Ms. Marvel, Turbulence, Underland; Let's Pretend This Never Happened: This Week~My Life

It's Gulmohar season out here...
Photo Credit: Chenthil Mohan

This post is too late for last Sunday and too early for the coming Sunday but, oh well...

After an almost month long reading slump (filled with TV series) I got some real reading done in the last 10 days. I finished Mastani by Kusum Chopra and Twin Reflections by Elizabeth Joseph.



Detailed reviews coming up but for now... I enjoyed the detail and research in Mastani, I'm now a little more educated on the Marathas. Twin Reflections took me by complete surprise, this book has so much detail and thought put into it. The end left me itching and craving more! And to think it's written by a 14 year old!

I've just started The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson, which was recommended to me ages ago. It's going great and I'm glad to get one book off the #ForeverTBR.



The last 10 days haven't seen me do much except focus on my TCS10k run that's coming up this Sunday. So wish me luck guys. Che took over my training and he's been grilling me. It's been tiring but also so satisfying as I've pushed limits and found new ones.



In the last 10 days I've learned the importance of pushing when you think you can't do more and discovering you can, realised the role food, sleep and stretching plays, and the value of massages - I've gotten two deep tissue massages with Dipali Patel at Peak Performance and man, are they painful. But the muscles feel like new on the next run after that!

My TCS10k is also a run for a cause. I'm running for the organisation Bal Utsav that works in the education for children space and believes that #EducationCanMakeAllTheDifference. In 2016 they hope to reach out to over 10,000 children and changes their lives with education.

I didn't believe I'd be able to make a big difference to the cause but my friends thought different for we've raised over Rs.47,000 as of now. I can't be thankful enough to all my friends who believed in me.

My target's 50K and I need just that little push, so if are reading this and can help, please do, every little bit counts. Click here and just follow though. It's super easy and works for all currency and amounts. :)



That's about all from me this week. It's a relaxed week (after 8 weeks of training) as I recharge for the run and I'm off to get back to my reading. ;) Oh and yeeaaah, my interview about the run is also up and you can read it on the Bal Utsav blog here.

Also if you have a minute please stop over at Bhawna's blog (YellowMellowLife.com) and wish her too. She's my running partner and the one behind getting me back on my feet and running. She's running the TCS10k too, so send us both good vibes!

 

More in the overflowing #TBR

 

I did make up for that TBR addition slump over the last few weeks. :D This week there are loads of books. Feel free to add some more in comments if you think I'll love them. And don't forget to tell me which ones of these you've read or plan to read.


The Tusk That Did The Damage by Tania James
(Get Booked #25)

Set in South India this is a book about the Ivory trade, only it isn’t just one side of the story but rather the story of the poacher, the documentary filmmaker and the elephant. James weaves all the perspectives into one tale. I’m in an Indian books phase and this one is so it...


Art of racing in the rain by Garth Stein
(Get Booked #25)

I’d come across this book many months back and it’s been on my list since then, this is like a reinforcement. :) I’ve read A Dog’s Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron and loved it, told from the perspective of a dog, humans and their lives seem so odd and there’s a lot of insight to be got. This is another one from the 4-legged perspective.


Merle's Door by Ted Kerasote
(Get Booked #25)

The story of a stray dog that adopts a house and a human. This one pulled the strings of my heart as soon as I heard of it. I’ve been meaning to read some dog books and this one’s now on my list!


Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson
(Get Booked #25)

I’ve followed The Bloggess for so long on twitter now but didn’t know about her myriad warped past and I’m stumped. I just have to know more about this woman who has a wacky amazeballs sense of humour. Go check her out on Twitter… @TheBloggess


Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud
(Get Booked #26)

I’ve been meaning to learn about comics and understand the craze around them for a while not. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve read a lot of comics as a kid but the world of comics seems different now, so when this book was mentioned as a book at explains all about comics, I was awesooome!


Ms. Marvel Vol. 1: No Normal by G. Willow Wison (Author), Adrian Alphona (Artist), Jacob Wyatt (Illustrator)
(Get Booked #26)

I’ve repeatedly heard about this one for multiple reasons, it’s feminine lead role, the colour and race of the main character, diversity and it’s awesomeness. So.. enough said right?


