quenchingthelongthirst

A letter to the person I once loved

I don’t remember who you are anymore, nor do I remember the person who once loved you.

I don’t remember those good memories that we shared together, just those moments in which I hated you.

I don’t remember the feeling of blood rush when I was starting to fall in love with you, but I can easily relive the moments when I had the pangs of extreme anger over something that you said/did.

But I sometimes try to remember what it was like when I loved you…

I remember how you came before everything and everyone else for me,

I remember getting out of any gathering/outing if that meant another minute together with you.

I remember how a shy person like me could let her crazy out in front of you,

I remember how I had to tell you every minor detail of my day before falling asleep.

I remember laughing at your silly jokes and making you laugh too,

I remember our stupid innocent fights, and the big ones too, and how we always made up after that.

I remember not caring about the world while walking by your side, your hand in mine,

I remember how eating the same boring thing at the same boring restaurant with you every day was my idea of a perfect date,

I remember pouring out all my love for you in ink in the numerous letters I have written to you.

I remember crying my heart out when things started to go wary and when you refused to talk to me,

I remember waiting every night for your call and then crying myself to sleep,

I remember how that innocent love turned into something that tortured me day and night.

I remember finally giving up on our love after hundreds of tries to win you back,

I remember these things by the face of it but cannot recall the feelings behind them anymore,

I remember that I loved you once but I do not remember what it was like to love you anymore.

I wish I could fly …

Being someone who is constantly worried about every little inconvenience in life, I find flights very soul stirring. And it’s not because I am traveling to some holiday destination or going home, it’s because of a completely different reason.

No matter how hard I try, I always have to check my phone in every 5 mins. Even if I switch off the internet, I will go back, turn it on and scroll through Instagram or play some stupid game. If not that, I am talking to someone or maybe waiting for someone’s reply or to be completely honest, avoiding someone. But somehow connected and affected by my phone.

On the other hand, I just don’t know how to leave my office in office. At the back of mind, I am thinking about the mail that I have to reply to tomorrow or thinking whether the code change that I made today is breaking something or not. Or maybe thinking about something that I said today and if someone might have taken it the wrong way. Or pondering over something hurtful that someone said to me. Thinking about all the unfinished work whose deadline is fast approaching, whilst knowing that I am not even going to put some extra effort into it.

But when I feel the wheels of the aeroplane leave the earth, I have this feeling that all my baggage has been left behind on earth. For the next few hours, I am unreachable completely and well, I cannot reach out to anyone as well. So I cannot worry about my work, about my Instagram feed, nothing. Nobody is going to call me, no breaking code can reach me and force me to do something about it. I just sit, stare outside the window (if on some lucky day I manage to get the window seat without paying extra bucks) and just listen to some good music. And all the disturbing thoughts just don’t cross my mind at all. Nothing matters during those few precious minutes. I have actually seen how book reading also becomes so easy on flights. The lyrics and the music of songs suddenly become all the more beautiful and deep. I just feel so calm and I dread coming down, coming back to earth. I wish I could keep flying just like that, with nothing bothering me anymore…

Moving on.

What exactly is moving on? Is it when you stop thinking about someone you broke up with? Accepting the reality and making room for someone new to enter your life, if a situation comes?

I am shifting to a new apartment and hence got down to the task of packing my things. I have the habit of not throwing away things easily and keeping them with me, be it letters written by friends or lovers, old clothes, anything. I have had some pair of jeans and T-shirts that I have kept with me for the last 5 years and hardly ever worn. I have been to college, then back home, then moved to a new city for work, and yet I have carried the baggage of those clothes with me everywhere. Today I gathered the courage to let them go. They are not fancy or expensive clothes that should take courage to let go off, but just a promise to myself that one day I will lose some weight and fit into them, one day I will buy something matching and wear them. But I never did. And I know I never will. It’s better to give them away to someone who needs them and will actually wear them.

Isn’t this moving on? Moving on from some baggage of your past? Which you don’t know why you have held onto for so long, but yet you do. It takes courage to even let go off something this small sometimes but when you do, you feel amazing!

