it was a liquor. He kept saying that it was flavored cold coffee. Nuria kept insisting that it is alive as it grows. The sweet while liquid would appear to rise in its level as the ice melted. especially in the end when only thing that remained behind was the ice cubes with little baileys, we kept sipping to its last fraction laughing that the liquor keeps growing. For nuria, most food items are alive. The poories and rotis from India are alive because they puff and make a noise. The mustard and cumin seeds in hot oil are alive because they pop and try to jump out of the pan. So this 'its alive' syndrome is very peculiar to our trio and dates back to our adventures of cross-cultural cooking in the kitchen of Meer en Vaart. Mayank used to make lovely Indian tea with ginger (boiled with lot of milk and sugar) and fry some potato wedges to treat the two of us. He said he has stopped making those as he wants it to remain a treat between the three of us and not to relish it alone. I like that idea. If the three of us ever meet again, Mayank will make the tea and wedges for us again. What will we (myself and Nuria) make for that occasion? Mayank could make it to the last tram and we girls set out with our bikes to go home.

Was I drunk? No not really, i was in complete control but was feeling much relaxed, warm and happy. Nuria led the path. I was biking silently behind her, along the path that we often took back to home from school, hitting the Rijksmuseum, along the overtoom towards Surinaampleine. I fell silent but the silence was comforting. I kept looking around for all those familiar buildings and shops as if I had woken up from a long standing coma. I was back in my familiar world. Nuria asked if I was ok and I answered 'I am at perfect peace'. The cold did not bother us as our souls were warm with friendship, acceptance, care and concern for one another and trust that the future will be brighter even if it feels so gloomy right now. The Ethiopian restaurants, the marktplaas, the little rehabilitation medical center, the big gymnasium, the little cafe were I met Sally for the first time, the circle around surinaampleine where the trees got dressed in lovely pink flowers in the summer and there we were at home. It was almost 1am. We both were tired but we had immense satisfaction of having had a wonderful day together in our favorite city and having also accomplished most of the things in our list of things to do. The moon was shining bright and the night was beautiful. I was so content and relaxed, had not felt like that for long time. I knew at that very moment that Amsterdam is where I want to be. This is where I feel at home and this is the city which makes me feel comforted and protected.

So my moment of feeling alive is being in Amsterdam with my closest friends.

The snow, the Christmas season and the memories

2010-12-01T22:28:00.002+01:00

I know I am not suppose to feel like this. I should take control of my life and move on, accept things with smiling face, keep the lessons learned with me and be open to life ahead. I do try hard to do it sometimes consciously, sometimes without it. But there are days when things fall apart, all the courage gathered disappears and I feel like a complete failure. I want to hide myself, i want to cry, i want to disappear.

I woke up to snow, everything around me is pure white and beautiful. I enjoy the snow and the cold but something is different this time, there is a hue of sadness to it now, the snow actually freezes my soul. The happiness that I try to feel, seems out of place and there is this invisible burden on that smile that I have to bring out with great effort and determination. My apartment is warm, there are warm people around me but I feel cold, frozen, numb within. I took out that parrot green sweater this morning, bright, happy color. Is green not my favorite color lately? Yes it is but not this particular shade for sure. I look like a parrot. It is pure alpaca wool and it was brought to me all the way from Bolivia. I never could use it in India, it is too warm, but probably it is perfect for the days ahead here. I touched its wool and the memories came flashing by, very hard to put a lid on it. what went wrong there? Would this wool succeed in warming up my soul?

I carried on my day with great energy. we were in Brussels, with all my classmates and some of the teachers. Lovely group, snow was coming down beautifully. Magritte museum, the magic, illusion and metamorphosis were the three key concepts we were asked to take away with us. I loved those clouds and the windows.. now I know where the inspiration to photograph windows came from. It must have been my visit to the same museum on 24th October with friends. Today, I was also surrounded by friends but still felt so lonely. it was still snowing outside straight onto us.

The central city plaza, the old city hall and that majestic Christmas tree, the nativity and the people all around bundled up in warm clothes enjoying the snow. There was little sound and light show projected on the building of city hall... i remember how excited I was last year walking through the Christmas market in Bremen and then in Amsterdam and today I almost wanted to run away from it all. I think I had underestimated the effect of Christmas on me, I realized it today. I felt so out of place, the guilt, pain, self-blame it all came back... will I survive this festive season without falling apart? How drastically things have changed in a year's time. Does he ever think of it? The snow, the cold and the Christmas, how am I going to face these each year? Will I get used to it? I dont know but I am scared. The feeling of loneliness overwhelms, almost engulfs me and so is the feeling of loss. I wanted to be happy 2day, i tried but all I had to actually try was to control my tears. I decided to walk home, I wanted to be alone so that tears need not be hidden. I had to walk through snow covered paths and snow is still coming down....

First snow of the season

2010-11-30T17:21:00.002+01:00

I woke up this morning to snow covered Leuven. I could feel the whiteness in spite of dark surroundings at 7 this morning. Surrounding houses and the church looked surreal, covered with layer of snow, almost reminding me of a scene from a fairy tale. The trees and bushes blossomed into snow-flowers and everything looked picture perfect.

I feel like a five year old every time I get to experience snow fall. Last December was my first encounter with the snow in Amsterdam and I could not hide my excitement. Thick layers of snow and walking through it carefully to go to school everyday was such a fun. We fstopped complaining about the cold. I spent hours together looking out of the window of my apartment, seeing the snow pouring down. Amsterdam had one of the harshest winters last year and the canals froze. We had snow till the end of March and people really got fed up with it but not us, myself and some of my classmates from countries who do not get to experience the snow. This morning took me back to that morning on 20th December last year when i was woken up from sleep with a loud thump on my door, Andrea yelling in excitement,'come out, it is snowing'. Within matter of few minutes all the girls were out of bed, bundled in coats and shoes and we were downstairs jumping into snow. The pictures were taken and excited phone calls were made back home to describe the magical experience of waking up to snow covered surroundings. I was with my six friends last year and today I stood all alone by my window absorbing this white beauty all around. I must confess I felt a bit lonely. I did not pick up the phone to call up my family, nor did I take any pictures. I just stood by the window and kept looking at it all without real reason. I did not know what to do with the snow, how to feel about it but that did not stop me from being part of it.

Nuria wanted to see the snow before heading home. Amsterdam had its first snow 3 days ago and hence her wish was fulfilled. I was happy for her. Last night on phone, she assured me that I would have my share of snow soon. I hoped that she would board the flight to San Salvador in the company of snow. She flew out this morning and as she was leaving, she left me behind with the first snow of the season.. my thoughts went out to Nuria and her long trip across the Atlantic to her home land. Have a safe trip my friend.

Last year, he came to Amsterdam in the middle of massive snow storm on 22nd December. The flights were delayed and the airport was in chaos. I kept looking out of the window helplessly, there was no sign of weather having mercy on us. I kept tracking his flight on my computer screen. The snow accompanied us every single day of his stay in Amsterdam and he was almost frozen to death thanks to not having proper warm clothes and shoes. We stayed indoors most of the time and watched the snow together. I will be lying if i say I did not think of him this morning while looking out of the window. The snow is still the same, the surroundings are beautiful but a lot has changed between us in this one year. I did not dare to call him in excitement of the first snow fall, in fact there was no real excitement this time with the snow, it was rather pensive and reflexive reception of it. I realized it is soon going to be 2 months of my arrival in Leuven. How am I feeling? Am I doing better? I do not know. I have a long walk ahead through the snow and the rain and the wind and cycle of seasons not just for one year but for a lifetime ahead. The snow will melt away and daffodils and tulips will bloom, summer will bathe me in sunshine and the life will continue. Will it make me feel better in some ways? I have no idea but all I can do is to wait and watch what lies ahead.

Lost in these thoughts, I lost track of time this morning... the snow covered ground, and the roofs of the houses, the dark night sky with the faint moon shining through it..I stood by the window cold and frozen by the first snow...

12 destinations on my journey of self healing.

2010-11-28T10:10:00.005+01:00

Not so long ago, on 24th August 2010, my life took an unexpected turn. I chose the path without realizing once on that path, I would never be the same me, nor will I have my loved ones with me. The decision was mine, I am not denying my responsibility irrespective of the situations which were created around me. It took me a while to realize what I have lost for ever and there was no going back. It was wiser, many suggested to move on the new path without holding hopes or trying to go back as that door was closed for me permanently.

The days that followed could only be described in terms of guilt, pain, suffering, self doubt and anger towards myself for being so stupid, weak, irrational, immature and selfish (all these objectives were used by most of my friends back home) and I soon internalized these objectives so sincerely that they became my identity, i started describing myself in the same words without even questioning the underlying assumptions friends had made about me and my actions.

I had to rediscover who I am? I had to find ways to look at my own self in the mirror again. I had to regain my lost confidence and self esteem. I was reduced to nothing but a weak woman who could not take an important step in her life. My mother, brother and a handful of friends still stood rock solid by my side. They did not understand my actions completely and they also felt shocked and surprised but their main interest was in my well-being and they provided me with unconditional support and love. It is because of them, I could walk this far on my solitary path.

I had to get out of Mumbai after the aftermath in my personal life which affected 2 families in profound ways. The other family has shut itself off from me and my family, almost as if they have built strong walls around them and no means of communication could penetrate through them. But on the other side, the skype turned out to be a new lifeline. Friends took turns to call me so that i would not feel alone and isolated. When I was rapidly going downhill, my close friend from medical school invited me to spend a week with her in China. Even amidst my non ending tears and sleepless nights, her words worked magic on me and I actually started to think about visiting her in Guangzhou in southern China. People love to have you around when you are in your happy, chirpy best but not when you are feeling worthless and useless. Before realizing it, I had booked my ticket to China and my visa application was in. I was lucky to get the visa without any troubles which was another surprise for me. There I was in Guangzhou from 20th to 26th September at my friend's home. She allowed me to cry, she stood there just in case I needed her, she listened to my unclear words amidst sobs for hours together and she helped me look at my own life in a different light. All the courage I had hold on to till that moment fell apart in her house and I fell sick and she nursed me through my sickness while she was taking care of her two little ones, 5 and 2 years old. She cooked for me, she urged me to eat, she worried about my health and she allowed me to be a vulnerable woman within the safety walls of her home. She knew I was flying off to Belgium next week and she wanted me to cry my heart out in her arms (something I had to hide in front of my mother). She left a beautiful handwritten letter for me on my suitcase and she asked me to leave all my pain and fears in the southern China sea before flying home.

