Wise Words From a Five Year Old

This is a conversation I had with my 5 year old nephew (henceforth called S) yesterday while putting him to bed

S: Mausi, you go to the office everyday

Me: yes

S: And you went to school earlier?

Me: yes

S: So you didn’t go to college?

Me: Sweetheart I went to college as well.

S: So you went to school and college and now you go to office?

Me: Yes

S: So why didn't you get married?

Me (laughing): I am trying to find a nice guy

S (very serious tone): Office ko maro goli, ladka dhoondo

Me: !?

Current Status

Changes and decisions

Taking chances

Praying that the gamble works

And things fall into place

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On another note, read this absolutely brilliantly written essay by Rana Dasgupta for Granta. It's a very interesting piece on Delhi.

Capital Gains

It all comes together on the roads.

Delhi is a segregated city; an impenetrable, wary city – a city with a fondness for barbed wire, armed guards and guest lists. Though its population now knocks up against 20 million, India’s capital remains curiously faithful to the spirit of the British administrative enclave with which it began: Delhiites admire social rank, name-dropping and exclusive clubs, and they snub strangers who turn up without a proper introduction.

Read more at : http://www.granta.com/Magazine/107/Capital-Gains

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Oh by the way - I am done with my Masters!!!!!!!!!!! I handed in my 15,000 word independent research. And it was a bit of an anti-climax because when you spend an year working on it (and the last two moths exculsively) you go and hand it in and that's it. You just go and give it. And they take it. Finito. Maybe, in my head, I was expecting cheers and people clapping and arti and tikka and fireworks and a medal. Damn! Nothing. Nada.Zilch. Zero. The only consolation was that I partied 14 hours straight. You read that right. One. Four. FOURTEEN. So exhausted and tired. And unfortunatley I have no time to breathe and move onto the next thing. Lovely blogger people - wish me luck because I am taking a chance with my career and throwing caution to the wind (the whole thing which comes with being young and able to chances and being single with no responsibilites and all that stuff).

My meals yesterday

consisted of:

Chocolate Donut

Chocolate Brownie

Gingerbread Man

Frech Fries

Chocolate Gateau

Samosas

Doritos with salsa dip and wasabi

Pepsi

I died and went to junk food heaven :D

On another note: My beloved laptop has crashed JUST before the dissertation is due and I died a bit and had a mini meltdown. And, with all this drama, I am moving houses in the middle of the week and moing counties early next month! Will update this blog if I survive all that.......

I shake the dusty cobwebs

and find no spiders scurrying about. Which is a good sign usually. 

What I really meant is I still find an odd comment on the blog even though it's virtually been a dead blog.

I was reading my old posts and thinking of the time when I was full of trepidiation before moving here. And I don't really know where the time has gone. I remember September and first day of classes and the last of classes has come now. There are group photos on facebook and I can't really get over the fact that it ended so soon. Yeah I still have exams and a 15,000 word independent research which I have to do over the summer.

I've had a great time this year, studying, meeting interesting people, working for a lifestyle magazine here, working with an independent film group and super excited that we are doing a film on graffitti art and I get to research on Banksy's work (my fav artist) apart from local artists here and working as an actor in a couple of student films, managing to stay almost at the top of the class and yes exploring the pubs apart from cooking. Phew!

Hence no time to blog :(

I'll be back soon, my lovely blog readers. Stay tuned people!

All the little bits...

Warning: Long-ish post :D

Heylo dear blogger friends. Sorry for disappearing on you all. I am fine and alive! Here's wishing you a super duper Happy New Year :)

A lot has happened the last month - from laptop crashing, to it getting repired in a month and I becoming laptop-junkie-to-laptop-deadddict, to a second wave of this and crazy deadline in mid-december and then partying-like-there's no-tomorrow to coming back to a cold-grey-damp-gloomy-and-depressing winter and finding a deadline staring in my face middle of this month and me completing my first semester here. Phew!

Now that we are done with the headlines, the news in detail

As promised before, I am doing this blog post about a holiday I managed to squeeze in while I had assignments hanging down at me like a nooze. I went for a day trip to this beautiful, quaint town called York. As we walked out of the train station and walked towards the city, we saw the River Ouse.

We then went to York Minsiter which is supposed to be the largest catherdal in North of Europe. The Christmas midnight mass conducted here is broadcast on BBC radio throughout England!

