The week that was…

Oh what a week it has been… from birthdays to restarts and new beginnings to starting of new chapters and making new connections and reconnecting with old ones… the week had all of it!

To begin with, the week had its share of birthdays, beginning with mumma’s 74th one, to the birthdays of your fellow running buddies and coach. This meant a lot of birthday messages and birthday posts, which at times can be tiresome but at the same time pretty fulfilling.

The week also saw a return to working from office, albeit in a hybrid format. After almost 5 plus years of working from home, it felt good to finally work from office, a good change of scenery, a return back to a life that you once lived.

But most importantly, the week also saw you starting a new job after a month of being jobless. 

You’ve got to be really grateful that you found a new job within a month after you lost your last one knowing that many out there who have gone through the same thing as you have and are still searching for a job. You are grateful and thankful but also you not taking for granted what you have and the people who stood by you and through it all. Most importantly you are thankful that you maintained bonds and connections and didn’t burned bridges that helped you get through it all.

So it’s time to put away all the hurt and helplessness and the rejections and the anxiety and the fear of the sword hanging over your head, all the self-doubts and tears. Time to put it all behind you and start a new chapter.

But still there’s a lingering self-doubt, the anxious feeling, a sense of fear of failing, that refuses to go away despite your best effort to rid yourself of these feelings. You have been scarred and it’s these scars that remind you, that scares you.

But in the end you know you need to move on and start afresh and let the experience be a lesson that you have learned, one that you should not repeat again, one that you should never take for granted.

And, as your burgers and fries mentioned, you are here to work and not to make friend, so you don’t have to be so sweet and kind, and maybe this is something I need to incorporate, but knowing me, this is going to be damn difficult.

So you have it, you are starting a new job, but at the same time it means returning back to the workplace to work from office, to working amongst people as against working remotely on your own.

So once again you are figuring out the fastest way of getting to office, which meant taking multiple mode of transportation, and thanks to connectivity you can actual do it.

So it’s running to catch a train and standing in long lines only to stand in buses, trying to get to office without looking like you bathed on the way. And then you figure out other and quicker ways of getting to office, like changing metros. But that meant you reached office in one mass of sweat, but still you reached pretty quickly.

So there you have it, a pretty interesting week, a week of celebrations and firsts and restart, the week that was!!!!

Don’t stop believing…

Don’t stop believing, Journey sang

And how true are these words

Cause we are the believers, the truth seekers

The never giving uppers

Holding onto a feeling, a belief

Even if it’s just a glimmer of hope

We continue to hope and believe 

Hope that the tide will turn 

And things will  go our way

A belief that things will get better, eventually 

Cause we can’t loose hope

We can’t loose faith

Cause if we do, it will be the end of us

So we continue hope and have faith

And continue to believe 

That no matter how things may seem

No matter how things may be

Even if we are tossed on life’s tempest

Hope will always get us through

Hope will always get us there 

No matter how bad life may seem

No matter how dire our situation may be

We will find a way to survive

To rise up and shine

Like a phoenix, from the ashes of despair

We will soar high 

Cause we have hope in our soul 

And faith, the wind beneath our wings 

And a belief that we’ll make it through

So as long as be keep believing 

Holding onto a feeling of hope, of faith 

We will survive and thrive 

So as Journey sang 

Don’t stop believing 

Hold on to the feeling!!!

An evening at the concert…

Truth be told, I’ve never been a die hard fan of Coldplay. Although you have heard their songs , and many of their songs live rent-free inside your head, you still don’t count yourself as a die hard fan. But then your burgers and fries is, so you tag along for your burgers and fries, at the same time you could also do with a distraction, with all that was happening in your life. 

By the end of the night, you were glad that you did. It was something magical. Something that you didn’t know that you needed till you experienced it.

You didn’t just see them perform, you didn’t just hear the songs that they sang, you felt the music as it moved through you, reverberating through your body. You felt the music in the air that moved you and all who were there. An experience for all the entire sensory system.

The music turned its magic on, and suddenly you could feel your heart beat beneath your skin, making you feel alive again! 

