To the incompetent idiots who run my country.....

I am not a marathi manoos. Nor am I a mumbaikar. I have never stood outside the magnificent Taj hotel admiring its beauty, I have never boarded a train at CST nor have I ever had a cup of coffee at the Leopold cafe.
But as I sit in front of the TV watching images of the Taj engulfed in flames, of the inconsolable relatives of the innocent victims of this mindless senseless tragedy I grieve. I grieve for my country and my fellow countrymen. I grieve for the lives lost and the dreams shattered.
Yet at the same time I feel sense of fury and helplessness that I have never felt before.
When will this all end? How many deaths, how many blasts will it take to wake you up?
Its so nice to sit in your bullet proof cars and zoom about the city with your z security isn’t it. I guess it doesn’t bother you how porous our coastal borders are, how insufficiently manned our public places are and what a dismal failure our Intelligence System is. As you pontificate on the national security policy have you ever wondered about the brave policemen who face the terrorists armed to the teeth with ammunition and AK 47s with their ancient pistols.Have you ever pondered over the fact that the citizens of your country now wonder if they will come back when they leave their homes in the morning.
You will bicker amongst yourselves and divide us by our religion and by the state we belong to. You will make political mileage out of every blast and every attack. Then you will make solidarity speeches and urge us to remain calm in the face of terror.
No,we will not remain calm now. We are fed up of being calm and showing the world how resilient we are. We are fed up of constantly living in fear in our own country. We are fed up of your false promises and your empty words. This country has now had enough.
For the love of god, get off your asses and do something for the people that trusted you enough to put you into Power.

26/11

for the last one hour I have sat at my desk, staring at the blank screen in front of me.
Wanting to write but not knowing how to put the gut wrenching sorrow and rage I feel into words.
How does your conscious allow you to do all this?
which ideaology,which religion tells you that it is all right to kill so many innocent people in the name of your so called cause?
And how will you ever face that god of yours in whose name you commit so many dastardly acts ?

Hello there .. looks who's back !

Hey guys
I am back .. for the meager few who read my blog and for the one sweet soul who orkutted me asking why I had stopped blogging ..thanks for the concern .. No I am not dead, No I didn’t break a leg or my arm .. I simply didnt feel like blogging ... not that anything worth blogging didn’t happen in the past 3 months but lets say I was in one of my “I hate everything and I don’t want to blog even if it will make me feel good” phases.
I am back in India … Shifted base somewhere in the end of September .. not a unwelcome change I must say .. Not that I am averse to staying in Japan but this particular visit was not very pleasant one work wise ..... Any how as to what I have been up to for the past 2 months.. the following should give you a good idea....
1) Hogging on paranthas every day (I have an extra 2.5 kilos to show for it)
2) Worrying about my job and cursing the ongoing recession every single minute
3) Took a break, went to Chandigarh to see the new house and fell in love with the bright sunny spacious bedrooms and and the four balconies overlooking the forest area – fell even more in love with the steam bath and sauna installed in one of the bathrooms :-)
4) Came back to Delhi and now I curse the daily commute and the traffic and the stupid deaf neighbors who listen to the TV so loud that the whole bloody mohalla knows their love for the 'K' serials.

Any ways .. now that I am back I faithfully promise to ramble about something or the other every few days.

Random Thoughts at work

• I want to chuck my job and travel through Japan with a backpack
• I want to go back to Chandigarh and see the new house
• I want to have paranthas with home made butter
• I want to go to my favourite cafe;sit cross legged on their comfy sofas and eat cheesecake with coffee while I read a good book
• I am fed up of working with unprofessional people and want to tell them so
• I am tired of motivating others when I don’t feel too motivated myself
• I want to ask some people if they have ever heard of the terms "Schedule management" and "Contingency Planning" ?
  

Its not such a good day at work people !