Then I was in Leuven from beginning of October, with my friends in Amsterdam just across the border. I made new friends here who helped me to be strong and to start living everyday life again. The course work forced me to think about things beyond my personal loss. on 24th October, I met five of my close friends from the Netherlands in Brussels. We spent a day together. They came only to keep me company and to make me feel better. The day went well but when some of them had to go back to Amsterdam, I broke into tears like a stupid child at Brussels station, uncontrollable sobs. My friend from El Salvador stayed back with me for few more days in leuven and that night I could again cry my heart out in her arms. I was trying hard to hold back my tears but they seemed non ending. She is a wonderful psychologist, she has seen me suffer without sleeping a wink, she just stayed awake by my side encouraging me to talk and to cry as much as I would like. She silently kept offering me tissue paper and holding my hand in assurance. Another month passed by and I must say I already started feeling a bit better.

She went back to Amsterdam but made sure that in November she will bring me to Amsterdam, where I feel really at home. It also coincided with her last days in Amsterdam before flying to San Salvador. I was counting days and I came back yesterday after spending 4 fascinating days in Amsterdam, meeting friends, biking around the city, going back to my school, eating and laughing. I did not cry this time, rather i felt as light as a feather without any intoxicants. I slept so good all three nights as if I never had trouble falling asleep. The trip was more than what I could have asked for. I met another great friend from Mumbai who was visiting Amsterdam for work. Met another of my close friend from Bangladesh whom I saw after 4 years. The olliebollen and the Christmas markets, I came alive after a long time. On my train ride from Leuven to Amsterdam, I had this interesting idea.

I am going to spend 24th day of every month in a new place, in a way marking the day. It started with Guangzhou, Brussels and then Amsterdam. Each of these days has helped me feel better in its own ways. Most importantly these days, the cities and the friends clearly told me that I am not alone, I still have a few special people by my side even when most of the others have turned their backs and have walked away from me. They gave me hope and they helped me smile again. I owe them big time. Next month I will be falling into silence in a meditation retreat and then from January on, my agenda is free to make new plans. I am curious where is life going to take me each month and I am open to travelling to places as long as I don't need visa and it is affordable. I mean I would love to hide amongst penguins on Antarctica but I cant afford it right now. I am going to write about these experiences and that will be my way of giving something back to the places and the people that have offered me so much in my life. Its my tribute to them.

Soon, I will be posting my Amsterdam experience, it is still fresh on my mind and in a way I feel I left a piece of my soul behind in this city. Not long ago, he had consoled me when I lost my one pearl earing in Amsterdam. His words were 'you loved your earing and you love the city of Amsterdam, so think of it as if you left your precious pearl earing for the city that you adore. it is your little gift to the city and that way you have left a part of you behind for the city to cherish'. My pearl earing is at the bottom of one of those canals by now but this time, I left my soul behind in this city....

'Let go'

2010-11-21T09:21:00.002+01:00

I am reading a book 'The Tibetan way of Living and Dying' and it often talks about impermanence in life and power of letting go. It makes me reflect on my own life and I realize I have never been able to let go of things. Rather I almost get glued to them in some inseparable ways, be it people, places, experiences and feelings or for that matter things like dried leaves or old dried rose buds I have safely treasured in my books. I cant let go off anything and this manifests at its peak when it comes to worries. I can worry about anything in this world, I worry about my inability to sleep thinking of it as possible symptom of underlying depression, I worry about plant not growing well or rather dying and think it is my fault that I am incapable of taking care of a plant. I think I have always been this 'worrying' child. I remember one funny incidence from my childhood. I must be 5 or 6 and still not smart enough to understand beautifully synchronized mechanism in our throat that allows breathing and swallowing without mixing the two. So this five year old me one day refused to eat anything because i was afraid that I wont be able to breath while I am eating and that scared me of death. 15 years later in my physiology classes in medical school, I had a moment of realization that my worries about suffocating to death while eating were well thought of by the nature (god, for those who believe in our creation by god) and I also learned about those unfortunate patients who are at increased risk of suffocation to death where this natural mechanism fails.

What made me think of all this again. First, I am unreasonable when I have cold. I just cant deal with it as it makes me so uncomfortable but I personally feel, simple illness like cold should not affect my everyday life in any substantial ways. but in reality cold affects almost every aspect of my everyday functioning. To add to it, yesterday I tried to pack a bag for Amsterdam. I kept looking into my closet, into my bookshelf and kitchen closets and realized how much I have accumulated over and above what I had brought from home in last six weeks. They are piles of clothes, nicely folded and arranged, there are jackets and sweaters put up on hangers. Do I use all of them? No , not at all. I use the same clothes almost every week. Then why do I have so many clothes there? May be in case if I need them. What if it gets too cold and I need layers of sweaters and jackets? The fact is in Begijnhof, my apartment is so warm that I almost need no warm wear here but I am not going to be here for ever. In fact I am going to Nijmegen during cold gray months of winter and I dont even have a room to stay. The students from last year told us that the heating was so poor in many of those student apartments. There I go worrying again. I am without a roof and I know it is going to be cold and hence I need to keep all my warm clothes and also the shawls just in case there is a risk of freezing to death. So I looked at my wardrobe in despair but there was nothing that I could really throw away from it.

Then I looked at my summer clothes. The lovely dresses and skirts. Can I get rid of those things? They are not all new, some of them are 6 years old but I still fit in them. The problem these days is that the clothes dont get spoiled, thanks to the revolution in textile, detergent and washing machines industry. I cant throw away things unless they are not suitable for any more use by anyone, myself or the others. Hmmm, I should get rid of summer dresses but then that is not going to work. I am going to be in Italy from April to June and do I not want to flaunt my summer collection in one of the fashion meccas in the world? Well, lets not talk about my fashion quotient. It is terribly low, almost on the side of disaster but still I am not going to be bundled up in my long sleeved turtle neck shirts and layers of warm clothes in Italy. I need my clothes unless I am capable of buying new clothes for Italy. I dont think I can afford that. So even summer clothes are to stay and visit Nijmegen with me as there is no way they could be shipped to Padova before hand.

Let me take you to my kitchen. I call myself 'mistress of spices' just for the amount of spices that I have in stock with me. I love cooking Indian food and I do it everyday. So there is some utility of these spices unlike my clothes who sit in my closet like obedient students. But then, how much spice do I need to cook for myself over next 7 months? Not that much but then I have accumulated this wealth of spices over last whole year in Amsterdam. Every Indian friend who left Amsterdam, left their leftover spices in my safe custody and I was more than happy to receive those spices. I cant say no. So my accumulation of spices went sky rocketing and it took me a while to realize that it was impossible for me to use them all. I stopped accepting anymore spices but I could not find people who would like to have some of them rather than buying them in the market. Here I am with 4 glass bottles, 5 packets and few more plastic pets filled with different spices. And by now you know, I cant let go off them either. So, I have two bags of clothes and one bag of spices and cookware, the most important being my roti tawa and pressure cooker. I almost feel disabled without these few specialized utensils. But then there are little mugs and bowls, the mug which is the first thing every morning to touch my lips, I cant let him go... no, he starts my day with such a tender kiss. There are little candle stands and there are off course my potted plants. How can I leave them behind or throw them in one of those 'green garbage' bags. They have kept me company during my stay here, some of them have died and got sick, may be because they took on themselves all my troubles and worries and I am going to leave them behind with a cold heart.. no that is not going to happen. What about those roses, should I hang them upside down and dry them so that they can travel with me? And while all this was pounding in my head, the angel in Begijnhof brought me two plants with bulbs of purple hyacinths. I made her a deal that she would take them back when I leave on 17th and she kept hoping that they would bloom into flowers before I leave. Thank you angel.. I like this, I have a friendly ghost in Amsterdam and an angel in Begijnhof to keep me out of troubles...

So this is my story about getting attached to material belongings. Can you not guess how it must be with people I meet and friends I make. I can cry rivers of tear while saying goodbye to people, not always in public though. In public, I manage to put up a strong face, almost one of being in complete control of my emotions but beneath that is uncontrolled feeling of loss and pain and sobs. But very few people (even those who know me or believe they really know me) have any idea what I am at the core of my soul. Far from how I appear and how I get perceived. The book also talks about letting go off loved ones and relationships but how do I do it? Especially now, when I feel I am nothing without him while he is somewhere without wanting to say a word. How do I let go off him if he was never really with 'the unexpressed, unseen me'? How do I let go off him when I still hope to hear from him? How do I let go off him when almost a part of my existence got torn away from me and went with him as he drifted in the ocean of silence. Just like the tape on gift wrap paper sometimes takes away a big chunk of paper torn in ragged borders, ugly and painful and almost impossible to be healed? They taught us a surgical incison is easier to heal as it is planned incision with smooth borders taken along the line of natural lines of skin, fascia and underlying tissue. The problem with heartbreaks is that it is very rarely a surgical incision, they just tear open the tissue in most ragged ways and hence unlikely to heal to its normal self ever again. But if the heart muscles continue to pump blood even after scar tissue following heart attack, may be the woulds of heartbreak will also heal eventually.

Then come the lines from the poem Eternity by William Blake:

He who binds to himself a joy,
Does the winged life destroy;
He who kisses the joy as it flies,
Lives in Eternity's sunrise.

