26 things I learnt at 26 :D

     These are the things I have learnt from personal experiences and now truly deeply believe.This note is primarily for myself to come back to as a reference point. Things I kinda always knew but now know a lot better because of my ongoing personal development break ;)

So here are the things I want myself to remember for my life. Like always!

1.      You are what you think you are. Your life is a manifestation of your own thoughts.
2.     Be grateful and thankful for all the good things you have.
3.     Law of attraction works big time: you attract to you what you think. Thoughts become things. Both good and bad.
4.    You make your own destiny. You are your choices. Your thoughts make you. Think POSITIVE
5.     Believe J. You are magic!
6.    Also, be good, do good. You pay it forward, mostly.
7.     Never miss a chance to help anyone in need. Be nice but don’t be an idiot and get yourself hurt, be nice and smart ;-)
8.     The more I have given the more I have gotten. ALWAYS.
9.    Love fiercely. Never miss an opportunity to let your loved ones know that they mean the world to you.
10. The world is full of people. People, who will make you positive, people who will drain you out. Choose your people, much wisely.
11.   Never let anyone ever tell you that you can’t do something, not even YOURSELF.
12.  YOUR MIND IS YOUR BIGGEST POWER. Use it constructively. The mind should not master you, you should.
13.  Do what you have to do. Let the opinion of people not stop you.
14. Only if you are happy you can make others around you happy. It’s a vicious cycle. Begin with yourself first!
15.  Never settle for anything less than what you deserve!!
16. Negativity is a drug. Don’t indulge much!
17.  It takes 21 days to make a habit, make wise choices!!!
18.  Goodness is the ONLY religion. If I can’t be a good human being nothing I believe makes any difference to anyone.
19. Hug often, it’s the best therapy. xx. ^_^
20. What doesn't kill you definitely makes you stronger
21. The only person in your full control is you yourself!
22. People would treat you many ways, good and not so good. It doesn't tell much about you but a lot about them.
23. Life is short. Just do what makes you happy.
24. Never take anyone’s shit. It’s never worth it. Never. Period. So speak up.
25. Never ignore family; they are the only ones who would ALWAYS be by your side.
26. Life is not about being serious J let the kid in you never rest J

How did the travel bug hit and bit me?

Retrospecting today, I was asking myself, where did it start? When did I get so addicted to exploring. It hit me subconsciously but really hard!

My parents decided to spend summer of ’01 in Waterloo, Canada as dad was working at the University. We stayed in the countryside full of students from all over the world. My sister and I used to spend our evenings at the nearby campus club and used to meet a lot of students from around the globe there. 

One such evening at the club, I was speaking with a girl who was our neighbor too. She told me how people traveled wherever they wanted to once they finished college and had some savings. How she went trekking with friends for a month the previous year and was planning to backpack Europe next fall.

This may sound pretty normal to me or anyone today, but 13 years back to a 13 year old Indian girl it seemed truly rebellious, nonsensical and scandalizing. The whole idea of backpacking and travelling the world was so very cool yet so intimidating.

Probably that’s where it all started. It seemed almost impossible to me to have been ever able to do it but now I know where the seeds sprouted. Rest is history ;-)

KASOL..A PIECE OF PARADISE ACROSS PARVATI VALLEY

Kasol is like love, you can feel it but not really put it words. Its that childhood drawing you grew up drawing come alive. River erupting from the mountains by the pine trees and some cottages nearby. Much like heaven.

Its an Israeli backpackers heaven which the world tells you, and they are not wrong, as I discovered that Israelis and many European travelers have discovered India way better than we have. Brilliant scenery, live and raw music, some fine art, delicious food and ofcourse the premium cannabis.
I could see and smell weed plants in every possible corner, from the farms to the sewage pits.

I think my words can’t do much justice, thus making a visual tour for anyone who dreams of a little heaven. Though I feel the pictures won’t really justify the reality, but for now this is the treat ;) Here is the picturesque Kasol for you.

That’s the view you sit by and wonder, if it was a lie or did it actually happen.

Pretty pine trees by the mountains

I dream, just dream of a house like that. One day, I tell myself.

