little clueless n a lot more 'flu'less! :)

been down with FLU n a severe chest congestion for almost a week now! down, breathless n voiceless...acc. to the doc, should take couple of days more for me to recover...whatever! n thanks to ganpati bappa, it's not SWINE FLU!! ;)
alrite, this post is not about me gloating about my sickness...i guess i just wanted to start with an excuse as to why i took 3 long weeks to post anything at all...unlike what i'd promised myself last time about being more regular with the posts here! thats me! lazy me! ;)
i guess am takin’ a little too long to:
a) get used to a certain way of life for past 1 month now (we survived a good 4 weeks already without each other! not bad! we sure deserve a pat for this, P! :),
b) figure out what is it that i really want to do with my life ahead! n nope this is something i still haven't figured out YET! so...
today, i shall share 3 things which gave me endless pleasure in last 3 weeks despite my current ‘wonky’ state of mind…

1. i actually gathered the courage to call up N (one of my closest friends for more than a decade now! wow!) n speak to her after 12 long months!! thank u n love u lovely, a lot! (umm…well, there are still few more people in my list of to-be-called-up-n-apologized-to as yet! :(

2. it was more of an impulsive decision to be a part of 'THE GREAT WALL OF MUMBAI’ project... the moment i read about this event on facebook, i so wanted to be part of it no matter what. Fortunately for me, Mr.Tauntas (another important friend in my life, am very much in awe of!) as expected was also attending it.. i offered to help him out with whatever he would decide to paint on the wall that day...n bingo! i joined him on 15th of Aug'09 early morning at Mahim end…we began painting 3 of our chosen walls with 3 of his different concepts in mind. The air was vibrant! everyone present there was vibrant…oh you bet i felt like a kid there with so many colours, brushes, ideas, creative people n a HUGE n WIDE dream canvas around! it rained as well for that added thrill in the middle of it all! All of us were there to literally paint the town red on the eve of India’s Independence day..i cant even do enough justice to express how i or others might have felt…it’s not like i’ve never been part of voluntary community service or projects before, nevertheless every time you do something for your people, city, country, it only makes you feel more humble, giving you a sense of pride, worth, for being useful in your own way without really asking for any credit! Right from the BMC boys (part of their temp. contract staff – i must say these so called ‘uneducated-lower middleclass’ youth were more raring to go with their support and suggestions while helping us! God bless them! :), BMC employees, the participants of the project (ranging from established professional artists, art students, amateurs, families, non-artists like me, people from different walks of life, the locals, neighbourhood kids, etc) to the BMC authorities, event organizers, media personnel, etc., were extremely enthusiastic and positive about it!
It has to be one of the best independence days i could have ever celebrated! And i can’t really thank enough the organizers n, BMC (for this wonderful joint initiative) and rest of the participants (for their support, coordination, understanding)! All the paintings over 2 days on the wall were so awe-inspiring! Everyone had expressed themselves and how! There was so much to read between the lines!

Jai rightly put it for us “we've all worked hard in the sun to make our city shine!” I feel so happy to read this line, again n again even 2 weeks down the line! and right now I only wish there are more such initiatives in Bombay as well as other places to clean up and give it a face-lift it truly deserves! :)

3. my 5th trek of the year was ‘successfully’ completed on 22nd of this month! yeah am actually keeping a count as i’ve decided to be a little more regular with this favourite pursuit of mine henceforth for assorted reasons! :)

Chanderi (approx. 2300 ft. above sea level, Raigad district) famous for its massive pinnacle (apparently it is 300 feet higher than the cave), is one of the most beautiful, fascinating places to trek in Sahyadris! it happens to be a long trail with a great combination of waterfalls (in monsoon of course) and a dense forest.
18 of us started climbing the hill at about 9.00 am. The route opposite the school in Chincholi (the base village) took us through a bushy slope towards a plateau. In about an hour or so, this well-defined route then further goes in the direction of the col. between Chanderi (on left) & Mhaismal (on right), only after passing a waterfall area or a ‘nalla’. We’d to keep following this ‘nalla’ till the top of the col. Here, it was a rocky landscape n quite slippery too in parts. There are white arrows painted on the rocks at the juncture of ‘nalla’ n path towards the col., if you look carefully (very handy while coming back as there are chances of getting lost in the forest!). Chanderi is quite narrow and long but the col. itself happened to be quite airy & cool. From there, we could get an ample view on both sides of the nearby peaks like Mhaismal, Prabalgad, Matheran, Irshalgad, etc. and continued our ascent after taking left towards the base of the Chanderi pinnacle. This route is over an exposed n reasonably steep ridge. Though i’ve a major phobia of heights since childhood, i still love the climbing part of any trek where - every step of mine takes me towards the top of the mountain and the sky! with every step, i fight my demons! :)

