Reading along!

In school, english was the first language of instruction for me. I am glad it was so because it opened a door to the wonderland of the language for me. The english text books had chapters from classic novels which made us run to the library and read the novel to understand the references. I had teachers who were so passionate about the language that they considered it their duty to initiate all the kids that they could take hold of to the beauty and mystries of the language and its liturature.


We learnt Wordsworth and WH Davies and Shakespeare and Robert Frost. We learnt to appreciate the finer nuances of the language and it’s words. We read Jane Austen, Jerome K Jerome and many more such authors who not enhanced our vocabulary and nurtured a love for the language in us. We were encouraged to read…..not just the text books but all the books that we could catch hold of…..mostly classics. I am glad that we began the literary journey with the classics. Unlike the contemporary novels, these books instilled in us a sense of awe about the words, the style of writing and the grace of the language.

Though i cannot read as much as i like now, i still try to read atleast one book a month. Reading makes me feel good. It is one of the pleasures that i cannot forgo no matter how busy i am.

A beautiful begining!

Have you had a day when everything just seems so bright? Have you had a day when everything looks gloomy? My bright days are always when I get up early. Since this is a rare occurrence it makes the day more special. The perfect day to get up early is Sunday. When the rest of the world is still sleeping, I get up to spend some time with myself. Sunday mornings always have a relaxing, calming effect on me. I can do whatever I want for a couple of hours before my husband and my daughter wake up. Every Sunday I wake up with a list of things to do in my head. A bunch of household chores, some extra cooking, some embroidery, catching up on some reading……..do nothing! That’s what I tend to do most of the times. I end up chucking the list of all the ideal things to do and end up with a book and a cup of tea by the window. For me, that’s the best beginning to any day.

A trip down the memory lane!

I spent this weekend at my mother’s place. While I am there, my mother always asks me to go through all the memorabilia that still resides in my old cupboard and discard unnecessary stuff. I like doing it because it always proves to be a wonderful trip down the memory lane. While clearing out old greeting cards, I came across a bundle of letters. It took me an entire afternoon to go through all the letters by my friends and cousins. Writing letters was a passion when we were in school and it was the most preferred mode of communication to keep our conversations away from the parents’ prying eyes.


Back then, we didn’t have access to emails or cell phones. The land line was mostly used for urgent communications and under parental supervision. So it wasn’t really a lucrative mode of communication. What do you do then when your friends and cousins are in different town and you wish to keep in touch? Write letters….of course.

Writing letters was one of the most joyful experiences of my adolescence. We wrote letters with a passion. We wrote regularly every week and we knew that the recipient will write back immediately. It took around 4 days for the letters to reach and another 4 days for the reply to come back. Waiting for the postman was a regular and integral part of my growing up. I knew when the postman would arrive and I made sure I was home by that time.

What did we write? Well, every little thing that happened in our lives. Tiffs with parents, our insecurities and our daily routines. We shared all our feelings and we were open about our emotions. We didn’t mind telling friends who were studying in other cities how much we missed them. We shared our daily routine, adventures, advice and even heartbreaks. There was a lot of simplicity in our lives then and a lot of time to think and reach out to others.

I am going to keep all these letters and maybe I will use that as an excuse to gather all the old friends around! We will have a good time refreshing old memories! :)

A perfect day to muse upon!

It is a beautiful day today. Like one of the early summer days. A clear sky, pleasant sunshine and happy faces running around the roads to reach work on time. The winter is passing and the new sun and the new season is all set to warm our thoughts and hearts! What a lovely day to begin something new! A lovely day to be outdoors, to go wandering without a destination in mind, to be poetic and to woolgather. Days like today make me think of all those summer holidays that I have spent doing absolutely nothing and love every minute of it. Nostalgia hits me every now and then and then I wish to do things that I could I have done when I was young (not that I am old!)
I absolutely love to read and I absolutely love to embroider. These are the two hobbies that I cannot do without and I make sure to spend some time by myself every week doing just that. I created this blog to make it easy for me to follow all those wonderful blogs by people who embroider and quilt and create such beautiful pieces. I hope to do as much some day. So now whenever a beautiful day dawns, I will read and embroider to my heart’s content. Maybe make something interesting for my daughter who is yet too young to appreciate all this. I remember growing up with my mom stitching away something or the other constantly so I would love to see my daughter growing up with the same kind of memories that put a smile on my face even on a dull day!

Musings

Trying to blog for the first time. No clue about how it is done. Guess it will take a while to learn! (Hey, that rhymes!)