Ami’s Blogonomics

Lately I have seen I can’t sleep beyond 6.30 – 7.00 AM even on weekends! I guess age is catching up…nearing 30 after all!

Today morning was beautiful bright and bit chilly, I was sipping my cuppa coffee and gazing out of the window from my new NY apartment, I could see entire downtown, high rise buildings with different brand logos on them.

Since 3 years mornings have been in to relatively new place, new people, new town, new job, new life… every time I look out of the window it’s different.

No I’m not travelling for a travelogue which I always wanted to do. But I have changed 3 cities and 2 countries in last 3.5 years.

Earlier, mornings used to be my cozy bedroom in Bombay, where I lived all my life till I was 26. When I used to gaze out of my window I could see the very familiar neighborhood with familiar paths, shops, and people. Nothing was new in those mornings, but there was sense of familiarity, sense of belongingness. Tea tasted same, my bedroom décor was pretty much same all along. Bombay had its charm, I felt so comfortable and confident in that madness, I never thought this comfort will ever go away from me.

Like every crazy young and restless person with big dreams, I left my comfort zone to find out what Im worth off. I left the comfort of being around my family, friends, favorite restaurants, malls, salon, roads and came to Bangalore. Initial days were crazy, didn’t like the city at all. I was around all strangers all alone. No friends, no family. I didn’t even know where to get milk or a pack of bread. I couldn’t tell a cab driver or a shopkeeper what I wanted. My knowledge of English and Hindi came of no use. 1^st time I felt the power of communication. I remember carrying a picture of broom to tell the shopkeeper I want “this”. My room in Bombay was my den, I loved my isolation.

Same lonely bedroom in Bangalore became so scary I started sleeping with a knife beside my bed and had entire strategy planned about what and how I will counter attack if somebody barges into my apartment. But I loved the wind and weather of Bangalore, I simply loved my weekends when I read novel sitting in balcony with cup of tea, weekends with my new friend roaming around doing nothing, finding new restaurants, meeting new people, learning new cultures.

I may not accept this in all forums but I kind of miss Bangalore and life there. May be most of which is because of the best memories related to that place and I can’t ignore the joy of romance which me and PP enjoyed while being so away yet being so close all the time. And a memory of that romance is very much related to Bangalore. City once I hated because of being stranger to me, now I admire and miss.

But, it was time to pack my bags and cross seven oceans and come to US with PP to start new chapter in our life.

Kansas was all together a new experience, newly married, newly jobless (I left my job to join PP in Kansas) so much to do and at the same time nothing to do. I didn’t know any place here too but mere company of PP made exploring things exciting. Frankly, I didn’t have to explore much PP was known as ‘Kansas map’ amongst his friends, so I was pretty much set. But there were other things to explore like being a wife than a girlfriend, cooking new things, planning vacations or spending lazy weekends. Good memories are related to Kansas, always good things happened with us while in Kansas. Or I should say, always good things happened to us, since we are together! I miss Kansas, the mere spare time I had there to do anything useless was amazing. Once a strange city, now I love.

Since I couldn’t stay out of job for long, I found a new job, yet in a new city! For a brand which I always admired and always wanted to be associated with and in a city which I always dreamt about living in.

We have moved to New York, I associate with this city a lot. Very close to my hometown, Bombay. Similar madness, trains, crowded, noisy and vibrant. But I don’t know where to find good food or good shoes! I’m exploring yet again. This time its not alone, PP is there with me.

But strangely this time I don’t feel that lost, may be because as I said it’s like Bombay or because this city is going to embrace me for a long inning rather than a year’s stint. Let’s see.

After extended break for marriage, my writer bug started creeping up. It started pushing me to pick up from where I left. I am finding it difficult to pick from there as I hardly have any strings left. Its new place, new life, new people or no people around. I started with sorting my old music collection on new Vaio. My iPod is lying in my bag, struggling to come out and perform at its limit again. I was almost married to my iPod once…those days!

Music collection is pretty much like “Purani Jeans”  it brings back moments and days when you collected that music or the time when you kept humming that song or may be kept playing it in loop and never got enough of it. It brings back the joys and fun you had with friends while a song in the background or the lonely moments you spent over a song with a wonderfully brewed Chai.

In those crazy days we did almost anything to get a number in iPod or for that matter in CD and our computers. I went to great lengths to collect any number for my collection and share it with friends.

I associate each number with the time I collected it…good way to keep note of the kind of days have passed to never come back or to come back for better. It indeed works like “Purani Jeans”  - pulls you back to the time when you were fitting in them. There are numbers with which you associated so much once and now it doesn’t appeal to you at all. Just like those jeans, you don’t want to be seen dead in a particular cut of jeans which you brought saving so much, just because you don’t associate with the design. Like I used to proudly wear a pair of jeans which was burnt in Chemistry lab with some diluted acid (H₂SO₄) , and many of batch mates deliberately sprinkled acid on their jeans to get that look. But now that jeans won’t go with my expensive tops and I no more aspire to be seen in them.

I went all over the place to collect a number which according to me and my friends was the ‘in’ thing and without that whoever is aspiring to be a diehard music lover or to be precise to become ‘the rock star’ won’t reach anywhere. Today, I don’t want to even mention that number, as I will die the day my friends comes to know I actually enjoyed that! Friends who enjoyed that number with me aren’t much into my blogs so I’m saved.

But all said and done, your music collection is very much ‘you’ and only you just like your “Purani Jeans” which takes shape of your legs and butts to fit you perfect and its very you beyond a point as you pretty much lived in those pair of jeans or with the music collection.