And I did it again, the number 3 in this series was posted on 14 and today is 19th but God promise in my mind I had written those 5 posts and scheduled one for everyday as we were traveling on a short anniversary celebration break (more on that in the next post hopefully) but today morning when I logged into the blog and saw there were no published posts, neither there were any drafts saved. I don’t know where those posts went but I promise I wrote them and right now my heart is crying on losing not one, not two but 5 posts. Sigh but I will attempt them again. Hopefully they will be close to the ones I wrote the first time
Things I never want to forget about N #4
His dedication towards fitness
Everyone who reads this blog knows, how many times I have attempted and given up on my weight loss program. Many times I have achieved some results I agree but always give up. I am just not dedicated enough. Sigh but N he is the total opposite, dedicated and inspiring.
I look at him day on day, working out and taking his health and fitness very very seriously. Planning his runs, his long cycle rides, every day gym and being very very cranky on the day he misses it.
Dear N, know that I love you for this and respect you for this and someday, someday I hope that I will get inspired enough to become like you here
Things I never want to forget about N #3 : That he loves to travel, that he loves to drive
One of the earliest memory I have of N is from our first or second date, we were lunching at Ebony and generally chatting about life in general and somewhere came up the topic of cars and driving and I mentioned how I would love to one day do a Delhi-Bangalore drive and without skipping a beat he looked into my eyes and said, “we’ll do it together one day”. We were officially not even dating at that time.
And that was a starting of a lifetime journey of many many trips that we have taken together, including two drives to Delhi and back in the car.
I love how we both get excited at the name of a long drive (though offlate he has taken more to the bike and it’s breaking my heart a bit), the planning starts. Xls sheets are made, time log kept of each destination, each pit stop. I love how you and me fight for the wheel, for the chance to drive and I love how we now have our own sweet way to sort those out.
I love how we both get itchy to get out of the city every few months and I love how you want to discover a new road, a new route every time we head out
Here’s to many more journeys we take together, here’s to many more roads we discover and here’s to you loving the car more than the bike again 😉
And here are two songs which almost ours when I talk about road travel
Things I never want to forget about N #2 : That you dance like nobody’s watching 🙂
I still remember how early on in our dating period may be our second or third date, that era where Bangalore used to have more discotheques that we can count on our fingers, me and N had planned an evening together at a pub called “Sparks”. It used to be one of those happening pubs at that time and how after a couple of drinks you asked if I would like to dance and frankly that was the last thing I remember clearly of that evening. After that I was in an imaginary world, a world where we did much swirling and twisting around. In a world where that first casual touch while dancing felt something else. But what I clearly remember about that evening is thinking oh this guy knows how to move and well. You danced like a dream that day and I might not remember anything else from that day but I do remember the dance.
Fast forward the scene to almost a year later, it was our mehendi evening and considering there I was marrying somehow from South of India, we had invited N and his family to the mehendi function. Now if you have attended mehendi of a punjabi wedding you know what a riot they are. I had a gang of young cousins who were literally meeting N for the first time that evening and were ready to jump right into the saali-jija mode, jokes about dance and south indians vs north indians were also predictably making the rounds as were couple of glasses filled with things you don’t mention in front of the family. I was at the corner of the hall sitting like a good bride to be getting mehendi applied on my hands when suddenly I saw one of the cousins pulling N up for dancing, everyone was prepared for resistance and shyness but thak he came and he took the dance floor by surprise and then he came to me and pulled me in to and we danced like a happy couple. Surprise, happiness, glee and hoots in shining on everyone’s faces and that was the time he truly made his first entry to my big mad punjabi family because if you don’t dance you can’t be a part of the punjabi family you see.
And then a year or so after marriage I remember getting excited and joining a dance studio, where we learnt together Salsa, Cha Cha Cha, Jive and a couple of more dance forms for about 6 months or so. So much fun every Saturday evening going for the class and then coming back and participating all that has been taught. I remember that Goa trip where we Jived a little on the live band that was playing in one of the beach shacks. I remember that time for about 2 years or so where we would break into a quick salsa or cha cha cha as soon as we would get the beat of it in any song. It would be like we have the beats playing constantly in our heads “1 2 cha cha cha, 3 4 cha cha cha”.. “1 2 3 4 5 6” and as if on a que we will suddenly pick it up start dancing. I loved those days of dancing of connecting on that level so intuitive.