The most refreshing tea I have ever had. This mint tea took me back to Pratham cafe by the Parvati Valley. 
The owner plucked these mint leaves from his kitchen farm. 

Mom told me, hills are risky in the monsoons. Sure mom, they are. But that’s when I get to see them with their necklaces, clouds. :)

Ya, every corner, literally!!

Well, Bhuntar to Kasol was like moving in a wonderland. That was out of my bus window.

You wake up, walk by and sit by this tributary and think how should your day should look like :) Well, brilliant, ofcourse!

Also, some snow clad peaks peeping out.

IWalked back half way through this pine forest thinking it was never going to end and I would get lost!

S   Sigh, how my childhood scenery came alive.

The bed of fog over the valley, pinch me.

...and here’s yours truly at her happiest self just sitting by the Parvati Valley!

Kasol happened like lot of other places which  just happen to me, often. *wink wink* The universe conspires and takes me places mostly :) That’s something you start believing when you find yourself in places like Kasol.

Goodness I meet while traveling

If I had to tell you about my priority one love in life, it surely will be travelling, without a second doubt J

Being a female traveler in India, comes in a big package of some brilliant goods and little bad’s. 

Often everywhere we read and hear the bad ones usually rank high. But, I discover for myself every time on the road that the bad’s are just a tiny little percentage of the package.

One thing which never ceases to surprise me every single time is the goodness which is still so much present everywhere around. I realize the world and specially India is so very full of good people. People who go out of their way to share, help, care and cooperate. All it takes me is to reach out and ask. 

I have always noticed and now come to believe that the basic humans instinct is to connect with one another. It could be over something as simple as the color of the trees or maybe over the same brand of Decathlon bag on our shoulders while climbing a hill, which I just did half an hour back J We tend to connect and communicate, it’s innately present in the our human nature.

The goodness I discover everywhere just doesn’t find an end. It’s a constant which can be felt everywhere. The more one travels the more one discover that.

All we need to do is worry less, believe more and explore the goodness in ourselves and that of the people around J 

Well that was talking about the goods for the heart, here is what you get for the soul while wandering :)
Out of my cafe table right now.

Logging off from Mcleod Gang, India  J

So little time all the time

I sit back in my bed today morning, planning and sorting out itinerary for my next travel to Kodagu :)
I must tell you, probably quitting this job has been one of the most liberating feelings I have surfed lately. And one of the biggest realisation which has stuck me is that there is so much to know, so much to learn, so much to travel, so much to read, so much to watch, so so so much to do and so little time. There has been so much which I have missed out in the past few years which I want to catch up with now :) Not that I did not live at all in the past, but a 9-6 corporate job takes much much more than it gives. Not that I have any regrets about it as I got to learn a lot, meet a lot of interesting people and ofcourse did some awesome travel too ! I might go back to a job in some months again, but for now with whatever little time I have stolen for myself, I want to make the best of it :D

But when I look in retrospect there is much more I could have traveled and learned and explored and one thing which brings me here today is that in the world of limitless possibilities I have a clock ticking in my mind which pokes me every passing minute that I can do a little more.

I wish, just wish for time, some more time and some more time to soak into the wide open ocean of life.

Something which frustrates me a little is that is the thought that I may not be able to travel to all the places in the world, read all the awesome literature or even know about all the awesome songs or learn all the magical arts and crafts. I am in the process of making peace with the fact that how much ever I might consume there will still be something left untouched. Time I wish for you to be a little sweet to me :)




p.s: I am not a perfectionist and lately I have even given up the urge to be one, because that is one thing which steals so much fun out of so many things ;)

Straying partners: Acceptance and beyond ! This one for all my girlies :)

As I promised to myself a week back that i'd return back here more often and pamper myself a little solace with words and some old Hindi romantic songs like this ! My little share of the heaven :)

As a promise of confidentiality to my friends whose stories I am going to share today, lets call them Ragini and Vani.

Both Ragini and Vani are my awesome girl friends from different parts of the world, with whom I evolved as a person and thus so much love <3
Like most of us both of them too had burnt their hands with love and molded their broken hearts with time and some wine ;) Whats strangely similar in their stories is that both of their last apparent crushes were happily married with a kid, but there was no infidelity involved as they never crossed the lines of "just friends" and both of them proudly managed to abort anything significant which could have happened.

