Isn't it time?

During the days of my childhood, I recollect that I always had a longing for the “New Year” celebration. To me it was a holiday time, a celebration day with new clothes, good food and union with friends. The festivity usually began a week before Christmas, when Mom used to make all kinds of Indian cookies (pindivantalu in Telugu). Until the Christmas day, my brother and I were busy cleaning the house, decorating the Christmas tree and buying greetings cards from the little savings we had out of our pocket money which was Rs.10 a month and kept on increasing every year as we grew up.

The saga of celebration continued past Christmas and until the day of the New Year. The biggest excitement about the New Year’s eve was the midnight mass and to me it still is. The preparation included, nice little naps in order to keep awake in the church, a clean hair wash in the evening, new clothes different from the ones worn on Christmas day and packing those post card greetings to wish the friends at the Sunday School. When it was finally time to get to the church, the entire family took my father’s ride, his scooter at around 9 PM when it was chilling cold. I wonder if I ever felt the pain of standing on the rider’s footrest leaning forward to facilitate visibility to the traffic. The excitement probably outweighed the pain. After hours of preparation for the much-awaited event, I hardly remember how long I used to be awake or even participate in the worship. In the dawn of the Big day, I used to go around the neighborhood enjoying the art of Rangoli (it’s a design drawn by Indian women on the wet ground in the front yard, with a fine white powder aka Muggu) filled with vibrant colors and colorful flowers that welcomed the New Year. Wishing everyone a happy new year and collecting the greeting cards, flower bouquets, apples, cakes and diaries that both my parents received from their friends and colleagues were the highlights of the day. The day then finally made it's way to the dusk, setting forth another year long waiting for the next celebration!

Years later, I realize celebrating the New Year is much more than just enjoying a holiday, wearing new clothes, having good food, partying or even merely being present in the midnight worship. The celebration is about bidding farewell to the year gone by, in anticipation to a successful New Year. It is a time to bless and worship the Lord for his faithfulness in bestowing upon us the countless blessings each single day during the past year. It is acknowledging God’s presence in guiding the footsteps to get through the most difficult times of our lives. It is the joy of welcoming the onset of another 365 days that the Lord has added into the calendar of our life, offering prayers with expectations for a much more hopeful, peace-filled and healthier days to come. It is also a perfect time to reminisce; make resolutions for the transformation, a milestone to discipline and train the character of the self.

Isn’t it time to welcome another set of 365 days in the wake of self-transformation?

My First Love!

First Love like someone said, is always sweet. All of us know that it is hard to erase the memories of the first Love from an individual’s life. The definition of love however keeps changing on as one grows from being a child to a teenager to a youngster and finally to a completely grown up individual. The way love is looked at, perceived, treasured, measured or even expressed varies at each of the different stages of life. It depends upon the age, the relationship and the socio-economic conditions of an individual. Nevertheless, the way it is ‘felt’ inside an individual’s heart is universally the same. Like there are different definitions, there are different kinds of Love as well.

No matter what the definition of Love is and of what kind it is, I want to talk about the love I first experienced in my life that is sweet like it is to anyone else. I was an innocent being that neither had a personality nor individuality before I came to be the love of this wonderful person. It was this person who first loved me and then did I. Being in love with this individual, got me an identity to begin the journey of a love-filled life. After I continued to reciprocate as much as I received, I began to experience the true sense of enjoyment in living each and every moment of my life and understood that there is so much joy in giving love as it is in receiving it. This love also taught me the joy of giving and the sweetness of sacrifice. The love between the both of us kept transforming my life at each and every step I took. The courage and confidence I own to face the everyday challenges of life came from this love.

I stand a mature woman today, full of life in body & soul and declare that being in love with this wonderful person is the best thing that ever happened to me.

I proudly introduce you to my first love and my Best Friend, my Mom. She is the very first one who unconditionally loved me on the face of this earth before she saw or even knew me. My complexion and the external beauty did not have to qualify for being her love. I am sure, she never thought of changing her love for me whether or not I turned out to be an individual of character. Unlike most other mothers today, she brought me to life with fervent prayers and pleaded God to bring me into existence. She then taught me the very basics of life and ensured to keep me wrapped in the warmth of her love all the time.

Not only did she give me both the Storge love (that refers to the familial love) and the sacrificial love known as the Agape love, but also gave the Philia love (the friendship love) during the later years of my youth. She’s been my most favorite companion in almost all shades of life, holding my hand and leading me through life’s most tough circumstances. She filled my world with love, blessings, prayer, faith and hope. I take possession of all the wealth of virtue inherited from her and promise to pass it on to the generations to come.

She also introduced me to my Dad, the very reason behind my physical existence today, who equally gave his love to me and in fact has been the one shaping up my personality ever since. I very much count on the love of my parents, besides the love of the Lord that is freely available to every one by default no matter what. So, my first love came to me as a package that brought with it the love of my Dad, my brother and all my relatives.

The one who gave me life, so much love and virtue, will be a treasure to me for eternity. I miss her so much during this holiday season, when it is time to bid farewell to a long year that brought mixture of highs and lows and welcome the new year with hope and expectations for peaceful days to come

I wish her a very happy and a prosperous new year full of health & wealth and want her to know that she is my first love and will continue to be until I breathe my last!!!

Out of the window

It is not unusual to see a lot of traffic in the air as I live close to the San Jose International airport. Out of my window, I have watched so many planes decorate the night sky with colorful lights while they make their way in and out of their designated terminals.

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night and as I was gazing at the sky in the serenity of the night, I saw this little plane flashing it’s way towards the North. I began to think, if there were any of my acquaintances travelling in that plane. When I was a child, I used to innocently wave hands at the planes I rarely saw, back then in India in the thought that somebody was watching me. I was ignorant of the fact that anything on the land is hardly visible to someone travelling in the plane. As I thought about it, I recalled how I used to watch out of the window to catch glimpses of the land both during day and night travel by flight. I thought perhaps someone, probably kids in the same thought lines may be waving hands at my flight too.

How many people have I thought of while I watched out of my window? I don’t wave hands anymore since I now for sure know they can’t see me, yet on the same thought lines someone on the flight might be thinking they’re being watched from out of the window somewhere. I wonder what would be the actual number of them that have been my acquaintances for real and of those whom I've thought of without even knowing them! To that matter I must have thought of people across the world without actually knowing them by just watching out of the window. Isn’t this amazing?

In many movies (typically known as Bollywood or Tollywood) we see, how the girl in the lead goes round and round in search of her guy who is actually in the close proximity but doesn’t find him until she reaches a point that the director has already decided and arranged for their meet up. There is so much tension built up among the audience who do not know if the girl and the guy would even succeed in meeting until then since they get to see what the girl in the movie does not.

In real life too, this seems to happen quite often not necessarily between family members, friends and close acquaintances by the courtesy of the cell phone communication but between the friends, co-workers or even a spouse to be! The director of life, would have decided to arrange for the meet up at a particular time and until that time, we would be going on and on in the maze that he has set for us.

A future friend to be may be sitting next to you or loitering around in the neighborhood, not knowing that at some time in future (may vary from days, months to even years) he/she would turn out to be a very important person in your life and vice-versa!

However, watching out of the window is worthwhile since we have thought of that someone for real without actually knowing them even before they came into our lives!