Looking for a partner..

2010-11-16T18:18:00.003+01:00

They say if you really wish hard for something and believe that you have it already, the universal forces align themselves in such a way that your wish comes true... I am sure many of you know what I am talking about. The secret of positive thinking.

Here is my little wish. Trust me, though the title sounds really loaded, it is a little wish. I have found this beautiful 2 bedroom apartment near the central train station in Nijmegen. Comfortable, cozy home with all the facilities. I need a house-mate to share this house with me. I do not know any person in my social world who needs an apartment in Nijmegen. I hope that the university housing department will be able to find someone interested. I need to write to the landlady by 2row evening 5.30pm the Netherlands time. The apartment is no doubt worth renting and I am sure they have many people lined up in case we refuse.

Since I dont have any other option.. here is my wish to the universe. I really like this apartment and i can already see myself living there cheerfully through the dark and cold months of January and February. I need a person willing to share this apartment with me. I am quite a friendly person, but I also respect people's need of space and privacy. I am easy to get along with people and i am sensitive to people's cultural ideas and lifestyles. I can assure you that once in a while, you might also get to try wonderful home cooked Indian meals which is an added bonus. I really really hope that in less than 24 hours, I would hear that there is another person willing to share this apartment with me for the three months...

Remember, i need to write to the landlady by 5.30pm dutch time..

Reflection..

2010-11-13T09:40:00.002+01:00

I am convinced that I have a major mind block. Whatever I learn or do should have some applicability in real world and that too in immediate future or it makes no sense to me and I loose my interest completely. Yesterday night while talking to the ghost and discussing one of the emails I received from a friend back home, I suddenly realized that this needs to change. I have to open my senses and soul to new insights and should not screen them on the criteria of usefulness or applicability before letting it sink in me.

The next realization was how much I have lost in terms of learning in last 31 years for this obsession of mine. It is no point taking account of all those losses but if i look at my recent time I have definitely lost some six weeks of great learning opportunity. I kept rejecting all those ideologies which made no sense to me as they felt alien in my country's context. I had convinced myself that I don't understand these theories and these philosophies and my mind wandered all around. I was always in the classroom but at the same time i was not there. One can imagine how frustrating it could be to sit somewhere where it makes no sense to you. I started feeling bored, lost and disinterested and I further moved away from the possibility of learning something new. What a vicious circle and I did not even realize it all this while.

I kept thinking about it as I went to bed last night. I agree lot has been lost but still I can prevent further losses. I have to make conscious efforts to open my mind and that is what I am going to do from today onwards. All the readers that I have thrown in the corner have already made it safely to my work table. I am not going to close the reader in first two paragraphs saying 'what the hell is this, I don't understand a word'. No, there wont be such a easy escape. I am going to sit with it till I can make slight gap in this tightly closed door between myself and the world of philosophy. I am going to befriend philosophy.May be there is a way to understand a philosophical writing or an argument, something that I do not know as if I don't have that pair of glasses to look at it. I remember how strange was the shift from epidemiology and bio statistics to social science research. But because I felt more at home with social science, it was effortless comfort and i never had to think about it. Now my initiation into philosophy and theology will definitely need some serious effort and I am going to do everything in my capacity to get little 'into' it.

I wondered for very long time if I have some sort of learning disability. May be learning disability is too strong and also a 'fashionable' word these days. I could say I have some different learning pattern. I could never master the art of taking notes. If I start making notes, I miss on lot of words that continue to fall on my ears and soon I have to give up taking notes. In my class here, my fellow classmates take such beautiful notes, their note taking styles could be a separate blog post with some beautiful pictures. I sit there listening to the teacher and I am good at it. The problem is not listening, the problem is what I find more interesting in my listening. For example, I am very good in picking up stories, I can repeat the stories that are told in the lecture exactly the way they were told. When these stories are narrated, my mind immediately starts visualizing those stories in three dimensions and that story becomes even more interesting. The people and the places come alive in front of my eyes as the words are entering into my ears. One could actually find me sitting in the class listening seriously with a faint smile on my face, smile comes from movie like visual inprint of the auditory inputs from the lecture which are unfolding in front of my eyes almost 'live'. So, I come home with bags full of stories but then if someone asks me what do I think about the argument in the class, I am lost. Ohhh no, I was suppose to pay attention to the argument and not the stories.. stories were just to get to the argument. I have missed the whole point. I dont know what the argument was, how was it supported and what was the critic of the argument? I feel so stupid and ashamed. I spent 6 hours there turning the told stories into visual stories and completely missed the point. I am not in a movie making class, I am trying to study ethical theories.... there I go hitting the bottom and feeling all the more stupid and jealous about all the philosophy and theology students around me who seem to have understood everything... I walk home with heavy feet and sad soul reminding myself ten times what a looser I am. May be this is why totto-chan was expelled out of the school at the age of five and I run the risk of meeting the same fate at the age of 31.

I need a teacher like totto-chan's new teacher. Someone who will guide me through the process of learning. I need the little letters in the mailbox like in Sophie's world, someone who will make me think in the right direction (and keep me away from making my own little films). I want to understand how to read and understand the theoretical argument and trust me I am a good student, so all these efforts wont go a waste. I seriously want to make friends with the theories and I am ready to make all the efforts needed. Is there any help I could get from this universe?

Celebration of life...

2010-11-12T21:56:00.003+01:00

A beautiful gray lotus that I know about indirectly is celebrating her 97th birthday tomorrow in the North of this country. I have not met her, I do not even know her name. It doesn't matter really as what matters the most to me is this lived experience of 96 years on this planet, having raised a family, being quite healthy and celebrating her birthday with the extended generations of the family which now includes a great grand daughter who is less than 2 months old. I can only imagine how beautiful this family gathering will be. To me that seems like truly accomplished life but then it also makes me curious. How does this gray lotus reflects on her life? what does she think about it? What would be her words of advise for lost young women like me? Her life has almost spanned over last century. She must have changed her own self in order to adapt to this ever changing world around her. Looking back over those 96 years, these changes can be quite profound but she survived and she blossomed and here is now her moment of celebration. I wish you a wonderful birthday, Senorita. May you cross 100 in health and satisfaction.

I am always fascinated by the elderly people for their having lived the life successfully, surviving the storms and disasters and moving on. I feel I lack that perseverance, that zeal for life and the patience and acceptance that comes along. I always desire the things that I lack, so it is obvious why these days my predominant thoughts are about becoming a 'gray lotus' myself. I feel happy when I am surrounded by them in Begijnhof, I keep observing them, I keep smiling at them and I keep dreaming about becoming one of them. I know that old age is not all that romantic, even when there are clear shades of romanticism in how I perceive old age. I have never lived with an elderly grandparent to have close experience of old age and the pain and suffering that it might bring along for the elderly person and the family. I have one distant grandmother who is I guess in her late 70s but I hardly know anything about her. My mother's maternal grandmother died at the age of 87 in 1980 and I have heard so many stories about this woman and her innate strength and beauty. The story of women in my family, particularly on my mother's side are all about these strong women with virtually absent men.. it is almost a women's world and this great grandmother of mine leads our battalion. My mother feels that I would have been extremely close to this great grandmother if she was alive and she also sees a lot of her qualities in me. I have often thought about documenting stories of this wonderful woman as narrated by my mother and I am going to take up this project seriously on my return home. In fact she could be my starting point to a project about women's experience in marriage taking me to the beginning of 20th century.

Another such beautiful gray lotus who is 93 years old lives in Northern Thailand. She is the mother of my Thai friend, Nid. This accomplished mother of seven daughters is very liberal in her thoughts (we were impressed about her openness to relationships and her advice to her daughters) and she loves watching wrestling. We all burst into laughter when she explained that she likes wresting because she can see these 'well built' men fight hard with each other. I can only imagine this woman sitting in her living room in front of the television set biting her teeth while watching these wrestling men. I always feel that I should have been somehow there, as a 'fly on the wall' in this household, way back then, where a man and a woman raised seven daughters. As my friend describes it, it seems that their house had freed itself from standard stereotypical gender norms. Nid remembers her father taking active interest in cooking and household work. This gray lotus lost her husband some 35 years ago, she now lives in their ancestral property and a farm in Northern Thailand with her three daughters, grandchildren and extended family. She has eight dogs to keep her company. This woman was our biggest source of inspiration while we were studying in Amsterdam. Every time Nid called her on phone, her mother would ask her about the day she would graduate. Her next words always were, 'do not worry about me, I wont die till you graduate and come back home with your diploma'. We all knew we had to get our diplomas as this woman was waiting for that moment. Nid did go back home with her diploma and I am planning my trip to Thailand just to spend a few days with this gray lotus and I am going to take my mother along.

I picked up this leaf on my way home from the school this evening. It has a beautiful design with the clear but still merging boundaries of brown, yellow and the green. We have a saying in Marathi 'Pikali Paane, Hiravee Manne'. Old age is described as 'dried leaves but the green souls'. Here is my leaf.. drying, turning brown but still having a beautiful green border. what better symbol I could get to pay respect to these gray lotuses.. this post goes out to all those gray lotuses who have made such a difference to the lives of the others by just being there...

Happy birthday grandma up there in the north...

