Week 12: The New Dawn

For those who are not aware, I am on a 52 weeks adventure this year where in I decide my own adventures! For more details, check out here! 

I cannot believe it is 12 weeks already and I am still on this beautiful journey learning something new each week. It is mentally invigorating and makes me thank God everyday for letting me grow each day amidst all the chaos in life!

This week was surreal. I have always been allured by the nature! It takes my breath away to see such varied colors, diverse organisms, assorted plants and flowers and mind boggling landscapes. With the unlimited options to explore the nature, it was a tough call as to where to begin the adventure. However, after a lot of pondering we had a winner for this week - watching the sunrise at the Fort Lauderdale Beach!

Since we were going to experience this event it was but expected to wake up early on a Sunday morning. Did your face just cringe on reading this? So did mine. Sunday mornings are supposed to be spent lying in bed till 9 am and then lazily watch television. Had I not taken up this adventure trip, I would have definitely passed on watching the sunrise and would have chosen my bed and sleep instead. So yes, I forwent my dear sleep and woke up at 5.30 am to catch this beautiful sight.

When we reached the beach, there was a slight hint of pink tinge in the sky from where the sun was expected to rise. It was a little dark around, but birds were circling in the air above the sea.

We waited for 15 more minutes and slowly we saw the hint of the sun peeping from the below and mesmerizing us with its hues and light! It was a tiny dot emerging through nowhere and steadily taking hold of the sky.

After this however, the sun rose like a comet and within seconds it was up already shining brightly. I never anticipated it to come up in such a jiffy as if it was in tremendous hurry to start off the day!

Within no time, the sun was up and shining. It was so surreal watching it come out from across the water. I got goose bumps at one point and wanted to capture this moment forever. The beauty that lies in nature is dreamlike and it always touches a cord within me.

Looking at the rising sun, I opened my arms and accepted all its rays on me. I was overwhelmed with how nature selflessly keeps on 'giving' and 'loving' without expecting anything in return. I thanked God for all the abundance in my life and prayed to grant the same to everyone.

Just when we were about to leave, there was a trail of birds which flew in a line just above the water level epitomizing 'freedom and unity' to me. Freedom to fly wherever I want along with my loved ones!

I cannot thank God enough for giving me this opportunity to be in the nature and devour its simplest form of happiness. 

Never once did the thought occur to me that I could have slept more instead of being here and experiencing this magical moment! :)

A special thanks to my husband, Sujoy Datta for capturing these beauties in his camera!

Week 11: The Forgotten Art

For those who are not aware, I am on a 52 weeks adventure this year where in I decide my own adventures! For more details, check out here!

This week I did something which most of us have forgotten about. A communication means which we rarely use in today's technologically advanced world. Yes, I wrote a letter....actually two letters to my twin niece and nephew whom I visited a few weeks ago in Texas.

Image Credit

Imagine you opening your letter box and lying there you see an envelope from a loved one - what is your immediate reaction? Of course 'A Smile'. You are also intrigued if it is not your birthday or anniversary or any other special occasion. Same happened with my niece and nephew.

They are 7 years old and were over joyed to receive a hand written letter and a 'Miss You' card from their Pradnya Aunty. I had asked them a few questions in the letter and they could not wait to answer those. Both of them called me the moment after they finished reading their letters and bombarded me with all the answers.

Kedar even mentioned his birthday to me and I guess he will expect another card and letter that time around again :)

Writing the letter was a different experience. I had to be careful with the spellings as I did not have a 'backspace' or 'delete' button to get rid of my mistakes. I had to be very diligent. Also I was writing to 7 year olds. That made the writing a little more difficult. I had to be a child with them and converse like a 7 year old and not like a preachy Aunt!

The happiness on receiving their call post they reading my letter was just incredulous!

So what are you waiting for? Take up that pen and paper and write to a dear one right away :)

Image Credit

Week 10: Painting Peace

For those who are not aware, I am on a 52 weeks adventure this year where in I decide my own adventures! For more details, check out here!

'Peace' - It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be midst those things and still be calm in your heart and a wear a smiling face!

When I started my day today, I did not know that I will literally be living the above statement. 

I got an invitation from a friend Terry Conover to be at the Fort Lauderdale Peace Garden event which included guided meditation, a peace walk, art, paint and gardening and a vegan brunch made from the freshly picked vegetables from the garden. The Fort Lauderdale Peace Garden is a Community Service Project centered around the concepts of Peace, Sustainability and Community. It is a series of small gardens started by Michael Madfis which has varied vegetables like lettuce, onion, parsley, cilantro, papaya, hibiscus, beet etc. 

