Being One...

Got up early today... getting up early on weekends is actually a rare phenomenon.. but miracles do happen sometimes.. ;)

So.. got up and after answering all natural calls :P, while having a cup of tea,  started surfing on Facebook... Surfing through Facebook, actually my hand and mind  is so used to.. that this act neither requires efforts nor does it make any realizations most times... 

but then today.. something happened.....

In a quite room, with a cup of tea in front and cold breeze of air around, 
I felt as though, suddenly I entered in a crowd...where many were talking, many were laughing, some teasing, and some giving philosophical insights.... And I was listening to all... absolutely everyone and everything... and so.. my mind was getting occupied with every scroll I was doing on my phone... But I kept on doing it....and a place came where everything below was already participated in last evening.. So I stopped.... got a sip of my tea..and put my phone locked... 

And again...

There was a quite room... a shivering cold.....dark outside.. noise of air hitting the doors....little, warm tea...and there was me!

My mind was loaded at that moment.. but the very time I realized my presence, I thought as if I did something which I should not have... and immediately I emptied my mind... and came out of that crowd ....

Felt relaxed.....

When now.. I look back to that experience, I feel, how much sometimes unknowingly I keep on burdening myself in some thoughts, some virtual worlds of social networking,  sometimes even thinking of past and future... Its a natural process then and its not hazardous either... but only when some moments like today happen, I feel there is a strong and explicit  need of change... to purposefully relax and cleaning up of thoughts in mind to make a way for better and more...

Do you also feel it at times?

A Key to...

Everyone has some or the other thing in their life which takes them back to some old golden days...With that particular thing, one cant resist getting lost in what we call 'memories'. For me that thing is 'Rains'.. :) :)

I remember,

I came from school exhausted and as usual went to terrace to relax..and in some time a flow of a wind carrying an heavenly smell of soil energized me in a moment. I looked at the wide sky above and suddenly saw the black heavy skies full of water approaching nearer..I yelled and ran to my Mom with all the excitement.

I remember,

It was a cloudy day and we(a group of 8-10 friends) were having full 'masti'(fun) in the most sacred place of our college campus, "the workshop parking". And suddenly(almost madly) we thought of going for a small trek nearby to our city. We started on our bikes and just before reaching the destination, it started raining cats and dogs. But we didn't stop, and kept driving without caring to what we must be looking like, how it will affect us etc.. We didn't go till the mountain, we went to one of the restaurants and ate lotssss of kanda bhajiya(a must eat in rains) making that restaurant chairs full of mud, water.. :P

I remember,

I had an doctor appointment. I had been there with one of friends. Post all check-up, we were going to back to home and... yes, it started raining although a little. Luckily we had to stop for red signal. I asked my friend to take something out of her bag to cover her head(as I had my helmet). She opened her bag and within same moment,heavy rain started and signal also turned green. Next moment, I could not see anything in front with my helmet cover, her comb fell down while taking out dupatta and a rickshaw came from behind covering her comb. I wanted to remove my helmet, she wanted to take her comb but Rikshaw wanted to pass the signal.. and ........so......... we had to move. :( :) :P

I remember,

It was December. I was in office. At around 6:30 pm, an announcement was made giving some information as the area where I used to live, has got some problems and hence one living in or near that area should leave the office as early as possible. I immediately started by taking a rickshaw.  And again.. from nowhere, suddenly it started raining badly..As promised the rickshawala stopped at a place where I had thought I would get down. And stupid me, actually got down at that place without noticing that it was raining heavily, I was not equipped with umbrella and hence should take rickshaw till the house. Anyways since I had left my rickshaw I had to walk for 15 mins till the house. After waiting for 5-10 mins on stop, I finally started. I covered a distance of 5 mins and unexpectedly my sandal broke into 2 pieces..#$(*&* Unbelievable!! Disgusting!! What then...I took both my sandals, put them into bag and ran towards home... alone, bare foot, immersing fully into rains, for another 10 minutes... :P :P

I remember the window of our home from where I used to see the trees getting fully wet with rain. I remember, my friends teasing me on my birthday every year that they could not wear beautiful new dresses as my birthday falls in rainy season. I remember the outings we friends had in rainy times. I remember my father and I calculating "how heavy is the rain" by analyzing how much(little, half, full) wet the biggg trunk of the tree in front of our balcony has become with rain. I recall so many things, places, people, incidents..

