This Christmas, I can't help but count my blessings. To have some family around, to be able to laugh together, decorate some trees and unwrap a few gifts, it can't get merrier than that.
Red velvet cupcakes made it to the baking list! Here's a picture.
I don’t know what gripped me, but I crawled on my knees, across the expanse of my empty living room. It felt difficult, my knees already felt weak, and a rising pain shot through my leg. “What’s wrong with you?” I said to myself. “You could do this even as a kid!” Fortunately or otherwise, I had grown up. And little things like crawling and so many other things, weren’t practical anymore. I laughed at myself. “Grown up! Yeah, right!” Grown up meant having to make plans, and even worse, make them happen. Grown up meant to keep track of every cent you spent, and still be dumbfounded with the mystery of the missing five hundred bucks when the spreadsheets didn’t tally at the end of every month. Grown up meant being condemned for making the silliest of mistakes. Grown up meant having hurried lunches and dinners and breakfasts. Grown up meant forgetting birthdays, even your own, even worse, not believing in the celebration anymore. Grown up meant saying things you hardly meant, and hearing ...
Yes, I am learning music. Again. Finally. Some interesting conversations that happened in yesterday’s class. I asked, “How can anyone identify the Sur involved in a piece of music, when the concept of Sur is totally relative?” He told me it is one of the most difficult problems in music. People consider the Tanpura as some sort of standard, but it isn’t completely accurate. The solution is being researched, but he said he believed it was one of those non-computable problems. Reminded me of the good great Halting Problem. We were trying to sing different surs in random order. Ofcourse, we faltered. He said, “Understand the problem statement. And then strategize.” We saw we could easily break down the random order into pieces we had already learnt and that made it so much easier to sing. Association and Disassociation. I have always believed, Science, Religion, Spirituality, Art, Music, all these weren’t created to individually exist. They all support each other in some way or the other.
Sometimes we take pride in being busy. When a caring friend or family member asks us, “How have you been?”, we retort without a thought, “Busy!”. It’s not a competition. There is no joy in being busy when you cannot take the time to reflect on yourself, pause to admire the new word your kid’s just learnt or be patient to listen to your spouse’s full question before blurting out a response. Instead, let’s take pride in being free. Let’s take pride in being able to make time.
Comments