When I got this invite, I had to be there to experience this whole new phenomenon.

I reached the destination and what I saw I liked that immediately. There was a small white tent put up beside the garden amidst a lot of greens. There was a wooden bench in the side with all the paints and brushes. It reminded me of a country side farm and had a rustic feel to it! The farm had a lot of vegetables and fruits and all this grown in a small space between two communities.

Purple Hibiscus

Toamtoes Ripening

Brinjal, or the Eggplant

Luscious Pepper

Healthy Brocolli

Tomatoes Again!

The event started by guided meditation by Terry at 8.00 am. At that time it was just the two of us. I always thought meditation is fighting back all your thoughts and let your mind be blank, and that is a very difficult job. Your mind has so many things going on that it becomes impossible to park everything aside. But Terry today enlightened me and said, "While meditating acknowledge your thoughts. If your knee is hurting acknowledge the pain. Hear the birds chirping, the sound of the moving cars, the train humping in the background. Take deep breaths and concentrate in between your eyes or on your heart and just listen."

We did a 15 minute meditation and oh boy, did it feel like eternity! It was refreshing to acknowledge the thoughts and yet be at peace.

Me on my brand new yoga mat just after the meditation

Terry narrated a small paragraph on 'service' from the book 'Bliss Divine' by Sri Swami Sivananda - 'Love of God and service of man is the secret of true life. The meaning of true life is service and sacrifice. Life is meant for service, and not for self seeking sacrifice! Do your duties well, sincerely. Your privileges will follow unmasked. Hold your life for the service of others. The more the energy you spend in elevating and serving others, the more the divine energy which will flow to you. Serve. You will rule. Serve the humanity with divine Bhava. The cancer of individuality will be dissolved'.

I was so impressed with these lines that I have borrowed the book. This is so close to what Bhagawad Gita teaches. It hit home and I am keen on reading more from the book.

The meditation was followed by cleaning up the garden and weeding. I realized in the process that I am terrible at using the gardening tools and hence thought of doing something without the tools. So I cleaned the sampling jars (don't know what exactly they are called).

Found a silk worm (probably) while weeding

We were just done with the cleaning when we were joined with another volunteer Victor Jimenez. Victor is a Peace activist and he will be there for anything that is related to peace :) 

After having one more person on our team, we ventured towards the fun part of the morning  - art and painting. We wanted to do a big board for the farm. We walked a little to another farm to collect the wooden planks for the board. The planks were heavy and infested with ants. Terry and Victor cleaned the planks and carried them to our farm while I was busy supervising them ;)

Cleaning the ants from the plank

We put 3 planks together and started the painting. We were joined by our Chef for the day Laura Cherington and our team grew even more. This was the most entertaining part and it was liberating to be a child again. We did 2 boards with words 'Peace' and 'Fun'. And a huge board saying 'Fort Lauderdale Peace Garden'. 

This is what we started with!

There goes the white paint

Me painting 'Peace'

Laura painting the 'climber'

In progress

Almost Done!

As we were finishing our painting, we were joined by another lady Joei Kitty who is a ardent consumer of fresh farm veggies. Joei is a Captain too! She got Laura and me 2 pink roses on the occassion of International Women's Day! That was very thoughtful of her :)

The painting was followed by some great food cooked by Master Chef Laura prepared from freshly picked vegetables from the garden. I always thought food in America is so bland with no taste at all. Also I have never liked salads. I like my meat and only greens aren't very tempting for me. All of these opinions/beliefs of mine were shattered today after having some exotic salads made by Laura. We had raw papaya salad prepared with tomato peanuts, scotch bonnet peppers, garlic, coconut sugar and oil, fresh lime and Bragg's amino. We also had a Kale and Chard Crunch salad prepared with sorrel, beet greens, chard, arugula, purple hibiscus, Hungarian peppers, carrots, pepitas, raisins, balasmic vinigrette and moong sprouts. To accompany these dishes, we had banana and raisin mix by Terry, some awesome brownies by Joei and a raw mango drink (prepared with boiled raw mango pulp, jaggery, cardamon and a tinge of black pepper) by me. The brunch was yummilicious! It was like a flavour volcano in the mouth. I remembered food back in India which has a gamut of tastes and just tantalizes your taste buds! :)

Our Chef for the Day - Laura Cherington with her magic box!

