Will Travel for Food!!!

Have you ever felt hunger? The moment when your stomach pulls its tissues and holds it tight; when every other thing on earth has no relevance; when you begin to shout out at your kith and kin for no reason; when for once you be a full person without your self-diminishing self-esteem; Its hard to put to words lot of beautiful things on earth. One such thing is the feeling of hunger.

When you are in such a want for food, how would the first bite of food that reaches your stomach feel to you? To me, it felt to be the best pleasure possible in a lifetime. Even pleasurable than having sex itself (I presume for now).

Having said that, do we give food the love that it demands? How usually do I get to see people chat over phone, switch on their TV sets or even, for that matter, lost in thoughts, while they have their food. Not to be enjoying food will be synonymous to not living a life at all. For all, it happens to be, the simplest and best of worldly delights.

Not to be having food to live is a curse, but not to be enjoying food while having it is an even bigger misfortune.

There exists a saying which goes, "Do not live to eat, but eat to live". I regret the life of whoever said that. In my opinion, he never lived one bit. He just put eating to be an act. For whom food is only a source to energy, I wonder them to be the most non-artistic of people to have existed. Yes, I used 'exist' as the verb for them, I consider them to be non-living beings.


If you have enjoyed (or atleast tried to enjoy) every act of yours, to me, you are the one who has lived life to the best possible. The so-called successful ones having lots and lots of money are no way close to have 'lived' life if they neither had time for food nor the eye to like things around them. Money is a mere medium to enjoy just like food very much is.


Food, pretty much, is the only single entity which satisfies all the five senses at the same time. The aroma of food fills the air and acts as a appetizer, even before arriving at the scene. The visual treat, it presents, offers a prelude to what lies ahead for us. With touch, the fingers romances the food. The taste buds, then, are served. Oh,the ear shouldn't be left behind, hence we bring the glasses together; make it kiss with our neighbour's and say 'Cheers' loud and clear for the delight of the ears. The sound of a slurp, the grin of a spoon in touch with the plate, all contribute to the ear's feast.


The guest to whom you served a dish may have since had the same dish a thousand other times at thousand other places, will yet come back to you and sing praises of it. That's the nostalgic beauty of food. If there is one thing that humans feel contented about it is got to be food and nothing else. That is why business deals happen over a dining table. As the stomach fills, the desires cease and the deal reaches a contentment point for both the parties.


I have a friend who wouldn't mind travelling hundreds of kilometers to satisfy his appetite with the food he wishes. I silently picked up that habit from him. That excitement which grows as you approach your favourite restaurant paramounts when you finally reach it. After you place your order, the wait to place your hands on food, is a dear feeling one shouldn't miss to enjoy. Eventually, when you take your first bite off it, it would be a matchless euphoria.

Being a foodie is a matter of pride. Don't disown that fact if you are one. Though I may not look like being one, I am certainly the best foodie I know yet.

Wishing you with a Bon appetite in whatever you do,
nagappstheblogger!!!

   

When life is a holiday...

Where life hardly gives time to live, how often does one find an eye to appreciate the small little beautiful things on Earth? The sight of a leaf swaying against the wind, the sound of the birds flapping its wings, the feeling of making grass your bed for the night and the peace on waking up to an early morning open sky, sadly goes unnoticed on every ambitious minute spent.  Aren’t these the very reason to live? In what one does to make for a living, life is made the cost. The mindless humans don’t understand that they are in search of something that they actually have in their own hands. Life is a paradox which is lost when is searched for. How frustrated is one’s life ironical to what an old proverb says is beautiful. The proverb isn’t wrong, only on-the-run reality makes it so.

When such an average frustrated soul seeks solace, a travel agent gets a phone call.

A holiday is synonymous to heaven. That is only when one shrugs off his responsibilities and pressures of an everyday life and gets a chance to actually live for a change. He gets to be a carefree child once again. He then forgets God, instead becomes one. One such holiday it was.

Work and duties had to wait, as finally the long-planned family holiday was about to take shape. The mood was upbeat and bags were packed with the ever-lasting last minute stuff-ins. The very feel of missing the everyday routine of life was refreshing to start with. Crossing the seas wasn’t such an odd event as it may have seemed a generation before. It was parts of Europe this time for us. Most of it which is called ‘developed’ that we, as Indians, crave to emulate. The silent proud Indian in me was in no mood to feel any inferior as it whispered, ‘let them show me what they have got!’