Turbulence by Samit Basu
(Get Booked #26)

A plane full of people experience turbulence but it leaves lasting effects and leaves them all with superpowers they have always wanted, only they don’t know it as they disembark. The book is about all that happens next as they discover their powers while someone is trying to kill them. Sounds interesting nah?


Underland by Chanda Hahn
(From Twitter)

It was a couple of years back that I stumbled into Chanda Hahn’s books and fell in love. This isn’t a part of her first Unenchanted series but rather a new series and I can’t wait to get started!

It’s a bigggg haul this week. I got through a lot of podcasts you see. ;) What have you been reading? What news?
BTW are you running the TCS 10K? Tell me?

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Angelmaker, Before We Visit the Goddess: #TBR Adds This Week

My Mom - The Birthday Girl :)

The last week was full week. Come to think of it, that's kinda what I say every week. Looks like I live a full life. Lol :D

Che came back from a long trip this week, after 20 days the house had more life in it as the dogs got all excited to have him back and he made his presence felt.

The washing machine got installed too and I love it. Our previous one (Samsung) could be heard across the house and it danced as it washed. This new one (Samsung again) is so silent and doesn't budge through the whole cycle!

I took a day off from home and spent an evening with Mom as it was her birthday. She turned 69 this year!

I got this lovely bag from the Ahambhumika guys, this is an organisation working towards empowering rural women and young girls belonging to lower income communities.



Some doggie pictures!





With my running schedule and the house-dog routine, finding time for new stuff is tough but I managed to fit in a class on the basics of zentangle art which is a beautiful meditative technique. It's looks so complex and intricate but it's so simple and easy, and the making of a tangle is just so zen. :D



Last week was also the last week of the #AtoZChallenge and I survived! I completed another #AtoZ and I'm so excited about that. I didn't do so well on the follow and comment part of the challenge. I managed to stick with it in the first half but in the second half I just didn't manage to keep up. Oh well, I'll try again next year. As with the previous years though I made some wonderful friends and found some amazing blogs to follow.

 

And more additions to my #TBR

 


Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway
(Get Booked #24)

This one sounded like the perfect action novel. The hero is trying to live the quiet life until be accidentally activates a doomsday machine. Now he and the spy-lady who brought it to him much solve things and stop it. Life isn’t so quiet anymore!


Before We Visit the Goddess by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
(Get Booked #24)

I fell in love with Divakaruni when I read her book The Palace of Illusions, which is about the Mahabrata war but from Draupadi’s perspective. This story is about 3 generations of women and it’s a latest book. I just have to read it!

So what have you been up to this week? Been busy too? What are you reading right now?

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I Know What I'm Doing -- and Other Lies I Tell Myself: On the #TBR This Week

Max and My New Running Shoes :)

Some days I’m just grateful for the chance I get to sit down and put my feet up, to relax even if just for a moment and this week’s been filled with those days.

The week started with the maids taking unannounced leave, the washing machine packing up, the microwave walking out with it, and me just starting at it all, my week going belly up.

It’s been a maniacal week, one through which I’ve just about managed to maintain my sanity. Ok, I’ve seen worse, this wasn’t that bad but it was bad and nothing went to plan, but I survived and that’s the big thing, nah?

This week, the up’s were that I managed to hold onto my running schedule and ran an 8k, which is my longest ever, until now. ;) We got a new washing machine and I can’t wait to start turning all those dials and playing with it. We also had our first decent rain, it didn’t pour but it did drizzle for 4 hours; heat's back with a vengeance though.



I also held on to the #AtoZChallenge and didn’t miss a post. This week my android app selections were - Gardroid for Gardening, Player FM for Podcasts, Quiz Up for Productive Time-Pass, Strava for Running, Period Tracker - My Calendar and Todoist for those Pesky To-Do’s.

It’s the last week of the challenge now and I’m gearing up for it. Got to keep the ball rolling, right to the end.

