September chronicle!

Septembers have been always special. Its my month, my birth month to be specific.

A month full of activities, highs and lows, joys and confusions, it indeed is a memorable month. Here I am reminiscing about a month so hectic, so packed, so tiring, so full of food, friends and fun just before a voyage...err..I am setting off for yet another trip.

October will be different, I am sure. For its gonna be a different month, a different time, in a different terrain, different temperature....also so different. My mind is full of Pacific Ocean and Rocky Mountain!

I am all set for watching fabulous sunsets by the Pacific and see moon rise over Rocky Mountain with a nice nice cocktail by my side. I have that nice cocktail dress from Paris sitting pretty in my suitcase and I surely haven't forgotten that sexy stilettos. I am sure life at 35th floor would be pretty exciting too. Umm...I am all set for some amazing time!

Adios and see you soon! Life has been a roller coaster ride and I ain't complaining.

Eat Pray Love 2010

Till some months ago I only considered 'eat', and 'sleep' as two most important aspects of my life. That was until when I held Eat Pray Love in my hands and embraced ...umm....well...and became inseparable.

Yes, yes, I know what you will say, and I would still say 'eat' and 'sleep' were two most important things in this nomad's life when travel is so much part of life. And traveling or not traveling, my life revolved around food and more food and lots of sleep. You know, sleep is kind of a therapy in my life, it rejuvenates me, it renews me...ha ha ...now you know what keeps me all so energetic, happy and giggly.

Well, coming to talk about Eat Pray Love, I never knew a simple looking book could be so very life changing, addictive....or may be I fell prey ...or may be it was the weak, vulnerable side in me that could relate or forced 'me' to relate to what the protagonist (and also the writer) was going through. I still don't know, and I don't want to know either. But one thing is very clear, EPL ..I mean the book did affect me, my surroundings (read: friends). And I am amazed how most often my friends from far and near would see EPL trends in my activities, and when I have read/re-read the book a good three months back. I never knew any other book I recommended to my friends had been so popular. Anyway...

Life goes on and one tends to move on. I know, I did have a cute lil thing going on with EPL this summer but didn't think it will be so very indelible.. (umm...talking about things indelible, I want to have a few cute li'l tattoos!)..

I actually did an EPL ...well, EPL inspired trip. It's just an old habit and I had to take a break and sniff some coffee..err ...see some different faces, smell some different air and go under another cloud and get drenched in another place. Well, you got it, a change of place of sorts when life gets hectic when you don't get any creative in what you are passionate about and then you know its time to wander about and charge those batteries! Well, not literally...

I have been happily finding my groove in a new setting (you still call it new? well...) and I 'almost' found my niche and life looked pretty sorted. And here's where the nomad in me gets scared and starts throwing tantrums and that's something I haven't learnt to ignore. So, I had to sit back and listen to the nomad in me and decided to give it a shot when my love affair with sun was getting just so unbearable in the heart of the city. The practical me found out that it was almost eight long months since 'we' had gone for a vacation!

Yeh, we were at EPL, and explaining how my three city tour turned out to be my EPL or I had an EPL inspired trip....

However happy-go-lucky I look on the surface there exists a serene, tough, rather meticulous core. And a well planned, logical tour plan was charted out. And this girl loves to meet people (you think she's a loner, eh?), she simply loves people around her...Oh'yeah!

And I have an uncanny knack of packing a lot of things in a tiny bag...I mean, I have this tendency and this makes me feel good as if it 'is' the mandate to be doing things more efficiently, cost effectively, even if it means hopping to four different cities in less than ten days! Well, my friend 'Lonely Planet' knows this so very well that whenever I share an itinerary before a tour, he would mockingly say there's still room for at least two cities. I know, I know...this is incorrigible..Dont you know, there are somethings we know about ourselves and yet we cannot do or rather do no do anything about it. I mean, these are my traits, I am who I am...and having a hectic itinerary or a laid back spa holiday, I like it the way I want it!

So, with EPL, people (read: friends, super sexy ones at that!), hectic itinerary and tour planning, I found myself hopping from Delhi to Hyderabad on a very nice, romantic weekend...umm...I love country side and that train ride through those meadows, looking at the blue sky by a huge window in an air conditioned compartment as clouds played hide and seek with me, I was transported to a different world altogether. I love the feeling, the feeling so very me, so very passionate, so very deep.... And to make things interesting it is important to mention that my visit to the city of four pillars "Charminar" coincided with Ramadan and which translates to lot of feasting after fasting. So, my 'eat' part of the journey was made.

It has become a practice of sorts now, every time I cross the Vindhyas, I have to meet Him. And Tirupati- the holy city became my next stop after satiating my taste buds and after loading all the chambers of my stomach with aromatic preparations from the city of nawabs.

After some heavy duty trekking and very nice godly time and soul searching, it was time to move to part III of the tour, the love part. And if you are heading south on the East Coast in India, and looking for some leisure, Pondy hits you bang on. Yeah! you got it bang on, baby. I am talking about Pondicherry, with those cobbled streets and French Quarters, with that Bussy street which indeed a busy street and with that canal that cuts the city into halves and runs from its head to toe...well, almost literally! Ahh...I almost sounded as if I am describing Pondy at its anatomy....hmmm...

And then suddenly I realized (kinda eureka moment) I just planned my EPL however short it is, however local it could get, nonetheless, it was my EPL as I ended up eating a lot, praying some more and totally fell in love...ummm....

I didnt know it would still be so nostalgic and lingering....but I accept, I was, I am hit by EPL big time. And EPL did hit me...as I did eat, I did pray and I did love it! And there's love .....ummm....