Fast forward 8.5 years later, at my sister A’s wedding and how you pulled everyone on stage and then let go, danced like really nobody’s watching. I then had my uncle come up to me, give me a gentle hug, keep his hand on my shoulder and say “Mona, yeh apna ho gaya, bilkul bete jaisa” (he is become ours, just like one of our sons). My heart smiled that day and then I went and did one number dance with you.
Here is N on my sisters wedding
And here is one of my favorite songs from favorite movies about Dancing ever
and another one because no talk about Dance can be over without Time of my life and dirty dancing
So I had seen this on Revathi’s blog sometime ago and made a mental note about doing this for 10 things as a countdown to our 10th Anniversary but life always has other plans, I got a sudden work assignment which had me burning midnight oil along with something else that kept us even more busy. N’s granny who is 86 and lives with us suddenly fell very sick about 2 weeks ago, she couldn’t breathe and we had to rush her to emergency. One week in the CCU about 10 days in hospital she is now back home. Still not fully fine but slowly recovering, as much as she can at this age. Old age is tough, you are the person struggling with being dependent on someone and everybody around is usually used to being taken care by you and not vice versa. It’s tough to see them suffering and feel helpless because all doctors tell you for every problem they have is that “It’s the age, We can’t cure her. We just have to make her as comfortable as we can”. We all know it’s the truth but it’s the truth that hurts. The past 2.5 week have been a struggle but now slowly life is coming back to rhythm with granny also settling with a full-time attendant taking care of her and like doctors say we hope to make her as comfortable as we can.
Anyways, back to the main topic of this post.
So the man and me have been married for 10 years (well almost) and we have known each other for a year or so before that. We have our good days and bad days. Days where I can’t stop hugging him and there are days when I want to have nothing to do with him or even see his face for a long time to come. As people we are as different as two ends of magnets, two opposite poles could be but yet we bring balance in each others life (or so I would like to think and believe). Friends have often teased us on how they look at us and start believing that marriages are indeed made in heaven else we wouldn’t have chose each other and hence Revathi’s idea of listing a few things that I will never forget or never want to forget about N really stuck home for me.
I wanted to do a 10 day countdown to the 10th anniversary but I know have only 7 days to go to the big day nevertheless I think I will do the 10 day thing and continue it post 17th too and here is the first post.
Things I never want to forget about N #1
He brings the stability and much required slowness in our life
In the world we are living in right now. We are all in a hurry, hurry to tick off the to-do list, hurry to reach from point A to point B, hurry to catch the latest restaurant in town, hurry about everything. And to top it all everyone who knows me, knows that I am the compulsive doer. Someone who always needs a project on hand, needs to go out, needs to cook, needs to read, needs to organise, needs to… Essentially I run on a fast forward mode and always need to do something. So if left to me our life would have been a bundle of hurries and does.
N on the other hand takes his own sweet time even to buy a shirt. It’s not the indecisiveness we are taking about here, he has pretty clear thought process when it comes to making decisions, it’s just the general pace of living, I am talking about his ability to steal a relaxed moment even in the middle of madness, I am talking about his desire to enjoy everyday of life slowly. His pace to take life slowly as it comes irritates me sometimes yes but when I look back at the 10 years of my life I can’t tell you how thankful I am for that. It is brought a rhythm to our life, a sense that I really can’t begin to describe but only feel. It has also made me stop many times doing what I am doing and ask myself “is this really what I want to do, is this really important” and then throw back my feet and just chill out, curl up next to him and do nothing. Our friend V jokes, when we talk about you guys we always take the average pace in mind and that is how much it works for us.
For me, living with him is like every moment of what this song is talking about and I am so glad of the slowness he brings to my life in the times of rush everywhere
PS: I do hope and pray that I finish this series, I am known to start a series on this blog and then abandon it after a couple of posts
