It sunned today!!!

Yippeeeee.....the sun showed itself today! After days of rain and snow, the sun came out bright and beautiful for the entire day..and could we sit at home??? No way...we lugged the kids and a picnic hamper along and left early in the morning (an hour after sunrise, at 10.00 am) for some exploring. Went to another part of the river stretch, the one next to Kings college and the museums and had a lovely time sunning ourselves and feeding the ducks n swans again! Kaustubh was in his element today, crying for cake the moment we started the walk. Had to struggle to get him to a bench and then cut the cakes we had taken along. A few pieces went to the ducks as well. Had lunch in an indian restaurant nearby, and was thrilled beyond words! The food was amazing. Pure Kerala cuisine at a very reasonable price, and was infact more tasty than some stuff I have tasted in Kerala. The proprietor was very sweet too. The kids got a complementary dosa which they promptly attacked and devoured in a minute. Went to a friends place from there and spent a very nice evening with their family. They have a baby near Krithika's age and the kids loved playing with all her toys, while karthik n I loved the conversation and the onion pakodas! A lovely sunday...hoping for more sunny ones like this!

I dreamt it

England is under the big freeze. I have always dreamt of sitting in a cozy room, with a cup of tea and a book, lying on the sofa and watching a heavy snowfall. Tell me, what do you really feel when your dreams are realised? Do you get lost in the feeling that this can't possibly be true, or that now my dream has been realised, shouldn't I be more happy or omigod, this moment is going to go by soon, let me try n capture it as much as possible (and then loose it in the process) or, does it become an anticlimax, that you had expected so much out of it that the reality failed to match up to your expectation? All these used to happen to me so often, that i dreaded my dreams coming true, i felt it much better to have beautiful dreams than seeing those wonderful dreams coming to dust by becoming reality.
Well, I had a wonderful opportunity to attend a four day course in the Sri Sri Ravishankar's ashram in bangalore and had the good fortune to meet him face to face. What a truly divine experience that was. On the second day of the course, our teacher asked a very relevant question. How long can you keep watching that amazinginly beautiful scenery? An hour or two? How long can you keep watching that snowfall you love? A few minutes? Ah..it was such a relief to see hear these words. Good to hear that this is a universal truth, and that, when you get something that you feel is wonderful and have been longing to have, experience, it is but natural for you to feel a surge of pleasure initially, but you just cannot hug and preserve that feeling forever. You might look back and remember the instantaneous joy that you experienced, but thats all it was. Instantaneous. And after that, you are back to being the person you were, in the same life that you have, with the same people, circumstances you were in!
But if you see yourself as happiness, and you are in joy throughout, then those dreams that you had, when it becomes a reality, just enhances your joy. You learn to accept everything beautiful and relish in your dreams because you know that your essential nature is of joy. All that fear of the dream not living up to your expectation and doubts of whether you are really enjoying yourself of not, is gone. You are enjoying yourself every minute of your day. Your dreams being true jut adds a drop to an already overfilled cup of joy.
Am I making any sense? Have I answered the question I had raised? No? Then please forgive me,I have not yet probably reached the state of zen!!!!, but at where I am now, I am living my dream, and I am truly happy with it!!!!!

Happy birthday, dear

Krithika...who calls herself thithika, who cries 'Ammeeenaaa in the morning, noon and night for me' who when feeling an excess of love grinds her teeth, pulls my eyebrows and yells, 'Achodaaaa'! Who imitates whatever her god like anna's (elder brothers) do and still find it in her to pull their hair and scratch them when irritated, who is the apple of her dad's eye, who looks her best in any dress or without! who does something naughty and then refuses to look into your eye for a while, who broke my cup yesterday and ran out of the kitchen and sat down meekly by my feet, who removes all her dresses in the blink of an eye and wanders around in her birthday suit, who falls asleep in a second when put in her car seat, who says hi and bye to everyone on the road, who cries only when hit by her brothers and sleepy, who is 2 years old, but still wakes up in the middle of the night to have her milk, who just needs her brothers around to be happy and constantly playing, who speaks almost as much as them, who sings and dances so adorably, who has brought the maximum smiles on our faces the past two years, who has given us the best years of our life,
darling Krithika, May you spread this happiness and joy all your long life through, may you be happy and contended all your life through, may your parents and brothers have the good fortune to see you grow as beautiful as you are now, and may god bless this wonderful creation of his.

A week on..

and I am a lil bit tired of the beautiful Apartment we are in and long to move into the house we have rented!! It is beautiful alright, but, it somehow lacks the warmth of the English cottage I have been wanting to live in! Anyway, our furniture is due to arrive day after, and after that begins the huge task of setting up the house, a task I have always enjoyed. Every year after our marraige we have moved houses, and this time, it is a country as well, so, you could call us a sort of moving experts by now! We went to the other place, lets call it FC for now, to arrange all the grociries we had got from India, which was quite a lot, considering that five of us had 30Kg allowance each, most of which were filled with rava, semiya, rice and so on!!!! We have a rented car for the month, Ford Mondeo, and had an inital fight fitting in three car seats at the back. After some shop hopping, we finally settled for two slim car seats (more like booster seats) for Kachi n Kautu and a good car seat for baby! See, what all advantages are there in being the youngest!
I was a bit down the first two days, the climate is freezing and once hubby dear has gone to office, the kids and I are pretty much stuck at home. Now that a few days are gone by and I have managed to see quite a lot of cambridge and taken the kids to a beautiful park by the cam river, and have shopped half the hubby's salary out, I am back in spirits! But truly, nothing like nature and shopping to uplift you, is there?
Kids have adapted really really well. They love the river and go for long walks feeding the ducks and swans. They keep running all the time, so I guess the cold is not an issue at all. I am the only one still wandering around with a frozen face and hands. But over all, its a sea change from my mother land, and I have done fine so far. My brother and his wife are with us, so, probably that helped a lot, but all said and done, I do miss India a lot. I miss its temples, its people, my loved ones and the chatter. I miss the gang in Bangalore and I miss our weekely poker nights. I miss the restaurants and I miss the climate. I miss our unplanned weekend trips and I miss the A2Bs on route to Chennai. I miss...........
Well, I might get over this in a few days, for, the wanderlust in us will kick in and relieve any boredom, but till then, it is a pleasure to blog and crib about how much I miss India.
And it is a pain to think that you can't see the parents when you just feel like it! Other than these minor things (!!) I am enjoying this place quite a lot. Especially the amazing clothes and accessories, and the beautiful English countryside, and the lovely quaint cottages. It is as picturesque as it can get and especially when it snowed yesterday, ahhhh...I melted right out there in the car. Those lovely snowflakes on that beautiful road and river, stirred me as nothing much else has in the recent past. Wish I had a few pictures to share with you, let me take a look...

At Jesus Greens, the part with the river Cam for a boundary


Feels much like Venice, doesn't it? This is just a walk from Jesus Greens and the wooden pathway we are on is right above the river and really really slippery. Kachi fell down three times and I was almost on my butt too!