Things I wish I'd get paid to do!

Disclaimer- These could be potential career options- no kidding! Just that I ain't there just yet ;)

1. Zumba- The most recent activity I absolute love doing! My classes are just twice a week but I am always happy to even follow online videos and practice at home. Zumba is a fantastic workout and it's so much fun that you don't even feel like you are putting in a lot of physical effort like you do at the gym!

2. Doodling- Everyone who has known me since I was a kid knows how much I loved doodling. All through school and college my books were full of doodles. Unfotunately, I have been out of touch lately but people like this lady here- http://her.yourstory.com/rachna-prabhu-1125 make me also think, why not?

3. Story telling- I do like to think of myself as a story teller. I love reading. listening to and telling stories. Listening to my grandparents' telling my mythological stories as a child, remains one of my favorite memories with them. Reading fiction is my favorite hobby from the time I started reading until today as I love getting lost into the plot and the lives of the characters. And telling stories is one of the reasons why I started this blog. Oh and of ourse, there is this guy here who truly makes me think this can be a career option to http://storywallahs.com/

Some things I did recently that mad me experience pure joy! S01E01

Hello again!
Does this post come sooner than expected? That's the whole idea! I promised myself that I'd write more often and that is what I am going to try and do!
This post 2 has 2 objectives- 1. Write more often and sooner as long as I writing about a personal experience so that I don't forget about it and struggle to recreate it later and 2. Try and make my stories shorter. God knows I need some serious effort in editing both writing and speech!


#1 Meeting lil Miss Sunshine Anaaya
A couple of weeks back when I was in Bombay, I met my friends Parin and Saloni and their lil bundle of joy- Anaaya. I have known Parin since MBA days and Saloni and him were blessed with Anaaya around a year and a half back. This was right after our wedding and I hadn't met Anaaya and her parents all this while. I had seen pictures of her on Facebook though and had always marveled at her smile. Anaaya has the most radiant smile and is the most happy-go-lucky baby I have ever met. She undoubtedly gets these from her mommy who is an absolute sweetheart herself but to have a met such a happy baby made my day! We spent a long Sunday afternoon with her and there was no whining and wailing like other babies do. Lil Anaaya was as hospitable as one can get as she played with us and entertained us. 

The reason I am writing this post about is as I said in the title- meeting her was pure joy! I usually like babies but with a major condition- only as long as they aren't crying! But this lil cutie and her smile reminded of the innocence of childhood. How simple, carefree and untangled our lives used to be when we were kids. Our hearts and souls as pure as could be. Growing up was such sham! And yet, just spending a few hours with her were sufficient to fill my heart witch such delight than every time I think of her, I am happy all over again! Thank you lil Miss Sunshine Anaaya!

Another stranger angel!

Hello there!
So here we are again. At the risk of sounding repetitive in the way I start my post, I have been thinking of penning this story for a year now. Another story, another angel who restored my belief in kindness in the most unusual of circumstances. Not to say that I don't believe that kindness exists, but sometimes you encounter it in such unforseen situations that it deserves a post! Even if it comes more than 2 years after my first post on this blog!

I must mention that as this story happened almost exactly a year back and my memory isn't my best asset, I may have forgotten some minute details and therefore some facts may have been mixed with fiction.

Last June, Pratik got his first opportunity to visit France for work. It had been just 6 months since our wedding and subsequent honeymoon but if I had ever made a countries- I- wish- to- visit list, France would have certainly been on the top. And so there was no way I was not going with him! We planned a week long trip to visit Paris and the French Riviera before he would proceed to Lille for work. We planned everything fairly meticulously while trying to minimize the impact on our bank accounts and one such effort was to travel separately from Bangalore to Paris. Pratik's company was flying him with Air France by a fancy direct flight while the lesser mortal was flying with Etihad via  Abu Dhabi. Now the reason I am sharing these details is that it was because of this that I was due to land in Paris 3-4 hours before the husband and therefore, I had to take the difficult decision of whether I should wait for him at the Paris Charles de Gaulle airport or at the hotel. Now, most of you would wonder why this would be such a big deal, right? But for the few who know me closely know how even after all these years I can get lost in Bombay (Bombay btw isn't my janmabhoomi but is the place where I have spent almost my entire life!) So getting lost in Bangalore is very plausible for me and Paris is almost certain! But even then, after flying for 16 hours and trying to stay in my image of an independent, self confident woman, I decided that I wouldn't wait for Pratik at the airport. So much so that in the 15mins of free wi-fi access that you get at the Paris CDG airport, I emailed him that I wasn't waiting for him at CDG and would see him directly at the hotel. This meant that he wouldn't even look for me at the airport once he landed, he would directly start for the hotel. And yes, international roaming wasn't activated on my phone so there was no other means of communication.