Then we wandered around in The Shambles and other small, narrow lanes with cobbled footpaths where buskers at each corner would fill up the streets with music as tudor style buildings would loom upon us. And there was a road called 'Swinegate'!

The town is famous for its tea rooms and cafes.

What is a British town without pubs? We went to 'Kings Arms', a pub which floods when the water level of the river rises!

We went to Clifford's Tower which was our last pit stop for the day.

And with this our trip came to an end and we trooped back home.

Next blog post: Snow, Christmas and a New Year spent in London with a dozen of my uni
friends!

My life since the past few weeks!

Assignment deadlines and a new found addiction to oreos!

Girl Bonding, Brollies, Jane Austen, Sabzis and Studies

Amidst classes, presentations, seminars, books, cooking and socializing, I bring the latest updates...

Having flatmates from different countries means, we have interesting cultural exchanges, different eating habits and different languages. Over the last few weeks we have gone from saying polite Hellos and Goodbyes in the hallways to mid night chats, cute men-boys spotting at the uni to making plans for travelling in the Christmas break! I, for one, have had problems with catty women, bimbos etc. and for the first time I have actually bonded with women.

And I have also found that when it rains and the shoes and jeans get wet, never keep down the umbrella to the side and roll up the jeans. Because gales in this part of the world with take away your beloved umbrella and you will be running half a kilometer to catch it, wearing a coat and carrying a huge rucksack and generally making a fool of yourself. Eventually the wind will put down the brolly in the middle of a traffic intersection, bringing the traffic to a halt and you will then retrive the offending object while mumbling sorry.

Another day when I can hear the chilly wind beating the windows, happy that I am inside the warm apartment, I will envision myself to be a chef. And will makes aloo-beans, mixed vegetable, dal, rice and whip up a yummy raita. I will eat like a glutton and then proceed to fall asleep!

While we are at the topic of chilly winds and gales, I always get reminded to English classics whenever I think of gales, moors, rolling green fields, rain and elegant ladies. I have got hooked onto this Drama called 'Lost in Austen'. Its about a young Londoner swapping places with Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. The purists would probably baulk at it but I find the series very creative, witty and funny. Its interesting how you anticipate something and the complete opposite happens and all the characters in the book are doing what they are not supposed to do! In case you can access it online, do watch it here.

While I entertain myself watching the above, I notice a whole stack of books and notes in front of me but I am uninspired to read until the deadline looms in front of me. In which case, I will be up the whole night trying to study. Looking at other students in the class who have come fresh from under graduate studies and who take copious notes in the class, I wonder if I have missed out on some important bits. It would be also interesting to note how they would behave like scared lambs, quite unsure of themselves. And it reminds me of how I was at that age. And that's when I begin to feel old!

More updates will happen as days go by.... Till then... Cheers!!

Delhi - A Page From My Diary

In a state of disrupted, chaotic order I am still living out of a suitcase. As I travel from the western part of city to my office in the shiny new metro for a couple of days, I thought of writing this ode for a bustling, throbbing, eclectic city I love.
“

From a height I observe the city, abrupt lines and jagged edges flouting the
symmetry associated with a city seen from the top - rooftops of congested micro
cities, homes and offices, slums and villages - decaying, putrefying structures
and people in lifeless motion, almost cataleptic. And then suddenly, the vision
gets broken by shiny new malls and movie halls in unexpected places. The pattern
repeats for a while as the train jerks to a stop at each station, a mass of
people moving in and out. The uneven rooftops give way to green foliage, a
labyrinth of flyovers, roads, traffic signals and car crawling to their
destination.

And in that closed box, I notice furtive glances
until there is nothing left to look at as eyes move from random images –
advertisements, maps, the LED board displaying station names, people, coming
back to staring vacantly in space.

I hear voices murmuring,
inaudible collective sounds at first and then singling out. There are strains -
of languages Punjabi, Bhojpuri, Hindi and English, old Hindi film songs, stock
prices, exam results, sweet nothings.

Dampness hangs in the air, fragrance of flowery perfumes mixing with the sweat, a potent mixture pervades as empty spaces fill with people until there is nothing left to fill, nothing left to pervade. ”

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Updated: I love the song 'Dilli Bas' sung by Rabbi Shergill and dedicated to my city Delhi. Check out the lyrics here. I don't know where can I listen to it online :

Have You...

