Grief & Pain

Pre script : I came across this post on Twitter  by Lauren Herchel on the Grief Ball Analogy and felt a need to share it along with my inputs in hope that it helps people overcome grief and pain. This post is an outcome of my personal experience with grief and how it affected me as a person, how it shaped my personality and more importantly, how I perceived and responded to various forms of relationships and connections due to the same.

I have always believed that love and grief are twin brothers, two sides of the same coin. It is impossible to escape grief, it comes along with love. And similarly, talking about grief is almost like talking about love - it is felt just as deeply, it changes you as a person and it persists almost as long as love.

But first, I'd like to share this post on Twitter  by Lauren Herchel on the Grief Ball Analogy

1. The Box

Imagine you are the box.

2. The Grief Ball.

Once you suffer some trauma resulting in a deep sense of loss, there is this huge weight that you feel inside your heart. Like a giant ball of grief.

3. The Pain Button

At the inception, the grief ball is gigantic. The moment you try to move the box an iota of an inch, the grief ball hits the pain button. It jumps and rattles hither and thither, at its own whims, and keeps on hitting the pain button over and over again. God, it hurts. It hurts bad. On some days, it feels like you will die of the pain or perhaps wish that you do. Just to stop the pain. But it won't stop. It hits the pain button relentlessly. 

It gets difficult to get on with daily life with this pain inside you all the time. But nobody outside of the box understands the pain. Sometimes you don't understand it yourself! In an attempt to get rid of some weight, you start to unload other people from the boat to save it from sinking due to the heavy weight of the box. Most people would not get this, they might turn hostile and blame you for leaving them. But you can either try to stay afloat and alive or take these blames onto yourself. Perhaps you can try sharing this pain with them. Sometimes, they help you by handing you a life jacket. But mostly, they will find you obnoxious, negative, intense, silent, boring, weird and unbearable. I say, leave these anchors. Clutch to the life jacket. 

Years later, the anchors still blame me. They never understood, they never will unless they go through some life-altering trauma themselves. And the life jacket? Well, I am married to my life jacket.

4. The healing touch of time

With the passage of time, the grief ball gets smaller or may be the box grows bigger, I don't know. But the pain gets better because it hits the pain button less and less. But still, it is as whimsical as ever. Sometimes, it hits the pain button randomly when you least expect it to and it hurts just as much. Sometimes, the anchors come back out of the blue and trigger it and it hurts just as much. 

I personally feel that the grief ball never goes away. It stays as long as the love inside you, it becomes a part of you. However, sometimes, if you're lucky, God sends you a cushion to put on the pain button so that when the grief ball goes awry, it doesn't hit the push button.

The takeaways from the theory  - 

1. We all have a bag but we all pack differently. Some travel light. Some, like me, are secret hoarders - unable to part away with memories. These two mutually exclusive types of people will never be able to understand each other. We can only accept each other for who we are or part ways.

2. People your age who didn't experience life-altering trauma have an absolute advantage over you because while all your efforts were towards survival and keeping yourself afloat, they were free to grow and develop. You might often feel you are not able to relate to them. It's okay!

3. Trust issues become internalized if you did not receive support during your traumatic phase. Ever felt like - "I don't need anyone and I can handle on my own"

It's a survival tactic to shield yourself from  neglect, betrayal and disappointment from those who could not and would not be there for you when they ought to have been there. Such people really have a hard time making connections with people.

4. Trauma survivors often tend to oscillate between past and the future. Basis their experiences in the past, they try to safeguard themselves from similar pain in the future by trying to control everything possible in their hands. It's their way of responding to the uncertainty that the trauma gave them and they do not ever want themselves in the same situation of weakness and pain. 

   

I am not here to judge anyone on how they dealt with their grief and pain. I am not here to preach on ways of dealing with the same. Nor am I here to blame the anchors out there. Because everyone has their own journey and baggage, I just wish we were a more emphatic specie! My learning so far from all of this is that keep your focus on the life jacket and the cushion. The Universe sent them for a reason. Treasure them. Be grateful for them.

P.S. This post is dedicated to my life jacket and also to two most important people of my life- I hope that I make you proud everyday. 

The Number 17

Disclaimer:  All thoughts expressed here are author’s personal views and no mockery is anywhere intended. I am responsible for what I say and not for what you understand.

