Today is Day 1

We watched from afar as the world changed, we heard stories and read statistics, yet could not fathom the impact. Then it came closer! 

The last few weeks have seen the cautions become real, the concern and confusion too. One by one things were shut down, people started to stay home, stay away from crowded places. I myself stocked up on some staples thinking it will make things a little easier. A hand sanitiser has taken permanent residence at the entrance of my house. 

The past weekend saw an experiment like no other. Our nation was asked to voluntarily stay at home and it did! People were told to go out only to get essentials and most of them listened. But it wasn’t enough and it isn’t enough. Drastic times call for drastic measures. Starting today our entire country barring basic essentials and medical services goes on a complete lockdown. When this was announced I had a moment (okay a little more than a moment) of panic and disbelief. 

How? How are we going to do this, how will we manage? What will happen over the next three weeks? What will happen after? When will life come back to normal? Will it ever actually be normal again? The questions in my head just don’t seem to end. 

Today is Day 1!

A thought occurred to me - could today be the first day of the rest of our lives? A chance to start things anew, to create the lifestyle and habits we have wanted to for the longest time. An actual opportunity to get out of the vicious cycle most of us have found our selves in. 

If we consider this a mental and physical reboot, we could use these three weeks to contemplate, strategise, research, and learn. To make an action plan that will allow us to enrich our lives. 

Things are bad right now, but we as human beings are resilient and we will find a way out of it eventually. Our actions and attitudes today will go a long way to improving ourselves as people and as citizens. This experience is going to change us all, let’s make sure the changes are good ones. 

I remind myself today to send up a prayer of gratitude for the comforts I am fortunate to have and more importantly to the thousands of people behind the scenes who will be working through this crisis to keep us comfortable and safe. 

6 Years

30 years since I started smoking, 6 years since today since I quit! 

Most people think I quit because of a health issue, but it wasn’t the tuberculosis diagnosis that did it, nor did I need anyone to tell me I needed to. 

For months before I told myself everyday that I wanted to quit because I was fed up of the way smoking made me feel and I was even more fed up of being an addict! 

I simply used my illness as an opportunity to quit. As I got better and the years have moved on, there have been many moments of weakness; but I haven’t given in once. Why - because the good of being smoke free exponentially outweighs the bad of being a smoker! 

Proud Ex Smoker. Smoke Free For SIX.

One Step At a Time

Every now and then there comes a moment in your life when something that seems ordinary at first, eventually becomes ‘the thing’ that changed you from the inside. It may not be a specific moment, but in the future, you will define periods in your life as before or after this change. It’s happened to me a few times; the latest being August 2018.

Those who know me personally, know that I have been struggling with being over weight for the last 20 years or so. Various attempts at gyms, trainers, diets, etc worked for a short time and then the weight was back. Here’s an unhappy statistic: about 90% of people who lose weight are going to put it all back on. I wasn’t any different.

There were times I didn’t even bother and one day, in June 2018, the weighing scale gave me such a shock, I didn’t know what to do. I was at that stage where I was ready to give up completely because I know that the task ahead was so huge, there was no way I was going to accomplish it.

I had hit rock bottom! But that meant the only direction I could go was up! I had to give it one more shot. 

I chose the easiest form of exercise there is - walking. I told myself I would walk a certain number of steps a day and that’s all I needed to track. I managed to achieve my own goals over 75% of the time and that was fantastic.

Then in August, my sister invited to join a ‘walking challenge’ for 5 days, where the competition was to see who walked the most and at the end of the 5 days, I came in 3rd place.

I found I had walked more than I thought I could and it was really fun, so the next week, I decided to try and do a little more. I managed to touch 15,000 steps rather easily and just seeing those numbers felt so good, that I wanted to do it again and again.

When I started this journey, I didn’t look at the end goal. Honestly it was so far away, the very thought was overwhelming and daunting. Instead I concentrated on the process, in the hopes that I would change bit by bit and become a better version of myself. I refused to think about weight loss and only focused on a life style change.

I started seeing results and getting compliments on what was visible weight loss in just 2 weeks of this mental shift.

At this time, I had one focus - to beat my previous week’s achievements this week. I didn’t need to look at or compare myself with anyone else. Each morning I would remind myself to work a little harder than I did the day before and that’s what I did.

I used the statistics to keep me moving. I concentrated on the numbers and used that to push myself when I was tired. It was literally ‘one step at a time’. Changing your life style and moving out of your comfort zone is hard, but not giving up and sticking to it is even harder.

Then a few months later, a friend said to me - Walking has made you lose weight, but it has done so much more. You seem happier with life itself and you seem to be at peace.

I am really glad someone noticed this and mentioned it. Yes, I started walking to lose weight and bring myself to a better level of fitness, but that’s just part of the story.

The rest of it is about being stronger from within, being honest and kind with myself, respecting myself and very importantly being happy. The fact that it is visible on my face, tells me that the changes I have made in my life have worked very well.

It may sound like a lot, but it really isn’t. All it took was small changes, small choices and a belief that I can do it and will! Yes, the occasional big step is needed, but everything else you are doing, is giving you the strength for that big step!

