HOME

 The year is almost ending and it's time to exhaust all our leaves and like every year its time to finalize our trip to India, our home.

What is home but I wonder. Being a girl has a different meaning and dimension to this word. It is more of an emotion than a physical space. What should I call home? The place where I spent my childhood and adolescence or the place I moved to for work? The place I shared with roommates or the place I temporarily lived to avoid a long commute to work. The home of my husband or the place we lived for a mere 10 months on a short assignment after marriage. The longest we lived anywhere after marriage is our humble and small apartment in Düsseldorf. To value that place with its square footage would be wrong though. It has a lot of laughs, fights, crying, celebrations and - to its credit - If only the walls could talk...
But that is a vested property too. For a long time, we didn't buy any stuff because we wanted to move to a bigger and better place. But little did we realize that we were already at a good place.
Then for the next few months, we were in Basel. The home was well-equipped but lacked a feeling when I just came there. But in a span of a few months, with regular visits and feeling comfortable in it, maybe that's the definition of home. A place where you feel comfortable. Having said that, comfort is also a state of mind. But then what is not? Every emotion, every sensation is a state of mind. Maybe it's the people "around" you who influence it or it may be your perception of their behaviours which makes you comfortable. It sure is complex.
Coming back to the original question however - what is home? Maybe it is where you have all your - clothes, maybe it's where you have all your documents, maybe it's where your Wi-Fi automatically connects, maybe it's where all the smells make you nostalgic, maybe it's where you find your loved ones, or maybe it's where you get your best sleep. It doesn't sound like one single place though.
For me, if I close my eyes and think about home, it's the place I spent most of my childhood and adult life. It's where I dreamt and lived with no inhibitions or responsibilities. It's where I grew up with my parents and siblings, protected, loved, and nurtured. It's where I would love to travel back in time to.
On an unrelated (if not ironic) note though, I've been the one lobbying to sell that place for my parents to settle at a better place. I would always call that space my home whoever the owner be
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Maybe home is where the heart is.

Timeless Love

 

This weekend I binged watch Modern Love on Amazon Prime. For the uninitiated (Netflix loyalists), it’s a collection of six unrelated short stories centered around ‘love’. In another words, Love stories. There are stories of betrayal, societal disagreements, unfulfilled desires etc etc. The stories and portrayals were fine but it got me thinking of how we perceive love.

Growing up in the 90s, the love stories as showcased in Hindi cinema had the same monotonous plot: Rich girl falls in love with a poor boy, the girl’s father doesn’t give his blessings for the alliance, plethora of songs and revolts later, they finally get married. ‘Love’ growing up to me was mostly resistance and revolt in that plight. If my parents had agreed for a match I found for myself, I wouldn’t have called it a love story then. How could a story be worthy of being called a love story sans locking up in rooms, wrist slitting, roof climbing and all the drama. Afterall had we learnt nothing from the movies and stories of our times? Maybe subconsciously I was looking for a boyfriend/husband my parents would say ‘no’ to. And then I would also have a ‘perfect love story’ to narrate today.

Fortunately (or unfortunately for the story teller, me) that didn’t happen. For the lack of a better word I married for ‘love’ or had a ‘love marriage’. This term is alien to other civilization on earth but a lot of people here take pride in citing that they had a ‘love marriage’. So if these people marry for love what do others marry for? Are love stories only of those who face resistance from parents or society? Are only those stories worth telling which contain some revolutionary acts of breaking the norms or those which defy age and gender stereotypes?

The answer of course is ‘No’. Disparities might add elements of drama, hope and surprise to the narrative but real love also resides in mundane day to day activities and the unsaid ‘I love yous’.

A hot meal daily also screams ‘I care for you’.

Keeping the AC at 26 degrees to accommodate your partner’s preference also says ‘I am happy being with you’

Not cooking your favorite meal as often as you would like just because your partner doesn’t like it as much also says ‘I am happy when you are happy’

Getting married to an unknown (not just by identify but by familiarity of habits) person and adapting to his ways also says ‘I trust you’

Endorsing your partner’s family as yours overnight also says ‘what is yours is mine’

Letting go of your desires and dreams not because you were forced to but because you cant now also says ‘I am all yours’

The people who have held their marriage for years : with kids, their education, financial troubles, health issues, unpleasant relatives and neighbors, changing jobs, moving cities and everyday struggle of leading a ‘full’ life at the end of it, are the ones who are deeply and madly in love. Barring some circumstances why else would they be together for so long enduring and facing so much? These are the real yet uncelebrated love stories. These are the stories of ancient, present, modern and timeless love.