Friends, Shopping and Rajma Chawal

I’ve been meeting a lot of old friends lately. Met A last weekend in Yokohama and yesterday met S. She was in shizuoka for a week which is quite a distance from Tokyo and I had almost despaired of meeting her, but the great pal that she is she delayed her flight to Sunday so she cld spend Saturday with me.We had the most glorious time. We shopped till we dropped and talked about how life had treated us since we met last. The weather gods were kind - for a change the day was cloudy so we spent most of it walking ard Tokyo and by 6 in the evening we were just about ready to collapse.S is a pure veg and not the kind who drink - so I couldn't take her to a Japanese restaurant or a pub without getting disapproving looks and a lecture about the sins of drinking and eating non veg.
Actually S is so shockingly different from the other people I know. She doesn't drink, eat non veg and likes to stay at home with her yr old son and spend time with only good frnds or family. She loves to shop but will shop for bangles and traditional salwar kamizees where as I wld go for silver jewelery and ethnic kurtis and jeans and short tops. As personalities we are poles apart - she is a bit conservative and doesnt adjust to modern ideas fast. - I am the one with the modern outlook who can do anything live anywhere and off course eat anything !
But what is similar is our values and beliefs in life and that goes beyond being modern or conservative- Under all my veneer of modernity I am a person to whom spirituality means a lot - In fact that is the one common factor that brought us together.She understands that part of me so well.Like her I stick to my few friends and will only spent time with like minded people and wld rather spent my time alone than in company of people I dont agree with or enjoy much.
And so we had coffee al fresco and gorged on the snacks she brought from home. Her mom makes all sorts of fabulous namkeens imaginable and I guess she knew that for all my talk about “I love Japanese food and I cant understand why people have to eat Indian even in Japan” I wld be dying for some Indian food so she brought it along all for me.
Then in the evening we had to go to a old colleagues place .. apparently his wife had cooked dinner for us and we are sort of fond of his wife so off we went The wife made us good adarak chai Indian style and then we had rajma chawal for dinner.Rajma Chawal is something I can die for so I really hogged and hogged.
On Sunday - I went shopping to Tokyo hands and lazona in Kawasaki and bought everything from books to hair clips to perfumes to foot creams. I also wanted to buy a very lovely peasant blouse but then off course they didn't have my size - no one in japan has my size - it really doesn't help to be 5 feet 9 inches in a land of tiny people with no busts or behinds to speaks of !
So that's how I spent my weekend ...

P.S
Have I been giving an impression of “poor me I am so lonely in Tokyo”?? coz There was a comment on my last post .Some smart fella wrote about how he pitied me coz I was supposedly friendless in Tokyo and how he was having so much fun coz he had a lot of friends there – dude – first of all this is someone who has been coming to Japan almost every year for the past I don’t know how many yrs now and something I can never get in this city is lonely. And then that post was just a nostalgic bit about how nice it feels to catch up with good frnds you haven’t met in ages. OK !

The company of Friends

What do you do when a dear friend calls to say he will be in town soon and will meet you ? You hop skip and jump around the room like a five year old and start counting the days till he comes. Meanwhile you call your mother, his mother and a hundred people in between pestering them to tell you his exact schedule. And when he does land in Tokyo you call him a thousand times a day when he is in very important meetings with very important people demanding to know when he will meet you.
And when you do meet,the feeling is like coming home. The best thing that can happen to you when you are in an alien city suffering from the blues is to meet someone from home.
And so as the ice tinkles in the glasses and you munch on the chicken wings, the conversation spirals and rambles into everything from philosphical discussions on life to hilarious anecdotes about the people back home to crazy inane happenings. And as you laugh and talk and laugh some more,you realize how much you had missed being with people with whom you can really and truly be yourself without putting on any pretenses.
Then suddenly you realize only five minutes remain till the last train home and you gulp down the last of your drink and hug him and hug him and make your self seem like a little lost kid in a big bad city and extract a thousand promises from him to see you when he is in town again.
And on your way back in the train,as you smile thinking about the conversations and the laughter;you realize that life's finest moments are those that we spend in the company of friends.

