My greatest gift

“It’s a cool evening and I have finished cooking the dinner. With nothing else to do, but to wait for hubby dearest to return home, I move to the balcony to enjoy the cool breeze. My eyes keep moving to the main gate to see if I can spot my husband’s car making its way to the parking lot. I keep wondering if he would remember the special day. I am not so sure if he would, but nevertheless I do not lose my hopes. And all of a sudden two hands spring up on my sides and a silk saree (with exactly the same design and color combination that I wanted) drops into my hands. I am stunned and when I look around, I see him smiling smugly at me. I just run into his arms for a tight embrace and we just stand like that for what seemed like an eternity”.

When I came back to my senses, I was lying in my bed. It was close to midnight and the TV was playing some nice Ilayaraja melodies from the 80’s - No wonder. What else could have had such a balmy effect on me? I realize that my husband is late yet again and I had dozed off waiting for him. My mind vaguely remembers the dream that I had. After all it was a dream…..just a dream (obviously, how else can a husband get a saree for his wife with the exact design and color combination that she wanted????? Even in dreams I don’t think they would have paid attention to their wife’s remarks about the Saree Ad while engrossed in their laptop/TV). But that’s how I always imagined and want it to be. It might be a bit filmy but I am so besotted by this idea of a surprise gift and the gift being something which you yearned for so much. And with the filmy touch to it nothing can get more romantic than this as far as I am concerned. It doesn’t matter how I ask him – request, yell, shout, fight, cry or beg for unabashedly, he just doesn’t get the point. It makes more sense to him that I tell him what I want and then we go to a shop and buy it for me and he pays for it. That ways I get what I want and he pays for it, so technically it’s still a gift from him to me and everyone is happy. The purchase might as well happen on the weekend just after the special day – it’s nevertheless a gift to celebrate the special day so it doesn’t matter whether you buy it on that day or any other day. I eventually learned to accept that his idea of gifts were way different from mine – both in respect of giving and receiving.

It was a frustrating day in office and when I came back I saw that our room was in a complete mess. There were clothes lying around everywhere, both the personal and official laptops were lying close to each other in bed at a stupid angle, bill envelopes, books, cell phone, mobile chargers etc. Along with the mess lay a plastic bag with a CD pouch containing 8 – 10 CD’s. I thought this must be one his software CD’s and put them in the shelf to where it belonged. The next day morning however I was surprised when hubby dearest asked for this bag. Now it’s not uncommon for him to strew things around but to ask for them the next day is definitely strange. And then with a mocking smile he said “being the “Monica-kind-of-cleanliness” freak that you are I hope you have not trashed them off. I was completely bowled over. And then he showed me the contents of the bag. It had all the 10 seasons of “friends”. My joy knew no bounds. I always wanted to own the entire collection. I wouldn’t miss a single episode on TV even though they were re-telecast zillion times. Even if his favorite program was on TV he made sure I watched the episodes un-interrupted and it definitely was not one of his favorites. He never said it was a gift and neither did he create a melodrama (translated: my idea of giving a gift) when he gave it to me. But gift to me it was. And then I realized yet again that his idea of gifts were way different from mine – both in respect of giving and receiving - Whether it was bringing home a Cadbury daily milk bar which his colleagues had given him because he remembered that I don’t prefer any other chocolate other than dairy milk or buy a converter cord that would connect the laptop to our LCD so that I can watch my favorite movies on the 32” big screen in the leisure and comfort of my bed or burn all episodes of friends in CD’s so that I can have my own collection to watch it whenever I felt like it.

Those were his appreciation of my desires – however trivial they might be and isn’t that what gifts are supposed to be? Token of love, appreciation and affection for the person you love or cherish? Only that his gifts were not wrapped in colorful paper and tied with a huge pink bow on top and given to me in the most filmy way imaginable. And not celebrating our love on a special day didn’t make it any less special. In fact it made me feel extremely special and happy. And now I know for sure that I have the greatest gift of my life.

Frames of life

While I am browsing through the net aimlessly in my laptop, an email from my brother lands in my inbox. He has sent me the link where he has posted latest snaps of my niece. I am super thrilled to see how much she has changed since we last saw her (of course on another .gif image). I immediately check out the snaps and also dutifully show them to my parents and grand mom so that they can admire her and revel in joy. Technology has definitely made our lives easier hasn’t it? I can’t stop myself from thinking about the days when we didn’t know much about these online portals, how one could post personal photographs and how near and dear miles apart can see them within the next 5 minutes. Also back then every house didn’t have a computer. We would be informed that the photo is on its way somewhere flying above the Atlantic and would reach us anytime. All of us would meticulously check our postbox (which is otherwise uncared for) for the neatly bubble-wrapped-from-inside envelope with US stamps and my brother's familiar handwriting. We would all be ecstatic to receive the package and would take turns admiring my niece and exclaiming in awe how tall she has become and how her hair has grown almost 5 mm compared to her previous photo session. The best of the lot will take its place in the showcase so that we can see her whenever we want to and the rest goes to the "my family" photos collection. And then they lie there for eternity.

