Christmas, gifts and Secret Santa

                   The last week of December is my favorite time of the year. It has been the same even before I came into the corporate world and this week became synonymous with low volumes of work due to holiday season, although it has become one more reason to be happy and glee.

                   I never went to a convent school, I never really had any close Christian friend and I most certainly did not belong to a westernized family. What's a westernized family you may ask? I believe them to be people largely influenced by Western movies and culture (yes the ones who celebrate Halloween and tomato fests). The point I am making here is that I never had people who understand or share my excitement about this season!

                  The earliest Christmas memories I have are those of standing in a queue outside the Monginis cake shop to meet a Santa Claus with my father. When I was a kid, we were never over exposed to Santa Claus. There were no malls with Christmas decoration or a man dressed as Santa Claus all month in a corner of the mall. On the 25th of December, Monginis did have a Santa Claus who stood with a huge bag of gifts, and kids stood in line just to shake hands with the Santa and get a pack of gifts. The gifts inside the pack were small things like a scented eraser, a pencil, a color pencil set, a balloon, a Santa Claus mask and a flying fan (the one that you roll between your palms and set free) but the happiness of getting these things from Santa himself was beyond measure. I am partial to Monginis cake shop for this very happy time they gifted me years back!

                                                
                                                         image courtesy-youtube

                 In the years that followed, I stopped going to Monginis. The gift pack did not excite me anymore. So Santa decided to visit me. Yes, every 25th morning I had a gift hidden somewhere in the house. It almost always was close to the door. A sling bag hanging from the door handle with the lipstick color I loved or a dress that was neatly packed and placed in my cycle basket. I was old enough to know that there was no Santa for real (such heartbreaking truths we come to know!), my mother convinced me that she booked a Santa visit at a gift shop. Every Christmas morning they come over and sing carols and leave behind a gift. I believed it, I truly believed it. I had no way to prove otherwise because I couldn't for the life of me wake up in the wee hours of morning to verify it for myself! And so it continued, until one day Santa forgot to visit. I was disappointed. Later that evening, I found a box of pastries. I knew my Santa was not keeping well and had made up this last moment arrangement. It had been my mom all along.

                 Before I shifted to Bangalore, all my Christmas mornings were full of excitement about the gift and evenings spent savoring a wine plum cake or chocolate pastry. Of course I did a spiritual dance each time I walked by the streets full of stars and lights. When I moved to Bangalore, my first Christmas week looked gloomy. I had no friends, no family, no job. Just a husband. On my first Christmas here, we went to a mall and it instantly brightened me up.  Entire mall decorated in Christmas colors, a Christmas tree and a Santa Claus. This was exactly what I needed to feel happy. While the place I stayed seemed to not know what Christmas was, this mall away from home felt like a heaven of my memories.

               The next two Christmas weeks in Bangalore have been nothing but a delight. The work place feels like the happiest place on earth with the reception having a Christmas tree and the decorations, and the work desks having colorful balloons. Secret Santa in office just reveals the child within each of us. How happy we are to find a bar of chocolate on the desk! Finding hidden gifts in a colleague's locker or tucked behind the monitors, going on breaks and coming back expecting your Santa must have kept something on your table, the joy of unwrapping your gift and your colleagues gathering around you to see what you got. I absolutely love this week at work. Since we work for off shore clients, work is usually slow in this week too! All the more reason to be happy. This year I had a Secret Santa who who had a thing for pretty packaging. Each time I saw my gift I lost my heart to the box.

               
 Its not just the gifts that make me so cheerful. Somehow I feel energetic around this time of the year. Even if I have wasted the entire year doing nothing, this week makes me feel like its the best of what the year has offered to me. I haven't gone hungry all year, I have had a roof over my head, I have had a warm bed to sleep each night, I have had people to take care of me when I am down, I have had enough money to buy what I needed, I have had more blessings than mishaps in my year,  I have woken up each day with anticipation than despair and that is all that one needs to be happy. I think I finally realize now that you value your parents more and more as you grow older. They have given me so many memories for a festival that was not even the one that we celebrated and it turned out to be the one that makes me happiest even now.

