Change

Yesterday I met up with a few of my school mates after a long long period of 5 years. Not my closest friends in school and all people who I had lost touch with after school had ended.

My diffidence made me a little apprehensive about it at first but eventually I let myself get talked into it. Being a last minute plan, I ended up reaching there an hour late and without any mental preparation. You must be thinking, I am just meeting up with friends, what kind of mental preparation would I need for that, right? Well this was different. These were people who knew me when I was the fat geeky kid who studied all the time and did not know how to dress or carry herself and had absolutely no self-confidence. I was nervous! I did not know how I was going to face those people and the memories that seeing them would bring back to me.

Surprisingly, I enjoyed myself. It was so very interesting to see how everyone had grown as people. Everyone had branched out into various streams ranging from business to film-making. There were so many interesting stories being shared, some about school times and some post-school.

I stayed on the sidelines and watched and listened. I was intrigued by everyones opinions and thoughts. I spoke to people I had never spoken to in school. I listened to conversations about how the UAE is the first in the Middle East to manufacture airplane parts, how sad it is that our beloved school campus is now lying unused and uncared for after the school shifted to a new campus, and most interesting of all, about Indian politics. I was stunned when I found out that 2 of the people present there actually wanted to go into Indian politics and do their share for the country. They spoke about religion and the fire that burns in people because of it and of power and what it can do. They spoke about the Bhagavad Gita and the Quran. About the great Lalu and the amazing Mayawati. Being so deep into the conversation I was ignorant to all else. On my way home I thought over it all again. I realized that I had just spent close to an hour talking about Indian politics with those same kids whose last memories in my mind were those of standing in assembly lines dressed in the coloured house t-shirts and white shorts/skirts and of running away at the sight of Mr.James or Mrs.Brendish. So much time had passed and so much had changed. It made me think...How much had these 5 years changed me?

Lost...

Having just finished my undergrad, I was so freaked out at the prospect of not having a definite plan of action for life. Being the tightly wound person that I am, I always have a plan for even the small, trivial matters in every day life and there I was (still am!)-at one of the biggest and most important junctions of my life where a lot of decisions, regarding both my personal and professional life, were to be taken-and I did not even have the slightest clue of what was to be done. Infact I spent all my time worrying about the 'plan' and eventually was left with no time to actually sit and make a plan or atleast start weighing my options!

Finally, as usual, my parents came to my rescue. They told me to take some time off and visit my friends in India and my sister in Toronto, Canada. I couldn't have asked for anything better. I packed my bags and set out for my vacation. It was my first trip in the past 5 years that had no agenda and which allowed me to surrender to my whims and fancies. I met all my old friends, saw and fell in love with a beautiful new city (Bangalore), did loads of shopping, spent hours chatting, got drenched in the rain, and for once, stopped worrying!

After my brief and fun trip to India, I came home for a couple of days and before I knew it, I was on a plane to Toronto to visit my best friend, and in so many ways my inspiration, my elder sister. Usually when I go to a new city, I have travel plans set up in advance and I know exactly where I want to go and what I want to see, but this time it was all very different. This time I set myself free.

I woke up each morning and just stepped out and started walking (usually taking the less windy direction, but you get the point right?) with my Tim Hortons iced cappucino in one hand and my beloved black canon digital camera in the other. I spent some cherished quality time with my sister after so very long, I met a lot of new people, I danced and I wandered. I walked around the city with my earphones in place and iPod in hand and discovered areas of the city where even my sister had never been in the one year that she had been living there. I found places where I could just sit and watch people go about their lives, places where I could spend hours dog-watching (yes, i love dogs!) and places where the spirit of the architect inside me awoke and I spent hours gaping in awe at some of the most beautiful buildings I had ever seen. I just never wanted to stop walking. Eventually when I did, my legs hurt in places which I didn't even know existed, but that still didn't keep me from doing the exact same thing the very next day.

As I am writing this during my layover in London on my way back from Toronto to Dubai, I know that although I will always be the same, old, uptight person that I have always been, this trip has taught me to let go and take a breath once in a while. I may not always have the liberty to go with the flow and take chances in life but whenever I do, I know I will make full use of them.

Sometimes all we need is to take some time off and get lost. It leads us to discover paths we never knew existed and even though we may take the safest, most-used path to move forward in life, atleast we won't regret that we never gave ourselves that chance.