Zendagi Migzara

I arrived in India just in time for my birthday! A part of me wanted to rush out of the airport to greet my parents and a part of me wanted to hop back on that flight and head back to London. But thankfully time travel (to the past or future) is not a skill humans have developed yet. Some things need to remain a mystery, and sometimes you need to move on. The day began like any other day, it was nice to be back in familiar surroundings and lay out my yoga mat and start my practice with my parents morning mantras playing in the background. I am brutal when it comes to routines. I have put myself on a twice a day work out schedule and a very strict diet (or at least what for me is strict) to get back in shape and get fitter. While practising I included Utkatasana (chair pose) in my sequence and I was surprised at how weak my legs seemed - i remembered all of my teachers and suddenly missed them. As beautiful as a self practice is, being led by a teacher who cares about your progre...

Dedicating this song below to my trip to Portugal. A movie I hated, but a song I quote like combining Hindi and Portuguese Fado styles, Yaadon mein from Jab Harry Met Sejal  penned by Irshad Kamil. Echoing the feelings I carry in my heart as I leave Europe to head back to my life in India - happy to go back, albeit reluctantly. यादों में जलते रहना तेरा मेरा यादों में जलते  रहने को मिले हैं क्या यादें भी लेजा तू अपनी जहां चला यादों में डूबे दिन भी ढले हैं क्या तुमसे वादा नहीं तुमसे शिकवा नहीं तेरा वह हैं जहां होक मैं न जहां तुमसे ...  हाला की यह एहसास हैं तू पास हैं फिर क्यों अभी से ही मुझे यादें  तेरी आना लगी  छोड़ों मेरी तोह खैर हैं जिनपे चलें हम साथ मे उन रास्तों कि जान भी जाने लगी तुमसे दूरी नहीं तुमसे बिछडी नहीं थोड़ा सा तू वहाँ थोड़ी सी मैं यहां I am writing this as I am seated at the Abu Dhabi airport, very sleep deprived, craving some hot meal and a hot shower. Last leg of my series of "OMG I am going to be 31...

Singapore is one of those places that invokes extreme reactions from me. I love Singapore. i truly do. I ended up not liking my solitary life there too much, but i was talking to a friend about how there are aspects of the city that i truly love. And Food is one of them. I miss hawker centers, I miss Tiong Bahru, I miss chicken rice, I miss kaya toast and teh, I miss chilly crab, i miss wonton noodles, I miss Din Tai Fung's fried rice, I miss cereal prawns and shrimp paste chicken, I miss pandan pancakes and kuehs and sambal stingray and clay pot rice. I can go on and on and on, about the things I miss about Singapore food. I'd name probably 5 people I miss from there too - but that is about it.  I might head back to Singland later this year for a wedding, and I can not wait to raid a hawker center and drink 100 glasses of sugarcane juice. It's crazy, really, because I can get very good sugarcane juice in India. But the joy of walking into Tiong Bahru market on a h...

When i got off Gatwick yesterday and took the train to Victoria, i felt like I was home. There is a scene  in Love Actually about how airport arrivals are happy places because you see love all around - this is my film buff heart going gaga about the movies and trying to interpret real life scenarios through them. But, well, that is who I am. Airport arrivals or any kind of arrivals - bus stations or train stations - are special places for me. In spite of the chaos, the crowd and the noise, there is a certain joy in watching reunions and greetings, there is beauty in long hold hugs, in the gentle swaying hugs, in forgetting all that exists around you for a tiny moment hugs. I love it when I am dropped off at airports & other stations and even when I am greeted at the arrivals sections. When I am not, I realise very deeply how much I miss it - how less exciting it makes my departures and arrivals. Of course in lives we lead, with airports many many kilometers away from t...

