A page from my diary …
Just two nights ago, I was telling a friend, “Life ain’t so serious, y’know”. And then I paused and smiled to myself. It was a lesson I myself had forgotten over the past year or so, what with this and that and here and there and duties and crises and so on and so forth. But I was slowly re-learning it.
Three days back: The melodramatic koel which resides in the tree outside our house got its timing all wrong and woke me up at 3 AM with its mellifluous singing. And did I mumble an invective and turn back to sleep? No, I heard the song for a couple of minutes before slipping peacefully back into dreamland. It was, after all, a lovely song.
Two days back: I was lounging about in the balcony when this incredibly cutie-pie squirrel strolled nonchalantly across the parapet, looked around suspiciously with its nostrils twitching, suddenly darted into the neighboring AC, and emerged triumphant with a huge chunk of chapatti in its mouth! I laughed till my sides hurt.
Yesterday: Mumbai got drenched in sheets of rain yet again, reminiscent of 26th July. Fortunately it wasn’t as cataclysmic as before, and very few people were really affected. Lying in bed at night, it suddenly struck me that the sound of the unceasing rain, striking against the corrugated tin sheet atop our balcony, was amazingly beautiful. Reminscent of Chopin’s Minute Waltz. The sound filled my senses until my eyes started drooping.
There was a time, not so very long ago, when I thought I’d find it difficult to smile as easily as I always used to. Today, I find myself smiling once again, laughing once again. I feel like pulling the cheeks of every kid I see, stroking every kitten that gives me sly looks, sitting by the seaside in the late evenings. I want to learn the guitar, read my favorite childhood books once again (ah! the magic of Little Lord Fauntleroy, Tom Brown’s Schooldays, The Adventures of Elizabeth Gray, The Oz series, the Narnia series, The Land of Far Beyond!), start preparing to run the marathon, learn to cook double ka meetha.
I’m learning to live once again. And I think I’m learning to be happy once again. Alhamdulillah.
Three days back: The melodramatic koel which resides in the tree outside our house got its timing all wrong and woke me up at 3 AM with its mellifluous singing. And did I mumble an invective and turn back to sleep? No, I heard the song for a couple of minutes before slipping peacefully back into dreamland. It was, after all, a lovely song.
Two days back: I was lounging about in the balcony when this incredibly cutie-pie squirrel strolled nonchalantly across the parapet, looked around suspiciously with its nostrils twitching, suddenly darted into the neighboring AC, and emerged triumphant with a huge chunk of chapatti in its mouth! I laughed till my sides hurt.
Yesterday: Mumbai got drenched in sheets of rain yet again, reminiscent of 26th July. Fortunately it wasn’t as cataclysmic as before, and very few people were really affected. Lying in bed at night, it suddenly struck me that the sound of the unceasing rain, striking against the corrugated tin sheet atop our balcony, was amazingly beautiful. Reminscent of Chopin’s Minute Waltz. The sound filled my senses until my eyes started drooping.
There was a time, not so very long ago, when I thought I’d find it difficult to smile as easily as I always used to. Today, I find myself smiling once again, laughing once again. I feel like pulling the cheeks of every kid I see, stroking every kitten that gives me sly looks, sitting by the seaside in the late evenings. I want to learn the guitar, read my favorite childhood books once again (ah! the magic of Little Lord Fauntleroy, Tom Brown’s Schooldays, The Adventures of Elizabeth Gray, The Oz series, the Narnia series, The Land of Far Beyond!), start preparing to run the marathon, learn to cook double ka meetha.
I’m learning to live once again. And I think I’m learning to be happy once again. Alhamdulillah.
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