                 This Christmas I wish more happy memories for children across the globe, more time for adults to spend with their kids, more family bonding than networking. I wish that you have more hope, less Monday morning blues, more time to read, more time to write, more courage to express, more anecdotes to share, more places to travel, more feelings to experience, more reasons to smile, more skills to learn, more friends to make, to more beautiful pictures, more songs to sing, more avenues to explore, more warm hugs to share, more kisses to give, more Sundays to laze, more spirit to run, more energy to work, more health to live a happy life! May your year be a blessed one.

YouTube is working!

Father: "So how much does it costs"

Daughter: "$770"

"Okay and how much is it in India"

"I tried looking in online and the closest model is around 60k INR but that of a low configuration. The exact model as this is not available with prices online. I will try to look for it in some store in some  mall."

"That’s okay. This is nice. I like it."

She smiled.

Mission Accomplished – she thought.

Mission to persuade him that $770 were well spent.

"So does it play songs. How is the sound quality?"

"Ofcourse Papa it does. It’s a $770 machine."

And there it was. Wide happy bubble of moment savaged

Click – type – type – www.youtube.com

YouTube main page displayed. Click the link of a song and boom!

Error occurred.

HP ENVY x360 m6 Convertible – couldn’t play a video because of a stupid bug due to an update.

** SIGH **

"Ofcourse it will play…  $770 machine" judgement was declared.

"$770 – yeah right!", no point in advocating anything now, she thought to herself.

P.S.: If you are facing the same problem, close all chrome sessions from task manager and restart the system. It Works!!!

The Antisocials

                   "Are you anti-social?" I asked my husband.
                   "No, why did you ask?" he replied, surprised by this sudden question. We were having dinner at home on a Saturday night.
                   "You know, couples usually have other couple friends. They hang out and do stuff. We don't visit anyone. Nobody visits us. So I was wondering."
                   "You don't want anyone to come over" he said.
                   "It's not like that. I just don't like to clean the house to impress. Also, cooking for so many people is taxing, but otherwise I am social. I don't have friends here but I have in Mumbai. Mumbai would have been a different scene you see. But you have all your childhood friends here." I defended myself. He kept quiet.

                    Sunday evening
                   
"Let's go to S aunty" he suggested.
"Ok, we can go there. Its been a while since we gossiped". We went unannounced, she wasn't at home.
"Shall we go to X?" he asked.
"No, she's always talking of exams and stuff. I get bored."
"Shall we go to Y?" he suggested
"No, I don't like her husband. He boasts a lot. Her mother-in-law grills me all the time, plus her kid is very annoying."
"Shall we got to Z?"
"No, Z is not well so all must be there. 'A' must also be there. I don't like A".
"And you were saying I am anti-social" he had a smug smile.

"So what will we two anti-socials do?" he asked to taunt me further.
"I don't know."
"Let's go watch crime patrol"
"Yes! We have to watch so many episodes" I answered more cheerfully than I intended.


So that's how anti-social, crime patrol addicted couples spend their Sunday evening :P

I am sorry

I am sorry
I am no one to distress you with pain
You are a nice person
And I can not be the reason for your pain

You are a nice person
You cannot see me lost
But that doesn't mean
I can make you laughter exhaust.

You said I can call you
Call you in times of need
Whenever I feel low and am crying
I should call rather than doing so

I am sorry
I can't do that
I will never call you
And make you aware of my vulnerability
The pain the loneliness
Is for me and can never be your gain

I am gonna be to myself
Keep all the cries and worries to my soul
You are not here
to take care of her tormented soul

You have a girl
Of whom you should take care of
And leave this one for once and all now!

I am no one to take away
any moment of  your happiness
I should be just left out
Of your way of merriness

I will try to be away from you
As far as possible
Won't bother you with anything
And be like I never really existed.

For it pains me to put you in pain
And pains more if I am the reason putting you in pain!

