Finding my passion...

Currently my quest is to find my passion.If you are wondering why suddenly I am on my new quest, the reason is my husband has his passion and I am left to spend time with TV watching hours and hours of fashion TV and makeover shows. It suddenly dawned to me there is nothing in my life that I want to do with passion. Then I realised I don't have a passion...now this is what it is after more than 3 decades on this earth I do not have a passion.

As I thought a little harder I found the reason I did not have a passion was D. Almost for half a decade, D was my passion, wanting to spend time with him, missing him, pining for him. He had 200% of my attention that everything else was out of my sight and my mind. Now being married to him for over 3.5 yrs and knowing every night that I will see him the first thing in the morning, my mind has now some free time.Which of course I have been spending watching meaningless shows on TV for hours.

It was couple of weekends ago, I was bored and D was locked in with his passion, oh..before you guys assume who/what his passion is,his passion is his music :) . All TV channels in the world were airing infomercials. I slouched on the couch and wondered what I wanted to do that would make me get out off the stupid couch and nothing came to my mind..yes nothing.I'd rather lay there watching mindless shows on TV. It hit me, hit me hard that I had no passion.And hence started my quest. Right now my passion is to find a passion.I hope I will find something I would like to do ...no, I would love to do.

Now with the mention of things I love to do, there are a few things I absolutely love to do.I mean things like Shopping, Spending endless hours in a spa, Sleeping.But I am guessing these probably doesn't qualify as being a passion!or do they?

So I decided to start to find my passion. Something I would enjoy to do. I wanted to try reading. Until almost a few years ago, I was a avid reader.Any book I come through had to be read. But slowly I was getting bored with routine fiction. I moved to philosophical books and then to biographies and then to no books. Decided to rekindle the love for reading and where else to start than my favorite book haunt Chapters. Love the ambiance and the cozy Starbucks coffee shop.Hmm..it was appealing, couldn't wait to go.

On a rainy Saturday I declared to D, I was going out alone to find my passion. He dint even lift his head up to see me. He has seen many declarations like this from me and he was sure I was going to be home even before he would realise I was gone. I braved the winds and the rain and was at Chapters.

Was overwhelmed by what to pick.Fiction, biographies, travel, adventure...I decided to go by my gut feeling. Picked up 'The Night Tourist' by Katherine Marsh , hadn't heard of the author before.Most of the time unknown authors are better than the known ones. Please excuse me if she isn't unknown, it proves how much I have read recently. And then stopped at the Bestseller section, saw 'Angels and Demons' .Haven't read any of Dan Brown's books yet. Picked it up as well. Paid for the books and went to the coffee shop in the store. It was jam packed.Bought a lemon and poppy seed loaf and hot coffee and settled in the corner under the photogrpahy section. It was by the window, the occasional tapping of rain on the window, soft lemon and poppy seed loaf and warm coffee...hmm wonder why I didn't do this before?

Started reading 'The Night Tourist' , just as I getting into the story and loved my cozy corner spot in the bookstore, my cell started to ring. It was D. "Where are you?" ..."I told you I was going to the bookstore"..."But its been more than 20 mins" he sounded surprised I was still at the bookstore. "OK come soon". There you go, I did something that even D noticed, that means I probably am really interested.

As I write this blog, I have nearly finished the book. And am compiling a must read books now, my dear readers please feel free to leave your suggestions for 'do not miss' book list.

Closing this post with a quote from a German poet Hebbel
"Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion."

A story untold!

I think I have lived to see this day to tell this story.The story of my brothers and sisters,story of my race. We have lived on this planet from as long as I can remember, and my father and grandfather say the same.I know we have been here for a very long time, but my mathematical skills aren't good enough to put them in years.

The reason I wanted to speak out today is, I don't know how long I am going to be alive.The humans inhabiting this place seem hell bent in eradicating every one of us from this place.I should add the lady of the house isn't as heartless as the man of the house. He seems to absolutely hate us and the sight of us sends him into frenzy and he runs behind us and kill us with whatever his hand can reach. Well, at this time I need to mention at one of those times, he tried to kill one of my uncles with a glass and the glass broke , somehow my uncle escaped and that night he was given the honorary roach-knight award. The pride got to my uncle's head and next day he went out of our hiding place during broad daylight and the man of the house got him. He did live a brave life I must say!