So - Here's to the time very well spent in TGIF Yokohama and here to many more such rendezvous in the future !

Our sleeping beauty from China

S and I have something entertaining to do at work now besides passing comments on how much we hate M.
There are two new Chinese guys at work ... both of them rather cute but painfully shy.They sit right opposite us and we spent most of the time observing them and then commenting on them in Hindi. I share the phone with them and every time they have to use it they go into paraxyms of guilt saying sumimasen(sorry in Japanese) to me a billion times before using it.
Then there is something slimy and green that one of the guy adds to his water bottle every morning and it sort of floats around looking like worms or something. So S and I spent an hour debating what was in the bottle - is it tea leaves or does our Chinese friend really like to eat raw food?
But our absolute favourite is the one who site right opposite S. He is really young, and has permanently raised eyebrows that give him a perpetually startled expression.When ever someone speaks to him suddenly he starts and becomes all nervous and jittery.
Whenever he doesn't understand something he asks the other chinese guy and his manner of asking is so interesting that I am entirely captivated by it though I don't understand a single word of what he is saying.He moves his chair close to the other guy, points at something in the document or in the computer and says something in rapid fire Chinese all the while flaying his arms about. The other guy's replies are always punctuated by a furious tapping of his computer screen with his finger.Our man looks at the other guy, then at the computer screen scratching his head with a very puzzled expression on his face. When he is truly agitated the scratching of head turns into rapid churning of hair which leaves it standing up in spikes.Then he flays his arms around some more and says something again. The other guys replies by more tapping of the computer screen.
But the best of all is when he falls asleep at work. He sits staring at the computer and slowly his eyes start to close and his head starts to nod - the first few times that happens he gets up with a start and discreetly looks around to see if any one is watching ...then shakes his head not unlike a puppy just out of water and diligently start typing again. But soon his eyes start to flutter close again and his head is nodding against his chest. Its then that the other guy hits him with the back of his hand and starts reprimanding him in Chinese - so our poor sleeping beauty shakes him self awake once again and gets back to work.
This performance is repeated at least twice a day and forms the highlight of our work day.
For those of you wondering if we ever work .. take your own guess !

On Living your dreams ...

How important is it to get the job you want? How many people are doing what they really want to do? How many of us spend our entire lives doing a job we don't even like?
There have been many things I have dreamt about doing .. about living in the mountains and writing ....on getting more invovled in social work and of finding and doing the kind of job I really want to do.
A while back I went for an interview to a media company..I Knew I was not qualified for the job also knew the chances of getting it were one in a trillion ..but I went for the interview for that one in a trillion chance and also because I simply could not let pass an interview with such a great firm .. And it was great simply great.. I royally flunked their test coz it was all about finance reporting- and they asked questions meant for an economics or commerce student and not someone with a humanities background and who needs a calculator to add 2 plus 2.But the questions about writing articles and proof reading and copy editing .. by god how I enjoyed doing them ... And I loved the ambiance and I loved talking with those people. As I stood there soaking in everything I realized how much I have missed associating with like minded professionals. My mind, my intellect has been yearning for some stimulating conversation with intelligent educated brilliant minds. I learnt Japanese because I loved the language.. I loved playing with words, I loved the art of translation I loved learning the different nuances in a language and using them. And now after a Masters in that language I am doing something that is not even remotely similar to what I had ever wanted to do.
I really respect and admire people who have the courage to give up a well paying job just to live their dreams .. I just wish I had that sort of courage ...I know no one gets the perfect job ..but please god let my next job be better and different and please give me the wisdom to find it......

At lunch today ....