White roses and gray lotuses

2010-11-09T21:47:00.003+01:00

This afternoon I received a bunch of beautiful white roses from a friend here in Leuven. It was indeed a surprise. I had to scratch my head to find a suitable vase or jar to keep those roses and that is when an empty juice bottle came in handy. I had bought some plants to keep me company in my early days in Leuven and unfortunately one has died, the other is alive but not very happy and the third one is actually fighting some strange sort of infection. I must say, I have not been taking good care of my little green angels and that hurts. I don't understand what is going wrong? Am I watering them too much? Are they not getting enough light? What could I do to make them feel better? Now the roses are sitting on my dining table and I smile every time I look at them.
My countdown in Leuven has already begun, I leave Leuven on 17th of December. By the time I started feeling truely 'settled' in Leuven, it was already time to look for a suitable accommodation for Nijmegen, my next academic destination. How excited I was to see the structure of this program arranged by three universities in three different countries. Now I realize how little thought I gave to this daunting task of uprooting myself from one place and moving to the next every three months. My way of exploring and experiencing any new place is to spend atleast an year so that I can see the entire cycle of seasons and changes in the environment and lives of people around. For this program, it is going to be autumn in Leuven, winter in Nijmegen and the spring in Paduva. I have to start winding up things here, sort out the belongings, plan goodbyes to my friends and contacts and I have about 5 weeks or little more to accomplish all this.
What I enjoy the most about my evenings in Leuven is the Tuesday evening at zen meditation when I am surrounded by gray lotuses and I absorb a lot of positive energy just by being around them. I am indebted to a friendly ghost in neighboring Netherlands for coining the term 'gray lotus' and letting me use it in my writings. The first gray lotus I met here has recovered beautifully after 2 weeks of illness and she bloomed so elegantly this evening, I could not help looking at her. I so hope that few years down the line, I will turn into a gray lotus and can pass on the same feeling to some young restless soul..
The movies and the books, the gray lotuses and cooking and off course my classes and discussions on reproductive health technologies make my day so action packed that I barely have time to mourn my losses. But being too busy to think about losses is not really having accepted the loss. I hope some day I will get there.. till then I am going to enjoy my days in Leuven, Nijmegen and Paduva..

Good night...

Dear Lisa

2010-11-04T23:41:00.002+01:00

Dear Lisa,

I do not know who you are? What you do? Whether you exist in real world in real sense or not. But as I learned about you this evening through the lecture of Prof. Paige, I felt an instant connection with you. That is why I decided to write to you.

Lisa, this is what I understood about you. You were an undergrad student from the United States (one of the case studies in their larger research project trying to assess the impact of studying abroad). You went to Germany, Bolivia, Australia and Antarctica during your January term student exchange programs. I do not understand what that means, nor do I care. But I definitely got curious about this young woman who chooses 4 continents for her exchange programs and that includes Antarctica. I must tell you I have been dreaming about visiting Antarctica since I was 13, now I am 31 but I am far from Antarctica. So I am damn impressed and I could actually imagine you studying icebergs and the melting glaciers and polar ice caps as part of your little project on Global Warming. You changed your professional career from history major to Nursing and that was due to experience in Bolivia. You wanted to learn something with the help of which you could be of help to the others. What other field one could choose other than health care to reach out to people in any corner of the world. I understand your choice perfectly.

Then comes a beautiful postal stamp from Vietnam showing a penguin from Argentina I guess.. and next to that flashes the following line.

'I bike to school because I want penguins to live'. Lisa.

My heart went all out to you. I could imagine baffled faces of your parents and friends who must have said something like, 'she has gone nuts since those crazy exchange programs she has started doing. Who wants to bike to school, its so old fashioned and not so cool'. Your parents must have got concerned, many must have criticized you or made fun of you but there was our Lisa biking to school to save the penguins. It was not just a project on global warming to complete the credit requirements but you made changes in your life style to reduce global warming.

Lisa, I almost feel your pulse. For last 8 years, I have been struggling to find myself a place in my own society where I can be comfortable and still be accepted by the family and the friends. I feel such a misfit so many times and I try hard to fit into what I should have been as an 'Indian woman' if I would not have undertaken all that crazy traveling not only within India but also beyond. All the traveling changed so many things about who I am, and how I think, but my dear ones almost get shocked and disappointed every time they see me undergo another change. They complain that I am not the same me anymore and I take it as my fault that I am not the same me. I did try hard to adapt myself to my own home culture but I could not. I don't know how to explain this but it is like that Chinese saying 'you cant step in the same river twice'. I cant disown the change that these exposures have brought out in me. They are now very much part of who I am, my substance of being. But I still want to fit in my culture, I seek that approval from my society. I do not like it when I am almost always described as that weirdo who keeps studying crazy things and traveling to dangerous and strange places and then she comes home and has such stories about all the places that she has been that it seems like they are coming from her own imagination and not the reality. I have just a few friends left back home now that I feel lonely, almost isolated from what was once my community. I do have wonderful friends across the globe though but I think you will understand how it feels when you are alone in your own family and your own little community.

So all this while I thought that my restlessness and my ever 'traveling/wandering self' was my weakness. They say 'I am not settled or i am not keen on settling down. I am without a pivot, a grounding'. I started internalizing these judgments and interpretations. But today listening to your story, I felt may be that is not true. Probably what I have is a strength called Intercultural skills which could be built into intercultural competence. I never thought about myself in such a positive way. Its ok to accept myself the way I am even if it means being alone with less friends or being criticized by my society as long as I am happy with my choices. What else do I need? Finally I am at peace with myself and I must thank you for this.

I will always remember you 'lisa with her bike' every time I uproot myself from a place and start on a new journey of exploration, a new country, a new culture, a new continent and new myself being born in me. I am going to accept that change in me rather than fight it.

So.....where do I want to go next?

A girl by the window:

2010-11-01T18:11:00.001+01:00

Not so long ago, Murali suggested a book to read. I was a second year medical student, struggling to find my place in the medical school system, feeling lost most of the time. The book was ‘Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window’ by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi. Murali was one of those rare teachers who always told his students not to be afraid of being ‘weird’ or not fitting in the system. He himself as a faculty never made a good ‘Fit’ in the system. But for me, he was always an inspiration. His office was a place for me to find some peace and be comfortable with myself.

Totto-Chan is this little girl in Japan, someone who is quite a rebel for her age and gender. She was expelled from the school at the age of five and that explains a lot. The reasons for her expulsion were her ‘strange’ questions to the teachers that the teachers could not answer or felt that they need not be answered. One teacher complained that sitting in the classroom, she was talking to a little bird sitting on the window which disturbed the entire class. The girl really did not care about being expelled from the school, probably she did not even understand what it meant but her mother must have gone nuts. The story of Totto- Chan absorbs the reader completely. I think each one of us, at least in parts finds his or her own self in this little girl, those facets of our personality which we had to burry deep down somewhere in the name of growing ‘up’ and becoming mature person. Though they say it is a book for children, I feel, it is equally enlightening for the adults to understand a child’s world. I fell in love with Totto-Chan and her new teacher Mr. Kobayashi and a beautiful relation of friendship shared by this master and the pupil; the relationship that shaped the life of Totto-Chan and many ‘difficult’ students like her.

I have been blessed with many such teachers in every walk of my life. I was not typically labeled as a ‘trouble’ child but I was always very shy, low in self esteem and confidence, unable to speak in the class or make friends. My inability to make friends got better only in my mid-twenties. One might argue how can you be friends with your teacher? I understand the argument but really I can’t explain my relationship with these teachers. At some point in time, I stopped analyzing it and just was happy that I had them in my life. They stood by me in thick and thin times; they made me believe in my capacities. When I was too weak to take a step, they pushed me hard but they were right there by my side to keep me out of danger. I was protected in every sense. I would not have reached so far without these wonderful souls and their trust in me and all the encouragement they have provided me with over years.

Sitting here in my apartment in Begijnhof, I took a lot of pictures yesterday through the window which is right opposite my study table. It is a beautiful, large window and I was composing different frames with the sky, the clouds and the trees. I realized it is not only a window in physical sense, but it is also a window to my life which opens out to a larger world view. I was intrigued by this window and its meaning and function in my everyday life. The window that brings in sunlight, the window that lets the breeze in, the window which helps you see the changing colors of autumn, the window which gives you glimpse of a moonlit night. As long as I remember, my study table was always by the window and it always faces some trees. I have spent innumerable hours looking out of the window, watching the birds building nests or squirrels running around. In Mumbai, sitting by the window on a rainy day is an experience in itself and the way those water drops trickle down and form small streams on glass windows is a piece of art in its own ways. I have made multiple trips on Mumbai-Poona route by train during monsoons just to explore the green celebration throughout the mountain ranges of Sahyadri. All I needed to feel a high was a seat by the window in ordinary train compartment and a cup of coffee. Small pleasures of life! I am someone who always wants to get a window seat on a flight and my moment of happiness is watching the transition from the night into dawn on the horizon from the sky where you see the blue sky with the stars and the east slowly breaking out into orange red colors of dawn simultaneously, in one single frame. I stay awake just to experience that majestic play of the dark and light. Windows and faces popping out of the windows always have a story to tell and I am someone who is extremely intrigued by these stories. The only constraint is that I may not always have a chance to understand the story.

My window in Sawar looked over to a solitary tall tree, I always felt he was as lonely as I was but we both kept company to each other and we were happy in our new found comfort zone with each other. I fell asleep every night looking at the same tree and I woke up to see it standing patiently right there as if waiting for me to wake up. We had our silent ways of communication with each other. Looking at that tree, I always thought about the story of the last leaf, where the painter died after painting the last leaf on the wall in such a way to create an illusion that the plant was still alive with its last leaf on. It gave hope of life to this ailing girl on the other side of the window. Isn’t that a famous story? My window in Meer en Vaart, it not only gave a view from above (I was on the fourth floor, the highest level I have lived up till now), but it allowed me to enjoy a feast of colors in the sky every evening. I have hundreds of pictures of sky at the dusk in Amsterdam. My classroom in AMMA gave me a view of the canal and swans floating majestically and just a few blocks away were the other ‘famous’ windows of Amsterdam. Now my world is through this window of Begijnhof and the window gives me a reason to smile each day. She makes me feel like Totto-chan, she reminds me to be a Totto –Chan in my own ways, not being afraid and inhibited, a woman not afraid of dreaming and not giving up in her efforts to make those dreams a reality. A woman who accepts herself with all her strengths and weaknesses and a woman who is not concerned about what the world has to say about her. So this one is dedicated for Totto-Chan in me and my window to the world..

Not everything was terrible about my day afterall..