As a precautionary measure, we have setup camps, to educate the young ones, the golden rules we teach them are

1.Never leave the hiding place during daylight

2.Learn to differentiate between sunlight and the fake sun light.(Well, these humans have come a long way, they have come long after my forefathers roamed this earth, yet in such a short time, they have learnt to create the fake sunlight in their dwellings!)

3.Breed. (I know this has been a taboo with older generations, but there is no other way to save our race than to multiply as fast as we can)

4.Never go into darker corners without a older member present with them.(These humans have come up with variety of ways to kill us and we need to tread with caution)

5.Food can wait, being alive is more important.(At times, the smell of the food drives some of us crazy and we rush out to get it and that's when the humans get us most of the time)

6.No fast food.Always find fruits and vegetables in the garbage(These humans eat such unhealthy food and some our brothers and sisters have reported illness as never before)

Recently I have noticed the lady of the house too getting harsh on us. Before she would just shriek at the sight of us, but now, she is running behind us to chase us out of our house.Yes I did say 'our' house, for some reason the lady thinks its just hers.And I sometimes ponder if she ever heard of the word 'Co-existence'. Really if only we tried, humans and roaches can co-exist peacefully. All we roaches need is a dark corner in the house.But somehow no-one gets it ...huh.

I am not sure, if I will survive long enough. I see black killer boxes all over the place. I cant bear to see how my brothers and sisters are dying just by going close to those.My loved one went venturing near that black box in spite of my warnings, and she is no longer with us. But before I die,I wanted to let the world know of our struggles for existence.We have the right to live just as any other species on this planet. Why are we being massacred in hundreds? But to all those who are listening(or reading) we will not give up, even if one of us survives and gets out of this place, we will outlive humans on this planet.And by the way, we aren't as stupid as humans who are trying to warm up the planet hot enough to drown themselves.

Oh god...I hear the footsteps, I need to rush back to the hiding place...no no, he got me...he got me.....

NOTE: Since we have started the green bin program to collect the kitchen waste, roaches have become a menace. We are trying all possible ways to get rid of them and when I saw a roach running as fast as it can to save its life, weird thought came to my over imaginative head which got translated to this post.

My Honeymoon

Well, it wasnt really the typical 'honeymoon', but techincally this would be our honeymoon. Everytime I and D take a trip somewhere, it has some interesting element to it.Not sure if it happens with everyone or its just us!

We both are from different religions and our wedding was a mixed one with all kinds of traditions and customs bundled together and it also included trips to holy places from both religions(I am pretty sure God thought we were stalking him!!) and 3 weeks after our wedding, after non stop rituals and travel, we needed to get away from it to protect our sanity.And out of the blue, I suggested we should go somewhere really far from our families.(Guys we love you, but it was getting crazy!!)

So as usual , planning of any trip is my responsibility, and after choices of Goa, Kerela and Pondicherry. We decided pondi, less crowded, no rush to see everything and mostly beaches which I totally love. For some reason I really love this place, maybe its the beaches, but cant tell for sure why, but I keep going back to that place ever so often. I am a water person, any moving water body uplifts my spirit. And there is something about this place which draws me towards it ever so often.

Then came the challenge, every single hotel in Pondicherry was booked. After lot of searching we found a guest house, a very very pricey one available.We took it, money was more important than our sanity you see!

Flew to Chennai, went to Pondi from there in a taxi.It took a while to figure out the address,obviously this wasnt one of the popular places! This is run by a couple(strange eh!, we end up in places like this more than often).It was a 3 floors house in a very residential setting. We could see the beach from our bedroom window and could hear the sea.

View from the guest house we stayed

I was excited.It has a rustic antique feel to it.The windows in the main living room were made from stained glass giving it a unique look and feel to the whole place.

And this place wasn't as commerical and artificial as hotel would be. It seemed pretty unoccupied.When we asked the caretaker there, he said some people were in the floor below ours.We dint care, we had the whole floor to ourselves.

It felt good, home like setting with no-one other than "us",the background score of the waves in the sea, and the beautiful artwork in the guest house, the hear each-other's breath silence, it couldnt have gotten more romantic than this.I was so glad we found this place rather than a hotel.

Some of the paintings in the guest house

Nothing is more beautiful than a mother and a child.