 

Another addition to my #TBR

 

Another rather quiet week in this section. But I did find one book that caught my eye...


I Know What I'm Doing -- and Other Lies I Tell Myself by Jen Kirkman
(All the books #49)

A memoir of her life, Jen shares her stories and talks about a myriad bunch of things. But what struck me when i heard of the book on the All The Books podcast was that she talks about having children, the choice of having or not having them and the dealing with people bit if you choose not to.
I’m also considering the book as an audio book as it is narrated by Jen Kirkman herself and she’s a stand-up comedian. It would be fun.

That’s about it from me here this Sunday. What have you been unto this week? How has it been - good, bad, ugly? What are you looking forward to next week?

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If You Could Be Any Age, What Would Your Age Be?

 

“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?” - Satchel Paige

 

That’s a quote that been on my mind, even days after I first saw it. It keeps coming back to the fore and setting me off down memory lane.

When I first saw the quote I quickly travelled down the years and found I couldn’t freeze on an age. But the fact that I couldn’t was somewhat perplexing. Most people when asked this question would have a time and age when they were most happy, a time and age they would like to live in forever.

So why then could I not find an age. It’s not like I’ve lived a fairy tale life with no troubles and trauma. Actually looking back, there had been a lot of that.

Toddlerhood had seen me abused, school life had been lonely, college was when I lost my father, work life had been boring, married life is challenging… Every decade has something sorrowful that stands out like sore thumb but that isn’t why I can’t choose an age.

For each of those sorrowful incidents there have been many happy moments. I’m not making a list here for it is lengthy, I’m going to let my saying there are tons suffice. In every decade I had fun, I enjoyed life (though it didn’t always seem so at that time). I’ve had my fair share of not so fine moments but I can’t remember a time when there were only fine moments.

So if I had to choose an age it would be ‘now’. The current me, my life right now.

But that isn’t entirely what that quote is about, is it. Another interpretation would reference the number-game for me. Of thinking beyond the binds of civilisation and invention. Of seeing the world beyond how it's been defined for our boxed-in vision, the world as we know it.

Age after all is just a number, an invention of the guys who developed numerals, the ones who decided how many seconds made a minute, how many days made a month, how many years made a decade,...

Numbers are just that - an invention - a figment of some guys imagination. And he could have imagined it all different, you know. What if in all their inventing, they had made 5=35? Then, I’d be 5 years old today. And maybe that's my true age. :D

It doesn’t end there though, coz there’s one more thought I have about the quote and this one involves memory loss. If I lost my memory with no one who knows me around, how old would I think I was. A look at my hair would place me closer to 50 and my skin and body would maybe be early thirties. But my heart, my heart would belong in the twenties, that time when I was all about self-discovery. [Not that I’m not now :D ]

So, how old are you? What's your true age? And what’s your interpretation of the quote? ;)

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Her name is Asma Kauser but she’s called Reshma

***Note: It was in 2001 I think when my GrandDad got suddenly ill and Mom and I rushed to Pune in the unreserved compartment of an Indian Railways train. I have always said the best people travel in this section and some of the most moving stories come from here. Well, it's always been so for me. I've met some of the most interesting and amazing people in the unreserved section. Here's one such encounter that I wrote about after I returned from that journey.***

Her name is Asma Kauser but she’s called Reshma. Barely 20, she’s a wife and a mother. If u were to look at her and guess her age, you wouldn’t quote a number above 18. But she has a son who’s about 2 years old.

I met Asma on the train as I was coming back to Bangalore from Pune. When she came up to speak to me, coz maybe she felt I was her kinda age, even I thought that it would be a nice trip with someone of my age there also.

As the trip progressed I got to know her better. The fact that someone so bubbly, so talkative, so childish and so restless could actually be a mother was stunning; she didn’t look like a mother from any angle. At nite sleep just didn’t seem to come so we sat at the door and talked. Some of the things she told me were really touching, some hilarious and some filled me with anger.