I am sorry

To Marry or not to marry

                 I hesitated before putting up the pre-wedding photograph that said "Save the date". I was fully aware of the shock waves that would spread through people who had known me in school and college. Was it too early? You bet! I was just 22, barely 4 months into the corporate world and all geared up to take the plunge. Was I wrong? Only time would tell.

                As expected, I did get some comments that made me cringe, "Whoa! That is too soon", "Are you serious" and even though the congratulatory ones far outnumbered these kind, I couldn't help feeling a knot in my stomach when I read them. At a time when my contemporaries were choosing universities for higher education, I was busy selecting my wedding trousseau. I was out of loop with what was happening in my friends circle and they were as clueless of my activities. A lot of help poured in from fellow bloggers who were not just supportive but guided me through my everyday anxiety. From suggestions about wedding preparation to giving me pep talk, people I had not even met in real life were helping me sail through this tumultuous time.

               "I don't know what she's doing, but I will stick with her" was the kind of attitude of people who loved me dearly. I had never thought I would be doing it so early. Why was I choosing to do this at 22? For one, I had been in love for a long, long time with the man I was going to marry. We realised there was no way we could carry on long distance any more. It was time for him to settle down. Although, I was not fully prepared to settle right away, I did not see myself marrying anyone else. It was an everyday battle between what I want and what I need since the time we made this decision.

                

               Truth be told, I was not aware what was in store for me in this deal called marriage. I was always skeptical about marriage. It had to do with the fact that I had been around so many unhappy marriages, so many pairs who loved each other but could not agree on a single thing and I had known so many unmarried people who never lost an opportunity to degrade marriage and married ones. I only hoped it wasn't the case with me. I was brought up in a very different world than what I was married into. The first month felt like a vacation. I often caught myself wondering when I would go home. The husband was trying to get to know me for real. It was awkward between us. Since we had been in long distance all these years, it took time to figure out living together. We were just not used to having each other around. Three months of my life after marriage were spent at home.  During the day, I would try to experiment with cooking. Since I had barely cooked (except for baking!) before marriage, everything was an experiment! I read or watched TV rest of the day. Some evenings he would come early and we would go for a walk or drive. Weekends we spent watching movies or shopping. Even though I was occupied with the changes in my life, there were nights I terribly missed home and cried while he held me, trying to calm me.

             When I got a job, he was ecstatic. It was my first and only interview and I had made it. The office was 28 kms away from our home. As I neither knew the local language nor did I know the route, he dropped me all the way to work the first day. He had to come back the same distance as his office was in the opposite direction. The same day he again came to pick me up. It was one exhausting day. I somehow figured out coming back alone the next day (courtesy a colleague). The time for travel through bus was around 2 hours each way. So every morning, husband dropped me to work for the next one and half month until I got a shift assigned and a cab to take care of my travel.

           They say the first six months of marriage are blissful because everything is so new. The passion fizzles out eventually by the time it’s your first anniversary. "Yours is a new marriage" was one comment that I kept getting if I did say something that was not true of someone else's marriage. I secretly wondered if it was true. Was ours going to go the same way? I did know that novelty wears off in some time. We had been in a relationship before our marriage and the first six months of our relationship was the peak of all romance and later we had a one on one with reality. I worried that it was the same for marriage.

          Even after the six months, nothing changed in our lives. We worked, we laughed, we ate, we travelled, we partied, we watched movies, we made love, and we dreamt just the same way. In no time we were at our first anniversary. In a year, we had become inseparable.

         The next few months were challenging for me from work perspective. I worked long hours, often logging in even after coming home. I worked weekends, I worked on public holidays.  I worked every waking hour. It was all possible because he stood by me. He picked me up sometimes when I worked on holiday, treating me out or picking some food parcel on the way because I would be too tired to cook. He let me work when I was struggling with sinusitis because he understood it was important for me (plus I never take holidays that I can utilize to travel :P). The work pressure was getting the better of most people. Some decided to quit. Some colleagues asked me, "Doesn't your husband say anything?" Someone asked, "How long have you been married?" and when I said it’s been a year, she replied, "Oh! That’s why. If it was new, it would be a problem". It got me thinking. Why should a husband have problem if a wife works extra when her job requires it? I also wondered how it mattered how old a marriage is. It definitely hinted at some kind of action they expect during the first year. Do they think I just go home and open my laptop?