We decided to go out and explore the place.After getting fresh, went out to beach, ate nice dinner and came back to rest. We were sleep deprived. We had to get our sleep before we did anything ;). Both of us were so tired that we fell aslepp as we hit the bed. I woke up at the middle of the night with the sound of people talking, I think it was around 2 at night. I wondered who was still up at that uneartly hour and then thought that it must be the guests in the floor below. And then the window we had left open to let the sea breeze come it, started beating.At night, when the whole world is engulfed in darkness, the sound of the sea sounded like the background score of a horror movie. I got up, closed it and went back to bed.But couldnt sleep, the constant sound of people speaking was an annoyance. I just hoped that they could shut their big mouths and get some sleep.

And just when I was going back to sleep I woke up again.This time it was the crows..constanly cawing. That dint sound usual at all.Crows arent supposed to caw at this time of the night, are do they? They just wont shut up.Now all my sleep was gone.I was laying there hoping to see a white figure floating(yeah right,was expecting a ghost to show up).It was the first time I was scared of ghosts.Its not like I dont believe in them, but I never thought they needed to be afraid of.I thought dead people were less dangerous than the live ones!!! But this time, I surely was frightened , I slowly slid under the bedsheet.From a small peephole,I turned around to see D.He was blissfully asleep.Dint feel like waking him up.

There was a big argument going on my head, the brave side of my brain was admonishing the frightened side of my brain.How can you be afraid of something you cant even see,reasoned the brave side.'Oh shut up, if I cant see it doesnt mean it cant see me', replied the frightened side.I mustered some courage, got off the bed, rushed to my purse, and scrambled through stuff until I found the Lord Hanuman's picturecard(there are so many holy things in my purse from all those trips). Got it and slowly stuck it under D's bed.Lay in the bed, waiting for it to be morning and every once in a while, opening my eyes half to see if anything unusual was happening in our room.

I must have fallen asleep around early morning and D dint wake up until the caretaker came in with morning tea. The irony was,I had came running from our families to get some sleep and guess what I was sleep deprived here too!

Now this paining below dint feel scary until I spent a night at the guest house.I should have known when I saw this that it had much deeper meaning to it.


After we had leisurely breakfast, I spoke to the caretaker if someone was in the guest house last night. He said "No". I asked if he slept in the guest house last night(supposedly he was to sleep just in case we needed anything), and he hesitantly said 'No'. Now my palms started to sweat. And I told him about the voices, he said 'Oh that must be neighbours, they are always fighting'...hmm...wonder what kind of neighbors fight at 2am.Well, I was not ready to believe whatever he said.

I told D about my last night ordeal and he said "Come on...I slept well, its new place, maybe thats why you couldn't sleep".But I was not ready to go through it another night.The very thought that I had lay in my bed all night long awake and peeping through the bedsheet to look for a floating white figure was ruining the fun of the trip.So told D, we should go out and explore the town a little bit and while we are there, we could check if there is availability in any of the hotels. I was ready to forego the money we paid for this guest house.D saw I was really upset and agreed. We spent most part of the afternoon roaming around the town, got into rickshaw after a long time, and checked in a few hotels and they were all jam packed.

Looked like the whole decided to come to Pondicherry while we were there!! I knew we had to spend next 2 nights in that haunted guest house. I kept telling myself, nothing would happen, but honestly I was kinda freaked out.I should have known why this place was empty when all other hotels in town were fully booked.But I decided wont let my fear spoil our trip.

Went to the beach in the evening, ate at a very nice restaurant by the beach and later walked by the beach.It gets pretty crowded in the evening, mostly with locals. And came nightfall again.We came back.I asked the caretaker if he can stay for the night and he gave some excuse to go back home. I asked him on his face, if the guest house was haunted.Then he said, no, and gave the excuse that "the neighbours dont like us, because the building blocks their sea view, so they create trouble".No matter how much he assured us it was not haunted, we were officially alone in the big guest house which I believed was haunted.

That night too, I got little sleep.The constant noices was annoying and I was freaking out.I was now convinced this house was for sure haunted.And I had found out from care taker earlier that day that it was a less than 6 years before the building was constructed and there was a very old house before in the same spot.So I kinda figured the residents of the old house still stayed on.

Next day ,Went to Aurobindo ashram.stayed there for a some time.There is a big picture of Mother in the ashram,If I remember it correct in the book store or the main entrance, when you look at it, looks like 'Mother' is looking right into your eyes.On the web you will find a bunch of information about her, some here.

