Beauty Beyond The Obvious

Sometimes I wish I were a better photographer who could have captured the beauty of things in their true essence. I might not be adept with the camera but the images captured in my mind are innumerable and perfect. Here are some of the things I love; they might not be beautiful from the usual standards but I find them beautiful!

Chintoo, Mintoo, Buntoo, Bubbles and Champ (Bubbles was named after me ofcourse) Followed me around like I was their mama :)

Chandler, lonely after Monica's sad demise. I was in mourning for one whole week :(

House sparrows that I freed the next morning even though I was ecstatic when I got them.

Lilies, my favourite flowers. Couple them with baby's breath and I'll love you forever. These were for my mom though...

View from my kitchen window.. I'm in heaven every single day!

Skurdu..view from my cottage

 Across the lake...

 We would drag our chairs right by the lake and sit there the whole day singing to our heart's content :)

 My beautiful babies, and the children ;) Aren't my orchids simply beautiful?

 Mirdiff! I was awestruck when I saw the gorgeous food court..

 And the most beautiful thing is my baby's dirty filthy hand that he uses as a scribble pad :)

Enough for a lifetime...

It's 6:30 on a Sunday morning. The first thought that crosses my mind takes me by surprise. I find it strange that I'm even thinking about it. Shaking my head I try to shrug it off. I toss and turn for a few minutes then just give up and get out of bed. Once I open all the doors to let the somewhat cool morning breeze in, I just stand there gazing outside, breathing in the silent beauty and serenity. The only sounds at this hour are the gentle rustling of the leaves, some sparrows chirping away and an occasional cuckoo chiming in.

My mind drifts back to the first thought I had when I woke up and from there it started getting a little more adventurous and took me back to what caused it in the first place. I try to expunge the warmth engulfing me, too afraid to open the closed doors. The corners of my mouth twitch, wanting desperately to curve into a smile, but I press my lips harder into a firm, straight line; refusing to give in. Dear Lord, not now! I must distract myself.. I realize I'm famished; skipped dinner last night. Without thinking I put gloriously juicy chunks of watermelon in the blender and whizz away. Out comes some refreshing, cool watermelon juice. This should do it..I think to myself..this should take my mind off everything.. and then it hits me! Watermelon juice? Seriously? What was I thinking? I groan, but take the glass to the living room and slowly down it trying to clear my head..Turns out I'm not succeeding..I take my glass and my thoughts outside and sit quietly on the swing trying to divert my attention to the orchids peering at me from one corner. I look at them adoringly, remembering how long it took to nurture them, deep down smiling triumphantly that I have managed to get that bizarre thought out of my head. Oh what was I thinking? I do have a pea-sized brain! I try to convince myself that it's just a fleeting thought; it will pass, or will it? It hasn't left me for the past twelve hours; what makes me think it will leave me now? Perhaps I should do what I did yesterday... after all I managed to do it yesterday, I can do it today also, and the day after and the one after that for as long as I can..But was I not thinking of it yesterday while I involved myself in work, read ferociously, went out for lunch and dinner, watched a movie; using my age-old method 'I'm so busy, I don't have time to think'..It doesn't help. It didn't help yesterday, it won't help today or in the days to come; so for once I let the egoistic, arrogant, stubborn me give in. I just sink in the wonderfully delicious thoughts and try to overlook the sadness that come with them. I reminiscence, I dream, and the more I do, the sadder I feel; but I stop fighting it. If it's grief, pain and sadness that comes with it, I'll take it... because sometimes just a moment is enough for a lifetime...I'll cherish mine...

Buried Dreams...

We humans are a strange breed. We tend to fill our lives with things that don't matter and continue to look away when we come across something that might actually be meaningful. The fears, apprehensions, our own limitations, keep us from reaching forth and grasping the moment. But sometimes we stumble upon something that we can't let go of; knowing it might be the one chance of doing something that might actually satisfy the wandering soul within. What should one do then? Put everything aside and take it on or close our eyes and walk away?
     I have an old, dusty trunk somewhere; the wood has lost the lustre it once had and gives out this musty smell when you go near it. I have hidden it in a deep, dark corner where nobody would be able to find it. Years ago, I folded my dreams, aspirations, desires of making a difference, of love and a part of myself, all in a bundle and hid it in the trunk. I had almost forgotten what all it holds till someone saw it in my eyes.. yes! the key to that trunk was in my eyes and my heart and my mind. It was quite a maze to go through to be able find it. As much as I wanted to prevent it from happening, it still did. The trunk has been found, the dust blown away, the bundle painstakingly untied and freed from the strings of caution and apprehensions and efforts being put in to restore and preserve its contents. I haven't given up; I'm still trying to lock everything back in the trunk, away from glaring eyes and probing minds but I have a feeling that I might not succeed this time because as far as persistence is concerned, I might have met my match. I just might go ahead and actually do something about things I always cared about. I just might manage to make a difference...
 

Game Over!

Tangled, entwined, bizarre, merciless... I think about life and these are the first four words that come to my mind. Yet we hold our lives so dear. We spend our entire lives fighting our demons, putting on facades and making some sense out of the crazy mess that we live in. Some of us glide through this journey, some walk through it; others crawl helplessly trying to catch up till time's up and then...GAME OVER! Is it just me or are others also creeped out by these two words? And once game's over, then what? Are we free of all this? No! The demons, the facades, and our mess are all buried with us. The world might be free of that one man and everything that comes with him but he will never be able to free himself of the craziness surrounding him and within. It makes me wonder.. what is better then? Life or death? Above the ground or below the ground? Inhumanity or lifelessness? The answer comes from within... I'm still looking for mine...