Raw Papaya Salad tried for the first time by Laura

That was our healthy brunch, picked fresh from the garden!

Raw mango drink prepared by me :)

After a hearty brunch we packed up and cleaned with a fresh mind and a morning well spent! It was a day filled with service, fun, gratitude and of course adventure! :)

Photo Credits: Terry Conover, Capt. Joei and me

Week 8 and 9: Texas Diaries

For those who are not aware, I am on a 52 weeks adventure this year where in I decide my own adventures! For more details, check out here!

When we booked our tickets for Texas, I sent a mail to my cousin giving her my Texas trip itinerary. I had mentioned in the mail, "We are arriving on 26-Feb-2015 and would be put up at our friend's place that day. We will come to your place on 27th evening. On 29th morning, we will go again to our friend's place and then leave for Florida on 30th morning."

My cousin replied plainly, "We are soo excited to meet you all. But this February has only 28 days. I am confused how the airlines gave you tickets for 30th. Please look into it."

Ha ha ha! In my defense I was too excited to meet family away from home and I just didn't care how many days February has :P 

This trip's whole purpose was to be with family and friends and not sightseeing per say. Whomever we told we are going Texas, they were like "Why are you going there? There is nothing to see around in Texas." We had to convince everybody on why we are really going to Texas :P

As the flight was approaching DFW Airport, the change in the landscape was drastic. From the greenery and waters of Florida, we were landing on a barren land with almost no trees or trees with just branches and no leaves. That point I knew, it is going to be an interesting stay!

What new things I did in this trip? Quite a few -

My tryst with cold weather and snow: I had started feeling the chills right from DFW airport. I hate cold and just cannot bear it. The moment we came out of the airport, I wanted to just sit in the car as soon as possible with the heater on. The cold was unbearable. I know for sure now that I just cannot survive in cold weather. The second day of our trip it started snowing slowly and steadily in the morning. Brown ground slowly started becoming white, first slightly but then heavily. There was white everywhere, no other shade to be seen. Cars started getting covered with snow. The sight was lovely to see from indoors. I saw snow slowly forming a layer in our balcony and I thought of venturing out. I stayed outside for entire 2 minutes, played a little bit and then rushed in. It was maddeningly cold. 

Beginning of Snow

Everything getting painted white!

My play with the snow

The layer in our balcony

Snow everywhere

On the second day of snow, I was at my cousin's place who has 7 year old twin boy and girl. My niece and her dad decided to make a Snowman with the abundant snow. I was also very excited and ventured out. I started collecting the snow with  hands. And after exactly 5 minutes declared, "Please call me when the Snowman is done" and ran into the house. It was so cold that I just could not stay outside for that long. They indeed built a very big Snowman and I loved it! :)

My super enthusiastic niece

Our Pinky Snowman

That was my story with the cold and the snow. I love the sun. Snow is depressing and you feel as if you are house arrested. I just wish and hope that I am always there in a warm place.

Being a child again: The highlight of our trip was meeting Kedar and Ketki, my cousin's twins. As I mentioned they are 7 years old and we had the time of a lifetime with them!

Kedar is the cool dude of the house. Give him a Lego box and he will be happy. He is least bothered about what is going on around, if he is getting late to school, if he has not done his homework. No, nothing bothers him. The only thing that bothers him is if his Mommy isn't smiling! 

He is a 'quizzard' i.e. a quiz wizard. He will ask you math questions and if you give a wrong answer, he will make a cross with his hands and make a noise which indicates it is a wrong answer. He is so smart that he will ask difficult math, check the answer on the calculator, remember that answer and then ask you the question. He can convert anything into a quiz. We had gone to Olive Garden for dinner and this smart fellow converted the kids menu into a quiz and was asking us what will you have? He took quiz to next level.

He has these small small notes pasted all over the house. The kitchen has a note that says 'Manasi's Restaurant' (Manasi is my cousin's name). Since it was cold, the plants were shifted to one of the bathrooms. Kedar's note on the bathroom door reads, 'Please do not enter. PS: You can enter only if you are going to water the plants'. On his room door there is a chit saying, 'Office timings 6.00 am to 3 pm.' Kedar and his notes!

