My Recent Adventure

This time when I travelled, I decided to pen down my thoughts on a little notepad that I picked up from Hotel La Ville at Den Haag (The Hague), Netherlands my first destination. On reading it now, I realise most of my observations are pure entertainment and I think it might be worth me jotting them online as I am bound to lose this little notepad of mine. What brought me to Hague was a performance with ATMA dance; a company class and to be a member of the jury for the India Dance Battle organised by Korzo theatre the night before the performance. Being a part of the Jury was an experience! I sat with Renus, a famous tv dance judge/personality on Dutch television and Revanta Sarabhai (son of Mallika Sarabhai) and this is what I wrote about it in my notes
1/10/11 – “Its so ironical how recently in my last blog entry online, I spoke about finding the best in what you see, While judging the dance battle at Korzo, really challenged this view. How do you look for the best in pieces that have nothing to offer? Is it just dance that makes me so cynical? But even though I thought cynical, I spoke positive and I will never forget that worst Kuchipudi performance I’ve ever seen and had to speak about”
Our performance the next day went well with a lot of positive feedback. I think I went back to the Hotel and crashed so no notes! The next I’ve written is on the 3rd, the day I had the epic breakfast with Pauline! Oh my God! Can the two of us eat? That is an understatement! I also left for Amsterdam right after, so on my way this is what I scribbled.

3/10/11 – “Sitting on the double decked train to Amsterdam now, obviously I had to go sit right on top, no matter how heavy my luggage is. I love these trains, the last time I sat on one was in Paris. Hague was absolutely gorgeous. The weather was perfect. The women and men are so tall and fit it’s amazing. This morning I had the best breakfast ever. I had three soft, warm, crispy croissants; the most I’ve had in one go (Dutch bakers = sensational); freshly cut juicy fruits with thick creamy yogurt and crunchy granola and nice hot green tea to flush it down my system. I also remember having some chocolate butter and crispy bread. Don’t ask me the order it’s all in my stomach somewhere. This is called holiday binging. I woke up this morning feeling quite low and tired but I think the breakfast and the trains have really energised me now and I’m getting excited about getting into Amsterdam soon.”

On 3rd evening I met Beatriz, a friend’s friend, Spanish and living in Amsterdam and ate Thai food for dinner. Talk about global. Beatriz and I hit it off instantly, she’s as indecisive as me and she doesn’t plan anymore either. What was similar in our lives is that we put in or at least tried to put in a lot of energy into our plans, but plans always ditched us and hence we were forced to leave things to time. Our lives tend to have a greater control over us than we do. And that’s our story. I also met two beautiful Californian girls who I shared a room with, in a hostel in Amsterdam. They usually seemed quite blissfully unaware of their surroundings and spoke about their other friends like a story straight out of an American teen high school movie. My! Were they scandalised by the red light district or what? I heard no end of it, but it was really fun hanging out with them. They were quite happy go lucky which is always great.

4/10/11 – “OMG, I can’t believe I spent two fabulous days in Amsterdam, I have to write all about it, although I don’t know If I’ll be able to do it justice. I’ll start with the carnival I happen to see by chance as I made my exit from the Van Gogh Museum, which was amazing too, but yes the carnival was juicier! I was so delighted to see how comfortable all the gay, transsexuals, drags were in their skin. They gave me such incredible eye contact that it made me think whether I was alien? Their territory was evident. The costumes were so creative and colourful, the drummers were dramatic, themes were daring, dancers were happy and confident. I just had such a great time!”
It’s interesting to see how the residents of Amsterdam take so much pride in their city while the tourists are just the exact opposite. They seem to have no respect for the city and throw garbage and puke everywhere. Most of the tourists seem to be young boys and girls trying to get laid or smoke up legally at a coffee shop. So discovering Amsterdam is out of their agenda.
I absolutely loved it though, it was so easy to make friends in that city and also the fact it’s so liberal. I went to a souvenir shop to try dutch chocolate (you know like Belgian chocolates) and he offered me a cannabis lolly! I also saw ‘Want sex? Just Smile’ key chains and ‘Why drink and drive when you can smoke and fly’ tshirts! I loved the canals and the tilted houses. The cyclists are manic but it’s a much greener option than cars.

4/10/11 (late night) – “My definition of Amsterdam – think water water everywhere but not the kind you would drink. Now replace water with sex and drugs. You get the idea. Anyway my flights about to land in Madrid, can’t wait to get there!”


