Nimbu paani

 

What does April mean to me?

To start at the beginning

A bit cliché

Summer Holidays!

Gully Cricket and lemon juice

Life didn’t give us lemons back then

Only lemon juice

And boy how we drank it!

Not a care in the world

Sticky mess all over

once white shirts and

Broken beach castles and sand filled shoes

You should also know that

April in Chennai was a month of heat

A month to quite literally sink in your teeth

And grab a juicy bite of watermelon or mango

That’s how life tasted like.

 

April is also the month

When I stumbled upon writing

26^th April 2010

A blog was born.

I felt the joy of creating something

My digital Disneyland

Every post a joyride

Traversing as per my thoughts.

 

April later still remains a month of joy

Albeit filled with chaos.

A period of gold rush

Before the courts close for may .

I still experience summer holidays

Albeit mixed with the beginning of the new financial year.

 

April has now made a full circle.

The month I again established something

Which will hopefully remain immortal

Like this blog.

My new law firm

Saaki Legal estd 15.04.2024

A watermelon or mango of love, labour and joy!

 

Nimbu Paani means lemonade/ lemon water in Hindi. 

Inspired by PU's weekly prompt 'April' 

Been a while but now you know why. Will post and visit you all more henceforth!

 

2021

 

We as humans have a tendency to believe that the current moment we live in is the most important/momentous/worst one. So much so that we tend to look at our 5minutesback self more rosily  than our present self. This peculiar trait is amplified the most when we post stuff like 'this year was the most soul sucking / earth shattering / eye opening one of my life'/ 2020 sucks/ 2020 > 2021. While i generally disagree with such statements, I am going to make a categorical one myself right now. At this moment. 

2021 was the most challenging year of my life. 

I think it started well enough. I was in peak comfort zone personally, professionally and socially. I loved how everything was but didn't want anything to change and I definitely didn't want to push myself. You know what they say- If you don't, life will. 

and life did. 

Nothing that dramatic really. I just contracted a mild case of COVID  in the second wave. I was and am lucky that nothing devastatingly permanent happened in my life. However, I was in a prolonged home isolation with myself for 21 days and that did the trick. 

The thing is I like many others don't like to think about the 'big stuff'. I like it to keep it light and 'cash-ual' and keep flowing through life like that runner in temple run. Truth is whenever I have thought about my plans for my future or think too hard  about anything of substance I get into a full blown existential crisis mode. This is true since 2007 and I am just 25 y'all. Do the math.

When you look at something for too long it loses all meaning. Look at any word for too long it just looks and feels wrong! That's what happened when I started thinking about life in general. 

 Almost 3 years of life done after college, suddenly you realise life has no institutional structure. You can do anything you want with life. No one to tell you what to do. This realisation was terribly exciting for like 5 seconds before it turned terrifying. 

Then I started discovering ways to just control myself and not think about things. That went well for all of 2 months before shit hit the roof lol The longer you contain the pressure inside the bigger the blast will be.

Don't worry. There is a light at the end of tunnel for this tale of doom and gloom. (even though it just might be the headlights of an oncoming train) 

I survived all of the crippling anxiety and tension by making conscious good choices. Actions speak louder than thoughts. Doing is moving. By the last quarter of the year I was in such a good place mentally that I took my abrupt job change in stride (with teeny amounts of deserved drama) and can look back at this year with gratitude. 

I feel like I have matured considerably this year. The fact that I didn't flinch by the word mature itself is a hint. (lol) I am ready to take on bigger commitments without flipping out. I thank all the humans who helped me get to this point. Y'all know who you are. I couldn't 

Stalagmites

Sharing a poem I handwrote my friends for this friendship day :) sorry for the non posting. Laptop crash and a law career makes writing difficult!

