Identity..Crisis!!?

She glanced for the 50th time at the clock. It was 6 in the evening. Her ex colleagues would be meeting at Cyber City by 8 tonight. It was a Sunday. Everything was going as per her plan. She would help Alia and Natasha finish their weekend assignments, give them an early dinner and tuck them in their beds by 8. She would then leave home as soon as possible and probably be just an hour late for her get-together.

It had been ages since she had last met her colleagues...She hardly remembered the date and month. She was so looking forward to step out. Not that she had best of her buddies waiting to meet her, probably many of them wouldn't even recall her name, but she was excited. She was excited to go out without her kids, all by herself. Neerav had been coaxing her to go and meet her colleagues and friends, but something was stopping her. She had a storm of thoughts running inside her head, all at the same time. What if the kids don't finish their home work on time? What if Natasha doesn't sleep by 8? What if she gets really late to reach for the party? What if she feels totally bored there as she had not met those people for years together? Should she go or just back out like all the other occasions?Would anyone even notice or miss her absence? Would she look presentable enough with that small paunch peeping out from her party dress? Oh! she had pulled out that lovely party dress of hers from the back of her cupboard shelf. Thankfully she could fit into that dress( if you ignore the devil paunch).
She brushes these thoughts aside and manages to finish all her work on time. Its 8 pm now and she has been successful in putting both Alia and Natasha to bed. Her party dress is lying right in front of her, but oh gosh! she is having cold feet. Now that everything has fallen into place, she wants to escape this confrontation by her friends. She has been so engrossed in taking care of her kids and house, that she is totally outdated professionally. She gathers herself together and tries to cajole herself. She is going there just to have fun, not to discuss work.

She is all set to go. Neerav drops her to Cyber City. "Relax!!" he says. Forget about the kids and home. Just go have fun. "Yeah! thats what I have come here for", She thinks and steps inside.
She sees her friends waiting outside a restaurant and walks towards them. They all greet her warmly. "So far so good", she thinks. She was worrying uselessly. They order dinner. Each one of them is so relaxed and comfortable. Even she is having a nice time. "Thank God I came," she thinks.

Its 11 pm. Discussions are on. Almost all the topics ranging from work, family, politics to religion, cultures etc etc have been discussed. Everyone is still relaxed. No one is in a hurry to go back home tonight. They all have met after many months. Each one has a story to tell. She is the only one who is now getting restless." I must push off now. My kids might get up and start looking for me. How would Neerav manage? My colleague who is supposed to drop me, seems to be in no hurry. What should I do? Shall I call Neerav? Shall I book a cab and go? I am no more enjoying the party. I think I should leave now."

She is so engrossed in her thoughts, she misses out the discussion happening right under her nose. " Svasti!" her colleague is shaking her. Where are you lost?" She smiles sheepishly. "Nah! just thinking about something. Shall we leave?

She reaches home. Everybody is sleeping peacefully. She slips beside Neerav. "So, how was it?' He asks. "Nice" she says. "Towards the end I started missing home." " You should step out more often" said Neerav and dozed off.

She kept lying there.. wide awake. What had happened to her? When she was at home, she so much wanted to step out, meet her friends, stay on her own for a few hours, enjoy her 'me' time. Today, when she stepped out, she already started missing her kids, her home, within a few hours?

She didnt sleep the whole night .. lying on bed wondering.. what was it that she yearned for? Does she want to step out or stay at home? Why is she so confused? what is she actually looking for at this stage of her life?  She is clueless. She has no answers. There are only questions that fill her mind and keep her awake at nights. 

Connecting with God!

I do not visit a temple everyday. I do not even light incense sticks in front of the idols of god in my house. I am still not an atheist. I am in a very good space with God.

We all have different connections with God. We show our belief and love in him in so many different ways. We find God in things we do.If  I am restless, I talk to God. I blame him for giving me sorrows and when I am happy, I thank him for giving me such a wonderful moment. We are all so entangled in the complexities of our daily lives that we tend to STOP enjoying the small happy moments and we crave for the larger and bigger gains.

Last evening, while I was walking in a park, I said hello to an old man passing by and he felt so happy by just a mere greeting. I felt as if I had done a great thing. The point is, we waste the major chunk of our lives craving for happiness, and by the time we realize that happiness lies in small small things that we can do each day, its too late. Only if we realize that merely folding our hands in front of God cannot give us happiness. Connect with him. Make people happy. Laugh out loud. We have to look for moments to laugh. We do not laugh heartily these days.God has given us this life and he shows us how we should be leading this life by the way of kids and babies. Kids are carefree, but they are not insensitive. They laugh from their heart and cry too. We don't need to be perfect but we need to emulate kids. We need to follow the indications. We all long for the days that have gone by. Still we keep making the same mistakes in the present. Millions of people are born everyday. Only a bunch of them are famous, and even a smaller number is happy with their lives. Being famous is still easy but finding happiness and finding God is tough, and that should be our ultimate aim.

