HOW ABOUT A CUP OF CHAI? ;)

This wasn't originally my idea.

I just made a new friend,  all the way from India :)

Himanshi.

www.imperfectbutreal.blogspot.in

Who's as in love with chai as I am and I feel connects to it. And upon reading her chai article, it just made me reflect on my relationship with chai.

Trust me, we have come a long way.

So grab a cup of tea and sit back, listen to my chai love life.

I am not one of those people who has grown on chai since forever. Absolutely not. Infact, the opposite. I never liked tea or chai as we call the magic concoction that drives the world around,  specially in our side of the world :)
I never understood why people were so fond of it. After all it was just milk infused with some plant leaves and spices. Just.

I was in grade 2 when in our English Language exam to check our writing skills we needed to write the recipe of making tea aka "chai".

I wrote the recipe confident that I would score full on it. Since I have been seeing tea made in my house for everyday for so many years. When were all those observation skills going to come in handy?

Anyways when the score came I got a 1 out if the total 5. I was heartbroken and I hated tea more than ever.
On coming home I accused mum of not knowing how to make the right chai.

Little did I know that there was a standard chai and then there were "chai" versions hailing from different areas and respective cultures.

I am a punjabi and the way chais were made in our houses was very different from the standard tea procedure that we get in the cookbook. So obviously it didn't match the recipe my teacher was looking for and I was doomed.

Chai never made an impact until I started med school. Or more like I don't know how I survived without it for so long. Soon after coming to school, chai grew up on me. Specially the "elaichi" ( cardamom) one from the bahar wali dukan in the uni. In the early days a friend was very fond of chai and I used to get dragged along despite me claiming that I didn't like chai at all. But I was always ignored. 

Then I was forced to taste it and drink it despite me saying no. 

But the magic started working. Chai because my saviour in the long uni hours, to the late night parhai ( study) sessions, to when I was feeling down and needed something to lift me up. Chai was always there for me.
Welcoming,  warm, soothing and utterly delightful!

To the time it became something I look forward to every morning. I need a cup as soon as I wake up whether it's in the morning or my evening nap once I return from school. Chai is an absolute constant.
And I love it. Do you?
If not. Try it sometime. You might end up falling in love with my chai ;)

And it will keep you going throughout just like it does to me.

And in my country the elders say, there's nothing that a good old cup of tea can't set right and make you feel better.
It works like magic.

Or lets say it is the magical elixir and it's recipe is being passed down mother to daughter through generations.
The guys might know nothing else but they even they learn to make yummy chai. Afterall, you don't know when the chai making skills come in handy.

For girls when families come to look for prospective bahus ( brides) for their sons, the girl who makes good chai is a win win! :)

No exaggeration,  I swear.

It wouldn't be wrong to say the world goes around on chai :)

Keep drinking chai and keep spreading it's warmth around. 

Meanwhile I will go and make kashmiri chai for myself. Since it's winters and a chai break is needed after narrating my chai story.

My chai's waiting. Is your's?

DIWALI ♥

To all my friends from across the border many many warm wishes of diwali to you :)

HAPPY DIWALI ♥

I hope it brings loads of happiness in lives of all of you and mark new beginnings and bring people closer who drifted apart.

Stay blessed :)

Light loads of diyas and keep on lighting lives.

WAITING TO WRITE SINCE ALMOST FOREVER

                                                    "Current state of Mind

                                                   Current Outlook to Life"

I have been meaning to write for so long and somehow or the other, it just never happened. I was so involved in my "real" life that the "reel" life went in the background and faded.

Then thought about writing now and then but never seemed to find the time. A friend recently reminded me what writing meant to me and how I haven't written in long and I should. Because I was probably never going to write if I kept on continuing like I was. And my friend was right.

 Strange how someone close cuts 

through the crap you have lined up and all those excuses I thought were valid enough.

Then I thought about writing everyday, for the past few days but as usual.

 I kept on procrastinating. 

Not because I wasn't motivated enough, but because I had too much in my mind to write about and I just couldn't decide what to write first and how.
I kept on over thinking about the matter and thinking of perfect words, to thoughtful sentences, to whole length articles. And, more.

Yet.

In reality I didn't even write a word. A single word. It just kept on happening in my mind.

Until right now it just hit, out of nowhere,  that the moment I keep on holding out for isn't coming. I gotta start somewhere with something.
The longer you leave something in the middle, the tougher it becomes to get back to it and complete it and capture it. 