He is a negotiator. Ask him to eat anything and he will negotiate the time for it. He will fight for even the minutest minute. He will never do something without negotiating the time. We were playing hide and seek and it was my turn to seek. I counted till 50. Kedar then says count till 75. I thought he needs time to hide. I counted till 75, then he says count till 100. This went till 120. Ketki came out slowly from her hiding place and told me Kedar will not hide now because he is busy building his toy house! Beat that! A 7 year old made me count till 120 when he was not even intending to hide. That is Kedar for you!

Kedar telling me one of his stories here :)

Ketki is the sophisticated giggling lady of the house! Oh my God, she giggles more than she breathes. Extremely caring, takes very good care of Kedar. She knows all Kedar's favorite food and hobbies. We had gone to buy vegetables and she saw a watermelon there. She asked her mother, "Mommy, can we take the watermelon for Kedar?" At 7 years, that is a very rare quality.

She has been born and brought up here and hence she has american accent. I just love the way she says 'Kedarrrrr' with rolling Rs in the end. She adores food and eats everything. She draws well and I was lucky enough to get a sketch of mine drawn by here.  

'Me' sketched by Ketki

She just can't sit still and we have to play always with her. We played monopoly, hide and seek and another board game. You just can't sit idle if she is around. And yes, you cannot stop laughing too amidst her incessant giggling. My jaws were paining at the end of our trip.

Ketki swims, learns Kathak, enjoys Bailey and is a great gymnast. She loves to be on her toes always just like her mom. 

She asked Sujoy to bend down saying she wanted to say something in his ear. As Sujoy came to her height, she slid a ice piece in his shirt. Naughty miss Ketki! We were playing catch the ball and all Ketki did in those 10 minutes was giggle! :)

Love them! :)

3 days we became kids and enjoyed being a child again. Laughed till our jaws hurt, played a lot and most important forgot all our adult worries for those days!

Being a child again!

Funny Kedar with his cheese face!

It was a short trip but never the less a very rejuvenating one. I am happy to be back to Florida warmth, but what I do miss is the warmth of loved ones and family. Till I am with family again, I have to be happy with the Florida warmth!!!

Week 7: Say no to FB!

For those who are not aware, I am on a 52 weeks adventure this year where in I decide my own adventures! For more details, check out here!

For this week I decided to go without internet for a day. But then I realized all my entertainment devices at home work on the internet except for my husband ;) Maybe I can have a separate blog on my husband's entertainment quotient! So yes, my cable, my land line and of course my social media hub needs the fuel of internet. I was fine with not watching TV, but I did not want to compromise on my calls back home. So I improvised my adventure and it became a day without Social Media.

Just in the morning I decide this and my mobile phone beeps informing me that one of my FB friends has tagged me in her status. This friend never usually tags me. And as they curiosity kills the cat - my fingers lingered over that FB icon on my phone for entire 30 seconds. But then I controlled myself and switched off the data connection from my phone. It was not easy.

During the entire day my hands inadvertently went so many times to my mobile. That is when I realized how addicted I have been to my mobile. I realized that I used to check my mobile every 30 minutes or so maybe 20 times a day. Now that was an eye opener. Do we really need to check FB so many times a day seeing what our friends have been upto? Don't we have better things to do with our own life? No offense to anyone as I myself have been doing this for such a long time.

What I gained out of my social media hiatus was immense. I finished off two articles for a e-magazine and one entry for a writing contest. The contest was about 'My Style' and I was pondering about what to write for almost a week. Then the idea struck and with no distraction, I completed my piece in flat 30 minutes. My focus and concentration level were at the best.

I felt more energetic at the end of the day with no anxiety or tired eyes. I moved around the house more which gave some motion to my body and it felt good. I cooked an extra dish that day and my husband was surprised to see that one extra delicacy on his plate. I cleaned my wardrobe which was pending since a very long time. All this I could do with my new found energy. I even went to gym in the evening (my tryst with exercise is yet another separate blog story).

The most important thing I experienced was peace of mind. I got so much time to ponder and be with myself that I was overwhelmed with my thoughts. I usually take all life's crucial decisions either in the shower or while brushing my teeth at night ;) But this was altogether a different experience and I mulled over a lot of aspects of my life and the way ahead.

This was my day without Social Media. Maybe some time in future I will go first a day entirely without internet and then maybe a week. For that I need to have tremendous mind control and that itself will be the biggest adventure.