In Madrid I stayed with my gorgeous friend Mudra, who lived quite centrally so everything was walking distance. I walked it to Museo Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, that museum is just beautiful. Along with the architecture of the new and the old buildings, the earlier works of Picasso were just fascinating. If you ever get there, go on the terrace of the new building. The atmosphere is a juxtaposition of the bustling city and absolute peace; I actually didn’t want to leave! I would go back to Madrid just for that museum.

5/10/11 – “Right now, sitting literally on the street in a cafe outside Reina Sofia, eating patatas bravas (potatoes in tomato sauce) for lunch, the only vegetarian option in the menu. Why does everybody in Europe only eat bread, meat and cheese?”
“People assume I’m Spanish, so they refuse to talk to me in any other language. Even after I ask them ‘hablas englis?’ i.e. do you speak English? One of them even said ‘Si’ i.e. yes and continued to talk to me in Spanish! Maybe she thought I was testing her or maybe she thought I’m a snobbish Spaniard who likes to talk in English in her own country! Whatever next time I’m going to try and change my appearance in some way so I look like a tourist or maybe I’ll just learn some Spanish before I go!”
At the cafe before I ordered my famous patatas I had another language tug-a-war with the waiter. ‘No Español?’ asked the waiter and started speaking in fluent French to which I was again gob smacked. ‘No Français?’ ‘No’ I said with a really dull face. ‘No Englis either?’ he said to which I snapped ‘Si Englis si englis si englis!’ and he called one of the younger waiters who knew English to converse with me.
I realised that day I didn’t want to be a tourist. I felt us tourists are so superficial. We go to different countries and touch the surface by sightseeing, museum hopping, eating at restaurants and leaving, but what do we learn? Nothing we haven’t read in guide books already. I want to learn the language and live like the locals do, experience it from inside, even if it’s only for a week. That’s my resolution for my next travel.

I think after the previous entry I became slightly lazy about writing in my little notepad, so for the remaining part of the holiday I’m going to continue writing out of memory. So what is it that I remember the most about Madrid? Oh yeah, they can party, and I mean all day all night party. There are some really arty funky areas in Madrid with streets made of stone, that was aesthetically pleasing. I also loved this sweet shop I ate Spanish sweets from in Sol. I bought Spanish trousers with a ‘made in India’ label, seems like they’re outsourcing as well. I saw Palacio Real, Almudena cathedral and shopped at Gran Via. I loved walking and the last few times I made my way back to Mudra’s place without a map, which was great considering the number of times I got lost, which also is fun. This actually reminds me of an interesting article I read in travel magazine. It read –

Anyone who is constantly travelling is always somewhere else and therefore always absent. There is however one place where you are constantly, all the time, namely yourself. And no matter how simple that sounds it does take a long time before you become fully aware of this.
Excerpt from Nomads Hotel – travels in time and space by Cees Nooteboom.

Angry? who me?

Its been just so long since I last wrote that I feel like writing for the sake of writing. There is absolutely so much I want to talk about that I don't know where to begin. Ok lets start here, today I met a friend and as we ate lunch together surprisingly we spoke about spirituality. He seemed nice and kept a straight face at all the spiritual gibberish I spoke about, which I was not expecting! Anyway I was asked if I ever get angry, which not many ask me and come to think of it, I cant even remember the last time I got angry! Not even at my flatmate who yells on the phone at 5 in the morning, puts her clothes in for a wash at 11 at night and always complains and shouts about everything. She amuses me! I love crazy people, being around them can determine who you really are, just by the judgements of your own reactions.

As all my theories are based on observation and analysis, I really want to reason out and maybe think aloud what my thought process really is. Why don't people piss me off? Why do I end up empathising with them to reason out why they behave the way they did and give them the benefit of doubt?

Maybe I empathise because sometimes I feel I've been there (even when I haven't) but I have made mistakes in the past and mistakes are the most amazing things in this world. They teach you like no other.
Sometimes I think Its about finding the best in people, no matter how horrible they seem everyone has their positives, and everyone deserves to be known by their positives.

Or maybe, its just because i don't have any expectations of them? so whatever they do it doesn't change any of my pre judged ideas, because i dont have any. I've noticed change angers people. That merely happens because we are attached to the previous situation. If only we learn to let go of the previous and welcome and accept change we can be at peace with ourselves.

