Day 3: Celebration

I’ve been missing in action a long time and most of that can be attributed to just how many curve-balls life has thrown me the past few days. Before I let the whining take over, I will explain what brings me here. Some of the older blogger peeps whom I used to read rather religiously, like Monika and Rohini, have initiated an effort to come back to blogging and writing more regularly. I’ve been wanting to do just that and this seems like an opportunity where getting the oft-required nudge might be easier than finding self-motivation. However, given my current state of my mind and life, I am setting myself up for at least 20 days of blogging in December under this Blog Marathon and not all 31 (having missed 2 days already and setting real targets etc.) Here goes today’s post:

Yesterday, the husband A and I celebrated the third anniversary of our wedding day. Three years of being married and nearly six of having been together seem to have just fit into my life story like they were always supposed to, and yet my wedding day seems like a blurry memory from far far away. I don’t know if the learning curve in a marriage continues to be this steep when you step into, say, double digit years of being married to each other but so far, I can distinctly see how different I am as a person and a partner than I was three years ago.  I don’t think I have written about A very often, and I do dislike mushy public proclamations of love but this once, it doesn’t feel overt. Through many of my phases and moods and illnesses, he has been my rock and my best friend this year. I’m still going through a rather uncertain and stressful phase, and the one thing I never need to worry about is having his support in doing the right thing. With the hand I’ve been dealt, I am the weak one this time and as I lean on him to do the thinking and the motivating and the other tiring work these days, I cannot help but be thankful for him being who he is. My favourite memory of this year, grim like the tone of this post, has to be from August. Fighting the chicken pox and the fever and the headaches and the itchiness that come with it, I burst into tears and was crying pitifully unable to sleep one night. The meds were taking their time to ease my discomfort and I felt the worst ever. A, who must have been stressed and worried and tired like anyone dealing with a sick person at 3 a.m. will be, gave up on telling me practical things like trying to sleep, drinking more water and just started singing for me. It was so peaceful listening to him that I did manage to smile after a while and actually fall asleep. I woke up after a while to still find him humming and fell asleep again. It was a moment that will stay with me whenever I find myself being selfish and unreasonable with him.

Happy Anniversary to us 🙂

Pictures and More

Hola!

Finally, the pictures are here. There aren’t any of mine, because really, you guys will have to teach me how to do blurring elegantly. I give up. The last thing I did to make my face unrecognizable was putting that spray paint sort of thing in MS Paint. Let’s just say, it looked so ugly that it almost convinced me for a moment that non-anonymity can’t be THAT bad a thing.. ofcourse, then the lure of getting away with spewing more internet trash without getting thrashed in public is what won, and so we remain anonymous. Or give ourselves the reassurance we are.

Nonetheless, pictures!

This was what I saw of Mauritius from up there. It made me forget about landing panic. THAT is anyday a big deal. Did I mention I hate flying?

The hotel lobby which tempts you to walk straight and jump into the ocean. I love the symmetry of this picture.

This was the walk to the cottage. And ours happened to be right opposite the spa. Do you see my irritating penchant for symmetrical photos yet? No? Keep at it and you will!

That, ladies and gentlemen is me in the mirror! This was the first day of holiday, and I thought I’d take some for-the-blog pics. Yep, that lasted one day. And btw, *cough cough* symmetry!

A beach with nobody in sight for miles. The insignificance of one person as waves thrash against the shore is stark. One of the most beautiful places I’ve been to. 

The funny part is that when you click pictures such as these, the average Mauritian looks on and tries to figure what you see in it. It’s a bleddy road, with you know, some flowerbeds by the side and a mountain in the background. Crazy tourists!

One of the many sunsets we drove into.

Where I vegetated and read. It was also a bit freaky to read about spirituality in this setting.. don’t know why.

That scene follows you everywhere. The pink wispy flowers are my favourite.

I parasailed for the first time. (I know I’m a loser, thanks for reinforcing!) This was fun. Although, something’s wrong with me and I can’t help thinking morbid thoughts when I do this kind of stuff. I wouldn’t say I’m scared, but I imagine bad outcomes in disturbing clarity.

This picture was taken from the pool. The pool that overlooks the beach. No wonder we came back so tanned!

Aren’t they such beautiful creatures? May I add that the caretakers were being rather cruel to them and I felt rather pissed.

And that, summarizes a very long story I mentioned in one of the previous posts. To say it again, my phone fell into one of the bucket seats and wedged itself in some real inconvenient position. What followed was a long struggle we (I, the husband, the crew) had with tongs, forks, newspapers, and what not! This picture was clicked once it FINALLY slid out. Can you see the sheer joy on their faces? And can you see how sheepish I look? Haha! You can’t.. I cut my face off 😀 Now teach me how to blur… please!

Ok the pictures are done. There are more, but this is real hard work. Newfound respect for people who upload photos pretty much everyday!

I have other important stuff: Today is Chuck’s (my husband) birthday. Please join me in wishing him a very very fabulous one?

May you always have the best of everything. May this birthday bring you everything you ever wished for. May joy and happiness be your lifelong companions, along with me ofcourse 🙂 May the madness never end!

I got him an X-box, and sort of committed marriage suicide. But, I just said he could have everything he wished for. So there!

