My Thanksgiving Speech Sans the Turkey Roast

It's Thanksgiving once again and amidst amazing pictures of dinning tables and happy families across the seven seas I thought I'd get going with my thank you list - a tradition I started last year.

Let me tell you right here that this not a festival I celebrate personally nor do we get around the table at home and carve a turkey nor has it caught on in India - yet. But, I simply love the spirit of Thanksgiving. 

Being grateful brings great joy. It gives immense satisfaction. It makes one feel positive and happy and I like being happy. 

So, here goes my list for the year gone by. And... my vote of thanks goes to:

Family and Friends

As is the tradition - from what I have seen in innumerable Hollywood movies - I want to start with thanking my family and friends. Thank you, all of you and even if we did not get to speak at all this year, know that I cherish you all and am immensely thankful for your presence in my life. As is wont to happen in life, towards the sagging end of glorious spring - which I am going to be holding on to for a few more decades - I have realized that life is about relationships and nothing is more precious than human interactions. I will always be grateful for having you all around in all corners of the planet and know that there would have been no story of my life without each one of you in it. Thank you! Thank you and Thank you all! 

The Internet

This year because I have been working as a consultant without any fixed brick and mortar office. I would like to thank the Internet from the bottom of my heart for being there and making this miracle happen. I couldn't have done it without you! Lots of love and immense gratitude.

YouTube

Being a consultant and setting up a practice of my own also meant that I spent long hours at home working and calling strangers on phone and rushing out once in a while to meet people and working the official odd hours. Which means, I had scant time to actually go out and get entertained. This is where YouTube came to my rescue. From movies to comedy to gossip and news, I just had it all whenever I could find time. Considering I have not had a cable connection for more than a decade now, thanks to the new tube I can enjoy the magic of motion pictures once more! Thanks especially to the ever-sassy, IISuperwomanII, Pemberly Digital and Hallmark Channel's family-oriented love dramas. I know it sounds totally sappy but, hey! It's Thanksgiving. I refuse to lie. Thanks for the clean-cut and guilt-free entertainment any time I am free. 

Twitter

Oh! Thank you for making the adrenaline rush without going to the treadmill! It's a war zone out there and I really don't know what I'd have done without the excitement. It's addictive to invite trolls and then cry foul when the insults start! Ahhh! For cheap thrills! I love, love, love this site for bringing out the pseudo-intellectual snob in me. It's a great workout for the idle mind - I swear! 

Instagram

Who needs to go to a spa to relax when you can see the world in one click and be sucked into a fairy tale universe? I love the Instagram like nothing I have or perhaps will - err... maybe that was a perfect example of over-commitment but, hey! I live in the present, so... It makes my faith grow in leaps and bound for the planet Earth. The most beautiful planet with the most photogenic houses run over by the cutest and most well-mannered kids in perfect clothes with perfect kitchens overflowing with lovely food, the beautiful ladies and pearls of wisdom. The list of all things beautiful here is overwhelming. All's well with the world and God's in Heaven! Amen! 

PS: It's addictive. I think I may need rehab after a while for being this delusional first thing in the morning. Gee! But, Thanks for the awesome dopamine high every morning. Who needs dope? #instadope #instahope

Pinterest

My teenage life's greatest wish was having scrapbooks full of beautiful pictures that were actually my wishlist and what do you know? I have boards that take me to La La Land whenever I want to bail out. I used to love Pinterest the most till Instagram happened but, it still remains one of my favorite guilty pleasures. My secret scrapbook of my ultra secret wet dreams of fashion, travel bucket list, art, vintage cinema... all in one place on the worldwide web. Thank you so much!

Kindle

Though I only use the App but, nothing beats the pleasure of snuggling up in the bed and reading on the phone's white light - ruining my eyes beyond repair - and falling asleep with the phone lying flat on my nose making me sneeze and snore! But, that's just a very small price to pay. I just love all the free paranormal and young adult fiction that makes me feel less than half my real age and actually ready to take on the world till I wake up with an achy breakey back in the morning. Sigh! But, hey I love it and I will always be thankful of the fact that I can continue reading easy fiction without choking my home with more books. What more can one ask for? #Instaentertainment #Instahappiness

Writing

I can never be tired of thanking the universe for giving me the ability to write. It is the best thing in my life - it pays my bills, puts food on the table and lets me express myself like I can never do in person in a room full of people. Thank you dear ancestor whoever shared your gene with me!

Random Acts of Kindness

Over the years I have realized the hard way that no man or as in this case, woman, is an island. To all the random people who have ever appeared in my life out of nowhere just to give me a smile for no reason, the strangers who have taken my side out of the blue in a room full of people pushing me to a corner, people who have shared a seat in a crowded Metro or saved me from slipping on wet floor - happens all the time, shared water on a hot summer day or just randomly put a hand on my head to say, "God bless!" for no reason. I am thankful to you all for having appeared out of the blue  to cheer me up whenever life tried to break my back - happens all the time. You all make me feel happy to be a part of the human race and though it may sound too uncool and sentimental but, I wish on this Thanksgiving to be able to be like you kind people who taught me the greatest lesson in life, "it's always possible to be kind!"

Thank you everyone who I have already met and those I am yet to meet. I so look forward to getting inspired by you kind folks for the rest of my life. 