My First Solo Trip

The first question the world asked me when I told them that I was going alone was why. Why did I even have to go alone? I gave them a number of reasons like nobody was willing to go with me and that I didn’t want to end my trip just because I was alone. But post the trip, I think that was not the entire reason. I actually wanted to go on a solo trip. Not because I wanted to explore my life, contemplate, figure out my issues, to get over a breakup, not any of those reasons. I just wanted to understand what all the hype surrounding a solo trip is about. Why is our generation so hell bent on going on solo trips, why is it something that everyone should do once in their lifetime? Well, I would say that I got some answers. Let me tell them to you along with the story of my trip.

I was so nervous in the beginning, that boarding a flight from Hyderabad seemed impossible. Every small discomfort used to scare me. And then when I finally made it to Goa, I got to know that there was a big taxi strike going on, making commute very difficult. And I had booked my resort on a very offbeat beach, which was going to take some good amount of traveling and effort. After hiring a taxi which charged me double the money and left me somewhere near Margao and then getting an auto from there, that left me 1 km away from my resort, I finally made it there. It was called Majestic Beach resorts, situated on Varca beach. The resort was good. There were small huts instead of rooms, with a small garden in front of every hut. The ambience was amazing. There was also a private entrance to the beach from the resort.

I spent an entire day just lying on that beach, reading a book, sipping wine, eating, listening to songs and just enjoying the view. There were times when I craved to talk to somebody and that’s why I was on my phone for a large amount of time.

I did not interact with a lot of new people, I did not make everlasting friends, I did not go to unexplored places in the city, nor did I find the meaning of life. And I would say that these things are overrated in a solo trip. But I did do whatever I wanted to do the entire time. Every small detail of the trip was defined by me and me alone. And it felt good.

I have been an indecisive person my entire life and so living on the edge and taking impulsive decisions on my own regarding what I wanted to do the very next moment was exciting. Solo trips can be a really healthy exercise for indecisive people like me because you have to take some decisions all the time, and you don’t have anyone to discuss them with. You just have to trust your judgement and do what you want. You learn how to figure out what you want, how to decide.

It did get a little boring occasionally, because there was a lot of time on hand, with very less things to do, and not many people around to talk to. Intoxication was out of question. I did pass my time by just walking, looking at the sunset, eating, watching television, reading as well. It was a little strange in the beginning, to roam around in a new city on your own, but you get used to that after sometime.

What I learnt?

It’s not necessary to make a lot of new friends or talk to strangers on a solo trip.
It’s not necessary to go to unexplored places in the city and perfectly ok to sit in one place the entire time and relax.
You don’t have to sit and contemplate but you can sleep and get your body cycle in line.
It’s wise to carry a selfie stick or a good camera if you want to click pictures because you cannot ask strangers to take a lot of pictures of you all the time
As you are going alone, do confirm before going that everything is ok in the city. I was almost stuck there due to the taxi strike and it cost me so much money to travel from one place to another.
Carry things with you that will help you pass the time.
Don’t listen to them. Go and see for yourself what a solo trip is actually like. Every person has their own story to tell after every trip.

Solo trips are not meant to change you, but just to teach you that you can take care of your problems on your own, that you can have your meals all alone, that you can probably deal with anything all alone. And I think that is how it changes people, or brings a difference in their lives, because you finally realize that you can live alone after all, you don’t need to depend on anyone for anything, just be nice to people in case you need their help 😛

Gone with the wind, a novel way ahead of its time

I had this book in my shelf for months but whenever I used to look at the huge volume of pages, I used to accept that I am never ever going to read that and used to curse the day when I purchased it. But then one fine day, I finally gathered enough courage to start reading this book and was never able to put it down. Yes it took me a lot of time. But it is one of the best books that I have ever read.

Despite being a classic, it was written in such an easy English, unlike other classics. It was not so challenging to understand and it just improved my vocabulary with the amazing use of words in it. The way of writing it was such that you could just not put it down. And it was not even because it has an “amazing plotline” because there is no plot as such. It’s a big tale stretched over years. So the thing that made this so amazing to read was how easily you could read pages after pages and not realise. This is one brilliant way of story telling.

