Life With A Dash Of Lime

Phew! It is almost the end of the year and looking back I would be hardpressed to say that this year has been anything but memorable. For various reasons. Managing health of loved ones, heartbreaks, moping, picking up the pieces and then finally finding solace in travel. Yeah, it has been quite a tumultuous year to say the least.

It all started on last year's Christmas Eve. Yeah, it does sound like that 'Wham!' song 'Last Christmas'. A routine check up for my Dad revealed an unpleasant surprise and what followed was yet another lesson in how to cope up with the unpleasant surprises life throws at you. Long story short, constant check ups and weekends after weekends of waiting in OPDs all the while managing a non-stop work schedule consumed hours, days and months. Thus went the first half of the year. As the year progressed and things began to quieten down a bit, I tried to focus on picking up my life from where I had left it (before Christmas Eve) only to realize that it was no longer there. Well, I wasn't expecting it to be as it had been teetering and was going south even before that eventful December. With too many false starts, too many bad endings and of course with a timing that couldn't have been more wrong, I guess it wasn't going to end with a 'happily ever after' ending.

The elusive horizon where the treelines meet

People say that everything happens for a reason. I disagree. In my opinion, things happen and then we try to find reasons to explain them. And in many cases, finding a reason or a bunch of reasons does not help. You just have to move on and rewrite your story. And it is the rewriting that is the hard part. Since you can never fully ever move on. But I digress.

Life gives you lemons. Period. Naturally, with lemons in picture, acidic thoughts are not far behind. They corrode away your mind and start eating away every little bit of sensibility you are left with. And during this time, if time slows down, which it inevitably does, it just gets worse. Speaking of which, isn't it strange that the goodness of your thoughts is inversely proportional to the time you have in your hands? The more time you have and the less preoccupied you are, the more depressing the thoughts? You just get flooded with sad thoughts, wicked thoughts, evil thoughts, more evil thoughts and all other sorts of thoughts that can create havoc with whatever little sensibility and intelligence you might possess as a person. In other words, a perfect recipe for a perfect disaster. With constant thoughts of what went wrong and what I could have done better to right that wrong, I was slowly but surely reaching that point of perfect disaster. So, instead of moping around, I decided to keep away from taking any decisions for some time come. At least till I came back to my normal senses. But that's easier said than done. It takes time to achieve normalcy (at least for me) and as they say, an idle brain is almost always a free rental for a certain bad guy waiting to set up his workshop.

Got ride, will travel

So on one not-so-fine rainy weekend, having resolved to do something about doing nothing, I stepped out. Spotting my vehicle, I said to myself, 'Got ride, will travel.' I do travel a bit but this was a different travel than other travels (by which I mean travels which I have shoddily chronicled elsewhere in this blog of mine). This travel was what I would call a 'life-gives-you-lemons-so-what?' travel. So I dusted my old school atlas, opened the map of the South Indian peninsula, closed my eyes and tried to blindly pick a place. And in my usual style I picked up a place somewhere in the middle of Bay of Bengal. A lovely place indeed. In a funny way, it couldn't have been more apt considering that this Bay is an epicenter for depressions (cyclonic and monsoon causing depressions, that is). But I am a landlubber. So is my ride. Plus I had had more than my fair share of depression for one year. So I decided to have another go at 'got ride, will travel' game. And this time I picked up some place in the vicinity of Kurnool. Not exactly a tourist's first choice but hey, it was depression free! Also, since I didn't want to keep jabbing my finger at oceans and other inaccessible regions, I decided to mark it with a big 'X'. And thus began my journey. 

The road beckons

Weekend after weekend, whenever I found time, I began to discover places with history, culture, people and their stories. In the process, I started to rewrite my story. Kurnool, Ahobilam, Dharmapuri, Warangal, Nagarjuna Sagar, Bangalore and so the list went on. 

Structures and their stories

With every place I traveled to for the first time, it felt like stepping on the moon. One small step, a giant leap. With every place I had been to previously, well, it felt like revisiting old memories. But more than the destination, it was the journey that had a more soothing effect. I experienced the joy of driving in midst of a downpour, in the stillness of the night, under pleasant overcast skies and so on. I discovered the joy of getting lost and getting back on track. I discovered the joy of slowing down to admire the scenery, feel the grass under my feet and got to see the stars in the sky. It may all sound a little clichéd but for me it was an experience in itself. Most of all, I met people who I would have otherwise never met. In the process, I discovered that unless you start seeing the world around you and discover the surprises it has in store for you, you would be only end up discovering the sorrows within you.

Ruins of a glorious past

In lemons and life lingo, when life does give you lemons, at least one should try to make the best lemonade in town. And for that, you have to go around the town to figure out who your competitors are.  And for that, just step out of your world and discover the life around you. It might not always have a 'happily ever after' ending but in the short term, it definitely comes quite close. OK, a close third if not second. Because one can never completely move on.