Wednesday, January 20, 2010

An early morning stroll down the memory lane

It’s been a month since I made the decision to quit my job and take a much needed break. The time needed for the mind to relax, unwind and blank-out has now, I believe, passed. This morning I awoke rather early with this strange sensation of purpose... as though there were many things to be done and it took me a few minutes to realize that such was not the case. And so, I pushed that sense of purpose into the realms of mental beyond and made myself my morning cuppa. And as I sipped at my true-blue south-Indian kaapi, I let my mind wander aimlessly into the depths of nostalgia that only the mind can traverse to....
Somehow, the early morning coffee always makes me think of my mom... surprisingly consistently, each morning, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee brings with it a whiff of my mother into my kitchen, 15 years after she passed away... and that’s when I miss her the most. She was the one to introduce me to coffee or rather filter coffee at a point in time, when I decided I was too grown-up to drink milk first thing in the morning (despite the fact that I loved milk). Each morning, the first thing she would do when she entered the kitchen, was to make the coffee decoction. I would wake up to the aroma of freshly brewing coffee and the calm persona of my mother.... so I guess it is not surprising that morning coffee and mom are intertwined in my memories.
I remember the time, when just after she had retired, the doctor suggested that she go for a morning walk to ensure that she kept physically active. By that time, my brothers had moved to Mumbai for their respective jobs and she and I were living by ourselves in Nagpur, while I completed my studies. So, on doctor’s orders, we decided to go for a morning walk each day. We would stroll at a leisurely pace on the picturesque terrain of Seminary Hills, watching the sun rise, admire the colours in the sky, and listen to the birds tweet, as we talked about something or the other. We would return just in time to meet the milkman, and the newspaper. I would grab the paper and squat on the ‘pulia’ (remember the concrete benches along the road?) outside our building, while mom would carry the milk into the house. She would emerge some 15 minutes later with two cups of steaming hot coffee and set herself down on the pulia opposite me. We would then drink our coffee, sharing the newspaper and discussing random news-bytes and as the sun moved higher up in the sky, we would be reminded of the thousand mundane things that awaited our attention... and we would go into the house to start our respective days...
I remember these as the most peaceful moments of my life, when all seemed well with my world. My mother had a calming presence that is very rare in today’s world. Her very aura felt peaceful, calm and content, despite the fact that her life had been so tremendously turbulent. 

Saturday, January 9, 2010

A New Year resolution - 2010

As a rule, I never make resolutions... on New Year's eve, or any other time of the year.
However, the dawn of 2010, brought with it, a rare period of relaxation. Having recently quit my rather hectic and stressful job as a strategic brand consultant, I am currently on a break. So, with the onset of the new year, I decided to launch into exploring some of the things that I have been meaning to do for a long time - penning my thoughts being one of them.
And so begins this new journey....