Where have my head and heart been of late? I know its been a while since I've written, but my mind didn't seem that way inclined, and suddenly, on this sunny breezy afternoon, inspiration.
I reflect, as always, and have decided am prone to doing. Some write longingly of the future, others delicately about the present and others, muse over the past. I am most definitely of the third category.

I have lived here a year now, in sunny England. I am a nobody to the English, at least immigration wise, I am but a dependent of my husband, if that! I am ineligible for recourse to public funds, for any professional development or access to bursaries. I am an 'Australian non-resident currently residing in Britain' which means, 'until we can prove this isnt a marriage of convenience, we arent taking you in permanently missy!' fair enough I suppose. There are enough people trying to illegally make their way back to the Empire, they don't need a university educated, professionals from other Western countries trying to do the same...!;)

I cannot speak to you enough of what it was like to see Mum and Dad after a year, there are no words, certainly none that we could use except for 'its good to see you' which is, at its best, the understatement of my life. It was fantastic to see them. It was a feeling of being whole again, of belonging and snuggly tucking onself back into the bedcovers in your room after a long holiday away in hotels! It was a lot of emotion conveyed through gestures and a lot of unspoken conversation that took place with a glance. It was a healing moment, for me at least, to be with the two people who by very definition of their existence, constitute what home means to me. Seeing my brother, the four of us together again, a rarity these days, was clearly much needed for us all.

I was back in Mumbai, certainly the city of my dreams. For a close family wedding. And you know that weddings mean reunions, and reunions mean tears of joy and sadness and hugs and kisses and gifts aplenty. You know they mean good wholesome, home cooked meals and long languid conversations laced with nostalgia. You know they mean so much more than how they actually play out. My heart sang to be with these people, and for two weeks I let it sing and dance and play, it was a love I drank up, a badly parched thirst being satiated and a feeling of gooey, honey love, that fills the emptiest parts of your soul and well-being with its goodness.

It was a beautiful wedding. Torquoise and beige in all its glory. Flowers and food, family and fighting, and lots of colour. I treasured the experience, every moment and minute.

This has been a year all about learning and experiencing, growing and progressing, serving and giving. I hope I haven't disappointed.

Conflict

An engagement, a baby shower and a death, all over the past two days. At times its as though I am watching a movie where all the characters are scrambling to reach the top of a mountain, but not everyone succeeds.

I cannot begin to explain the sheer volume of conflicting feelings and emotions swelling up within me. All I know is that a part of me is overjoyed, another part, devastated. I wish I wasn't the introspective type. And that I could just accept things as they unfold. But its as though the harder I try to quash what I feel, the more these feelings brim and bubble up from within.

And yet, life rolls on, oblivious as ever to birth, death, sorrow, pain and joy. Its as though they all come in waves, one of top of the other, just as one is about to draw you in, the other pushes you further ashore.

Speaking of which, I miss the ocean. I miss watching the soft pink light of dawn with hopeful eyes, I miss running on the sand and looking back as my shoes sink Nike labels into the earth, I miss the moonlight as it wisps and dances on the horizon where the sun stood that morning, and I miss watching milky white tendrils of light turning the ocean an inky murky, mysterious shade.

However, the ocean seems inaccessible here so I find myself settling for the odd lake or river to carry my worries adrift and as far from me as possible. I'm not sure why large bodies of water provide me with such solace, they just do and I am glad for it.

Often at junctures like this, I look back on my time in India and try and accept things as people there do. In the villages, where I lived, if a mother lost a child, she would cry, they would bury him or her and then she would return to the fields that very afternoon to support her other children. I wish I were that strong.

There is a favourite saying of mine, you only lose when you lose hope. It was something I would say to myself constantly at trying times. And yet, here I am...basking in the hopelessness of my situation.

New Year Musings

The dawn of another new year brings with it that typical sense of melancholy and nostalgia that is expected of me. Images run through my mind as I reflect upon an eventful year gone by...

Flashes of the wedding before my eyes, mine and others. Planes and sunny stretches of beach and sand in California and Disneyland at its mirthe and merriment best. Malta with its sweltering humidity and cool evening breezes, swinging and singing with Swamiji at the edge of the sea. I can taste the salt and smell the ocean and feel the pulse of the earth beating reverently below the chaos and noise. I see Chinmaya Kirti and all its members, the rainbow colours of Garba and Dandia at Navaratri. I see low hanging clouds and grey skies occassionally pierced by forgiving sunlight and green parks and countryside acres that stretch for miles and miles and miles. Orchards laden with pears longing to be picked at Waterperry, mulberries at Balliol and apples at Ramakrishna Mission. A year of taste testing and flavour sampling a cuisine new to my palette, then attempting to master cooking it!

A year of new languages, a new culture, new clothes and shoes, a sizeable winter wardrobe and endless scarves and shawls with their silk and chiffonery.

Love like I have never known it before. Sweet, and nectorious like honey one day, tangy and refereshing like berries the next. A new relationship with all its informalities and a homeliness I had only known...at home...

A year of meeting Saints and Sadhu's in all their shades of yellow and orange, great learnings, awakened wisdom, latent potential creeping up from beneath the surface and a sense of more arising from within.

A year of losing relations and gaining relationships. A sad farewell to a sibling and the two guardians of our flock, left to themselves in a corner of the world that seems too far away for my mind to reach.