Day before yesterday Ragini came home to meet me after a long while and was all smiles, she seemed unusually happy and not so cranky about her job which did not make her happy most of the times. After we struck little conversations she went on about a guy she had been telling me from past couple of months. He was apparently charming, interesting and not a pushy chaser which we all shun from a far off distance. They used to sweat out together at the same time and place.....  at an office gym, oouch  ;) it was somewhat a perfect fix to set up those flames ;-)

They were probably enjoying the first phase of knowing each other, it all started over some IM's followed by a couple of dinner and movie meetings. She was happy this guy didn't chase her  frantically and was a very happy company. I could see that hope in her eyes that 'maybe' he was her man.
As the evening progressed Ragini suddenly burst out in giggles, joking that probably she should check on him if he was married, Reminiscing her previous experiences with douches. What to do, demons haunt us. I instantly reacted and told her how she was a pessimist. Negativity usually makes me sick. Thus my sudden reaction. How I believe not to doubt people unless they give us reasons to. She got my peace of mind, that she had all the probabilities of being considered retarded and also the chances of damaging the relation. How she has to be positive, et al.

She calmed down, There came her phone getting flashed on my face with his handsome whatsapp picture and the usual curious me convinced her to check his public profile for more pictures, if we could find it. (BTW our very typical anti social Ragini doesn't have a FB account and quite firmly believes that FB is just a spy spot for everyone and anyone !) Bazinga !! we found his profile within seconds and took even lesser time to flip thru' the pictures and stumble upon one with a lady in his arms. Here came our eyes rolling out, in split seconds our heads processed, he was MARRIED !

She was very disappointed, but what brought her comfort was the fact that they were still just good friends and it had not progressed anywhere much ahead. So convenient it was for him to skip this portion of his life in all those talks and meetings, so easy it was to fool around on all those dinner and movie dates. So damn easy it was for him to just be a charming talker :) Ragini was a little shaken and happy at the same time, Happy that she discovered the truth very soon ! She left after a while leaving me with a stack of questions. It probably didn't disturb her as much it did me. I had a bad sleep followed by a lousy day at work. What probably shook me more was the thought that what if I get married to someone who strayed out of house like so many others? Would I be able to survive the agony? 
We all know the basics cliche foundation of marriages some 20 years back don't exist anymore. The norms have changed multifold.

Next day morning at my desk a little lost I confided in my friend and happily married neighbor. She is my angel at work, always welcomes me with a smile and gives me company on all those good and not so good days at work. She listened me out calmly and knew how disappointed I was about the whole idea of men cheating and flirting haywire, specially the married ones :(
There came her words of wisdom from a 10 year maariage; Pallavi this is the bitter truth of life and its not always fair and some men are 'like that'. She told me how she was mentally prepared if she had to raise her kids as a single mother if she ever faces something similar. Something just rang inside me, yes that was true, many men go stray at one point or the other. I have myself seen so many go! Why was it still so hard to accept?

Probably today I found the answer to that question, maybe men are evolutionarily and biologically programmed to do so, probably this was something beyond their control too, probably we girls didn't think the way they did and maybe we are plain different. Afterall humans were not designed to be monogamous. All these thoughts somehow calmed me a lot but in noway I could still buy infidelity. To me it was the big daddy of all sins. Thoughts like these have made me a little pessimistic about the whole marriage institution in the past. A big realization and acceptance came to me that in all probable situations it was anyday better to be single, but a girl would still need the support of a man to raise a family (like we have always seen at home !) but keeping a more realistic approach to all things (men) and still living at your terms was most important.

Yes it is- Acceptance of the world the way it is ! Acceptance of the things we cant change much ! Acceptance of the ecosytem as designed by his highness ! Acceptance of the differences!

A promise to myself to not get too lost and know when to move ahead !

The sweet little simple things in life :)

Today, I visit my blog after year’s altogether. For something which moved me so deeply that it brought back the urge to come back here and share. I first went looking for my journal, but it seems I have forgotten it in yesterday’s rush to leave office.