2010-10-20T20:27:00.003+02:00

How does one feel when somethings that you do not expect to happen, actually happen without you even noticing it? Well, I broke into tears and that too at the situation which is so ordinary.

Here is the story. From the day I arrived, I knew that my refrigerator was not working. I adjusted the thermostat and hoped that he would come alive but he did not. I noticed that the door doesn't close properly but the gap in the door was not sufficient enough to keep the inside of the refrigerator so warm. I knew that the fridge was old and not really functioning. I reported it to the housing authorities and they said they would look into the matter. Meanwhile people suggested me their own ideas, the best one was to store my food outside the window at nights as outside temperatures were much lower than the fridge. My fridge almost was like an incubator, no wonder the milk got spoiled, the yogurt grew mold, the bread, the vegetables grew fungus on it. I stopped buying food, I could not store much cooked food. I had to throw away so much food stuff that it really became a problem. Last night, I wrote another email to the housing authorities but really did not expect anything to happen. I was mentally preparing myself to live with a dead refrigerator till December and actually freeze my food under the snow outside.

I began to cook the dinner and realized that I cant open the fridge anymore. It took me a few seconds to realize it is not my old fridge. It doesn't have a broken door. I opened it and there it was my brand new fridge with a freezer compartment. Perfectly working.. i broke into tears.. i was so happy that I kissed the fridge.. the thoughts flashed in my mind of all the food that I can buy and store without worrying about it getting spoiled. All the food that I can cook and all the dinners I can host. I love that thought.. I went through a phase of Jubilation. So not everything today was terrible. My day ended with the happy news of new functional refrigerator. That is the lesson learned. Priya, things are not that bleak. Trust in yourself and things will turn out fine..

The day that brings the blues back where they belonged

2010-10-20T18:04:00.002+02:00

There are some days that are difficult to deal with, like for example today. Since Morning, nothing really went as planned. I remember distinctly waking up this morning with a smile and wishing myself a fascinating day. No breakfast as I had no time, no ingredients (thanks to my refrigerator which does not function) and I had to be at the police station at 8am. Well, the concerned officer was not there even at 8.35am and I was asked to come back again. I said to them 'No problem' but I know it was not a good start. Brought a Croissant on my way home and I started walking down to school. I realized I went to a wrong classroom but I was not the only one. A number of us went to a wrong classroom, as there was some miscommunication. Again walked in other direction in the rain to get to the right classroom. The class as usual, did not make much sense but the releif was that there were others who shared the same feelings. I was not the only one. Since when did I start finding comforts in the fact that I was not the only one, only one to have lost my way, only one to not have understood anything. I have always been the only one who will do things which no one else would want to do. This shift has been quite a recent phenomenon, not something that I particularly like.

I had to take my laptop to the PC lab of the university. It seems my laptop has viruses that are being circulated in the university internet system. Well my indian software for virus threats says everything is fine but it is not acceptable to the network security here and I get blocked out of internet connection every day. It is impossible to live in this world without internet especially when I feel I am dependent on this world of friends that are not with me but could be in different parts of the world. people that I can turn to when I am low and depressed. The thought of not having internet always produces a panic attack in my mind. It is still raining, I carry my laptop to the Heverlee campus, it is heavy but I am optimistic of getting help. I have had four email exhanges already with the PC lab and they were very open and clear that I could bring my PC in anytime during work hours.

I almost felt as if I was accessing health care and my experience proved it correct. I go there and the man at the desk informs me that I have to leave the laptop at the lab for a few days. How many days, that he doesnt know, infact he asked me a very philosophical question. 'can you predict future?'. I said 'No', his answer was 'neither can I'. He asked me if I had taken a back-up of all my files. I had not. I wondered why he could not tell me that I had to take a backup of my files and bring the PC to them with the mental preparation of leaving it there for days that no one knows. Wonder how an university center is suppose to work his way through, when you dont have your PC with you. I could not 'admit' my laptop in this hospital and I decided to come other time when I was sure I wanted to do this.

Is this not how my patients feel? First of all, they come to hospital, only when the pain is unbreable, troubles are beyond their capacity to deal with. They come to us and we bombard them with so many questions which are very obvious from our point of view but they leave the patient feeling stupid about themselves. For example, I wondered why i could not think of taking a back-up of my files, Why I did not anticipate the fact that I may not get 'over the counter service'? Then my patients go back, as they are not sure they are really to undergo what the doctors are suggesting. They want to consult their family before making a decision and we know that in most cases the patient is not going to come back. I brought my virus infected computer home, I removed existing antivirus, I installed free trial versions of antiviruses suggested by friends. That is what my patients do. They go for natural cures, home remedies, alternative remidies, anything that they feel is in their capacity to try out. As I am blogging, the new antivirus is throwing out viruses as pop up windows. I can almost feel that my laptop is on pain. I do not know what else to do. I am doing what I think I can do with the best interest of my computer but is that really the best thing to do? Or I am causing more harm to the computer? Woww, i could write a paper on this dilemma.

On my way home, I got lost in the forest. The rain, the heil, the streams of muddy water, cold, muddy, slimy path, my sports shoes were all soaked in water. The white shoes turned red, entered inside and I could feel my toes going numb. I was cold, i was sad and unsure. My every effort to get out of the forest confused me further and it took a while before finally I could make it home, tired, cold, and ready to collapse. I was hungry, i needed something warm to feel better. I made myself hotchocolate and decided to talk to my mother. My mom, who has been doing great progress in terms of emotional wellbeing, today suddenly sounded very low. In fact she broke into tears on phone and I could feel her vulnerability. She went through the same thoughts all over again, the self blame, guilt, pain, dispair, fear and worries about my well being and future. She hold herself responsible for certain events and failures in my recent life. She was trying hard not to cry. She has been fighting her urge to call him and his family hoping to open channels of communication. I kept consoling her, I kept assuring her I am ok and that we all would be fine. Her only comment was.'If I struggle so hard to keep up the spirits, i cant imagine, what you must be going through. You lost the love of your life and you are in a foreign land. How Could I do this to you? How could I be the person reponsible for your pain?'. I did not know what to say. I did not want to say anything as my voice was already choking. But I wanted to tell her that the fact that she is by my side in every life situation and that she feels my pain, that itself is my source of energy and hope. Yes I have lost something very precious in my life but the life still needs to be lived and it is better to live it happily and in an optimistic way. I cant give up living and flourishing. She cant give up being herself. It is tough time for all of us, not just me and my family but also for him and his family. But there are reasons why we all had to suffer and the reasons may not be apperent now. I tried to leave her on a happy note but the fact is, I am back to where I was.. the point when everything looked dark and gloomy. I wanted to reach out to friends and tell them I have hit the low once again, but something stopped me. I cant keep bothering them every now and then. I cant depend on external sources of hope. At some point of time, I need to regain my own strength and self esteem. I need to fight my battles alone as I created these in first place. I am going to let this feeling of blues sink in, i want to see how low I can hit the bottoms. I am not going to fight my emotions anymore. I am going to feel them fully.

I have nothing else to say except that I want to overcome all this pain and loss.. i want to live again. How and when I do not know but I am open to life.

My first beer in Belgium

2010-10-19T22:48:00.002+02:00

Some days are beautiful and interesting, like for example today. Lot of little moments of fun and also self realization. Well the day started with rain, interestingly, I do not hear rain in my room unless the windows are open. I always relate to sound of rain than seeing the rain. So i walked out of my room happily at 8.45am for school and only when got onto the street, I realized it was raining.

The class today was in Institute of Philosophy. Sometimes I get lost looking at the technological advances in the classrooms here. The overhead projector in its modern avatar, fancy LCD projector, beautiful green colored glass board for traditional writing with white chalk, but this blackboard or lets say green board is also with technological upgrade, one can slide it as per requirements. Today's classroom did not have a cross but had a wash basin instead and I kept wondering if it is expected that students would need to splash water on their face to remain awake and alert. My friend explained to me very seriously that the facility of washbasin is for the professor to wash his hands after the class or he would go home with hands covered in chalk. I somehow never thought of that. The class today was by a philosophy research professor, these were the terms he described himself in. He talked about 'is there a death after life?' . Yes we discussed this huge ethical, moral question about death and life for 3 hours and my brain was ready to die. In the middle of the class, suddenly we started hearing a strange beeping sound and the professor had to go and slap a small machine which looked like a small screen. He said it was essential to let the technology know that the class is still on and it is sensitive to motion and not the sound. I remembered some of my funny experiences in hotel rooms/bathrooms where the lights were sensitive to the body movements, where i was in the dark if i did not make enough physical movements. But I was never in a class where the lights would go off in the absence of motion.

But this is not the main highlight of my day. 2day was a day of great food cooked by a friend, someone who hates vegetarian food but cooked only vegetarian for me. It felt wonderful to be treated so well, with so much concern and care. I met few more people, all students off course, a girl trying to figure out how to decalc the water kettle, a Belgian boy who dreams to speak Spanish like a Spaniard and who feels that taking salsa classes is a best way to get closer to your girlfriend, another Belgian guy who is studying criminology who is vegetarian by choice against unfair trade practices in meat industry in Europe. While we are having food and enjoying talks, the fire alarm goes off and we had to be out in the open. That was quite funny i must say and cold to stand outside while the maintenance men were trying to figure out if there was really any fire.

After all this lovely food, I had to go for meditation. There was no way I could concentrate on breathing and inner peace. My stomach was full with great food, my body sleepy and thoughts hovering over life and death discussion from the morning along with plans to visit police station 2row morning for registering myself as a foreigner in Belgium. Trust me, I dont think I really meditated even for 2 minutes today. I was all over the world, from India to Bangladesh to Europe to China, all in mere one hour. Thanks to my ever wandering mind which refuses to sit quiet. But the day still had more surprises to unfold. I made few more aquentances in meditation class 2day. I think people in this city are very warm and friendly. Each person who comes to my meditation center has such a warm, loving, happy smile that sometimes I find myself staring at their smiles. I want a smile like that.. that is not a bad goal at all. I do zen meditation to achieve a happy and warm smile which comes from within.