there was a huge cloud cover on both the sides and it was quite windy that day (though not as strong it usually is on top). We’d to traverse along the right side of the base of the pinnacle wall & reach the cave (this entire uphill climb took us about 4 hours). On the way to the cave, there is a water tank on the left side which holds potable water. The cave houses a 'shiva-ling' and is spacious enough to accommodate about 20 or more people for an overnight stay. The pinnacle is huge and only the experts can dare to climb it! Within 5-10 minutes after i made it to the top, the clouds cleared and offered such a fantastic view from the top that i completely forgot i was to hurry up with the lunch and start with the descent soon after - lest it gets dark by the time we reach the base! We started climbing down immediately afterwards and made it to the base in couple of hours. Overall an amazing experience for me though few members of our group found it tough n missed out on reaching the top!!!
and now I am all happy happy and set for another trek this weekend to my all-time favourite destination ‘Matheran’! yippeee!


cheers for many more treks ahead! :)
k

A WEAK WEEK!

09th Aug’09...10:45 pm

seems like yesterday
when i’d tears in my eyes
while i’d murmured those bye-byes
but today i only wish to say bye bye to those 7 days
of tears, agony, frustration n a sense o’ helplessness,
of being apart, for so long after so long,
of umpteen questions n doubts lingering in my head,
of impatience n insecurities,
of lying low n self-loathing,
of self-imposed house arrest,
of loss of appetite,
of nostalgia,
of mood-swings (it was even more worse due to me PMSing!),
of coming to terms, with missing someone more than i ever thought i would,
of waiting, for the wait to get over!
i’d also like to remind myself that my blogposts will more often talk of hope, positive vibes cos’ i don’t like it much when people (including ‘yours truly’ sometimes) crib, complain, do not appreciate who n what they are blessed with in life n give away negative vibes all the time. period.
coming to the naming of my blog link...a ‘katta’ in local parlance, as far as i know stands for ‘a tiny wall, a kind of a periphery’ but in marathi slang it would mean ‘a place where people meet impromptu, sit, talk, share, idle away their time n grow up’. it continues to exist in almost every corner of Bombay (n one more thing about me, i don’t think i’ll ever come around to calling our city Mumbai!). each neighborhood, college, school or even a lone building has its very own katta where rich, poor, high class, low class, cease to matter n all come together. local in nature, it has a life of its own, a mood of it own, always occupied, always alive..
‘kalyani cha katta’ is where i’d wanna re-live my spirit, my memoirs, my days n things that catch my fancy...
ironic that the very reason i even thought of blogging is on the insistence of my beloved P. “do u blog?” is one of the first few words which he’d uttered to me exactly a year back on 16th Aug’08! so today i’d also remind myself to keep my promise to him i.e., to blog more often, atleast one post a week, if not more. not that i lead a very hi-profile, scandalous life to be covered in details here. oh well, but am sure there are things ‘interesting’ enough happening either in my life or in the world around me to be jotted down. SO READ ON!! ;)

~ love,

k

countdown to 2011!

