When they hear my name…

“Whats your name?”

“Neha Ghatpande”

“ahh… Brahmin?”

This is a usual conversation I have heard since my childhood. From the peun in my school to my landlady in Mahim get the community I belong to (My family belongs to: I still don’t know about me) be recognized by just hearing my sir name.

I used to think people in Pune have this habit of gathering extra information about each and everybody (even god doesn’t know for what) but my such basic misconceptions are coming to an end when most of the (open Minded) Mumbaikars also react in the same way.

Being in Marathi medium school casteism was part of life. Starting from the teachers asking questions in a study tour like:“How can you eat an egg? Aren’t you a Brahmin? I seriously didn’t know how to answer that question. As my parents never really told me that we are Brahmins! Especially my father and his vast social network, he has got friends in almost every community and so we never really recognized ourselves by the community.

So many times I had seen forms lying on the table at my fathers desk with a heading —‘Membership of Deshastha Rigvedi Brahmin Sangha’, biting dust before being thrown in the dustbin.

“We should be united,” they say!

Then they will start with your cast and then you as a Maharashtrian then your religious identity and then you as an Indian, I forgot race here! Hushhhh…..

I have never really understood this concept of unity! First they will tag themselves with a community name, they will make friends belonging to that community and then they will use the word unity! How ironical they can get!

But when I introspect I am ashamed to admit how much it is in my blood! It’s that part of conscience which pops up suddenly and unknowingly while mingling with the other community or even talking with the same! The feeling of insecurity fills me up when somebody asks my cast! I am left with no other option but to say yes or avoid the question with a smile (which has absolutely no meaning).

It becomes part of your identity socially. I feel glad about leaving that protected cushion blinded by the community bias to go to a temple like Fergussion College and a cosmopolitan city like Mumbai!

In last two and half months I have roamed in and around Dharavi, slums in wadala and Bandra, recently covered the death anniversary of Dr. Ambedkar at Shivaji Park. Everywhere what mattered to me is my Identity as a reporter as they looked at me with respect.

As my father always tells me, “You should be known as a good and capable human being.”

So the ‘Ultimate Realization’ is that I might have to live with my cast identity for life but carving out an identity myself is so much more fun than leading blissfully closed life!

I

It started with something called ‘Not at all’

She was keeping a jar full of laddu’s on the shelf. I came running to her and said, “Aai, ask me whether I want laddu’s or not?”…(In Marathi)..ahh she was surprised but she did ask.. “Tula ladoo have ahet ka?”(Whether you want laddu’s or not?)…and all excited me quickly answered in English,‘No, not at all.’ ‘Ohh..’ she said and hugged me. I was in fifth standard in which I learned first few words of a language called English.

I still wonder why she hugged me? I am pretty sure she must have shared this incident with my father. Neha, spoke in English!

Today I find it easy, as if it was never an issue for me. But it was! I have no idea why I suddenly remembered this incident from my past and here at this very moment I realise how far I have come in life.

I know I am 20 and people might think that calling it a LIFE is a bit too much but whenever I turn the pages of past I do feel I have come far…very far from everything that happened.

Regarding the language, people around me are surprised that I come from the vernacular school, Marathi medium to be precise and it was followed by my best friend confessing that looking at me I seriously don’t look like those from the Marathi medium!

Hah…who are those? And why are they called as those?

I remember I used to whine about not sending me to the English medium!Then my Aai would say, “I always wanted to send you to an English medium school, but you know your Baba!” and then the conversation would follow with how my Baba is ultimately right as she never really opposed him!

So when people ask me how come I picked up this language I always share an anecdote about Ferguson college when my favourite English teacher told us that if she (who studied in a Marathi medium in a village where she didn’t have English till her 10^th as a subject) can stand and teach us today, why can’t we learn?

Till today I used to think Ferguson College and My English Professor were my mentors but then I remember the ‘not at all’ conversation with my beloved mother and I say ahh I guess no, not at all!

It was her…It was her dream…

And I wonder if she is watching me here sitting in an office of a leading English daily, writing this blog in English!

