My Tribute To Me

I died at the age of 90. Praise God for a painless death and a tear filled funeral. Got buried in a peaceful cemetery in Scotland under an oak tree; my grave covered with white lilies.
(Hey, if I can fantasize about my wedding, why not about my funeral?)
Anyways, I’m at the pearly gates, much to the shock of all those who thought (or in my present life – think) that ill rush straight into the arms of the devil. And there stands God in his majestic white robe, welcoming me into eternal bliss. However he has some paper work to finish before getting me into heaven – what else can you expect when the governing board is full of Indians!!!

So, there is this last question he needs to ask me under the section ‘Re-birth/Re-incarnation’, which is – ‘Do you want to go back as yourself? Would you like to relive the life you just lived all over again? Or would you choose another life???’

Well, I could lie through my teeth about being ready to relive my own life all over again – it’s been such a great, content, awesome, rich life. But come on, this is heaven, you can’t lie here. Secondly, if I’m being offered any other life on a silver platter, man, let’s go for it.

Ok, let’s see what’s there to choose from. Oh, there’s that girl from college who became an air hostess and traveled the world – she fulfilled my life long dream in 1/3rd the time I took.

Or maybe that girl from school who always had the perfect figure, the perfect marriage, the perfect kid, the perfect house, the ultimate happiness – why not grab her shoes?

What about that colleague from work who quit her job and became a photographer with National Geographic – traveling and photography and money – it can’t get better than that.

Hey, why not just chuck the idea of being a girl again – why not go back as a guy? 75% of the heartaches get over there itself!!!

Well, after deliberating for quite a few heaven hours over the ‘Book of Life’, I finally made my decision and informed God about it.
He was pleasantly surprised. ‘So you finally chose to go back as yourself. What ever happened to those much ‘happier’ lives you wanted to grab?’
‘Well, I realized one thing’, was my reply, ‘You give people a lot of problems but you give them happier faces and bigger smiles. I never realized, that behind that happy façade, these same peoples’ lives were filled with problems worse than the ones I went through.’
‘So is that why you chose to go back as yourself? You think that your life had the least of them?’

‘No’, I replied. ‘That’s not the reason for my decision.

I chose my life because that’s what it is – my life. What I made of myself, what I moulded through my decisions.
The laughter I caused, the tears I brought on. And if I don’t believe that the life I made is worth reliving again, then why did I live 90 years of it? I should have just ceased to exist a long time back.
No, I made an awesome life of what you gave me and the best reward I can give myself now is by going back as me. That’s my tribute to me'

And today as I write this article, my only prayer is that when I actually reach those pearly gates, I have no doubts about re-living the life of me, all over again. What about you?

As Time Flies By....

Mumbai Airport, like many other airports, displays a complete array of emotions at all times. There is however, a noticeable difference in the emotions being expressed at the lower deck of arrivals and the upper deck of departures.

At my last visit to the airport to pick up my sister-in-law and nephew, I got a chance to observe the behaviour of people at these two decks. Somehow I could relate the feelings being expressed by them to those we feel through two distinct phases of our lives.

Take the arrivals terminal for instance. It’s always vibrating with these under currents of hope, excitement, anxiousness, surprise etc. People waiting with arms open wide for the new entrants into their life, whether for a few days or for a longer period. Something like what we go through during the initial years of our life.
Everything is new, being experienced for the first time. Everything is arriving into our lives. There is hope, excitement, anxiousness at every corner. We want to embrace every moment with arms open wide. Like the people waiting for hours for their loved ones to walk through those gates, we wait eagerly for all the rich experiences that life has in store for us. We want to grab every opportunity, we can get our hands on. Seems like a typical scene at the arrivals terminal, right.

Let’s move upwards to the departures. A lot of gloominess, sadness, tears over the parting of loved ones. You see a lot of goodbye wishes being exchanged, sad faces in cars driving away after having bid farewell to their near and dear ones.

A lot like what people go through, in the latter years of their life. Life seems to be a string of goodbyes – goodbyes to ageing family, goodbyes to children finding their own nests, goodbye to youth and good health, goodbye to adventures and career aspirations; goodbye to the unmarked items on your bucket list. One becomes like the seasoned traveler who has roamed the world and is now content with just guiding others at the start of their journeys. Behaviour very often noticed at the departure terminal.

I guess one can't choose or change the emotions they feel at each of these decks. It's standard, it's sacrosanct. However, according to me, what one can choose is, when to steer away from the arrivals' terminal and drive towards the departures.

Someone so rightly coined the adage – 'Time does not wait for anyone, it flies away……' - after all, our lives represent the typical Airport.

