Stories from 2018…

2018 was a significant year in my life’s journey, I’d say.

The year began by catching up with old friends… two of my school/ college-time friends were visiting from the US and December end/ Jan beginning was when I got an opportunity to meet them. It was lovely exchanging details about the latest happenings in our lives and reminiscing about the good old times. Another close friend also visited during the later part of the year and it was time to catch-up again with families in tow – it was a riot watching all the kids together! So yeah, 2018 was a good year friendship-wise – re-discovering old ones and I formed some new ones too in the neighbourhood!

It was also the year when I finally got the opportunity to step out of my comfort-zone work-wise and boy! did I grab it with both hands or what?! I moved out of the client/ project that I was stuck working in for the past 5 years, ever since I joined my current company! That was an achievement in itself, I’d say. And the new work project gave me the biggest travel opportunity of my life. More about that later…

Before I get there, I must mention here that it was also the year when we visited the beautiful archipelago in the Bay of Bengal for our Summer vacation – the enchanting Andamans! 🙂 It was a lovely vacation where we explored the beauty of the various islands – from the awesome corals of the Jolly Buoy to the historical ruins and military remains at the Ross Island.

Corals at Jolly Buoy island

Boats and more at Jolly Buoy island

The highlight was no doubt the Havelock Island and our stay at the resort there – with an exclusive private access to the extension of the beautiful Radhanagar beach, we couldn’t have enough of the sun, the sea and the sands. The resort itself was so beautiful that it left us yearning for a longer stay. Apart from the gorgeous sunset scenes at the Radhanagar and Govindnagar beaches, we had loads of fun times playing with the waves at the rocky Kalapathar beach.

The beautiful Radhanagar beach

Sunset at Govindnagar beach

But the icing on the cake was of course the once-in-a-lifetime experience of the scuba dive!! With the hubby declining to take the plunge, I was left to face it alone and to be truthful it scared the hell out of me. For the first time I realised how scary it is to just get your ears wet, by getting under-water! And I regretted (not for the first time too) not having learnt swimming at a younger age when I had the opportunity! I did the dive with butterflies in my stomach, fluttering and rising up to my throat, but got to see the most wonderful under-water marine-life. That’s an item off the bucket list I guess. The hubby and sonny-boy had fun too – snorkelling in tandem with some expert divers 😀

The ruins at Ross Island

Back at Port-Blair, we also visited the gorgeously green Chidiya-Tapu and the Munda Pahar sunset point – I really loved the way in which the former place has been developed and maintained with a natural setting for the animals and birds in pristine surroundings. And of course, the view of the sunset and mangroves of Munda Pahar are picturesquely postcard-worthy.

Well, that was one vacation which we and the kiddo thoroughly enjoyed and will savour the memories for very many years to come. And of course, I clicked a zillion pics and have enough stored away to remind us of the beautiful times with just a click 😉

I hope to get back with more travel stories in my next post – of the beautiful scenic locations that my work took me to!

The many posts that could’ve been…

On dull work-days when I’m done browsing through all my favourite blog links and am in no mood to get back to work is when I click on my own blog-link to read snippets of posts from the past. Today being one such day, I noticed that my last post was way back in June 2016! That was six months ago! I don’t remember if there have been such long-drawn periods of non-blogging before… I’m not checking either.

I also noticed a tiny orange dot in the notifications of WordPress when I logged in to finally write a post – when I clicked on it, it said

Happy Anniversary with WordPress.com!

You registered on WordPress.com 10 years ago.

Thanks for flying with us. Keep up the good blogging.

 

Wow! 10 years?! that’s a long time I thought but then realised that I’ve actually been writing a blog for longer than that. Of course, I was on blogspot when I began blogging, before I moved to WordPress! I had difficulty remembering my blogspot address – a couple of tries later I did get it right – anu-bhava.blogspot.com. Of course it doesn’t exist now and redirects readers to this space.

I found the above in the drafts of my blog posts – written in Jan 2017 which was four months ago! I found another post about the Kannada movies from last year…which too was half-written. 

Today when I opened my page, for lack of reading material on the other blogs that I follow, I was shocked by the date on the last post – it was in June last year, which effectively means I’ve not written any post for almost the whole of last year! 

It’s not that I haven’t felt like writing – I’ve been inspired many times by looking at other posts – especially when I see that people take up the blog-a-month challenge and the A-Z challenge etc. But the inspiration hasn’t transformed into words in this space 😦

I feel like I’ve let myself down – I haven’t been able to note down the memories that I’d like to preserve and get back here to re-live them later… my son’s growing up and fast, I’m not jotting down what he says and does – how can I remember them later? The posts from his baby and toddler days thrill me when I go back and read them.

I tried my hand at making terracotta jewellery by attending a workshop and made a few sets too with gusto – I don’t have any record of the experience and the sense-of-fulfilment I felt to be making something with my hands after a long time!

I tried to revive my reading habit – read quite a few books at a stretch – the famous Shiva trilogy (I know I came late to the party!) and first book of his Ram-Chandra series, revisited the Harry Potter books and movies enthused by fellow fans at office, read some of the many books I’d picked up at the book fair two years ago… I didn’t get around to talking about any of those here.

