Category Archives: Mumbai
Goodbye, India. And Thank You!
“Promise me you’ll never forget me because if I thought you would, I’d never leave.”
― A.A. Milne
What on earth just happened??!
My head is still spinning.
Before I could say “boo”, my time here is up. Done. Gone. Finis.
Here’s the twist – with a couple of months still remaining on my commitment, I received a sweet offer (very sweet) to head back home and do my thing there instead.
Carpe diem (Sorry, I just watched that wonderful movie, Dead Poet’s Society).
Sieze the day! What else could I do? What would you do? When the choice is heading home or not, and it’s presented with a flourish of new incentives? Exactly.
It’s just that it was totally unexpected and sudden, and I was quite unprepared. In fact, I was under pressure to extend my commitment to stay on in Bombay (by a few years!), making me grapple with all that it means to do so. I had finally come to terms with this, ready to compromise and lengthen my stay for the right ‘fine print’.
But as I went in to discuss the details, lo and behold, the situation got turned all upside down and topsy turvy!
Could I take on a totally different (and exciting, blah, blah, blah) assignment for the company… based over there?
Huh.
And, before I knew it, just like that, it was over.
Things are happening so rapidly that I will be packing up and saying my goodbyes over the next couple of weeks. And then, it’ll be off and away for me. So quickly!
India
The time’s right to reflect a bit on my stay in India. Sadness is setting in. Because whatever good, bad or ugly I experienced here – only the good stands out for me now. [Aah, the mysterious workings of the human brain!]
I feel so lucky to have spent this time living and experiencing India – very different from a visit every now and then.
I feel so fortunate to have met all those wonderful people, many who have now turned into life long friends.
And I know that while I will still be racking up tons of frequent flier miles flying back and forth, it will never be quite the same as living here.
Mum-bai
And of the city that became my home for almost two years…whatever can I say?
A view of Mumbai at night, “clean” and shining bright!
I love this city in all its smelly and chaotic glory. I love its vibrance. I love the warmth – not of the weather so much as of its people. I love the shopping. I love the theater. I love the yoga I pursued here. I love the best pani puri in the world. I love…so many things here.
[But I do hate the sight of all that roadside garbage nor will I miss the traffic and crazy commutes].
The sweet and sour experience of living in India is looking mostly sweet – in retrospect and when it’s getting time to say goodbye. Isn’t that always the case?
Home Again
So, I head back to the US with all the eagerness of going home, but it’s mixed in with the sadness of leaving the new nest that I had created for myself in my native land.
Aaah, the yin and yang.
My time here has flown by! Almost two years that feel like the blink of an eye.
I am heading to a place where the news I will be reading is not about Sonia Gandhi, Kejriwal or corruption and scams. Instead it will be about Obama (yes!), Boehner, job creation and the fiscal cliff.
As I get ready to return home, I’m glad to say that I’m not alone. Nor will I ever be. Because accompanying me will be big buckets full of memories that will never go anywhere.
Yep. I consider myself very lucky indeed.
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“Memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don’t go along with that. The memories I value most, I don’t ever see them fading.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
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Heading towards a different skyline on the other side of the world
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P.S. And what of my blog??! I haven’t had the time to figure that out yet. I have loved every minute of creating it, even when the number of readers was at zero because it was never about how many would read it, rather about what thoughts were pouring through my head that just had to get written somewhere.
Now, what? Perhaps I just morph it to The Yin and Yang of Life…whaddya think?
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How Yoga Changed My Life
Hmmmm…that sounds rather dramatic. After all, how can some single activity change one’s life?
In honor of this being National Yoga Month (didn’t know that, did ya?), I thought it would be nice to pay a special homage to yoga – and to do that I have had to get up close and personal to really ponder the how, what and why.
Before I get there, I must admit I only just found out that September is officially National Yoga Month. In the United States, this is now a national observance – designated by the Department of Health & Human Services, no less. I’m not sure how it came about but its goal is all about educating people about the health benefits of yoga and thus inspiring a healthy lifestyle. That’s awesome!
According to the scant but useful information on wikipedia:
“In 2008, the Department of Health and Human Services designated September as National Yoga Month, one of a select number of national health observances. That same year, thousands of yoga and health enthusiasts participated in a 10 City Yoga Health Festival Tour featuring yoga classes, lectures, music, entertainment, exhibits. Since then, the initiative has taken root as a global awareness campaign, educating, inspiring and motivating people to achieve a healthy lifestyle.”
After some of my usual digging, I found out that the organization behind the scenes, the one that got this to happen by the Department of HHS appears to be a non-profit organization called Yoga Health Foundation. Based in Fairhope, Alabama, of all places. Good for you, Alabama…I would have guessed California for sure!
CAMP BUNDELA, India- (Oct. 11, 2009) – Soldiers assigned to Troop B, 2nd Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment, “Strykehorse,” 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division listen to a yoga instructor during their yoga session at Camp Bundela in Babina, India, Oct. 11. The instruction was part of a cultural exchange between the Indian Army and the U.S. Army.
During this special yoga month this year, some 2200 yoga institutes in the U.S. are participating in offering a free week of yoga to interested patrons. That’s a super way to spread the word and spread the love of yoga. Another fantastic initiative is Yoga-Recess in Schools, a national campaign coordinated by the Yoga Health Foundation to bring yoga-based health education into classrooms. I think this will be even more instrumental – getting them started and hooked when they are young.
Does India have a National Yoga Month, Week or Day? I couldn’t find any. I guess you really don’t need one when you were the cradle of yoga, so to speak?
But I do think it’s totally neat that the United States government thinks it’s important enough for people to understand and adopt yoga that an awareness month has been specially designated for it. To top it off, I have found that there are programs backing it up so that there is meat to this notion.
Now, getting back to me.
Why am I so fascinated by yoga? I never imagined I would reach such a stage, but I am well on the way to becoming a borderline fanatic on the topic.
Trust me, there really is only one fundamental reason for that to happen and it’s really very simple and logical. Obviously, I must have reaped something rich and sizable from the practice of yoga.
To reach this stage of becoming fanatical about it, it is also clear to me that those benefits had to be more than just of the physical variety.
So, what are they?
I can list a whole slew of benefits that I have received – physical, mental and spiritual. And I would be right. Wait, but I already have! Here and here.
In addition to these (and so you don’t just have to go by my word for it), the Yoga Health Foundation has these great resources:
- 10 Reasons to Practice Yoga (an easy to absorb one pager that you should read. And spread.)
But giving you another laundry list of benefits derived from yoga is not what this is about. It’s more special and specific then that.
Above all of those benefits, there is one that stands out for me, one that is not mentioned anywhere – it is that magical thing that I learned from yoga, up close and personal. I’m not even sure I can express it well but try I will.
In a nutshell, here it is –
You think that something is IMPOSSIBLE to achieve.
But – you focus, you practice and you persist.
Then, one fine day you realize that your mind (first always, your mind!) and later your body have conspired to prove you wrong. You CAN achieve it after all!
What a grand feeling that is…
You think this is about yoga? Or your physical self? Think again.
I find I can apply this principle to any number of things in life and therein lies the magic. Yoga simply showed me the way.
And really, that’s all there is to it – the story of how yoga opened my mind and changed my life.
How about you?
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Photo Credits:
Yoga in California By Tia Tran [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Yoga in the US Army: By Master Sgt. Christina Bhatti (United States Army) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Yoga Just Do It: By lululemon athletica (SSC Yoga with Eoin Finn) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
The Yin and Yang of Life Anywhere 