The music turned on a switch and the stadium was bathed in the beautiful glow of the countless bands that lit up on cue as the music played. It felt like the stars had descended on to the stadium and were shinning just for you and they were yellow, red and blue and every colour. Was this what paradise looked like, or was just dream of paradise. It was indeed an adventure of a lifetime, an experience of a lifetime.

The music traveled from the stage to your heart at the speed of sound leaving you with this feeling like you were drunk and high. It had this power that made you feel like you were their universe and all they wanted to do was put you first.

It didn’t matter who you were, if you weren’t any kind of superhero. All it asked of you is where you wanted to go and how much you were willing to risk, and it took you just there, something just like this, what you wanted.

You joined the countless others in that stadium, singing, dancing and cheering and clapping, like you were part of some Roman Cavalry Choir singing as Jerusalem bells could be heard ringing.

Even songs that you weren’t familiar with had you humming and singing and dancing along.

It felt so special, it felt so magical, an experience that you were glad to experience knowing that you almost had thoughts of giving it a miss because of your troubles and strife (and not wife, cause yours truly is unmarried and single). You were glad you got to share this experience with your burgers and fries knowing how much it meant to them, but then you never knew that you needed this too.

You just prayed that this moment would never end. But like everything that’s beautiful and good, this too had to come to an official end.

But not before you it had you squealing with delight when Chris Martin playfully and jokingly said he was from the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, causing you and your burgers and fries to cheer loudly.

In the end, when the band finally sang Fix You it had the entire stadium singing in unison. In that moment you knew that the music, like a soothing balm, like a beautiful, magical ointment, fixed you, fixed the pain and lowness and loneliness you felt, that you were going through. As the band sang you could see the lights guiding you home, slowly trying to fix you.

In the end you were glad that you listened to your burgers and fries and put all that you were going through behind you and attended something so magical, a kind of once in a lifetime experience, something you hadn’t experienced before and something you may not experience again. Ok that may not be entirely true, but not in the same way.

So in the end you sure did have a one of a kind, experience of a lifetime!!!

That’s me in the corner…

That’s me in the corner 

That’s me trying to avoid the spotlight 

Cause when I find myself in it 

It’s for all the wrong reasons 

Making me wish I was somewhere else instead!

That’s me in the corner

The one that’s often overlooked 

that’s often ignored and forgotten

Always on their own

Nothing quiet special

In fact quiet ordinary to look at

A bit of a bore!

That’s me in the corner 

Always on my own 

Wanting something or someone to call my own

But often left sad and forelone

Wanting to love but scared of getting hurt

Wanting to love but often friend-zoned!

That’s me in the corner 

Wide and eyed and smiling 

Trying to appear cheerful and positive

But internally wracked with 

Nervous anxiety 

An eternal pessimist

Coupled with low self-confidence 

And high self-doubt

That refuses to leave me alone

Often insisting keeping me from being on my own!

That’s me in the corner 

Someone who’s frightened of happiness 

Cause something bad might happen next

Someone who’s worried about 13s and

17s

As they come with their share of trouble

And anything falling in these days 

Will never go your way

Call it superstition or overthinking 

It’s just the way you are!

That’s me in the corner

Someone hoping to be in the spotlight 

Cause no matter what 

You have faith

And prayer on lips 

And hope in your soul

No matter how things may turn out

All will be good in the end

And you’ll no longer be

The one in the corner!!!

The little person in your head

There’s this person 

Residing inside your head

Living absolutely rent free

Constantly whispering in your ears

Constantly sowing seeds of doubts 

Making you think and rethink and overthink

The one that sees 

What others and you don’t see

The bad in the good

The negative in the positive 

Who’s constantly on the lookout 

For dark clouds on a beautiful sunny day

Always diverting your mind

To the worse that could happen

Even when everything is going right

Sending you in a tailspin 

Filling you with anxiety 

Turning you into a nervous wreck

The one who goes at everything 

With a magnifying glass

Magnifying even the smallest of doubts

Magnifying every insecurities 

Magnifying the smallest of flaws

The smallest of mistake

Magnifying it 10 times than what it should be

The one who’s constantly questioning 

Constantly doubting 

Doubting  your capabilities and abilities 

Constantly causing you to doubt yourself

Weakening your hope

Shaking up your faith 

Always causing you to self-doubt

Always causing you to think for the worst 

Even when there’s chance for good

That inner saboteur that constantly doubting

That’s constantly questioning

Who makes you constantly live in fear

Who makes you live in 

A constant state of anxiousness 

Oh how you wish they would leave you be

And stop living rent free

So that you can evict them 

This person that lives in your mind!!!

