Here comes the Bride...

I always thought marriage was probably the biggest move in anyone's life. And did not believe in arranged marriages though it was a tradition I grew up in.  It just didn't quite make sense to me , especially when I went to USA. The idea of falling in love with the right person and then realizing that we can't live without each other, though a bit dramatic sounded like a natural process to me. It was happening all around me when I was in US. Somehow it dint work in my favor. It was not too bad as I still had hope. Nearing the finish of a third decade, I was in no rush to get hitched. However, my family thought otherwise. Just to get them to stop nagging me all the time, I decided to try my hand at the whole arranged marriage thing too. I was confused as I couldn't make a decision on one time encounter in the middle of several family members. I needed to talk. Couple girls later, I decided that i will ask for a chat this time and I did. 
 
It was arranged in her house. I was the first one to break the ice and started telling about myself. Thus started the beginning of an unending chat  spanning a wide range of subjects from studies abroad to movies to philosophy to technology to business and future and so on. It lasted almost 3 hours of which neither of us felt a single minute. Her family and my sister’s who came along almost had a nap in that time. Every one liked her so much and they too were delighted to go right ahead. I knew she could be the one but how can any one say in just a chat, I was still not sure. After listening to my dad and my sisters, for once I decided to go with their thoughts. After all they had enough experience and I was not going to throw away on that. I never thought things will move so fast otherwise I would never have done the thing that many would regret forever. I was losing hair a lot and many suggested to have a short hair just to avoid hair fall. It was summer so I thought I might as well get a summer cut which accidentally went too short making me look like a military guy on vacation. Even before I knew what was happening, my family and her family were discussing about the wedding dates, the engagement was fixed already.

Today on 12-12-12, eight months into our marriage I'm still discovering new things and realizing that I could never ever have got a better life partner. She is beautiful in her nature, so much that it makes me delighted and sometimes crave to be like her. Of course in a lot of ways we both reflect each other. The icing on the cake is her sense of humor which is way wittier than mine. I believe humor is a big motivating factor in life and I feel so lucky that she makes me laugh more than I do to her and some times so much that the jaws hurt even the next day. In more than one way she reminds me of my MOTHER. How blissful it would be to have both of them in my life, I keep wondering...

Divine Intervention...

Somewhere beyond all the daily buzz of TV, magazines, daily routine of waking up in the morning and doing things one-on-one right from brushing teeth to kick starting the bike and driving away along with countless fellow drivers on road, pedestrians, buses, trucks, auto-rickshaws and of course cars of all sizes and shapes...we take way too many things granted in our life. 

                              At least once in a while we all should pause for a few moments to smell the roses and feel the beauty of things around us and most importantly things within us, yes Im talking about our health. Now it starts getting boring as I describe the importance of Thyroid Gland and the hormones that it produces on its own which keep our breathing and growth in control not to mention many of the brain functions that it enables or about the pancreas that keeps our blood sugar levels in check which are the basic things required for you to get up in the morning and still be able to produce more than enough energy to be able to brush your teeth even without eating anything or the processor called heart that works nonstop pumping blood 72 times per minute all while purifying it...okay okay I'll stop now. 

Three weeks ago…

As usual she put some rice saved from last night on the wall in the morning. As I opened my eyes I could hear the chirping of house sparrows that have gathered to feast on the rice that my wife puts on the corner of our compound wall every day. I got out of bed in frenzy and stood still by the door and then slightly bent at an angle of 5 degrees from my hip just to get a view of the chirpers without getting them scared. There were more than usual numbers, so I grabbed my camera and tried to get a few shots by completely lying flat on my chest. Slowly I tried to focus with one hand while holding the camera steady with the other while supporting my upper body weight on my chest. Somehow I managed to click away a few keepers though it gets really tough to take snaps at this angle with sharp focus. I captured seven sparrows in one photo. I might have taken more than hundred photos of various birds in the last few days.

Two weeks ago…

I woke up feeling a bit drowsy. I could see the white CFL lights right above me and around in the room. Dint know what time of the day it was. I felt almost numb in all my body except for my breathing. I felt thirsty, very thirsty. “Oh you woke up” said a female voice. I looked around and saw a nurse. I asked her for some water. She said "Sure!" and disappeared. Slowly I could feel my hands and legs. I thought I was still being prepped up when suddenly I felt something heavy on my chest. Slowly I could feel all the needles wired into both my hands and one in my neck. The nurse appeared and I asked her water again. She said I have to wait for some more time. It was as if I was in the middle of a desert without water for several days. I started to realize that it was all over, and I woke up in the ICU several hours later. I couldn't move on my own or from that bed for three days in the ICU and then was moved to General Ward where I was to remain for 3 more days and then got discharged. I couldn't get up from the bed on my own or brush my teeth as usual or scrub my hands with soap without pain or take a shower or get a good night sleep. All the simplest things in my life that I never noticed changed overnight.

It may probably be months before I can start taking photos of the birds at different angles like earlier. Things that I never noticed before have become the center point of my attention after the Open Heart Surgery for surgical closure of ASD. Simple things like eating, drinking, sleeping, walking, breathing are what I started observing. How perfectly all these activities synchronize together and synergize the whole system to keep running and that happens without any external intervention. But I started to believe that there is definitely a force that enables each and every aspect of our being, a DIVINE INTERVENTION, omnipresent, to sustain life and all its forms and that we shouldn't take it for granted. One of the quotes that I often use has become a daily thing these days..

There are two ways to live life, one as if nothing is a miracle and the other as if everything is a miracle...

PS: There are more than a handful of people to thank and more than one post dedicated to them...coming.