 

 

DRAMA!

DRAMA

It appears to be an unrealistic word. An occurrence which is far from the world we live and breathe in and limited to Television soap operas. It is perceived as an event highly probable to happen in other people’s life while yours is just mundane : an endless cycle of respiration, digestion and excretion.

But if your life is boring then where is the DRAMA actually happening?

Well, the drama is your life and you are the protagonist of your own soap opera conceptualized and directed by everyone and everything around you (except you at times).

Since it’s the beginning of a new year (and decade) I looked back at my life of the year and decade gone by. While I believed it was a usual year every day of it but when I look back now, I see so much Drama.

Maybe we don’t realize how dramatic life is being when we are in the moment. Its only once the moment, days and weeks pass by we realize how dramatic and unusual things turned out to be. That’s probably the reason why it’s a delight to talk to the older more experienced generation or Gen X as we call them. They have a lot of years behind them, loads of stories and of course filled with loads of drama.

Nevertheless everyone has a story to tell and you’ll find that drama finds its place right through it. It is perhaps the perception or narration of an event which decides the amount you want to put in. It could be ‘ I took the bus to work or ‘ I saw this cute little dog on my way to work today. I picked it up to snuggle it…………… but it bit me real bad’ . This wouldn’t have been pleasant at the moment  but then it is certainly an exciting story to narrate after you get your shots.

Drama is inevitable but your reaction to it is important. You could see that as a challenge, calamity , an interesting story to narrate later or maybe write a blog about it. So this year,

BE DRAMATIC BE FANTASTIC

First World Problems

Disclaimer: PS: The article is somewhat exaggerated and is for the purpose of entertainment only. Sympathies and/or empathy should be avoided :D

It is 7:15AM. The place is Düsseldorf Central Station, Germany (For those asking, ‘Which place?’, it’s a city in Germany popularly called the Paris of Germany.) On platform 15, a girl fairly shorter than but carrying luggage more than other people around is waiting for the 7:21 train. She has her laptop bag and an oversized purse. Looking at the amount of luggage I assume she would be travelling somewhere far or for some days. There are announcements in German about late trains, connecting trains, no smoking zones and finally for the 7:21 train arrival. The giant ICE or Inter-City express arrives spanning from platform section A to F. It stops with a screeching sound and the girl steps into the train. She finds an empty seat and settles down. The train starts at its usual speed of 300km/hr. She starts getting comfortable and the next station arrives. She looks out of the window and her gaze is fixed on the city name board. Its BERLIN. But how could she reach BERLIN? She was on her way to Frankfurt. Distraught, frightened and hyperventilating she grabs the person next to her and he shrieks “What’s wrong with you?”. She turns around to see that it was her husband. But what was he doing in the train? Isn’t this his yoga time? The image starts blurring in the background. From a bright illuminated train compartment, it’s a dark room now. Her husband is dressed in his night clothes and she’s lying on the bed next to him holding him and sweating.

“Not Again!” the husband exclaims.

By now you would’ve guessed that this was a dream and a recurring one. The creator and protagonist of which was ME.

The setup however partially is my daily routine for over six months now. I wake up at 5 am, snooze my alarm till 5:30 am. After preparing breakfast and/or lunch and stuffing the numerous boxes in my laptop bag, I leave home at 6:45 mostly after an argument with my husband over issues which even toddlers have outgrown. I then rush to the U-Bahn station, hop on the train daily thinking that I should at least start a minute early from home, settle down take out my phone and type “Sorry I shouted. I was tired and getting late”. When the exchanges are going on, my station to get down arrives. I take a S-Bahn to the main Düsseldorf station then. (U and S bahns are just different types of train stations).Fully awake by now and seeing people around sipping coffee and munching on Croissants, I engross myself into high beat songs (to prevent myself from yawning mostly) until the 7:21 train to Frankfurt arrives. Depending on the day of the week and estimated passengers’ volume, I hurry inside the train looking for an empty seat. The travel time to Frankfurt is 1.5 hours but the journey has a new story every day.

It’s been 6 months and 120 days of to and fro travel and like any other incident in life, this has added wisdom, patience and kilos to my life.  I can’t share the patience and kilos (how I wish I could though) but here are few wisdom snippets:

Money doesn’t equal comfort: I have a first class pass to travel for a whopping  amount per month (before you start estimating my salary and savings, l should bring to your notice that it is company sponsored) but there are days like Monday mornings and Friday evenings when I have to stand during the entire journey. It’s not a usual sight in India for 1^st class passengers, but I am more often than not accompanied by many like me standing for 1.5 hrs.