Scarlett O’Hara. The person around which the entire book is centred. I would not lie, I did not like this character for a very long time. Probably just because of how mean she was to the only person who loved her the most in the entire book. But that moment when she realises how silly she had been all these years and how deeply she actually loved that person, it just made me fall in love with her. And I also felt quite sorry for her. But it just makes you feel that there are people in our lives that we start taking for granted and when we do realise their value, it’s always too late.

There are many more reasons to admire Scarlett honestly She had done enough things in her lifetime to win appreciation. She single handedly managed to feed her entire family during the hard times. And she went against all the norms of the society to achieve that, without caring what others thought. Her only concern was to provide for her family and so she gave up the life of comfort and just concentrated on working hard. Though she was mean to many people, but she we smart enough to judge who would be of help to her and knew how to take advantage of them. Maybe it’s not the best quality, but desperate times call for desperate measures. And she was so brave and so strong. And so young! Despite that she just kept her head up and did what she had to. I think this book captures the exact essence of women empowerment.

Also I am in total awe of how this book showed the remnant of the war, how families are torn and broken because of war. It was heart wrenching to see how everyone had to go and participate in the war, irrespective of whether they wanted to or not, but it was their duty enforced on them, because they owed their nation. And how their families had no means of communication with them and they just had to wait in long queues every other week to hear the names of people who are still alive and based on that declare that their loved ones dead. We do not realise the value of our families in the kind of environment we are brought up, but I hope that that will change with growing up.

And most of all, I was captured by the beauty of that time, how simple everything was. I really want to go and experience what life used to be like before technology took over. I am sure it must have been tough but people used to survive so it mustn’t have been that bad.

The best lesson that I have learnt from this book:

After all, tomorrow is another day

FYI, this isn’t procrastination, it’s an amazing attitude towards things where you know how to get your head straight and make a plan to do things in a better way instead of worrying right now. You really have to read this masterpiece to understand the depth of this one line and I would totally recommend that.

An almost impossible trip to Goa

Here in India, it is believed that every person should go to Goa with their friends in college. Here in India, it is also believed that a plan involving Goa is never ever successful. This is a story of how I, along with 2 more friends, barely managed a trip to Goa in our college final year and how it changed our lives.

It was our college ritual, where everyone goes to Goa with their friends in their Final year. We had witnessed this since first year and this was on the top of our bucket list. We started our planning in December itself (of Final year of course!), asking a lot of random girls who would be interested because Indian parents generally do not allow their kids to go on trips. And this trip had all kinds of reasons for our parents to refuse. It was an all girls trip. It was a trip to Goa. It was around 1500km far away from home.
Somehow we managed 10 people who agreed to go. We booked our train tickets and hotels for a week-long stay in March. People had even started to shop. We went back to college from the winter vacation and then slowly and steadily things started to go wrong.
People started to back out from the plan. We lost our tickets and then realized that someone had got them cancelled and taken a refund which resulted in even more people backing out as nobody wanted to spend more money on booking the tickets, which were costlier due to approaching dates and the dates being during the holiday season. Finally, only 3 of us were left. With no hope and heavy hearts, we tried to convince our parents to let us 3 go and magically they agreed. So finally we were GOING TO GOA!