Sometimes you come across certain places that feel like they were created specifically for you. I have written about Deju Lu, the second hand bookstore in Cascais and how quaint and gorgeous it was. When I entered Deja Lu, I was trying to escape the 3 PM summer sun and in a way also tick something off my "must do" list for Lisbon. But as soon as I entered the shop, i was transported. Bookshops have that effect on you, or at least they do on me. I forget where I am, who I am with, what time of day it is and i'm lost. In a world of words and print, the mixed smell of old books, new books, of old well-known authors i love and authors who are beginning to discover their words. Some of them speak slowly softly, you almost have to search for what they were actually trying to say. And some scream, and you have to put the book down once in a while to get away from all the noise. Some books whack you in the face with hard truths about the world we live in and some that take ...

Trips usually begin with such anticipation and then end so suddenly. And you are left wondering where all that time went and what you did with it. I feel that way at the end of each trip and this was my longest trip to Europe ever. I was with some friend at dinner - they are all Portuguese and they were talking about India and how they can NOT wait to be back in India, that India is what feels like home and that at the end of every trip, they are yearning to go back. It was gorgeous to hear that about India to hear that India made people feel the way Europe makes me feel. It also made me wonder why I do not feel that way about my own country. Is it because the grass always looks greener on the other side or is it because each of us has that special connection with certain places that we can not begin to explain. We can only feel. And I feel Europe. I feel Bali too. Which is why when I left Bali, I was disappointed. At myself and at bali At myself because I thought I should have s...

I had such a lovely dinner with my friends and friends of hers here in Lisbon last night. Such laughter - much needed to digest all the food. I had the most gorgeous Pork and Clams curry - yes in the same dish! Mind blown. Need to try at combination back in India - I wonder whether it will find many takers though. During the dinner, one of them said Ouro Sobre Azul and then translated it to me as meaning :gold over blue (pronunciation here ). That is the literal translation. What the expression actually mean is something good has happened or more like icing on the cake/feather on the cap. My friend said that expression has its origins in the colonial prowess of the Portuguese. Portugal is famous for it's blue and white ceramic tiles (azulejos) and these were used as decorative art in churches and other important places. Every tile would painted and fired and would be a piece of a much bigger puzzle, which in this case was a gorgeous painting. Sometimes these were encased and ...

I have a bougainvillea dream, one that i can close my eyes and see come alive. As i was walking the streets last morning, I saw this proud and gorgeous bougainvillea tree standing in front of a mustard yellow building against a clear blue sky and I stopped. A part of my dream was right before my eyes. I stared for a long time trying to capture it in my brain and then I took a picture to remind me of what i need to be working towards in case I forgot this visual. I am not a beach person - I cringe as I write this. Because everyone I know is a beach person, I am a mountain person. I like beaches but only for a bit. Mountains and valleys I can sit with for a long time without getting bored of the view. But even though i may not choose to spend time at a beach, I love looking at the sea. A friend of mine i had met while living in Bali last year said to me that the sea washes away all fears and pains and regrets. And that I should try jumping into it time to time and let it heal m...

When i visit new places, I do not plan at all. Then two days before I am due to travel i go into a frenzy. Not because i might miss the best monument in the town/city but because i may not eat the best Gelato! Such concerns. Priorities matter after all. So then I proceed to do some exploration via Google search and blogs looking for the places the locals like the best - trying to avoid the tourist traps. Some of those results clash of course, because some really good places that locals also like get discovered by tourists - yes I realise I am a tourist too! So between Google maps and all these blogs, I have a bunch of starred places that I want to check out - some sightseeing stuff and a lot of food - coffee, brunch, wines, tapas, ice-creams and everything else. Which is exactly what I did for Lisbon and i am not disappointed at all.  All I am going to do over the next three days is walk around those starred places, eating my way through Lisbon. Google already showed me a weig...