She told me about how after finishing school her parents got her married and almost immediately shifted to Pune. She was all alone here now. I asked her age but she wasn’t sure about her or anyone else’s age. To her age was “around somuch”, she didn’t know her hubby’s or son’s age. She told me about how her husband was a butcher and how both of them sold meat. About the beatings she had suffered and didn’t know how to stop, at times she even got suicidal. Her husband’s possessiveness about her son, he would leave him for even a minute. Her problems seemed so big for so small a girl, yeah girl for afterall that was all she was.

We got talking about stars and she had so many questions about them. What was a shooting star? Why can’t we see the stars in the day? Where did the sky end? I tried my best to answer some of her questions in broken Hindi but soon realized that she had such fixed ideas that there was no way to change her thinking. Told her about how stars fall and hide themselves in the day. She didn’t seem to know that we had already landed on the moon and wanted to know how that was done. Told her that you got to travel in a ‘rocket’, didn’t know the Hindi equivalent of rocket, but the first question she had to that was, that by rocket did I mean the rockets we light in diwali?

We then moved on to life after death and how much ever I tried to tell her that no one has ever returned to tell us if there is really a heaven and hell she was fixed to the idea that there is a hell and there is a heaven. She said that after dying we went up to God and according to our deeds we got heaven or hell. In hell according to her we were alternately put in the fire and a collection of insects and bugs. When I asked her what she meant by insects she only seemed to know about scorpions. Nothing could change her fixed notions, no amount of logic and scientific reasoning.

She seemed so smart, she remembered almost all movies and songs. Learnt fast, had seen so much of life at such a small age. Had wanted to study but she hadn’t been allowed. What made me feel so close to her and sympathize with her was the fact that what she was today could have easily been me. I felt so lucky to be where I was today.

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I for India, I for I

One quality I've found common to most mothers I know is selflessness. Mothers always put their children first, sometimes even the husband before themselves but the children always come first. It's one of the reason's I guess we love our mothers so much but I've been thinking, is such selflessness good?

There are different types of selflessness. One where you forget all about yourself and keep just giving, another is one where you are selfless but you also think of yourself, then there are others like conditional ones, situational ones, et all. But the one that interests me is the first. I'm trying to wrap my head around how someone can give so much without thinking of themselves. This is the image I have of my mother, this is the kind of woman I thought I should be when I grew up.

Now, I'm not so sure. Well, I don't have children so, technically I am not a mother. But I have 5 dogs and I love them. When I've observed other parents I've noticed that the emotions I feel, my reactions and my bond with my dogs is not very different from theirs towards their children. I'm not saying my dogs feel what children feel for their parents but I definitely feel motherly towards my dogs.

Over the last four years the dogs slowly trickled in and their tribe grew until now they are 5 to me 1. When my first came in, she brought along with her demands on my time. Some of these demands were directly related to her and some indirectly. At that point all was fine, then slowly the numbers grew and so did the demands, now I feel like I have no time for myself. My day's to-do list is brimming with more to-do's for others then my own self.

Yeah, it's true I don't have much to-do's from Che, but between the dogs and the house I've been swamped for a while. And after the day's to-do's are done, I just don't have the energy to do something for myself. This 'myself' being pushed to the last of the list, constantly being last priority has grated on my nerves for a while now.

Then I watched 'Queen' a couple of days before my birthday. My biggest takeaway from that movie was to constantly remind myself to do something for myself. Keep telling myself - 'I' is kind,nbsp; 'I' is smart, 'I'nbsp; is important. Over the last couple of months, I'd kind of given up on my hair and skin, so first stop out of the movie hall was BodyShop and Mac, where I treated myself to cremes, lip gloss and an eye-liner. And I'm proud to report that I've been using them all regularly. I've slipped a couple of times but 6 out of 7 days a week, I've taken care of my hair and skin. My skin actually does look better, even if I say so myself. :-)

Now that I've managed that, this year I want to do more for myself. Not that I will stop doing stuff for the dogs and house but rather I'm going to try and make time for myself too. I want to get back to my craft, my reading, my travel and a lot more.

