Saturday, March 22, 2014

An Ordinary Life

I've heard and am tired of the statement "live your life as if its your last day". Frankly, if it was indeed my last day, I'd be too worried to enjoy anything. My younger daughter gave me a different spin on this one a few weeks back. It was deep. I'm just beginning to understand how deep it really was.

She told me, in the way kids too, that she's fed up of this whole make your life enchanting and extraordinary business (she's ten!) If it was indeed her last day, she would live it like an ordinary day. Because ordinary days are what anyone will actually miss when they are gone. Mind you- not the bad ones. Just plain ol' normal.

That's so true. I will miss the mundane, the boring, the staid, the in-between. I will miss the newspaper and the coffee. The wait for the bus. The walk home from work. The mildly funny tv program. The quick conversation with a friend.That's what fills most of our days in any case.

Ordinary days make special days stand out. When you go on that wonderful holiday, or when you get that raise, or your kid does her homework on time.

Dear God: Make my last day an ordinary one. I will cherish that.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

The Pot of Gold

The crazy, rainy, windy, sometimes sunny (but never warm) days bring forth loads of rainbows. As I saw a particularly stunning specimen today, I remembered the pot of gold thats at the end of it all.
Rainbows are a horizon phenomenon, meaning that you can never experience yourself under one directly. You can look, but thats all.

A crazy thought went through my head then. Perhaps I'm standing under a rainbow as well, right now, not knowing it, and someone else is seeing this rainbow at their horizon.  We are all standing under rainbows, not knowing it.
 It's as if we have the pot of gold and its invisible to us.  Whoa. The metaphysics of it made my mind stop for a while, as I drank in the promise of the rainbow that I saw in front of me, at a distant edge, and the fulfilment of an imagined one, over my head.

I think I need a drink or three to sober up.


Monday, February 10, 2014

Always take the Weather with You!

So when did we all start complaining about the weather? In London, everyone complains- probably a conversation starter more than real moaning. But hey, in Pune, they complain even more. I wish I can take all the wonderful people in Pune complaining about the weather for a week in London right now.

But let me stop complaining about people complaining about the weather. That's no better. What I wanted to share today was the way in which kids are oblivious to the same climate. I picked the brats today after school and we decided to brave it in a park to read a book and have a sandwich before going home. Here I was, feeling that sheer nip in the air and the kids were just interested in the nearby geese or the book I was reading them.

Perhaps we lose the internal heating system when we grow up. Or perhaps we lose the ability to have fun no matter what the minor inconveniences in life are!