A swift goodbye to a lifetime of friendships over dinner and hurried cups of coffee, a sense of tearing oneself away from the patchwork of life meticulously sewn through the years.

A dawn of new beginnings, new friendships and confidantes. Of lifting oneself up to face a new reality of being.

A new person, of new consciousness, ready to manifest in the new year ahead.

A New Future

Which magician conjured you up and brought you into my life so effortlessly? so delicately? Never in a million years will I ever be more grateful than I was on that day, that glorious day in which we were sworn to eachother, with fire as the witness, to be bound eternally.

I have been on many journeys, experienced many moments, but this and you, will be the most important, the most incredible.

Thank you for choosing me to share in your joys, sorrows and adventures. There is so much that could be said, but the words stem well beyond my limited vocabulary and reverberate into lights and sounds and images of the enlightening future awaiting us both. Unsullied by speech and text and noise.

I love you.

Spotlight

Moon hangs in the night,
A spotlight on the world,
Lighting the lands and moving the seas,
And tonight from where I stand on this hill,
The spotlight’s on me,
I am young…long ago…
I know not a thing.
Only that the sky is blue and sometimes grey,
Flowers grow but they need rain.
When you’re a kid you play games all day,
“Spotlight! I found you! I know where you are!”
Informative years come along,
Some take the lead and some fall behind,
Confusion untold…life can be so dramatic,
But it was real at the time.
Laughing with friends, crying alone with friends over false hearts and petty love.
Spotlight, I found you, I know where you are!
Situations still arise, where I can see the way I behave is unjustified.
There are the times that I look inside and see- I am a child after all…

Spotlight I found you,

I know who you are.

Getting Fit - Part II

Today I'm proud to say I that I've officially initiated my fitness routine. I know that one day isn't by any means a basis to say that I will be consistent in the weeks to come, but I'm proud to have achieved the goals I set out. This morning, I managed to get to hit the treadmill at about 6am and really enjoyed the rush after a long time. Half hour of treadmill then about 40 minutes on the bikes had me working up a sweat and I came home tired but exhilarated.

This evening my friend/trainer called and asked if I was coming. I went realising the India/Australia 20/20 match was on. I was on the treadmill at the time watching India on strike, each wicket and each ball was such a rush that I found myself running like crazy and it was only when I was breathing really heavily did I realise how hard I was running. When two of my friends showed up we were all standing there yelling at the TV screens and I'm sure I caught a couple of people chuckling at how emotional the game was making us.

We switched to bikes and the Australian innings began, having become more riled up then just plain fed up, we engaged in our conversation, all the while I continued to ride as hard as I could. Half an hour later, realising India were going to get thrashed (although no surprises there), we headed off home.

I guess having the guys there made it really fun and encouraging. I'm starting to feel a bit more motivated and I'm praying this feeling lasts.

Step two: a change in dietary habits!

Stay tuned.

Getting Fit - Part 1

One of the best things about living in India was the amount of exercise I had on a daily basis. Not voluntarily, because of my spirited nature to become the next wonder woman, no, not at all, but for no reason except that I'd have to walk 2 kilometres just to get the attention of an autorickshaw driver only to have him wave me away so he could smoke his beedi. If that didn't work, I'd try to catch a bus before it caught me, but of course that too involved a 500metre sprint alongside a million other desperate communters to scramble for the last footprint space at the doorway of the bus, anyone else after that would simply stand on you. And of course, living in villages where there was very limited transport available other than riding a bicycle or catching a bullock-cart (or camel cart, or any animal drawn mode of transport). Teaching in Rajasthan meant cycling 7-10km's a day, a routine I initially loathed but eventually grew to love. Infact, I'd become so good at cycling at super speeds that kids would stop and gawk, not because they'd never seen anyone ride a bike so fast but because they'd never seen a girl on a bike before, let alone a girl that actually knew how to ride one.

Since moving back to Australia, my fitness levels have been seriously lacking. Like most people, I sit infront of a PC for about eight hours a day or more, I take public transport to and from work and I drive everywhere on weekends. That, coupled with the tasty food options available daily at Ramkumar's Restaurant (i.e. my mum's kitchen), has led me to eat more, cook less and generally not worry about the portion sizes of what I'm fed.

The last few weeks I've noticed myself straying a little from the trim figure I was once able to maintain so effortlessly. I'm noticing I get tired more easily and have become dependent on my daily caffeine boost. Higher stress levels have meant more physical neglect as I rush around to get to places in my car, stay up late working and spend longer getting things done as a result of exhaustion.

So today I made a conscious decision to do a shantaram and break the hell out of this cycle...I've enlisted the help of one of my good friends who has put together a four week intensive training schedule...so intense I'm worried about it already...

But there are so many reasons for adopting a healthier lifestyle - the least of which - I'm scared to admit - is to look like a glowing bride at my wedding in 3.5 months. And not just because I have a decent make-up artist. I'll never have a chance to relive that day and it kills me to think that I'll look back at the photos cringing at what could have been had I taken the right steps to becoming more health conscious.

There are of course, a range of other fringe benefits - more energy, feeling better about myself, establishing and sticking to a routine and finally getting back onto that disciplined path I was once on...and maybe even regaining an ounce of much needed confidence that I've been so lacking of late.

More updates to follow.