So, it has been 1 year since the gullible girl got out of the gobbledygook of books and ventured into the real world. I have been meaning to write about my experiences but the cobwebs of the corporate world caught me up and I have been neglecting my introspection for long. But not anymore!

Before we begin, let me give you a bit of trivia. Everybody is aware that financial year starts from April 1^st and ends 31^st of March. But can we have a longer financial year? The answer is yes.

Here is an excerpt from the Companies Act, 1956 (sec 129 of Companies Act 2013) for your reference - 

"Financial Year means, in relation to any to any body corporate, the period in respect of which any profit and loss account of the body corporate laid before it in annual general meeting is made up, whether that period is a year or not the period to which the account aforesaid relates is referred to as a 'financial year'; and it may be less or more than a calender year, but it shall not exceed fifteen months; Provided that it may extend to eighteen months where special special permission has been granted in that behalf by the Registrar."


So my year in the blog is going to start from January 2017 and last till April 2018. So we are still talking about Financial year 2017-18. (I am just justifying my inability to write my year-end blog, as my tradition has always been, by using CA jargon. :P)

Oh, what a roller coaster ride this year has been!

It began with my result last year in January.  CA results have always been a jittery affair. Primarily because they say that it would be announced around 2pm but they never publish the results before 4pm. Can you imagine the state of the student during these two hours? One can almost cook rice, such is the pressure in the head. I remember my IPCC results came out at 11pm; 9 hours of torture! CA final was even worse. The website crashed around 4pm and then a gazette reached me via whatsapp! It felt incredibly foolish to believe a whatsapp saying that I was now a CA but for a few magical minutes I was blissful. And then, a friend finally uttered sense – whatsapp gazette is false! Darkness shrouded my mind and I was gasping for breath. Then finally when I could see no way out, I dialed my favourite SharmaJi’s number (she is now my brother’s wife, such an eventful year this has been! :D) and requested her to confirm my result – her father is in ICAI, you see. Sharma Uncle confirmed my result and I heaved a sigh of relief! And then I did what I was dying to do since the inception of CA odyssey, I texted my father “All my life I have been known as a CA’s daughter. Now, you are going to be known as a CA’s father. Debit equals credit ”

Hallelujah!

A perfect ending to the CA journey. Ending, did I say? It was the beginning! Inception of the hard road that lay ahead! But before that, I had a few moments of relief and fun – GMCS 2. I met a variety of people- a few assholes, a few really good friends and a few forget-after-the-gmcs people. In a nutshell, it was an eye opener. It told me what kind of people I would meet ahead and the types of challenges that were going to ensue. I sat for one off campus interview at Deloitte which was a fiasco. Big 4 never really tempted me but as every person preached me that it was stupid not to sit for the interview so I went ahead. After waiting for 3 hours, I finally entered the room. Technical sucked. HR went good. Then I was asked if I had any questions. I asked the interviewer how had his experience been with Deloitte. He began in his monotonous tone that life was okay. (okay? OKAY? He told me that I would need to work 16 hrs a day and for what? An ‘okay’ life?!). Sometimes in my not-so-sane moments, I feel that all these big corporate companies are actually a secret organization and their aim is to plague the world with frustration. Frustrated people recruiting more guinea pigs to suck life and turn into zombies.

Anyway, so then came the campus placements! The interview could not have been more different from the previous one. The interviewer was COOL, there is no other word for him and I was laughing so hard by the end that I had to apologise! So I was selected as an Internal Auditor in the company. I was on cloud 9. I was a CA, I had a job… I needed no other thing in life!

How very wrong I was.

Once I joined, I realized that things were not so rosy. Firstly, my place of reporting was Gurgaon and I simply detest Gurgaon. All the tall glass buildings copied from the west by DLF irritated me (You put up glasses all over the building, leading to greenhouse effect and then install centralised air-conditioning to beat it and then fret over huge power bills and pollution!) and the traffic was/is/will always be crazy in Gurgaon. Shuttle rides gave me sore muscles and back ache. I felt like I had aged 20 years in just 20 days. But I met this wonderful lady here who turned out to be Virat Kohli’s cousin! (I did not believe her till I saw her picture with Virushka at the grand celebrity reception last year! I openly admit that I was green with envy, Kohli is the love of my life after Harry Potter.) After the introductory few days at the new company, we were sent off to its various branches for conducting the internal audit and then reality hit me – it was nowhere near the audit I had envisaged.  I was supposed to visit the customer place and confirm our company’s services and controls were in place. The heat and exertion from long travel hours soon took toll on my health and I resigned within 2 months mainly because of the safety factors – these customers lived in the JJ colonies, since my company was into micro finance, and I was supposed to visit these areas with a salesperson on his bike!

