I missed few days here on this blog

I have been busy lately and have failed to update this page. This post includes things I did last friday and saturday.

Friday: 

I was too busy with office work, but still took some time out and went out with my sister. We did all the chindi shopping. Ghar ate ate das baj gaye.

Few cupcakes from display which we had..Yummmm

Saturday:

We had our office party named 'Atos Utsav 2013' with theme 'Mumbai Meri Jaan'. This day I consider to be one of a milestone or a breakthrough in my life. Why? Well on this day I went out for the first time with my prosthesis without cosmetic covering. I am a very proud owner of a microprocessor based knee but I was always scared to display it. Scared that if someone comes to know of my disability, then they will unnecessarily take advantage of it, esp thieves. Scared of people's reaction towards disability and its perceptions. 

The other day when I wrote about Invisibility Cloak, I thought even my prosthesis wears that cloak, why not remove it and see it myself. You wont believe how I felt. I felt like I had wings to fly. I was confident from the moment i wore it. I knew that this was one way how I could break open from my shackles/restraints and I did it. I had a 'terminator' look sprinkled with little sweetness. I definitely got many stares ( Which I ignored :D). It was very difficult for a shy person like me to go in a public place without a cosmetic covering and that too in a party. How did I manage?

1) My prosthesis looks very good in itself and it does not need a covering to hide its beauty,

2) I thought that If I can go out in public on my crutches, why cannot I go w/o a cover,

3) I dont know how could I have managed without support of my friends.

But I want to write about a few things that kept me wondering. When I wore shorts, I felt some strange vibes from people. I felt that they felt I was showing off my leg. Well nobody said that in exact words but a few people tried to make me feel comfortable(which i never needed) by saying that 'at first people will feel that you are showing off, will feel that if you have disability, its understandable but there is no need to openly display it in front of everyone. But at some point of time will get used to it.' I was shocked to hear such things from them. I felt that what they told me to comfort, were actually things they wanted to tell me. Then I felt that many people would have felt the same when they saw me. I feel sad for them. Well you are educated but you lack a thing called as feelings. I do not ( and never have) seek sympathy. All I need is free will to express -> Independence. If I show off or display my prosthetic, what is the problem? Every other female there were showing their well toned bodies. No one cares who wears what, then why was I suddenly made a topic of discussion? Why was me wearing shorts(they were very decent and in no way I was breaking any code of display) and displaying my prosthesis a big deal? Its my thing, my leg. We as Indians have a lot to grow and a lot to accept.

I want to make this world see all forms of humans, able and disabled both. Beautiful and ugly too. This is how life is here and everyone needs to accept it. Neither you can change your present nor your future, then why is there so much hype about 'change'? I wish people get so used to disability that at the end, a person's heart is what they see. I wish to see such change in the world. I am sure that is going to happen in near future. 

I Enjoyed a lot at the event and things turned out to be in my favour everytime. I did face some unwanted stares but I accepted them. At one time I got angry and asked a person not to stare ;) ( This is how I have learnt to deal with them). But in all I had fun. I wrote these thing little late because my perception about things changed daily. The day this event occurred, my mind had nothing but bliss. I felt content and happy. Suddenly my invisibility cloak was lifted and a new me came into picture. My ideas changed after a few pics of mine got posted on facebook and I started getting comments on my beautiful leg and others's perceptions.

I also want to tell you all one thing, people do have a power to change the state of your mind and  they will keep on saying things coz they dont know you. You just need to associate yourself with people that inspire you, people that help you rise higher in ideas and life, people that make you a better human. You need to ignore those people that are not adding to your growth. Because for you, your journey is more important then people itself.

BTW check out my snaps at the event.

With my Dear friend

Foodies

After this utsav thing, I am suddenly excited and do one new thing daily. Like I go for drives, I work late night, I go out to eat, meet friends, do diwali cleaning (uff thakawat bhara kaam), and one day I gave a rose to a rickshawala as I did not have two rupees as change to pay him.  But I have been too busy lately to even update this page. You can inbox me to know new stuff that I did. Till then take care.

Day Ten : Tan tana tan tan tan tara..

I have given this title just because I finished hearing this song..
Tan tana tan tan tan tara..
(in slow voice- Tan tana tan tan tan tara..)
chalti hai kya nau se baara...

