From pieces to peace!

"Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves."

                                                                                        - Henry David Thoreau

Have you ever felt suffocated that you just wanted to break free? No matter how much you tried, you just couldn’t sort out your life. With this baggage, I went to the land of Lamas and rediscovered myself. This is my story and maybe yours too.       

“Why do you want to run away?” Anjani asked me with a concerned look. I took one look at her and burst into tears. She didn’t budge but looked at me as I wept like a child.....

My life was a mess and just to get some answers I decided to visit a Tarot reader. I was initially hesitant as I did not want a complete stranger to know about my life but I was so desperate for help that I went along. Apparently the cards that I picked during my reading indicated that I was really frustrated with my life and that I just wanted to run away. It also indicated that I was desperate to change my life but I did not know where to begin. Anjani told me the first thing that I had to do was to pack my bag and go on a vacation all by myself. No family. No friends. Just me... a journey to re-discover myself. I felt better with her pep talk but as I was on my way back home the doubts started creeping in. As if Anjani could sense it she wrote to me over the next few days convincing me to take a break and just out of the blue I decided to go to Ladakh. 

I used to always joke with my mother and tell her, “I need to go stay in the Himalayas, I think then I’d have time to think and sort my life” I never thought I’d do exactly that and it would turn out to be one of the best decisions of my life.

TAKING THE PLUNGE

I have never travelled alone so it came as a surprise to my parents that I wanted to be on my own this time. It amazed me how desperate I was to get my life into perspective. I decided to go through a company named Foliage Outdoors where my brother-in-law is one of the partners. Other than the company representative who was traveling with me, I did not know anyone but I was all set to travel with a bunch of strangers who eventually turned out to be good company. The whole trip was planned in a week and I was off to the land of lamas – Ladakh.  I landed in New Delhi and we all set off to Manali. We spent the next two days in Manali and somehow it just didn’t sink in that I was finally on my own. Every time a negative though crossed my mind I would push it out of my mind. The day we left for Ladakh I was excited but nervous at the same time. Was this the moment I was waiting for? Was my life really going to change? I was looking for answers but I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the truth.

MESMERIZING BEAUTY

The first time I set my eyes on the snow clad mountains I was dumb-struck by its beauty. I don’t know why but it felt as if they were calling me. I still get goose-bumps when I think of it.  It was like I was in trance and suddenly all the doubts started fading out. If you look at it, there is nothing but barren land and snow clad mountains but one cannot get enough of it. This is one place which proves the fact that nature is so powerful and human even with their knowledge and advancement can never compete with the powers of nature. Everyone there is at the mercy of Mother Nature. It took us close to two days to reach Leh and we were exposed to sudden weather changes during this. The whole journey was a combination of scorching heat and sudden snowfall. I believe it was God’s way of telling me that life is a combination of good and bad. Neither phase last for a long time. After the snow the heat is a nice change but too much heat leaves us craving for the cold. Similarly, the bad experiences teach us a lot and that’s how we value the good times......and just like that I learnt an important lesson.

INSIGHTFUL EXPERIENCE

We crossed the borders and entered Jammu and Kashmir. I think I left all my worries back in Himachal Pradesh because all of a sudden I felt lighter. I couldn’t get any network on my cell phone and I guess that was a blessing in disguise. I’m a techno-freak and not being able to get in touch with people makes me feel disabled. Somehow it didn't matter anymore. I was already on my soul searching journey and no one could stop me. I spoke to my mother just twice during those ten days just to let her know I was fine.  The monasteries were beautiful and they had an aura to them. I could just go there and look at the city for hours together and not get enough of it. 

The cold desert of Nubra Valley is best place if you want to have a conversation with yourself. The silence there was so blissful that I sat there in the middle of the desert and wasn’t bored. We found the double humped camels here. I took a ride on these camels just so I would be there in the desert and all I could hear was the whistling of the wind and the tinkling of the bells that were tied around the camel’s neck. It’s difficult to explain but it had a soothing effect which just calmed my senses. Emotions like hate, frustration, nervousness and anger became a distant memory. They were replaced by love, faith, peace and the wish to live life to the fullest and take chances just to follow my dreams. My visit to the Pangong Tso was wonderful. The vastness of the lake is striking. There were so many people there and it was like a fish market – quite noisy, but I somehow couldn’t hear them beyond a certain point. I was so deep in thoughts that I just sat there at the bank listening to the water and foreseeing my life here on. The whole self exploring journey ended with river rafting in the Indus and Zanskar River. I asked myself, why was I so scared to take chances in life? It’s only after I take chances would I know whether things are going to work or not. As I was deep in thought and enjoying the ride, the rafting guide asked whether anyone wanted to jump in the river. No one around me wanted to. I just put my oars aside and jumped in. The water was icy cold and I couldn’t breathe for a moment but before I knew it I was fine. I repeated the same thing when we crossed over and into river Zanskar. You see even though initially I was breathless I was fine in an instance. So why was I so scared? 

