Psychedelic Slippers

This is "chotu". And I was his human, till today. We handed him over to a lady willing to adopt him. So this post is written in the midst of a void left, when you say farewell to a loved one. We picked him up to be a part of our lives a couple of months back, and he is been there ever since. From being so tiny, we were scared to even pick him up, to this big tom-kitten that he is now, it feels like forever. It has been so long, that I now forget how it was like before him. Raising him was a black-hole. I have no track of time i invested in him. When we first got him, me and a couple of friends had to take turns baby sitting him (and his litter-mates, which are no more). The first night I had them with me, I remember I had barely slept, and had to feed them and clear after them every 3 hours. After those long hours, and numerous other eventful so many things, chotu had today integrated to be so much of my life. My day would start with a wet lick on my face or a playf

Its been over a year since I have been trying to put this post together. I am prompt with my travel posts, especially the ones that have touched me more, so why did I take so long for this one I wonder? Is it because Kaza is so close to heart, that its almost a sacred place inside me, and I secretly loathe to share it?  Well, those thoughts apart. We are finally here. And I am writing. I started writing a detailed Spiti travelogue in my diary like 10 months back. (It’s yet to be completed and I am only half way through). This is a succinct version of the same. This is an unplanned post, in the sense that I haven’t really planned out where I will start and where to end. So bear with me. It had been like over a year, me and spiffer had been planning a trip to Kerala. We wanted to do a monsoon roadtrip. And Kerala seemed very appealing. We hadn’t really set a time yet. When we got to the details, we narrowed down on July. Then most friends we consulted advised against heading to

"श्रावणमासी हर्ष मानसी हिरवळ दाटे चोहिकडे , क्षणात येती सरसर शिरवे, क्षणात फिरुनी ऊन पडे " माझा कवितांसोबातच्या आठवणींचा प्रवास इथून सुरु होतो. बालपणीचे कित्येक " Family weekends " आम्ही कवितांसोबत घालवलेले आहेत. "सुवर्ण नौका" अणि "सौंदर्य कुंज" असे  कधी काळी आई-बाबांना (बहुदा) कुठल्यातरी वाचनालयात मिळालेले दोन काव्य संग्रह आमच्यापाशी होते. त्यातल्या कविता बाबा आम्हा सगळ्यांना वाचून दाखवायचे . सहसा जेवणं उरकल्यावर आमची ही मैफिल रंगे. बाबांचा काव्यप्रवास कुठून सुरु झाला नाही ठाऊक पण बाबा कविता फार सुंदर वाचतात . वाचतात काय, बाबा कविता जिवंत करतात . त्यामुळेच हिरव्या गालिछावर डोलणारी फुलराणी मीच आहे , आणि "छानी माझी सोनुकली ती, कुणाकडे ग पहात होती " म्हणत तिला चिडवणारा वारा म्हणजे बाबाच आहेत असे नेहमी वाटायचे.  बाबांनी  उभा केलेला , मर्ढेकरांचा "गणपत वाणी " माझ्या भावाला आणि मला खूपच आवडायचा . ती कविता आम्ही बाबांकडून अनेकदा वाचून घ्यायचो. बालकवींच्या संगे आम्ही  दूर डोंगराच्या पायथ्याशी वसलेल्या पिटुकल्या गावी पोहोचायचो आण

They tell you the 20’s are good years. Freshly out of college, you are all set for the world. That’s where everyone starts anyway. Then work –life happens, or post-graduation happens, or something such. For the first two years, (of whatever you choose), you live with a gusto. You are an adult, (by almost everyone’s standards) and you have this new sense of freedom. The responsibilities haven’t yet clouded your dreams. You are hopeful, still. Some have just cracked out of their shells (called home) and they are experimenting. Others turn more reckless with their experimentation. Everyone’s still searching though, looking for that niche where everything feels in place. You try a lot of new things. It’s not like college any more where you had to look over your shoulder each time you wanted to try something new. And before you know, in a frenzied rush to make the best of your times … bammm!!!  You hit the 25 mark. And then life changes… (almost overnight). You are bogged down by we

Gargo is a 2 week chapter in our (me and Charlie) life. An innocuous little pup walked into our door, almost dying and freezing to death.  It was convulsive and severely dehydrated, and we felt it wouldn’t live through the night. But force feeding ORS helped. We got some medicines for it. It took 3 pairs of hands to get them down its throat. Thankfully it lived. And it was as grateful as a loyal dog could be. For the next couple of days, it kept trailing us everywhere. We were forced into an ersatz motherhood. We had a crawling 3 months old, that every couple of hours would nudge either one of us available for food, and then rush to crap and pee.  He wouldn’t let us go out of sight and would start jumping the moment he saw us in the corridor. I must admit, it felt nice to have someone waiting for you at the end of the day, and greet you ever with the same excitement, every single day.  When we headed for breakfast, he would crisscross between our feet happy and gay towards the me

It’s been a really long year, and we have just started with 2015 and I guess it’s still not too late to jump into a retrospective post about the year. This year has been crazy at many levels. It all started with a bang, an eventful bang that changed a lot of things for me. It started with a lot of hopes. Like for the first time I had almost half the year planned out in excruciating detail. I should have known better, for like most things planned so carefully it didn't work out that way. I now have a list of resolutions that I never got to strike out (maybe I could carry them forward  J ).  To begin with, I lost someone really close to me. And despite of all my claims of having mastered the art of losing, I realised I was a novice again. I had thought years of experience of getting close and letting go of people might have now made me more adept at handling such delicate matters, but as I learnt, it really doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it’s the first time or