Go Regret it!

Go regret it!

There is something about this song – “Kal ho na ho”…. I mean cmon I was just thinking about my next meeting with Obama and this song starts playing…

I mean you get the idea. Not sure how to feel about this but it takes me to a different world… Songs like these make me slow down, pause and step back a little and think..

This could have been better? 

Should I do this? 

Am I happy?

Songs like these make me look at my life as a whole… Just like a movie, flashbacks appear… and I see all familiar faces… and all those moments I hurried as if someone had let me lose in the rat race… yaar 3 idiots ka dialogue yaad aagaya – Life is a race… tez nai bhaagoge tho you will die…

But now when I look back… I only wonder… wish itna tez nai bhaaga hota … I would have enjoyed my early 20’s better, which I know will never come back… If you ask me what I did back then…. I can write a white paper on my projects and work and work trips…

My tiny mind now tells me… as kal ho na ho song plays in the background… Regret list is way too high…. The rat race had a price to pay…

And in the process of the rat race, breaking a promise has come naturally to me…

 “I will call you” ,

 “I will send over a gift” ,

 “I will meet you over weekend”…

 and that call, that gift and that meet never happened… Why? … because I was “Busy” …. 

Working and toiling in my office even over weekends… Back then indeed I have disappointed lot of people… I promise I thought I would get a  “Highly Busy” tattoo back in those days… but by Gods grace I am blessed with a loving family and friends who did ignore my busy phase and let me be…

I was so busy to even get married… I still remember whenever my parents would bring up the marriage topic I would give them the look as if they were planning to disown me… but how I wish I was married a little earlier… I would spend some quality time in my 20’s with my husband rather than with my laptop…

 well… husband is a better option than a laptop … wait let me think..

 yes yes surely he is a better option ;)

Well I was busy enough to learn to dance… well let me announce publicly… While the rest of the people scare away the traffic with their gravity defying dance moves in a ‘baraat’, I shuffle around nodding and smiling at relatives I last saw at stone age… even my mom and dad would jump in and do some real disturbing jig with kids half their age, but I just don’t have the rhythm to pull it off… the only and sole person who may come to understand my pain is my husband… yesssssssss…. He cant dance either… match made in heaven right… mereko bhi yehi laga when he first told me that he cant dance… and with tears in my eyes I told him just 2 words – “ I Understand”….

Anyways, this is just a superficial skimming of my regret bank. I haven’t even started  about the bigger skeletons in my cupboard which would need hours of coffee breaks…. I don’t even want to start them as my anti-depressant pills are over and I am not planning to buy any of them anytime soon…

Dont worry... its been 2 years and I have already walked down the lane i call - "Simplified Life"

So time to change the kal ho na ho track and go back to my million dollar question – Agenda for my meeting with Obama…

______________________________Rashmi(9^th July, 2014)

Missing Gravity

Missing Gravity...

When we hear this word gravity… we start thinking of that one apple that opened the eye of Newton and led him to create the great law of gravity…

 Imagine this world without gravity… we all would be sailing in directions we wouldn’t have control over… and reaching destinations we wouldn’t want to go…

Aimless living, isn't it?

I don’t know how to feel about this… to pen this down… but this is the exact feeling every time I have drifted away from Jesus… Suddenly life seems to go off track… Initially exciting, yes indeed… as I can do things so to say “my way” rather than “His way”… but in a very short time (most of the times) I get this feeling of “Missing gravity”…

Yes suddenly all strength inside is lost… strength to

- Ignore the slightest pain

- Love one another unconditionally

- Be happy in every instance knowing Jesus is in control

- Forgive with an open heart

But above all, the bliss of peace goes missing… yes peace that Jesus promised … peace that Jesus has… Peace that is there in midst of storm…

Jesus said – "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives”

Indeed this world has a different kind of "peace" to offer... and that comes with an expiry date... But peace that Jesus gives is eternal :)

yes sounds funny how can there be peace and joy when things aren’t going our way… but that’s the exact miraculous peace we feel when we let Jesus by our side and let Him take control of our lives…

and the moment we try to take the control all we will experience is – “Missing Gravity”….

_____________________________Rashmi(7^th July, 2014)

You Love us Anyway

You Love us Anyway…

Every year as this day comes by,
The day of Your birth,
So many questions make me sigh,
Were we worthy of your death?

And despite our selfish way,
You love us anyway,
This one truth will surpass every doubt,
Yes, that You love us anyway…

Each day to become worldly,
So many reasons we find,
But one glance at the cross,
Gives us zillion reasons to rewind…

And despite our selfish way,
You love us anyway,
This one truth will surpass every doubt,
Yes, that You love us anyway…

You were guilty and ashamed,
For the things you did not do,
How much more we need to be,
Guilty…For the things we do…

And despite our selfish way,
You love us anyway,
This one truth will surpass every doubt,
Yes, that You love us anyway…

You bore our shame,
You died the death we deserved,
And now we know,
What is grace all about…

And despite our selfish way,
You love us anyway,
This one truth will surpass every doubt,
Yes, that you love us anyway…

We do not have room for pride,
Of any kind to live,
“It is Finished”, when you cried…
It was only you who paid our price...

And despite our selfish way,
You chose to die for us,
This one truth will surpass every doubt,
Yes, that you love us anyway…

____________________________Rashmi(12th December, 2013)

Simple Traditions – How wonderful

Simple Traditions – How wonderful…

Today after ages, talking to a friend made me feel at home… Felt like ok what I was thinking until now wasn’t wrong… 

Yes we live in this era of yes the world is changing… and we too need to change… But seriously we have stopped evaluating if change is worth it or not…

At times while you are surrounded in a world where you need to justify what enjoyment is all about… You need to give an account of how you spend your long weekend or weekends to all…. Write down about where you are, what you are doing, how you feel about things, uploading picture s so that all believe you are at a particular place…. Yes a facebook era… Everyone’s personal journal for today…

What we have lost in our lives are – Simple family traditions and how wonderful they are… Well if you ask me a simple tradition that my mom always did was give me a choco bar ice cream every Sunday post lunch…. Might sound silly today but I can’t tell you how much I used to wait for Sundays for that ice cream… Similarly there are list of things my mom used to do which had become a part of our simple personal family tradition….