We are not alone:  Coming from North India, train delays of over 20 hours during extreme winters was a common phenomenon during the months of December and January.  But then we are not the only ones suffering from this. Contrary to popular beliefs, the trains in Germany run late too. In my 6 months of travel for almost all 5 days of the week, I can confidently say that the count of instances when the train has been on time is less than 10. Of course I am considering 2 min deviation from the schedule as late too because I am talking about the ‘German quality’. The most I have experienced is 110 minutes late. Cancellations is also a regular phenomenon.

Work Life balance: The working day of typical IT firms in India start from 10AM (There are of course exceptions to this) For me it was as late as 11AM on some days which even included having breakfast in office upon arrival, lunch, shaam ki chai and snacks break. I used to crib about work life balance and imagined coming back home at 5pm daily. However, neither was I inclined to reach office early nor it would’ve made any sense because nobody left office before 8PM. Maybe I am in the wrong country or wrong project to expect my working hours strictly between 9-5, but it’s the same here except that people come as early as 8 AM. I leave at 6ish (owing to my long-distance train) and I am the first one to leave office.

Money doesn’t equal better things:  If I compare to India, the air is fresher, the public facilities are better and ofcourse the money is good (thanks to the currency) here but it comes at a cost of no domestic help what so ever: from buying groceries, doing dishes, cooking to disposing garbage in 4 separate dustbins and carrying and assembling furniture and fixtures from markets all by ourselves :we do everything, . To add to it there is FOMO at every festival, marriage and family gathering in India and the feeling of being an outsider in a very developed country. Not that I have been a victim of racism or someone has told me to ‘Go Back’ but the hawa is not mine, the mitti is not mine, the people aren’t mine (I got carried away :D)  Interestingly when I was in UK, I felt at home. It was probably the feeling that I was in a way using the resources which they looted from us for more than two centuries. (I was paying hefty income tax too though)

Office Canteen to hogi hi: One might ask that why do I cook daily and why can’t I eat in the canteen. The fact is that the canteen has practically nothing to serve you if you are a vegetarian or you have taste buds.

If you made it to this part of the write-up then I am sure you would question ‘Then why you live there?’

The answer is actually simpler than it looks. I have to live here because my husband lives here and I want to live with him :D

 But honestly, I think it is for just for the experience of living outside our comfort zone, growing together as individuals and the fun of learning new things.

You cannot get the best of the world but you can make the best out of your world.

I never get sick

I never get sick. I however don’t owe this to the diet and exercise regime I follow (which are far from conscious, considerate and consistent by the way) or to my immunity system. I am in fact one of those kids who have visited more clinics than parks and have eaten more medicines than candies. Not only have I given my parents sleepless and howling nights but episodes of me not breathing properly to not breathing at all were common. But this did not last for long. Some 3650 days after I was born, I developed a stable immune system free from commoners like cold, cough, fever and flu.

 I was now part of the big league. While cold, cough and fever evaded me, jaundice, chickenpox and conjunctivitis were the new biggies in my life. I guess it is because of them that I let go my childhood dream of becoming a doctor. I didn’t want them and I didn’t want to be around them. This phase of life passed gradually and I was in college ; a good 4 healthy years of my life with no big ailment if we ignore the jitters of exams and broken hearts after seeing the results 😉

I then came to Bombay and was still proud of my health. My sick leaves were not getting utilized and my medical insurance went unclaimed. It wasn’t that I was not falling ill. Whatever happened to me had no remedy or commenced on Friday nights and concluded on Sunday evenings. Very typical and hopeless ailments befriended me now. Hair loss, weight gain, an itching on the skin developing into a big red rash etc were some unworthy and unmentionable entrants in my life.

Fast forward few years and I was married. Marriage they say is a new phase and it lived up to its name for me because it was in fact a new phase of inexperienced ailments for me. I had never visited a dentist. I never had the need to. Within one month of my marriage however not only did I visit two dentists multiple times but also went through extraction of two wisdom teeth. I had gained a husband but lost my wisdom :-D

As of now its been two years since I got married and have had extraction of all four wisdom teeth. It’s a painful process I must mention. This year on our annual vacation to India, my husband and I visited more doctors than relatives. Most of them were routine checkups, (except the extraction of my remaining wisdom teeth) but we were fair to all disciplines of medicine. We brought back all recommended Homeopathic, Allopathic and Ayurvedic medicines with us. We have a big medicine shelf now. We might start prescribing and selling some soon too :D

As of today, I am developing a sty like pimple on my left eye and my eyes are watery too.Time to hit the medicine shelf but then as I said, I never get sick………..the common way.

