Friday, April 22, 2016

Celor ce duc mai mult dorul,le pare mai dulce odorul

This is a romanian proverb. The google translator gives it a weird meaning, but in essence it means that "Absence Sharpens Love, Presence Strengthens it"

While we were dating, we were apart for about 5 years. Hell, we started our relationship on a virtual platform, and the amount of times that I read first half of the quote to calm my head and heart, I can't even count. When we were together (at times meeting for a couple of days once in a year), we wanted to be inseparable but at that point in time we would hardly take any risks and told lies that were beyond our control.
The first time he came to meet me, about 8 months after we had started dating, three bombs went off in Delhi, and one of them was at a hotel 500 meters away from the one he was staying at. We had known each other for 8 months. I had met him for the first time EVER in my life, and I felt crushed, when those bombs went off and I could not reach him. It was probably also the moment that I must have realised that I am totally madly in love with him.
I also remember the times when Ma (his Mom) used to call me just to get herself reassured that I had indeed spoken to him, and the confidence with which I used to reply to her while my heart was in a flutter (because I had obviously not spoken to him and I did not want to worry her). And then, the struggle to find him all over his college (I am so thankful to all his friends who used to do the legwork for me!) only to find that he is playing a stupid LAN game.

I remember the first time ever when he came to Delhi to work, and how every other day, when I used to leave for college, and eventually bunking it to spend the day with him, holed up in his house coaxing him to cook for me, watching some movies on his laptop, and just being with each other.

While I enjoy the perks of being married, I do miss the quintissential times of our dates at his house or the movies. The fact that we just could not have enough of each other.

I still worry about him. A lot. For when he tells me that he is leaving his office in 20 mins, and he doesn't reach home even after an hour, I get worried sick and call him. Even if I try to put my head to other things and not think about the time, I end up calling him. We have had numerous arguements about his track record of keeping a track of time. While I trust him and his driving skills, my heart is usually in my throat when he is driving and driving fast. Poor guy has heard so many "Jaan, careful" while he is driving that I often feel bad. But, I am just worried about him.
Or more so worried about us.
Okay, about me. (for obvious reasons)

We have been together for so long that people (and I believe, him too) feel that the novelty has worn off and that things can be taken for granted. Yes, things like farting around each other can be taken for granted, but I just cannot think of taking him or my relationship with him for granted. He does happen to be my universe (and I wish he would know that), and that every little thing that I do or say, is because of my love for him (and a little selfishness too). And each hug for me from him, even after so many years is as exciting as the first one, almost 11 years back. I just wish that he was not so wary of my love. 

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Of Hill stations with weird names and Animal cruelty that I can't comprehend!

The last weekend was a long one (surprisngly two long weekends in two consecutive months!! How awesome is THAT!!)
And we had Husband's cousin sisters over from Kolkata. Delhi is hot (and getting worse by the day), so it was decided that we shall take a trip to the hills. What was supposed to be a relaxing weekend for me and my husband turned out to be a super tiring affair.
In any case so we went to spend a night at Naukuchital and also saw the lake of Bhimtal. Naukuchiatal is a very very very small place, and to access it you have to drive via Bhimtal through a super narrow road! It is about 8 hours drive from Gurgaon, and the roads have become really awesome. I have of course visited the saat tals during my child hood and I was surprised that the usual stink that was associated with the lakes was not there any more.
We spent the night at small little 10 room boutique hotel called Spring Bird Hotel with an awesome staff and a cook who even though took 30 mins + to cook a meal would do an amazing job with the food!!
These guys (husband and the sisters) did para gliding and while I would have liked to attempt it, I just could not get around to do doing it. It may be because I was scared, or maybe because I thought that it was too much money and that it was not worth it.. or maybe because I just did not feel like it. So, these guys had a lot of fun gliding down while I sat down with some peace in sun and caught up on a few pages of my book. We then went down to Bhimtal and took a ride on the boat and visited their aquarium in middle of the lake, which was surprisingly very very well maintained!
Our lunch at the I Heart Cafe however  was the highlight of the trip before we returned home that night.