Now that I am married… Me and Samit spend exclusive time with each other… God has blessed him with work from home option and I know it’s a temporary blessing… But rather than taking this for granted we spend lot of time together…. Talk a lot… go for walks… cook together… eat together… go to Church together… 

Everything passes… and I know this phase too shall pass… some pre planned activities will take up my time in the upcoming year… and we will have less time for each other… but having few family traditions is so much important... to look forward for it each day  or each week as married couple...indeed wonderful… 

We can stay “simple”…. and yet be happy... We need not catch a flight every long weekend to make it special… You need not eat in a fancy restaurant each day to make your day special… If you are together as a family but someone is on the phone, watching TV, busy with work calls, it’s not “quality” time… Key is having a family culture of spending quality time together…  
 

Like yesterday at 9 pm I felt like baking a cake…. Just out of the blue and I did bake one … it was a special moment created out of nothing… but it was special… I do that often…. Need not wait for an occasion, a special day to do something special… and something “simple” can also be simply special…

So what is your family tradition :)

________________________Rashmi(6th September, 2013) 

Simplify Life

Simplify Life…

We all started the race… Race to the finish line… Right? We all want to get there…”There”… yeah right… frankly speaking… none of us really have any idea where this “There” is located…  But we all are heading there… in our heads of course…

 Unknown pressure always surrounds us… Way back in school it was studies… then came time when we had to nail down career options…. And now it’s the job life… In the midst of all this we decide to get married… looks like a simple new addition in our life… But what about the rearrangements that would be needed… are we ready for that?

Our parent’s generation was nice… in one simple word I can say it was simply “Simple”… rather it still is… They do not run after career… do they? They do not run after money… They know what they need… and they know where to halt… the technologically retarded generation so to speak… but they live their life the best possible way… Their top priority is pretty simple… –Family… Simple, isn’t it... And they are happy :)

We complicated everything… Our single, love and married life… In the endless race to gain more and more … We moved out to gain more and lost the little things that add up to life… Whatsapp has reduced phone calls… Phone calls have reduced face to face talks… We live in a generation that talks to walls – The so called “Facebook Wall”….We try and be connected to the entire world but do we know the one who stays next door… Sighh!!!

Saturation is on its way… And when it will get saturated… we will love our parent’s generation… we will look for the simplicity in our lives… where all they got to worry about is family… work life is a medium for leading a happy family life… not the reverse… And its only possible when we start taking simple steps to – Simplify Life…

I have started taking my little steps in that path…. Trust me, it takes most of the burden off our shoulders…And I am loving it already….

____________________________Rashmi (12^th August, 2013)

What we all need...

What we all need…

Not much right… we all need love… we all need assurance…we all need “fulfilling” promises… we all need a hand to hold… a hand that will never leave us… will always be there for us... maybe we can do with less love… but not with less faith… yes, faith… faith that what one says he/she will fulfill… blind faith… foolishness all will call… as the term “blind faith” comes with a very big risk… risk of being hurt… risk of holding a broken heart...

We fall… hearts do break… tears do fall… but we are back to square one… searching for love… searching for holding that one hand… and recreating the blind faith… and living that risk again… why?... because God made us like that… humans are made to love… are made to live in faith… we may lose our track… and live a life of… “I do not need anyone… I am happy with myself”… But somewhere… deep down… secretly… at times even unknowingly… our heart keeps searching for that one person with whom we can be ourselves… we can just be the person who has nothing to hide… good or bad…

Yes… and that one person can be anyone… your friend… your partner… your parent… or at times even a stranger you have just met…

Hmm … Thought today… who is that one person I can rely on… one person who was always there… one person who is still there… one person who will always be there in future as well… yes that one person with whom I have nothing to hide… that one person who knows my silence… when I fall short of words… that one person who pushes me in situations I hate… but when I look back I know there was a reason and that situation didn’t last for long… it was for a season… that one person who taught me to smile when I want to cry… that one person who hugged me when I wanted to run away… that one person who cries when I cry… who smiles when I smile… my hurts is His hurt… my pain is His pain… who keeps knocking the door when I want to flee… that one person who reminds me to do the right when the world calls it foolishness… that one person whom I keep forgetting… But He waits… endlessly He waits… for me to come back home…

Yes… I believe you  know who I am talking about…

___________________________Rashmi(25^th July, 2013)

Yes its only you...

Inspired by the song - "Tum hi Ho"... From the movie Ashiqui 2... Amazing lyrics...

Now I just can’t live without you,

Do I even exist without you?

If I fall apart from you,

I will fall apart from myself…

As you are the one,

Yes you are,

My life from now on… is you…

My peace, my pain,

You alone are my love…

You and I are so different,

Yet even one moment,

I fail to stay away from you,

Every day I live only for you,

All my time is just for you,

No moment of mine can be without you,

On every breath of mine… It’s your name…

As its you,

Yes you,

My life from now on… is you…

My peace, my pain,

My love, it’s only you…

I live, only for you,

I give all of me, only to you,

Your loyalty gave me refuge,

Let go all my sadness,

My destiny now is with you,

With you I am now complete…

Because you are the one,

Yes you are the one,

My peace and my pain,

You alone are my love…

________________________Rashmi (24th July, 2013)