Para~Para~Paradise

On the insistence of a very dear friend, I sat down to write this blog. Incidentally, what was playing in the background was Paradise..

And the word got me thinking.

Ever since I moved to Bangalore, I have been doing brilliant justice to the word 'cribfest'. Everything just jetstarts me into cribbing, be it the place or the people or my job or my love life. Or something as ridiculous as the water having a different taste, or the air smelling weird or the waiter not serving on me well or the rat in my bedroom. Good Lord, I have even cribbed about being alive.

I remember a very special friend once telling me, 'Tumpa, I know you can handle this better'. But I rubbished him off, and actually got pissed at him for daring to try and venture me into the very unpleasant and uncomfortable zone of introspection. But in retrospection, I know he was right.

As I am writing this, I am thinking, someone will look at me and say, 'wow, her life is ideal'. I am working in a world renowned company, earning what 'should' be enough money for a single person with absolutely no liabilities, living with friends, with great family support. Hell, where is the trouble?!

Day before yesterday, I was speaking to a co-inhabitant of the earth(attempt to not let the world trace who she is :) ), who is really unwell - is pregnant, has back problems, family problems, BIG time family problems - so much so that she prefers coming to office over lying in her bed at home inspite of not being able to sit up straight for more than 15 minutes at a stretch. You see her, she will still greet you with the biggest and warmest smile ever, which is so genuine that it truly melts your heart. Speaking with her made me feel small. So small.

I just had to ask her, where she derived her energy from. And her answer astounded me, she simply said, 'Tumpa, these problems will come and hopefully go, lifelong. What won't come again is this moment with you. Why should I kill it?'

And that summed it up for me. It was, in a way, my favourite song, Kal Ho Na Ho, (and it's not a favourite just because it's Shah Rukh's song) being rephrased.

It is important, no, not just important, but essential for us to be able to see and extract the joys in the everyday, mundane things of life. To know that the going will always have it's tough moments. It'll either be a boss or a salary that isn't enough or a mom-in-law that is making life hell or a stomach that is bulging out or a boyfriend who isn't receiving calls. Or something graver. Like a shirt that used to fit so well, but is tight around the arms now :)

I just know, I don't want to look back and think, 'yeah, he was right.. I could have lived it better'.

Starting now, I'll try.

Paradise is nowhere but here. Not sometime else but now.
Because, 'Kya pata, Kal Ho Na Ho'.