As we were getting ready to leave the meditation center, Ii was told that my meditation buddies go for a drink every third Tuesday and I was more than welcome to join them. I was impressed with the thoughtfulness of going for a drink 'after' the meditation. I spontaneously agreed to go with them without realizing 2day was the third Tuesday. A drink after meditation was quite an interesting idea for me, I could not say no. But what was most interesting is that I agreed to go out for a drink with people that I met today. That is strange. My friends in Amsterdam are going to kill me for this as I always avoided going to bars with them. In fact last Thursday I to go out for a drink with my classmates in leuven and here I was today, all eager to experience the beer after meditation. May be I wanted to figure out if alcohol has different effect on one's mind if you have been practicing meditation. Guess what most of my drink companions today were practicing meditation for at least 8 years or more.

We walked to a beautiful restaurant just outside Begijnhof, six of us together. I kept wondering about my comforts with this Belgian group that I agreed to go for a drink with them. My decision was great as I felt glad to have joined them. The group consciously spoke in English so that I could be involved. They made sure I had something to talk to them about. I learned some interesting work that some of them are involved in. When I told them about my weekend to understand biblical references through museum M with the help of my anthropology professor, one of them suddenly said, could you help my daughter understand Hindu gods and goddesses, she has to write an exam about them soon and she says she cant remember the details of each of them, thanks to the large no of gods and goddesses that we have. It turned out that this girl is studying inter-religion communication. I happily agreed to help her as I know how it feels when you are the only one in the class who doesn't know who is Samaritan, who is the 'neighbor' and who is St Augustine? I am terrible in talking to people that I do not know. I am very shy in social contexts, can sit there like a dumb person or at the least I can say as a most boaring person. Today i could effortlessly talk to this group and I kept wondering if it is really me. Trust me it was even before the drinks arrived, so I was not drunk. I ordered my first Belgian beer in Leuven. I enjoyed my first beer and the great conversations that went along. I offcourse got a little lost on my way home in the rain and the darkness but I was happy. I felt a little bit alive again, lets say 1/1000th part of me came alive. but nonetheless it gives hope and I think hope is all I have right now to hold on to.

The question on my mind still is was it really me coming alive or the beer after meditation that did the trick? But may be it is not essential to analyze every aspect of life. I am going to bed with a happy heart and a smiling face hoping that i will sleep well tonite and eventually will have a warm smile on my face for rest of my life irrespective of circumstances I create for myself.

Goodnight...

Seemolanghan.. 'stretching one's limits'

2010-10-17T22:47:00.002+02:00

Today we celebrate Dashehra/Dasara/Vijayadashami, a Hindu festival celebrated in different names in different parts of the country. Though the ways to celebrate and reasons to celebrate this day could be different in different regions, the themes are quite similar. It indicates the victory of the 'good' and right over the 'bad/evil' or wrong. My friends in ethics, please excuse me for using the words like good and bad and the right and the wrong without qualifying the meaning understood by me.

I remember little rituals I used to perform in the childhood on this particular day. We worship the goddess of knowledge and this is considered an auspicious day to start the schooling for a child. I used to arrange by book shelfs very carefully around this time and pray for knowledge and wisdom. Interestingly it is also a day that we worship weapons. There are mythological stories behind all this. I cant forget walking into the anatomy dissection hall in medical school, the day before Dashehara where our instructor had spread out all the small weapons, surgical tools that we use to dissect the bodies on a clean table amongst the bodies. There were flowers and there we had a small worship. We were told that these instruments are going to be our weapons (I would prefer the word tools over the weapons) to reduce the pain and the suffering of our patients and we had to pray to them asking for wisdom to use these rationally and wisely. It was not an exact place I would have expected to have this kind of Pooja. Anatomy dissection hall gives a very different feeling of dispair and emptiness of human life, though one could also feel very humble and grateful towards life and the beautiful synchronization of body and mind when we are alive. One could feel futility of things that we give undue importance to, while being alive as all that we should be caring about is already there in a functional live body. Anyways.. lot of these memories were triggered about the day, while explaining the significance of the day and some of these rituals to my anthropology professor. Though we ended the discussions soon, the thoughts lingered on.

One aspect of the celebration this day is an event called 'Seemolanghan' Seema is limit or confines and langhan is a verb which means 'to cross' or, 'to stretch beyond'. This was more valid in old days where each village had its own limits clearly defined structurally. On this particular day people were encouraged to cross the limits of the village, their little cosmos. We are talking about the world, when each village was self sufficient, when there were no means of transport or telecommunication. Most life used to unfold within the confines of the place where you are born. But it was known that getting out of your comfort zone, exposing yourself to world beyond what you have created around you could bring about potential growth. When not taken in literal sense it could also mean crossing your own limits, not in terms of physical or geographical space but the limits that we create upon ourselves. The borders or confines that restrict us, it could be due to your gender, your culture or just your own thinking process.

When I look at my life, the limits were not imposed on me from outside. Even being a woman which could have restricted my opportunities, never really affected my life. But what limited me the most was my own pessimistic attitude towards life, my own nature to worry excessively about the future or to mule too much over the past. It is me who limited my potential to grow as a person and a professional. So if I have to stretch my limits or cross my borders, it has to be the confines imposed by my 'very being' on myself. I need to change my thought process. I need to learn from my past and live for the present without getting stressed about future which is unclear and unformed. It is me who has made myself who I am, this sad, depressed woman who has lost faith in life and in goodness in general. I don't see the reason strong enough to justify my negative outlook towards life, I have ample opportunities, brilliant support of family and friends, great teachers and a healthy body. I should not be complaining at all as I have more than what I could have asked for. But it has become a habit to think negative, to worry and I have internalized it in the name of being practical and grounded. I am not talking about being wishful but at the same time I don't always need to think about problems.

So here I am, after a stupidly simple and tasteless dinner on this festival when most Indian families had an excellent feast. I am determined to cross my limits not just on one particular day in a year but slowly and steadily every day, making a slow but definite change in my thinking process, life situation and hence on the situation of others who are closely related to me. I want to believe in myself and believe in my dreams once again and take a leap of faith at life, in life for living my life my way.

Warm greetings for Dashehra to all of you...

My happy (Indian) meal

2010-10-13T20:40:00.002+02:00

Looking at my blog, one might feel that all I am interested or concerned about in life is food. Well, there are other things that I am concerned about, but I agree food somehow tops the list. I had a terrible dry cheese sandwich this afternoon for lunch, thanks to the bus strike in Leuven. One could clearly see it on my face that I was not at all happy and satisfied with my lunch. I am aware of the fact that large number of people in this world, including in my country do not get one meal a day. I am not criticizing the food, I value food and I am grateful for what I get. But I like to feel good with my food. Ok, enough of food talks.

The class this morning, another theory, another professor, yet another classroom and yes me sitting in the class dozzing in and out of the discussions. I am there and very next moment I am not there. I think some of my classmates have already recognized my mental status but I am afraid that today's professor could see me yawning a couple of times. That doesn't feel nice. I kept wondering about things that I need to take care of. These included some important phone calls back home, some critical follow-ups in financial matters, some emails that I needed to respond to and off course the big question about accommodation in Nijmegen. The class on reference manager could barely make any difference in my disinterest. But I was thrilled to receive a confirmation of my professor's visit to Leuven. I am really looking forward to it. Next week, a very close friend of mine is going to come over and stay with me in Leuven for four days and I can not hide my excitement about it. We have so much to catch up on and she has to teach me how to make salads and I have to teach her how to make dal. To add to it all, on Sunday the 24th, I am meeting four of my close friends from Amsterdam in Brussels. I am so lucky to have such wonderful people around me. These are the friends who make the life livable inspite of all the hardships. Even my classmates now, though we know each other only for a few weeks, are already trying to reach out to each other and help. 2row we all are meeting for dinner and I am sure it is going to be fun.

I walked home through a beautiful park, need to figure my way there alone as today I was guided by someone. But I liked the park, it reminded me of the forest around the lake of meer en vaart in Amsterdam. I was wondering what to cook for dinner and then somehow I felt inspired to cook dal and rice. In only an hour, I cooked perfect rice and amazingly tasty dal. Well most indian women probably will cook 3 or 4 more dishes in one hour for family of four. But given my limited cooking ability and energy, I was impressed with myself. I was so inspired by the cooking that I took pictures and here they are for the world to see. 'my dal and rice', a photographic evidence. The fact that I felt like cooking makes me happy as they could be very early symptoms of return of general interest and zest in life. It is like daffodils coming out after cold winter and you know the spring is not far. I ate my dinner 'zen' way, feeling each grain and each ingredient. I do want to feel alive again, I do want to be that blade of grass which peeps out of its bulb once the slow melts away. I want to bloom into flowers and i want to smile at the world.

The church bells are telling me that it is 9pm, time for me to go to bed.

Good night.

Levinas and 'the face'

2010-10-12T22:19:00.003+02:00

Today was quite a day, my first encounter with moral theology and moral theologian was profound. We learned about Emmanuel Levinas and his theory of responsibility from one of his close friends and disciples. The professor teaching the course is renowned scholar on Levinas and he is also involved in teaching in Poone and Bangalore back home. He had so much energy and enthusiasm to teach that I was quite stunned. He took his class in a traditional way, no power points, a black board and a chalk and off course loads and loads of stories. The stories were about his personal interaction with Levinas and though the stories initially felt out of place, by the end of five hours we realized how the stories actually helped us get glimpses of levinas as a person beyond his philosophy. In fact at some point of time sitting in the class, i felt as if i was time to go to bed, a perfect environment, a warm class (outside it was freezing cold), warm and laughing professor and his interesting stories. I did manage to keep awake through most of his lecture. I must confess that most of his talk was not just a theory but something that each one of us could reflect upon in terms of our personal lives and it did become a bit confronting in context of my recent life events. But as another friend later said to me, that is what philosophy is all about, it hits you somewhere within. I will remember the professor of this morning every time i look at a 'Face' as we spend quite a lot of time talking about the face. My worldview towards facebook also has undergone a profound change after the face discussion. How lightly we take the other, how easily we reduce the other to its visible form and how important it is to let the other speak through its form. There were many beautiful one liners in the class today, I should have written them down.

