How it all started...and the way it ended...

No, it's not vanity. 'Status updates' or 'tweets' on social networking sites, while a great self-expression tool, inadvertently become documentaries of your life - phases of it. Here is a collection of my status messages from one of the social networking sites I'm on. They document my moods, thoughts, ideas and feelings during a not-easy phase in my life, to put it mildly. It's very unlike me to be so direct and forthright about some of my deepest, heartfelt aspirations and dreams or having them out here for the world to read. I can't decide if I want to save this post as a record for posterity or just delete it and the not-so-pleasant memories that come surging back when I read some of the messages.  Well, until the time that I make up my mind about the fate of this post, here it is. There's excitement, anticipation, happiness, a carefree living-in-the moment, a newfound confidence, a spring in the step, hints of clouds, shadows of doubts, a resolute positivity, testing of will, a big dunk into despair, palls of gloom, helpless waiting with a constant hope, a restoring of faith and determination, plans of action, a little cynicism, loads of gratitude, reflection and wonderment, acceptance and finally, serenity and calm.

And that's that - July 9th 2010at 1:18 pm

Go Paul, go Paul, go Paul!!! Dare I root for Netherlands when Paul says Spain?!!! - July 9th 2010 at 10:56 pm

No, wait! I'm confused - which team do I side with? Oh, forget it! Go FIFA World Cup (and Paul, o'course)!!! - July 12th 2010 at 1:58 am

Ok! Spain's my choice. The Dutch are playing nasty - July 12th 2010 at 1:58 am

‎"...the flowing locks of Carlos Puyol that were instrumental in getting Spain to the Final" - a commentator. LOL! - July 12th 2010 at 2:00 am

What's wrong with my phone! None of status messages have gotten updated! Anyway... - July 12th 2010 at 2:40 am

Such a brutally intense match. The players didn't even have time for their customary spitting! - July 12th 2010 at 2:41 am

Who says 13 is an unlucky number? Spain did it at 13! - July 12th 2010 at 2:41 am

Ain't I evil?!!! Lol, family! - July 13th 2010 at 11:44 pm

‎"Every building you see is the image of a man you do not see. That image is shaped by the man's values. If you want roses in your garden you must have them in your heart" - Louis Sullivan in Kindergarten Chats - July 15th 2010 at 1:11 am

To the movies! - July 17th 2010 at 1:46 am

The 'backlogs' were piling up. Couldn't let that happen, now, could I?! Inception's a solid, hit-you-in-the-stomach kind of movie that makes you feel like you finally got your money's worth and some fulfilling weekend fun! - July 17th 2010 at 2:30 pm

(my) Life right now is uncannily mimicking the monsoons we're going through - clouds, sunshine, shade and shadow, pouring rains (cats and dogs too, literally). And all of this happening in one day - everyday! - July 17th 2010 at 11:00 pm

Wow! Dead tired! I'm actually choosing sleep over my Rock Walk and my second love - shopping :( - July 18th 2010 at 3:03 pm

"I mean, for a start, there aren’t any men in the world, everyone knows that." - Lara Lington. You've got to love chick-lit!!! - July 20th 2010 at 1:09 am

Yeah, whatever. - July 22nd 2010 at 12:18 am

needs a movie break, again. - July 22nd at 11:00 pm

Rung by rung, one tiny step before the next, one day at a time and zooming out every now and then to keep the big picture in view... - July 24th 2010 at 12:02 am

Good morning, dreary clouds. - July 24th 2010 at 9:34 am

She makes sure her pet dog is safe - that's the only good part in S.A.L.T. - July 25th 2010 at 4:58 pm

‎'The more we expand our focus to include others' interests alongside our own, the more securely we build the foundations of our own happiness' - That's what the Dalai Lama tweeted recently. How deliciously ironic to be reading this knowing you're surrounded by meanies who can't think beyond their own interest and won't flinch one bit hurting you in the process of pursuing that interest(s). - July 31st 2010 at 12:02 am

Yes Murphy, yes, I know. There's no better time to have the most god-awful headache than the middle of the night when the doctor is out of reach! (a wry !) - August 2nd 2010 at 2:22 am

‎"Patience! Patience, my love" - Smeagol to his reflection. There's so much to learn from you, Smeagol! - August 3rd at 11:50 pm

