UBC1: And it rained!

I am at my parents house in Mangalore, in the middle of major packing. Major because I’m moving to Manama on Friday and can’t believe I have so many things, especially when I never seem to have anything to wear!! But, just when I was getting nice and comfortable in Bangalore, I’ve had to say goodbye and walk down a new path. However, that’s another story…maybe for tomorrow.

Packing, for those of you who don’t know, is tiring work and I don’t mean just physically. It is mentally exhausting. The sorting and the deciding –  things to take, things to leave, things to give away and things I can’t believe I actually bought! I did so much clearing and cleaning up that I saw the back and bottom of my cupboard for the first time in over a decade and it was not a pretty sight!

Mangalore has also been unkind to me. There have been regular annoying power-cuts, the heat and humidity have been almost unbearable and to top the list there were no rains!!! I was hoping to enjoy the monsoons this year and the cool weather it brings. But, the weatherman said that the rains had been delayed till Saturday, the 5th, and wouldn’t you know it…for once, he seemed to be right! Till yesterday, there was not a cloud in the sky. But today…today, look at what rolled in!?!

Clouds!!!! View outside my house at about 2 in the afternoon!!

They are my favourite kind too! Dense, grey and water laden. It has been raining almost all day and the weather is finally pleasant.

Thank you God for giving me one last beautiful rainy day to enjoy before I go to the desert on Friday.

Time to curl up with some hot tea, fried munchies and a good book….mmmm….
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Green to Grey…

I love that through Write Tribe, I’m learning about different forms of writing and getting a chance to experiment in them. Take the humble Nonet for example; until the post on it, I didn’t know it existed. Want to read more? Check out this wonderfully enlightening post.

Here is my attempt at writing a nonet…be kind…it’s my first try 🙂 :

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In millions once, trees covered the land
That was before the age of men.
Slowly sands of time shifted
And green gave way to grey…
Tomorrow they’ll be,
Just like mammoths;
Well preserved,
Behind
Glass.

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When I was on my way to work a couple of days ago, the corporation was uprooting a tree that was probably “obstructing traffic”. It was a very beautiful tree and judging by the sheer girth of its bark, pretty old too. Suddenly, the lyrics “They took all the trees and put ’em in a tree museum” from the song “Big Yellow Taxi” popped into my head and with it, the whisper of a poem….

Our furry friends

When we moved back to India from the U.A.E, one of the things my brother and I insisted on was having a pet. We were moving into an apartment and so didn’t think it would be fair on a dog if we were to get one and we didn’t really want to keep fish so, we decided to get a cat….and a black one at that! We were thrilled when we heard a family friend of ours had a cat that had just had two black ones among her larger litter of kittens. My mother, for some reason, wanted a female kitten. So, when we went to pick our newest addition to the family, the guy who had the cats picked up one of two little black kittens, turned it upside down and said, “Here, this one is female.” So we christened our little one Buffy (after the vampire slayer 😉 ) and brought home our new pet…

It was a couple of weeks later when we learnt that she was indeed a he. But, by then, he was Buffy and to this day, ten years later, Buffy he remains. We, my husband and I don’t have a pet here because we travel back and forth from Bangalore to Mangalore so much but, if we could….I would love to have a cat or a dog…and I’ll tell you some of the reasons why:

1. A pet loves you unconditionally. You can yell at them and ignore them for a while and even discipline them when they do something you don’t like but they will never hold a grudge. They will still come to you to be petted. I remember that every time I’ve been sick at home, Buffy would come and lie at the foot of my bed to keep me company…he is a cat, and he still worries about me…. 🙂

2. He is the ultimate stress-buster. There aren’t many things more de-stressing than playing with a pet. There is just something about them which helps ebb away all the tension you feel after a hard day. I’ve cried to Buffy when I’ve been sad and he has allowed me to squish him and cry on him without protest until I felt better.

3. You can sound off your most ridiculous ideas to your pet and he or she will NEVER laugh at you…just look at you and listen to you patiently. It’s a confidence booster to have someone listen to you like that…really!

4. There are studies that say that children who grow up with pets, grow into more responsible adults because they learn how to take care of another living being and other studies that say they are less likely to develop allergies too.

5.  They force you to get outdoors and take in some fresh air…okay…maybe not so much cats as dogs. Dogs will beg and plead till you take them outside and in today’s world where we spend most of our time in our air-conditioned offices, thanks to your pet you get the fresh air and vitamin D your body needs!

6. People who have pets are happier than those who don’t…I’m not making it up. There is research to back me up! 🙂

7. Finally, they protect you! And I don’t mean just dogs for this one. Cats will protect you…or at least try to protect you too! Buffy, our cat, bites the ankles of anybody he doesn’t know if he sees them moving things around our house. He is like our little watch-cat. We literally have to keep an eye on him if we have workers in our house otherwise one of them is bound to end up a little injured.

Thanks to this post…I now really miss Buffy….sigh… 😦

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I am taking part in The Write Tribe Festival of Words 1st – 7th September 2013.

Things to do before I die

So many things to do and so little time!!! Well…not that little I hope 😛

Here are seven things I-just-have-to-have-to-do from my bucket list in no particular order:

1. Learn how to belly dance. When I was sixteen, my parents and I went to Istanbul on a holiday and on one of those evenings organized by the tour people, we went to a restaurant where there was live entertainment. One of the acts was a belly dancer. I remember that she wore a blue outfit and I was fascinated by how that woman could move her hips…one hell of a sexy dance form and I so want to learn it! One day I will find an instructor and I will be able to call myself a belly dancer… 😉

2. Learn how to play the violin. My parents ensured that my brother and I learnt how to play musical instruments as children and I can still play the organ a little bit. But, I always wanted to learn how to play the violin. I think the urge got stronger after I listened to a couple of Vanessa Mae songs…man could that girl play! But unfortunately, I grew up in a very small city where the only person we knew who played the violin was the priest in the church we went to and I doubt he would have taken music classes 😛 So, one day, before my fingers get all stiff, I hope to learn how to play.

3. Learn to speak Mandarin. Yes…I know…it’s awfully challenging…but, I really want to learn how to speak it. I want to be able to visit China and be able to converse with the locals. Perhaps one day I’ll find a teacher…

4. Visit Venice and ride in a gondola. Venice has the most romantic appeal to me. When I was in my teens, I pictured going there on my honeymoon and listening to a deep voiced boatman sing romantic songs while my man and I lay in our gondola. Sadly, I didn’t get to go for my honeymoon, but I WILL visit someday…sooner rather than later because global warming will probably cause the waters to rise and ruin the city soon…sigh…

5. Go to the opera. Okay…so this is not such a hard one to do…except there are no opera houses in Bangalore! But, I really want to see what all the hype is about.

6. Get 1,000+ followers on my blog. I started this blog almost two years ago at the insistence of a friend (one of those great kinds that always believes in you and encourages you) with two subscribers. My readership has slowly been growing since and each new follow I receive is like a ray of sunshine in my heart. (Thank you to everyone who is following me…you don’t know how encouraged I feel!) My hope is to one day have more than a 1,000 followers…WOW! What a high that would be! 🙂

7. Write a book that people other than my family will want to read. I like to believe that deep down inside I’m a writer and the dream is to one day write a story so beautiful that my books fly off the shelves and people love what they read. That’s the dream…

What’s on your bucket list?

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I am taking part in The Write Tribe Festival of Words 1st – 7th September 2013.