The Ride

I, like many other wives, am very much in love with my husband and like to be a true companion in all his endeavors. We have movie dates, play dates, shopping dates, cooking dates, dinner and lunch dates and of course travel dates (to office, to malls, grocery stores etc etc).There are times when I do not let him go anywhere and do anything alone. (ahh….. that explains a lot of things) But then let’s not talk about my possessive or satellite behavior here. Like I give him company in almost everything he does, when he decided to take the scary roller coaster ride in a fair in Dusseldorf, I couldn’t say no. I wanted to be a part of stories and discussions about the rides he would have with friends too. (I guess I need help with my omnipresence)

From the looks of it, it looked like a good cute ride with images from the world of circus. How scary can clowns and acrobats be anyways. After adorning the ‘ah it’s cool for me’ amour, I followed my husband to the ride. We sat and for a final security check a guy came. He pushed our seatbelt or lifesaver whatever it is called to ensure it was tight and firm. We were sitting with a bag which was pretty full. No, food is not the only thing we carry when we step out of home; the bag also had water bottle (water is pretty expensive in Germany), our raincoats (yes it pretty much can rain anytime in Germany), comb and some makeup (hair and makeup can be spoilt anytime in any part of the world). Because of the bag the seatbelt was not exploited to its full use but then how could we part away from our dear bag. We decided to take it along with us on the ride.

The ride started. Our screaming started. It was speed and spins. We screamed and enjoyed. And then……………. It started to spin and speed up further. I clutched my husband’s hand and he kept reminding me ‘Hold the seatbelt bar tightly’. If we fall now, I thought, we would forever be remembered as people who kept the safety of a bag before their own. What a sacrifice it would be!!!!!!!!

The torture of spinning and rotating didn’t end soon. We stopped screaming now. I was reciting the name of all Gods I knew and it turns out I knew a lot of them. I started to recall any news item which reported someone’s death on a roller coaster. Nothing came to my mind and of course the worst I thought wouldn’t happen because it had happened to no one ever. I closed my eyes and submitted myself to destiny. After some 45675534 minutes, the ride stopped. In some people’s watch it was just 5 minutes.

I got down and the seatbelt man came to me and asked ‘are you ok?’ I couldn’t see his face clearly but I tried to smile and said ‘ya’. My legs were shivering and everything was still moving for me. We sat down and my stomach was churning and I felt nauseous. These were the side effects of course but then the worst had passed. The ride was over.

I thanked gravity owing to which we are not able to experience the ongoing rotation and revolution of the earth all the time. I thanked the absence of cameras around otherwise I would have had very embarrassing photos while on ride. (Disneyland should read this. We had some really embarrassing ones there) and finally I thanked that fact that the fair was ending the next day and so would our trip to this scary land.

There is something however very interesting which happens to you when you feel you are going to die. Call it the influence from numerous movies and novels, but your life and important people start flashing in front of your eyes like a movie scene. You start realizing how valuable life is and that so many incomplete things are awaiting your time and attention. This feeling stays with you for few minutes ofcourse and then the obvious happens. You take out your phone and either start updating your status or sharing photos on Instagram. I had a different reaction to all this however. I puked and puked and puked……….. luckily near a tree. As I said it pretty much can rain anytime in Germany

 

Jai Mata Di !!!!!!!!!!

<6AM alarm beeps>

Husband: Good morning

Me: <rubbing eyes> Good morning

Husband: Jai Mata Di

Me: <yawning> Jai Mata Di

That is how most of the days begin for me. I am not overtly religious but saying ' Jai Mata Di' is almost a ritual and a placeholder of 'hello' since I got married into the Chhabra family (now my family :D ) . Soon after we returned to India after a year long exile in the United Kingdom immediately after marriage (Yes i call that an exile and at times kaale paani ki saza too but that is another story all together) ,we decided to go on our first family vacation. Names like Agra, Kerela, Andaman, Goa popped up but the eternal love for mountains and 'Mata ka bulava' won over beaches and Breakfast in bed. I suppose we Indians feel so guilty about a vacation that we often camouflage the luxury of it by going to a religious place.

7th March 2017

We started our journey from Indore to Jammu via Delhi. Talking about the layover in Delhi: I guess I have spent more time on Delhi airport waiting for the next connecting flight than all of my airport journeys put together. In India if you have to travel from a non metro to another non metro city, marking attendance at the Indira Gandhi International Airport is a must. I suggest one should take a train in all possible cases. Surprisingly this way you'll save time, energy and a lot of money : no I'm not talking about the fare difference but the overpriced eating one does at airport restaurants and the unnecessary shopping to pass time.