Now, CDG airport is ~40kms away from Paris and modes of travel include 1. Cab which would cost ~60 euros, 2. RER train which would be ~20 euros and 3. I think there is a shuttle as well. We had discussed that I'd either take the cab or the RER. However, my decision making capabilities had taken a huge hit at the CDG airport after 16 hours of flying as well as the overwhelming amount of information that I was subjected to at the CDG airport. After hovering around at the terminal for over an hour, I had finally managed to get to the RER platform and catch a train to Gard du Nord. Gard du Nord was ~1km from our hotel and by the time I caught the RER, I knew that if just deciciding and getting on to the train had been such a mammoth task for me, reaching our hotel from Gard du Nord would almost certainly mean I was going to be lost. Not having access to Google maps, walking a kilometre in an unknown country and being subjected to very complicated language and accent to understand was freaking me out! Thankfully I knew enough French to read and understand basic directions, but asking someone for directions and understanding their speech on that first day was absolutely impossible! I got into the train visibly nervous and tired with a suitcase in hand, more worried than excited. Almost immediately, a fellow traveler struck a conversation. Now, I am usually not very comfrortable having conversations with random strangers but when you are alone in a country where you don't know a single person, and fairly convinced that you are going to be lost, you cannot get more uncomfortable even when a stranger strikes a conversation!

I met Kai Carver, an American who was a native of Paris. We got chatting about what we did, why I was there and where was I headed. He google mapped my hotel location on his phone to show me how I could get there from Gard du Nord. When we reached Gard du Nord, he actually got off the train with me and explained me the directions to the hotel. We realised that it wasn't as simple as it looked in the map- there were a lot of lanes around and finding the tiny hotel where I had booked us, wasn't exactly easy. He then suggested that he had sometime on hand and was willing to walk with me till the hotel. For someone who is from Bombay where everyone is always on the run, I found this extremely surprising. Without trying to sound excessively worrisome, this did get my suspicion cells activated! Why was this man willing to help a foreigner find her hotel out of no where on a working day morning? How many of us here in Bombay or Bangalore would do that? I don't know what impression I gave Kai, but he was so sweet that he actually kept showing me the route on his phone throughout our walk to convince me that he was indeed dropping me off to my hotel and not misdirecting me! I also realised that while I knew I had booked Pratik and I in a tiny hotel, this was actually a hotel the size of a match box and as difficult to find as a needle in a haystack! And if I had been looking for it all by myself, there was no way in heaven or hell I'd have found it! I'd perhaps been left looking for it and my husband most of that trip! (Ok, serious hyperbole but this is what I thought at the time!) 

Kai also suggested things I could do and places I could visit in Paris while we walked. We talked about India and France and Taiwan and a lot of other places. We exchanged our contact cards and he offered that I could reach out to him for any other help during the rest of my trip as well. We eventually found the hotel and he asked me if I'd be okay till the husband reached there. I thanked him profusely and couldn't believe my luck in being able to find another stranger angel!

The testimony to this was when Pratik finally reached, he gushed about how the hotel was indeed very difficult to locate and he kept thinking throughout his walk about how on earth had I managed to reach the hotel all by myself! 
At the risk of also ending my article in the same way as my previous one, I was extremely thankful and felt very lucky having met someone so kind and helpful as Kai. The rest of France was also as hospitable and the trip is something Pratik and I will cherish for the rest of ourlives! :)

The story of that led to this blog

Yes, I know some of you have already read about this on my Fb status and even liked it. I am saying this because none of my statuses have ever received so many likes before and yes, nothing I wrote before on Fb has been worth liking this much! And that's pretty much the reason why the first post on my blog is also on this story. I have been thinking about writing for as long as I can remember now and yet I never knew what to write about. Most of the times I thought I don't feel so strongly about something, anything, that I create a blog and write about it. You know the way Aman discovered a hidden writer in him with his football blog? And yet, at other times, I guess when I did feel strongly about something, it was expressed by some other means than writing..(That means of expression is obviosuly my non stop yapping!)

But now, today, after this story, I feel very very strongly about something. So strong that I did take the effort of setting up this blog. What do I feel so strongly about, you ask? Read on..

