Such is life!

Hi Samiksha,

Life, as some cliches suggest, is indeed a roller coaster ride. And life took me for a ride this time around. Just as I had finished packing my stuff to leave with 12 others on a week long tour of Sikkim, something happened.
My loomie had contracted conjunctivitis, and all the planning he had done even before joining this B school, seemed to have "gone for a six" to put it most politely. That night when we (the 13 others) found out for sure that he would not be able to join us, I had mixed feelings that night as I went to bed. I did not know then, that I would wake up with red eyes the next morning.

“I knew if I continued to look around it would be difficult for me to contain my own emotions. So I turned away from the red eyes of the crowd and looked only at the red eye of the camera, talking to all the nation.”

That was my status message on Gtalk for the next three days, as the gang, now comprising of 12 left for Sikkim. The last thing I ever prefer giving or taking is sympathy, so please don't feel sorry for me! I am just pouring my heart out to you since you are the only real soulmate I ve ever had ;-)
So, the Creative 2.1 speakers I had bought a few days ago, just after the mid sem exams would come in handy, as 2 eye drops 4 times a day each would allow me very little time and energy to stare at a laptop. Day 2 of sickness was one with reduced redness and pinkness; but I was in the pink of health otherwise. Oh yeah, blurred vision also meant that music was the best way to kill time apart from forcing myself to sleep! I started reading Kishore Biyani's "It happened in India" only because it had a big font and reading it would hurt my eyes the least ;-)
This gave me solace for more than one reason; given that the last book I had read after leaving Bangalore was Richard Bach's "Across the Bridge Forever". (on the 1.5 day train to this place, The Village).
Anyways, Day 3 and Day 4 of Red Eye would fly by (not exactly!) and my loomie and I would leave The Village to join our friends.
We reach The City by noon and board a bus in the evening...Little did we know that this would be the worst ever bus journey we had ever had. 17 hours on a bus with nothing more than biscuits for food, and being thrown up and down by the potholes, to do any reading or sleeping; It is really at times like these that I really think really really hard about Life, Philosophy, Luck, Destiny and Fate. The thinking that my bird brain can afford, it never gets me anywhere anyway. Even if it does, there are somethings that seem to be totally beyond an individual's control, and one can't do much about these "somethings" anyway!
For all that I had gone through, the visit to Nathula pass on the India-China border in Sikkim was more than compensation. The very thought of going up to the border along the Old Silk Route; as if it were not enough, the hospitality afforded by the Captain (lets not take names!) at an altitude of 14,400 feet was overwhelming to say the least.
The next, and really the second/real last touring day of the trip would be spent visiting places in and around Gangtok, and after visiting a viewpoint, a few monasteries and a Stupa before going into a hotel for supper, I fell....
Hold on...the fall was of the kind I would like to have all over again ;-)
Tashi Delek was where some of us had supper, and I badly want to go back there..
It would be an ideal setting for a date...And even a honeymoon..After all one thing could lead to the other right? ;-)
Coming out of the restaurant, onto MG Marg, while some go into this shop "Vividha", a Gift shop...I see this lovely lady in the Gift shop, she was like herself a gift from heaven, her feet on the earth, and no rings for thorns ;-)
She walked past us again later that evening, when I had aleady bought a balloon!
This time around, she had let her hair down...

How I wish I had the courage to say something then....
And how I wish I can attempt some poetry now...

But....but...I don't know her name; nor do I have a picture of her...She is Sundari, and her image is stored in my brain, struck on the screen of my eyes as it were, for a looong time!
So, no poetry for now....Except for....whats my current Gtalk status message ;-)


Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.....In your light I learn how to love....In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest, where no one sees you....One day You will take my heart completely and make it more fiery than a dragon. Your eyelashes will write on my heart the poem that could never come from the pen of a poet....