As obvious as it sounds, we reached Jammu after adding some extra pounds to our bodies and luggage. With so many men in uniform around, it seemed like we were some VIPs . But then everyone is a VIP there. The airport is under severe security all the time. We had to travel to Katra from Jammu so we went to the taxi stand. While my husband and father in law started to speak at the taxi stand, I realized that jammu was indeed an extension of Punjab.

Everyone was conversing in Punjabi and i was deriving the little meaning I could. At times I wonder how a small state like Punjab encroached into the whole world with its language and food. As if Punjab, Canada and Delhi weren't enough, Jammu's national language was Punjabi too. Our driver uncle started the engine and said “bolo Jai mata Di'. We recited in unison and began or journey to katra. The whole journey was dominated by bhakti songs on the car stereo and conversations in Punjabi. My mother in law made sure she translated the conversations to me while she hummed along the bhakti songs. To me it was more of a guessing game so as to which bollywood song the tune resembled to. ' Maa murade poori karde halwa baatungi' to me was ' mera babu chail chabela' etc etc. I felt like an alien who had just landed on the planet trying to learn the ways and language of the people around. I vowed to mug up all the songs and learn to converse in Punjabi. (Its been a month since this incident and i am still on E0 level)

Owing to the early morning flight and the chilly weather, really soon we were hungry and craving for a hot meal. Our driver uncle assured us of an unforgettable chai and pakoras in a few miles. We stopped at the dhaba/restaurant and were served hot chai and paneer pakodas with garlic chutney. It tasted blissful and that is the least i can say to desribe the feeling. My mother in law decoded the ingredients of the chutney but tasting it and also taught me why these pakoras tasted different from the regular pakoras. The technique was double deep frying ofcourse. She made sure I got it right so much so that I can replicate the same when his son craves for it. Mothers and their love for feeding their children is no more an astonishment to me. Having witnessed it for nearly three decades now, I have stopped questioning the rationale and reason behind it.

After the hearty meal we reached our hotel and crashed into our rooms promising each other to get ready by 6:30 so as to begin our march to the mountain top by 7AM. With veterans by my side, (my FIL and MIL have visited vaishno devi for about 40 times and my husband was mostly marking his silver jubilee trip this time) I was assured that we will start by 7AM and be back by 5PM to the most.

8^th March 2017

We were late but by Indian standards very much on time. It was just 7:30 AM. We started our journey and husband dearest declared that he will go by the stairs because that's what he has been doing “everytime”. My FIL and MIL started the walk and we started climbing the stairs. Those stairs could easily give inferiority complex to the hurdles in a hurdle race. I was panting for breath and calling out at my husband to slow down. I was counting the number of stairs and assuring myself that only few hundreds are more to go and that the inclined path had horses and their waste and that this path was at least clean and safe................ I had numerous motivational thoughts in my mind. We stopped occasionally for nimbu paani to charge us up. The fight however was not with just the fatigue but also the numerous primates around. So there were monkeys, langoors, horses at some instance and very huge sheep. We finally reached the point where we had to submit our luggage and begin the final 500 meter journey to the main bhavan. 

A distance of 500 meter can easily be covered in 5 minutes or even lesser if Usain Bolt targets for the same but for us it was a whole hour and a half. The weather behaved against the predictions of accuweather and it started raining followed by hailstorms. We were not prepared for the weather mentally or physically. With any attempts made to proceed, we were stopped by the snow and the rain. We stepped barefoot on the snow, covered our heads with hands to avoid the snow and rain and had numerous coffee breaks in the mere 500 m distance. With numerous attempts, we however reached inside the cave. The nanoseconds of darshan and our presence there however made up for all the hard work and turbulence we went through. It was totally worth it!!!!!!

We began our descent. We stopped at a restaurant on the way and ate the most fabulous kadi chawal, chole bhature, rajma chawal............... and basically everything that was on the menu. While the ascent was full of skepticism, inadequacy and tiredness the descent was full of content, abundance and yes much more tiredness. We reached the hotel by 7PM. Photos were exchanged, calls to relatives were made, the day was talked about and a hearty dinner was hogged.

Starting then to around a week I couldn't feel my legs while i was sitting and felt only the pain while walking. Every time i climbed on or off stairs, I uttered ' Jai Mata Di'. I guess that's how the Goddess blesses you and makes sure that you FEEL the trip in every corner of your body days after the trip ends.