It’s been nine years…I am conversing with my self and not with you!

Aai…I wish I could talk to you in English and see your beautiful eyes lit up with pride…

Well not your every wish comes true…

When she left…I felt something back then I didn’t know what was that something called but today I know the word…It’s void…yes, the word is ‘Void’…

A place to remember…

I think each one of us has a special place in this world. A place where you get to feel the significance of yourself in others life. A place which is so comfortably placed in your memory that what so ever happens you will remember the time you spent there.

It can be anything from a bench on Kharghar station to the table for two at the four Seasons!

In my case, it’s a bus stop. Yes, it’s a Bus Stop in my long left home town Pune which I will always remember. This bus stop is near my house from where I catch a bus to Mumbai almost every alternate weekend.

Now why this bus stop?

We are a family of six! And all the members are always excited to send me off to Mumbai (they won’t agree but that’s the truth). Each one of those five seek an opportunity to drop me to this bus stop and wait till I board the bus…and Bus takes ages to come (as always). So meanwhile standing on the bus stop I listen to my family tales! You know I have never heard Fairytales , they were always family tales even when I was a little girl!

Staying away makes you be in that blissfull ignorance about the insights in the family issues. Ya , and they are literally issues!

My father finds this time to inspire me to go ahead and make a place in this world and build up a status (be humble and down to earth‑ very important points) and what not in this world! grhhhhhhhh…I just keep looking at the bus and feel sorry for the bus driver who eventually becomes a victim of my cursing for every second in my mind…

“Why the bus is getting late, why its always late.I hate this pune’s traffic, dada!” it puts my brother into flames who spends every second on this bus stop in convincing me not to go back..then he says, “ya ya..you are a Mumbaikar now. You hate everything in Pune, including me!”…ahh how clichéd (says my mind- mind you, its always my mind which talks on this bus stop)

My sister makes a point of bringing out a fight out of nothing there and making all sorts of misunderstandings that one human being can possibly make on this whole earth.

Sometimes I do wonder she has taps inside her eyes, always ready to pour water out…

So ultimately this place , The Vanaj bus stop in Kothrud, Pune 411038 is always filled with those emotions I am actually deprived of throughout the 15 days. Its always good to be there once in a month! Only once…

Then the bus comes…makes that unexplainable sound of a break and the conversation ends…I board the bus and look out of the window to give them ‘a bye for now see you soon kinds’ look and then starts a journey towards my destiny.

This all might be unusual, funny or even boring at times but this place makes my loved ones tell me few things which they don’t tell to anybody else. This bus stop, might be just a bus stop for others but for me its place where I bond the best with my family members.

I guess it’s a good enough reason to come back to Mumbai…

Because while going back to Pune , I always wonder which tale my family is going to tell…

When loneliness becomes a habit…

I could see them, chatting, strolling on roads together, bunch of youngsters walking past everyone in their own world. They looked so happy to me! I remembered my days when I used to spend hours at a tea shop, sipping tea and pouring words continuously.

I remembered my school friends and our constant giggling. Endless discussions on the matches we won and lost while we were in school!

My job compels me to meet various people. They share their experiences, sometimes good, sometimes worst. Then at office I sit between gang of girls where I never feel alone. As the day progresses the feeling of loneliness starts making its way through and then comes the moment when I have to walk alone towards my home every night.

I immediately call my family members, chat with them. Then after reaching home I call up my friends and again chat with them. The question that still remains is for how long phone is going to keep me company. For how long movies are going to divert me from thinking about my loneliness and not a single day goes by when I don’t press the repeat the play list button on my mobile! Sometimes I wonder why the hell I am doing this. Why the hell am I alone living with the old lady, eating outside food when my parents own a three storied bungalow? Is it independence or my passion? I wonder!

There is nobody here with me to fill up this empty space. Then I am lying awake till two at night thinking about the good old days. I seriously wonder whether I was sleeping and this storm has suddenly woke me up or I was in a misconception that I can mange myself alone!