Stalagmites gracing the inner linings of my heart

inner compasses gently swaying me away

from turbulent mirages , of

an insecure voice 

which once belonged to my mind 

Making me believe 

that I can be more 

than my self

by being myself

My saviors in nightgowns

roaming a love lost town

when we have each other

we will always be home 

Sangili Bungili Open the Door

Hi guys! Wish you all a Happy New year. With New year comes the question of constantly reinventing oneself and I decided to experiment by  collaborating on a fictional story with Prason - Humor blogger and CFO of the soora mokkai blog - Chronicwriter . You can check out the blog Here , it is a damn chill blog actually and you can thank me later for introducing this kind of awesomeness in your life. So what Prason and I have done is essentially snowball a story from scratch. He writes a line and then I write one spontaneously making it all up and having tonnes of fun in the process. Hope you have as much fun reading it as we had making it.

Disclaimer - The post contains liberal doses of tanglish.

Prason

Prashanth was frantically searching for his laptop.

It was right here inside my backpack.  And now it's not. The backpack zip is open and my favourite key-chain that was fixed with the zip is missing .

My hands instinctively reached for my Jean zip and I was relieved to know that they were all in the right place.

Someone had definitely stolen my lap top. It definitely cannot be my mom. She already has a mac.

My backpack was under the bed; and hence it cannot be the maid too because she does not even clean anything under the bed.

It cannot be my girlfriend because well I don't have one and it cannot be my boyfriend too because I am not gay.

Yen ipdi mokka potu saavadikiraenaa, technically and basically I'm an IT guy and this is all I have in my life. As I am an IT guy, I do have a photography page and all my pictures are in my laptop. And oh my yesunadha! I just realized there are damning pictures of me trying out my nandu brand lungis

Well, I am kidding; there’s more than just my nandu brand mishaps. There is a floor plan of my office which I am going to rob day after tomorrow.

There are three other people in my team and I hate one of them. It cannot be Surya because he only recruited me. Or could this be his masterplan all along? It could be because we both like the same girl – “Smitha” from our team. Trust me when I say Smitha is worth sending someone to jail. Her eyes! They make my heart beat so fast that if I let it out, it can out run Ussain Bolt and create a new world record in the 100 metre dash.

Her voice makes chinna kuyil chitra sound like kovai Sarala. So I never tell her to sing. I never tell her anything actually. But I do talk a lot with Pooja, the other girl in our team. Surya hated it when ever I talked with Pooja or Smitha.

Why did I agree to the stupid robbery plan? I thought it was a stupid joke of course till it was not and by then I had already revealed too much to Pooja. I think she hated me because I liked Smitha and maybe she was the one who flicked the laptop?

My thoughts are jumping so wildly today. I shouldn't have probably had all the free filter kaapi shots. I guess Surya drugged me with those kaapi; he was too friendly with me. I am sure Pooja and Surya are together on this.

I try to call them with my phone. Alas! My phone is also missing. I had last seen it in my back pocket. What the fruit is happening guys?

All I have is this one Rupee coin. I have no other option but to invest this coin and become a millionaire. And for that I need to leave this damned room. And this is when I realize that the door is locked. Not the sharpest day for the 10th topper today.

Well I gotta pee now. My bladder is full and time is ticking too. I have used all my karate and yoga skills to control this tsunami attack. But aathratha adakkalaam. But moothratha kandippa control panna mudiyaadhu. Let me unload eshwaraaa! I wake up in a pool of sweat from my bed and I look under the bed immediately. I can see my laptop peeping through the backpack.

Prason's version of the same story is up on his blog. Do check it out!

Sense of an Ending

Once I was the new girl

quietly inhabiting my corner 

Inhibitions galore 

Tongues tied with awkwardness 

wrapping me up, producing no comfort. 

It took a fair amount of time,

some nice humans and 

a good deal of ass kicking and coffee smelling 

to be me in front of them. 

Then school got over and college got me

starting all over again. 

College took a fair bit longer 

with relocation , Hindi and whatnot

I had resigned myself to my fate 

of becoming the crazy cat lady or

the pigeon lady from Home alone. 