The Journey v/s The Destination

For the past couple of months, I’m being complimented about the tons of weight I have lost. Each time I meet someone who does not see me on a regular basis, I am bestowed a compliment. So a colleague of mine was digging into a yummy blue berry muffin the other day at work and asked me to join in. I refused, for reason of being on a diet. She remarked ‘You’ve been on some diet or the other for the last three years now, when will you achieve your goal? When will you enjoy your success?’
That made me think – I have never sat back and enjoyed the success of losing all this weight. I have never rejoiced over the triumph. Immediately after losing the weight, I get immersed in the strategy of not putting it on again, maintaining the diet, maintaining the exercise – so on and so forth – it’s always a journey, never a destination.

I was an average student at school till my brother challenged me to beat him in the SSC marks he scored – which I did – and then I discovered I was gifted with intelligence!! Wow – what a revelation. There was no looking back then. Got into a great college – got a decent job, changed a couple of jobs after that. I’ve done much better in my career than I ever hoped I would, over achieved most of the goals I never even set.
But now when I look back – all I remember is the struggle, the effort put in each journey, never the excitement on reaching the destination. I’m not saying I never enjoyed each goal I achieved, but the moments spent in smoking the victory cigar were miniscule when compared to those spent in winning the battle.

So what stops me from taking time to enjoy one venture before I plunge into the next? Well, I guess victory is boring – a shocking thought, but that’s the only reason I can come up with. Maslow, in his theory on ‘Hierarchy of Needs’, sums it up well when he says – “An unachieved goal is a motivator”. I guess that’s what works for me. The pursuit of happiness is much more motivating than the happiness itself.

I did have this experience of basking in the glory of success, of reaching a destination and it was a pretty scary experience. It was over a month back and life had just become perfect for me, in all aspects. It was one of those very few times (emphasize very!!) when I felt life had given me everything and there was nothing more I wanted. I was driving to the airport (with freshly manicured nails on the wheel, may I add) when I suddenly started thinking of this scene in the latter half of the movie ‘City of Angels’. Meg Ryan is riding her bicycle, feeling extremely happy and content with her perfect life. At that moment, when she wants for nothing more from this world, she meets with an accident and is taken away to the angels.
The entire time, I was driving to the airport that day; I kept thinking whether the same thing would happen to me on the road that day. My hands were clutching the wheel very tight while I kept wondering whether what I was feeling was the overwhelming peace of reaching a destination, of wanting no more, which one feels at the end of the line.

Ok, I think I’ve scared you enough. Rest assured, I reached the airport in one piece, I moved on to other journeys, I have many more things I want in life and I never felt like that again. And in my defense, when I spoke about this to Smita the next day (since I was too scared to tell anyone else), she told me she had experienced the same thing at some point in her life. So Mum – please don’t go berserk and sell off my car!!!


All I’m trying to say is that when my final journey is over and I reach my ultimate destination, I hope to enjoy the same peace, the same feeling of not having any more wants. Then I can sit with the angels and smoke that victory cigar forever.

A Non Collector's Items

My mum and uncle ransacked my granny’s house last week. Loaded with the best of intentions, a couple of brooms and dusters, they rummaged through drawers and cupboards, removing years and decades of papers, clothes, cutlery, electric appliances etc. In the bargain, they managed to sell off some really important items which my granny was actually using for her day-to-day cooking. My poor uncle had to actually hunt down the ‘bangar wala’ in Kalyan to retrieve those back. It was an adventure of a life time for them.

I was thinking about this incident and how my granny had, down the years, stored so many things in that house.

As for me, I have never considered myself a hoarder. I love to give away things. Clothes, shoes, books which are not in use are happily given away. So I thought to myself – what if someone had to sift through my belongings – would they find anything of absolutely no worth there? With that thought in mind, I started looking through my stuff to see if there was anything I had stored which I have never needed or wanted.

Well, I was shocked, I was a hoarder. I had an entire collection of items I had not seen for months on end. School report cards, right from kinder garden; birthday cards from youth group days, so many book marks from Shawn, Lynessa, Preeti, with cute little friendship messages behind them, a grain of rice with my name engraved on it – I don’t even remember who gave it to me. Letters written by close friends and crushes (one in French also), school and camp autograph books, even a parking ticket from the airport, in memory of seeing off a close friend.

Now these would seem as worthless items to a stranger, but for me, these are priceless. Even though I hardly look at them, I could never dream of parting with my collection. The memories they carry are invaluable. Each one symbolizes a person or a moment which has touched my life in some way or the other – some bitter memories, some sweet – but nonetheless – never to be forgotten. Some of those incidents seem so petty and small now, but years back, when they actually took place, they made up my world. And I need these little mementos to help me keep these memories alive.

Maybe years later, I can sit on a rocking chair and share all these with my grandchildren (much to their dismay, I’m sure). But for that, they would first have to survive my mum’s spring cleaning. Maybe it’s time I hired a safe deposit locker :)