Life still goes on.......

Today is a great day - it is christmas eve and it has already gotten me contemplating my new year's resolution, talking of which I can't help but think about the episode in F.R.I.E.N.D.S. where each one takes up a resolution and find that resolutions are not for them...

Another good thing about today is that I'm going home for a long weekend. I'll get to spend 4 days there. I have already called up my mom and told her what I want for breakfast tomorrow. I get to go home once in a month and because of that I get to be treated like royalty whenever I go there. My mom makes all my favourite dishes, my sister and I hang out (it is like a rare thing to happen because she generally likes to hang out only with her friends) and the best part is my grandma never scolds me... That's like the best thing.

Let me paint a picture of my grandma here... My grandma is almost 87 years old now and she is still the most energetic person I have ever met. She can't be lazy at all. Being lazy is something she has never understood. Even when she is down with fever, she wakes up not later than 6:30 in the morning in the cold COimbatore climate and goes out for what we call "rounds" - during these "rounds" she plucks flowers from all the trees in the neighbourhood and gives them to the Pillayar temple near our home. Then she comes back and starts washing the dishes and the clothes, though my mom keeps shouting at her, asking her not to stand in water and aggrevate her fever. She is sooooooooooooo active and I have gotten thrashed by my mom because of this. She says, "Look at paatti, even at this age, she is so active and brisk. You shameless, sleeping till 10am. Learn from her!!!" That was enough reason for me to hate her.

Ever since my mom and dad were married, till today, my grandma has lived with us. She likes my sister so much and she hates me the most. Whenever me and my sister have a fight (we still fight over small and silly stuff), my grandma invariably would support her, without even knowing what the fight is about or who is right and who is wrong. She just adored my sister (the nasty pain in the neck)... And that gave me an even better reason to hate her.

But being so far away from her now, I have come to realize that I love her and I miss fighting and arguing with her over silly reasons. Ans she is now pouring all her love towards me. She picks up the phone and asks, "Sandhya, saaptaya? Nanna saapdu. Nanna velai paaru, nalla per vaanganam." I mean, she has never ever wished so much for me... Ever...



But now I miss my mom, my sister and my paatti so much. I wish I could go back to living with them and fight over trivial things. I miss that life where I didn't have to handle any money over 500 bucks at a time. I wish I could still be the wild child of the family and the most talkative yet 'padakoo' girl in the class and the short, thin girl with the big voice. I feel like I have migrated too far from being all those things now. But life goes on, doesn't it?

It just doesn't get outta my mind...

I know how much harder it should be for the people of Bombay... Let me tell you why.
Everyday, on my way back from work, I get down at the bus stop that is like 1km from my home (and not the nearest bus stop which is less than 0.5km) - the main idea behind it being walking and yeah, I call up my mom and talk to her till I reach home. Last Friday, I couldn't talk to my mom while walking because she was walking at our native place too and she couldn't talk while walking - old age, you see... (Sorry, amma)

So that evening, as I was walking, all I could think of was "What would I do if the terrorists came here and started firing indiscriminately? Where would I go and hide?" And that night, I dreamt about the guy 'Kasab' firing at my grandma and my sister at my native place... I can surely imagine how traumatised the people of Bombay would be.



That 'Kasab' guy was born in 1987 - he is younger than me and most of you reading this. He has such a baby-like face. One can not link his face with such a gross attack. Appearances are sooooooooooooo deceptive! It hurts to see a youngster who has been brain-washed so much and made to take up such an "assignment" where he has to kill people before losing his own life.

And why are they doing it in the name of Islam? I am sure Islam doesn't preach anything but love and brotherhood. These terrorists - whatever religion they belong to, whatever country they belong to, whatever language they speak, they have absolutely no rights to take away the lives of so many innocent civilians!!!

I hadn't written anything about the Bombay attacks for like 10 days since it happened, I thought I'd not write about it because as it is, so much is being written about it. But I couldn't stand it when my mind started imagining things and I started having nightmares, I had to pour it out!!!

I'm such a loser!!!

Last week I lost my chain... The chain my mom got for me when I started going to high school. Although initially I didn't like it hanging around my neck (specially when I was wearing my school uniform, as chains just didn't go with it), slowly I started developing a kind of liking for it. It had a little pendant that had alela krishna's (baby krishna on a leaf) in it... That Krishna was so close to me that I always wore the pendant in such a way that people only get to see the back side of the pendant. I used tosay, "Krishna should see only me. That's why I'm wearing it like this."

And I lost it... I had kept it in a box on my shelf and it was not there when I checked the box next... I am feeling soooooooooo bad now!!!

And this morning, I couldn't find my watch. It was a Fastrack watch which had the dial on a zip... It was a birthday gift from Sabal last year. And I guess I lost that too. Where are all my stuff going? I mean, why am I so careless??? Why am I such a "loser"???