This week we had Holi and both my awesome flat mates have gone back home to their loved ones. I could not make it home like every other Holi from past 5 years I have been spending here in Bangalore.

My roomie Gargi has lately been my distress support and I was a little sad when I heard she will be not around for a week. Before she left I told her; how I am not a loner and how I hate being all alone these days. There were times in the past as growing up when I used to absolutely love my own company and you could leave me all alone in the house for months together :)  Gargi instantly held me and told “Pallo alone time is the best time when you are closest to yourself and you discover yourself even in more meaningful depths”. She made me very positive about the alone time I’ll have. I had to finally face the fear of answering the portions of me which I had been hiding for a while now :)

During all this alone time at house the only company I have is of my maid Asha who comes to clean the house at 7 sharp in the morning every day. I look forward to her ringing the bell so that I could have someone smiling at me and asking "didi bhalo bhashi?" (Meaning didi r u fine :) ) Today she was exactly 15 mins early so that she could manger some extra chores in the house. There are times like these when you realise the value of every single physical human company you have and I absolutely looked forward to seeing her. While she started her work, I prepared tea for both of us as both of us were up so early and I did not feel like heading for work so soon :) otherwise preparing tea on a weekday mornings is a task which usually goes undone ;)

I asked her to leave the work and have tea with me. After 5 mins with all her composure she came and sat across the dining table with me. Something I really admire about her is however small or insignificant her work might be, she never thinks anything little about herself. She completely understands that it’s trivial to be biased on work type and thinks no less of herself than any of us. She has absolutely no feelings of being any smaller than anyone.

Usually I have brief conversations with her on the usual weekends when she sometimes oils my hair.
Asha had a child marriage and also had a baby even before she could understand what it meant to be a mother.
While passing the rusks to her, I asked her if her husband and 2 year old kid were fine. If she was planning to go back to her village in Dhaka as mentioned few months back. Now that she told that there was no work back home and thus no reason to go back and most importantly she was happy here in Bangalore.

Typical me went ahead and asked what made her happy here because both her husband and she earned less than 6000 Rs. a month and how did she plan to work it out in future, because to us educated souls less money by default means lesser happiness. She started speaking with me in half Bengali and half Hindi she said, didi do you know Sundarbans?? I nodded in yes. “They are very beautiful, my village is very near to them, but my husband is very good.” I instantly smiled at her sheer innocence and intellect together, how much she valued and loved him. Questioning further, I asked what makes you say that, she said my husband has taken care of me. "aaamar husband Khoob bhalo (my husband is very nice)” is next what she shared. I was all smiles by now. I inquired if she ever studied and to my utter surprise she has till standard 6th. Curious me asked further, then why did you not go ahead? “Didi I got married after that :)” I concluded instantly that she was not happy about it. But then she went on further….telling me names of all jewelry ornaments in Bengali and showing me with her hands with what was worn where; “my husband bought me all those, he is very good bought me so many clothes and jewellery, but they are all in the village” (made me smirk! yes Jewellery did make all females happy, its universal :P )

She went on praising him and telling me how he had saved some money and bought her some earrings last month. How he feeds their son when she is out to work and occasionally cooks for her when she is not well.

I thought to myself how so many little things can make one happy, how easy was it to do these little things for each other to keep one going. How simple and reflective her statements were. How simple life is for her.

Her contentment with her life made me a little envious. Despite having so little of the luxuries we take for granted it was so easy was to be happy. Happiness for sure did not come from big fancy materials or comforts we are so used to in our lives. For Asha, it was these simple little things her husband did for her to make her happy. She is such a relief to me after having dealt with maids who had husbands coming home drunk and beating them up for more money. She is infectiously positive about things.

She filled me up with so much contentment and the urge to be even happier with whatever I had in my plate and be grateful to everyone who has stood by my in the past one big year of my life.

Just a small little reminder to myself for the start of the day, to find bigger contentment’s in little things and gestures around me. Practice contentment and gratitude more often.

a little promise to myself to come back writing some more as it does align my thoughts and help me unwrap those peels inside.

and it is time for me to get going to start another crazy breathless day at work :)

With love.
p.s: it will make me really happy if Asha could make you feel a little alive. Feel free to drop me a signal :)