BREAKING FREE.....FINALLY!!

That’s when is realised that I wasn’t scared anymore and that I was all set to take a step and transform my life. I couldn’t wait to get back to Pune and embrace my new life. You see, Mother Nature in her own way made me realize the reason why I was so scared. I’m 26 year old, infact I turn 27 in February. I've worked as a Human Resources executive and somewhere deep down I knew this was not what I was cut out for. But I was scared of starting my career from scratch and that added to my frustration. I could see everyone around me moving ahead and I was just stuck. I’ve always wanted to be a writer but somehow the dream was lost and I was stuck in the rat race like any other management graduate.

People of Leh taught me a big lesson of restarting life from scratch. After the cloud burst last year when the city was washed out, everyone stood up and put all the pieces together and started their life all over again and here is was fussing over few wrong decisions of my life.  It’s not too late and now here I am enjoying my job and embracing each day with open arms.

A heartfelt thank you to my Tarot reader Anjani Shah and salute to Mother Nature for being the best teacher........EVER!

The Day I Found My Twin!

Last weekend I had been for my friend Nafisa's two year old's birthday party. It all started with me hunting for the perfect gift for the naughty little kiddo. Believe me when I say this, 'It's easier to buy gifts for grown ups' Finally with a lot of looking around I settled on a pink Barbie cushion and a Winnie the Pooh stuff toy. By the way tear bear is my favourite stuff toy. 

As soon I entered the party house I was stunned for a moment. I had never been to a house filled up with so many shrieking kids. All of them running from one corner to another.  The reaction was also the result of being the youngest in the family therefore I've never been around younger siblings.

I finally spotted my friend with the birthday girl Aaisha and made my way towards them while dodging through the kids. After the initial birthday wishes and handing over the gifts, I made my way through the house looking for a familiar face. That's when I entered the gift wrapping room which was later converted into the "Stay-away-from-the-shrieking-kids-room"  There I bumped into another friend, Heena who was busy wrapping the return gifts. I thought I'd help her as I did not have much to do and also because the kids were busy playing games. As the cake cutting was going to take sometime, I thought I'd make myself useful. I was introduced to  Heena's friend Ruchika and we became the gift wrapping team.

As the conversation picked up we were so engrossed that we never realized it was time to cut the cake.The minute the kids heard about it, they rushed to the table the way the Wildebeest rush to cross the river during Migration. 

The foodie that I am, I was really happy that soon the dinner would be served! I made my way to the food counter with Ruchika.  We filled our plates and settle at one of the neatly decorated tables. We spoke of everything from work to food to hobbies. You name it and we had spoken about it. It felt as if we had been friends forever.


It is amazing how we meet people for a really short time and feel that we've known each other for ever. What is this bond that we share? Is there a past life connect like some put it or is it just of two people with common interests and common expectations in life who have come together?


I've had my series of ups and downs in life but the past few years have seen more of downs that ups. In these times of distress its quite rare to find someone who knows exactly what one is going throughI've had times when I have desperately tried to convey certain things to people and how much ever I try, I've never been able to get my ideas across. The connection is sometimes just not there. While talking about aspirations, I spoke about certain things that I've been meaning to take up and haven't. At that point, Ruchika knew exactly what I was talking about. Sometimes we feel a connection with certain people, where the other person knows what we are talking about even before the words are spoken. That's exactly how I felt when we spoke to her. Suddenly she said," Oh wow I've found my twin!" All this when I had opened my mouth to utter the exact same words.


Soon it was time for me to go home. After the good-byes and all I made my way to my car. While driving back home I couldn't stop myself by replaying the events of the evening.  What started as an anxious evening finally with me finding my "Twin." This would be one of the finest evenings I've had in a really long time. So I guess He is really watching us from up there in.


I'm impelled to believe now that God has too many surprised in store for us and discloses them only when he feels we would really appreciate them. Looking forward to many more surprises!