Yesterday my sister told me a sentence and I kept thinking abt it for very long. She said that happiness is just a phase, otherwise we are all frustrated in our day today life. Yes, isnt it true? I felt it is true. Once there was a time when I had nothing, no tension, no frustration, no aim and thus happiness (Yes I was a kid at that time :P) Now, once you start having some aims, you get frustrated on not reaching them, if reached, then frustrated about future; college -> job tension ; job -> excellence and performance tension ; excelled then marriage tension ; married -> tension hi tension, bacche nahi hue toh na hone ka tension, bacche ho gaye toh unhi bacchon ka tension, health ka tension, family, friends ka tension. Budddhe ho gaye utne tension mein. Buddhe hone pe affection na milne ka tension, affection mila toh bimari ka tension and fir marne ka ya na marne ka tension..tension hi tension....baabbaa re..

How do you end this tension circle? I have no idea. Do you?

One more thing i realized yesterday. When I had nothing to do yesterday, I was frustrated. But when I keep myself busy, I get a lot of time. This is so weird  When you have a lot of time and are lazy, you feel that you have no time. But when you are busy and ideally have no time, you end up having extra time. Yesterday my routine made me its slave and being enslaved was what I was talking about when I started this mission. One thing I will tell you, being busy is a very difficult task..maan na padega busy logon ko.

From past many months, I am wearing this invisibility cloak and am trying to be invisible. I am taking no effort to be the real me ('an ass' and 'fun').I believe you should be an ass and should give others hard time intentionally and make them understand the real importance of yourself.(Currently, invisibility is my superpower) In Harry Potter books, cloak of invisibility was used to remain invisible or hide from danger. There was this deathly hallows denoted by triangle and invisibility cloak was used to hide from death too..lets leave the legend behind the cloak and come to a point. What I am saying is that I am just being invisible or I am camouflaging according to my surrounding and getting mixed. Why am I not being me? What is stopping me from putting forward my points? I should rather be a Bitch then a Bechari. It never takes extra effort to be yourself. because at the end, effort is what matters.

Whatever I wrote above was pure crap. Not at all related to my task. If you ask me Manasi, what new did you do today? I would say 'baby today I did one new thing'. Today i drove my scooter on my own without anyone sitting on the pillion. Yey. And I kept singing one of my fav. song: 

Apne jigar ko tham a ke baitho, apne jigar ko THAAM a ke baitho'
Ke,
Bandhi Kamariya pe saadi, ki aayi aab Aunty ki baari..
hey Aunty no. 1..Aunty no. 1.

And when I got home, my dad had bought new shoes for my Seeta-Geeta. Yeah, I have given my crutches names. The one on my Right is Seeta and the one on my left is Geeta. Now I will not slip unnecessarily because of them.

Mere Seeta Geeta

Their new Shoes.

And thus they  say 

वासांसि जीर्णानि यथा विहाय 
नवानि गृह्णाति नरो पराणि 
तथा शरीराणि विहाय जीर्णा -
न्यन्यानि संयाति नवानि देही||

Like we change clothes, the aatma or soul changes body and my Seeta-Geeta changed their shoes. After 3 days I did something worth writing. phew.

Dat Eight and Day nine : I fear such days

When I started with this assignments, I used to have those days where I would do nothing worth remembering(and now worth writing). I had same experience yesterday and I learnt nothing from it and it continued today too.

BORED.

How do people get energy to do things when they dont want to do anything? It is so difficult to do nothing because you never know when you are finished. Such were the days I would fear the most when I took up this task, 'one new thing a day'. What did I do today? I did nothing.

But now I promise myself and will follow my own lead and do regular things plus something extra. I am sure tomorrow I will have something nice to tell you all.

Day Seven : Nothing new

Ahhh...khoon chus ne aaya khoony monday.

We office goers hate monday and I am no exception. Today my day started on a funny note, I thought I had my afternoon shift so I logged in late but then I came to know that I had my normal shift. I am sure my TL would have been furious. haha

Even after signing this pact where I would do one new thing apart form old ordinary things, I could not do anything new today.
All I did was Yoga for an hour.
I am sure till Diwali, I will not have new things. Also what I did today was cleaning. Last time wale gamche and phatke chod diye. Aaj ek naya hathiyar mila :- Harpic and Jhadoo(they call it Kharata in marathi and Saaveno in Gujarati). Subah subah bathroom-toilet ki safai pe lag gayi. 
Now I know why females get excited on seeing Hussain.