And I was back into what-am-I-going-to-do-in-my-life phase. I started analyzing my strengths and weaknesses, interests and available options. Thoughts like ‘did I do the right thing by resigning; who is stupid enough to leave campus placement which is so difficult to get through; maybe I should have persevered’ kept plaguing me. Thanks to some wonderful people that God has bestowed me with, I could get out of it and got my next job in OBC after successfully clearing the written and interview. The month of darkness was soon forgotten just like a bad dream.

The number 17 continued to rule my stars. My CA result was announced on 17^th Jan. I joined my first job on 17^th of April. I joined my subsequent job on 17^th of August! And this is just the tip of the iceberg. ;)

The week-long induction training was my first experience in hostel and it was a memorable one. I realized why all hostelers kept cribbing about bad food – food at the mess was  extremely oily but the dessert always made up for the bad taste.

Obviously, I slept through the lectures but was wide awake during our badminton matches at night. And again, I met a variety of people – a bunch of idiots, some nice friends, a few I-don’t-even-remember-their-names and one adorable lady needs special mention here - Shraddha! She is one of the most hardworking, polite, sensible and decent women I have ever met!

At the end of our training, we were all given our postings. I was posted at Head office (Gurgaon, will you ever leave me?!) in large corporate credit department- I had to deal with the big fish, loans above 50 crores.  The next few months were horrendously challenging – I had to learn all the new stuff about loans, policies of the bank, RBI guidelines and more importantly, how to deal with people and how to coordinate between various departments I needed to rely upon for information! I tried my best but my pace was slow. I got scolded again and again. Again, some people who I call Gifts-from-God, helped me through each difficult day. Some days were so bad that I went home resolving to never be back but got up the next morning to face all the challenges.

Meanwhile, my brother got married. And a wedding, as enjoyable and wonderful and sacred thing may be, is a stressful affair! Shopping is as time consuming as it is financially-depleting. I tried one dress after the other till I settled upon this beautiful black-golden gown and a golden saree. It cost me my entire month’s salary but the look and the compliments overshadowed the monetary aspects.

After fun-filled 4 days wedding saga, it was difficult getting back to work. But what options do we have other than slogging our asses off for organizations who replace us within a fraction of second?

Just when I started to get a little hang of my work, life threw me a curve ball again!

I was transferred to the Accounts department! Out of the blue. Just like that. Personal grudge of the bosses? Or was it my slow pace? God knows how many times my mind berated me till I was shown sense (again by the good people!) that

•  Things don’t work like that in professional domain. Transfer is as ubiquitous in banks as chaai
• I need not blame my slow pace since I was a newbie and I was given 2 years to learn and train myself. Nobody catches bullet trains in 6 months, every body rides a bullock cart.
• Change is good. Change is inevitable. Moreover, wasn’t I so stressed and unhappy in that department so why not give the new department a chance?

And so I entered the Accounts department. So far, so good. My father worships Accounts, by the way. So he showed me all the positive (N.B. sarcasm detected!) side – balance sheet is the lifeline of any company’s finances, GST is the future of India, IFRS is the in-thing. He had said the same things about the credit department also… that credit department would lead to my holistic  learning as it would involve processing of balance sheets, application of tax laws. I have lost all hopes that I can ever be as much in love with CA stuff as he is.

Amongst all the anguish, I found my solace in fulfilling my travel dreams that I nurtured since childhood. I have covered Rajasthan, Shimla and Goa so far; sand, snow and sea. I fell in love with the sound of the sea. You have no right to be alive if you can’t take out time to watch the sunrise and sunset. Sunsets in Goa are proofs that not everything that goes down is sad and melancholy; it taught me to stay still and just be in the moment… the realization dawned on me that a higher power looks upon us all and I could feel all my stressed neurons slackening as the force of the mighty sea hit me. Nothing mattered anymore and I learnt just to be… in unison with my soul… at total peace.