 Numb. - August 4th 2010 at 5:08 pm

So, these two chatty girls beside me in the 'plex go "Baaaah ! So boring!!!" and "They're such a boring couple" and "there's no interval or what for this movie". LOL! Movie in question - that Twilight Eclipse thingy. It is quite entertaining having a constant stream of chatter 'enhancing' your movie-watching experience sometimes! - August 5th 2010 at 9:14 pm

Autocad and Microstation need to combine forces instead of being competitors. It would make life so much better and simpler. - August 7th 2010 at 12:33 am

Predators and Despicable Me are not remarkable films but they're well made (except how those predators look). Despicable me is very simply funny, cute and has the utterly adorable Margo, Edith and Agnes. - August 8th 2010 at 9:48 pm

Aisha is so wannabe! - August 9th 2010 at 5:20 pm

Ohhh! Buying a well-fitting pair of jeans is the hardest task in the world. 'Like' hardest task ever! - August 9th 2010 at 7:03 pm

I guess cats are too free-spirited and willful to want to remain your pet. I spotted my precious pet today after nine long months of his having left home. He doesn't even recognize me or my voice anymore :( - August 10th 2010 at 8:03 pm

Ask yourself if you have it in you to come through for someone in their hour of need before wanting somebody to be there for you. - August 11th 2010 at 12:12pm

‎"Your best friends may not really turn out to be great roommates", he said. That is quite true! - August 11th 2010 at 8:05 pm

Murphy, Murphy, Murphy - why do you always have to be right?! - August 12th 2010 at 9:04 pm

If it’s good, it's wonderful, if it's bad, it's experience...no regrets. - from a tweeter - August 13th 2010 at 12:38 am

There. is. no. one. like. me. No one. - August 17th 2010 at 12:03 am

Idealism. Sigh! - August 17th 2010 at 5:07 pm

 Everyone's got to have a pet cause! (I'm quite sure I must've read that in some chick-lit or heard it in a chick-flick) - August 18th 2010 at 9:02 pm

No, posting loads and loads of 'this is funny', 'this is too good' YouTube videos is not my thing! - August 19th 2010 at 4:29 pm

‎'Facebook Places' - "Where are you?" is joining "What's on your mind?" as Facebook lets its users declare their whereabouts to their friends and people nearby. As with any new Facebook product, privacy issues figure front BUT location services present "endless possibilities" to businesses, marketers etc - from an article on ibnlive

Lol, well, how did that famous line go? - It's all about the money, honey! -  August 19th 2010 at 8:44 pm

is keeping the faith. - August 20th 2010 at 12:38 am

There are such few absolutes (in life). Most things change with the flow. - August 20th 2010 at 9:20 pm

‎'I wonder if my misery is some sort of karmic retribution for the way I've treated people' - Sue Sylvester.
Lol!!! - August 20th 2010 at 11:04 pm

‎- On a whole different level! - August 21st 2010 at 8:14 pm

 Logic and reason clearly show you the way forward, it's the emotions that mess up everything! Damn you, emotions! - August 22nd 2010 at 5:08 am

 ‎"Always behave like a duck; keep calm and unruffled on the surface but paddle like the devil underneath." - Lord Barbizon - August 22nd 2010 at 5:35 pm

That's it - onwards and upwards it is! - August 23rd 2010 at 12:35 am

has a sudden urge to watch the old 'toons Duck Tales, Talespin and Gummi Bears. Or maybe the urge has more to do with revisiting lovely nostalgia associated with watching them as a kid. - August 23rd 2010 at 6:52 pm

 Yeah, no, I don't much like Augusts - they just aren't grand, august months. - August 24th 2010 at 12:59 am

 Wow! So many, many grammatically-challenged people around me! 'Its surprising'!!! - August 25th 2010 at 12:05 am

Respecting laws, abiding by them and being honest and truthful seems to do nothing more than put you at a BIG disadvantage - that's not how it's supposed to work, though, is it? - August 26th 2010 at 7:14 pm

'Kya laya re Sikander,
Duniya se le chala kya,
The dono haath khaali bahar kafan se nikle...'

- A few lines from some old sher that my Grandmom was reciting today. -  August 28th 2010 at 10:56 pm

Measuring Distances

My gramndma remarked today, "How far is that?" 
My uncle repeated, "6o km".
She said, "Haan sattar to hai, nai time kitna lagta jaane?"