Next morning was brunch and shopping at Lajpat, the market was empty and it was eerie to say the least. Girls shopped like mad, and it was finally time to say bye to them.

In this entire trip I realised that these girls are sort of spoilt by their brother a.k.a my Husband and that when they say that they feel stifled at their house, it is their own fault. (This topic will require another analysis altogether, and I don't think that it will be appreciated, so I will leave it at this only!)
<3 11="" a="" absolutely="" affair="" amazing="" ambience="" american="" an="" and="" been="" bhimtal.="" breakfast="" but="" by="" cafe.="" cafe="" chill.="" conversation="" couple="" food="" for="" fun="" go="" great="" have="" heart="" hindi="" i="" in="" india="" is="" it="" just="" kids="" kind="" last="" menu="" nbsp="" of="" owners="" p="" pizza="" place="" read:="" regular="" run="" school="" speak="" staying="" the="" their="" to="" which="" who="" with="" years="">
On the other front, Shaktiman, the poor horse who got injured because at a protest organized by BJP passed away yesterday after battling with infections on his leg that was injured and later amputated. This was a police horse, and because the media really does need fodder they sensionalized it (which was good, otherwise the poor horse would not have received as much love and care as it got).
But everyday (and I am not even exaggertaing), on my news feed on FB, I see posts from the animal rescues and NGO's working towards the betterment of animals about how people just abandon their pets. Dogs are left on the roads and the people just drive away without even looking back. How in the world is that even fair?
Why are we as people so cruel towards these animals? Why can't we just let them be? If you don't like them then don't keep them. And for the sake of everything that makes you human, DO NOT hit them or instigate them.
Even human life has no big value any more (case in point that idiot minor who took his car out and ended up killing a 32 year old guy who was just walking on his side of the road), so it is impossible to even expect that they would be nice to voiceless animals who have nothing against them.
It is a weird world that we are staying in! 

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Responsibilities, Opportunities and all that Jazz!!

I could not wake up today.
I did wake up at 7 a.m, because Big Basket came to deliver us some groceries, but I ended up taking another 20 mins nap thereafter.
Waking up at 6 a.m shall be tried again tomorrow morning.

Last night the husband and I conversed about opportunities. Mostly spanning the opportunities vis- a -vis the careers and the responsibilities that get associated with onesself when you do end up taking an opportunity, even when you are not ready for it.

It is quite a catch 22 situation, when you are being given a chance (by some play of destiny) to advance your career, and you also realise that you are not quite ready to take on to that role. However, this chance of destiny may or may not come again.

This also made me realise that, I have never faced this situation, but, if I do, I will probably not even think logicaly through it and I will require my darling husband to be a rock for me, and that is exactly what he is looking at me for. Being his rock.
And I really really do want to be his anchoring point, and I am trying my best to be.

We may not excel at handling the situations that are thrown our way, but with each experience and with each catch 22 sitiuations, we do learn and we do grow, both as individuals and as a couple.

The journey though tiring, is exhilirating. It is like finding new ways to love and hate each other!!

Monday, April 18, 2016

The Weight Games!

This weekend we took a trip to Naukuchiya Tal and Bhimtal (with Husband's cousins), which meant that there was a lot of pictures and posting on the internet.
Younger Sis pinged me as soon as the pictures went up to tell me that it seems that I have shed some weight. While that pleased me to bits, I also realised that whole of last week I was hardly eating any crabs (Navratras and all) and that till about mid week I had no maid and I was doing a little bit extra house work.
Of cousrse the last two weeks the media has been going gaga about the whooping 108 kgs lost by the Ambani Scion in the last 18 months or so. While what he did is super inspiring especially (if the reports are to be believed) he has lost all that weight by controlling his diet and exercing. It is NO mean feat to lose so much of weight.
And while I give him all the credit that is due, I can't stop but criticise. Not the fact that he lost all the weight but the fact that he had all the time in the world to just do that. Lose weight.