The three of us decided to go to a neighborhood Japanese restaurant for lunch today. It was actually a small family run restaurant with the folks living at the back. The kind where you sit on cushions on the floor and eat.
The owner was a lady in her sixties wearing a bright red lipstick and talking loudly and very brashly to one and all.
Anyhow they just had two types of lunch – sashimi (raw fish) with rice or vegetables with rice. A asked the lady if the vegetable with rice contained meat and she gave him a funny look and said off course –Pork. When he asked her if she could give him just the vegetables and rice without the meat she looked at him as if he had asked her to strip and do a jig in front of him. Remove the pork !! what ? why ??!! – I cant do that !(horror stricken face) So finally we just asked her to bring the whole damn thing and A spent 10 minutes fastidiously removing all the pork from his plate as well as the bits of octopus,squid,prawn, fish and other assorted sea food that came with it (To all the vegetarians in Japan -when a Japanese says vegetable dish it means it has vegetables along with the meat, and not just vegetables. Also for a Japanese sea food is not meat.)
Any how after she had served us she loudly regaled to the rest of her customers about how we came in and how one of us wanted her to remove the pork from the dish and how strange it was that some people just didnt want to eat her good meat !
The funniest part is she knew we all speak Japanese because all of us placed our orders in perfect impeccable Japanese (including the long winded conversation about removing the meat) and here she was sitting at practically the next table talking about us! What was she thinking!
And on the way out I forgot to close the door behind me – it was one of those Japanese sliding paper doors that you are supposed to slide shut on your way out - I realized my mistake when S asked me if I had shut the door.
We laughed all the way back imagining how this must be the highlight of her day. First four crazy Indians walk in and ask her to remove the meat from her good dish and then they forget to close the door on their way out ! Oh my goodness what audacity!!

It made a interesting lunch though and put some fun in the otherwise drab day !

Are you going Gymming tonight ?

I think I have coined a new word and that word is gymming.Instead of asking each other if we are going out tonight or what time are we going back home we ask each other if we are going gymming tonight.
Actually I started it all. I had a hard look at myself and finally realized that my trousers are not becoming tight because they shrunk in the washing machine or something but that I am totally and completely out of shape and will seriously become obese if i dont do anything about it pronto. So I went and joined the tipness fitness club right next to the office.And both the friends from work got so facinated by my talks of how great aerobics classes were and how good the machines were and how relaxing the sauna was that they joined in too.
So here I am every evening huffing and puffing on the treadmill surrounded by extremely fit Japanese women with highly toned bodies who make me feel drab and flabby and un-smart ... But its a lot of fun and Gym is turning out to be an obsession with me – it’s a great stress reliever and I recommend it to every one who needs to do some stress busting.
And seriously – I am about fed up of the see saw of loosing weight and gaining weight that I tend to do on a regular basis and I have resolved that this time the weight is going to come off and stay off for ever.
So ladies and gentlemen a few months from now get ready for a much slimmer and trimmer me !

Realization

In the past few weeks I have realized that we can overcome any adverse circumstances and come out of any absymal depths of self pity and depression by sheer determination and will power. That all of us have reservoirs of strength within us that we dont even know exist.
I have realized that we are really and truly made up of our thoughts and if we think positive, positive things will happen to us.

Kobe Memories

I went to Makuhari yesterday to give a presentation and instantly fell in love with the place .. its much more quiet and much more green than tokyo is ..it reminded me of kobe and took me back to those never to be forgotten wonderful days spent at NEC Kobe - crisp autumn days when the trees on rokko hills turned yellow and orange and red - as if on fire;of standing in the balcony every morning and watching the sun come up the hills with the sea shimmering far away.The half hr train journey to work that never felt cumbersome thanks to the quaint little Japanese houses and green fields that one passed.Eating in the NEC cafeteria - two sides glass while looking out at cherry blossoms in spring and the autumn splendour in Fall.To walk down to the lake every day during lunch and sit there enjoying the peace and quiet .. Now that I am in Tokyo,I realize how lucky I was to get such a wonderful work environment at that time and how much I took it for granted then .... I miss the feeling of general well being and being at peace with oneself and one's surroundings. And most of all I miss the warm pleasant friendly people at work...
Tokyo is all about ultra modern high rise buildings and technology and power. Kobe was all about friendships and warmth and natural beauty and peace ....

