The 10 Things that Make Me Feel Good

1. Waking up, after a long restful sleep, to a breakfast buffet, in a lovely resort, miles away, from your home in the city.

When we are on a vacation, we all wake up together & I actually look forward to the elaborate breakfast prepared for me by someone else! And how can I forget the variety of things on offer! What a welcome change from everyday life back in your house, where my day starts at 6 a.m, & till 8.30 I'm busy with the morning tasks: preparing breakfast & lunch, getting Tanvi ready for school, so on & so forth. Someone else cooking for me, has always figured right on top of my how-to-list of, "Simple Ways to Make Me Happy."

2. Leafing through my school yearbook & old family albums & laughing at my hairstyle, posture, dressing & face. Some of it is embarrassing alright; but then, that is how I started & then reached to being who or what I’m today. My personal growth & the journey of finding my own bearings, in this big, big world, fills me with joy & a sense of accomplishment.

Or catching up with school/college friends & laughing at the crazy things we did back then. Recently, I met my school friend, Zeena, after EIGHTEEN years!!

Seeing my daughter & her son playing together in the beach also made me feel good. Did I ever imagine this would happen one day? NEVER. So when the scene unfolded in front of my eyes, I felt all kinds of emotions – contentment, gratitude, happiness, surprise. 3. A comedy movie that makes me CRY. Ben Stiller & Steve Martin totally crack me up. I’m one of those that speak & laugh loud, completely letting my hair down. There have been times my stomach hurt & felt like it was in knots, by the end of a marathon session of uncontrolled laughter, & i have actually left the room or the seat, unable to laugh any longer & still continued to break into fits of sporadic giggles.

4. I still fit in to the blouses/clothes/jeans/t-shirt of yesteryears! This is one thing that I show-off & tease Sathya all the time about: I can easily get into a shirt I bought 7 years ago while he struggles to get into something bought as recently as four months back. Yes, he is gaining weight & how!

5. The way my skin feels & my hair smells after a languorous bath. The mixed fragrances of the body wash, the face wash, the shampoo, the conditioner & the moisturizing cream at the end of it all is HEADY! That is also the reason why I LOOVE spas – sensual indulgence is definitely my thing. Getting pampered is a good thing, I say.

6. Finding that one face I know & like, in a social or formal gathering. A huge hall filled with strange people & faces unsettles me just a wee bit & spotting a friend instantly lifts my spirits.

7. The feel of my daughter’s hand on me while she is fast asleep & I am still listening to the rhythms of her heart or her slow, soft breathing.

8. An act of goodness done by me or to me. It touches me immensely.

9. A kind gesture from a complete stranger in a completely new city. I have been to so many little nukes & corner of India that when a Telugu/Tamilian/Maharashtrian/Keralite/Goan/Bengali/Delhiite/Uttaranchal responds to you as a fellow Indian & & as a human being first & foremost, & not as a person belonging to a particular community or state, it is a moment I deeply cherish.

10. Putting my hand across my man’s chest & slowly drifting off to sleep after an evening spent worrying & crying. I cry & worry easy. Most days I console myself & spring back pretty well. But there are days when just lying next to your spouse makes it all seem small; that everything’s really ok or will be soon enough. I have realized that most of the instances I have mentioned above have one thing in common: they are, to a large extent, the moments when I have either felt beautiful in my own skin or loved and wanted by a near & dear one.

I also realized that not only do i cry/worry easy, i smile easy too. It doesn't or hasn't taken much for me to be happy. Yesterday I was so glad to visit Chitrakala Parishad. It was my first time there! And eating Vada Pav from a Goli outlet on my way back home!

Life's good! And there surely are more than 10 things that make me feel so!

My OMG Moments

Here’s a recollection of all the moments when I felt either great happiness or unbearable pain; an inexplicable fear or extreme disbelief or even the times of complete shock & horror. In short, my “Oh My God” moments or the “I Can’t Believe It” moments.

When we sighted a majestic tiger near a watering hole in a forest reserve near
Mysore. When we almost ran into a mother elephant & her cub en-route to Hunsur.

When I sat on a camel for the 1st time & felt the huge lifts in the air throughout the rocking ride. When I learnt that I had got the 1st rank in M.A

When the nurse held my just-born baby in her hands & showed me a glimpse of her face.

When I read in Grazia (May’10) that women in Ghana die in childbirth for lack of money & hospitals & doctors. Urine samples are kept in hand gloves. Such abject poverty makes your heart pray, ‘God please help them’.

When I was air-borne on my maiden flight from Hyderabad. The memory of your 1st take-off stays with you. When my letters were published in Femina(7 Apr'10) & Grazia(Mar'10) & won the gift hampers.

When I read Mills & Boon for the 1st time in high school. When I visited Akshardham in Delhi.
When I watched the horrific scene in Bandit Queen where she is gang-raped. I had gone to watch the film, ALONE, to Diana theatre in Udupi. No one would come with me to see the highly controversial ‘bad’ film & as usual, I of course, had to see it. There were only 3 girls. 2 medical students from Manipal had dared to come too. We sat huddled together in the hall. When i felt the movement of my baby in my womb for the first time.

When I looked up (quite literally) at Sathya during the wedding rite where we offer prayers to the sun god & I was barefoot & I turned to see him & realized I was really craning my neck. His head seemed out there in the sky. He is so tall!! (he is 6'3) I remember saying it in my head. Something I hadn’t noticed in the 3 months of our courtship; probably because I was always in heels then.

When Tan, who was around 1 ½ years at the time, saw me crying & wiped my eyes. I felt so loved. When, on my 1st flight landing in Bombay, the sight of the slums, just meters below, ripped my heart apart. The plane almost touches the roofs of the ramshackle houses & if you’d put your hands out of the window, I bet you’d even touch the walls. The irony is, in our cities, while there are men who earn a meager Rs 100 after an endless day’s back-breaking labor, a single radial tyre of Amitabh Bachchan’s Lexus costs Rs 2.5 lakhs. In India, utter poverty & consummate luxury live together; a string of jhopad pattis right in the backyard of a high-rise building.
When Tan was 2 1/2 months old & around 2:00 in the middle of the deep, dark night, minutes after I’d fed her, I saw milk oozing out of her nose. I didn’t know what was happening to my baby.

When I visited Vivekananda Rock Memorial in Kanyakumari for the 1st time while still in school & felt the ocean breeze against my skin. It felt like heaven on earth. I haven’t seen Kashmir, so I don’t know any better.