The Family of Magicians

We are a family of magicians. What? You don't believe it? I have proof! Actually, it's just the men in the family that are magicians; us womenfolk are happy being the spectators. It all started when my husband was ten; and no, we were not married back then; that would be creepy. So he went to some mela (fair) and stumbled upon this book on magic tricks. I don't know what possessed him that he actually went ahead and bought it. That's when it all started. His intrigue with magic grew and when we got married, he found his biggest fan in me. I know for a fact and he admits it too, that any other woman would have started finding it irritating after a while but not me. Every time he comes into the kitchen and pulls my arm, dragging me away from my cooking or when he figures out a new trick and starts looking for me around the house; my heart fills with this unexplainable tenderness and love for him. I feel that there's a little boy inside him and the way he looks at me expectantly after performing his tricks, taking a childish delight in my awe-stricken face and my insistence to repeat the trick for me; well, it just makes my heart melt. And he's good, he really really is...

As if one magician was not enough, my ten year old also has this obsessive fascination with magic. He got it from his father, it's in his genes, he can't help it. At ten, he's already making money doing magic shows for the family. With time he's getting richer and we are getting poorer as we are the poor spectators who are being forced into buying tickets for the shows. Now he's insisting he wants to go to his grandma's to perform; which basically means that my poor mother and brother are going to be ripped off. Here are a few pics from yesterday's magic show and yes, lighting was poor but the magician just wouldn't let me put on the lights or open the blinds.

The lil magician with his card tricks..see how he makes a card rise magically ;)

Preparing to cut the string which he claims will stay intact even after that

The look on the magician's face when a trick goes wrong

The triumphant look after the coin disappears from the jar

Yes, this was there at the entrance and by poor I'm sure he meant himself

The menu card was hilarious..The free food had basically been stolen from my snack drawer and notice the last line that says 'not free'; you could order from mcdonald's and pay for it yourself and for the magician who wanted a happy meal...


Now where would you get entertainment like this?

He Truly Gets Me

What do you say to a man who can tell within a second that there is something troubling you; who while going somewhere, stops the car when he sees you standing in the balcony as you always do to see him off, but he knows something is clouding your mind. And when he texts you right after 'I want to see you smiling always because I love you'.. How do you respond when after you write 'my heart starts sinking each time you go', he writes 'here's a helium balloon to tie to your heart and it says I love you'..

How are you supposed to feel when he tells you that nobody and nothing means to him as much as you do..and when he says if he were to leave everything to be with you he would, and then he does..sigh..

When he knows that nothing gives you more pleasure than spending time with him and he wants the same..when he pops in the door and says 'hey let's play golf or Dance Central on kinect, I know you wanna' and winks; and you jump up because you both love kinect..when he says 'come I'll beat you in Soul Calibre' and you spend hours playing on the xbox; and even though you are sooo competitive, you don't mind losing to him in one of your favourite games..when you both read the same book together on ipad and stop midway to discuss and analyse it, and check its reviews and criticism online..how you love it when he spends so much time downloading books for you. When you both watch one movie after another snuggling to each other on the couch and you know these moments are yours, just yours..when he wants to play scrabble with you for hours... And when he wants to buy something for the house but doesn't, and says 'I know it would drive you and your symmetrical mind crazy'.. How are you supposed to control your wildly beating heart when he tells you that he would never be able to find this kind of compatibility and love with anyone else and that he would be lost without you..

And when he gets you your favourite flowers lilies and chrysanthemums even though he doesn't even know their names; but he knows what they look like :) When he travels and calls you several times to keep asking you 'shall I get you this, shall I get you that?' and then goes berserk buying things for you..and that time when he went crazy looking for a gold-dipped orchid for you from Risis in Singapore.. when he knows you're always willing to have mix chaat and so is he; when he tells you you're beautiful and he loves you and if you were to leave ever, he would never be able to love like this again..

What do you do when you don't want to believe all of this, yet you do because he's too proud a man to be saying all this to any woman unless he truly loves her, and you know that..

What CAN you do to this man except love him...

This One's For You Z...

If I start thinking of what to write about my baby brother, who does not like being called that btw, the first thing that pops in my head is 'tardy' and that's not going to go down well with him. My brother is a good man (isn't that what any sister is supposed to say, I mean I'm sure Ted Bundy's sister would also have said that); but we are not talking about his good qualities only. I challenged myself (like, two seconds ago, because I had nothing better to do and because I'm on some very strong medication which has been making my mind a whirlwind lately) to write stuff about him without actually thinking; which believe you me, is an extremely difficult task. See, I'm a planner and a list gal; I like everything, including my thoughts, to be organised; I have a master list, an immediate action list, a to-do list, a grocery list, a lovey-dovey things to say to my husband list, a places to go list, a books-to-read list, a books-I-have-already-read list, a nasty-things-to-say-to-people-I-don't-like list, a blog- idea list AND this post is NOT supposed to be about me remember? Why do people love to talk about themselves so much? It's annoying, seriously...

Ok, here goes...

Ten Facts About My Brother

• He's tardy (ask anyone).
• He finds it annoying that I'm obsessively punctual (not that I care what he thinks).
• He has a shoe fetish even more than me, if that is even possible (I mean seriously, what guy has eighty pairs of shoes AFTER downsizing).
• When he was living in London, nobody would believe he was a Pakistani; he looks Lebanese or Jordanian or something; some people even thought he was Spanish; people are crazy I tell ya.
• He has an elephant's memory.
• he has developed an insane amount of love for 'Party' biscuits.
• He and I both love Al Pacino and The Godfather Trilogy with a passion.
• He has a great aesthetic sense.
• He wakes up sometimes (only a few people would get this one).
• He loves me :)