While this isn't an assignment that I need to complete or I have a deadline to meet. But all the same, I need to balance it with my other stuff and write when life is still happening to me.
Because isn't that the whole point? 

So here I am, rambling away and probably not making much sense.

 Like, Always. What's new with that?

But I feel good already and I have missed this. The feeling I get when I write.
So while it's still all charged up I will try to write all I wanted to and more.
And work on myself for finding the balance between the life I want to have and dream about with the one I am currently in.

As someone recently reminded, that all the things get complicated when we look back at the past and keep on holding to it. Or when we keep on fretting about what comes next and missing the current moment and the life it holds.

So to trying to live up and live in the present and expecting the unexpected.
Let's see where this takes me and my quest to love my life. And how long I keep up with the pace I am trying to set.

As life it is, with all its imperfections and blobs of this and that with a touch of emotions;

 that I tend to complicate and get so tangled in that I lose sight of things that mean tons to me.

This is it, for now. Back to studying cranial nerves in Neuroanatomy for an upcoming exam which is conveniently on the very next day of my birthday. Which basically, means there goes my very special day down the drain trying to cram and fit in as much as I can in my tiny mind and stressing and fretting. The unfairness of the situation, I tell you.

But oh well. Thats what you call life :)

A PAGE FROM MY DIARY

              

                                        "Why does it take a minute to say Hello

                                             and yet, forever to say Goodbye?"

Dear diary,

I haven't written in long and its been almost a year since I stopped.  I don't want to go there because I wasn't at a good place back then. But I am writing today because today I am feeling how I felt back then. Maybe not that harshly but those feelings which drag you down are here today. And since I can't talk to anyone about it , I need to let it out. Maybe that might make it easier to free myself of.

Today wasn't a good day for me. More like it wasn't even an average day. Aren't there days when it all just seems wrong and weird?

 I had one of those today.

It started back at school today. Something happened that altered my mood.  It wasn't an earthquake kind of a thing ( I am grateful for that, truly) but enough to create ripples and make feelings emerged that I had managed to bury inside. I happened to sit in the midst of my old friends today.

Like it's actually a group of people and I used to be part of them and everything.  But today it felt a lifetime ago. It was purely a coincidence but it brought feelings and thoughts to surface,  again. Feelings I would rather not feel.

I won't go into the reasons of why I left ( maybe that's where our paths together ended). But when I left I felt inadequate. I felt not good enough and sad. I felt lonely.  Very lonely ( but I had started feeling lonely even then I was with them). But still I wasn't alone.

The initial days were tough and many noticed I left and wondered what could have made me leave. I felt like I was a misfit and I wasn't the only one who belonged and my confidence took a blow back then. I felt there was something wrong with me because I had tried my best to fit in again when these thoughts started occurring but I just couldn't. I felt I was the one somehow at fault.

Logically I have known for a long time that it was coming and it taught me a lot. They are not bad people but they aren't my people. My place isn't with them. But irrationally it's all a mess.

The horror of being alone in a place where you don't know anyone apart from greetings because you are new to the university ( I was). The pain of trying to fit in where only groups existed and you were alone if you didn't belong to one. All of that was mentally very exhausting.

I am not at the same place today. I have come a long way. I have made new friends and met people I am myself with. I have learnt it's not important to have loads of friends just some good ones who believe in you, uplift you, trust you and you can trust them. I have learnt its not always our fault and not everyone is meant to be forever and I deserve more.

I deserve people who I don't feel out of place with or I people with whom I don't need to wonder again and again that they are judging me and just enjoying my distress.

But today I feel all of that. All of the inadequacy I felt. And I am trying to get over with it but it's stuck. I will never forget,  but I hope I find that place where I am ready to face it without feeling all of this. And, just treat it like a learning curve experience. After all, nothing is meant forever.

Change is the only thing constant. It's just difficult to take in at times and we resist. I did too, because I was afraid of the unknown. Of leaving when I knew in the heart I no longer could stay.I had already overstayed trying to make things work out. Because somewhere inside, I was afraid to take the leap and be actually alone even I felt alone. Technical semantics you see. Strange at times.

Today was just a reminder that I am not yet there and I still have a long way to go. But I am grateful after writing this that I have come this far. I felt in those days it would always be like that and I will always be alone and unworthy.

But I know I am worth it. And I was wrong back then. And in this case I am glad, that I was wrong. 

I hope I find the feeling of peace, at ease someday. Soon.

There is always HOPE, no matter how small or bleak it yet seems.