         I put my keys in the door as quietly as possible as to not wake him up. I work in second shift and so it is usually midnight when I reach home. As soon as I opened the door, I saw a black chair next to my table and the husband sitting on it with his back towards me. He rotated the chair with a big smile on his face! He had got me an office chair as a surprise! Since I was spending so much time working at home, he figured it would be good if I use an office chair. And here I was wondering all about the irrelevant things about marriage and work. It was then that I realized how true it was when someone had written, "The best decision you can make for your career is who you choose to marry". There is no end to ifs and maybes. I may have had a better paying job if I had waited it out and gone for higher education. I may have got married eventually to someone else. Because who am I kidding? I wouldn't have stayed single all life even if I chose to. But in that moment, I knew that I was right in marrying the man who was my husband. And I wouldn't trade that with all the money in this world let alone some snide remarks from people who don't get it.

        We are about to complete 2 years of marriage. Weekdays just go by in a blur, getting the chores and office work done. Some weekends we plan and travel and some weekends are simply spent watching crime patrol (Yes! I got him addicted too). Life has been a bag of surprises with him. It doesn't need much to surprise me. Sometimes, an unexpected halt in front of my favorite ice-cream shop, or a couple of novels he picked at airport on his way back home from a work trip, when he suddenly takes me shoe shopping or him letting me sleep on his side of bed because I am not feeling well. I still work long hours some days. I don't do it just for money. I do it sometimes to help others. Besides, it’s good to buy gifts for family with the extra money you make. Even if we are busy with work, we make time for each other every day. We never miss to hug each other when he leaves for work in the morning and when I return at night, we still message each other at least once in a day. There are a million ways we are always involved with each other.

        "Marrying right after college is like leaving the party at 8.30" someone posted recently. Not if you are going to another party that is more happening my love! I thought of commenting but didn't. To marry or not to marry? That is not the question. Choose what makes you happy.

             

              

Preference

Why would somebody do that?
What thought is behind this action?
It's something that she's not used to!
A different treatment!

"Hmm...."
"After you..." and a hand gesture was made for her to go first on the staircase.

A step onto the stairs but a preference was given. Specifically she was asked to step first.
Something that doesn't happen to her everyday.
Not that she has not been with guys earlier and not that she hasn't been given a special treatment before.
But this was something that had never happened.

As small and insignificant this may seem but was not at that moment.

Men tend to have bigger egos than women. This is how they have been made. Women are easy to break but men are tough! It's hard for them to put someone else before them. But here he had her before her.

This might be not new for him but was new to her.
This might be something he does to every girl but no guy had done it yet for her.

"Don't do it. I am not used to such respect", came her reply.
"Don't do something which puts her in special treatment. Don't do something which you won't do forever. Hope such a day never comes", she though in her mind.

X--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------X

Coming back home from college, she was walking behind him.

He was to open the gate and she was to follow.

Gate was opened wide and was thrown back in sudden flash.

What happened took her by surprise!

"Is this the same person who used to ask her to go first or at-least take note that somebody is following", she thought.

Might have been an upset situation, might have been a tensed state of mind, might have been her doing something to piss him off. 

This wasn't imagined but this is what happened. And a happy moment was erased.

   X-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------X

This wasn't something on the list of expectations but it's hard to ignore it after making someone habitual of that. It takes time for people to forget about the special things but it happens and happens with a pinch of pain. Funny that people make you used to certain things that they start and when they stop doing that, it's only you misses that being done!

Just another girl !

You were supposed to listen to what she had to say
Judge her after listening to the whole story
But you were too busy for that!

Too busy to hear what she has stay
Too busy to notice how she has been through the day!