The flight is always a pain when it comes to the long-wait hours of immigration and check-ins. Not to mention that the wait had to be on sleepy hours. It had to be more yawns than smiles to start the tour off. Food had started to be more flesh than green even as we left our country’s borders.  We had to live on breads and salads from then on. I couldn’t have praised our idlys and dosas ever before as then. A few movies available on board kept us away from a bore while we touched down in Paris.

The best part of visiting a place foreign to you is in understanding how different the culture of people there is. It is amazing to see how geography changes the living ways of people. Not more than a few hundred kilometers apart from each other the ways of life get to be different. Their taste for food, idea of fun and the very definition of good and bad will make one’s senses feel so different to what it was practised to. The history and architectural distinctness is another trait of the place to decipher and like about on a travel. The awesomeness of climate and people around you on the tour would be the perfect icing on the cake to make for a soothing holiday.

The tour began on a coach which took us around the city of Paris. The history of the French revolution and the courage of Napoleon Bonaparte were on showcase everywhere. The native people there were so busy on the outlook. The bright sunny day was keeping them on their toes. For being popularly known as the fashion capital of the world, they barely had clothes on. What seemed summer to them had us wearing sweaters and jerkins.

Just the visual difference to our part of the world kept the cameras on full duty. It was perfumery and leather all over to pick from but for the frightening price tags. Some had me wondering if the prices were quoted in Rupees rather than in Euros.  The city of love had me feeling bad for not having my girl around. A day later it was time for the most beautiful city of Europe – Brussels, to be witnessed.

The land of chocolates and waffles was a treat to spend time in. The beauty of the city was eye-catching. The discipline in the people was so obvious that had a few in our tour group bad remark about Indians in comparison. The fire was fueled with the talk on our cleanly ways with respect to theirs; leaving me to ponder upon the causal thoughts for it. I began comparing and analyzing the people I saw there to our very own. I eventually found out, it all boiled down to the satisfaction levels of the basic needs of people.  When you have what you want to live, life becomes easy to be mannered. How could one expect discipline in people who fight to survive for a living. It is when the rat gets out of its race, does it care for its neighbourhood. So I soon realised there is no point in comparisons at all. I have started to laugh out since, when I read statistics these days saying India is ranked so far low to others in so and so. I then made myself believe I belonged to the place I was to, to live it to the fullest.

With a few chocolates in our shopping bag, we left Belgium for Germany. Germany was full of speedy cars and churches. The Mercedes Benz museum in Stuttgart showed how sexy cars can be. The Germans had forgotten about Adolf Hitler. They didn’t want us talking about him and the world wars. Their language, German sounded so different to our ears. Actually, being in a foreign place gave us the license to use our language at will. We could spell out our momentous frustrations in deep flavoured Tamil on them with a confidence of them not knowing a word in it. More or less the tongue had survived on the pleasure of the Tamil language than on the taste of food. The not-so-good feeling of local food in the air brought back desperate memories of spice in our homeland. Few spells of rain late in the evening, however, made the place blissful.

All this bought us to the final pit-stop on the tour, the picturesque Switzerland. The lakes in each city of Swiss, the swans in it and the nature around the place had swept each one off our feet. You had to be there on the snow of the Alps Mountain to see the peak of beauty that nature had on offer. No girl could be as pretty-looking as she was that day. The coach left our hearts behind and took us back to the city en-route picture perfect grasslands. Even as all this was there to feel and enjoy on the drive, people spent the passing second clicking pictures to boast and hobnob to satisfy their egos with supremacy. I pitied them as Nature is best felt, and not photographed. I even wondered if for some people life was what others felt about them and not what they did.

After eight days of true life, the beaming hot sun of Chennai welcomed us back in India with sweat as its greeting present. The very prospect of getting back to a hard-paced  life-robbing life made the last week’s time so special and important.

No matter where a holiday is to and whom it is with, it revives one’s senses and makes it as some of the most memorable days spent on Earth. Life is designed to be beautiful. It should only be felt so. Let not the pressures of life rob the beauty in it.

With the pleasure of many more holidays to come with you people,

   

nagappstheblogger!!!                

Happiness is in and around.,

My train to Chennai for a home weekend was scheduled for 9 pm. I had to rush in to reach the station as I had started late after sitting through till the end of a thrilling cricket match. Cricket was something which always had more priority than most things in life for most people, especially for me. The clock showed 8.40 pm when I huffed and puffed to the boarding point in the train with my heavy baggage of clothes. I made sure my washing machine at home was given a hefty load every time I got back home. I put the bags under the seat and got down to pick up some things to crunch and drink, having had dinner on the run.

