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 :)