Friday, April 30, 2010

THE TRAVEL BUG

I wish I could travel, travel, travel, travel to places near and far and get paid to do it. This is THE ultimate job-for me and about a million other people in the world!!! Seeing that there are so many people that have the same dream as me, chances of it actually happening are very, very slim methinks. So I have decided the next best thing is for me to travel as much as I can, when I have the resources and the time.
 I wasn’t always interesting in traveling all over India and the world, to explore new places and cultures, though I do suspect the travel bug was lurking around somewhere, just waiting to bite. And it finally bit me when I was around 15 years old when my aunt decided to take me to Goa on a holiday. I still remember the trip in detail because it was the beginning of my passion for travel. We explored Goa as much as we could in the week we were there, taking local buses to remote places and tiny villages, wandering around in the flea markets, renting a bike and just riding around enjoying the countryside, visiting the churches and the best known cafes that we looked up in our Lonely Planet book which was our Bible on that trip. After that trip all I could think about was traveling to places and I began to read up on India and dreamt of how I would become this famous travel writer someday.
6 years later, I realize I still haven’t done much traveling but the restraint of being too young to wander off on my own (my parents have a say since they are the ones who generously fund my trips) is working against me at the moment. The good thing is that I am still passionate about traveling and I know there will come a time (I fervently hope!) when I have enough resources at my disposal to make all the trips I want to.  Till then I will keep reading my ‘Outlook Travellers’, ‘Lonely Planets’, various friends’ blogs and make the small trips I can afford to make.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

MUSIC


















'Music washes away from the soul, the dust of everyday life’  
I love this quote and everything that it signifies. A very dear friend of mine who also incidentally re-introduced me to ‘The Beatles’ a few years ago sent me this quote which she had read somewhere.
 What would the world have been like without music? I for one cannot begin to imagine what my life would have been like had there been no music in it. My love for music maybe stems from the fact that my dad loves music too, as a result of which I was introduced to it at a very young age. Even today, songs by Cat Stevens, Jethro Tull, Neil Diamond, Eric Clapton, Dire Straits and many more remind me of my dad. I tend to associate songs with people and whenever I think of the person I listen to the song and vice-versa. Music can get me through my sad times, make me even happier in the good times and just about gets me through every phase in my life. I think of my mother when I listen to ‘New kid in town’ by The Eagles because she once told me it was one of her favourite songs growing up and my brother and I have dedicated ‘Witchy Woman’ to my mother just to get her goat.
Many songs have lyrics that are so apt that you feel like the song has been written about you or for you! My favourite uncle has also for years played me songs that hold significance to his life or to mine and these songs today remind me of the wonderful times we have had.  A few years ago, I stayed with a friend of my parents for a considerable amount of time and I must say he played a very big part in introducing me to music from the seventies and eighties. The most touching moment of my whole stay was when on the very last day he took his family and me out for dinner to a restaurant that had a band playing old English numbers. Halfway through the meal he went up to them and requested they play a particular song that he dedicated to me. The song was ‘Teach your Children’ by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and the lyrics of the song were enough to tell me how he felt.

You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good bye.
Teach your children well,
Their father's hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you'll know by.
Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.
And you, of tender years,
Can't know the fears that your elders grew by,
And so please help them with your youth,
They seek the truth before they can die.


All my life, I have had people who have improved my ‘Music Education’ as my friend and I liked to call it back in college. Every special person in my life has in someway or the other added to my music education and the songs that I listen to will continue to remind me of them.

Monday, April 19, 2010

KIND HOSTS

One of the things that continue to amaze me is the kindness that people show. In today’s world, it’s always wonderful to come across a kind person. I recently visited friends in another city and stayed with them at their friends’ house. From the minute I reached there, my hosts went out of their way to make me feel as comfortable as possible though I didn’t know them too well and they had only met me once or twice before. They made me feel so perfectly at home that by the end of my stay, I was strolling around their house in my pyjamas and opening the fridge whenever I felt hungry and grabbing a bite to eat! I loved my hosts and their kids and though I did think it would just be another trip before I reached there, I felt a great deal of sadness at having to leave them.
These are a unique breed of people because I have also stayed at houses where your hosts make you feel like you are a burden and you are just wishing that the days roll by quickly so that you can get the hell out of their house! 

I START AGAIN

The thing about me is, i want to do a million different things in life but actually getting down to doing them proves extremely difficult for someone who is such a procrastinator. I first started this blog almost two years ago and completely forgot i even had a blog until a few days ago. That goes to show what a lazy being i am. I am now trying to mend my ways and i will try and start writing regularly, at least for myself if not for anybody else.  I have always wanted to be a writer and one doesnt become a writer by just thinking it-so here i am, finally putting my words down and i am hoping it will do me some good and give me the confidence i need! I hope to put down all my random musings onto this blog so lets see how well i can adhere to that! .