Fun and joy of the moment
is the only thing you care for
At then end you will choose 'Her' over her
And she will be just another girl!

She doesn't know the tactics
the tantrums to woo guys
She doesn't and can't manipulate moves
to make them stay close!

And now she just don't care

Not anymore!

For she is just another girl to you !

If you are listening .... Listen Carefully!

Dear Sir
It's not a game
With feelings and emotions attached
It's not all that bearable now!

I see her having sleepless nights
one after another
night by night
waking up to painful bruises
in her heart
for being treated like shit!

Could you not disrespect her atleast
If you cannot respect her at all?
Could you not hurt her
If you cannot give her happiness at all?
And
Could you not give her tears
If you cannot bring a smile on her face at all?

For her eyes are really tired of crying all the time now!

The lull.

I wish I could ride the stallion called time....

As much as I dream of calling its pulse, mine.....

But, the trickster eludes me in more painful ways than one....

Leaving me tired, dusted and done!

As I battle the lull in my life,

Some warm memories seem to slip away from my sight....

I wish to be inconspicuous now....

To escape this world of judgements and, how!

Want to travel as a stranger somewhere...

Where I have not to think of what the world cares.....

Well,wishful thinking is so full of greed.....

But then, that is precisely what my parched soul needs.....!! 

My Special Someone

You are my inspiration

Having you in my life
Has revived my sleeping devotion
You are indeed a special someone

Loving you gives me hope
You have freed from all the pain I coped
All those times I gave up
You came and I stood up

Never will I forget
Every time I’m sad, 
you cheer me up
and for that I’m glad

Whenever I’m lonely
You were there for me
keeping my heart alive
with your every smile

I dedicate this poem to you
to show how much you mean to me

I love you

My special someone

Seeking oasis.....

Source: Google Images

In the deluge of qualms and fear, the bleeding heart seeks its kind

As desperation hits the sky, moments of uncertainty play chaos in the mind!

Opinions come and, opinions go

Based on rumors, they bear demonic egos

Engulfed in a furor of misled conclusions that wear the Boogey man's cloak,

With the egos spawned by arrogance, the mind feels lost in battle for the throne!

As doubts and pressures continue to mount, self wonders if the charade will ever end.....

Will the protocols stand their place, as wishes on a whim continue to bend!

A strange world that we live in, where insecurities cloud the consomme of life,

But that is how the wheels of time test you....with relentless hits and tries!

Shades of times.....

Happy moments are few

So, they seem like a drop of dew

While the heart reminisces the joyous dates,

The self ponders.... “Will there ever be an end to this wait?”

And then, life preaches.....

“There is bliss and, there is ache

After all, life comes in shades of give and take”

Whilst the self wishes for the time to fly

The inveterate question haunts...."Why us? Why?"

As the sand slips through the hour glass, grain by grain

Every second becomes a souvenir of pain!

“Fret not, child! Every phase has its time!”, so preaches the life

As faith returns with rejuvenated hopes, to battle the demons in the mind!

Good times shall follow, so sayeth the faith....

Until then, it is all worth the wait!

                                                        

I Survived

I shall always remember walking this path with you

PC: Upvenue

Today is the day you bid adieu

I wish I hadn't waited for that second and led you through the road across

I was too busy taking up calls

I saw you turn & look at me

The last look, who knew it would be

One moment is all it took

That moment when my life shook

You died, I survived

In so many years dear, I survived but every day a thousand deaths I died

Every day is not the same.....

Every day is not the same

Some moments are good, Some are lame.

Some unnerve you, Some put you in a spin

As you wriggle your way out from the unscrupulous din!

Every day is not the same

As each day is different, so is the game

Some bridges are made, Some are burned!

But then, that is the way the world is run!

Every day is not the same

The good and bad are all a part of the fame

And yet, it all begins with the thirst to reach the stars

Only to get entangled in the misery of mindless wars!

Every day is not the same

Some are nameless, Some have a name!

There is joy, there is pain and, the yin and the yang,

Such is the mediocre story of the everyday man!

 

Source: Google Images