Well after a slump in my mood after levinas impact on my mind, I had another adventure this evening. Today was my first day at zen meditation program. I met 6 zen practitioners who were all very friendly. I realized how difficult it is for me to sit in a correct posture. My back, legs were hurting as I was trying to concentrate on my breathing. The teacher told me not to struggle, to let go and that is the key to start living zen way, to wash dishes in a zen way and to do a laundry in zen way. I know I have a long way to go but I am glad that I have taken first step towards letting go and I will keep working on it till I can really let go. I am looking forward to meeting them all again next tuesday.

My classmates right now are still lingering over Levinas, worrying about tomorrows class or even the case studies which are due submission soon. I like the mad email exchange is going around. I am not going to read Levinas or the articles for tomorrow. I think I am going to go to bed and fall asleep thinking about some of the stories I heard this morning in the class.

Good Night world..

The cold, the icecreme, zen meditation and theorie in Moral Theology

2010-10-11T18:23:00.001+02:00

The title of the blog describes more or less my day today. A friend of mine yesterday explained to me some basic facts about sleep hygiene and I decided to follow her suggestions. For last year or more, I have been having great troubles in getting six to eight hours of good night sleep. I have been dreaming a lot and these dreams I clearly remember on waking up . 80% of these dreams are scary, dark and disturbing. I wake up in the morning feeling exhausted. With the help of my friend, I am trying to work on this. I think this one year is dedicated to address my long standing problems, for example the problem of sleep, feeling low and depressed or feeling restless and unsatisfied with myself. I went to bed after midnight and was very tired to wake up this morning, really did not feel like getting up.

The temperatures today were expected to drop to 4 or 5 degree C. I was already thinking about it. Do I have enough warm clothes? Would I be ok? That is my another problem. I worry too much about everything under the sun. I was not even sure what I am going to make for breakfast. I like to have a good healthy breakfast but it has not happened yet. Either I do not have the appetite or I am too tired to cook something early in the morning. I left home without breakfast. It was not that cold outside. I had expected worse. I had to pick up my rental contract from the housing office and the lady there was really kind to get me the documents immediately. I needed it this afternoon to open the bank account. While talking to the lady at the housing department, I asked her about Zen meditation center in University Parisch. It is interesting that only when I have lost my physical and mental health completely that I am thinking of restoring it through every possible means. It is regular exercise, healthier food, regularized sleep cycles and off course meditation to calm my mind down. I am not one of those who gets hyper about something just transiently. Once I take something on my mind, I follow it up relentlessly. I spent time googling about zen meditation center last evening, only to find out that there is a center at 2 minutes walk from my house but then I noticed that this information was last updated in 1992. To be honest, I did not have any hope that this information would still be valid and that I could get in touch with the concerned person. But sometimes things happen when you do not expect them to happen so easily. The lady at the housing was kind to search it for me on the university page. She had to struggle a bit but there she was and she did find a small article with the contact details of the lady that she knew for sure as resident of my area. The phone call was made and the two ladies spoke to each other in Dutch about this new Indian student who wants to be part of meditation group. I was overwhelmed with that gesture. I really did not expect it to be so easy. The elderly lady who is practicing meditation agreed to meet me this evening so that she could orient me a bit before actual meditation hour tomorrow evening.Was I dreaming with open eyes. It turns out that the person whose contact details I had found in web update of 1992 is still actively involved in this meditation center and I will be meeting him tomorrow. In my excitement I forgot to inquire if the old lady speaks English and as it turned out, she could not. So we had this great interaction of 15 minutes this evening when we could not speak or understand each others language and she was trying to get across the techniques of meditation. I just loved the old woman, she looked so calm and relaxed. Had a lovely warm smile, she would speak endless in dutch, followed by 'I am sorry I cant speak English'. I kept saying 'Go on,Do not worry, I am trying to understand what you are saying'. I was just looking at the lady, trying to absorb her into me. I never have had opportunity to be with my grandparents. I wonder how it feels to have a loving grandmother in whose arms I could be myself. I could cry my heart out, i could be comforted. I was almost tempted to give this lady a big hug but then stopped myself thinking it may not be culturally appropriate. I really want to grow into a happy, accomplished old woman, a loving grandmother who could be friends with her grand children. Who is not deterred by her chronological age as she has this almost child like enthusiasm to absorb and live life, experience new things and laugh at herself. That is the kind of woman I want to be, who wont repent on her death bed thinking she should have followed her dreams and small desires, whether it was to visit arctic region to see the Arora Borealis or to gulp a big chocolate pastry.

Well, these two ladies made my day today. The theoretical discussion was interesting but i am still struggling to understand what is theology and what is virtue? what do we mean when we talk about morality? I know there are no easy and quick answers to any of those questions and I will slowly have to answer them for myself. On my way home, to celebrate my happiness, I ate a scoop of chocolate ice creme.

Its time to go to bed. I have not done my readings for tomorrow but I am feeling tired. Good Night world (well at least part of the world which is suppose to surrender itself to the peaceful world of sleep goddess)

I cooked perfect rice..

2010-10-10T23:24:00.000+02:00

Every new place I go to, I need to befriend the cooking systems there. Being a vegetarian in most parts of the world is quite challenging and here I am in Europe where a vegetarian meal is mostly french fries or mashed potatoes. The best stove for me is ordinary gas operated stove which has visible flame of fire, something that I can see and adjust. The flame on which I can roast papads and puff my phulkas. The hardships to be pally with high tech induction stove in my apartment in Amsterdam is a story in itself and I would elaborate on it sometime later.

Currently I have a hotplate like induction stove. Has a knob like adjustment with range from 1 to 3. At one, there is no heating and at three, it heats too much and too fast. So, all my attention while cooking is on adjusting the knobs. Last five days, I had given myself a task of cooking perfect basmati rice, with each grain separated. Guess what, I could not come even close. I either burnt it, or it remained half-cooked or it became Indonesian sticky rice.Though I studied physics, I forgot the simple fact of life that once food is cooked and the stove is turned off, the induction heat would continue for a while. That is how I burn my food, by keeping the pot on the hotplate after the food is cooked.

This evening, I treated myself with a movie. Eat Pray Love. This is my favorite book. May be because I can relate to it. I was very excited about the movie and what better thing to do on Sunday evening rather than watching a film. It is definitely better than reading ethical theories. Sitting in the movie hall and watching Julia Robers eat great food in Italy, it was no wonder that I came home hungry. At 11pm, best thing to cook is some rice and dal and that is what i did and guess what I used my experience of last five days to avoid the mistakes I have been doing while cooking rice. The proportion of water and rice is now almost perfect, thanks to trial and error method of last five days, the heat adjustment is now almost acheived and I have learned most important lesson that is to turn of the heat five minutes before, so that the rice cooks perfectly while the pot sits on the hotseat and it doesnt get burnt. Viola... I think thats what they say here often.. something that means perfect.. or excellent or fabulous. That was my reaction when I opened the lid of the pot after 10 mins and the perfectly cooked basmati rice was smiling at me and the flavour of it went straight to my brain making me feel all the more hungry..

Now after mastering the art of cooking perfect rice with hot plate, i want to take up the challenge of trying chapatis.. what say guys?

What does one do when they are not at their best?

2010-10-09T18:00:00.000+02:00

It has been a real long time since my last post (off course there are only two posts there). The last one was when I said goodbye to him at the Schiphol airport,I was sad but I knew he was with me. Now I don't know whether he is with me, whether he will ever be with me and I am trying to recollect the broken pieces of 'my dream' and make something out of it. That explains the title of the blog, right?

I run away from the circumstances when I am not at my best. I ran away on 23rd of August. I am still trying to understand why I ran away even when I know there is no point thinking about it. But that is how mind works, trying to tire itself behind things and situation which should be just left unattended.

The other thing I often do when I am not in my very best is to uproot myself from my current environment and go some place new, try and start a new chapter of life. That is what precisely I am doing right now and this blog is suppose to tell that story.

SO, Groot Begijnhof is my new address. I am sitting by the window with the view of the old church. The best thing I like about my place is the church bells, I cant describe their sound in words, it is something that needs to be experienced. My surroundings date back to 12th century, it is really old structure, old paved paths, old fountains and nice green gardens. The apartments though old from outside are renovated from inside and one can lead a comfortable life. That is what I am planning to do. A friend of mine says, 'Groot Begijnhof is a place to rest and meditate'. I think I need both and in last 5 days that I have been here, I have done neither of it.

I go silent, almost withdraw into a shell when I am not in my very best. I can hide in my room for days together, almost live in a soundproof world. I have lost my voice along with my self esteem in last 6 weeks or so and the feelings are so numb that even sound of music of any sort hurts. It brings back a lot of painful memories. The books keep me company but thanks to weight restriction on airlines, I have no books to read. I had to prioritize on food items and warm clothes over emotional companions like books. Through the large glass window, I get ample sunlight and that makes me smile. I love sunshine and I am hoping that he wont leave me so soon. This is in context of winter coming up and I remember how lonely I felt when the days went by without sunshine in cold winters in Amsterdam last year.