Yours dearest,

Toobs.

P.s It felt good to write again even if it wasn't something nice. Maybe I am on my way to healing. After all, I managed to write again today. When I haven't in a long, long time.

I hope I can write in my diary again that's sitting untouched in my cupboard, someday.I miss it.But. When I have the strength to look back into its pages and read and not lose myself to the feelings of the past that they locked away.When I am ready to read and only to read because it's all a part of me at the end of the day. Happy and sad, both.

To that day <3

LETTING GO OF OLD FRIENDS

As we grow older and find ourselves more entangled in the complexities, of what we term the "real life" there is something we all go through. We lose friends.

I am one of those people who always has been very attached to my friends and I never understood why people leave and why some friends who were the closest, are the ones we no longer even say Hi to. Isn't that strange?
But slowly I have learnt that it's natural.

There is a long time I always wondered if a friend stopped talking or left that there must be something wrong with me. I must have done something wrong.  I might not have done enough. Maybe I wasn't good enough.

All of these thoughts plagued me to death. I blamed myself for the failure of friendships gone wrong.

But I have just started to realize that I was wrong. I no longer hold myself guilty. Its not always our fault. Or even that's friends fault that you are no longer talking to. Its just that as we grow up, we grow apart.

The most important thing to remember that might make letting go easier is " It never means that the love and camaraderie shared  wasn't real. It just means that with change in time and circumstances, the feelings change."

So keep the good memories and let go of the rest. Cherish them. Because those times were indeed, beautiful.  But release yourself from the guilt you have felt of losing them.

It was meant to be that way. Their chapter ended in your life but life didn't. It's not your fault. It's tough but we all deserve the peace.

I miss my friends every now and them. Some more, some less. But I understand now that they are no longer going to be a part of my life. People who are meant to be in our life gravitate back in our life, no matter how far they go and no matter how much time it takes.  You have to have faith.

And some people go away from life.

 But, they always remain in our heart.

Keep them there and in your prayers <3

SHE LOVED

"Till I loved, I never lived" Emily Dickinson

Love has a life on it's own. A fire that is enough to ignite everything that comes or avoids its path. Invisible but everywhere. Unleashing itself at the most unexpected.

She loved. Love wasn't about possession to her. It wasn't about telling them how she felt. It wasn't about how she never wanted to let him go. It was a paradox.  To her. She couldn't put her love in words. She couldn't find the words, leave alone the right ones.

She didn't need to. Because she knew that everyone around her experienced it in one form or the other. Earlier or later. As long as a heart continue to beat and the soul breathed, somewhere, somehow it always stumbled across what we creatures call love.

To her love was the sparkle she had seen in his eyes that day and that image had been imprinted in her heart. Always and forever fresh. She didn't even need to close her eyes to see him. Because he was always there, a part of her.

Love was glimpsing the rare smile that crinkled his face which made her face light up with joy and his with the beautiful glow. In turn setting her whole world alight. Like a meteor lights up the dark night skies.

She loved. Him. His voice. Rich. Dark. Mysterious. Making her look forward to unraveling those knots with love. The color of his hair turning golden in the natural sunlight. And yet the moon made it dazzle even more.

She was filled with love brimming throughout . She was completely gone. Losing herself in the love she never could voice. She didn't even understand herself the spell that had overtaken her. She just knew she was burning in the love. With the feelings she had. She was ablaze with everything burning.  Inside and outside.

The time came when there was no longer a distinction between her and her love.

Somewhere along the line she had transformed itself into the thing she could never put words to. She became.  What we recognize as love.

The ultimate feeling. Which everyone claims to feel and yet no one will ever match on what it is in reality. Because not one can feel the same love the other does. And never will.

It will always be confusing just like right now. It will always puzzle the one who tries to understand it. But it also makes sense of everything. There is in this world and beyond. Confusing isn't it?

After all somethings are better understood and felt than said. Some things are just loved. Without reason.  Beyond reason.  Just because there is no answer to why.

She became love in the certainty that life is full of uncertainties. Something, someday, somehow may bring him back to her. Her love. 

x

WE JUST.....ARE

"Others often ask us to define ourselves, to tell them who we are

Who are we?