I stay alone still I am so occupied by the thoughts of others. I haven’t eaten a rashogullas’ because my friend who likes them is not with me. When a friend mails me from England I just keep smiling the whole day! Then suddenly my best friend rings me and asks, why every blog of yours ends with you? The only answer I could think of is because I am the only one whom i spend time with these days.

Does this mean that a person like me is in a need of a companion? My answer is no, I have enough friends and too many family members who are ready to keep me company willingly but the time has changed now. I am no longer a so called sincere girl with all the notes and answers with me. I am no longer a girl who would fall for anybody just to seek company. Life is more about bigger things now. I have always done what I wanted. There is not a single decision that I regret in my life. My only regret while writing this blog is that I am sounding like 40 whereas I am just a 20 year old girl full of energy. At the end what makes me happy is that I have so many memories to cherish when I am alone. I have so many things to share with my family when I go home once in a month. I meet my cousins once in a while and we all roar in laughter thinking about our childhood tantrums.

Here I wonder again…I feel empty still so occupied! I may be living alone but good memories keep me company and my decisions keep me going…!

Another blog that ends with me…but I am not disappointed because I am thinking about how these words are keeping me company!

Reading Blues…

As a person who loves writing I have experienced a thing called ‘writers block’. It’s a state of my mind where you just can’t write even a word. You may try as much as you can but it doesn’t help…but these days I have been thinking if there is something called as ‘readers block’ as well!

‘A reader’s block’, a state of mind in which you don’t want to read even a single word. Then suddenly out of the blue you realise that books are piling up on your desk, books which are yet to be read, books which were bought buy you, some of them even gifted looking at your passion for reading and some recommended by excited friends who took up reading because of you!

These days I actually do have an ample time to read but I am not reading at all. When I realised that I am not able to grasp a single word, I started trying hard, you know as I guess any passionate reader would do. So I sat on my sofa with a book and a determined mind. I tried to remember it’s first few chapters as it was a book I left halfway through…then with absolutely alert eyes I started reading the book after 10 minutes I was in a sound sleep.

So every morning I tell myself don’t worry lets start with a newspaper and I fail to reach the editorial page! Even while reading a sports page or a recruitment section I think about things which are in no way connected to the text in front of me…so when I realise I am not reading, I am just holding a page in front of me. I start reading the text again which I read few minutes back! Ahh …this cycle never stops.

I can literally hear Ayn Rand, R.K.Narayan, Orhan Pamuk and various other legends calling me from my stuffed to death bookshelf…”come on..you can read me..don’t you remember how you used to read us with zeal..with a shine in your eyes..!” and all I can answer them is a big, boring yawn..ahhhhhhh…

Just at the point when you are depressed with your suddenly realised ‘reading blues’…your father comes up with two new books as your graduation gift. “Read them beta, they will inspire you in your journey in the field of journalism...” says your excited dad…

This incidence follows with a series of cosmic questions like why this is happening to me, why I am not able read and why my father always strikes a wrong timing?

No..no...I will come out of this phase. ‘Yes I will’ says the Inner me to myself! This time I have changed my plan a little bit..

I am sitting on my sofa..with a cup of tea and a magazine in hand…lets see how many minutes I’ll survive!

Reflections: An insight

While looking at a pattern of a tree outside reflected on the wall of my bedroom, I always wonder if the tree is more beautiful or its reflection.

I have always observed that the reflection of a moon in the water is so much more subtle and touching…I wonder why?

Have you ever seen a reflection of sky in the water…sometimes its so camouflaged that at a point you won’t be able to differentiate which is the water and which is the sky! So what does a mirror show to you? Sometimes when I look at my reflection in the mirror, I keep thinking that whether its me or someone who I want to be is looking back at me!

Its interesting to know how you perceive yourself at a certain age. I clearly remember my Sanskrit period in school, our teacher was explaining a Sanskrit poem in which while talking she said, “At your age you have a fascination of the mirror, you keep checking how do you look and you find yourself to be beautiful!” That was so true! You, yourself are never ugly in your own eyes and the respective mirror plays a fantastic role in this.