to sleepy to articulate

I called up a dear friend last night at 12.30 am.Not something I would recommmend if u need to get to work by 8 the next morning.During the course of our conversation I realized that she is as confused about her life as I am ..what a relief to know you are not the only one who thinks that the whole world is totally screwed up.
Any way she made me feel much better ..as she always does ..we talked and laughed and laughed and I really dont remember the last time I laughed like this.
but then I slept late and got up late and ran to work without breakfast so now I am sleepy and cranky.
And when I am cranky - STAY AWAY FROM ME !

And what a week it was .....

Sunday afternoon. I wake up at 12 p.m.Was with the guys from offshore till 1 am last night,and as I look bleary eyed at the clock,I realize that the whole gang must be at Narita by now, checking in .....
2 weeks back the Japan team suddenly woke up to the fact that unless some sort of training and Knowledge transfer happens this project will fail miserably. So they decided to get the offshore team here for a week. In typical Japanese fashion they took more than a week to make the decision and then suddenly wanted the team here within 4 days. So Me in Tokyo and AB in Noida spend 4 very exhausting days in getting the invitation letters and visas ready and preparing the team.
And then suddenly all of them are here ..............
All six of them bleary eyed and tired, the ones first time abroad looking slightly dazed and confused, the ones who have been to Tokyo before excited and longing to catch up with friends ....
Four guys with a single minded determination to hit the bar every evening when the 1000 yen – 2 hrs drink all you can offer is on and drink till they pass out .Two girls with their minds more on shopping and having fun than things like knowledge transfer and deadlines.
And what a whirlwind of a week it was .When I look back on it all I have is snatches of memories ...
the guys drinking themselves silly each and every night,the girls wanting to buy makeup and accessories....
Me worrying incessantly that they will be Late for work ....Will they remember the protocol? their manners? All the small but extremely important nuances that come with working in Japan that I have told them a million times ?...
Me screaming at them – yes actually screaming when they do come to work late totally unconcerned about how it would seem to　the client ..you are not at offshore damn it ... get your ass to work on time and behave yourselves while you are here .. keep your voices low, don’t lounge in the corridors and for heavens sake concentrate and listen listen during meetings ....
Me torn between the Indian and the Japan side...doing the exhausting job of a mediator.
The Japan side .. making fun of the Indians,complaining all the time, being totally unhelpful and going back on what they had said during previous meetings even when we showed them the MOMs as proof; making us re do all the work.In all my experiences with Japan never have I met such a bunch of lousy bastards.......
AS and SP and NS refusing to touch Japanese food, even the veg sandwiches at the deli, insisting on going to my apt. everyday during lunch to heat up and eat food out of MTR packets that they have lugged all the way frm India.... Me telling them to loosen up and get out of their 「roti daal and chaawal only coz we are Indians」mentality and try their hand at the Japanese food ..its tasty yaar just try it na .....
AB.... first time in Japan - amazed at the alcohol intake and the fact that Japan business is hinged more upon the after work drink parties and relationships than anything else ....
AB on his return from Nagoya ... hogging on a bowl of maggie noodles and bread and my tomato chutney as if he has never seen food before .....
Me taking SP and RS to Odaiba at night and smiling quietly at their delight as they ride the monorail and go into raptures over the marvelous view of the rainbow bridge and the Tokyo tower at night .....
AB,NS and AS –in akihabara on Saturday ....take three normal Indian IT engineers and put them in akihabara, and suddenly they go berserk. They turn into a bunch of over excited out of control kids and wander along the floors as if they are in magic land. No amount of pleading, threats and` we are dying of hunger` from us makes them budge from there. They only leave when all their money is finished and we refuse to lend them any.
VA,SP and I thoroughly exasperated with them, finally leave them huddled together in the camera section of softMap，crooning over the latest sony camera and scour the restaurants to find something veg for SP to eat. Finally we walk in a coffee shop ask the lady at the counter to remove the chicken from the chicken salad sandwich and tell SP she’ll have to do with that ...
SP and I pushing off to Asakusa ...I show her the temple and the huge lantern and she is appropriately impressed.
SP very excited on having bought her very first digital camera frm Akihabara. I spend the afternoon at Asakusa patiently clicking her in various poses and then at12 a.m at night she realizes that she has left the camera behind at Asakusa and now its too late to go back and look for it....
Me hogging on paranthas and the namkeen that they get from India, realizing that I do miss Indian food more than I am willing to admit ....
The riotous Friday night party when everyone both from Japan and India gets thoroughly drunk and AB and I take the opportunity to tell the Bitch M what we really think of her ..