We eat, we sleep, we dream, we love, we pine, we hate, we hope

We lust, we smile, we work, we rest, we calculate, we give, we take

In all the midst of the turmoil of being ordinary, like the rest of the world, we just….are

Sometimes we see ourselves reflected in the pages of a novel we are lost in, 

In a movie where it feels like your story only if with a different ending

In the innocent actions of the children playing along the street

In the whispers that pass by

In the shadows that surround us

We hear our names pronounced on the lips of our loved ones

We find ourselves voicing out names of people we feel like belonging to

Trying to find something, someone to purely call our own

We are hidden in the shadows of the night,

 In the color of rainbows that are seldom seen

In the flowers that are so fragile yet still bloom.

We are neither wrong nor right

Neither pure or impure

Black or white

We are not other people second-hand experiences

We are the essence of the combination of our personal journey with our different experiences

Most of the time, like the rest of the world we just…are

Without ever fully knowing who we….are

We just…are"

HOLDING ON TO THE COMPLETE YOU

Its been too long since I wrote here. I am not sure to why that was, like there is still plenty I have to say and I would like to share but somehow something or the other didn't feel right and I couldn't write a new post. Anyways before I ramble on. Happy new year to you! 

May this year help you bring closer to whatever you have been dreaming on. Don't stop believing. Because I believe MIRACLES happen every day. every single day. 

Maybe subconsciously I myself was looking for something without even realizing that I was. Well. Even now I hadn't thought of writing until 4 minutes ago to be exact, because of something I came across my facebook homepage. 

Funny isn't it? I am one of those people who think rather then lightening your mood on and off facebook' for me' at least gives me something or the other to question myself and seek validation of how I am doing with things, with life. It's rare that you find something that makes everything ahead of you seem brighter. Well this is it. One of those rare times.

There's this post I came across on Humans of New York page. The story itself was good but that wasn't what caught my eye. What caught my eye was a simple comment amongst hundreds of others of a girl who wrote about her father, actually her stepfather. I am sharing the post and then I will tell you why it gave me a ray of hope :)

As the guy above said that Music was his passion and he gave it up when medicine happened to him. Something similar is what happened to me. At least that's how it felt. But now it just changed this very moment. When I decided to pursue medicine, I felt I had to give up a lot too. This doesn't mean that I am dissatisfied or that I regret my decision. Medicine is one of the best parts of my life. This is just stating that I want more. I loved painting and I always dreamed of having this beautiful house one day, that will have this perfect art studio with a library and a beautiful room where, I will sit and look out to the ocean tides and the azure skies and be inspired to write sitting on this mahogany study table( The antique kind ;) 

But I felt it was all taken away when I started studying for medicine. Because it is so demanding and rarely leaves time to relax and is so draining that you think twice before committing to anything else. And I thought maybe This is the end of that dream to write, to paint, to explore the world like I always wanted to. I slowly felt i was withering away. Like there was so much in me to discover, out there to wonder at and I was stuck amongst those books, almost all my time.

The thought as I progressed and would become an accomplished doctor in the future I would lose more of what I had to offer since it's a very demanding profession started strangling me and making me kinda discontent, depressed and sad. I started thinking i would forever be limited to this side. What would happen to the creative other ME I am or at least who I used to be? Will it all just tarnish and turn to dust? 
I didn't have a definite answer until now. But I found it. In the comment on this post.

The daughter stated her father decided to return to Julliard. Its a very well known music school in the states and highly coveted. Musicians dream of making it to there one day. Well the interesting part. He did this after serving 35 years of his life to medicine as a neurologist. Because medicine was his life and music his soul. he decided to have both. then why not me? Why not you? We can hall it ALL. then why settle for less? I was in shock. Wow!

Incredible isn't he? I will never know who he was or what lead him to that. i just know this stranger gave me a gift. the gift to believe to hold on my dreams, to believe that I have my whole life ahead of me. who said doctors are boring? They can be Rockstars, Superstars, whoever they want to be. They just need to be patient and believe that the other side of them will find a way out,too. Just like mine is doing. Slowly, gradually. But it will. That's a promise. 

So I am not giving up on the girl who adores writing and who used to sit and paint whenever she was extremely happy or extremely sad. Neither on the dream of visiting the world, Going to Paris and Turkey and falling in love there. You never know what awaits you. But I am choosing to hold on. So if there is something that made you feel its too late. trust me. It's not. its never too late to live the dream you once dreamed of. Miracles happen everyday! 

Always remember that. Life is once, but if lived to your hearts desire, Once is enough. your day will come. Believe that. Don't let go of your passions. They are a part of who you are and always will be.

 Meanwhile I will go and study since I need to be a doctor too ;)
My patients are counting on it. And I am counting on myself :)