What will you do when you feel like talking to yourself? Like a woman in that poem who doesn’t like to grow old and curses the mirror for it! isn’t she cursing herself? Isn’t the mirror actually reflecting her own insights which are making her feel old and tired?

In my house there are three mirrors, one makes me look bold the other clearer while I am always afraid to look in the third as its wider and it makes me look fatter! Its so simple…what I feel is what I see in the mirror. Its my perception combined with my insights reflects me. The moods keep changing, the feelings keep changing so is my reflection, what is constant is the mirror and its quality of reflecting whatever comes in front or to be very precise whatever is real, just like as it is.

But whether its real, vicious, tricky or a simple lie depends completely on how true to you are to yourself. Once a friend said in a discussion that, “I can lie to the world but how can I lie to myself?”

I think this sentence completely suits the moment when the mirror reflects you.

“Tell me what do you see within, what do you see in my eyes? Do you even recognize me?” I asked the mirror one day and he proudly replied, “I see you! Your eyes reflect that now you are ready to face the world…and your mind says you are about to fly away…I will miss you!”

It rained today…and I lived the moment!!!

I left my home in agony, in suffocation. It felt as if something is binding me, bothering me so much that I am not even able to breathe. Is it because of my unemployed status or the house full of people, is it because I don’t exactly gather what I am doing properly or I am considering few things which I was pretty determined to ignore.

I knew the shop is going to be closed but it served the purpose of going for a long scooter ride, alone thinking about myself, my life and it started raining.

Monsoon rains are so enjoyable. I have always wondered how come rain has a power of washing away all the miseries of your life and gives you the courage to start afresh! Yes! I felt it.

The city of Pune in every season keeps telling me to go back to my roots. It keeps encouraging me to feel that, yes I belong here! Any and every time I left this city was always to come back…Pune was totally washed today.

It felt as if Mother Nature is gently bathing her lovely child. Today I tried to wash all my grievances in the same rain and I was successful enough. I sang my favourite songs to myself while coming back home, I felt rejuvenated.

Then I remembered how my cousin and I used to play in the rain in our balcony. I went there and played with water…splashhh...was the sound as I kicked the water. I guess it was the worries that splashed in the rain and I let them drain in the void.

In this span of time I realised that I am doing nothing but enjoying the moment. I did not care about what will happen in the future…ahh I did not even think about the next minute. It was present and I was absolutely present over there, getting wet in the rain. Drops of happiness falling continuously on my face…as I closed my eyes what I could listen and feel was just rain.

My usual habit of enjoying the rain is by sitting at the corner of our sofa in the living room closing my eyes and just listening to the sound of rain…I did realise today that I can do the same even by being there… outside on my own without any fear. There is no need to worry about anything after all life is about creating memories…living them in moments and rejoicing them afterwards!

I guess rain has made me converse within…It has taught me to just loose myself and live every passing moment…

I wish to continue my lessons with rain…

Right now its time for a hot cup of tea…Happy monsoon!!!

The Great Himalayan Trek…

One thought crossed my mind as I was watching the great Himalayas, What makes a man travel? Any man travels to explore new places or to explore himself? Throughout my Himalayan expedition I was occupied with such cosmic questions yet I was at peace. There was no regret, no guilt, no insecurity. There was no rage about my past, no worries of future. There was just one goal and that was to reach the top exactly at 13,800 ft and one focus, that was ‘Me’.

Himalayas are not only beautiful but mysterious as well. It makes you go silent. You just keep looking at the snow covered peaks and think its so near but eventually those peaks are miles and miles away from you looking down at you. You don’t feel like talking to anyone, you just want let the environment sink in you.

Throughout the trek I wrote random thoughts in my diary. I was not bothered to mention any schedule, day’s routine or anything particular. What I wrote was what I thought. Have you ever been in such trans where you are at complete peace? you cant predict what will happen tomorrow yet your not worried! You know, feeling good about yourself! I was in such trans till I returned. The atmosphere there sets you in such trans. You feel the silent mountains are talking to you.