It was a fun-filled ride, starting from the train journey till the very end. The train journey was mostly full of playing card games, listening to songs (a typical Indian train journey), gossiping and sharing stories. You can assume that we had shared enough stories on that one day that even if we were not very close before the trip, we had become the best of friends in those few hours.
We took a Rajdhani from Delhi to Goa, which started in the noon of 20th March 2016, and we reached Goa on the afternoon of 21st March. We took an auto/cab from the station to our hotel, which was situated at a walking distance from the Candolim beach. The name of our hotel was Casablanca. As we had made the bookings for 10 people, we had plenty of extra rooms. So we checked into 2 balcony rooms, side by side, where one room could serve as our “getting ready area” and the other room could be used for sleeping.
We hired two scooties, changed into new clothes and went out to explore the world. We travelled all the way to Arambol beach on that day. We reached there and straightaway went to sit in a shack because we were told that this is what people usually do in Goa, hang around in shacks. We had some food there. And then we went out for a stroll on the beach. It was a very calm beach, with not a lot of rush. You could see a lot of foreigners
there with stalls. We just walked around for sometime, got our feet in the sand and the sea and watched that beautiful sunset. It was the first of many more sunsets to come. The breeze felt amazing. There were some beautifully decorated restaurants there. We came back to the stalls. One guy was playing the bongo drum there and a lot of people had gathered around. We just sat and listened to him play for sometime. Then we made our way back to the hotel.
We went to club LPK (Love Passion Karma) later that night. It was a beautiful place situated beside a lake (or some water body). We had some food and beer there and then we left to meet some friends at the Calangute beach. There was a different kind of thrill being out on the road that late at night. And the entire experience of being on a beach so late, looking at the moon reflecting on the sea, with light breeze in the air, it just takes you over.

22nd March: The next day we went to Vagator beach in the noon. It was also a little far away from our hotel. That beach was a little rocky as compared to the other beaches we saw. But it was fun to climb on those rocks. After spending sometime on the beach and clicking some pictures, we just went to a shack nearby to have some snacks. Then we went about exploring the local shops near that beach. We located a Tattoo shop and thought of getting a temporary tattoo because permanent tattoo was way out of our scope at that time. We chose some butterfly design and one by one sat down to get that tattoo done.
It was almost sunset time and we were really eager to see the sunset from the top of Chapora fort. So we drove our scooties at full speed after the tattoo and ran atop the Chapora fort hill and barely managed on time. We sat down at the edge of the fort, our feet dangling from a great height. In front of us was the vast sea and the sun slowly drowning in that sea. It was a beautiful sight and the fact that we were there at the exact time made it all the more special. There is a thing when you share some amazing moments with some people, you create a special bond with them. I think something really clicked within us at that time.
After that we went to the famous Curley’s on Anjuna beach to be a part of the rave party, though none of us was a rave person back then. There is no special entry fee for girls anywhere so it was very easy for us to get inside the party. There we realized that everyone was very much high on drugs and were lost in a trance. We tried our best to copy people and dance funnily but after sometime we realized it was not our cup of tea and we made our way back to the Candolim. There we stopped at 10 Downing Street for dinner. We had never heard of that place before but just saw lasagna as the special item that night and so decided to try that. That was one amazing lasagna BTW. We could hear a lot of Bollywood music coming from a room sort of inside that restaurant and we went in to explore, and that’s when we got to know there was a pub there and it was Bollywood night. We danced our hearts away after that, like literally!

23rd March: The next day was booked for water sports. So we went to Baga beach in the afternoon and got ourselves a good deal for the water sports. There was Banana ride, Jet ski, Parasailing, Ringo ride to name a few. We were really scared at first, but when we got into the feel, they were actually very much fun! For Parasailing, we were taken deep into the sea on a mini ship. After that, at the time of returning, the guy asked if anyone wants to jump into the water. Me and my friend agreed. So we got to stay in the middle of the Arabian Sea for about 5 minutes, with a mini ship standing above our heads, but boy was it fun!! It made me feel like a daredevil, swimming in the middle of the sea and all.
At night we went to Club Cabana with some more college friends. We had a few drinks and just hanged around with them.

24th March: The next day, our hotel shifted us to suit rooms, 2 suit rooms actually. And so we took double the usual amount of time to get ready because we just couldn’t get over the beautiful room and it was so much effort to get out of there. When we finally managed to get our asses off the bed and got ready, we went to see a church, Basilica of Bom Jesus. It is probably the most famous church in Goa, with a great history associated with it. After that, we decided to go for a cruise. Not casino, just a normal cruise. So they just took around in a ship for about 1 hour, where we just cruised on the Arabian Sea. The cruise people had some fun events planned, like a group of dancers performed different folk dances of Goa. Then there was DJ as well.
After the cruise, we returned to Candolim and then again went to 10 Downing street for dinner as they had a Karaoke night. We participated in Karaoke there. We even got that recorded. It was my first Karaoke ever.
Later that night, we asked around if there is any place suitable to watch the sunrise and our hotel receptionist told us that there is one fort, Aguada Fort, which is not very far from Candolim. He even promised to wake us up in the morning.

