When at night i could not sleep, i talked to the Shepherd and stopped counting the sheep....

Of late I have begun to admire  and envy those independent  women who can live happily by themselves.... because for me it is the hardest thing on earth. its been eight months that me and husband are staying in different places.... and at times this living apart suffocates me a lot... weekends and holidays are the worst... indulging yourself never seems enough...for every now and then i need my family to rejuvenate, i need my family to ventilate... and it makes me really sad when loneliness is all i get at the end of each weary day  ....

my introvert personality, which for sheer want of companions, masks itself in an extrovert visage, has probably a lot to do with this feeling of suffocation. but what do i do.. i wish to talk and not just to the walls... i wish to hear someone talk while i am sipping my cup of evening chai or having my lunch... i am probably too old to make new best friends ... and so i let myself be accompanied by whoever comes along.... but still at the end of each day i am alone and that makes me really sad and makes the whole ordeal seem rather futile...

i hate to feel so vague and sad... i feel the need to gather myself and do all that needs to be done... so i have decided to wrap my spread here and  move to where husband stays...... at that, my companions expressed their concern...  and said, " if not paid you'll  probably not do what needs to be done"... and  i replied, "why not ?? my work is my passion and all i need to steer through it- is family and my peace of mind...."

[title adapted from the quotation: When at night you cannot sleep, talk to the Shepherd and stop counting sheep.]

[images by google search.]

she invented.....

 and we played along..... 

       this long weekend of mine......

      

          was filled with little Shruti..... 

                        and her cute innocent games ...................   

  

The awkwardness....

I feel extremely awkward telling anyone the meaning of my name...
For once and for all let me tell you that  in my mother tongue, the meaning of my name is  " the one with a beautiful frame"....

Please do not ever ask me to repeat it again...

    ..... for the truth is that it does not suit me very well.   and each time i introduce myself i feel awkward...  i feel like i am mocking myself and ridiculing the duo of me and my name ..

          to make matters worse, friends have shortened it further... and whatever they call me translates to simply "bod" or "form "....

isn't that awkward ??  a terribly awkward name ??

in foreign domains i am happy. they do not understand what they call me... that is a relief...

but where ever i am i do not like my name ....

If I could-  then  I would have them call me April or March or something such...

      but they did not bother to ask ...
      and so I have to live by whatever they call me and remain to be just a "form" !!

Home is where the heart is...

and my heart knowest not where it wants to be.....

Recently I got in touch with an old friend and exchanged the obvious questions.. whereas he had a definitive answer to all that I asked...

I had to think twice before I answered even his the simplest questions !

where do you stay, he asked

to which I replied..listing all the places where my heart wonders... where my parents stay, where my husband stays and then where work has stationed me momentarily....

what do you do, he asked

with slight hesitation  i replied i am a  post-doc.... fully aware of the how profound my job-title sounds and extremely guilty of how little justice I having been doing to it lately...

I pretended to be happy and settled... and I guess practice has perfected my pretence and now-a-days I sound convincing...

Yet deep inside I knew that very moment that I would have been the happiest person if only I could say...

I am a home-maker... I stay with my husband and I am beyond busy taking care of my beautiful daughter and her dad !

[photograph from my sister Rinku's album]

My cute comic valentine... who changed a bit for me..... for he cared for me

I love baking !! The measurements, the batter and finally the wait for a hot slice of freshly-baked-cake is all very exciting for me. I relive the excitement every time !! With some coaxing I managed to convince my husband to bake his first cake this weekend (Saturday night for him.... Sunday morning for me !).

A carrot cake it was !! And it was delicious he said...

[Thats him with his big slice of choco-chip carrot cake :D]

After having the first slice... he had started planning for his next venture :)

At times I wonder if marriage makes the little pleasures of life infectious....

I think it does... Hee hee hee..

Cheers to that ... Happy Valentines day !!

homesick !!

Holidays are getting over...
Just another week to go -

and then I'll be back in the place I really do not belong... a place I chose to call home in spite of myself....

I hope the new year gets good tidings

and brings me back to my real HOME

very soon !!

Choices...

For over a decade I have been shifting base

the addresses change in the letters sent to me..

In the beginning all this was exciting,

rather indulging -- made me feel important,

a little special sometimes.

But now my volitions have begun to trade loyalties...

We don't want to move they fuss...

Moving is not as enticing they chafe.....

Tis unsettling they fret.

Now I wish to settle down...
Have a bed to wake up into at the break of each day,

have a place called 'home' to go back to each evening,

have a family around to cook for, care for-

tell my stories to at the end of each day.

This life was my choice.

I love my job and chose it thus. 

Yet now I crave to be home-bound.

[image 2 is by p. bandhyopadhay]

A confession ..

These days I am reading 'Our Ancestors' by Calvino. More specifically, I am reading 'Baron in the Trees'(along side is a doodle of the baron by Calvino). And I am loving it !

A lot has already been said about it and there isn't much more that I can add save that I noticed a striking similarity in the weave of the life of Forest Gump and the Baron in the Trees.

However a line in the book has caught my fancy and triggered a chain of thoughts. It reads

"In fact, times were coming that were to be more tolerant , but also more hypocritical."

....And it started me thinking isn't that always true ? After all do we not always start pretending tolerance after a while?

I realized I do... don't you ?

[image by google search ]

A toast to coffee !!

Over the past few days I have become increasingly aware of my virtual existence.

By profession I do abstract mathematics. That explains the virtuality at my work-front.

I am married, but presently its a long distance marriage. So my husband is no more than a video image in the mornings and a green-dot (courtesy G-talk) at night ! The same is true for most of my friends, merely blinking dots, switching colours between grey-green-orange and grey again :(

Blogs, e-books, online music take care of my weekends and my real estate extends very little beyond farmville :)

So you see I am feeling rather virtual these days... with coffee as my sole connection to reality !!

[image via google search]