I am now a happier & stronger person than I have been in years, you can be too..

Fullscap to Character limits

Here’s a journey that started more years ago than I would care to admit. As students, the English language was a subject we had to learn in school. How do you turn something so vast and evolving as a language into a subject is something I have yet to understand. I have spoken, read and written this language from the time I can remember and I still find that I haven’t explored even half of it.

Besides understanding the nuances of the language and comprehending stories or poems, there was a certain amount of creativity encouraged within this subject. I remember being made to write essays about random stuff. It was a terrible bore when we were younger, but the subjects got more interesting when we grew older. It was very satisfying to be able to express oneself in an otherwise ‘memorize-and-reproduce’ system of learning. Unfortunately there wasn’t too much scope to share these musings with anyone other than the teacher.

The only part I don’t miss is the physical agony of actually writing pages and pages of stuff. The longer the text, the better you scored, but too many mistakes or cancelled words or bad handwriting and you lost marks or earned a telling off from the teacher.

Many many years later I found myself contemplating a new phenomenon of writing called blogs or web logs. With my fingers poised over a keyboard, I let my imagination fly, I looked around and picked up random stuff from everyday life and found I had a lot to say about them. No one dictated the subject or the length. It was refreshing to share what I really wanted to share and not what I was told to. Mistakes and handwriting issues became a thing of the past. Kudos to word processors and spell check!

Blogs became the expressive medium of the hour (and that’s how long it lasted; but I am going ahead of myself). I shared my views, my good days and my bad days with a few readers and it was wonderful when they empathized and lived my moments with me. Something that was missing from my childhood was now possible. It was a very freeing experience.

Before I knew it, I find myself here today, expressing myself within a limit of 420 characters. Just a few words and I can share everything about my life with the hundreds that are connected to me. I can tell them what I am feeling, what I am doing, where I am going, who I met, what I anticipate and anything else I can think of.

Paper or memory is no longer a limitation. I can update my friends list on what I am experiencing every few moments if I want to. And in a short while of sharing anything, someone somewhere has read what I have said, has commented on it and has given me the instant gratification I seek. Why else would anyone of us share anything on such a public medium?

Interestingly enough.. it works, sadly enough.. it works.

Gone are the days of multiple fullscap pages filled with descriptive writing – introduction, body, conclusion. Today it’s all about short forms and quick share to quicker reactions. Is this the end of writing as we knew it before computers and smart phones or is it the beginning of a whole new way of expression.

Ek tha raja, ek thi rani

Khatam ho gayi kahani

Don’t get me wrong. I love it; how else would I know what my friends are up to. Not everyone has the time or the inclination to write volumes about their lives, especially not when a few words can do the trick. Those who enjoy it, still write and there are takers. I am one of them… are you a taker?

A Precious Conversation

A: I'm very stressed, I need a drink
V: Of course baby, I'll make it for you
A smiles
V: How much ice do you want?
A: As many cubes as you want to give me
V: Ok I'll give you two
A: Nooo, give me four


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So it starts here

So many times I have wondered, what was it that made me write? I never saw myself as a writer, yet like my father, I too had this little nagging bit inside me that said I should write and that I would be good at it.

It started with poetry many years ago. When I read those poems now, I can’t help but cringe. They sound so lame and childish. But then I try and remind myself, I was 13! The poems evolved as I grew older and some of the last few still make me feel very good.

At some stage blogs stepped in and thanks to being pushed by dad and a friend, I experimented with this new medium. To my surprise people started reading my blog and actually enjoyed what I wrote. Then came the days of DSS, the best bunch of writers I ever came across. I was too scared to share my stuff with them, they were all so good. But the anonymity helped. They didn’t know who I was and I didn’t know them. No danger of failure there.

Wouldn’t you know it, they liked my stuff and the appreciation I got from them was my aphrodisiac. I kept writing; it was wonderful.  But like all good things, this also came to an end. I don’t know how it happened, but it did. And once I stopped, I just couldn’t write again.

What changed? Where did the motivation go? What was the motivation to start with?

Was I writing for myself or playing to the audience? Initially I thought it must be the latter and now that the forum to share my writing was gone, there was no point. But then why did I feel so bad, why did I miss it so much?

I realised that while sharing my thoughts was great fun, I wasn’t doing it for anyone but myself.  Every old post of mine brings back those days to me. I remember so much more about those times; what I was doing, the things I felt, what life was like for me. It was my way of chronicling my life.

Suddenly I feel so much easier about writing again.  It doesn’t matter if it makes sense or not. It doesn’t matter if it’s been said before or not. It doesn’t matter if it makes a point or not.  It doesn’t matter if anyone enjoys it or not.

 All that matters is that I do it!

It might take me a while to get a good writing style back, but I’m ok if its not perfect. I am sure I will evolve again and I am sure I will have my readers again.

So it starts here, with this post.

Cheers all!

Some Photoshop Trials

 

The original picture

After PhotoShop

Happy Birthday Son!

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My Baby

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A Good (Winter) Morning

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