Day Six: Dassera

Today I had my shift where I had to be in the office. I logged in from home and later on in the afternoon came to know that there was no work left. The very moment I signed off and did what I wanted.

Today Dussera and navmi was falls on the same day. We keep garba and my mother worships it for nine days. Usually in the evenings, we do prayers and sing garba songs for mother goddess. So today we did our prayers, garba songs and then offered our prayers for the last time. My mother had cooked delicious meal and my fav. - Churma ke laddoo. I hadd two big laddoos. ( I could have had more, but I couldnt keep my hands off other delicacies too. ) and lots of other sweets. ( My mom fasted for 9 days and lost a lot of weight and I gained utna hi)

I have been always excited about Dussera. When I used to stay in Vashi, we would give everyone 'sonya che paan' or 'sone ke patte' . These leaves look likes two hearts strategically placed and molded into one. Wehenever someone would give me a leaf, I would keep it in safe place. I still have old sone ke patte esp. ones given to me in college and also few that I had got in Pune. I do not remember who gave me which, but I have kept it. (I am a keeper :D). Always for Dussera, my dad would bring Jalebies (Which were replaced by 'Ghevars' on popular demands of us kids) and gaanthiya. And we kids would wash our car, scooter, cycle(we would touch our cycle only on Dusserra) and then we would do puja, tie garlands and stuff.

This year nothing of these above mentioned things happened. No sona ke patte; no jalebie, gehvars and gaanthiya ; and no puja too (everyone else did, I did not). 

But this year I did what I do every year without fail:- go for Ram leela and Raavan Dahan at  Godavari grounds. The fireworks(which I call as Aatishbaazi) that they put up are exotic. I love the live commentary of one uncle too.

- Yeh dekho Hawaiian Masala ;

- Yeh hai Jaadu ka nasha;

- Yeh gaya Kamra ka pin;

-Woh gaya apna Bengal tiger.

His commentary would make us enjoy the aatishbaazi show even more.

This year we enjoyed the show by sitting on my fav. bench(one of the very few benches with back support).

We clicked some pictures and almost all pics are captured by my photographer friend Ankita.

Day Five : Timepass

My friends had come from Pune in the morning. Did a lot of timepass with them. Relived old memories of my old city and current project.

In the eve, I went to my friends place for haldi-kumkum. Her mother had made special golu for navratri where they place dolls on steps. There are themes for doll arrangement and they look fab.One of the picture I have shared here.

Day well spent with old friends. Dont know what more to write. 

Step arrangements of golu

Day four : 11 Oct 2013 : TGIF

Today I had a holiday. Yey. I had a fantastic day. Muaah.

I skipped yoga in the morning and cleaned my living room instead. Worth it. Diwali cleaning has begun and are in full swing at my place and my mother is leaving no stone unturned this time. She saw me free and gave me a 'phatka' and 'gamcha' and a very dirty living area..thaka hi daala. Mere do  anmol hathiyar, ek hai hai phatka, ek gamcha..phatka....gamcha...(This is me after watching Ram Lakhan movie in the morning, rum pum pum rum um pum rum pum pum pum one two ka four, four two ka one..my name is Lakhan, sajno ka sajan..mera naam hai Lakhan..Eye ji...).

Afternoon was well spent watching Television. I loved 'tu mere agal bagal hai, mein tere agal bagal hu' which when translated gives hilarious answer - 'you are near(or next to) my armpit, I am near (or next to) your armpit' .Eww I know..Also be for beimann, she for shaitan, rum peeke hum BESHERAM. Kuch bhi gaane bante hai aaj kal..

From 4-6, I played my fav. BADMINTON...*swosh swosh jor daar seeti* This was the best part of the day. Our game was later stopped due to rain ;) and we had to rush home. 