I'm running two days behind on my writing schedule - which defeats the point of writing everyday! But I have been travelling and there's a bunch of other issues i am preoccupied with and maybe I am also very slowly coming to terms with the fact that I will be leaving gorgeous Europe very soon to back home to India. I love india - i really do, but I definitely love Europe more. I found myself thinking - maybe I do not go back at all and stay here for a bit and explore options of being a teacher here, in this part of the world. A glance at my passport told me that was not an option available to me. However, my usual dread of leaving Europe to go back to a desk job is no longer threatening me with pain and despair, because I go back to still working on the things I love ! Plus there are a bunch of interesting projects I am working on in India, so I am excited to go back. But for now, I am in Lisbon! My obsession with Italy meant that I would not want to explore any other par...

There are few poets that have something to teach you in every situation in your life and Jalaluddin Rumi happens to be one of them. I spoke about his poem The Guest House a couple of days ago. Today I shall write about how right now, at this very moment, I am living through and experiencing something that the poem is helping me with. This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes As an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still treat each guest honourably. He may be clearing you out  for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, Because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. In my yoga blog, Samasthiti, I once spoke about Abhyasa & Vairagya : the concepts of Practi...

So I just wrote a whole post and it disappeared and I'm heartbroken because there was some gorgeous stuff on it. But I changed tabs to look up this quote and lost all content, but here is the quote anyway : And one day she discovered that she was fierce, and string and full of fire and that not even she could hold herself back because her passion burned brighter than her fears. ~ Marc Anthony Happy Bastille Day I started writing the post saying, if I were in Bergerac right now I would be watching the fireworks from the balcony. But here I am in London and yet I feel like I'm in France watching the fireworks - almost like I am in two places at once. I feel like that sometimes ! My friend and I were making breakfast earlier today - gorgeous North African Eggs from Gordon Ramsey's cookbook - Ultimate Cooking, and we were discussing Authenticity. He quoted someone he follows - you can escape or conquer competition by authenticity, because nobody else can be a better you than y...

As a part of my yoga course earlier this year, we spoke about women and the menstrual cycle. One of my teachers asked us to think about the different phases of the menstrual cycle as seasons that a women goes through. Exactly how the year sees seasons, a woman goes through inner seasons as well - winter, spring, summer, autumn and winter again. I will not go through this concept in detail, this book - Wild Power , does that beautifully. What is important is that the concept and tracing my inner seasons made me conscious of my own emotions more. This is without having to hide behind the usual 'ah I must be so touchy because I'm close to bleeding' - which is anyway a very reductive way of looking at women and their emotions. When you start honouring yourself a little bit more, you realise, without having to feel guilty, that you can take a break and do the things that your body, mind & spirit really need. When you get used to slowly doing that, you start putting yourself...

A few friends of mine got together for dinner today. One of them is a huge carrot cake fan and turns out one of the other guys also loves the dessert. In that conversation someone mentioned that Boots, the UK pharmacy has carrot cake in their meal deal which is to die for. As a baker and someone who has reviewed bakeries around the world, especially in London, that piece of information stunned me. I immediately went 'no come on, can't be better than Hummingbirds Carrot cake now!'. My friend insisted that it really was unexpectedly quite amazing. I was about to protest again, and then thought better of it. There is no reason for me to believe that a spectacular carrot cake wouldn't exist in Boots meal deal. It's not usual, but it's not impossible either. I also think that's true for life. In the last year, since I've begun to live this "lets flow where the river goes" life, I have found gems in the most unexpected of places. Most times I'v...

London and I have a love affair. It started the first time I visited here in 2015.  The city has always fascinated me. Part of that fascination was Shah Rukh Khan's DDLJ and part of it was pure intuition that it was a city that I would love anyway. I can not think of any other place in the world that has that special place in my heart that London does. I love Bali and Italy (anywhere in Italy) will always feel like home to me and they're more like soulmates. But London is a passionate love affair that reignites everytime I arrive here. I forget just how much I love it until I'm driving down from the airport just looking at it's gorgeouness or when I first walk the streets, heading into some tiny coffee shop for a cuppa. The city makes me happy, it makes me very very happy. I am fortunate enough to have returned to it every year the last five years & fallen even more in love. When people ask me if I would like to move here to live & work, I don't quite know...