Really................

Only rain has this capability to open all the closed doors of past in my mind... 

Sett(l)ing down

Writing something or connecting with you all is actually my necessity! but you see... its not among "food, water or shelter" and hence I sometimes procrastinate to do this necessary thing on right time.. :P

But better late than never, right?

So......................

I remember I learnt about 6 continents(?? Either my memory is weak or with population  n pollution even continent count has changed over the years :P) Anyways.. that's not the topic!So I learnt in some standard that in Antarctica, there is 6 months day and 6 months night....Since then.. I had imagined about this..of being in sunlight for whole 6 months.. and in full blackout for next 6! 

It seemed to be horrible in my imagination!(and why not... I used to imagine sunlight like 12 in noon for whole 6 months and black as 2 in midnight for another! poor imaginations powers!!! :P))

But yesss.... I 'AM' experiencing it now in some sense!

I get up in morning because Sun rays are already spread all over the house even crossing the barrier of curtains...

I go to office.. and Sun is still there somewhere in sky(somewhere because.. I don't easily understand the directions here.. its not as clear as its in India.. we are not near equator na!!!)

I come back from office.. prepare the dinner.. and he is still there..

Then I have my dinner(by closing the curtains just to 'feel' that its dinner!and not lunch) but he is stilllllll there!

I go to bed.. and sleep... and I am afraid to say butttt.. he is still there! :(

Yeah.. I must agree now.. that not all the time he is equally bright(sunny!) but ultimately its a 'day' feeling from start to end of our 'own day'..

And that's his routine for whole 6 months!(exception.. climate changes due to global warming..  :P )

But isn't that interesting and funny at the same time...

Interesting.. as I could only imagine this(as badly as I wrote above) in India..

and Funny... coz.. day never ends!!!! (between the lines it means.. you have so much time, all the time) ;)

hehe... 

There is a huge diversity in how nature treats the various areas of world, right? ;)

Sometimes I question myself.. Am I making a small thing big or its really a big change..

But you know for me.. yes.. it is!

I am still a newcomer here... :):)

Responding Naturally...

I love music from bottom of my heart...it makes me happy when sad.. and has equal power of making me sad when I am happy... I always thought..there can be nothing which can take place of music for me!

But I guess I have a new friend now..."Nature"! :)

I came here in winter...I loved the look of nature then when all trees had drained off their leaves....Even with simple skeleton standing, they looked stunning especially when they were standing between clean roads or beautiful houses with "prism" shaped top or when they were arranged for long ranges on off-white sand which we find only around sea. They looked even better when they wore snow on them...

I actually had fallen in love with them then..That was the time when I never even tried to think as to how would they look when spring will start... But now that spring has started.. I feel I am out of my words!.. I can simply say.. I am blessed...

On every square you go... there are tulips that welcome you by flaunting their colors.. the skeleton of trees now carries tons of colors like pink, yellow, burgundy, purple on them in forms of leaves or flowers.. Gardens with lakes or fountains look amazing when ducks are moving around... And if that's not enough.. sunlight, cold breeze of an air.. and cute, pink foreigner babies adds to this aura...

I now understand what it means by "eternal peace".. or "heavenly"! 

And if that's what is I see just around where I live.. one can imagine.. what would have been my experience for other Europe country visits like Amsterdam, Netherlands.. where land is less and canals are more, windmills and colorful tulip farming pays off everything.. Venice, Italy.. where green water surrounds houses and multi-shaped bridges create a path to travel around the city...Burano where every house is hand painted with one color and like vehicles there are boats outside every house..

mmm.......

One mind of me says.. I am lucky to experience this! and other makes me gloomy as I see that in entire life I won't be able to live this kind of "day to day" life in my own country! Because I know..that...
This form of nature is something we strive for long and then go on vacation by investing time and money to some end of country and come back to cherish it for later few months or years... And same will happen with me!