It was a cloudy afternoon and the weather was amazing. Perfect setting to read a book of my choice sitting by the window occasionally taking a break to admire the rain laden clouds and the sweet smell of the soil just before a heavy downpour. But somehow I was not up to it that day. While I was moving from one room to another trying to figure out a way to spend the afternoon, I opened one of the cupboards in my grand mom’s room. Inside the cupboard was a neatly stacked column of plastic bags with photo albums of various sizes inside them. This was the master collection of all "my family" photographs. There were wedding albums of every member of the family, me and my brothers' childhood snaps, our school day snaps taken during every competition or event (right from our kindergarten days to higher secondary classes), my college snaps (well I should definitely take the credit for these because at some point when I was quite jobless I had collated them in chronological order as far as my memory could take me and I did that favour to my brother too) and photos taken during every trip or vacation and family gatherings. The frame sized moth-eaten photographs of my ancestors deserves a special mention. These included photographs of my grandfather's father, his family and his sibling’s family and even one generation before that I think. The photographs have a unique musty smell and a brownish tinge which clearly indicated its age. My grand mom once took me through these trying to make me understand the whole family tree by explaining who married whom and the various branches of the tree. But all her efforts were futile. Our family had numerous consanguineous marriages and at some point I really failed to understand how we were all related in more ways than one.

After rummaging through them for quite some time I stumbled on my childhood snaps. As I browse through them there is a faint smile at the corner of my lips. It’s almost as if I am trying to re-live each and every one of those moments now. I wonder if there was a fight between me and my brother just before that snap. Although my cheeks are dry I can see evidence of some tears in those two tear drops which stayed back in my eyes and failed to join the others in the running stream. Has the fight been put to an end by my mother whom I can see in the corner almost chopped off from the snap? My brother didn’t seem so happy. May be he didn’t quite get the pleasure that he wanted to by tormenting me with his big-brother-bullying ways. My mind wanders off as I move through each of them. It must have been quite a while since these albums saw the outside world. Every page is stuck on to the next and I really had to pull them apart (with great care of course) while they made a tearing sound. This was truly a cumbersome task but what the hell I wanted to see all of them no matter how long it took.

But there is also a thought haunting my mind. How often have I re-visited the picasa to see pictures that I have already seen? And if I did indeed re-visit them, did I feel as good as I did now? I mean here I am sitting in a recliner near the window with hot brewing coffee and the big albums nestled in my lap with every snap taking me to the most memorable moments of my past. Then I realize that it is these brownish-yellow tinged photos with their musty smell that really makes me feel nostalgic and reminds me of those frames of life that have long been forgotten in this fast paced world. When I am done with all of them I neatly put them back as they were and into the cupboard where they belong. An afternoon well spent - I think to myself.

The naming ceremony

Okay no tough guesses!! This is the naming ceremony of my blog which I have wanted to create for quite some time now (that’s definitely an understatement - I have been thinking about blogging for almost three years!!). I am an avid reader of blogs – of people whom I know and of people whom I don’t. That really doesn’t matter to me as long as it is interesting. I enjoy reading them – people sharing their travel experiences, relationships, career, passion, interest and motivating experiences and what not?……the list continues and in fact it is never ending. Feeling something in your heart and mind is very different from putting them down in writing. That is something that I have never been able to do – pen down my thoughts, however random they might be. And blogs to me are the most uninhibited way of expressing yourself and a reflection of whom you are, as a person.

I am not certain if writing is an art that comes to me naturally, but nevertheless I can’t give it up without even giving it as much as a shot. So I have finally set aside all my apprehensions about my writing skills and creating this blog where I can live my deepest, desperate and profound desires of my heart. Hence to remain true to its purpose I would like to christen my blog “My Mirror of Erised”.

A little something about the mirror of Erised
The Mirror of Erised is a magical object which is featured in the first Harry Potter novel. The name of the object is actually a clever pun, as the mirror image of “erised” is, of course, desire. The Mirror of Desire reflects the most profound wish of the person who is standing in front of it. Etched into its frame are the following words – ‘“erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi,” which when reversed read “I show not your face but your heart's desire

Now all I am hoping for is that it’s just the starting trouble I had and shouldn’t have the same in keeping my blog alive with posts at least once a while and that what I write will be of interest to someone in some corner of the world.