I’ve tried to pick up knitting and crochet projects – starting with some baby items for friends who’ve had their second ‘uns…

We went on many interesting short and long trips last year – the key ones being the Singapore/ Malaysia trip last summer with the hubby’s friends’ families and the Sharavathi and surroundings trip with my friends’ families in the Christmas hols. The latter one was truly an experience in itself – we did so many unconventional activities – very unlike the typical trips we take – and it was the first one when I practised by photography skills armed with the new DSLR. I’m foolishly proud of some of those moments that I managed to capture with the lens.

The camera is another new experience that I’m loving – found some good use for it at two family weddings last year – of cousins on either sides of the family. I loved capturing the candidness of it all – the gaiety, the incredibly rich colours of the wedding scenes – the sarees, the flowers, the accessories and the paraphernalia. The sister and I also planned  an inspired photo-shoot at Cubbon park – the beautiful green lung-space that is the heart of Bangalore…

There was so much that I could’ve written about but didn’t…

Remembering Daddy…

Three years it has been… how time flies!

Every year after that fateful day, when this part of the month comes around, I start feeling jittery. I go about my daily chores, but when I’m by myself, the memories come flooding back – in the three days starting from my grand-dad’s birthday, the mind starts recounting the events – the conversations and sequences start tumbling out of the mind’s closet. I can’t help but think about the could-have-been’s and what-if’s. It almost makes me tremble and I become jumpy, getting irritated at the slightest of provocation.

Yesterday on the way back, I felt restless, unable to sleep in the cab and unable to sit still. I thought I’ll at-least tune into the radio on my phone, which I hardly ever do while I’m travelling. I was hoping to catch some old melodies – dad’s favourites which would bring back good, happy memories. I tuned into Akashavani and the minute I did so, the RJ announced a Veena recital program of a Thyagaraja krithi by R K Raghavan. I was stunned! As the mellifluous notes from the Veena started playing I felt my nerves ease and the heart relax. It felt like a sign from daddy and I felt at peace for the first time in three days.

Dad was a music-lover – he liked music in its many forms, but his absolute favourite was Carnatic Classical music. He himself had taken Veena lessons from the famous Veena maestro R K Suryanarayan, even going for classes after office-hours in his middle-age years! He imbibed the love for music in us – me and my sis and insisted that we take Vocal music lessons. While I had relented and had taken lessons from a very strict music teacher Shri Lakshmana Shastri near-by our home, my sis had put up huge fights and wouldn’t go to him for classes, no matter what! 😀 He and the old Veena instrument at home were also the inspiration for me to later keep in touch with Carnatic music, by taking Veena classes from another lady teacher.

Dad was also a connoisseur of old Hindi film music and was a fan, especially of Rafi and Mukesh hits. I, being a huge Kishore Kumar fan, would have arguments with him that Mukesh was no good! These days whenever I listen to Mukesh’s songs, it instantly reminds me of dad and our arguments. Me and my sis would break into impromptu songs and antakshari-sessions whenever we felt like and dad couldn’t keep quiet, he would butt in with his song choices and we would shoo him away! 🙂

My memories of school and college days from home are filled with mornings waking up to strains of classical music and Sundays filled with Hindi film songs. Almost the entire day, the radio would be on – if not, it would be the various cassettes he would play. Sundays meant – old Classic hits, late heavy lunch, good afternoon siesta and a tall glass of evening tea. How I miss those days! 😦

Yesterday during the cab-ride back home, I also happened to look out and noticed a big rose bush outside a home. I travel almost the same way each day but haven’t ever noticed this house or the bush. Yesterday I did. It was a wild bush, growing in all directions – with many beautiful blooms of cream-yellow roses. It was the very same kind which used to grow in abundance at our home on the plants, which dad used to tend-to for years.

Another sign, may be? It reminded me of the days when I was young and we used to stay at the quarters – we had so many fruit-bearing and flowering plants and trees – dad seemed to have a way with them. They all grew and gave us fruits and flowers in abundance. If I look at my childhood photos, not one can I find where I don’t have a flower in my hair! Even when I had short hair, a rose adorned my pig-tails or sometimes it was the dahlia too!! Random happy memories.

Memories – that’s all is what is left of him now. As time rolls by, the memories start fading – will I remember all in such clear detail many years from now? I hope I do. I hope my son remembers his thatha always – the one who took on the role of a doting grandfather once he was born. I would see him become a child himself and play with him for hours – inventing new games and coming up with the silliest of jokes. I could any day trust him to take care of my son while keeping him engaged, right from when he was some months old – something which I don’t believe my mother can claim to do, even now! I hope my son inherits his thatha’s love for music and plants and books, and chess and carrom too. And his amazing sense of hospitality, which would be so extreme sometimes, that it would exasperate us ladies at home!

I also hope that my dad is at peace and looking over us with happiness, from wherever he is now. Love you dad, always! 🙂