“Who are you? Just like one of those trekkers who come and go, who consider reaching on top of me as an achievement? And eventually have very less time to admire my beauty?” asked me the proud Himalayas and I answered, “I am not one of those who are exploring you. I am not one of those who consider you as an achievement. I am here to explore myself. Your beauty and greatness has compelled me to do that.”

The ever changing weather in Himalayas post another challenge to your mental strength. There may be a bright sunshine in the morning but after a while suddenly its all cloudy and you already know that its going to rain and going to get tougher, still you know you have to climb . Your goal is set, your road is fixed , tackling its difficulties and reaching on top is what matters.

If I talk about my ultimate realisation in this wonderful trek of Himalayas then that is very simple. I trek because I love nature, I love that activity, I love meeting new people and I simply love clicking photographs and creating wonderful memories. I do not envy those who consider reaching on top as the whole and sole purpose of trek. I do not envy those who hate getting tired and fail to admire the beauty of the mountains. If you aren’t tired then how will you stop and take look at the green lush valleys, snow covered peaks and get back the energy to move ahead? If your photographs do not create memories of a shared laughter with friends then what is the purpose of being together on a trek?

So now I do believe that anybody who has a will power and absolutely loves nature can trek. But do trek with right vision, otherwise it will just turn out to be a hectic holiday. As you reach the base camp you hear a word , acclimatization…more than my body my mind was acclimatized in the great Himalayas…and after this great Himalayan trek I am finding it difficult to acclimatize at home…

Cups of tea + FUKAT time = CONVERSATIONS

Today I write this blog in the honour of the tea time conversation I just had with two of my best of friends. Today I can say that we can talk about anything and anyone on this whole earth! This tea time conversations happen over a cup of tea and I happen to drink many cups of tea in a day so...i have stopped counting the hours I spend in such conversations...they are endless yet intriguing.

Today one ultimate realisation has struck me again. Our conversations have matured by time.

I remember two years before me and my bunch of friends bitching about fellows but now the whole bitching scenario has taken a complete turn. We used to bitch about individuals now we are old enough to blame the whole society, system, cast and creed!

How the whole world is fucked up...that’s the end conclusion of our every time tea talk and we have a good laugh and separate. We don’t leave anybody whether they are our professors, classmates (who do not fall in a category of friends) parents, relatives then we move on to castism, communalism, riots, gender, mentality ....hushhhhhhhhh.....(i told you they are endless)

But these days as my degree course is coming to an end I think a lot about the time we spent at the canteen or at our favourite tea shop...at my place when I make tea for my friends and we keep gathering the fallen crumbs of the biscuits on the floor and keep spilling words from the mouth. With the degree course this part of my life is also going to end. I will keep drinking tea but I don’t know if I’ll get the same company which shares same kind of sentiment about how this world is no better place...!!!

My degree course hasn’t taught me much as these tea conversations have. I wonder what is exactly there in this cup of liquid that just runs into a stomach and makes people say the most sensible and sometimes the dumbest thing in their lives. I am going to miss it...

Again I let my imagination flow and I imagined myself in a same group, with same people that sit and chat with after exactly ten years...hah...the group was standing in the same spot talking the same thing...how this system doesn’t work...!!!

Well, well when I searched within myself about the inevitable thing in my life...the search stopped at one word...CONVERSATION...no wonder I am always up for a CUTTING CHAI...

They have lost no hearts...

We have lost the match. We were no match for Australians... well to all I am talking about HOCKEY here...I love the game and I am not ashamed of it. The whole 90 minutes were gripping and I heard the crowd cheering whenever ball was with the Indian players and I wondered is this why they are still on the field?

I seriously wonder why these men are running, sweating trying to work the ball to the goal post. They were no match for Australians but their game is also no match for the politics that their ‘karta Dharta’s’ play! And now they have a got a great sponsor HERO HONDA, which is running a campaign called ‘fir dil do hockey ko’ ...the campaign is supposed to bring the goodwill back with the game that has lost its shine in the country long ago.

