Sweet little things

While walking on the side tracks of my office glancing on beds of shoe flowers and chrysanthemums I felt happy. It reminded me of the small garden we had in Dhanbad. My mom would plant all kinds of flowers and grandpa would tell me how those flowers were essential. He always had fondness for beli or Bella flowers in English. He said they are smaller but never pettier. They had the most amazing smell I ever sniffed. I would often pick them and keep it in my hand thinking that someday the beautiful whiff of the flower will transfer to me. It is strange how very small things leave a mark and how big things fade in oblivion!

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Today while having my evening cup of coffee, a pantry guy offered me his hand-made ginger tea. I do not like tea. I hate the after taste, tea leaves in my mouth so I avoid it as much as I can. But this time I asked him to pour me a full cup for I was touched by the way he was considerate. It has been ages since people asked you for a cup of tea because they were making one for themselves.

No subject..duh!

Sometimes you get up with a heavy head and sullen mood. You wander aimlessly in your head and are clueless about what went wrong. I came to office with the same feeling today. While I was getting ready to work I tried engrossing myself when my cooking and cleaning maid were chit-chatting. She made me a nice cup of black tea and upon sipping that I tried reasoning if I wanted to bunk work today. I took my tea out in the balcony and shifted my glance towards the grim silhouette of huge rock on the ground. The thought of deforestation and soil erosion started amassing when I instructed my mind to disperse the inapt realm of thoughts. I got in a rickshaw and after few miles realized that its meter was broken. The upholstery of the vehicle was a depressing grey color… I looked at the dry and parched way which was blowing dust. Any hint of rain seems to have evaporated from Mumbai. The wretched thought itself started annoying me. I reached my office, sat at my desk and accidently thronged my finger to the table, such that my already (painfully) split nail got re-hurt. My boss told me about some meeting we will have EOD and I started thinking about the crowded rail-platform I will venture into after work. The dreadful push and jostle amidst the thronging crowd started jolting me. My stomach started squelching and head started to hurt again. I wanted to feel happy but my workstation looked like a deserted lighthouse after tsunami. My office buddies are mostly on trips (personal as well as official) so I didn’t have any interesting thread/exchange of conversation since morning. My lunch, lauki added insult to injury. I wanted to get home, slip into my comfortable pair of pajamas, sip on a cup of hot chocolate, watch a horror/psycho-thriller and lie on my couch till my back would hurt. Sigh! My outlook reminder popped up prompting me to finish off something which I will have to bring along in the meeting. And life becomes such a bitch sometimes.

With all the weirder chain of events, I called my husband… He lightened my mood by his friskily playful vibes and became a bright spot in my cave-gloom day. Such is life!

when the cookie crumbles

Office is such a wondrous place to meet so many kinds. Every day event can be a long Rupert Brooke poem. Today, I had deliberately kept a bowl of coconut cookies on my work-desk. This bowl of creamy white cookies enticed horde of self-proclaimed dieticians. When I bought the cookies I knew they were baked and no oil/butter was used (I trust the listed ingredients). But soon after someone pointed out that this eatable is fattening, will raise my cholesterol and eventually I will turn obese I lost my appetite for the little things. Honestly, my cookies were nothing like the oily snack that looks like objects glazed with wax. It was a simple snack which is supposed to be sweet and helps you a lot in an activity called as writing and binging. There was also some choco-chip cookies which I wanted to have … I think I should lose myself in the dulcet darkness of chocolate cookies only when the terrifying diet-conscious people are away!