Europe

Mumbai-Paris-Stuttgart-Milan-Turin-Milan-Paris-Mumbai
That's the schedule from tomorrow till 20th.
On 24th, I return to Bangalore.

God bless me.

Coming Home

somewhere between bangalore & mumbai:
as i type this enroute bangalore to mumbai, i wonder how it's gonna be. i am returning to mumbai after a gap of almost three months. my longest yet. the longest was around 10 yrs back when i spent a month preparing for JEE in Chennai at my sister's place there.

though i am in touch with people in mumbai on a daily basis via phone, mails etc. still there is a sense of 'wonderment'.

people talk about the 'smell' that assaults you when you get off the plane in mumbai. a very mumbai smell it's called. i have been oblivious to this till date. so i wonder if i will get a 'taste' of that this time :) gregory roberts has written about it in 'shantaram' as well.

i don't even know how long the mumbai trip is gonna last. i cud be back in bangalore on wednesday. or i cud take a lil more time, maybe a week or so.

i shall be meeting my parents after 3 months or so. i did manage to meet my sis when i went to kerala. as also the mumbai office. gonna be quite an experience.

it's gonna be a hectic few days in mumbai for sure. each day is quite filled with action and plans and blah - all work-related. this essentially is a 'business trip'. it just helps that i belong to this place...my mumbai. what say, m?

oh well :) here's to mumbai!

my bedroom, mumbai
there definitely was a smell when i disembarked. maybe it was psychological, but i could definitely feel a difference. it wasn't a stench of any sort but it wasn't exactly pleasant as well. it was quite strong actually, and there was a distinctly salty, grimy dimension to it.

the rickshaw drivers were infinitely easier to deal with and the roads so much wider and better. it took me as much time by rick to get home as it took for the plane to reach mumbai from bangalore actually. i found myself staring out at the city as if i was here for the first time.

it's good to be back home!

Taking A Cold Shower & More & Dee, of course

First things first.

Happy Birthday Meine Dee!! :)

Your birthday must be lucky for me. Achieved a personal milestone of sorts. Now let's see what impact it has on the professional front. I am not expecting it to work wonders, but at the very least it has laid some ghosts to rest.

I visited the Strand Book Festival in Bangalore today. Was quite appalled by the lack of choice. Wasn't a great collection, at least not to me. I did pick up a book on Adwaita though. The festival also gave me a chance to visit the famed Chinnaswamy Stadium. I found it to be quite small to be honest :)

Against advice from numerous quarters, I have restarted my practice of taking a cold shower. It's something I started doing in January on my visit to Sringeri. Waiting for the hotel guys to get us hot water would have meant a delay in plans, so we had all taken a bath in cold water. It felt quite therapeutic then. And that's what I used to do till I got to Bangalore.

In Bangalore, the climate is definitely cooler (and less humid, thank God). Willy nilly, I got back to bathing in hot water. A hot shower, to be precise.

It's getting nippy and even seasoned Bangaloreans complain that this winter is 'chillier' than usual. It's not an uncommon sight to see people swathed in warm clothes. Especially, while riding. Not so for me. I quite enjoy the chill slap of wind on my face and the sensations they send all over the body. I admit that I quite enjoy the cold weather. In fact, I don't find the climate THAT cold either. Public opinion on that differs, I believe.

Somehow that chill wind wakes me up and invigorates me. Heals me. That's why I decided to get back to taking cold showers.

The initial minutes used to be the worst. Especially those moments when you just stare at the cold drops gushing out of the faucet, somehow willing them to be warm on your body. It's as much psychological as it is physiological. Perhaps, more the former.

In the beginning, I would spend upto 10 minutes, testing the waters. Gingerly putting my finger in the ice-cool spray, splashing a bit on myself, dousing my head before giving in. And then those, short gasping breaths when the first few drops hit the body.

Not any more.

I just step into the water and wait for the cold to catch me with its icy hand. The numbness starts setting in soon after, and then everthing is alright.