I was coming back home after meeting a friend- yes, I was in my dad's chauffeur driven car, far from the hardships of usual commute in Bombay. I took my wallet out of my bag to hand some change to a beggar at the Inorbit signal after which, I very conveniently let it remain on my lap. I did not put it back in my bag. When I got off the car at Gokuldham to buy stuff, I asked the driver to take the car home since there was no place to park. I went to the store to buy what I wanted to and when it came to paying the shopkeeper, I realized I didn't have my wallet. My first thoughts were that I left it in the car and I called my driver asking him to pick it up from the back seat.You guessed it right, he checked and said it wasn't there. Before I move on to the frantic search that began, I must tell you about the contents and why that was the worst day I could lose my wallet. It had some 5K cash, 2 debit cards, 1 credit card, my driving license, my PAN card, visiting cards (which I was blissfully unaware of) and like any other girl who has a just about a passing interest in shopping, it had some 5-6 membership cards of various stores. Now before you think who keeps 5K cash on any passing day, let me clarify, I never ever have this much cash with me! I have to withdraw cash every second day because the more cash I keep at once, the more I spend! (Shhhh..) And before you think, how very irresponsible of me to carry my PAN card in my wallet- no again, I am somewhat irresponsible and so I always keep my PAN card with my mum but just that particular day it was in there for some bank work. What bank work? Ok yeah, I had lost another debit card the previous week and so I had got a new one that very day. And now you know why it was just the most imperfect day for me to lose my wallet!

So I searched and searched on the street where I had gotten off my car but found no wallet and no luck! It had taken me all of 5 mins to realize that my wallet was missing so I was pretty hopeful at first. But then after 2 hours of searching, I began the painful process of getting my cards blocked and it sunk in. It wasn't so much about the money, I realized, that bothered me endlessly. It was the thought of going to the police station and getting an FIR registered for my lost PAN card that really bothered me. The idea of going to the police station fills me with dread, absolutely freaks me out! My dad was super supportive and said that it wasn't a big deal, we would go and get it reported. But I felt like shit! It was a pretty loserly way of losing a wallet. And then there was the driving license- after owning one for so long, the fact is can't drive so the idea of taking driving lessons again and applying for a new license..urgh!

My mum, the eternal optimist, kept saying stay hopeful, maybe someone will come and give it to you. My reaction was that yes, I like being positive, I love the idea that a stranger angel will come and give me my stuff back but did I think it was realistic..umm.. lets say it was a faaaaaaaaaar stretch! All I wanted was my pan card and driving license! I assumed that the cash went to someone who genuinely needed it more than me. And if only i didn't have to go back to HDFC for a new debit card yet again! (I was sure they would just refuse- sorry m'am, due to the frequency at which you lose your HDFC cards, you are no longer eligible for a new one!) Could someone get only these cards for me? Please, please, please!

I sulked all of the next day but when I came back home late evening and checked my office email- Voila! I had a message saying 'Plz collect your cards maam' from a lady called Jyoti Kamble. Could these be my cards? Really? How could that be? But if not, what else could this email mean? What other cards could this woman possibly be talking about? I instantly replied to her asking for her number and even shared my number with her. I searched for her on the net hoping to reach out to her asap. It wasn't a surprise when I saw 10000s of Jyoti Kambles in Mumbai. "Try, gokuldham, goregaon", my dad said."You lost it 5mins away from home". Turned out there were quite a few by that name here too. But I couldn't reach to anyone that night. Next morning at work, I got a call. "Hello ma'm, Main Jyoti. Mujhe aapke 8 cards mile powai mein road pe. Kya aap Chandivali mein aake mujhse collect kar sakti hain?" Really, could this be possible?! Was this real? I wanted to run to the address she gave me instantly. But I asked MJ to come with me because mum insisted, "Akele mat jaana, kisi ko saath leke jaana" If only my paranoid mother knew that this woman I was going to meet was truly an angel! She had found my cards on the street and picked them up, "Mere toh kisi kaam ke nahi the, aur aap pareshaan ho rahi hoti" she said. She had neatly packed them in an envelope with my visiting card pinned on top. (For all you slow people, yes that's how she had got my office email id) "Agar aapse contact nahi ho paata na, toh main courier kar deti office address pe" I was stunned. I thanked her as I kept thinking this thank you isn't sufficient. It isn't sufficient for her kindness, her righteousness and the simplicity with which she did this deed. Like there was no other option but to help me. Like letting those card be where they were and minding her own business didn't cross her mind at all.

I am grateful, she helped me in my ordeal. But as much thankful as I am, I am also very happy to have met someone like her. Someone who thinks and acts like this. The happiness comes from knowing that people like her exist in this world. This happiness that not only I felt, but everyone who I shared this story with felt. That I was lucky to have actually met a living angel (and not my mother, but a stranger angel),  that I was lucky enough to see how kind kindess can be and how good goodness can be. Seems like a good enough reason to write about, no?