All will be alright

Everything will be alright, they say

But the question is 

When will things be alright

Have faith, they say 

But how much faith should one have

Before they begin to break

Be patient and things will get better

But how much patience should one have

For how long would one have to patiently wait 

Cause for someone that’s racked with anxiety 

Coupled with an overthinking mind 

That’s in constant overdrive 

It’s difficult to be patient 

Especially when the mind 

Is constantly thinking up ways in which 

Things could go wrong

They say things will get better 

But when will that happen 

Is what you want to ask them

When will things start to get better 

You’ve been through the wringer 

Now all you want is a moment to breathe

A moment of levity 

A moment away from the insanity

That you find yourself in 

A moment to untangle the knots

You knotted yourself in

They say stay positive 

And manifest good things 

But how do you stay positive 

When your mind is constantly negative

How do you manifest good things

When your mind is always thinking

About the worst things that could happen 

They say have hope

But how much hope do you have 

Before you finally breakdown and give up

In the end, despite what your mind might think 

And how you act and believe

You’ve got to keep the faith and keep moving

You can never give up 

You keep hoping and moving on 

Cause eventually everything will be alright!

An evening with the Phantom of the Opera

I’ll admit, though I’ve always known about Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera, thanks to a really bad Joel Schumacher musical and the countless mention on various shows, the best being Modern Family, when Cam stages it in Luke’s and Mannys school with Luke eventually playing the part of the phantom (ok that was quite a big digression of thought), I’ve never truly seen the musical though I do know some of the musical numbers. So when it was announced that show was coming to Mumbai, I was excited but not that excited to want to go and watch it like I was in case of The Sound of Music and Mamma Mia. However, somehow, on a whim, I found myself going for it, as a way of indulging myself (thanks to the events of the day and how life had been lately) and thanks to the recommendations of friends.

(Damn… that was quite a long route I’ve taken to get to the point… and I’ve been told that brevity is not my forte)

And at the end of the evening (ok make that night) I was glad that I did cause the show was AMAZING. Well not as amazing as Mamma Mia, which is my gold standard of the most entertained and fun I’ve had watching musicals here in Mumbai (whether you agree with me or not). As always I went by myself (cue Celine Dion’s All by myself) as I have always down when going out on a whim. 

Watching the show was an absolute joyful experience that successfully managed to wash away any of the weird taste that was felt by the god awful movie based on it.

The costumes were exquisite, the set pieces were neat, at least from what I could see from my seat, which doesn’t say much of the seat I managed to get. But how I wished I could actually get to clearly take in the setting when the Phantom takes Christine to his liar for the first time. From what I could see I could see it was one ethereal scene with the illusion of floating lights and candelabras.

The singing was amazing, that’s if you like songs sung operatically. I found myself getting goose pimples everything a performer hit those high notes or sang an aria. Though I hadn’t heard many of the musical numbers, I couldn’t stop myself humming along to them. And then you had the songs like The Phantom of the Opera, Angel of Music and All I Ask of You that had my heart from the first note (last being the one I fell in love with thanks to the duet sung by Josh Groban and Kelly Clarkson). 

However, I really wished the acoustic of the theatre was better cause at times you couldn’t understand what the performers were singing. So you had to pay attention as most of the dialogues were sung.

The background score was brilliant, thanks to the amazing orchestra, adding so much to the  musical creating the tension, the romance, the ominity, the mood. 

The choreography was magnificent. I think this was the first time I saw a ballet so up close and personal and it was not on a dance reality show. It was so gracefully and beautifully and elegantly and perfectly done. I simply loved the choreography for the song Masquerade, with the costumes adding to the awesomeness of the scene.

All in all it was indeed a well spent evening at the opera, I meant at the NMACC. The only other gripe I had (other than the acoustics) was somehow I failed to link the first scene with the last scene and how the paper machete monkey connected the two scenes.

But that said it was an indeed another one for the memory of an evening well spent with the Phantom of the Opera!!!