All in all, this year was all about what they call as blooming and budding; making mistakes and learning from them; getting out of my comfort zone and most importantly taking note of my happiness and dreams.

इस असुविधा के लिए हमें खेद है...

Pre - script : This post was supposed to come out long time back but I was occupied with audit plus somebody made me realise that I might be following a pattern - my last two posts being posted on 5/5 and 6/6 respectively and hence this one on 7/7 :D





So I was one of those caught in (yet another) technical glitch in Delhi's sweetheart - Metro.
This was the second time I got stuck, with a drone of "इस असुविधा के लिए हमें खेद है...We are sorry for the inconvenience caused", giving me and other people a monotonous company...

(a little bit of trivia here -

The Male voice of the Delhi Metro — Shammi Narang (Speaks in Hindi)

The Female voice of the Delhi Metro — Rini Simon Khanna (Speaks in English)




)


The first time I was lucky - I hadn't boarded the metro. I kept waiting at the platform but the metro didn't come ! Consequently, I had to miss my office (The clients are on cloud 9 when the auditors take a leave, just saying!) Anyway, I took a bus and got back home...Though I have used DTC a lot for travelling but that was in college...this time I was in formals, carrying heavy books and files...Aftermath - I sprained my ankle (ouch! that hurt...A LOT !)

The second time I got stuck inside the metro for about 45 minutes...When the metro staff finally surrendered to the glitch and asked us all to move out and make our own arrangements, I took a bus (No sprain or injuries this time, thankfully) from the nearest bus stop and reached home in 2 effing hours. For those who have travelled in a DTC bus would be aware of the fact that crowd in the buses is horrendous. A guy got slapped by a woman and I think that would give you an idea that sometimes DTC buses breed potential rapists.


This is why I love Delhi Metro.
You get to observe a wide gamut of people in a comparatively safer and air-conditioned environment.
So notwithstanding the ever- increasing technical failures, my affection for metro continues to grow with the passage of time.
It's become such an integral part of my life that the three hours that I spend in metro daily, I feel like home...that this is where I belong...It might sound insane but sometimes when I feel lost, I have found solace in the metro...when I wish to go neither home nor office, I simply board a metro without any destination in mind...simply to go on...silencing the palaver, it somehow clears out my head...I call it The Metro Therapy (Don't google it up, both the nomenclature and the therapy are of my own creation)

This is a picture of Rajeev Chowk Metro station at peak hours (I tried to take the picture but was scolded by a guard there #फोटोग्राफी निषेद है so I had to copy it from google images.) I have always been mesmerised by this scene (Perhaps my brother IS right...perhaps waldosia is the word for me)...hundreds of heads bobbing in and out after every few minutes...it might sound creepy but it looks no different than the colony of ants moving in and out...it is like getting caught in the sea of people where EACH person is running like a maniac...somebody is rushing for an urgent meeting while somebody is getting late for his exam...there is a girl trampling upon your foot with her heels while dashing towards her boyfriend...there is an old man who has to work even after retirement to meet his ends...there is a man storming out of the metro, his face tense and anxious, to take the yellow line metro towards AIIMS where his pregnant wife is soon going to give birth to his child...each person fighting his/her own battle in his/her own different way...
Metro is the storehouse of such hundred thousand stories...there is a beautiful word that aptly describes what I am trying to say here - sonder.

And that is why, to me, metro seems to be a living creature breathing the spirit of ' just keep moving, no matter what' as it makes way through the tunnels of Delhi like a humongous nematode.

Another lesson that metro seems to be conveying to me is about changes...that in order to reach your final destination, you have to embrace changes - get down at one station and take another metro. And that people are meant to just give you a company, the journey you have to make on your own...some started with you from where you first boarded the metro and got down at their respective stations...Some people continue to travel along with you for a little longer but eventually their ways separate too...such changes are part and parcel of life and there is nothing to be sad about it because in the end,everybody has his/her own journey and destination and they just happen to meet you as a co-passenger as your paths cross for a while...

