Treasure hunts, Joseph-Beth, Another life & RS.

Not that I am diverting traffic but here is an ahem...interesting post: baby k grows old - with considerable efforts put in by Pradnya and me for the clues :)

I sit on the most comfortable looking barcalounger. It has little satin pillows on it that I arrange all around me. In front of me is the finest looking coffee table with books piled all over it. Fireplace on my right, complete with an aristocratic mantel and a lifelike painting of horses and jockeys. Dim lighting, the kind found in over-expensive restaurants, unrecognizable music floating at just the right volume, interspersed with the pleasant murmer of conversations. A slight aroma of coffee and muffins tickle the senses and The Namesake is just interesting enough for me to read it and still indulge myself in the world around me, the world of Joseph-Beth.

A day at Joseph-Beth would top my list of weekend fun-things-to-do. There's something about being by myself at the book store, something about running my fingers over rows of books, picking one that captures my fancy, burying my nose in it, sniffing for the distinctive "new book smell" and settling down with it - something delightful, calming. I am alone yet around me are people just like me, searching for a book to inspire them, to indulge them, to make them laugh and cry, to create a world for them to forget reality, an alternate life of sorts.

And a blog that I read today reminded me of the very same concept - an alternate life. I wonder at times, if I had taken a slightly different decision than the ones that I have already taken, would my life be more as I want it to be, or less perhaps? I still have the chance to create the alternate life that I sometimes dream about - I mean who would not want to live the challenging life of a journalist, a writer...(read that as I would :)); for that matter, I think I would really enjoy being a primary school teacher or closer to home, how different would my life be if I were a software professional back in Madras? Would work be a daily dose of fun and chatter, movie-talk and chai, deadlines and late-night pizza...just things that are familiar and comfortable?

Sometimes, the people working at the check-out counters at the post-office at Nandino Blvd remind me of countless bank clerks and officers back in India, my mom's friends who greet me everytime I visit them and I wonder, how different would my life be if I were to be doing what they did? Slightly dusty fans working as slowly as the people at the bank, ever-silver tumblers of coffee leaving little rings on the tables, mamas with dark-brown rimmed spectacles and mamis in sarees and big kumkum pottus looking at ledgers, and people conversing in Tamil...mellifluous, comforting, pleasing Tamil...in one other word, home. Or as wiser men have sung before :), of course without the spelling mistakes!

சொர்க்கமே என்றாலும் அது நம் ஊர போல வருமா?
அட என்னாடு என்றாலும், அது நம் நாட்டுக்கீடாகுமா?
பல தேசம் முழுதும் பேசும் மொழிகள் தமிழ் போல் இனித்திடுமா?

Maybe it is paradise, but does it feel like our own town?
Be it any country, will it equal our own?
A myriad languages spoken in several nations - but none as sweet to us as our own*?

* The original lyrics say Tamil but I take it more to mean our mother tongue :)

I am not sure what am trying to say here, am not even sure I know what I am trying to convey to myself...(shaking head) RS and her silly ruminations :)

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