I loose all my true characters when I am not at my best. For example, I am a highly organized person, very meticulous in keeping my place clean and structured. But looking at my surroundings right now, I don't think one can guess it is my room, especially if they know me when I am at my best. I am a green girl. Along with the sunshine, the other thing that makes me happy are the green patches. Fortunately through my window I can still see the green treas, though the change of autumn colour is already visible. I bought myself some plants this morning, to keep me company and make me happy. I love to eat when i am happy. Now, the days could go by when i do not feel like touching food. I cant stop talking when I am good, now silence seems to be my comfort zone. I have spent all afternoon today looking for meditation courses around me. Only when I am not at my best, I realize that health is more than mere absence of disease and has crucial components like emotional, spiritual and mental health along with physical health.

The sunlight is beautifully reflecting through the window in front of me. The evening is magical, calm and serene. I hope there will be a time when I will feel the same way about myself and my life that it is magical, calm and serene. I have not been like this. This is not me and I don't recognize this person I am right now. I am really looking for my own lost 'self'. How can I find 'her'? Any suggestions?

I have a dream...

2010-01-03T19:11:00.000+01:00

I had a wonderful christmas and new year, probably one of the best in my lifetime. The reasons were obvious.. he travelled to Amsterdam to be with me. I was surrounded by wonderful friends. We had great celebration for our friend's 12th Marriage aniversary. It snowed and snowed and I think most importantly I could take an account of the year 2009 and i could start dreaming about 2010.

AS he said, everything I wished for almost always materializes and I agree with it completely. There is sudden dream in my mind and before I even realize it, the seed of the dream starts germinating, it develops tiny little wings and there I go.. wondering around the world... new dreams, new heights to scale, new places to be in, new friends to make and experience colours and sounds of life in its fullest.. the smell and the taste of olliebollen, the feeling of passing out with my magic brownie, the little sparkle in my eyes when the diamond ring smoothly makes it across my ring finger.. that is exactly the kind of ring I always dreamt about. How did he know that? how did he get the correct size? Was it just a smart guess or a meaninful event by the universe guiding me towards my future and bringing me closer to my life partner.. my angels and my crystal are really working magic, as my little room fills with magnificent energy.. my little green angels are trying to survive the harsh cold.. my jarberas are almost dehydrated and wilted as I put them in the balcony.. how could I be so cruel to them? the sunshine reflects through my window.. and the sky starts dislaying wonderful performance of colours.. the little rainbows start dancing happily on the green wall as my crystal moon reflects rays of light creating even more dreams...

the pink little home slippers that he moved around in.. the pink bag tucked on his shoulder.. he was not ashamed even in the fancy theater... but he was feeling cold.. did I make him feel warm enough? could he feel my heart beating for him? Could he feel my breadths going in a symphony as I surrendered myself to sleep goddess in his arms..did we really connect with each other while looking at the fireworks and were my words little too hard on him? But I am convinced he is the one and my heart started sinking as the day of his departure arrived. I could hide my tears and I started taking charge of the situation. the Alien Registration, the tram card with enough money, warm clothes and packed bags, the ticket and the passport.. all set.. but was I really set to say bye to him? I know it is only for a little while but it feels like a life time.. I am standing with him at the bus stop.. he is shivering with cold even through the layers of woolens.. the indicator on the building across the bus stop showed four degrees below zero.. and we could see the snow flakes coming down, making us more nostalgic than ever.. I have become very bold and I leaned against him. I did not stop myself for any fear or worries as I kissed him.. the warm kisses, the stolen little angels on his cheeks and lips.. what has happened to me? I kept saying to myself, it is the freedom that Amsterdam offers to us.. I wont dare to do it in Mumbai.. I have started saying 'my amsterdam' and 'Aamachi Mumbai' seems a little stranger to me.. that is where I get truely stuck.. what is happening to me? Why does Amsterdam make me feel so much at ease and peace? why I fear the everyday life struggles back in Mumbai.. why did i consciously and subconsciously often expressed my longings to be in Amsterdam for longer? loads of quetions and no answers yet..

the bus arrives right on time and we start towards airport.. we are sitting very close to each other looking out of the window.. the snow is coming down and the canals are frozen.. suddenly i reach out to his hand and i hold it tight... I could spend a lot of time with him in the airport.. the cafe in the gallary with the coffee.. I gulped down a big sandwich with the cheese.. I was amazed at myself.. that was a real big sandwich.. just 4 months ago, I hated dry sandwiches that Dutch make and there I was munching happily.. was I just trying to distract my mind.. we were overlooking the busy check-in counters.. people with loads of luggage walking briskly.. the relatives and the loved once bidding farewells with the eyes red with tears.. we could observe nice scarfs and head gears, nice bags and boots.. we talked about software that makes check-in process easier.. we talk and talk and try and overlook the clock in front which was hinting us that it was time to let him go... we were stealing our last moments together... he crossed the imigration and i waved at him.. i had to go back home.. the computer screen started tracking his flights all the way to Mumbai.. as if my mind was flying along with him. the phone calls across the continent assuring that everything is fine and soon he would be home.. to our mumbai.. the friends and family making every effort to help me feel better and i was really touched with all that affection and warmth.. as i said before I am the luckiest girl in the world..

He reached home this morning, the journey was quite uneventful and as I spoke with his dad in a sleepy groggy voice, my senses came alive as I heard a koyal calling out in the background.. it is only january. why is she harbingering the spring so soon? was she telling me that the spring of my life is around the corner and that the trees and plants are soon going to burst into riot of colours.. just like the seeds of my dreams germinating in this snow covered land...

I have a new dream.. a dream of a meaningful work opportunity soon after i graduate from my school.. new adventures, new journeys, new flights beyond the borders of INdia..

I am going global.. i am going to learn Arabic and I am going to travel far and wide..and I am humming a song that I heard on his ipod on the new years eve..' i have a dream'

You are with me Pappa.

2009-12-13T22:07:00.000+01:00

Its my dad's birthday today, 13th of December. He would be 60 this year, the year of his retirment from his service in Central Railways. I used to call him Pappa and so did my brother and we never analyzed why we would call him Pappa but say Aai to my mother.

I think I was very close to my dad and I am so much like him in many ways. He taught me how to ride a bike and everytime i bike through the streets of Amsterdam, I feel his presence in the air. He taught me how to iron clothes, how to fold them beautifully and even today, I can find the peace of mind while ironing a pile of clothes. I often joke that I would make a terrible salesman in a saree shop as I focus all my energies on folding the sarees right.I start folding clothes when I go shopping and that leaves many salesman confused. He used to make beautiful bed, not a crease, perfectly tugged corners of the bed and he would always say that it was my mother who taught him to make the beds right.

Other quality that I inherited from him is his passion for cleaning the home particularly the kitchen. That is what I do the best, mopping and sweeping the floor, cleaning the tiles, cleaning the gas stove so well that I could use it as a mirror to see my reflection. That is my stress buster. My mom hates it when I start cleaning the kitchen because she thinks I am trying to tell her that she leaves the kitchen dirty but little she knows that it helps me connect with my dad and i can tell him my story while shining the kitchen marble platform.

My dad had wonderful handwriting and so do I. My signature is so much inspired by his that I could never make a mark of myself on my signature. He was the man who introduced me to the cursive writing. He was so fond of good quality pens, particularly fountain pens and I cant remember how many of his bautiful pens were dead due to my efforts to write with them. He firmly beleived that the ball point pens damage the writing and he never approved of me using black ink as he beleived that it turns life black. I must say I had facination of black ink and i did break his rule and started using black ink early on in my school days.

He was fond of firecrackers in Diwali but his little girl was so scared of those that he stopped buying crackers very early in my childhood. This is just one thing amongst many that he gave up for us. He had long, thin fingers and he played carrom very well. In our eyes, he was the champion. I have memories of many evenings where my mom and dad would play carrom and me and my brother would watch them play. My dad always won over my mom and that use to make him very happy. His little victory over mom in the game and I remember how I used to try and cast spell on the carrom board so that he wont win. Needless to say that my spells never worked but I think I learned to play carrom like him. Some of his strokes were so brilliant and even today, I can hear him exclaim in excitement on his own stroke.

Dad, I wonder how would you have felt on your retirement? I gave enough thought to mom's retirment and how to help her deal with the transition but till this morning I never thought about your retirment. I wonder why did I take it for granted that it would be a smooth transition for you. I remember walking to your office holding your hand when I was a little girl. I remember how proud I used to feel to be in the building of your office, the beautiful victoria terminus station, the red carpets on the stairs, the central dome of the building and the lions on the pillers. Your office was like a little palace to me then. I remember the day you took me to signal transmission department and showed me how do they control signaling to all those trains crisscrossing city of Mumbai. It was a moment of witnessing something exotic, something extra ordinary for me. But I never got to ride in the railway engine on Mumbai Puna route. Do you remember your promise? I used to feel your existance in every rail trip I took but Dad, really it is long long time I have been on rail journeys in India. I did remember you when I took the train to Germany and I wondered what kind of stories I would have told you about europian rail?

Pappa,do you know how your little girl is doing these days? I hope you do know as your girl is going places, making her mom proud, creating beutiful network of friends around her and she is also trying to help people. You are always with her whenever she is out there in the field and you are going to be there when she is going to start a new journey of her life with her man. She is already dreaming of her daughter and the beautiful new 'father-daughter' story she is going to relive through her daughter. Pappa, you were an amazing father. I am so happy to be your daughter, even though you could never master the art of telling me stories. but that is ok, you gave me so many beautiful qualities that those stories dont matter any more.Your daughter now tells many stories.

Well, I should be honest. when I was a little girl and when people use to recognize me as your daughter, I used to get mad at them, especially the way they ould abbreviate your name.'pamyachi mulagi'. I did not like that they would distort your name. I was also attacked in the school once by a teacher when I refused to say the middle name. I said I am Priya Satalkar and guess what I would always remain Priya Satalkar. I will never change my name. This name has become my identity, it is my trade mark, it is being me.

Observing Anasthesia and Andrea together yesterday, I missed you so much. I wanted to become a little girl again and I wanted to reach out to you. But then I know you are with me and it is very easy to reach out to you. I know you are within me and I was always part of your existance. I love you Pappa and happy birthday to you....