After a quick stop at the ashram, we went to take a boat ride to nearby beach, well it was the 'Paradise Beach', you dont believe me? see the picture below.For the indian middle class, this was paradise.No fancy hotels,a small shack that sold bottled water for 3 times its price.

The beach here was as best as nature had intended, not many tourists and hence not much garbage.

See the crows, wondered if they were following me!!!!!

Later in the day we went the Auroville , saw the universal city, matrimandir .We couldnt go inside the matrimandir, but I had been in that before in one of my previous trips, it is a very serene place. This was my third visit to this place. For some reason I end up visiting some places 3 times, my most recent trip to chicago was the 3rd to that city.

The Banyan tree in the pic below is supposed to be very very old(do not remember how old) and is supposed to be in the center of the Auroville

The matrimandir...It seems to be taking years and years to finish it, the last 3 visits it was still being constructed.

In the evening, it was beach again.I love how the waves splash to the shore and how its water as far as an eye can see. It is amazing how nature contains its energy, it is beautiful waves for the longest time and one day when nature unleashes its fury, the waves gush up to unthinkable heights and wash everything in their path.I love and respect the sea and there is something that keeps taking me to the seas regularly.Well, the fact that I was raised in Coastal area and our family picnic's were mostly at beaches could have a role to play.(Ha...how much I miss those days!!)

The days were wonderful, peaceful, but come nightfall my fears take over and I hardly get any sleep.Next morning, we were going back to Chennai and then flight back to Hyderabad. I felt a little sad leaving this quiet town, but was happy that I dint have to deal with weird noises and crows cawing at night.Well moral of the story is, running away from family doesn't necessarily mean you will get more sleep!!

On the way back to Chennai, the driver stopped us at small beach, beautiful no humans around, no trash, I and D played in the sea waters for a little while before we rushed back to catch our flight.All in all it was a good trip for us to bond as new couple , but the nights were 'nightmare'.

Well Pondicherry is a very nice place to be.If you want some quiet time, not run around to cover all tourist spots.Here is more information. Just make sure you plan ahead and stay in a better place than we did.Not if you fancy staying at a haunted guest house.

I usually close my post with a quote , but the below picture says more than a wise man can say.

However bigger and stronger the sea is, a man's courage can make him ride it in a small boat.Well it clearly shows if you have the determination nothing is impossible.

A Trip to Remember

Duration - 6 days
Destination - Chicago,IL,USA
Kms travelled - 1897
Gas - 165 ltrs
Achieved - A memory for lifetime

This wasn't any ordinary trip, it was trip D was looking forward to. An opportunity he dreamt of for a very long time. We set out in high hopes, with lots of prayers and D with lots of practise. Last few days he sang everywhere, bathroom, kitchen, elevator, in the car. Constantly practising, making every note sound perfect, making every song a treat to listen.

Everyone who knows me says I am lucky coz D would sing for me.No, D hardly sings for me, and he sings for me when I am not around.One time he made a dedication on his audio blog when I was in India.D isnt big on expressing his feelings, he expects me to understand what he doesnt say.

Well, back to the trip, we started on the 30th June, drove past Detroit and stayed at a hotel for the night in Ann Arbor. We could have driven till chicago, but dint want to tire ourselves.It was important D feels fresh and ready to take on the contest in his best form.When we reached chicago, the pressure was mounting. The dates for the competition had moved and the orchestra was not there as their visa's were denied, they had called in the local orchestra.D was scrambling to find karaoke tracks for the songs the orchestra wasnt sure they could play.We did not take laptop.So we bought one, this was important for D and we were going to do everything in our capacity to make it work.

The day the contestants were supposed to have semifinals, all the singers were asked to sing in the banquet.So D had to find a song with a karoke track, something which shouldnt be part of the songs they selected for the competition. Finally he settled for a song and as he was in his mind practising the song I was sitting there with my eyes wide open everytime a celebrity passed. I stared at ever TV,Movie actors, singers, lyricists as they passed. This was the first time I was seeing them in person and wondering how some looked much better on TV and some looked much better in person.

D and his fellow contestants, thronged to meet Mano garu, SiriVennela Sitarama Sastry garu and took pictures, those who know us will see the pics soon :)

Left past midnight from the banquet and I hit the bed as soon as we reached the hotel room.D stayed up much longer practising his songs.