So if you have an entertaining partner or spouse, try going without your internet for a day!!! :)

(Image Credit : http://ludismedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/social-networking.jpg)

Week 6: Cooking Experiments

For those who are not aware, I am on a 52 weeks adventure this year where in I decide my own adventures! For more details, check out here!

This week I thought of experimenting in the kitchen! Now why was this adventurous? It was adventurous because I hate cooking. I never cooked full fledged meals till I came to the US. I have known how to cook since I was in high school, but I never really enjoyed cooking. It is only after coming to the US that I started making dishes other than normal rice and curry which itself is actually a BIG adventure ;)

So what I did this week was I experimented with the famous South Indian dish called 'dosa' which is basically a crepe made out of a fermented batter prepared from rice and different lentils. I thought of adding a twist to it by adding sago and see what happens. 

The feeling was like experiments in the Chemistry lab, where you mix two unknown chemicals and wait and watch what is the reaction!

Sago becomes crisp on frying. So I thought adding sago to the batter will add to the crispiness of the dosa. But I forgot that sago is also sticky and this might just make my cooking experiment a flop. The dosa was not exactly a flop. It was crispy but at the same time it was a skillful job to flip it over the griddle. My first 2 dosas cracked and were served in pieces to my husband. He ate it without complaining! 

Then I gave an ultimatum to the dosa batter that if it did not behave properly, I will make fritters out of it in my appe pan. The threat seemed to work and my third dosa came out perfectly with no cracks!

So, sago dosa anyone?

Week 5: One Small Step

For those who are not aware, I am on a 52 weeks adventure this year where in I decide my own adventures! For more details, check out here!

This week was euphoric for me, taking small steps towards materializing my ultimate dream. After a year of serious blogging, my writing finally got noticed and I landed up with an offer of being a Creative Writer of an upcoming online magazine. 

To be frank when this offer came, I wasn't very sure whether I should take it up or not. This was a writing assignment which required me to churn out articles at regular basis and that too on varied topics. Till date, I have written freely with no binding what so ever in terms of topics or time. So I was not confident if I would be able to live up to this new assignment.

But then you have your friends and family who push you and make you believe that you can reach the moon!! Same thing happened with me and I agreed for this new avatar! There was a glitch though - writing on general topics doesn't come natural to me. I think I write well only if it is a personal experience or if it is something that I am passionate about. I tried writing an article on 'How to speak up in Meetings' and was devastated with the outcome. Then I started thinking, how can I write on something which is personal and yet keep it general? After a lot of pondering I came up with a concept. I bounced my idea of writing on 'What makes me happy' theme to the editor along with 2 sample articles. The editor liked my articles and gave me the green signal. So here I am, writing each week from now on 'What makes me happy'.

The happiness of seeing your profile listed as the Creative Writer was massive! It took me 3 hours to scribble those 3 lines of self bio. It is a difficult job to introduce yourself in so minimum words. Never the less, I was complimented that my introduction is just perfect! :)

I think I have come a long way from writing to keep myself busy in the new country to getting my first ever professional article published! It is indeed my one small step towards my dream of publishing a novel someday :)

This endeavor, boosted my confidence as a writer and I contacted two established bloggers in my network. Thanks to Prashanthi who is a food blogger at Yummily Yours' and Anju who is a travel blogger at Traveling Noodles, I received a few tips on how to take my writing to the next level.

I sent my writings to a few online magazines and was delighted when I received a positive reply from one of the sites. This enabled my writing go beyond boundaries and across the oceans, with Pink Pangea, an International Women's Travel Magazine publishing my article on para sailing! It was too good to believe, suddenly so many feathers in my writing hat :) 
The last time I checked, my article had reached 100 views and was shared 50+ times.

It has indeed been an euphoric week and I just pray and hope that this momentum continues :)

And amidst all this glee, I decided to start my FB page which will be a common host for all my writings. It is getting a little difficult to keep a tab on my 2 blogs and my articles on Stylewhack. So if you like to read me, please do like my FB page here!

I would like to end this adventure with the poem 'Baby Steps' by Serena Blackinton - 

There is no limit to what you can do,
The only thing prohibiting it, is you,
Make plans, set goals, a little at a time,
Take small steps along the incline,
Baby steps - one goal at a time,
Even if you don't have a dime,
You will reach the summit in the end,
If you keep taking steps, my friend,
Whatever your heart desires,
And all that your soul can dream,
Whichever it is that inspires,
No matter how hard it can seem,
You can achieve when you believe...
See... Dream... Believe... Achieve.