So, this year it's about bringing the 'I' back into my life. :-)

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I, me and my life on my terms…

A few days back I met Ramya [Thanks Ramya :)] to discuss a social media tool, her company was working on among other things. More on the tool in another post; this post is about the rest of our talk.

I had met Ramya through my blog. We exchanged a few emails and decided to meet. Ramya had questions for me that a lot of others have asked on what I do, why I do it, how I live this life, etc… You get the drift. Talking to Ramya was a walk down memory lane and I wanted to take you along. :)

A bit about me – I am a freelancer, have a range of skills, I do my own thing on my own time, travel a fair bit, have all I need, do not work for a corporate company and yet enjoy every moment and live life on my terms. [This is as people see me :D, I do have my own low moments :) ]

Disclaimer: The walk starts now and may be a bit long so if want to turn back now, you can…

I have always been a bit of a rebel, from way back when I remember I wanted things a certain way and wouldn’t settle for less, I did the unacceptable as normal. I remember my first cycle – I wanted a boys cycle and my parents said no, I waited 2 years stubbornly before they relented (it helped that picking and dropping me off at school was getting tedious).

I didn’t want big things, I just wanted what I wanted big or small but mostly it was small. Small things make me happy, I don’t care so much for the quality or brand of stuff as long as it does the job, I don’t care much for money or tomorrow.

Then about 10 years back I started to learn some lessons (lessons to me that is). I realized the value of today, of now, of each moment. I figured that money had no value because it can’t buy happiness, peace or love. Ok no more gyan, I’m sure you have these answers too. :)

Anyway so going on, I caught the travel and biking bug in my early twenties almost about the same time. Then on I started to crave to be free, to not have to work, to do my own thing…. I was not happy with the way my life was and so I started to plan to start anew. I quit my job as a corporate trainer and with 30K in hand I set out to travel in 2006. The plan was to travel as long as possible and when I ran out of money come back. But what did happen was I got a travel writing job on the way and they paid me to travel, I met some great people who sponsored some food and stay, relatives & friends boarded me for months and some friends who even travelled along. What did happen was I travelled for 8 months before I finally came back home.

To most of my family what I had done was mad while I was doing it (later it was something to brag about) but they supported me. I met some amazing people who gave me insight into myself and the world around me. I had come back with a lot of data and numbers. I realized that I didn’t need a lot of money but wanted a lot of time; I became a freelancer.

I started out doing proofreading and language editing and soon moved on to writing scripts and storyboards for learning modules. Before long I was working on website content with a lot of research involved. Sounds like a lot of work? It was most times but I loved it, I also loved saying no when I wasn’t in a mood to work.

I worked with Spiti Ecosphere an NGO in Spiti in the Himalayas for 5 months and came back to continue as a freelancer. I had met the man who was ‘just right’ for me, and we fix like a puzzle. I got an opportunity to market BookBuzzr a free online book marketing tool. When I started out it was a challenge, I had in my travelling lost touch with the internet and had to learn a hell of a lot and let’s not mention marketing. So I did what I do best, learn new stuff. BTW social media is fun and amazingly challenging.

So this is where I am today…

Disclaimer – Here on there is gyan, you can turn away now if you want to :)

To be a freelancer, according to me these are needed.


- You need to find out what you want to do. This is the toughest but you also can do it by trial and error :)
- You should make sure you have no financial obligations or at least have enough saved for those.
- Be open to less money more time. There are no guarantees of jobs here.
- Tell all you know about what you do. Word of mouth is the best way to get jobs.
- Setup a blog and get a website.
- Learn and set yourself up. Build a reputation.
- Work ethic and conscience is very important as there will be distractions galore.
- And having a supportive family and friends is a plus.

I love my life and how I live it. True I haven’t got a plan for 5 years from now but am sure I’ll figure it out on the way. I don’t have a huge bank balance but I know that somewhere somehow I’ll make as much as I need. I live a somewhat minimalistic life, I question everything as ‘Do I need this?’ and act only when the answer is ‘yes’. Above all I have a great life-partner and family who understand me and what I want to do and love me enough to set me free.

Photo Credit: Chenthil

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