...ever felt sad and happy at the same time?
Excited and nervous at the same time?
Joyful and anxious at the same time?
Felt over the moon and yet wanted the earth to open up and swallow you?
That you want to stay and you want to go?
And you want to be anchored and want to fly away?
Yet everything feels like it's happening in slow motion and yet very fast?

I am feeling all that and more!

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I've quit my job. Yes, the one I really love. I still have two months to go. I want to be here forever and I know it's time to move on. The three years I spent here, as a rookie reporter and slowly evolving into an experienced one, the amazing people I met and the interesting experiences I had - It’s been one hell of a roller coaster ride. I travelled across the country, went to places you probably haven’t heard of, did some good stories, and got a peek into lives of people who opened their hearts and homes for me. I have grown as a person and as a journalist. This looks like my swan song but I hope it’s not.

And now you may be wondering what’s next for me. Well, I am moving not just to another country but another continent. I have decided to take an year off to study and have been offered a scholarship. And I couldn’t resist the offer. So basically, my life is in transition, with all the travelling since the last two months and living out of suitcases which got packed before it was time to unpack. And now I have to pack my bags to go off a longer period of time.

I am scared of leaving this security blanket of my home and my job and explore new avenues. And yet there is this another voice in my head which tells me this is a good thing. I am confident one moment and lost in another. I want time to stand still and I want it to move. I want to savour every moment and I want to taste what’s next. I am eager and I am restrained. I am a contradiction or maybe just torn between the past, the present and the future. I take each moment with a steady calmness, and in the next, there are butterflies in my stomach. I could go on and on about how I feel but I don't think I should. So I'll just say - Wish me luck, everyone!

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And in a update on my travel diaries-

An almost 60-day travel is coming to an end. And I have been surprised at myself. And have learnt again – never say never.

Because you never thought that smiles exchanged would turn into glances exchanged and a language barrier wouldn’t deter in conveying what words could say because your eyes will do the talking. And that you will sit diagonally cross the table and use a translator for a conversation and your eyes would meet for a brief minute and everyone else on the table would be laughing at the casual banter and you would know those words were not said in jest. Working will be easier and you will stop missing home and wish you had a few or a lot more days of travel. But like all good things, this will come to an end. And your eyes will meet for the last time and it would be a bittersweet end. You won't forget the memories but will move on.

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India Travel Diaries: Random Travel Tales

After the previous post, I have been meaning to give an update of the latest travel tales but the grueling schedule has kept me from doing so. Travelling from MP-Delhi-Bihar-Delhi-AP-Delhi-Mumbai-Delhi (excluding all the towns and the villages I went to) for 45 days makes you realize how much you can really miss home. And it’s still not over!

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Because when you bump into walls, tables and beds in different hotel rooms, purple bruises pop up. And then you fall down the stairs and you knee gets injured and you hobble around with purple bruise and a swollen knee.

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And then you come home to sleep in your own bed, wake up in the middle of the night and see the door is open and think someone has entered your hotel room and you need to scream and call the reception. Then realization strikes you that you are in your own home.
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And then you ask to eat karela, tinda, lauki, tori and salivate at the thought of eating kichdi. Since you are home for a day or two, you can’t eat it all. So when you go to your next destination and stay in a fancy hotel and your colleagues go out to eat super specialty Far East Asian cuisine, you politely refuse and order kichdi for room service and it tastes like heaven.

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In the middle of it all, in an obscure village in Bihar, the drunk ex-sarpanch and his cronies will threaten you and the current sarpanch will jump to help you and tell you to register a police case. So yeah, you start getting visions of you getting killed in a local village-politics war and the fact no one will come to know about it. And before that happens, you will have to think quickly on your feet, diffuse the situation, work quickly and get out of there alive!

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The condition of the roads will be terrible, as if no roads exist in that particular district of Bihar. The potholes are mini craters and travelling for an hour and a half (one side) every day would mean that 1. Your food gets churned (and digested?) really fast 2. You get a full body massage 3. You intestines jump up to meet the brain, the pancreas gets lodged in the liver, the spleen decides to switch over and go to the other side of the body. So for the first time, you take a day’s rest before moving to the next destination.