But...Nonetheless, as I said.. I am extremely happy that have now found this new friend!
And although place will change.. I will always have my memories to get lost into...! :)

Break!

Its been so longgg that I wrote last time here...

Everytime I started or simply thought to write, I felt.. I don't have anything to say.. Its just 'routine'!!

And this 'routinely' feeling didn't allow me to proceed further making that as 'routine'.. ;)

But yesterday.. while in some conversation I said to dear Husband...."Nirutsaah(Cheerlessness, dullness) is contagious!" .. And this self invention ;) satisfied me for a moment and struck me in another..

I thought.. how frequently we answer to questions like "what else? baki? aur bolo?" with answer "bass nothing..routine!" (At least I use it very often!) And somewhere this statement creates dullness in me..

and may be in party I am talking to.. (?)

soooo... today... here I am..back! :)

You know... my french class ended on friday.. Although to start again for spring season.. but I may not be able to join it back.. But can't believe..Its been 3 months! :):) I felt sooooo badd when I saw my dear teacher ,all my classmates last time on friday. But ..tell you... this class was/is the mosstttt excitinggg and memorable experience of my whole life... Offcourse no? Learning new language, in new country, with foreign teacher, and international students.. wow.. It is unforgettable...

I wonder how my look towards alphabets change when I see anything written or spoken in french..

ch becomes sh, r becomes gh, words are read half way and "rewind-play" mechanism is applied everytime.. ;) I feel like jumping in happiness when I understand what people say and what boards read.. ;) ;) :P

Seriously... thats the power of language! 

Who remembers.. how we learnt our mother tongue or rashtrabhasha or English.. we were too young then...

But this learning experience is justt unique! ;)

Ohh.. I loved going to class.. speaking with actions.. imagining what teacher must be saying(coz she never uttered a word in English!)..and feeling proud when I could comprehend her.. ;) :P

Now that it's ended...I will miss the fun... 

But tell you.. With all this experience,

Today I feel muchhh muchhh respect for all language teachers... You can learn anything and everything only if you know the language, the communication medium... And teaching language is mostt difficult part of this world.. seriously! :)

Today again I feel like thanking all my teachers (with new vision!) :)

Hope with this.. you would also remember all your language teachers... :) :)

And.. yup.. I wish all you learn some or the other new language and yesss hope this post gives you a (at least small) break from routine! ;)

Straight from heart..

"Are beta, ayushyabhar hech karaychay..mag aatapasun kashala suruvaat?" means "Dear child, you have to do it for whole life, then why start early?" such were sentences my Mom used to say when I would enter kitchen and try helping her in a recipe.. And happy me.. used to follow it without hesitation.. :P :)

But as days were passing, I started helping her for secondary tasks of kitchen work..like taking dishes and water before lunch/dinner, cutting vegetables and listening to "how to cook this recipe".. and...what.. I don't remember any... :( that's how I was!!!

BUT....I never ever regretted it!

Oh yes.. forget regretting... I would fear thought of getting married to a guy who doesn't know cooking..and I had strong reason for it... nope.. not that..I was not good at cooking(who cares!) but "I have seen my father contributing to kitchen as equal as my mother..and so I can't imagine someone sitting and ordering me...!

THAT was my justification for my expectation!

How "politically right" I was!! :P:P

Fortunately, my husband is a very good cook..better than me sometimes! (No..I didn't choose him because of this quality.. it just happened you know.. ;) but yes.. I won't deny that I was happy to hear this quality of his..)

