A day in the life of LIFE

Apologies for not having blogged for quite sometime now. Life's been a little more than a roller coaster ride, with my status of existence oscillating over the last few weeks like the crests and troughs of a perfect sine wave.

Nonetheless, the primary point is that I am right now seated in the comfortable environs of "home" in the truest sense of the word, after a long gap of 8 months.

Yes, please go ahead. Join Ma and bring out the "Oh My God !! you have been away and have not visited home for 8 months, do you even remember the way back?" phrases that I have been listening to already. Well, Delhi and Bangalore are not sister cities that I could do a "hop-skip-jump" antic and land on my comfy sofa watching TV (that's my prized possession and noone messes with me over that other than my lovable grannies), munching on hot pakodas flavored with Maa ki Mamta...all portraying the picture of filmy Utopia that one longs to experience.

Eventually, this weekend, I was in Bengalooru, enroute to Mysore for a cousin's wedding. Rising air fares, courtesy the recent consolidation in the aviation industry has made me to choose from the best of the worst available. Jet Airways, for whatever it's worth, burnt a meteor hole through my pocket. And a salary so low that it prevents me from even doing window shopping, has made matters worse.

The last couple of days have been quite hectic owing to the usual din and pomp associated with every Indian wedding. But on the sidelines of the wedding, I have realised that coming back to a place of your own, one that you've evolved with, brings back the feeling of nostalgia. One realises that the smallest of things that were once taken for granted tend to be more valued when one gets back to them.

The call of the local sabzi wallah, The kids playing on the street who time and again annoy dad by breaking window panes, The neighbors' courteous enquiry,the "Mungaru Male" song that plays in the local barber shop, the fragrance of the "Mallige" flowers that adorn the verandah, the vibrations emnating from Ma's 5 a.m. prayers, M.S. Subbulaxmi's melody that flows from the 1998 BPL player,all this and more, have made me realise that God lies in the details.

It's a good feeling to be back home, a feeling of peace and quiete, a feeling that people acknowledge your existence, and more importantly, the feeling of authority that one can probably exercise in one's backyard, more than anywhere else.

Touching down at Bangalore has never felt so great as this, after a long sojourn at New Delhi. And even as the rest of the Duniya goes "Oot Patanga", right from Pratibha Patil's Presidential credentials to the Taj being voted into the 7 wonders of the world, I am blissfully resting on dad's couch, digging into a new book that I picked up on Saturday titled "Jalebi Management". More on the book and a review of the same later...

Till then, home is where the heart is.....*Yawn*