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In MP, you will go to a village where all the curious kids will surround you. And to beat the heat, you will stand under a mango tree laden with raw, green mangoes. Of course the kids will jump up and pluck the raw mangoes and eat them nonchalantly. Then they will ask you to eat, you will refuse but their bright smiles will melt you. The sour taste will hit you hard, really hard. And they will grin and laugh at you and you will join them and have a good laugh at yourself.
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While in a village in AP, tribal men with spears will surround you and you will think that since you are pint sized and don’t have much meat, you wont make a nice meal for them. Since you can’t speak their language, you will have no way of communicating that thought. They will peak into your car and when you get down, follow you. That’s when you will spot your translator at distance and wave frantically at him. He will then come and tell you that these are village guards and messengers. It’s their job to know about any new ‘happening’ in the village. Then they will pose for your camera, get their pictures taken and you will shyly join them for a photo, inwardly relieved that you are not their dinner for the day.

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Of course you will also get to touch a real tortoise and fishes and goats and cows and new born calves respectively in all the states. By day 40, the smell of cow dung won’t make you crinkle up your nose. In fact you won’t even notice the smell.

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In the midst of this, bird shit will fall on your notebook. Which will be an ice-breaker for village kids in AP. Through sign language, they will produce water and a cloth to wipe it away. And in broken English-Telgu, they’ll tell you it’s a sign of good luck.

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And in all the villages, the village elders will ask your age and wonder why you are not married as yet. Then they will be scandalized that you travel and work with men. And that you belong to a mixed caste. And they will nod wisely and say, “Yeh sab Dilli may hota hai.” It’s a very foreign concept for them.

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You will meet a girl, the first from her village, to go and study MCA and with dreams of working in the IT industry. You will go to another village where a 20 year old girl is a mother of a one year old child. And in another, she is in a ghoonghat which covers her face and neck and she won’t talk to you at all.

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While in Mumbai traveling in front of a slum, a child will suddenly jump in front of your car, the driver will slam the brakes, while the child will grab a pigeon and put it in his shirt. The driver will turn back to you and say, “He will go home and cook this.” you are not sure if you should believe him.

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I still have a few more days of travel. More travel diaries might pop up if something interesting happens. Meanwhile, there has been a development on a personal-professional front. Pray that things fall in place for me while I keep my fingers crossed.

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Madhya Pradesh Diaries - II

One day we ask a villager why he wants to buy a colour television, his first, in the 45 years of his life. He replies with all seriousness, “Because my wife told me too.” All the men – different strata, culture, society, country - errupt into a laughter, their private joke of hen pecked husbands and nagging wives.

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Yet another day, a woman separating chaff from wheat calls a child to sit next to her as we film her activities. The man standing next to me says, “ These women. They have no sense. Uski photo keech rahe hai aur who bacchey ko bula rahi hai….” He suddenly stops as he realizes I am standing next to him.


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Another day. We meet a farmer who earns about $3 a day to feed his family of eight. He rues why he toils so hard to grow wheat if the government is filling its buffer stock, when he has to eat two meals a day because he can’t afford three. His eyes heavy with emotion, helplessness, he turns to ask, “Main yeh dharti kyu cheerta hoon? Sirf isliye ki bebas reh saku?”. At first I am moved and then a thought crosses my mind, if his dialogue is a story set for us journalists. The cynic in me peeps out and I feel ashamed.

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A man in starch white kurta payajama stands in the middle of a field, the hot winds - loo hits us but there is a smile on his face. His 82 acre land produces so much of wheat, gram, pluses and soybean that he will earn millions when he sells his stock. The land, which he stands on, is worth billions.


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While in Bhopal one day, staying in my fancy 5 hotel, travelling in the stuffy official car to all the villages, I desire to break free. As I hop into an auto rickshaw outside the hotel, the manager spots me and asks “Madam why did you walk till the gate? We could have called the auto inside.” He tells me it’s a regular thing. I am amazed they do that here. The fancy hotel in the city is not like the ones in Delhi.

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I go to the Old Market in the city. It is like walking in the bylanes of Old Delhi, men with skull caps and women in burkha mill around. I am an anomaly there, an outsider. But I enjoy it. And there is a Jama Masjid and a chor bazaar just like Delhi. I am homesick again.

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As the heat rises from the earth, bare trees spead their branches, like arms raised towards the sky, a plea for the sun to stop beating down so mercilessly, for rain gods to pour down.

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After a tiring day, I recline in the seat of my car, I look outside and find electricity transmission lines running along, the cables playing a game, meeting at the poles - coming together, falling apart, almost teasing each other and playing catch. It reminds me of my childhood - watching the electicity poles, the sugar cane fields, sitting in the backseat, staring at the horizon as both merge into one another, while going to visit my grandmother in dusty heartlands of Uttar Pradesh.

