A Bride's eyeview

I am posting this blog for a friend of mine.... I wrote this post recalling how I had felt on the day of my wedding:

I see a new person in front of me. All glossy and smeared in a cake of makeup. Just 5 minutes to the wedding reception and I am unable to tell whether I look fine with the layers cream and powders going on my face. But I could tell that all those endless hours of bridal make up preparation sessions at Lakme seemed to make a difference.

I close my eyes securely in my sister's hands, who is giving me a final touch with the make up and jwellery.What would I do without her? With my grad school engagements,I had so less time and choice with all this! I slowly recall all the events over the past few weeks.

All the pain and efforts of innumerable people gone into prepping me for this day is slowly making sense. I feel blessed and humbled. The wedding has been a series of meaningful events and formalities. Another ocassion for people to meet and socialize to feel one.

Its never real till it happens.I open myself to a host of new relations and responsibilities now. Now my world is bigger and more divided isn't it?

I walk into the reception hall and search for my mom who is busy with the next set of arrangements. I give another look at my father,my sister , my in-laws and the man of my life. I feel reassured. (I have company....giggles!).

In the back of my mind are voices of people who have seen me out of the cradle into this day. Also the very few important people who have made a new connection for a lifetime .....

Its no more me.....its all of us form now on....smirk...smiles

When the child smiles...

It was a huge family gathering. There were so many faces I saw after several months or may be a year or two. Studying abroad has alienated me from the good and bad of getting embroiled in a joint family structure to a great extent. And with a reasonable excuse of being busy with Grad School.....fair enough!

The focus of attention this time was me and my new born nephew. His cryptic babble and seemingly meaningful syllables had lit the house with warmth and giggles. Everyone wanted to hold him and cuddle him. His soft fair cheeks and eyes lit with wonder and innocence were enough to melt the hardest of the hearts.

And people shared this particular part of the evening invariably. It was curious to watch how they forgot their inherent differences,frustrations and complaints which usually made itself obvious during these ocassions. They all shared pure love.

I never really thought verbal battles of hatred and ego can be won with one simple innocent smile. When the child smiles.....

Lost...

The rustle and stillness of leaves heralds the transition of Summer into Fall. With the tasks at hand, so very many people seem disconnected , yet I cant live without them.

Its a strange happy feeling when you belong all to the world, also when the world belongs to you. Its stranger when you belong all to something or someone alone, but you have no clue of the other side!

Current Mood: Amused, nostalgic, pained....lost...

Ash -warya Rai-ses

When I say Aishwarya Rai, I hear two words most commonly: beautiful or artificial. I dont disagree with both but personally I am an Aishwarya fan. I might be considered naive to be so openly expressing my views, but well...! People give me looks when I say I am an Ash fan (anti-gender bias!). I dont get those looks when I say I am a Kajol fan or a Tabu fan. Guess Ash is femininity personified and personified imeccably!

I admire Aishwarya. I like to describe her as a person who is smart,sharp and brilliant. As a businesswoman and a student/artist. But she reflects naiveness in many ways. Giggling away over the prestigious '60 minute' show or making statements like ,'Taj is prettier than me' cant be an 'I know it all' womanly act (which her contemporary Ms Sen carries off so very irresistably). This combination is a very luscious target for media people and critics.....And that explains it all.

Such beauty,power,sense of success and naiveness can only come with a price.

I recall the way she opened the Cannes Festival last year. Felt like it was a student on stage trying hard to get her lines right and did so very well.But I dont want to forget how her wardrobe at Cannes has matured from a thoughtless cacaphony of colors to that of class and elegance.

Her performances in the first few movies were no more than a treat to the eye only. But a woman with such commercial value/mould carrying off an off-stream 'Choker Bali' .... and seeming so effortlessly! it can but only be Aishwarya Rai.

The woman surely knows herself. Rising from 'A no-actress' to someone who made the world look at 'Bollywood' couldn't have been without self-confidence and determination.

Its hard to give a prognosis of her career path. In the worst case she would probably stagnate at the height of success and stay there or get better. For every situation she failed she has come out fine and refined. People willing to learn ,to learn to be resilient,......they never fail! Not even at the trough of the tide.

That seals it! ....I am an Ash fan.

Finger tips and Keys!

I love playing the keyboard. It kind of makes me feel I can create magic with my finger tips. I recall spending endless hours with the keyboard perfecting the tunes before performing on stage <....May be trying to experience a dejavu> . Then I would miss the feel of keys and try to run my fingers in the air......like I proudly played music in the air.

Today I feel my finger tips tapping the keyboard all the time. But the keys belong to my laptop or my cell phone. I can probably survive without calling home for a day or two. I would simply suffocate without my laptop.

Isnt this is a silicon world? Almost everybody is on a network. Accessible and reachable somehow. With memory space/bandwidth problem being tackled in endless ways all the time, thoughts and products are going online. Spending a day behined four walls without seeing the light of the sun is not an impossibility.

Where is this heading? With software giants ruling the corporate world and live bits reflecting the way of life... Is this a trade off between smartness and elements of life? Everything at the click of a mouse, sweating behind the gym walls and sampling your emotions through a sample space of smileys!! I never imagined that I had to choose my emotions from a list of emot-icons.

But I must admit there is so much more time for compressing distances and desires.
The world is noisier and closer knit today.Paradoxically we are more individualistic and independent. If not any thing else, this evolution and adaptation will be something I want to be watching till I am a part of it...