If the situation involves ignorance, I find myself saying to my self 'Oh my God, Bless them! I hope they can forgive themselves for their own behaviour when they do become aware of the act.'

Sometimes I think its Karma - If they do wrong, wrong will happen with them, so why bother getting angry anyway. Poetic Justice is a beautiful thing. You may call me a sadist but I love it when I see nature's justice happening on its own. Why should I get my hands dirty in getting angry and teaching them a lesson? I think the universe or God or the one above us or whatever else you may call it, is much smarter than us. Trying to teach someone a lesson is a responsibility. I always talk about helping others and how one should give a part of themselves to others for their benefit. But in this situation, it may imply I'm confronting them, asking them to deal with something which is outside their comfort zone? Wouldn't that hurt them even more? Why should I be responsible for that? People eventually learn from their own experiences. So let them be.

But its not only people that make us angry. Its usually situations that make them do what they do and everyone deserves a chance to be forgiven. How do you forgive a situation? Now thats a really really long topic on its own. It would definitely bore you out! The gist of it according to me would be to accept the anger creating situation. Most things are beyond your control for a reason and the reason will be clear when the time is right. So dont push it. Keep calm and carry on, a quote created during World War II, still apt in the world of today.

Should we really waste our time getting angry when you can have it all with peace, love and happiness?

Like in dance or any other physical activity breath is the backbone not for survival but for its development, to be able to do more and to take the movement to an even better physical state. In life, peace is responsible not for survival but for the development of the soul. There is no place for anger.

Dance Review Feature - May 2011

one circle

In happiness with dance, in dance with love, in love with peace, in peace with self, in self with creation, in creation with life, in life with happiness, in happiness with dance ..

My circle of life, a state of being.

A Birthday Wish

Today is my birthday and I'm six years old..
Okay i didn't really complete that sentence, today is my birthday and I'm six years older than twenty. Although i wish i was just six years old, running around a cake and goodies clad dining table, in a pretty pink frock playing treasure hunt and dancing statues with my friends. But I'm not, and that's because everyone grows up, making a lot of people trying their best to defy their ages in the process, I don't really understand why. Everyone goes through all the numbers from 1 to 80 - 90 maybe even more, and each number is just too special to hide from others!

As children we get conditioned every year by the gifts we receive, the parties our parents throw, the attention we get from our friends, that its OUR day. We deserve to be pampered! After all its the day when we came to life and since we are all so unique and special, we need to celebrate ourselves. So I am that I am, I'll spend plenty on shopping for myself, Ill make a wish list for myself, have a cake and eat it too, call friends to share my happiness! Some people think it is another year to cherish our lives, as we have lived it by defying death. So is that why we celebrate our birthdays? I love what Sam Vaknin, an iconoclastic columnist (according to twitter), has to say about birthdays - "Birthdays are expressions of unbridled, blind faith in our own suspended mortality" - Its like an achievement, and a very narcissistic one.


So then, why do we celebrate our birthdays? To mark an end to our previous year? Or to start the beginning of a new fruitful year? Or Is birthday that day of the year which isn't a part of either the past or the future? If that is so, what can we really do to make this the most beautiful day. Why did the universe contrive for us to be born on this special day anyway? What can we do for it, to be grateful, if at all? At this point, the reasons get subjective. For me it starts with writing this post, being aware, a general feeling of giving a bit of yourself away for the benefit of this world, the planet, its people. You might be thinking, 'oh I could put some money into charity' or 'be nice to people you dislike' or 'donate and not waste food'. But one doesn't need to do things that are considered as kindness by society, it really is how you feel within and whatever makes it, lets try and do it on our birthday!

I have to admit, what I've written is just a seed for my soul, I cant say I'm there yet completely, but i really hope that soon i will celebrate a whole hearted, selfless birthday. Peace. Love. Happiness.

Social Disqualification or Steady Wisdom?

