The new deep.

Today is a new deep.

When I think of all those different times
When I followed and followed,
What if I had stopped.

But then I was too scared.
So, what happened now?
You are no more scared or are you just too tired to get scared.

Something is changing, within-outside- around.
Waiting.

Losing the midas touch!

My boy is totally a mama’s boy as they say. But wait! No more! Mama feels like he is starting to get his wings. But he is only 16 months! Give me some more time to mess his hair, wipe his tears , rub his belly, clean his boogers, feed him “oench” (orange).

More than he needing his mammam, mammam has needed him more. Every night as he rolls to his side to sleep on mama’s hands and arms Mamma feels the warmth and the softness and sleeps peacefully.

Ever since he has been born mammam has been collecting bits and pieces of his everyday so that when his wings are strong enough and the wind is calling and the nest rocks and he is on his way out, she has her treasures to hold close to her chest.However, each day she dreads the little boy is growing up way too fast , faster than the “The Wheels on the Bus”, faster than the “Ring a Ring o’ Roses”  and one day he will no longer need to be with mammam.

Fair enough that we have all done the same but it is just that mammam wants to collect as many pebbles as possible so that she can retrace the path and revisit her home with her boy on the shores of the backhoes and the dump trucks.

And that’s it!

So it has been 7 long years my liaison with Citi and it is ending! Ending now…..next week, month after………..

It feels like the morning when you are lying awake in a fuzzy state trying to catch the alarm’s first quaint beep to shut it down, and then get startled when it finally does beep.

Well then what now? Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology………….back to job search!!! I always try to believe I have an artistic bend of mind. Really! Are you serious! You are not even motivated enough to learn one thing properly.

Art is all about getting serious … so serious that it  hurts! But how do I know! I am not one who belongs to that class.

Where do I belong? Ohh I know what you are going to tell me ” you belong to the lazy breed” – so aren’t you!

I want to know how you feel taking those pictures of those innumerable faces , how do you feel when you look at them, do you think of a story that fits your imagination or do you really know their part of the story! We feel we know their stories but do we really or rather do we know our stories huh!

Excuse my delirium!

Criminal Case 101

The invites had been coming for quite some time now and just like it happens on a fateful moment I fell for it. And since then there has been no stopping!

From juices, to chips I have become a scavenger. Looking on every wall and collecting food and drink to gain a few drops of energies which end up faster than they have been collected! And then I look for more. I have never been so hungry before.

It’s not one of the most intelligent games I have played but addictive all the same. I guess the designers created it to keep things simple  and let us crave for the simple things like a ray ban or a badge or a cool haircut.

Whatever it is the burgers are way harder to get and more dearer than the ones you get in McD.

But keep playing folks. Some killer is out in the loom and you are the Detective!

And now you know where I have been!

In the mood for symphonies…..

It was an ethereal evening yesterday to say the least. As my Facebook status reads: “Finally one item off my bucket list – “yesterday was an ethereal rendezvous with music at Chicago Symphony Orchestra and a heavy feeling of self limitation to understand the pain and intricacies of the chords when Yo Yo Ma and Esa Pekka Salonen seemed oblivious to the audience and played in their world!” it was indeed true!

We have been staying in Chicago for quite a few years and have always yearned to visit Chicago Symphony Orchestra but never been able to find the opportune moment. Now that our days are numbered in the land of  Lincoln we looked through the calendars of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra calendar and were more than delighted to find Yo Yo Ma scheduled in a week’s time. The ticket prices had soared and only a few seats were peeking blue from the gray all over. We grabbed two of the best available consoling ourselves on the hefty price that we are going to listen to Yo Yo Ma and that too with our CSO ( read Chicago Symphony Orchestra) . What more can you want from life?

As the day approached we grew excited and yesterday was the day!

The halls opened about half an hour early to the start of the concert. The galleries looked ready for the melodies to flow through. We got a gift of a free CD ( by the charming girl whom I have been admiring for sometime)  for making the web booking for the first time through the CSO website.I was more than pleased.

The stage which looked empty when we walked in, soon started to get filled up. The musicians trickled in without even us noticing them with their instruments and sat down and started playing and before it had turned 8 pm CST the whole stage was filled up. It was wonderful build up.

Then came the moment when Esa Pekka Salonen walked in and I fell in love with him that instant. His hair flying high throughout the concert and the magical wand in his hand with which he commanded the authority over the men and women playing powerful music had me.

It started with Sibelius‘s Pohjola’s Daughter, Op. 49  it was 12 minutes piece. 

It was followed by Sibelius’s symphony No. 7, Op. 105 – it was a 22 minutes piece but too intricate and complex in each of its notes and tones.

But little did we know what was going to take place. After intermission Yo Yo Ma joined the stage. He was seated right beside Esa Pekka Salonen’s paltform.

Then it all started! The piece was Lutoslawski‘s Cello Concerto. Well to express the feeling will be a dangerous job for a novice like me. All I can say is it was more of a storm, a war of chords, and a triumph of music. I read up the booklet and sat as perplexed as ever. It was beyond comprehension but intricate and delicate to say the least of what I heard. 

There was a raging applause at the end of  piece.

As I sit recounting yesterday night’s memoirs and those goosebumps suddenly the review came up on my reads.

The evening ended with Tchaikovsky‘s Francesca da Rimini, Op 32.

We will carry on as we had in days to come but more indebted and more enriched.

Looking Back

This morning I read a status update from someone I know . The status was about how he misses childhood and about the pains of growing up and learning to behave so as to be accepted by society.Usually I have a similar feeling. But just today quite contrarily it was different.

This took me by surprise. Yes my own thoughts seemed to be playing a game of battleship with me, hiding the potential arm carriers quite effectively.

I looked back and found the joys in my childhood as we do. But if you are not magnanimous you can see those days were not devoid of pain either. Protected by family and friends growing up had its own share of miseries. Childhood agony pays dues to expectation from parents, bullies at school, sexual harassment (even at an age when you do not even know to name your body parts) and most of all, your attempts at keep being the moon-of-the-eyes to parents,teachers and all people known and unknown.

I guess we all(most of us) grow up and look back and think only of the flowery past when we got birthday gifts and when daddies carried sleepy us from the sofa to the bed and moms kept awake through the nights to ease our pain during fever. But that was not all right!

My point is growing up and our years as grown ups are not that bad either. Yes we have more complex issues like broken relationships, ailing parents, going haywire siblings, nagging children or nagging parents to have children, mortgages, education loans, relocation from city to city, recession etc etc etc. 

Twenty years later we will think back with agonizing toothache , knee cramps, spartan medicare, irresponsible children and paint rosy pictures of the past .We will remember the fun and laughter with friends, the trips we had taken, the visits we made back at home, the early growing up years of our children and miss them over and over and sigh.

All that is needed is a little distance from the time.

And then one day all will be over.