I face one problem while playing, that I do not trust my prosthetic and thus dont cover the whole court. Whenever I put my body weight on my prosthetic limb, I feel I lose my balance and I feel that I may fall. Also my socket is not airtight. some air seeps in and I feel like my leg is going to come off. It usually does come off. Now I have to go to my prosthetist soon to fix these issues. 

But whatsoever, I love this game Badminton and will play even on a wheel-chair.

Then comes the evening: Yesterday Sudha Chandran had come to my colony to perform for Durga puja. I never knew abt this or I would have gone to see a legend dance. Nervermind, I went for Puja today.

The pandal was so beautifully decorated and the theme was Jamini Roy's paintings. The whole area is decorated with replicas of Jamini Roy. I love her paintings esp the way she narrates the feelings by painting big eyes. Those eyes are simple yet speaks thousand words. Mashaallah. Well decorated pandal.

One of the decoration at Pandal

The whole sthapana  of Maa at Old community Centre

Jai Maa Durga

An hour later, GARBA. 'ayee halo halo..I am writing this blog after coming from garba. Tired and exhausted

.

Garba and Mandir at Shiv temple

Me anf my mother enjoying Garba

Zeal and enthusiasm of them filled me with positivity

So to conclude, this 'one new task a day' is making me do more then one task a day and I feel I am glowing already. I have already started with cleaning for Diwali and regular yoga and now Badminton (hope I play more) and Navratri with Garba is an icing on this cake. I hope at the end of one month I have some great memories too.

Day Three : 10 Oct 2013 : Aaj khana banaungi

Hello all,

My sister loves the way i experiment with food. So in her absence, I cooked dinner for all of us.

Nupur I am missing you already and you surely missed todays' meal.

Day Two : 9 Oct 2013 : Aaj Bhindi khareedungi!

Yesterday I had given myself a task to change my daily routine. So for that I had promised myself to do atleast one thing a day that I don't do daily. I started off by writing a blog as a journal.

As this is a start of my assignment, I am too excited to do a lot of things in a day. So I started my day with Yoga which I did for one hour (This includes warm up, pranayam, few asanas and meditation). During my yoga I also did few ab crunches which I don't do often and did few standing exercises and asanas. 

In the evening, I went for a walk for an hour and sat on the newly installed bench at the fountain near Almora building. Whenever I would pass by that bench, I would always have this curiosity to sit on it. (bright Yellow and Red attracted me). I sat on that bench and funniest thing that i did was, I meditated sitting atop it on the middle of the road during peak hours. Hahaha.. I am still laughing at myself for doing this. Bahut maaza aaya esp meditation karke. 

I wish someone had clicked a pic so that I would have posted it here. 

Now comes  the best part of the day.

After reaching home, I went to Sabji mandi at Sahyadri building. We (myself, my mother and my father) reached vegetable market and selected a few veggies. I was buying fruits when fruit seller said 'behanji taste karo, ekdam taaze hai' I had to eat the whole fruit in front of every one. Person selling corn said 'taste karo madam, meethe hai' and I had to eat thoda corn..Also had peanuts there on the same note.

(feeling full already)

Sabji market at Sahyadri building

People were kind enough and allowed me to click a few pics one of which I have shared here.

I had a very nice day where I did meditation in the middle of the road and a trip to vegetable market ended my day at a very good note. Hope I have something exciting to write abt tomorrow too.

Experiment No. 1: To change the daily routine.

Aim: 

To indulge in activities on daily basis to change the normal lifestyle and daily routine.

Materials required:

1) Strong will power;

2) Inspiration;

3) New ideas (most difficult);

4) Most importantly time from this routine.

Procedure:

Some will say that they are their own kings, they control themselves. But I feel ekdam ulta. I feel I am my own slave.

I have developed a very bad routine that I myself do not find time to do things that I love. I do everything in pattern. At whatever time I get up, I leave for work at 9. I follow routine even in office.My real presence in office is known when I swipe my card. I am a slave in office. First I check my mailbox, then my IMS cases and then I will login with BPS and get access to database. After that I will solve all issues and by the time I am free ( that is usually by 11), I adjust my prosthesis (daily). I  reply mails if any and then get back to work. Then I go for lunch, read papers, go for tea from 4-5 (usually) and then leave my office premises. When I leave office building, I go and find rickshaws. And there what I find: I find same rickshawalas at a particular time. I mean they also follow their own pattern. These rickshawalas also know my pattern now. When I reach home, I turn on my wi-fi and check messages on my phone, reply, have dinner, watch TV and go to sleep.
Everyday in the morning I find same set of people, I find same set of people in the evening. I see same set of people in office and I react to every situation in a particular way. My wish also has a particular pattern in a day. My face has a particular expression in different time of the day.