The reports say that he exercised for 6 hours a day. Half of that much time is spent by me on the road every single day to travel back and forth to work. If I have 6 hours to exercise, I would probably become non-existent. Exercising in your personal gym, and having a cook dedicated to make the "diet" food prescribed by the dietician who must have charged a bomb will obviously yeild you results. But to do that while you have a full time job, where you have to travel for 3 hours a day, and also have a marriage and a house to look after, now that would be a mean feat.

It is not that I have not done this, I did manage to lose a lot of weight around the time I was getting married. I did spinning and power yoga for 6 days a week early in the morning. But then I did not have to worry about anything else. And my office was hardly 30 odd mins away and early nights by no measure meant not spending time with your beau (because the beau was not even in Delhi).

You may think that this is a puff piece about the reasons why I cannot lose any weight, and I will not argue about it. But this is the real deal. I am barely awake when I realise that I have to leave for work and after I am back, I just do not have any energy to change into work out clothes and go for a walk. Even if we say age is nothing but a number, the body does play catch up. The only time I have is in the early morning between 6-7.30 a.m. and that is VERY early. Because I love to sleep and would like to have at least 7-8 hours of solid sleep would mean that I need to be out maximum by 11 p.m.

Now working with the start time and the end time, if I have to lose some weight, this is how my day would look like:

6 am- Wake up
6.15-6.30 till 7.30 - Get ready and exercise
7.45 till 8.15- Get ready
8.30- Leave for work
Be in office till 7-7.15 p.m. (depending upon work, but mostly I get off by then)
8.45-9 p.m. - Reach home.
9.15-9.45 - Have dinner.

And then have about an hour with the Husband before I hit the bed at 11 p.m.
This looks good. A very long day indeed but getting about 2 hours in the morning to myself may be just the recipe for success in this long drawn battle with weightloss?

How exactly will this pan out? I have no idea. I have actually put aside an hour with the Husband without accounting for his time. This would also effectively mean that I get no time to read a book or watch a TV series (this may be a possibility, if the Husband is watching it with me and that makes it "our" time. But I doubt!)

So, how about I start this routine. I have heard that one requires 21 days for a routine to stick on, and revisit this after say about a month. And since this is public knowledge, I encourage you all to ask me about this too :)
Let the Weight Games Begin!




Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Life as we know it

When it rains it pours.

Here are updates of my life in bullet points because I just can't seem to comprehend the stuff enough to be able to write a long winding post:

- People are having Babies. I am happy for them. But peer pressure plus mummy pressure is building.

- I started a new job 5 days back. And I really really don't want to fuck this one up (not that I fucked up the last 4.) It is just that, I am at a point where any more unstability vis-a-vis my job is going to be the last straw in breaking my career. I want this to work out.

- My full time maid is on her annual vacation. My part timer goes for her break tomorrow. My house looks like shit. It is totally disorganized and I am just plain tired. I travel the farthest. I just started a new job (and I am not saying that Husband does not help) and I am the one who is making rotis after a whole day of work and cleaning the kitchen. [That is something that I can't stand. An unclean kitchen]. Because the part timer won't be coming from tomorrow, the dishes are on me too. Of course one can just use the damn paper plates.. or whatever. But. Then we stay in a house]

- And I am perpetually tired. Headaches are becoming common and I am hating the commute. But someone has to do it. So its me.

- I am becoming like potato. I need to exercise but I just can't get over my laziness.

- And boy, I am irritated. I dunno at what. But I am just plain irate. I can't point a finger at the irritant but my restlessness is just growing. Maybe I need to take more caffeine but nevertheless, I am trying very hard not to burst out.

These are NOT pleasant updates.. but well a cranky mind and a tired body can only say as much.