And now that they are gone .... after 6 days of eating haldiraam namkeen and kaju katli, talking in hindi,loud laughter and unrestrained crazy conversations... I find the sudden silence unbearable ....

Haircut

I have a new haircut
Its short and neat and makes me look trendy and hep
So I am happy.

Haiku

These are some of my favourite Haikus by Basho -They are so simple that they are beautiful.....


tabi ni yande / yume wa kareno wo / kake meguru
Sick on my journey,
only my dreams will wander
these desolate moors

Kono michi ya / yuku hito nashini / aki no kure
All along this road
not a single soul – only
autumn evening comes

Won't you come
and see loneliness?
Just one leaf on the kiri tree

Temple bells die out
the fragrant blossoms remain
A perfect evening!

Miru tokoro hana ni arazu to iu koto nashi,
omou tokoro tsuki ni arazu to iu koto nashi
There is nothing you can see that is not a flower;
There is nothing you can think that is not the moon

Black and White !

Unlike India Lunch hour in Japan is fixed – 12 – 1p.m.So at 12 sharp the Japanese `salarymen`(and women !) come out of their offices in droves all dressed alike in black suits and white shirts reminding me very irresistibly of crows !
Lack of color is what I hate about Japan .. Oh the country is color full enough ...pink and white sakura in march; bright orange autumn leaves in November. Then they have mastered the art of serving their food in the most colorful and artistic manner so u almost feel guilty about eating and spoiling the whole effect!
What I mean is their dress code at work ... formal white shirts and black trousers and jacket day in and day out .. Compared to the casual dress code we have in India it’s a shocker. Even after all these years of working with Japan I cant seem to get used to the drabness of black and white 5 days a week !
Bright Ethnic clothes is what I am - cotton kurtas, flowy dupattas of all colors under the sun –daffodil yellow and sky blue, lavender,pink and mauves,fiery orange, fuchsia,saffron, soothing whites – colours chosen every morning to suit my mood that day.

May be one day I will wear my blue jeans and a printed Fab India shirt to work and jolt the Japanese out of their habitual indifference !

More hellos and Less good Byes

Why can't we get all the people together in the world that we really like and then just stay together? I guess that wouldn't work. Someone would leave. Someone always leaves. Then we would have to say good-bye. I hate good-byes. I know what I need. I need more hellos.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 - Charlie Brown (Peanuts)

My family and friends are scattered in different parts of the world, living in three different time zones and leading totally diverse lives.And yet we sometimes feel a irresistible need to connect and to talk.With my friends its whats up with you messages on orkut and long emails written once a week that talk about nothing and everything ....
With my brother its phone calls and web cams.Its through the web cam that I see my niece grown taller and hear the sound of her laughter that I miss so much. I see the paintings she has made and listen to the poems she has written and am amazed at her power of imagination. I see my nephew as he scampers around the room and brings his birthday presents to show thru the camera. Its through the phone calls that I hear my brother’s good solid practical advice and feel the love behind it ..feel my sister in laws smile through the lines and the love and warmth that always comes with it .....
And its these e mails and calls that sustain me and get me through my oh my god I cant do this ... I need to go home days....
Did I hear someone say homesickness!