But he being a good cook was not enough..I came to know when I came here in Brussels. And then I started feeling (yup regretting) my "who cares" attitude towards cooking... :(

Then on, I started my experiments on cooking.. and guess I started it with "Gulab Jamun"! Such a high class recipe, with all the different material than the usual one in India and with as naive mind as mine... what should have been its result? Offcourse, it was a disaster! The sugar syrup was no more a syrup and turned into rock solid material and the jamun balls were the layerd shapes of multiple colors! :(:(

Still remember, how bad it was to see so much waste created by me! :( 

But that was another time, I 'seriously' regretted and started working towards cooking.. I started with many small, simple recipes and then the big ones.. With every day, I gave the try on something new.. and that try was shared in the get together parties of friends (although with * marked ;) )... But the feedback from all the friends had been really good(hope it was not part of their formality ;) ) and this encouraged me for my "under development" skills... :)

Yesterday, when I, again with all risk, jumped into making Gulab Jamun...I purposefully recollected all the better reactions received and prayed God every single minute I was preparing sugar syrup and frying jamun balls.. and there was twist! and twist was... I had completed the recipe without any problem! and Gulab Jamun looked perfect! and yes.. they tasted nice too... :):)

Whoooo... I am happy since then! yes.. till this time...  :):)

As they say... "Failure is a first step towards success!".. I actually am experiencing it!

I thank my husband and all our friends here (Soniya,Sandeep,dada, Binni, Moumi, Babul, Manish, Poonam) for encouraging me...and dear Div and Annu for "nothing" :P:P (my best friends, who every now and then would tease my husband saying..your wife only knows how to prepare chapati! so be prepared! :P:P ) and yes.. the important ones... how can I forget the people who taught me all..

Madhura, Bhavna, VahChef, Anuja, Hetal... my youtube buddies!!! :)

Thank a ton! :):)

First and Foremost...

I had decided, long before I imagined, that I would write the blog-posts every Wednesday. But just in 2 posts I was short of stories..It didn't mind me on first "off" Wednesday, I guess.. not on second one too..

But the time when third also turned into past, I asked myself.. "Am I soooo "used to" the changes(of being in new country, new people, with new experiences) ??" ... And.. answer came, quick.. No.. Nahhh.. How can I.. nopes.. I am not!! 

Yeah.. The experiences here still astonish me.. they make me happy.. Especially the 'first ones'!

Yup... "First Ones".. I saw the snowfall.. sometimes just flurries.. and sometimes weightless white flakes falling effortlessly from the wide above..covering every inch of the ground... and still the fall is so silent that in a closed house, you might find far later, when everything outside is white, that snowfall is happening! Its such an amazing experience..to walk on the snow.. to take the chilled ice on naked hands and suddenly throwing it away because of numbness felt in palms..to see the trees and leaves carrying a bit of snow on themselves and flaunting the different look than what we always have seen or learnt in books from childhood(The Green)! :) :)

I traveled in "Double Decker TRAIN" :):).. Yeah.. to my knowledge, I only had seen Double-Decker buses that too only in Mumbai..and traveled in it just once... and here.. it was train(the most comfortable form of transport for mosstttt Indians) It took me to a different city, with such a ease that I didn't hear even a pinch of noise of outside..not of wind as well..and the speed.. ? oops.. it was so fast that the front view from window goes to back of it in seconds..! and off course  it was clean, spacious, giving the details of next city on display, locking the doors automatically with defined time gap on its stops! N number of features u know! :)

hey.. and my french classes!!!!...  Yes.. its 3 weeks passed.. :):) nah nah.. I cant yet write all this in french! oh.. yes.. I speak a little(very little!) :P  That also is suchh a fabulous experience .. That you go the classroom.. and you have people across countries..(I remember how I used to feel excited about the friends/colleagues from diff states of India and here ..its different countries.. :) ) .. you try to speak to them.. and they don't reply to you .. coz.. you all don't have any common language! Its always a "multiple choice questionnaire" when you have a conversation.. as the answer expected from other end might not match the question predicted from you!! :P:P And still you are learning a common thing.. and laughing together.. That's so wonderful!! :):)

Lookkk.. these "First Ones" mean a lot to me.. they are unforgettable.. and they are not something I can get "used to" so early.. ahhh... rather, ever! :):)

Delightful Encounters

Watched a documentary yesterday named "Build it Bigger" on restructuring of Mumbai Airport and felt wowwww.. and suddenly recollected the face of my husband when I had said to him within first few days of my arrival that "I feel Brussels is just analogous to Mumbai!!" :) 

Oops....He had felt that his whole reasons of showing me new areas of this world have gone wasted.. :P But how could I react better??.. I love my country... ;)

But no.. rather yes.. I was little wrong.. 