What disappointed me today was not that we lost the match miserably but the miserable advertisement of this campaign. The ad is advertising only Hero Honda bikes where the ‘hockey’ in it is not even for five seconds! Another thing is that we can see a Hero Honda bike actually parked in the studio where the channel telecasts it’s after match analysis...ahh well my ultimate realization struck me again...that they are using HOCKEY as a tool to advertise themselves. Looking at the crowd today in the New Delhi national stadium I did not feel that HOCKEY has lost any hearts!

Another amazing blunder that occurred today, the commentator of the match said proudly that India was so PROUD of their win against Pakistan that they almost declared a national holiday yesterday!...hmnn I don’t expect him to know that yesterday was Holi and it is a national holiday... I think he needs some ultimate realization to strike him!

Anyhow Holi reminds me of a colour red in the form of blood that we ask from our hockey players. The finance and the politics around them are sucking their blood.

I am going to watch every match that India plays in this world cup and the commonwealth and so on but I will not be disappointed if they lose, because They not only have to face the opposite team but the battles within.

Today the Arjun Hallapa and Rajpal Singh(if you know that they are our hockey players and the later one is the CAPTAIN) goal was utmost representation of the SKILLED hockey that we play. When we are in the circle we are a dangerous team...

Whether they are TIGERS, PEACKOKS OR HOCKEY ; I think we don’t like anything that is declared as NATIONAL. Hockey haven’t lost any hearts...it will revive, survive and live longer than any other game!

Get together people...if we cannot contribute to New Delhi ticket box at least contribute to TRP’s

Live on TEN Sports

Unlimited sea but a limited sight…

A beautiful woman with skin as smooth as milk and deep light brown eyes donning a pleasant smile sat opposite me in a local train. She was covered in a burka but her face was unveiled. Looking at her my ultimate realization struck me again that no doubt they want to protect or cover the beauty like hers!

She was with her own child, a little girl. Not more than three years old, she was nicely dressed in pink tee and black jeans. Comfortably occupying her mothers lap she was gazing at the wonderful world outside the window.

“Look at the sea, baby, see how big it is!” said her mother to her by pointing at the sea.

But the little lady was busy in looking at my jeans and her own jeans and suddenly she cried, “Same, same jeans!” her mother and I exchanged smiles as it was really cute indeed!

After few moments her mother covered her liitle head with a burka and said, “beta , dhoop aati hai naa..”

Well, I realized that after few years the little lady will turn into a woman and have her own burka. Her body will be covered by a black cloth while her soul will be bound by certain limitations!

Her religion accepts the limitations openly while others don the happy and ever smiling face or a term called ‘COMPRAMISE’ to cover them all.

I felt as if she is looking at the limitless sea but her sight is going to be so limited within few years!

While coming back home on the same day I saw bunch of women standing at the door of the train facing the sea. I smiled as I sensed that at least half of them are looking at ‘nothing’ but on back of their minds they are thinking about kitchen, family and a struggle that will begin tomorrow again!

It all depends on how you look at the sea and its limitlessness. Most of us see what we are made to see, the vision is given not formed!

I wish to break the limits…

Yes, I believe...!

All these days I was suffering with some kind of a writer’s block. But now it seems I am back and writing again. All these days I was feeling as if something in me has lost and I am searching it all around the city, just forgot to search within, found the chord at the end...better late than never.

On the way to my gym I always see two Bhajiwalla’s sitting on footpath near their respective stalls and saying “Om Sai Ram” continuously. Every time it hits me with the realization that they both are happy while remembering god. Faith or believe that’s what you call it. They sound so clear and plain as if they are just doing this for themselves. I guess such faith is what keeps a man going.

While thinking about faith and belief I remembered the day when one of my friends mother asked me whether I believe in god? I simply answered, “No aunty i don’t find any need to believe in god.”

Then she said, “I know it’s because you lost your mother when you were very young but faith is important my dear. Have faith in something or someone. It will bring you peace and satisfaction.”