Of Earthquakes and Typhoons !

A few days back I was jolted awake in the middle of the night by a earthquake ....the room was swaying and the side ways motion felt as if I am sitting in a train ..it passed after a few moments and I drifted back to sleep when at ard 1.45 there was another one ..this time a big one ..Everything swayed and swayed for ever so long ..I kept waiting for it to finish and when it didnt kept getting increasingly alarmed.....The lamp was swaying making crazy patterns on the walls, and water was sloshing out of a filled pan in the kitchen ..it was so eerily quiet that the sound of things bumping against each other and the water sloshing was unnaturally loud .. I guess earthquakes are more scary if they happen at night !
for a while I wondered if I shld run out and when I finally did I found my Japanese neighbor had come out as well (come to think of it that’s the only time I have ever seen her!).
In the morning we had another one....this time mercifully a small one..I was sitting at my desk,writing when I felt the table shake. but this time I just waited for the table to stop shaking and then calmly resumed working. ..funny how you get used to such things in Japan !
And then yesterday we had a typhoon warning and it has been raining and raining and raining since then .. the temperature has drastically fallen ..my jackets which I had bundled away at the back of my cupboard are out again ....Its like Feb in May !
3 Earthquakes in two days and a Typhoon ... Thats Japan for you !

The Simple Pleasures of Life ...

We have a week long holiday in Japan .. What the Japanese so fondly call the Golden Week .. The trains are empty .. no morning rush hours, no people scurrying to and fro between stations
For me this is the time to sit back and relax, to think and contemplate, to sit by my window and read as the sun streams in making tiger stripes on the wooden floor, to listen to my favourite music or have a cup of masala chai as I watch the rain fall gently on my window frame ….to take long walks and rejoice in finding a patch of wild flowers or birds chirping in this concrete jungle that is Tokyo ..
Ahh .. the simple pleasures of life !

To mourn for things that could have been ......

I used to write when I was in school .. stories, poems or just jot down the　random ramblings of　my mind. I was told I write well ..that I should cultivate this skill ... One of my dreams was to become a writer and live up in the mountains ..Ruskin bond style .. but then I got carried away in the pursuit of professional and materialistic happiness and my writing lay forgotten like a dusty child hood book, treasured but rarely read ..I used to tell myself that someday I will start writing again.....may be this weekend..may be after this deadline is over ..
And now today as I finally sit before the computer I find that I have lost the ability to play around with words,the metaphors and expressions don't come so easily any more ...
...And so I mourn for lost skills and things that could have been !

Back to the Land of the Rising Sun

Beginning of April ….
I am back in Japan,this time after a hiatus of 7 months …
I see Sakura trees in full bloom on the way to Tokyo from Narita airport .. pearly white and pink ..delicate petals like fairy's wing.They are beautiful …lifts my mood a little .. I am feeling a bit low,a combination of jetlag and the sad tug at the heart feeling you get on leaving your family behind and not knowing when you will meet again.
Back to Japan .. Back to the hard work and toil .. to meeting old friends again ..and may be making a few new ones ..back to sushi and soba, onigiri and okonomiyaki and yakitori ..tastes so shockingly new and different on my indian taste buds ….. yet experimented with loved.
After the dirt and dust,pollution and chaos of delhi .. clean air and clean roads,organized traffic, every thing right from the trains to the person who comes to pick up my garbage working in precise clock work fashion .. and yet and yet ..why do I yearn so for the sights and sounds and smells of Delhi !
Japan ..this time I come with my future still uncertain and unknown … but filled with hope and excitement for the good times that I know will come …..