Let's Start the New Year!

Is it too late to start the year? Some of you might say yes. Some, I hope, will be sympathetic to the cause of procrastination and say, ‘No. no. Line wahin se shuru hoti hai jahan tum khadi hoti ho. Toh saal kyun nahi.’ And I, gleefully, will choose to listen to the second group. The group of my personal cheerleaders. The chairperson of this group, I am sure, is incontestably my mother. A relatively new entrant to the game, yet one of the most important players around is my partner, V. My friends for life, K and G, will call the moon, the sun if I asked them too. Also, I am sure they will convince others in their lives to do the same if they knew it would make me happy. The others in the squad I am not naming because their role as a cheerleader might make other less fortunate jealous.

So the New Year begins twenty two days into the month of January. I write my first post of the year. And I promise to return with posts more frequently this year than the last. At least one post per month if not more. I promise. Mostly to myself.

Over the last year I have been away from the blog for several reasons. I have been writing and working towards the manuscript of my first book. I hope this year I make sound progress on that front. I have been busy being a homebody. I have enjoyed every moment of being a wife, a daughter-in-law and a sister-in-law. I prioritized, willingly, my new family over almost everything else. And I am glad I did. Earlier I was at the center of my world. Now, my world has expanded. I travelled a fair bit. I read a little bit as well.

There were other stars in my galaxy. However, things are not the same. I carefully took steps to distance myself from some situations and certain people who increased the negativity quotient in my life. There have been certain collateral damages as well. Not that I have not been hurt by the overnight change in attitudes of people I trusted to be my closest friends. However, that is the story of last year. This New Year I want to begin by letting go of what has been left behind or has changed course. I am looking forward to meeting a horde of new people. Making new friends. Retaining a few from the old batch.

I will take better care of my health. My fitness will be a priority for me. I will consciously reduce the junk intake and will gravitate towards healthier food options. I will exercise. I will lose weight. And most importantly, I will stay happy. I will also be particular about eliminating the negativity intake. If last year has taught me anything at all, it is that even the most seemingly positive people can ooze negativity if what you are doing does not fall in line with what they believe is correct. Shedding (weight and negativity) is going to be the motto of 2016.

I would also like to pick up my camera more often. I will post at least once a month on my photography blog as well. I need to rekindle my love affair with Delhi. I must admit it took a backseat over the last two years as I became busy in being romanced by V. I have an ulterior motive in rekindling my affair. I want V to fall in love with the city as well. 

The travel goals remain unchanged. Several old places need to be visited afresh and there are many newer places that are waiting to be explored. I will take at least one trip where I will be in digital isolation—no phones, no internet connectivity and no tabs. Basically, no devices except for my camera maybe.

I will learn more about gardening. This season my rose bush will flower no matter what! And I will not buy kadi pata or dhaniya after June. Six months of my life I will dedicate to the flourishing of these plants.

I will read more. At least one book a month. The more the merrier. I already have three on my reading shelf. I will make some bookmarks. I will invest in good books and in a good bookshelf. I will try to meet/correspond with authors I like. I will surround myself with good books, good readers and good authors. The love affair with words will continue.

I will continue to use colour pencils on paper and try to stay within the lines as far as possible. I will write more letters. I will call more relatives and friends to ask them how they are doing and to discuss the weather. I will watch good TV programmes and good movies. I will not watch Bigg Boss ever again. Season 9 was enough to check it off my bucket-list as something to be done once in a lifetime. Now, I am done forever.

I will invest more money and time in owning board games and playing with family and friends. I will host friends and family for game nights, wine, beer, whisky, tea, coffee, finger foods, lunches and dinners. I also promise to be more creative in giving gifts. Some of the lucky few will receive handmade stuff. The gifts might not be perfect in shape but remember to appreciate the effort and love I will be putting into them. You have been instructed in advance. Feel free to invite yourself over or to ask for gifts. I will try not to disappoint you on both the counts.

I am taking a huge risk by publicly making these declarations. I know of a handful of people in my life who will not let go of a single opportunity to wave this blog post at me every, or any, time I falter on any of these promises. And I am leaning on them to do just that.