Sweetheart, this one’s for you:

Banalities

You know what happened a few days back? I was lazing around and browsing Twitter and seeing celebrities shower their precious gyaan upon us lesser mortals, when I mentioned off-hand “Why’s Sachin Tendulkar still not on Twitter?” Just like that. Like a passing thought. And the husband replied with an equally half-felt “Well, I guess he has a life.” And the next morning, there it was. “Sachin Tendulkar joins the Twitter celeb brigade.” It was rather surreal. Chuck took back his having-a-life comment quickly – he worships The 10dulkar. He also maintains that he is certain that I must have read it somewhere. Naansense! I was zapped. And confused. With a sad knowledge that nobody will ever believe me, except my blog readers (one of whom, btw, came here searching for a “punjabi wordpress theme”. I’m flattered but sorry to disappoint you with a normal language and culture neutral general theme, paaji). So yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am telepathic with Sachin Tendulkar 😀

Anyway, the last weekend was quite something. Friday was an absolute nightmare, with work being a total bitch. One client crying somewhere, one proposal begging to be finished, one review being done in 15 minute yelling sessions. And a flight to catch at 9 pm. I was going to Bangalore for the weekend where my in-laws stay, because it was their wedding anniversary on Sunday and a college friend of the husband’s had invited us for his wedding reception on Saturday. So I was wrapping up the proposal, calling the crying client and the worried manager on two separate lines and printing out my ticket at the same time. Imagine my disappointment then when I reach the airport, I find that the flight was delayed by almost 3 hours already, IF it was to leave at all. “Ma’am, it’s coming from Guwahati.. blah blah.. bad weather.. blah blah.. diverted to Agartala.. blah blah…not sure what time it will depart… Sorry!” I toyed with the idea of staying on at the airport or going home and coming back in time for the flight, but the situation looked quite bleak. Also, even I am scared of the idea of a groggy me trying to fight the tiredness of the day, getting on a flight at an ungodly hour, landing in another city at a worse hour and then having to embrace the one-hour ride home. I’m almost sure to snap at someone or the other. I’m not a night person. Or a morning person. Or a life person. Naturally, I did not want to subject others to such a me. So tickets were cancelled, re-booked for the next morning and I went off home. Inexplicably, that made me very sad. I hate travel plans being spoilt or cancelled. Or missing flights or trains. It’s not a good feeling to walk out of a airport you wanted to be flying out of.

The next morning dawned early, very very early and I was in Bangalore at home by 8.45 am. That’s quite something, no? I was idling my day away well aware of the reception in the evening, very smug in the knowledge that I packed a lovely blue sari. Small glitch here: I know not the first thing about draping saris. To me, it’s no less wondrous than that the Leaning Tower of Pisa balances itself that a sari should stay in its place for 3 hours without a single safety pin. So yes, I had a plan. Of going to the nearest parlor and asking them to get me into the sari in a way that it stays put. However, much laziness transpired and I decided I’d just ask the MIL to do the honours for me. She very gracefully agreed to do the needful, and I went back to gallivanting aimlessly about the house. Now, the thing about my MIL is that she can tie a sari and carry one with her eyes closed, much unlike me and 33 previous ancestral relations of mine. True to her promise, she tied the sari for me and left for the airport to pick up the SIL and her daughter. She entrusted me with the job of pinning the requisite parts of the sari for the foolproofness that I wanted – the rest was done. What happened after that resulted in the sari looking like a gown and a bunched up gamccha in parts as I tried to pin it, me having a meltdown, a panic attack, admitting defeat and changing into a salwar kameez and finally leaving the house amidst controlled under-the-breath curses by Chuck, because I had delayed us by 1 whole hour. I wanted to cry but really I could not risk looking any worse than I already was. And I HATE being late. It was damn embarrassing. And I really will never wear a sari again. It’s decided.

Just maybe though, it was for the better because it was a rather backslapping and pulling each others’ legs kind of scene, than being all ooh-I-grew-up-and-started-wearing-saris. The newly weds made a lovely couple, and the other friends were very keen on asking the already-married us to share some tips with them on how to “survive” it. Thankfully, by the time we got back, I had emerged from my sad and embarrassed state. Except when the MIL and the SIL asked alarmed “What happened to the sari?”, I had to cook up a cock-and-bull story on the spot. This is all so embarrassing, I will have to perform a shift-delete function on my brain to erase this incident forever.

The next day was the ILs’ anniversary and also Mother’s Day. We were all going to go and meet some of Chuck’s parents’ friends for lunch. Guess who was going to wear jeans nomatterwhat? 😀 Off we went for what turned out to be an afternoon of a scrumptious lunch, a drool-worthy coffee cake and meeting with interesting people. We met a couple, almost the same age as us, one a Bengali and the other from Nagaland. It’s almost like I see us when I see such couples – not understanding each other’s native language very well, trying, observing, being confused, amused, getting along, being awkward but managing it all because it’s our choice. Which got me thinking of Nirupama Pathak. A young girl stepping out of the confines of her home and village into the big city, bright and smart, making a career and falling in love with an equally bright classmate. This sort of news tells you that maybe it’s not such a bad thing that some children don’t have parents. Also, very selfishly, in such news, I find an answer to what do I have in the world to be thankful for. I have my and my husband’s family, who held us and our decision to spend our strange lives together, much much above all differences of region, caste, language and other such things! For all our ideas of a rising India, how many couples have that happiness of making a choice and being supported wholeheartedly by both their families, their special days celebrated with so much love. I never quite appreciated it, I feel. There are so many days to be an ingrate but today, let me shoot up a prayer to thank thee, Lord. It was rather appropriate that this bout of god-thanking and parent-worship should come upon me on Mother’s Day you think? Don’t worry, I balanced it out with a phone argument with the mother.

Oh, and on the way back, we saw Katrina Kaif at the airport with Bangalore junta mobbing her. Poor girl couldn’t buy a coffee and drink it too 😀 I tried helping her distract the mob by announcing I’m telepathic with Sachin Tendulkar, they just wouldn’t believe me. Sorry, Katrina! 😐 And if you haven’t had enough of my hobnobbing with celebrities or being telepathic with them (remember?), Jimmy Shergill – the man I love since his Maachis days, despite his lame acting – is following me on Twitter. You say it’s an impostor?! Could you please let me dream big now?