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On the highway, I pass by a school building under construction. Th name of the school - Campion School. If the school authorities meant to write 'champion' then I am really worried what the childen will learn in a school whose name is spelt wongly. If it isn't, then I am worried that the name of the school has no meaning. And then I wonder why I worry so much!

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Madhya Pradesh Diaries

As I travel through dusty heartland of Rural central India, the landscape bathes in the summer sun and blue sky. The wheat which has become yellow golden, the green sugarcane fighting the sunrays, becoming yellow, the trees stark, stripped of their leaves, brown bark, yellow dust swirling upto the branches. And then suddenly, a green palm tree, which has survived the harsh environs.

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I meet some farmers, bodies darkened, hands callused, their sweat and grime in my hand- the golden wheat, which is on my table every night because of them. I can see the elements have worn them out, weathered faces, hard luck, dependence on the climate, they still welcome me warmly.

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At 41 degrees temperature, as they harvest the grain, suddenly one farmers pipes up, telling his ghoonghat clad wife, "Look how smart this city girl is, she even talks to men. You should learn something from her." And they break in peals of laughter.

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In another village, we ask if the women go shopping. No, the reply. Not even saris? No. House hold items? No. Anything? They shake their heads and say, "But they are not the decision makers, madam. They stay at home look after everything here."

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Another evening, there is a wedding in the village. Suddenly, our arrival means, the bride and the groom are relegated to the sidelines. We are the new celebrities and we have to make polite conversation with the thousands of guests present there. The women are in another corner, in their bright colourful saris. I walk upto them and take a picture from a digital camera. They shyly come forward to see it. And then there is a stampede to get their pictures clicked - from the old grandmother to the 6 year old girl!

Later, the village sarpanch and elders sit around me at 1.00, I chew on my batley (a local delicacy) and drink the purest aam panna, I have ever had. And in that night, as I am thousands of kilometers away from home, under a star studded sky, discussing politics, wheat prices, inflation and culture with them, they are in awe of me. "Aap itni door yahan baithi ho, koi darr nahi lag raha, ghar sey itni door?" I shake my head, "Its my job."

And then one of the farmers sings this song, inspired by his land-

Chali rey chali,
Kisan ki lali,
Bhariya rang ki chunariya,
Oodh kar chali,
Kisan ki lali,
Khet khaliyaon ko chali...

As I leave, the moon spreads its light, the cool breeze envelopes me, the darkness hides the starkness of the farmland. I trudge back to the hotel in the city at 5.00 A.M

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Halfway through my trip, I am suddenly homesick. A person who is ever ready for the new adventures and quests, I am suddenly missing my home, my room, my bed. It's strange. Or maybe its because I am working with the ogre.

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For the Nth time I am really irritated. yet another person had taken me to be a tourist guide. Yes, I work with foreigners. No, I am not a guide. I am a journalist. I wish someone would ban that RIN/Surf ad with the girl-tourist guide!

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One summer evening, my driver Khan Sa'ab, a frail old man touching seventy, turns to me and speaks to me in perfect English, "You are a great lady." Why, I ask. I have never seen a woman go so deep in the country side. And that too, to tell the story of our farmers. Who really cares about them? I tell him, "I hope, I can change that a little bit."

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This diary (blog post) will be updated in the coming weeks as I travel more. Stay tuned and keep checking back here!

Reflections

As I was travelling through rural interiors of India in the past few weeks for work, long hours of travel kept me busy with musings and thoughts. Suddenly these words came in my head and kept rolling about.

J'étais enchainée,
Et maintenant je suis libre...

Translation
I was enchained,
And now I am free...

I had written these words some time ago – unfinished thoughts in an unfinished, cryptic poem. Inspired by the vast expanse of green fields of paddy, golden yellow fields of wheat and sunflower, the blue sky turning shades of orange, pink and cobalt I really wondered if I was enchained and whether I am free now.

J'étais enchainée,
Et maintenant je suis libre...
I thought so
As I lay in my bed on a hot summer night

But what are chains
Are they not meant to be broken
If they are
Would I be free

Oh! But what if it’s not a chain
It never crossed my mind
What I thought were shackles
Were maybe meant to liberate me

What if they weren’t
How am I to know
What lies on the other side
Can I find without going too far

What irony awaits me
Is it that what binds me
Tries to set me free
Or what sets me free, brings me back

Another summer is upon me,
And I wonder if
J'étais enchainée,
Et maintenant je suis libre...