As easy as it sounds to be, a change, no matter how good, is never easy to make...because change means to break free from your boundaries of comfort and venture out into the unknown... just to illustrate my point - 

This is my first ever metro travel card...I used it for 5years till a month back when it started giving issues and became unreadable at the AFC gates and the TVMs one day...and it was with a heavy heart that I got a new travel card made :( Because it wasn't just a travel card...for me, it was a loyal companion who saw me through all kinds of situations - when I was running late for college (read daily), when I had my final exams and almost ran to catch the metro to be on time for the exam, when I bunked college and went for movies, when I went for my CA classes, when I started from home for office but went to Manan's (my nephew) place instead, when I had had a serious argument with a friend and left for home in tears, when I used to be so tired because of coaching that I would sit on the floor of the metro (which is prohibited), when I would refuse to eat in the metro no matter how hungry just because I didn't want to litter the clean floor (Only after I lost a lot of weight because my meals got skipped due to coaching, I started eating my lunch in the metro), when my IPCC/Bcom Hons results were out and I celebrated my success with special friends creating memorable moments, when I felt frustrated and boarded the metro just to escape my own self...

I can go on and on about the memories this special card held. 

Notice the past tense...because I gave the card back to DMRC. Though I wanted to keep it as a souvenir but then I realised that as time elapses, everything fades away...people who were with you at the inception of your journey might not be there as you reach your destination...your perceptions change...sometimes your course of journey changes...so how could this little card be with me till eternity...I knew that I had to let go of the emotional stuff attached with it...because only when I clear out the old things can I replace them with new things and experiences...it was like losing a part of my heart but what can not be cured must be endured...and so I did...

This one saw me through my CA IPCC and the new one is recording my journey of CA Final :)

And, of course, my articleship.

I am allocated in a freight company at Mahipalpur these days...and I use the Airport Express line for commuting...Albeit expensive, it is so far one of the best means of public transport that I have ever used. It is totally different from the normal metro in the following aspects :

1. While you have an overzealous reaction (OMG...it is a lucky day !!!) when you manage to get a seat in Blue line metro, the Airport line has only 5% occupancy on an average.

2. It runs at 120kmph vis à vis blue line metro's 80kmph.

3. The platforms have enormous glass panels which open when the metro enters.This provides extra safety as highly stressed people of India attempt suicides quite often.

4. It is so clean that you actually have to remind yourself that you are still in India.

On the flip side,

a) It is quite expensive which perhaps is the reason behind such a low occupancy.

b) It has a waiting for 20 minutes on an average as compared to 1 minute in Blue line metro! So if you miss one, you are bound to get late ! 

c) The quintessential people of India are conspicuous by their absence - 

•  There is no auntyji elbowing her way out in the waiting line.
• There is no girl applying nail paint while talking to her boyfriend on phone.
• There is no middle-aged lady, who has just been scolding a guy for calling her aunty, pretending to be a senior citizen just to get a seat.
• There are no kids doing 'pole dance' :P
• There is nobody staring at you (people in India generally believe that they have the right to stare just because they have been given eyes.)
• There is no aroma of achaar-parantha that a famished soul might be gorging on.
• There are no bespectacled CA students with Accountancy or Costing or Audit books in hand, catching up on sleep.Only the MBA-looking people reading orange newspapers - ET or Business Standard. :D
• There is no auntyji looking at you with beseeching eyes to vacate your seat for her.(Some even go to the extent of saying "beta hame seat de do, aap to jawaan log ho")

But the good things are that - 

• There is nobody judging you as a slut if you are in a skirt.
•  You are not sandwiched between the pervert male population who strip you with their eyes and have sex with you mentally.

There is no dearth of experiences that I have had in metro. When I come to think about it, this is a really stupid topic to write a blog on...but there is this deep connection that I feel with metro...it is actually a Surbhi-thing...I like the way my thoughts fall into place while I am travelling...The strangers look more familiar than the people you thought you knew so well...I have had so many memorable random conversations with strangers in metro...especially with foreigners...I have this silly habit of going up to them and asking about their experiences in India [60% of them have turned out to be Russians and loved Delhi and Bollywood and SRK (the females, obviously)]...I start talking to any Tom,Dick or Harry with a novel ! I have befriended so many CA people I met in metro because you happen to see the same faces at each coaching you attend...There have also been some bizarre incidents when people have come up to me to say things about my fingers (I have abnormally long and thin fingers that catch every body's attention) and been told different theories about it - people with long fingers tend to be really rich, people with long fingers are known to be arrogant, people with long fingers are possessive and so on and so forth! 