"Coffee", I ordered to the IRCTC stall keeper.
He made me a cup of ground coffee and kept it by me.
I lifted the cup and bought it up and close to my nose. I sucked in the hot flavor of the rich South-Indian coffee. Only few things on earth can beat a well-made coffee.
I also got myself a packet of lays to serve my company as it often bores to travel alone.

It was almost time for the train to leave, and I got into it. I occupied my seat in the train cabin which had a mixed bunch of co-passengers.

What immediately caught my eye was a cute, 5 year old girl in the company of her father. The father seemed a patient young man. It needed patience indeed, to feed his daughter the packed dinner.

"Have this bite, your last one for the day", he had urged the kid for every bite.
"You can't cheat me. I have already had my last bite 5 times", replied the grumpy girl turning away her face.
The young father smiled at his daughter's comment as he soon realized his persuading techniques were past their age for his bright kid.
The man badly needed his wife to be have been around. His mind-voice praised his wife's deeds in achieving this herculean task day-in and day-out. Gentlemen shower the wives with adorable words only when they have missed them the most.
However, he hadn't given up. The fatherhood in him kept him going at the task, but a bit of frustration had crept in than before though.

I watched all this in awe as I sipped in my beaming coffee enjoying every bit of it on a moving train's breeze.

"If you eat, I will buy you a chocolate", in went one bite.
"See the crow there", she took in another in amusement.
"Only if you eat, you will grow big like me", she chewed in a quick few bites in realization.

"If you do not eat, this anna would catch hold of you", he alarmed pointing to me.
For a quick moment I wondered if I had appeared so threatening to be an example for what I was.
I knew I atleast had to act so, to do my bit for the kid's dinner.
"Yes, if you don't finish that Dosa, I will finish you", I said far from deceptive even to a child.
"hahaha!!!", the girl laughed out her last bite of dosa seeing my funny act.
I knew I had a chance in Tamil films being as worse as an actor that I was for a minute.

Finally, her dinner was over. Her father felt so proud of it. He seemed like he had conquered the invincible thing. The child got back to its playful self. Her Dosa-spread-mouth and the always-eager-eyes didn't leave my mind for the night.

Across my side were a son and mother who were keeping mum for most times. The bachelor-son was engrossed with his mobile. His mother was left with no company. She seemed to be worried, perhaps in mind of her responsibilities. The son, I presumed, had his share of worries with his girlfriend on texts.

By now, I had finished my lays packet with the scenes of life of my co-passengers keeping me interested.

By my other side, was two middle aged people, who were chatting profusely about banks and banking regulations, Apparently, they worked in different banks. They stressed on the pros and cons of each other's bank to win the argument. I wondered if they had a trophy to win on conclusion. They even for a minute didn't live life, only catering to their egos.

As I took insight of all this, I realized a few things. They were strangers to me, so for a very rare occasion I was viewing people as what they actually are but not as what I saw them to be. Being not related to them made devoid personal equations and helped me understand how people actually live each other's lives. People, I saw, were so engaged in life that the evident happiness in and around one's self went unnoticed. To the feeding father, it was a test of his temper. For the argumentative banking co-passengers, it was a battlefield with self-pride at stake. For the bachelor-son, life was not where he physically was. For his mother, it was about her non-existent son. To me, whose perspective was detached from their stresses of 'self-life', it meant the small little beautiful things around them that they themselves had failed to notice. The father had missed in his frustration to enjoy the child's nature. The self-possessed minds had a mind-block to think beyond "I, ME, MYSELF", which amounts to nothing. 

Once one is clouded with self thoughts he/she loses to live life. Only when one takes 'self' out from his/her system, would one have time for their 'real life'. By 'real life' I mean, what nature gives us- the sound of rain, the chirps of birds, the warmth of the sun, the chill of breeze and the music by the river. Real Life is in a cry, in a smile, in a word. It is in a cuddle, in a pat and in a touch. It motivates to find something to like and enjoy in each of the things around us. 'Self life' hardly keeps open our hearts and senses to the happiness around us. It only urges to go in search of a self-goal blind-folding whatever one's senses may like to feel that are evidently close-by. It only leaves one to find something to dislike and complain in each of the things around us.

As I went to bed on my train birth, I was certain that only when I took out all the 'first-person-possessive' words from my dictionary, I would live LIFE. Until then, I would be a mechanical entity whose search is always a constant and its realization possibly never. It is easier said than done to remove the self from one's thoughts. It is difficult than it may seem but it is not impossible. After all, every individual is made up of his/her egos; the lesser one shows it, the more beautiful they get to be known.

Cheers and Regards,
nagappstheblogger!!!