On an Odyssey...

This NYT article has been much talked about and quoted by a lot of people. And the new buzz word is ‘odyssey years’.

The first time I heard the word, I visualized a twenty somebody sitting in a space craft and orbiting the earth wondering where his next stop will be. Okay, I know I am weird. Truth be told I can see myself sitting in that space craft! And I don’t know what my next stop will be.

By definition an Odyssey person is one who switched careers (I did from software engineer to journalist), has no plans of ‘settling down’ (the thought scares me) and has no clear sense of direction. That’s because I want to do a lot of things in the given time frame.

In my ideal world I would be writing, reading, doing photography, traveling, meeting people, learning a new language, learning about different cultures, making documentaries and studying. I manage to do a bit of all but not to my hearts contents. I refuse to be put in a box and be labeled. I hate getting stifled. And I would absolutely detest if I had to do the same thing everyday.

A lot of people would put this as ‘not been focused about career’. My only reply to them is what are their dreams? Did they remain dreams? If their answer is yes then they have wasted their life doing what was expected of them not what they wanted to do. You live this life once. How can you let go of it? How can you go through it with nonchalance or defeat? I think that is the scarier place to be in than not knowing your exact career path.

As the sunscreen song says:
Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life.
The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives.

I am not 22, just a bit older than that but that doesn't matter. Why should I be eighty and look back and say I wish I could have done this differently?

Somehow I have never liked straight lines. I could never colour inside the lines. I often asked – why is brinjal purple? Why not green? Who decided this colour should be called purple? Why is A the first letter of the alphabet? Why not C? Who made these rules? Why should I follow them? That should have been an indication of how I would turn out! Back to the point. I hate walking down a regular path. I like the road less travelled.

But to contradict my self, I have never taken giant leaps of faith, that’s just not me. I take small leaps, and I almost always land on my feet. The few times I fell down, I scraped my knees, got up and walked on. I think I will slowly get where I want to be. I have eyes firmly focused on it. I am slowly working on my career and my dreams side-by-side.


And the wise old people who didn’t know which bracket to put me in, now have one called ‘Odyssey Years’. It’s not something they would be happy about. Good Indian girls don’t do ‘these things’. But at least I am living my life as opposed to going through the motions of it.

I am definitely on an odyssey, a journey - called life. And of course I have no idea why I wrote this post!

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On a completely different note, I came across this interesting forward at Vrij's blog. Do read it.

One conversation. Many connotations.

“Aap itney dino sey kahan thi? Aap dikhi nahi.”*

“Aap bhi toh nahi hotey they wahan. Waisey aajkal thora late ho jaati hoon. Shayad isliye….”

Senario 1
Maybe it’s a dialogue between two forbidden lovers who have been denied the pleasure of seeing each other everyday. They have now devised a way to see each other and talk to each other somehow. This is a snatch of that conversation.

Senario 2
Maybe he sees her at the bus stop everyday. She acknowledges his gaze. But both never had the courage to speak to each other. She hasn’t been coming for the past few days. One fine day he sees her again. And decides to speak to her.

Senario 3
I spot my regular auto rickshaw wallah as I am getting late to work and frantically trying to flag down a rickshaw. With a beaming smile I jump into the auto and proceed to have this conversation.

People, take your pick!

* Translation for non-Hindi speaking readers

“Where were you? I haven’t seen you in so many days.”

“Even you weren’t there. But these days I come a little late. Maybe that’s why…”

Dreamin'

She walks in pretending to be full of confidence while there is trepidation inside. And sees a sea of people milling around her. They have all come for the same thing. She comes out clutching a bag in her hands, clutching her dreams in her hands.

As she decides to go back home, by habit, she switches on the radio and hears

I don’t want to ever feel like I did that day
Take me to the place I love, take me all the way

It is a sign. After all, she remembers how she felt a few moons ago. She doesn’t want to feel like that ever. She knows where she wants to go. She silently prays that she gets there. That the dream becomes a reality.

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In other news, this was my WTF moment of the day

Update: Wise Donkee has an interesting point about it here
Uropinion has an interesting poem here

Petals of Life

Making garlands of frangipani
Laughing without a care
She ran as the wind caught her hair
What bliss childhood was

Then he came along
Tucked the flower behind her ear
They walked hand in hand
Oblivious to the world

Decades have passed
She notices the petals strewn along
The white and yellow drying
She knows the end is near