Thank you universe for putting me where I am and taking me through this amazing journey called the story of my life!

Thank you!

On Eternal Love

If you love me not;
Nothing will change.
The Earth will still sing,
To the skies.
The nights still,
Pine for the Sun.
Storms will wander around,
Like a beautiful woman,
Her hair left lose like waves on an ocean.
Whirling like dervishes,
Raising dust to the skies,
Coloring them blue,
After the heavens.
And rain will drench me,
In love, that is unchangeable,
Solid, for centuries to come.
Even when, you and I will be ashes,
As dust, rushing up to the skies,
Getting blue like the heavens,
And falling in torrents to a singing Earth.
I know and I laugh, when you say,
"I love you no more..."

For Love

What do you want me to do?
Loving is losing.
I do not want to lose.
What do you want me to see?
Truth is ugly.
Lies scare me.
What do you want me to be?
If I love you, they call me fallen.
If I don't, it hurts, I die.
I need to live, to love, to laugh.
I want to be you.
Omniscient, omnipresent, ambiguous;
I want to be lost,
I want to be found;
Rescued by you,
I want, I want, I want...
Is it possible? Can I meld into you.
Like in osmosis.
I melt and mix with your essence.
Lost in you, I want to stay hidden.
Can I?
~ Shoma

Love

Do not ask, who I am;
For I cannot answer you.
I am no one, I am nothing.
I seek my love to save me;
I seek Him to tell me my name.

Imagine

Sometimes it is easy to imagine.
You and I in a warm blanket,
On a cold evening.
Together. Listening to the rain.
Sipping soup from a shared China cup.
Laughing at a private joke,
Without really telling it.
Reading a shared newspaper, 
Aloud and noisy, sad at the events of death,
Laughing on the dry sarcasm of the comic strips.
Sometimes it is easy to believe,
That you and I belong together.
But mostly, it is easier to imagine and smile.

River

Like a river I flow,
From source to the sea.
Meandering my course,
Looking for you.
And when l think it is you,
I break the dams, flood the world,
Wash the shores.
Ebbing and flowing, destroying.
Till l know, you are not there.
That it was a mistake.
Do you not hear my tears?
I cry through the nights.
Carrying corpses, ashes, dead flowers.
I cry. My tears mixing with the water.
Rise up to the banks.
Cleaning, healing, washing.
While l move, swim, fly. In my search.

The Infidel

When I was searching for you,
They called me a gypsy.
When I found you in my heart,
They called me an infidel.

Rang tera mere man mein eisaa chaaya; 
Rang li main toh tere rang mein, Jag ne jogan paya. 

A Painting Speaks

Bleed.
I bleed.
Red,
Yellow,
Indigo.
Dark,
Bold,
Sticky.
to create,
to be.
I bleed.
Congealed,
Stroked,
Brushed,
I become
Another me.
I become you.

Looking forward to a Grand Finale

As the year draws towards a grand finale I realized that it has been almost an year that I have been working on my own from home. There were enough skeptics to the idea and I was and still am the greatest of them all. But, it helped me achieve two very important goals in life.

The first and one that was always the greatest dream for me, to tell stories - I wrote - almost like a woman possessed.  Today, I am on the verge of finishing my very first novel amid lots of doubts, speculations and yes many, many, many writer's blocks. I also wrote several short stories and got back in touch with the poet in me. I may not have entered anything for competition nor did I sign the contract that was offered by a publishing house for the book (since I was stuck with a block and also full of foolish doubts) but, I know it has been a great achievement (with a lot of egging by family and friends who have tried everything from being nice and encouraging to being downright rude when I stopped work on the novel) but, what a feat it has been!

The second achievement that this year bestowed upon me was something I never thought myself capable of because I have a mind that wanders all over the place refusing to sit still. So, when today I realize that I CAN sit still in one place and meditate for more than one hour everyday. I feel like I'm the champion of this world.

So, as the year draws to a close I think I am better off in comparison to what I was this time last year, because, I am much more relaxed, I smile lots and have time for all those who need me. I also listen to a lot of good music, read books by known as well as unknown writers, watch movies that I would never have had time to watch earlier, appreciate good art, go for walks and have great discussions with my ma and loads of fun with my dad like I would when we were both young - me a kid and he a youth.

Technically, I may not be rich in terms of a bank balance but, I realized that what I got back is something that I never thought I'd get back ever - my innocence in appreciating whatever is around me, the morning Sun, the dew drops on leaves, the smile of children and strangers and most of all a strong faith that tells me that everything will be all right!
I hope and wish fervently that everyone else gets it too. In my series of realizations, here's something that I realized yesterday. Take some time out and think about it without allowing cynicism pollute your thoughts after all, this is a theory backed by science.

"E = mc2 says mass cannot be either created or destroyed only changed into energy. In that case, I am a part of the same mass that started off the universe and so are you. Which means you and I are interchangeable with the billions of others (known and unknown, living or non-living) who are a part of the universe. Which means all of us contain the same atoms that was once a part of the Gods and messiahs who roamed Earth. Which means I have the same power that built the universe. Then, why does this knowledge make me feel humble not proud?"

Love and light,
Shoma

An old sadhu does Surya Namaskar at the Pushkar Lake unpreturbed by the fact that I was clicking his picture. Mark of a Yogi?