There is too much negativity in our lives. Oh! he said this.. that means he meant this..how mean. She is so rude... Shit! I am so bugged with this life. .....We all face such situations and do not intend to get out of it. Only some of us are able to come out of it.

I try to connect with my God. I want him to lead me to a life of happiness and satisfaction. A life without expectations. I know it is tough, but he has messengers who guide me when I feel cheated and derailed. They bring me back to track, and I feel less sorrowful and upset. We all need to find our own peace, be it in a temple, in worshiping him or in talking to him and trying to connect with him. Our ways can be varied, but our ultimate goal should be to achieve what many cannot or do not. I need to continuously remind myself that being famous is easy, being happy is difficult.  I am trying to work on it. I try to do things that make me happy. I try to learn new things and the process of learning makes me feel happy and gives me satisfaction, I believe these are the ways to reach closer to my goal, of being happy and finding my God. 

Nanhi- an unforgettable experience

Nanhi

It all started with our trip to my mom’s place. We used to go to my  mom’s place every year. There was a beautiful house near the colony, which we loved. It was a khaali house and we always used to admire it and wanted to buy it some day.

In one of such visits, we thought of going closer to the house .Nishant told me that lets have a closer view as we are going to buy it. When we went closer, I tried to peep inside the house to see how it looked inside. As I peeped in, I saw a small girl, 3 or 4 yrs of age sitting on a chair in front of a table. She was such a sweet girl that I could not stop looking at her. She was adorable. As I was wondering what this little girl was doing sitting inside an empty house, I saw my maid, who had accompanied us, fainted at seeing this girl. It was then that it struck to Nishant and me that she was not a little girl but a spirit.  At this very moment, she came out of the house and stood in front of me saying- Aunty please play with me, I want to play. We did not know what to do. One thing that surprised me was that although we knew that she was a spirit, we never felt scared even when she stood in front of us. She looked so innocent and lovable. Since our maid was unconscious, we told the little girl that we would come back to play with her.

So, we left that place and went back to my mom’s house.  This incident stayed on with us and we could not get over it somehow.  Nishant and me had several rounds of discussion about buying the house. We then got to know from the neighbours that the house was said to be haunted although no one had ever seen or witnessed any strange incident around that house ever.  Even after listening about the house being haunted, we were so much in love with that house that we decided to buy it.

We once again went to check out the house and to our surprise, saw that little girl still sitting there as if waiting for us. This ghost girl never made us feel scared, rather she was adorable. When she saw us, she again came out and held my hand, requesting me to play with her. This time I played with her for a while. She was delighted. I felt the same way. I could see the expression of approval on Nishant’s face too. We then returned back home. We told our daughters that soon they were going to meet their friend. When they asked her name, I told them, her name was Nanhi.

Soon we shifted  in our new home, the home that we had so much wanted to be in. We did not want to disturb Nanhi so we decided to move on the first floor. The day we moved in, Nanhi came to us. She was very excited. She asked me if she could stay with us. She told me that she has been living alone in the ground floor and hates it, so she wanted to stay with us. We agreed without hesitation as the house was her after all and there were many rooms to accommodate all of us comfortably.So, we gave a room to Nanhi and one room to our kids. We all were happy with our house. Our life once again started running smoothly. The kids would go to school and Nanhi would stay back with me helping me here and there and entertaining me with her lovely talk.

Our life was going smooth and we all were very happy when one day when I returned home after  getting  my kids from school, I saw three pandits sitting inside my house. I rushed inside and asked them what were they doing inside my house and they told me that they had come to take away the spirit that was staying in the house. I felt very scared for Nanhi and scolded them hard and asked them to leave my house. I ran inside to look for Nanhi but Nanhi was nowhere to be found. I felt helpless- this is when I wake up from my dream feeling shocked and helpless.

Wanted to share this dream with everyone. This is a dream that I saw a few nights back and I actually saw it like a movie. I do not know from where did it come to my mind, but it came with a pleasant feeling. Even though it was a filmy dream, I loved Nanhi and the fact that I am so scared of ghosts, still I did not get scared of Nanhi, made me feel really nice. I do not know if this dream is way too dramatic, the fact that it left a strange feeling in me, a feeling where I really wanted to protect Nanhi and the feeling that somewhere Nanhi had not been able to live her childhood and was trying to do so by living with us and playing with us, hit me hard and has still not left me. I have loved every bit of my dream and wanted to pen it down. Hope my readers like it too.