More than a year ago when all hell broke lose in my life I decided to bring about some changes in it. Weird as those changes were they made me extremely unsocial, and I had no idea that would be the case. Firstly, I decided to give up non vegetarian food, so when friends decided to go to a kabab place or even Edgeware road to have kababs and sheesha I usually made silly excuses not to join them. Secondly, I decided that no alcohol or any other intoxicating substances would ever enter my self worshiped body. That meant no pubs after work or late Saturday nights. Lastly as insane as I was, I became vegan and a health freak. So no milk and milk products, eggs or even cooked food! Yeah I survived on raw salads for atleast ten months (not anymore thankfully!) and eating out was always a blunder at that time. So yes I made life very hard for myself and forced the beast out of me. It costed me most parties, social gatherings and funny remarks like "are you planning to kill yourself?" Or "are you sick?" or " do you have an eating disorder?" oh this ones the best "are you detoxing your life?" I had no intentions to explain myself coz I wasn't in the frame of mind, however I believed i needed it. So becoming a total social disaster I carried on. Just a week ago I read this and I couldn't help not sharing this with you all on my blog, as now I do have an answer.


Arjuna asks lord Krishna:
What is the definition of a man of steady wisdom?

Keshava (lord krishna) replies:
When a man gives up all desires of the mind and himself delights in his self, then he said to be a man of steady wisdom
He who is unperturbed in misery and free from desires amidst pleasures, who is devoid of all attachment, fear and anger, that sage is said to be of steady wisdom.
He who is free from affection everywhere, and who neither welcomes or hates good or evils has steady wisdom.
The one who sits in meditation, has self control on his senses has steady wisdom as for a person thinking of sense-objects grows an attachment for them; attachment arises desire; desire results in anger; from anger comes delusion; delusion results confusion of memory which further destroys intelligence and hence the man perishes!

Lastly, for an uncontrolled person there is no knowledge and meditation, and for the unmeditative person there is no peace, and if there is no peace how can there be any happiness?


Text from Shrimad Bhagwad Gita


So that brings us back to my story, I took those drastic steps to save myself from getting perished! It also makes you realise that there is such a fine line between pleasure and pain, as something that was so painful for me just last year has now become my strength. It really is all in the mind. Peace.

A way of life

I think I'm one of those creatures who is absolutely obsessed with the concept of life and how it works. How things always happen for a reason and how everything is circular, in motion (earth rotates and revolves); in philosophies (what goes around comes around); in nature (water cycle); in religion (cycle of birth, rebirth and death) and in various systems and subsystems. As a teenager my sis couldn't help notice how I loved circular things (concentric circular earrings, spiral prints on my tshirts, kurtas and everything i owned, bangles etc) and thought i was a circle freak! its weird but when im about to sleep i feel the insides of my head moving in circles and when I close my eyes for a long time i see polka dots! I'm sure lots of people do but not many people ponder on it as much as I am right now. Unless of course you are Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, whose paintings i happen to see in Museum of Modern Art, New York (http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=3315) Paintings are fantastic and minimalistic and i connected with them immediately, which is why i remembered them even now. But what scares me is that she has a history of mental illness and hallucinations! Does that really make me freak?! i hope not!
Coming back to circles, i don't care much about the human made traditions but a ring is circular, isn't it? A zero is circular (which im very proud to say was invented by Indian scholars) So many times we get caught up in viscous circles, its just feels like a whole way of life.

Anyway, going on about life and its systems (and subsystems) I love finding metaphors in stupid little routine and non routine things and link it with the cosmos of life. It can get really silly at times like i was playing Touch hockey on my phone the other day (its a free app btw) and every time i would hit the disk with too much force it would bounce back and slide into my goal and every time i stayed calm and protected the entry of my goal i would score. you know what I'm getting at. It can get really annoying, but very interesting at times. Its like the concepts are the same but applied differently in different systems. For instance in trees, there is the big bossy Banyan tree who definitely provides shelter and preserves tradition but also doesn't allow other plants to grow under it as it blocks the sunlight, on the other hand there is the Neem tree, every part of it is medicinal in many ways and others like the Cherry tree, that grow lovely white flowers and look only beautiful. So you can see what I'm trying to get at. I guess everybody has a different way of analysing their lives. Some people tolerate it, some take it as it comes, some absolutely love it, some really look forward to it and some who think too much analyse it like i do!
At the moment I'm talking about life so generously, is because i absolutely love it and I am actually quite pleased of the fact that my happiness has come from within and not derived from a person, a new commodity or status or something.
Alright I'm quite bored of typing and staring at the screen now so I'm going to end this quite abruptly. What was this entry about? no idea! i just love talking about life in case you haven't noticed already!