All it took was one kind human 

to introduce me to her friends 

With them I could finally 

Stand in the sun. 

A big family of friends we became 

a noisy bunch , food bonded us 

to extraordinary measures

We ate more than we spoke

maybe the only reason restaurants

didn't kick us out! 

We handled failures and successes 

makeovers and breakdowns 

with much elan 

and stuck with each other through it all. 

Intimidating other individuals with our 

sheer numbers

we had a ball! 

Now the days are vanishing rapidly 

and the sun might set on us after all. 

The time to restart is looming around the corner 

I  wish this time that 

I can put them in my pockets 

and carry them wherever I want! 

To Srimathi

To sudden spurts of unconditional love which truly does conquer all.

You saw the before and after

Through my thick and thin

Blood

Milk and

Water

You are my little tiny tim 

You excel in liking

Every little thing I do.

But nonchalantly overlooking

The very same things too

Worrying is in your DNA

Coolness is your USP

The best mom ever to me

You will always be. 

associated  with poet's united motif for this midweek - conquest 

The First Dosa

I would like to thank all my readers - new and old - for the constant support and feedback. Steady Meanderings has gained a new lease of life because of you all. You guys are my biggest blessing! :)

Okay that sounded so cheesy and so unlike me :P

Listening to feedback is very crucial  feel and I have been getting requests to revert back to my long articles and short stories. But you see the problem is that, once you cross over to poetry which is so quaint and beautiful , prose feels cumbersome ugly and crass. If  I can make my point in 50 lovely words , why stretch it out to a 500 inconsequential ones?
What I am saying is that I used to be a story teller but now I've now become a writer. I have been giving importance to style over substance and I know that is not the best thing to happen to me. So I will try to balance both and I am committing to that by registering it here.
Since a cross over from poetry to prose is not the easiest thing ever , I'm going to try to capture the stream of conscious thoughts that's flowing through my head right now.
We all have to start somewhere right?

This post's soul feels this way

The heavy poetry hangover is palpable but please bear with me.
My mom says that the first dosa is always bad. But only if you get done with it , you can move on to better crispy ones :) and that is what this post is attempting to do. Scratch the pan before making more delicious things.

 Blessing Midweek Motif - I have become an avid participant of the poets united's midweek prompts. There is nothing more satisfying for a writer than to find a community of like minded souls sharing their work and mutual appreciation :)
The midweek motif for this week is 'blessing' and like I said in the beginning readers are my biggest blessing.

" More often than not we rarely spot the blessings we have been awarded from the almighty nature. Sometimes because we don't recognise the almighty but most times because we don't know that they are a blessing. We are too afraid to open the gift life has awarded us. Especially since life loves handing out Jackfruits. Prickly on the outside but oh so sweet on the inside. "

"Some people may have had cheap jackfruit off the road. A cursing in a blessing disguise. Wolf in sheep's clothing if you may call it. And so when the real fruit of our labour comes along we are too afraid to taste them .What a shame"  ( I had a bad experience with it when i was 8. Now i have a lifelong aversion)

" Moving away from the now overused Jackfruit metaphor , sometimes we are not aware that we possess is a blessing. Only when we lose or afraid we are going to lose it , that goddamn curse turns out to be your bestie bff blessing,"

 " If you never ever do find out your blessings from your curses , may god save you. "

No post is complete without a ruby meme :D

My convoluted message is that 

1) Spot thy blessings asap

2) Cherish them

3) Don't be a complaining mona 

4) This can be in relation to people , incidents , the seemingly shitty  sucky trick life life played on you. 

Iwilltakethisoppurtunity to Thank Srishti Swati  and Raju / Mona Darling aka Rajeshwari for being there always. If i put myself through what i put you both through , I would have unfriend AND block myself. Thank you for ending up in ILS by accident and making my life so much better ^_^

I would love to put a pic up , but fearing gaudiness I am not putting up. 

If this post nothing to you , take my peace offering :- 

 

 

Okay bye.