2008 December « Quarter Past Seven

The Ghost of the Holidays Past

December 26, 2008 at 10:54 am | In Nostalgia, Singapore | 6 Comments
Tags: celebration, christmas, life

When I was seven we spent our winter vacation in Delhi. We hadn’t moved to Delhi then, so we only visited the city to meet my cousins. It used to be a new adventure everytime, the new accent, new games to learn, new places to visit and watching people who behaved very differently from those back home.

One particular night, my uncle decided to take us to this market place we had never seen before. My brother and I put on our best clothes and off we went to see this new place. I can’t remember exactly where it was. Either South ex, or Def Col, I really can’t remember. But that was the first time I ever saw an Archies Gallery. My brother and I stared at those lights and beautiful gifts, toys, and the cards like two village idiots. We didn’t dare, however, to touch the items on display. “If you break anything, we’ll send you to these people to wash their dishes forever.” we had been warned.

Everything was so different. The shopkeeper was not a bearded man chewing paan and wearing a lungi, like back home. He was a smart young man who spoke good English. The shop was a full of glitter and there were decorations everywhere.

We saw a crowd outside and ran to see what was happening. There were kids mostly. All happy, flocking around a fat, old man in red. “We should move to this city!”, I whispered to my brother. “Why?” He whispered back.

“Don’t you see? The real Santa Claus lives HERE!”

After that I was assured that the Santa who came to our school last week was actually Sister Angela. (He did look too thin. And the beard fell off at one point.)

We came back home, with the candy that Santa Claus had given us, after shouting at us for not queueing up properly. What did we care? We had met the REAL Santa. That was all that mattered.

That was my first experience with Christmas. Commercial and pretend, but still. This year I experienced real Christmas. Celebrations with friends who celebrate it for the meaning. A fabulous dinner, with lots of jokes and stories flying around the table. Rerun of a movie which i have watched at least thrice before. And LOTS of people. Yes. Suddenly i don’t feel terrible about spending the holidays away from home.

Lazy holidays.. and some other stuff..

December 11, 2008 at 12:45 pm | In life | 3 Comments
Tags: personal, questions

I’ve been going through the blogger’s block recently. I have no one to blame, really. Since exams finished, i’ve done nothing much but miss my friends, watch movies, go for cycling trips, and plan about getting back to work.

I eventually did get back to my part-time. Thanks to my mother for knocking some sense into me and teaching me about ‘the real world’. Mostly, for reminding me that people need money to live. So yea. Back to work.

Although i must admit, my work now is not very interesting. I spent most of yesterday scanning paper, and so nothing exciting happened, except that the paper kept jamming the maching since i kept forgetting to take the staples off.

Of course, on the brighter side, while the stack of paper scanned itself, i got time to do soul searching, play senseless games on Facebook, read NewsWeek AND blog! Nah, i don’t hate my job at all.

Which reminds me of what i was originally thinking when i started writing this post. It so happens that i just made a ‘to-do-list’ for the holidays. (yes, i have a thing for lists) and that got me wondering. Well that, and an episode from Scrubs. How do you know whether THAT big step that you are taking in your life is the right one? How can you make sure that you won’t regret it two weeks later? Most importantly, how do you know whether you will be able to “survive” it?

Like Elliot Reid, i also wish there was a test to tell you that. Where you could just enter your choice and it would tell you whether you are making the right decision, buying the right dress or choosing the correct friends. I’ve taken a lot of huge steps this year, not knowing whether i will be able to pull through. Thinking back, i think i did manage to pull through most of them. Of course, i made my mistakes too. And as much i may wish for the otherwise, i do realize that there is no way to go back and un-do my decisions.

There is, however, satisfaction in learning from from your mistakes. But really, what if there were no scope for another chance, another mistake or another decision? How are you supposed to know what the right thing to do is?