And that is how we (my grandmother and I) measure distances! No kilometer/mile crunching for us, no sirree! It has to be in simple chew-able bite sizes of information that don't take too much effort to process! Like saying, "XYZ is a 2-hr driving distance away". Never mind if logistics like volume of traffic on the roads, consequent speed of vehicles etc affect the time taken to reach a place! We just process all of the external factors (subconsciously in my case at least because I don't think I'm ever aware that I'm thinking it out so much!) and bam! - we know! We get a fairly accurate (or wait - now I'm starting to doubt if it's accurate!) idea in our head of how far a place is and we can even nicely compare distances between places by referring to one fixed barometer we have.
It's the same with the more farther off places - is it a day's journey by train? Is it a 4-hr flight? 
Believe it!
The same exceptions apply - no taking into account stopovers, changing trains/planes and certainly no going by the route taken to get there (circuitous or as the crow flies). The time taken to get from place A to place B is good enough for us!
Sigh, women!...ok -  girls!...or females, perhaps! (Alright, feminists and equal-ists - no offence meant!)

Onwards and Upwards

And then there's picking yourself up...piecing back the dream bit by shattered bit. An uphill road again, the familiar potholes on the way, and learning to be prepared for the unexpected ones.


'There's still hope' - and there always will be because you keep it alive in your heart, your being. A sliver of light guiding your way; the silken, radiant rope you hold onto on your climb up the mountain.


'Climb every mountain, search high and low,
 follow every by-way, every path you know,
 Climb every mountain, ford every stream,
 follow every rainbow, till you find your dream...'


I'm not resting till I find mine.

That's Life

It starts with a thought, doesn't it? Or rather - thoughts - which snowball into plans, determination and finally action. There's effort and sincerity... genuineness and integrity...diligence and dedication... and optimism. A single-minded trudge through the long, twisting, winding way to where you want to be or where you've planned to be. The plan - yes.  Little triumphs and unexpected disappointments, sometimes a clear way and sometimes a haze like looking out at a blurry world through a window smattered with raindrops where the clean beam of a streetlight is smothered to an obscure smog as it makes it's way through the fumes of vehicles busily passing by. A window...a memory...a tempo...a spring in your step...elusive 45s. But through it all, an endless, tireless journey and a just-there-rose-tinted destination.


There's also - 'That's life'. The not-factored element. That one element that sneaks its way through your carefully worked on plans and hits at their very root, making your dreams come crashing down in front of a helpless you or just swooshes down and knocks over all your hard work like it were as weightless or valueless as a castle built with a pack of cards that come fluttering down with a gust of wind unfairly targeted at it.  That's life. And the meaning hitting home after nearly two decades of hearing the much-bandied about phrase. Coming of age happens so late?


And also reflections and looking back...was that the way it should have been done? Giving in to room for superstitions and a lot of whys. 


'Mist and shadow, cloud and shade...'


A ramble, a faltering like these rambling disconnected words...and starting with a thought...all over again...


That's Life, Indeed.

One for the family

The slices of history you stumble upon in the narrowest lanes of Hyderabad, I tell you!


Yeah! I just had to upload the pictures asap on facebook and comment with that line on the precious piece of history my uncle, mom and me had accidentally come across on one of our characteristic days out in the city (lol, more like trying to get errands done, driving through insane traffic and in this case, oppressive heat! gawd!) But the gem in question that made everything so worthwhile was spotting Sir Nizamat Jung's library...like a vista which opened up at the end of this cute, tiny and absolutely charming lane.


You know how it is - you feel for something that means a lot to you. We were like an excited bunch of kids. And that's because my granddad, who was quite a scholar, gave an almost biblical credence to Sir Nizamat Jung's interpretation of the Quran and he passed on that quality of intellectual insightfulness to his children who in turn taught it to the present generation - my cousins, my siblings and me (oh, and I love family legacies!). Seeing and discovering stuff about someone and something we'd literally grown up on was quite a treat.


My uncle wanted me to write about Sir Nizamat Jung, his life and work here (that's so sweet) but I think he'll be able to a better job of it. I think I'll write about the rest of our day. It's one of those days - simple, humble, very 'everyday' -  that leaves a lingering delicious flavour even when it comes to an end and which you know will make for great nostalgia down the years. 