Next day was rushing again. D left around 11 and I joined him just before the semifinals started. As I reached the convention center, my palms started to sweat. I never had been this nervous for anything. If you know someone who had worked hard and was this close to taking another step to be closer to his dream, everything counts.Failure was NOT an option.

D was the last of 13. I have to mention here, D is superstitious about number 13.He had prepared for 'Tholi Sandhya velalo' for this round, but the orchestra wasnt sure they could play it, he had spent time with them practising pallavi and charanam, but when the competition started everyone was asked to sing full song.D was getting tensed as he wasnt sure if the orchestra could pull off the whole song without playing it even once.He kept going back and forth with the song of his choice and another song and finally he decided to go with his second choice as he did not want the music to be an issue.

He began to sing his second choice"Mallelu poosae...",When he started I could sense a little bit of tension in his voice and after a couple of lines, he gained confidence and was in his groove,it was him doing what he loves to do and he did a great job. The judges remarked the same , Mano said he started off softly and just when they were thinking he was an average singer, he wowed them. I shot D's performance and judges comments with my digital camera.We werent thinking of taking camcorder with us, and the focus of our trip was D's singing and we missed details like this.I should say I missed the details, I should have brought a camorder.But anyways something is better than nothing.(I am praying some good samaritan must have recorded it well and will upload in youtube soon!!). Btw, 13 is no longer a bad number in D's books :)

One round finished, 2 more to go before victory can be D's. We rushed back to hotel to see if D can practise a little bit more. Even before we reached the hotel, he got call saying he needed to be there to practise with whatever live orchestra was there. We drove back to the convention center.D went to practise room and I roamed around the stalls to see the latest in diamond jewellery and sarees. I loved diamond jewellery, but couldnt afford it.Maybe when D gets a few offers to sing then I probably can(Music Directors are you listening??)

It was time for the second round of semifinals, I was backstage.D is worried when I am around, he is worried where I will sit, how long I need to stand there.To make things easy I volunteered to go and sit in the auditorium and will watch him sing on stage. It was so crowded that I sat somewhere far right in the end.Thankfully there were big screens all over so I could watch him sing fine.He was the 3rd singer and he sang one of my favorite songs "Vedam la ghoshinche godavari..." and he did an excellent job.First few lines, the orchestra and D were off by a few seconds so the music did not match that well, but after that it was a treat to listen. The judges liked it, Mano pointed out the misco-ordination with the orchestra. All the other judges looked pleased with the job he did.

Then it was the results where the finalists were to be selected. They called D's name second. I let out a big sigh, would be lying if I said my eyes dint well up. He was now closer to winning and it took another 3 minute performance to decide if this trip was worth it.

For the finals, the judges decided it would be without music.You just had to sing pallavi and charanam and the judges wont offer any criticism for each singer.It was getting late,the 3 finalists did an excellent job. And when the winner was announced by Suma,I let it go and let the tears take over.There he was, my man standing on the stage in front of a huge crowd at almost 2:30am claiming his dream.You make my proud Dude.






I have a lot of people congratulating me.Honestly I havent done anything spectacular.I was just a co-traveller in his journey.There are many more miles to go and this is just the beginning.But I humbly accept all the best wishes because as his 'Ardhaangi'(better half) I get half of everything, good or bad ;)

If some of you had read my previous posts, you would know none of trips ends without something interesting happening.So when we reached home Sunday at 11:00pm, we got off the lift in our floor and could hear loud music, as we got closer to our apartment we could hear they were hindi songs, I and D looked at each other, as if saying how rude the people were to play music so loud and closer we got to our apartment we realised it was from our house!!! and there was a note stuck to our door asking us to lower the volume and that our neighbours were having hard time sleeping. I quickly opened the door and found light switched on in bedroom and music playing in computer.Switched off the speaker volume and wondered how the songs started to play automatically.Soon realised that when D was trying to find karaoke's he'd logged into our home computer and mistakenly must have opened iTunes and it went on playing for 3 full days.Looked like the building Superintendent came in,switched on the light and couldnt figure out where the music was coming from, in fear looks like he forgot to switch the light off!!! We lived up to our reputation, no trip without an adventure..huh!!!!

I close this post with a famous quote by Robert Collier, which is apt for D
"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out."