Dear Delhi Metro,

Thank you for making my life so comfortable...No matter how much people grumble about your technical failures (This is what they say- metro ab buddhi ho gayi hai!), I want you to know that I am immensely grateful for your presence...you carry lakhs of people daily who sometimes litter or even damage you...Thank you for giving me so many memorable moments...it's like you have been making my journey of life along with me...I don't know what I would do without you, I would be stranded in every sense of the word !

Yours sincerely

A commuter.

दास्तान-ए-ज़िंदगी...

Pre- script: This post is dedicated to the most beautiful language, the language that conveys the depth of the emotions like no other means- URDU...I was introduced to urdu by my baba, my grandfather, when I was a kid...It has stayed with me ever since...and my love for the language has only continued to grow as I progress along the road of life...

ज़िंदगी ज़िंदादिली का नाम है

मुर्दादिल भी क्या खाक जिया करते हैं... !

(Life is for the brave hearts...cowards don't live a life.)

बात तो किरदार की होती है

वरना क़द में तो साया भी इंसान से बड़ा होता है...!

(It all zeroes down to the character of a person, else even the shadow is bigger and taller than a man.)

 

इस यकीन पर अंधेरों में सफ़र जारी है

कि मिल ही जाएँगे उजाले मुझको... !

(Carrying on with the dark journey of life with the faith that I'll someday find light.)

अगर रास्ता खूबसूरत है तो पता करो किस मंज़िल को जाता है

लेकिन, अगर मंज़िल खूबसूरत है तो रास्ते की परवाह मत करना... !

(If the journey is beautiful,worry about where it leads you but if the destination is beautiful, don't care about the journey, no matter how tough.)

ज़िंदगी जीने का मज़ा उस वक़्त आता है जब जीने का कोई ख़ास मकसद हो

वरना तो जानवर भी ज़िंदगी गुज़ार ही लेते हैं... !

(Life has meaning only when it has got some purpose. Only animals have a life without any special purpose.)

अभी आगाज़-ए-सफ़र में यूँ घबरा गये तुम

अभी सफ़र-ए-हयात में बहुत मंज़िल बाकी है... !

(Don't get scared at the inception of this journey called life. It has a lot to show, this is just the beginning.)

पूछो तो हर एक है तनहा सुलग रहा

देखो तो शहर शहर है मेला लगा हुआ...!

(Every place is buzzing with people and yet in reality, each of us here is lonely.)

किस किस को पेह्चानोगे इस शहर की भीड़ में

हर एक के चेहरे पर है हज़ार नक़ाब चढ़े हुए... !

(Everybody here wears a thousand masks, whom can you recognize and trust in this crowd of millions)

मंज़िल पे पहुँचने की होती है तलब जिनको

वो रास्ते में रुक कर सोचा नहीं करते... !

(Those who seek nothing but the success, don't stop and think about the obstacles in the path)

वो खुद ही तये करते हैं मंज़िल आसमानों की

परिंदों को नहीं दी जाती तालीम उड़ानों की

रखते हैं जो होंसला आसमान छूने का

उनको नहीं होती परवाह गिर जाने की... !

(Birds are not taught to fly, it is in their very nature.Those who seek success and have the courage to touch the sky,are not scared of setbacks and falls.)

 

कामयाबी बुलंद हौसलों और पुख़्ता इरादे वालों को ही मिलती है

डरकर जीने वाले कल भी पीछे थे, और आज भी पीछे ही हैं...!

(Success is tasted by the ones with courage, high aims and dogged determination...losers always remain losers. )

Ek Pal Niche Nazar hai, Ek Pal Upar Nazar Hai.

If you really sincerely want something, nature grants you- I'd heard a lot of people bandying about this philosophy but never could relate to it till last week.

Having reached my nodus tollens (The realization that the plot of your life doesn't make sense to you anymore—that although you thought you were following the arc of the story, you keep finding yourself immersed in passages you don't understand), there was always an unfamiliar frustration building up inside me. The insane questions like 'why am I here' or 'what am I supposed to do with my life' kept bugging me ALL.THE.TIME.

As you get older, you find that life begins to wear you down. Doesn't matter who you are or what you do, it happens. Experience, time, events - they all conspire against you to steal away your energy, to erode your confidence, to make you question things you wouldn't have given a second thought to when you were young. It happens gradually, a chipping away that you don't even notice at first, and then one day it's there. You wake up and you just don't have the fire anymore. When your mind keeps hankering about the past, it gets stuck in negativity and begins to rot...and that was what I felt was happening to me..