She spoke the ultimate truth about me. My perception towards god changed extremely after I lost my mother but my life took a turn when I accepted it.

I believe in accepting the reality. I have faith in my friends and family, to be honest every single day when I wake up I feel like,

‘I Love my self’

‘I love my life’

‘I love my friends and family’

So I have realised the course of my faith. I have faith in people and I believe in myself totally. I always used to wonder about why I don’t feel insecurity; again I got my answer within myself.

So it doesn’t matter to me if I don’t go to temple, when I look at it from distance I feel serene and that’s about it.

I belong here...

Exactly at 12 on the New Year’s night I saw firecrackers bursting all over the sky as I travelled back to my home by train. That night the city looked beautiful.

Hmnn...Wait...I am not talking about Mumbai here but about the city of Navi Mumbai!

Since I shifted to Panvel it’s been my routine to take a bus to college in the morning and come back home by the train. I do this just to enjoy the different routes and views of the city in one day itself. Almost every day I wait to see the small wooden boat lying alone on the shore of the backwaters before Kharghar. The cranes, white as milk, fly all over the water every time I happen to see them. The mountains around this city give me strength and the citizens give me hope.

This is the city which allowed me to walk from Sector 4 Nerul to the seawoods station enjoying the lake and the sunset. It was one hour walking but tireless. In this place only I was able to just walk into an ice-cream shop, select my flavour and enjoy every bit of it while walking down to Kharghar station.

I made some of my best friends here. This is the city which taught me struggle, importance of freedom and how to share relationships with people. Few days before I was in an emotional turmoil but the city’s calmness brought me out. My poetry, my writing took birth here. I see tremendous change in me throughout the course of three years but this city hasn’t changed. Kharghar is still as beautiful as it was. Panvel is still as dirty as it was...(i am already used to it) and Vashi still as corporate as it was!

Its like “every day is a new day”, shouts Navi Mumbai at me. “Take life as it is...face it... face it” it keeps me on a roll!

So much is written about the great city of Mumbai everyday but I hardly find anybody talking and writing about this lovely city. So this blog is dedicated to the city of Navi Mumbai and all the Navi Mumbaikars who made me feel at home.

If I ever become successful and have money bundles of money in my bank account, I will buy a house here in this city. I would slip into a comfortable chair in my balcony and go on writing and writing endlessly while sipping my favourite Chai and I am pretty sure that beautiful sunset will give me company!

Ahh...I don’t know why it took me three years to express my love for this city. Today i happily declare myself as Navi Mumbaikar... (Thank god my mother doesn’t read my blog!)

Well, Better late than never...

my first ever blog

The ultimate realization(s)

While sweeping my house that day I thought of writing blogs! I then turned this desire into my New Year resolution, so here it goes!

Few minutes passed while sweeping as I realised ‘well, well I can sweep the floor too!’ I mean I left my home and my city to make my career. I can read, write and blabber (sometimes original, that keeps me going!) I go on trekking and play badminton whenever possible. I can cook, sweep and do dishes too! I waved the broom in the air and cherished my moment of ‘happy realisation’! I felt good of myself after a long (its looooonnnnnggggg) time.

That day itself I went into a book shop and saw one book about women, Indian women to be specific! It was a new ‘Indian best seller’! Though I don’t remember the name of the book I simply could not forget the two golden lines on its back page. They were, “what Indian women want today? ‘Sex’, maybe, ‘Money’, ofcource but of their own!

Suddenly I was hit with another realisation that I am a typical Indian girl, who will be called a woman after a few years, so what do I want? I wondered! I can sweep and cook so I qualify to become a wife (according to my aunties) and as I came to make my career in Mumbai , I am a very responsible daughter (according to my optimistic father) but to tell you honestly what I love the most is my freedom and my independence! It was given to me a few years back...I misused it and then I had to earn it back! That’s the way it is...

Well, well, here I am aspiring to become a critical, serious political and travel writer stuck with brooms and books!

I hope you survive this blog to read the next... hope is a good thing after all!