A very inspiring piece of poem by my chirpy stary eyed 7 year old who wants to grow upto into a pop star. As a parent I can't stop grinning with pride :-)

Silver lining?

A silver lining on a cloud sounds great. But a silver line ( I would prefer to call it strand of grey) sprouting on my head, feels like I am only inches away from my grave. Ok, that was an overstatement. What I really want to state is that I'd do just fine without the glitter highlights!
I would like to beleive I am still far from the days when I have to dye my hair every fortnightly. And also hope the grey strands are not the harbinger of heart ailments and joint pains. Silver strands are not directly or indirectly proportional to the lard around the aorta. No nobel prizes for this discovery!
Getting back to the (grey) roots, they are not that many. So no distress calls yet but the depleting melanin at the hair roots which lead to greying, may not always be a byproduct of ageing. And who knows, maybe, flaunting grey will be the trend this fall!
And even if it is not, fitting in is not the trend anymore, standing out is...

Beautiful Mess

That's life. When we are young(yes, I was young too, some 200 years ago) we're quite critical about people and things around us, wondering why they are not as they ought to be. As they say - Everything that's good is expensive, illegal, fattening, gay or married to someone else!
As people age and sprout a strand or two of grey hair(not mandatory, ofcourse), get introduced to sagaciousness(not everyone), the eyebrows stop frowning at the drop of a hat. People just learn to accept life and it's ways. Everyday we meet braggadocios, megalomaniacs and people from far away planets, as they do not seem earthy but it seems less of a surprise when you've been on earth for quite a long time.
I have had no mid life crisis, seriously.Neither have I attained nirvana. Always knew life is a beautiful mess. It is what you make of it.
De-stress, not distress.
Get enlightened.
Make friends.
Cheat on your high protein diet.
Indulge in retail therapy - yes, happiness can be bought in apparel and shoe stores!
Ignore your pedantic colleague.
Greet your sneering neighbour.
Live, don't just exist!

Typically me

By jotting down things typical to me, I run the risk of exposing my faux pas far and wide but what the heck! Does anyone in the big big world love to splurge and yet cringe on facing the bank account state(ment)? Comm'n world tell me I am not alone. When on a spending spree, I try to convince myself, there's no tomorrow and I should live in the present but lo and behold, life does not seem to end after the money in my account ceases to exist. Does anyone have a tug of war with their conscience for petty issues like hogging an ice cream? I can see you smiling and owning up(in your mind, ofcourse). Ever since I remember eating, I have known guilt. But even before my guilt gets to my conscience, the ice cream has broken down into adipose tissue and become a permanent fixture on my waistline at lightning speed. Does anyone, after a day of (comparatively)less carbohydrates expect miracles? I do. I try my old jeans and much to my dismay, do not fit in. Life is not fair why should a pair of jeans be any different? Now, I do not want to spill all the beans about me and let the enigma surrounding my personality wane but I definitely gotcha chuckling and thinking...

What is it?

Appearances have become paramount in todays uber stylish world. Or may be it always was this way. Look around, there are hardly men sans pumped up biceps, wash board abs or women, not flashing perfectly coiffered hair, manicured nails, dressed to perfection.

While I do admire people who take the pain to look perfect or maybe they were born with looks and went with the flow. No big deal! However, I must say it's quite commodius, experiencing divine comfort in flip flops, sneakers, jeans & baggy t shirts that do wonders,hiding the curves(over the years the curves have aquired softer contours and some of the curves even have a cute and mushy nomenclature - love handles!).

The male and female roles have become more defined, these days. It begins right in the childhood, blue identifying boyish stuff while everything pink is demure, docile and girlish and it continues into adulthood. People like me (no I dont feel like being trapped in the wrong body, happy to be a woman), for whom colour or style doesnt matter, it's all about comfort, are met with weird looks and boy, does it want me to change? No.

Let's consider a person with the following characteristics:

Clothing - Jeans t-shirt sneakers
Gait - horse like
Interests - hayabusa, rugby, baseball
Culinary skill - some incidents of people puking, once the food descended their food pipe(could be they all had faulty digestive systems)!
Mannerisms - anything but coy.

Doesn't sound like the epitome of womanhood? No, but she is a woman just the way she is, juggling life, with brain power (& some manpower, lacking the finesse of manicured hands).

Reminds me of Lord Byron's poem:

SHE walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meets in her aspect and her eyes;

So, what is it that SUVs personify - strength and security. OK ok Mercedes is all about style and class but...go figure.

Life!

The word life has a different meaning for everyone.

For me life means the moment I am in currently & I would like to live it to the hilt. Hilt in this case is family, friends and hullaballoo.
Without the above three, I go into a nirvana mode, delving into the nature of reality, examining the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value :-)

Ofcourse it is fun to travel the road less treaded, it is wise to enrich life with experiences but not without family, friends & hullaballoo!

Even paradise sans family & friends is as good as zilch.Which boils down to live life king size.

Senses..

If you close your eyes and think about a smell that means a lot to you...what comes to your mind?
Whatever it is, there must be a special reason why one smell comes alive so vividly. For me it is the smell of "shiuli" flowers or night flowering Jasmine. The smell is so fresh in my memory..the month of October meant Durga puja & the jasmine flowers, in the garden, like stars on the ground, were a harbinger of festivities.

The smell of rain drops on sun parched earth...so earthy!

Certain smells linger in my mind because they meant so much to me and I still yearn for them.

The smell of "khichudi" with dollops of ghee on a rainy day WOW!It is special not beacuse of the food itself but because it was a family time, relishing "khichudi" with my parents & sister.
For that matter, I could tell the clinking of my Mom's bangles, even if she was not within sight.
The smell of my dad's aftershave... I could go on & on....