Across Three Rivers (Part-1)

I have on many occasions, to my utmost embarrassment, confessed that my mother is always right. She is a talented nagger and in her usual nagging way often told me that blogging will take you places take it seriously. As always she was right and I managed to make plans to begin the journey of my life all thanks to blogging.

I had a seven day break at the end of 2009 and started planning a vacation in the first week of December. I was considering the option of going to either Mumbai, Pune or Nashik as I have a bunch of friends and relatives residing in these cities. but their was a voice, which kept saying try something new and adventurous. I would be lying if I said that it was the voice of my alternate brave self, but the truth is that it was the voice of one of my good friends Anjana, who had gone to Ladakh a few months before. I could constantly hear her saying, “Do something adventurous, something you have never done before. You have just one life and this is the time to travel and see the world.” It was during one of my day dreaming sessions, when I was seeing an animated Anjana repeating her speech to me that it struck me that a fellow blogger from Shillong, Nitu had been polite enough to extend an invitation to visit her city and stay at a her place. The best part of such ideas is that once I get them I rarely think of anything else until I see them through.

So I began planning my exploration of the North East. The trip became even more special since I had never traveled to the east of the country. I gave Nitu the shock of her life by telling her that I was planning to come to Shillong and also self invited myself to Kavita's home in Guwahati, which is the nearest railhead to Shillong. Kavita is also a blogger and I am sure she must not have in her wildest imaginations thought that a blogger would, from all the way to Delhi, visit her. Once the reservations were done, I devoted most of my time in reading about Meghalaya, which means abode of clouds in Hindi, and its capital city Shillong. As intellectual as I might like to sound, confessing that I have a mean streak comes easily to me (visualize a grinning devil with red horns). I spent majority of the waking hours, during the days preceding my departure in teasing my friends about all the fun I was going to have during my trip. :D

I left for Guwahati in Assam on December 22, with a HUGE black bag, a small red backpack and a BIG grin on my face. It is not that I have not met my online friends before. But we mostly met for lunch, dinner or coffee. This was the first time that I was going to meet Nitu and Kavita and also stay at their places (read as completely impose myself and take maximum benefit of their generous hospitality).

The Rajdhani Express took me, and several other passengers, who are absolutely insignificant to the readers of this blog, across three greatest rivers of India – Yamuna, Ganga and Brahmaputra – to Guwahati on December 23. The journey was one of the most boring ones ever, with the attendants in Rajdhani trying their best to kill me by feeding me constantly and co-passengers it seems had pledged not to talk to anyone for the 28 hours of rail travel, which I saw as another ploy to kill me.

Kavita had sent one of her helps to receive me at the Guwahati station. Dijen happily received me but his smile vanished as soon as he saw my big black bag and realized I was incapable of lugging the load and he would have to carry it instead. After a long and adventurous ride on one of the most flexible auto-rickshaws I ever sat on, Dijen and I reached Kavita's house. I should avail this opportunity to ensure that I tell the readers that Kavita's house is beautiful and I was extremely fortunate that I managed to corner her into inviting me to stay overnight at her place. The family was extremely warm in welcoming me and I did not feel for a single moment that I was meeting them for the first time ever. Her two kids – Gauri and Kaustubh- are lovely and gave me an enthusiastic welcome.

While waiting for Kavita's husband, Chandan, to arrive home from his clinic (the couple are dentists), Kavita told me her love story. It was ultra cute but I cannot share the details as I promised her that I would not blog about it. And a promise is a promise. Once Chandan came, he kept teasing Kavita and me by calling us the “blogger girls”.

A scrumptious meal later, kavita gifted me a Mekhla Chadar and showed me how it was worn. We talked till almost midnight and then went to sleep. Breakfast was one more feast with Kavita serving hot puris (fried bread) and chole (white gram curry). After the delicious meal Chandan gave me a tour of their garden, where the family grows most of their vegetables and herbs. The best part of the house was that they had reduced their carbon footprint to the minimum.

They utilize every single drop of water and also dispose of garbage in an environment friendly way. And just in an hour, it was time for me to leave for Shillong. With my gifts (a gamcha, a bisoni (made by Kavita's help Chandrika) an the mekhla chadar) packed into the bag I said bye to the family.

Stay tuned for the next part where I will tell you about my Shillong trip.