So, there we were, back home after our day's jaunts,  sipping gratefully on Roohafzah and complaining about the hottest summer our city had seen in 9, 20 and 100 years according to different newspaper reports! Weather is, really, the greatest conversation starter ever! And then leap frogging to Sir Nizamat Jung, granddad, reliving old memories, a unanimous call for tea (yeah, tea time!), back to heat, a reading by mom from a newspaper article on the 'shoals of language' - the use of the formal and pristine 'aap' and 'hum' (that we completely identify and agree with, and use) compared to the rather 'uncouth tu and tum' and another sprinkling of memories.


The heavy dose of memories is almost always injected by grandmom into the flowing conversation with such exuberance and a loud tone to match that we have to stop midway and listen (sometimes reluctantly!) to days gone by. Here, she recalled to memory some ancient incident where she and her merry band of relatives were left high and dry on a sojourn during one of their adventurous travels across the country.  The accommodation they'd arranged (a relative's relative's home, that's how it works!) was unavailable at the last moment leaving them with nowhere to go in the middle of the night! "Nikalna khund se aadam ka sunte aaye the leykin, bohot beaabaroo ho kar tere kuuche se hum nikle", she spontaneously remarked with that Ghalib's sher! Room or no room, the group of travellers broke into 'wah, wahs' and enjoyed the comedy of their situation, she remembers.  


And that sher set the tone for the rest of the evening...it's just one of those days...one with the family.

The charm that is Charminar

Life goes on quite normally and mundanely, I'm sure, in the streets of Charminar but oh, the charm that place holds! Especially for someone used to a sanitized uniformity of  nouveau-urban life complete with those ubiquitous glitzy 'malls'.


Yeah, as with all things, there is an inevitable 'underside' to it as well (not to mention quite a dark underbelly) like that of having to wrestle your way through a crowd that jostles and pushes and even slices your handbag making away with your precious bills if you're not careful.


But still, I think no other place in Hyderabad compares to 'sheher' as it was known back when it was the Nizams' Dominion and in my grandmom's colourful recollection of the dominion's pulse.


Having to walk down the narrow lanes which are brimming with vehicles and a multitude of people all trying to make their way, seeing crumbling walls of old 'deodis' and palace walls and shops flanking either side and hearing a chorus of noises from the automobile engines, the chattering and sometimes yelling crowd and the boisterous shopkeepers is reason enough to put you off from visiting Charminar. Ironically, it's all of this that also makes it such an incredibly charming place. The streets have a vibrancy that rubs off on you. All the noise and the crowd and the sights make the place 'alive'. You can't help but wonder at the dynamism of the place - everybody's moving, everyone's busy with something.


Half the charm is because of the grand old buildings that dot all four cardinal directions from 'the' Charminar that lend an 'awesome' characther to this place! They've stood there for years (and many more to come, I'm certain. That's a hallmark of great architecture - built for the fourth dimension). Their staidness, so diametrically opposite to the life teeming all around them, adds to the charm of Charminar.


And you find goods and products that you'd never find anywhere else in the city. This is from a shopaholic's perspective though! Things are just so conveniently available within a foot's distance! Like the time when on one of our tiring shopping sprees, Mom and me were fretting over finding a shop that sold the last buy, a bunch of safety pins, on our list even as we were walking out the door of another shop when bang! a hawker   who ambushes us on the sidewalk has the stuff we're looking for right there in his little tray of goods that he's expectantly holding out to us.
The traditional eats you get here are a whole other chapter in themselves!


A study in contrasts, Charminar is also a great study in lively, usable urban public spaces like the public squares across Europe. The streets are bustling, the built spaces are always occupied, there's zest in the air. It's a perfect example of mixed-use zoning and how successfully it serves the purpose that any city or part of a city should - being enjoyably livable. All it needs is a little effort from the powers that be to improve the infrastructure and amenities, bring an order to the business process that happens here which would bring the much-needed improvement in the standard of living of residents here and encouraging businesses in this area to retain their old-world charm by promoting Charminar as the place to be to get an authentic and traditional feel of the old Hyderabad.

Grandmom's words

Badi manzil jaana hai, Arey naadan pardesi,

Khuda ko muh bataana hai, Arey naadan pardesi;

Na chhaate ko tanaa kar chal,

Na mitti ko daba kar chal,

Khuda ko muh bataana hai, Arey nadaan pardesi;

Na ghairon ki shikaayat kar,

Na de miskinon ko taana,

Khuda ko muh bataana hai, Arey naadan pardesi,

Badi manzil jaana hai, Arey naadan pardesi