I am so used to my routine that I am addicted to it. I just cannot change. I cannot actually adapt to changes. I have become my own slave. And I have become such a slave of my daily routine that I get no time for recreation and stuff that I enjoy. I spend majority of my time doing office work.

So now I have given myself a task to do one thing that I don't do usually-daily for next 30 days. i.e. from Oct 08 2013 till Nov 08 2013.

I am going to note it down on this blog and  update it daily.

Things that I am going to do can range from climbing a hill to reading an article to as small as cleaning my table. One task one day is my new mantra.

Date 08-10-2013:

Task: Write blog

Observation and Conclusion:

One task a day will help me find a new ME and I may explore new avenues. There will be times when I will run out of ideas too. If you have any suggestions, you can inbox me. 

Why can't I be an Ordinary girl next door?

This is the Question I want to ask everyone reading my blog currently. Why cant I be a normal ordinary girl next door? Why do people have huge expectations from me? Cant I live my life the way I want? Why do you want me to be a role model who never makes mistakes? Why should I now be different and do things differently because somewhere someone is watching and getting influenced? Neither I am any leader, nor I am any social worker.

After my amputation everyone started telling me stories about how handicapped people can climb mountains and how they can compete in various types of sports. How a man lost one hand in a misfiring and learnt to fire with his another hand and thereafter also won some medal in Olympics. How one swimmer beat all odds and won in Olympics, How Oscar Pistorious runs with double amputation and competes with normal people. How Lance Armstrong beat cancer and won many Tour de France. How handicapped people can do cycling, running, swimming, play football, lift weights etc. Everyone focused on how people beat all odds and strive perfection through sports. I was shown a picture where everything was possible. And people who sat at home leading peaceful life were some sort of non-achievers. During Olympics, I would also watch Paralympic sports and would get inspired. I would dream of representing India in sports. I would dream of climbing the Everest and would dream of crossing the English Channel. Ha! dreams suddenly became too big I guess. Now I feel like laughing at my immaturity.

At that time nobody told me stories of people like me living a normal life, an ordinary life. People thought that those stories were not inspiring. Now Oscar Pistorious does not inspire me (Not because he killed his girlfriend but because I dont want to be like him). Lance Armstrong does not inspire me (Not because he doped, but because I dont want to beat anyone). I want to ask you all, Why you never showed me a picture of Stephen Hawking or Edison or Einstein or Beethoven or of Ravindra Jain? They all did marvelous things in their respective fields be it science or Music or Arts. These people were also disabled, they also beat their odds and performed with excellence. Why only sports was given importance in inspiring me? Why not science or arts?

Well This was about famous people who fought disability and became household names. But I am not at all talking about them.

I am talking about numerous people who led their lives with dignity and lead a Normal life. These should be people to be inspired from. I dont want to excel in sports or Science or music or any other field. I want to lead a normal life. I want to do what I used to do before. I dont want my disability to come in between anything. I want to socialise, want to go out with friends, fall in love, get married, do my job nicely, have kids, make plans about future, grow old and die. In all these stages, excellence in sports or science never comes into picture. These are the things I had dreamt of before and I dream now. I want to play Badminton, but dont want to become some sort of a champion in it. I never was and I dont want to be. Playing was always my hobby. Why suddenly it became my priority? These paralympic dreams are not for me. No doubt sport gives you strength and tells others that you are a winner. But the Question arises that do I really want to be a winner? No.

I want to lead an ordinary ordinary life where I can make my own mistakes, where I can decide on my own, where I can choose my field, where I can live a life without any inhibitions or priority, where I can be my own leader and be a social worker just for myself. I can be selfish, I can help whomsoever I want, I can walk on my own path and change it anytime I want. I can be indecisive and also can take my decisions. I want to learn, I want to cry, I want to swim and I want to fly. At the end I want to TRY.