Its pure, its dawn , its music....

I can feel thin air splitting my wet hair. Dawn has never felt purer. The grim crimson skies are melting into bright and gay orange-yellow setting free the first rays of dawn.

I am listening to one of the compositions of my peers. The medley swings from Hindistani to Carnatic to Jazz. I can hear waters flowing in the background. The notes have trancsended me from where I am to where I never knew I could go.

As the waters build from gentle droplets to thickets of rain,the music gets wilder.The flowing voice sinks and soars to unimaginable bounds onto infinite degrees of freedom and madness. Effervescent with passion and composure, voices and instruments send pulses of joy through the senses and the soul.

Is it classic or classical? Who can deny that art is as much a realisation for the audience as much as it is for the artist....

Theyr graduating

There is this huge stadium filled with people chattering. More than half of 'em have a black gown on them. The sweltering Summer heat doesnt bog their spirits down. I see proud faces of parents and such faces galore. Its graduation day as usual and yet another milestone cleared for so many.

I wonder what its like to see your own kid grow up to acheieve something you always dreamed of. I have mostly seen it happen the other way round. The former is yet to happen from my perspective....

Children have a mind like that of a blank page and happen to be written into, by their surroundings and aspects of strong influence. Most certainly parents act as bars of reference.I have observed that a great percentage of where a person's character emerges from, depends on his thoughts and hence the nature of up bringing.

Having worked in the Neuro science department for quite sometime, living has become synonymous of learning,thoughts, execution and not to forget 'The Brain' in perspective for me.


So many of my peers around here are jumping companies, winding up grad school,dating,married, some planning to head back to India, and some have their head so deeply buried in their Laptop/PC that they cant perceive a world beyond.

Its funny how people take off from the same platform and perceive and make life differently everytime.

Why are weekend mornings so reflective? Is it me thinking or thoughts haunting me.....

breathless!

its been a productive day so far. my nerve ends jangling with work pressure though. guess its time for a break.

am listening to shankar mahadevan's breathless.sitting calmly and listening to him on headphones is such a deception to all the energy and passion his song is inducing in me.

i recall noticing him a couple of times during his early days,a little before he entered the spotlight of the glam world. his performances with zakir hussain and indo-jazz music team were memorable.a great veena player and fairly well versed in carnatic and hindustani classical.

he may not be rahmanic or RD burmanic as a trend setter in composing music, but he has class, freshness and style.

in live shows he is absolutely electrifying. an immensely rich vocalist.at one point it is hard to tell him from his song. he melts and blends into the song like he is pulsing its tunes and rythms.

im all breathless in absolute stillness!

Satttaday!

Its been quite a while since I woke up so early on a Saturday morning. Unable to decide whether its another week day or a weekend. I'm thankful for the sun's rays caressing my cheeks,hitting my eyes ,peeking into my soul and whispering,"Wake up, you have shut off the snooze 4 times already!!".

Well its so hard really , to wake up and get out. I'm blessed with a huge and wide window creating enigmatic patterns in the sky through the wildly swaying branches and opening its chest out into the open sky. What more this sight causes me to sing my heart out every day and thank God for the sunshine which wishes me a fresh and crisp'Good morning!'. Not that this really helps me get out of bed early at the first ring of the alarm.

Its the craziest thing to get up in the morning and listen to my-favorite list and scare a roomie who walks into my room ,half-awake, and I look like an apparition to her with all my hair-helter-skelter.It's fun ,just for kicks you know! And I'm sipping bed-tea provided by her. I'm so lucky God dropped her into my apartment.

I'm all smiles...what a weekend beginning. I'm sure the schedule next week is kind of getting my muscles active.I can seriously feel it. Ok! me out of bed.

Ufff oh!

Teeth chattering in -10 degrees and feet slipping on melting ice....mann...its winter .After all the deliberation its here finally..

Valentine's day seems to have overflown from 14 th on to several days...the street corner couples still seem to flaunt girlish pink and passionate red...

Just got over my back ache from skiing and snow tubing...the splintering snow flakes hitting my ears get me to smile. I dont think anyone ever hit the snow as many times with a thud in so short a time as I proudly claim to have!

I do feel the layers of adipose mounting gently reminding me of all those feasts on cheese I have had lately...I rem'r a coupla trips to the gym and several rainchecks...uff ohh!

Girlishh giggles keep surfacing between womanly smiles....looks like I am finally growing up..

Life is Happenin....Happhazard....and Happy....yap yap yap...:P

The Hardest Mile

I have about 6.5 Kgs on my back. The waist pouch has about a few hundred dollars along with my boarding pass to London and eventually Philly. A hand bag hangs on my left arm.

I walk five steps and halt and resume this pattern. The immigration checking never seems to get done. I find it hard to frame my family and loved ones waving to me from the the visitors section, since they are so far away and the queue is moving.

As I approach the Immigration desk all their expressive faces out there seem to disappear from the fairly readable to the illegible. My heart seems to be sinking into a bottomless well....like I am losing some part of me.

I want to be able to clear the Immigration check as soon as I can but I am trying to slow down that I may not lose sight of the people trying to catch sight of me standing on their toes and letting me know they are there for me, come what may.

Happy memories ring the bells of joy but the pains of departure pour in torrents.

The walk across the Immigration line has been the 'Hardest mile of my life'....