And when it reached the apex, when I could not handle it alone myself, I surrendered..I asked for help...and it was showered on me by The Almighty in a jiffy.

My office people planned for Maa Vaishno Devi Yatra...It is believed that nobody can undertake the yatra until Maa wishes him/her to...but what I didn't know was that She hears the plea instantly before even you voice it out...in my case, She definitely did...

Situated at a height of 5300 ft. the site is located inside a cave a midst the folds of the Trikuta Bhagwati hill in the state of J&K. This cave temple is at  distance of 61 Kms from jammu and the last 13 Kms of the yatra have to be walked on foot. Once at the entrance to the cave, the path turns into a narrow tunnel with Charan Ganga running through it. The pilgrim has to wade through this to reach the sanctum sanctorum.

Each step that I took for the arduous yet beautiful journey, each drop of sweat that fell while walking,dancing the way up to the top of the hill felt heavenly...because bit by bit, it was relieving me of my frustration, my eternal restlessness and negativity...It was like somebody was untying the knots inside , opening me to my own self...yes, my muscles ached, my legs screamed to simply stop and sit down but something also kept me going...I don't know it was the hum of "jai maata di" giving me energy to keep going or the Maata herself pulling me towards bliss...

As I walked step by step, I was reminded of my my favorite verses of one of the poems by Harivansh Rai Bachchan - 

एक कोने में हृदय के आग तेरे जल रही है

देखने को मग तुझे जलना पड़ेगा ही मुसाफिर

साँस चलती है तुझे चलना पड़ेगा ही मुसाफिर

The whole journey epitomises faith...If anybody doesn't believe in power of faith, he/she ought to undertake this mind-boggling yatra...Everybody and anybody you meet on your way towards bhavan says "Jai Maata Di". There are dholwalahs playing dhol and everybody just joins in the celebration of "Jai Maata Di", the travelers on a cosmic journey,swirling and dancing in the whirlpools of infinity who have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to share this joy.

It is sheer bliss..You feel that people,circumstances, events suddenly matter no  more and all that is there is the pure truth of this enigmatic higher power which is guiding you, supporting you, giving you a hand...

Since lakhs of devotees visit the place, the old cave is generally kept closed. But this universe is big,vast and complicated and ridiculous. And sometimes—very rarely—impossible things just happen and we call them miracles. When we reached the bhavan, the old cave was opened for the pilgrims..It was so so overwhelming...All my mental and physical fatigue suddenly disappeared...All my worldly worries seemed to be vanquishing by the power of faith...The Charan Ganga soothing my sore body and the grace of Almighty soothing my aching soul, it was an ineffable feeling. All that I could manage was a heartfelt gratitude.

There are umpteen number of memories associated with the journey for which words won't suffice even if I tried articulating them. But I learnt one mantra which this Yatra taught me - Just believe in Almighty, Know that He is there and He will take care of everything for you.

Next we went to PatniTop and NathaTop. And it was a dream come true...I always fantasized about walking down narrow roads of a mountain with snow on both the sides.

It was such a filmy scene...from top to bottom, from left to right,wherever I looked, I saw cotton-like snow...So silent, so beautiful...clear blue sky on top of me, bright white snow all around me...Utopian beauty...whoever says heaven doesn't exist, should visit this place...It left me in awe with beauty that God has created around us...It silenced my mind to the core, it gave deep rest to my soul which I was yearning for so many years...I felt in harmony with nature, with myself.

We spent hours sliding and mindlessly playing in the snow...Climbing on top of the mountain and then sliding back together was indescribable fun...

I finally understand what Ranbir meant when he said - "Main udna chahta hoon, daudna chahta hoon, girna bhi chahta hoon ... bus rukna nahi chahta"

P.S.

1. I want to thank my Sir because of whom the plan of this trip got accomplished without any hindrance...and also for being so understanding and patient and bearing the nuisance that all of us were and also want to apologize on behalf of all of us if we caused any trouble unintentionally.

2. I want to thank my friends who made this trip memorable for me. The time that I spent with you all is something I am going to cherish for lifetime. Chirag Grover and Shubhangi Kapoor need special mention here for it was on their insistence that I went for this trip.