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....

Battle of the bulge

I am horizontally challenged. Period.

All the body shapes -apple ,pear, cone, hour glass(ofcourse not) do not apply to me. I am stretched in both directions from cheeks to calf. But the irony is I have been on a diet since I have had a memory. No I am exagerating but you can assume I have been on a diet since a long long time. You name it I have done it - cabbage soup diet, GM diet, No carb diet, low sodium diet, high protein diet, potato only diet.

What then goes wrong? Some loose weight to get healthier, some to look thin, some to get into their old pair of jeans but I try to shed the kilos to go on a binge and in the process gain the lost weight! When all else failed, I brazen facedly flaunted what I had - strutting my spare tyre. I concluded, from the looks around, I didn't have a figure to die for.

In order to justify my weight I have devised some brilliant excuses - I am a mom(moms are allowed the luxury of a paunch), slow metabolism(deteriorates with age), cold country ( have you noticed butter melting in hot conditions but turning rock solid in the freezer), busy life and no time to exercise and ofcourse genes!!!

I know I need more than prayers to shrink my size. Beleive me, I am trying but the post dinner desert glues itself to my waist, for no fault of mine :D

The true meaning

Ever wondered why people talk just for the sake of talking? I have and am still wondering.
Like when someone asks "does your daughter go to a school?", I barely stop myself from retorting "No I have forced her into child labour". When aqcuaintences who havent bothered to call on you, mistakenly bump into you, suddenly very concerned, accuse you of hibernating "where have you been","well, to London to visit the queen". It's funny and you need to brush off (in your mind!)any verdict passed about you being callous.

I am (ONLY)socially, too good to mouth my inner feelings so all I do is acquiesce and marvel at the foolhardiness with which some people leave you speechless with their act(literally)!