25th March: The receptionist tried his best to wake us up, but we just convinced ourselves that sleep was more important. So we went to see the Aguada Fort in the middle of the day and it was not a very good decision as it was very hot. After exploring the fort, we thought that as it was our last day in Goa, we should spend the rest of the day leisurely. We rented beds on Candolim beach, drinking lemon sodas and just watching the sea. That beach was madly crowded on that day, I must tell you. We tried shopping in the evening for our friends and families.
At night, we went to Tito’s Lane for partying in one of the best night clubs of Goa. We even met few nice gentlemen, whom we helped in getting couple entry into the club (because apparently stags are not allowed anywhere!). Then again, we danced the night away. Then we went to the Baga beach for sometime, like for a goodbye of sorts and then came back to the hotel and packed our bags as we had to leave early in the morning.

26th March: We caught our flight to Delhi, with a good 8 hours layover in Bangalore, continuing the stories that could not be completed in the entire 5 days trip.

Well that was the end of it. There were many things that this trip taught me, like March is not the best time to visit Goa because it’s very hot. We had become very tan by the end of the trip and the Sunscreens only help to some level. I also learnt that Goa is not all about booze and drugs. You can have fun and you can party without any of these things. And I really mean it. I have partied a lot after this trip and all I am left with the other day is hangover and a blackout, where I am trying to join the dots about what really happened on the previous night. I am really grateful that my Goa trip is still crystal clear in my head and that is how I am able to write so much about it even after 1.5 years. And trust me, I remember a lot more, I just removed a lot of boring details.
And the most important thing, an all Girls trip is the best!

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Fun fact: After around 1.25 years of this trip, all three of us got together and decided to get tattooed. And thus on May 21, 2017 we got our first permanent tattoo together as a symbol to the bond that was created on this trip. I have been on many trips with a lot of friends, but I cannot even begin to express how different and special this trip was for me, for all of us. And this is why we decided to ink it on ourselves that the friendship that got strengthened so much on this trip, the friendship that we are continuously maintaining despite staying in different cities, will stay 🙂

Work life balance?

I just finished reading a book about an office Christmas party and how that one night changed the lives of a lot of people. It was a kind of story that could easily be made into a chick flick, something that I would love to watch with my girl friends. But the feeling that I was left with at the end of the book was something totally different. The story revolved around different people in a big oil company, and the families of those people, how the wives of big corporate tycoons were left alone in their marriage because their husbands were too busy climbing up the big corporate ladder, even if a man could see that his marriage was falling apart, his job came first. Though this mostly surrounded married men in their 50s and 60s, I couldn’t deny the fact that most of our generation is heading towards a life like that, where our jobs come before everything else.

I have been in the job industry for around 1.5 years. I have a lot of friends around, we have fun, we party. Even the people in my office are very fun loving and I hang out with them as well. All my weekends are spent lazing around at home, doing nothing at all. But I won’t deny that I am constantly worried about work. I am never at peace even during the weekend, while I am on a trip, even when I am visiting my parents. Every Friday I leave office at a decent time, promising myself that I will finish the pending work over the weekend. There is no deadline that my manager has given me, there is absolutely no rush, but I have burdened myself with all this pressure that when I am not doing anything related to work, or working on the skills that are required for work, I start feeling guilty. If someone asks me to go out during the day on Saturday, my first feeling is that I have a lot of work. But there is no justification of what work I have or how that is even important.

This is my state when I am just starting my career, with no responsibilities. I think that with this kind of mentality at this stage, I am just preparing myself for a future where I might put everything behind my job, and I couldn’t be more wrong. We always end up blaming our companies that we are burdened with so much work that there is no scope for a work life balance, but in this world with this cut throat competition, is there ever a chance? With so many aims and aspirations of excelling at everything that we do, and the hardwork that needs to reach that stage in life, can we ever find peace? Are we heading towards a future where we have no life?