This is definitely not the first time i have said bye-bye to a loved one. It has happened way too many times since childhood that by now i ought to be pretty much used to it or IMMUNE to it. Alas! Everytime someone (i consider myself real close to) goes away somewhere far away from me for a long time or forever, something happens to me, something that I cant really put into words. My world literally falls apart EVERYTIME!! I become 'lifeless'…that feeling of emptiness envelops my entire being n stays on n on n on leaving me numb…
The very first time i felt this way was when i’d to leave my grandpa’s home n come n stay with my parents. Post my sister’s birth, my aai quit working. At all of 5 yrs, i sure was majorly pissed off then!!
Our family shifted couple of times within the huge BARC complex and every time, i had to part ways with all my then bestest friends/neighbours. Then we shifted out of the township for 5 long yrs. On being allotted a bigger accommodation back in BARC, it was time to say goodbyes to my new found best friends n neighbours n cousins all over again!! I cried buckets back then in my 7th grade.
I recollect being very very close to my youngest maternal aunt. Initial yrs of my childhood were spent at my maternal grandparent’s home. When she had decided to get married, it was the toughest for 'me', more than anyone else. There she was wanting to start a new life with some ‘stranger’ and all i (must have been 13 or 14) could think was that she was 'betraying me' n 'leaving me' alone in this mad mad world to be with some ‘stranger’. I despised my uncle for taking her away from me and more than him, i despised her for agreeing to it (i suppose my anti-attending-marriage-functions-feelings come from this phase in my life! ;)
Well i moved on with my life like i always do…we all do, don’t we! Got busy with books, teenage life, academics, friends, satellite TV, Mills n Boons, crushes, blah blah. There was so much more this world had to offer. I kept growing up n growing apart too from a lot of people.
Life got truly shattered when I was in 9th grade. My grandpa passed away due to sickness in his old age. I loved my grandparents the most since i was born. I cant even get around to explain what i went through at that time. The sense of loss was too deep. I think after my mom (n my sister to a certain extent now), nobody has ever loved me as unconditionally like my grandparents did…I STILL MISS THEM…and 3 yrs later, my grandmom followed suit.
Lot of close friends parted ways after 10th, 12th, Graduation. Some took up further studies, shifted homes, jobs, careers, chose to get married, n switched cities, countries. Some close friends even had to take different trains, buses (uh oh..i happen to make friends even while i travel!). Everyone had their own paths to chart in life..including me. Everytime a course got over, a job had to be switched, a regular train had to be changed to a diff. time or route, I was in TEARS. The very idea of not meeting the person ever again filled me with a sense of GLOOM! It still does. I get attached in no time - with people, with places, with surroundings, with things. And when the parting happens, it’s all about the process of detachment - sometimes willingly n sometimes not-so-unwillingly. Such is life, ’it goes on’…
Not sure if I can even call it a relationship now in retrospect, but my pining for my first love lasted for 8 long years. It all started as a friendship, mutual attraction, blah blah n then went on to drag cos’ of my one-sided ever increasing involvement. And finally when he had to move to another city cos’ of his job, it left me with nothing but a tinge of sadness. And i did take some time to get over it but the ‘relationship’ was dead long back i suppose!
People kept coming in n going out of my life while i was ‘growing up’ in age n also in my sense of balance, patience n tolerance, busy slogging out at work most of the time, socializing n exploring places on the side. I managed to keep in touch with most of my loved ones over the time..managed to ‘fall in love’ once again..tried my best to reciprocate someone’s wrongly intended ‘affections’ as well. Am glad i moved on from those 2 relationships though. God ensures you get what you truly deserve in this lifetime. And i continue with my faith intact in him.
Last one year has been eventful in that sense. We shifted home after 18 long years from Anushaktinagar (BARC Township) to Vashi (New Bombay), post my pappa's retirement from the govt. service. All 4 of us go about our mundane routine. We've 'adjusted' well so to say. Been 6 months already but am yet to come to terms with the shift..
In the year gone by, quite a few close friends I lost touch with because of my own stupid, silly insecurities. And quite a lot of people walked into my life either online, when i was travelling, or through common friends.
One such close friend i met exactly a year back, left for his further studies to USA last Sunday (on ‘friendship day’! though i don’t really believe in such a ‘day’…what timing i say!). It has been more than 48 hours since i saw him at the airport turning his back towards all of us without looking into any of our eyes directly. Don’t think i can ever forget that moment, when it finally hit me that he is going ‘away’ from me…somewhere far far away i’ve only heard of, read about n seen in pics or movies…where lot of my other friends, acquaintances also reside, study, work…the so-called land of opportunities! I’d been part of the whole process in a way for last so many months. I was equally driven (if not more) in pursuit of his goal - wishing all good for him all along, being a part of his support system throughout all his preparations for the long visit n stay, giving him that bit of strength when he felt weak or low at times. And today when he has actually landed there, i can’t help but feel drained n that emptiness within (am of course proud of his achievements n very happy for him)…not that i cant live without him. I know i can n i will..i know i should n i would. Anybody who knows me well enough knows that i’ve a very positive n optimistic disposition towards life n its happenings. So this too shall pass…n how soon only time will tell. But right now, am feeling miserable with no appetite for anything. Everything feels incomplete without him…everything…am feeling completely lost n restless! It never ceases to amaze me every time, how a complete stranger comes to mean so much to you in such little time…n manages to leave a void behind! Too many shared moments, too many shared delightful memories over past 12 months…we grew up closer, richer, happier n wiser together through this crucial phase in our respective lives. I can only thank him n god for blessing me with so much love in life. I have absolutely no idea if n when, we would get to see each other again in life. And even when we do, what would it be like! Two years is a long time when you have to wait for someone to come back. We might continue to be there for each other through thick n thin, or we might grow apart. I hope to get busy again with my work, family n coming to terms with a life without my beloved pal next to me…n i pray n hold on to my faith in god that we get back together someday soon with the same warmth n joy we’ve shared always…missing you a lot, my sweetheart! here’s hoping we remain as crazy as ever about each other!
Cheers to our wonderful relationship n cheers to our new separate exciting lives ahead! we gonna make each other mighty proud am sure..see you soon back here!
You bet am already counting down to 2011! ;)
love,
k

“Love is a river, flowing where we know not. The wound is deep, yet the river is wide” - The Wonder Years