This place is far better in terms of its developments.. (yeah I know that you know it! But ultimately living the read/heard/watched life is always different!) 

You get down your apartment, and you will see hardly few people on street unless its a shopping street :P  You walk a small distance and see either a bus stop or a tram station or a metro station or taxis ready to take wherever you want (and yess very easily without "dhakkabukki"!) You wanna cross the road, just follow the lights(red/green) and if you don't follow them the drivers will follow their senses for sure! There are no ticket windows for anything.. You have a card(prepaid card) and you just have to punch it..so no queues no quarrels.. You enter metro station and can see a board of which metro is where and in how minutes she will come for you..(and the next one is within max 5 minutes(and they are always 60*5 seconds)).. :) You enter the metro and will be pushed backward with a frictional force as she runs(speed!!). and you wont get to your actual position until the next station is reached.. :P  

This all really makes the place relaxing as you have no worries(outside your home!!;P) like reaching safe, driving carefully, attain things on time..etc.. :)

I wonder.. a control on population can make miracles!! isn't it?

But I must tell you.. people and their emotions and behaviors is something which is very much same everywhere.. I saw school going children with same innocence on their face, Mom n Dads with their babies with same affection, a group of friends with same fun and teasing attitudes! Few following fashions, few looking at them and gossiping.. :P, Few looking at us as out-comers and few trying to make us comfortable by talking different language yet smiling face. And that's human nature.. :)

This whole set of mixed feelings and new culture is forcing me to enjoy this place... and I surely will...

Guess.. I am going for my french classes from tomorrow.. so doesn't that mean that I have already started enjoying ?? :)

Yeahh.. looking forward for this new venture.. ;)

Wish me luck...

and keep reading... :)

Curiosity to Nostalgia..

A day came.. I was waiting for long time... not because I wanted it to come.. but because I knew that there was no turning back... and it had to come...

I was going to travel abroad.. for the first time in my life.. 

Not really the 'utmost' exciting thing as I can realize it now when I look back..

But definitely, a very happy moment(for inner side in us) and a proud moment(for outer side "around" us.. :P)

After many rounds of packing and unpacking and re-packing sessions, I decided to continue with my fate for the probable rejection on weight limit....(I had almost imagined that I would either cry and beg the authorities on airport to let me continue with all the baggage, or else I would sit, open my bags, and then remove the "not really extra" material and then cry and beg again to authorities to let me continue with all the baggage.. :P) Ultimately.. I wanted to carry all the things I had packed with so much efforts.. :( :P

But.. as you see.. the more we think on anything.. lesser are the chances of things happening.. I didn't even had a chance to think and fear..forget begging.. :P and my baggage was accepted although it exceeded the limit by 3 Kgs... Sometimes.. yessss...lucky me.. :P (still remember the smile on Security Personnel whom I asked twice after minutes time gap that.. "is this 'check-in' really done?.. and the bags which went inside from a conveyor belt wont come back??and I can tell my parents to start their journey back??") :P I was really scared of unnecessary thoughts you know..

Anyways..my  first exam was clear.. and then I started waiting for my husband's frnd who was supposed to join me after his arrival from connecting domestic flight.. This was again a tough time.. as I had never seen him in person.. and ..and... I was carrying another bag of 5-6 Kgs to put into his bag and that was apart from my cabin bag.. :P .. so if he would not come.. I had to..leave(donate) my bag and stuff inside .. :(

But then.. after a fearful 1 hour.. he came.. and my another tension was relieved..:) 

Then on.. it was really a fun..

I saw the most gorgeous, intelligent and newly wedded actress Vidya Balan on same immigration queue.. That made my night.. ;) And then.. the beautiful, classy, full of lights ambiance of  Sahara International Airport which made my upcoming day.. :P 

After a 2 hours time.. I entered the flight.. and sat on the chair full of equipment s and accessories.. and realized.. that all my curiosities of my first travel to abroad had come to an end and have now turned into nostalgia as I write this.. :)