A place to be.

As I look at the photos, hitting next again and again, tears roll down my face and I realize how much I miss this.

I remember when I first walked into this place on a sunny afternoon around 1pm. It didn't appear anything like what I was looking for. The only thing that made me feel that I was in the correct address was the CROSS outside... It was dusty and little dark inside..  I look to the left and the right trying to make an eye contact with someone who can answer my questions. Then I look straight to this huge person, I hesitated a little, but he smiled at me looking straight into my eyes. I walked directly to him with half a smile on my face.

Me: 'Hi'
He: 'Hi'
Me: 'Bethel AG?'.
He: 'Yes, I'm Ps.Danny'.
Me: 'Service?' (What is a service? That is what I was told by my friend to ask in the church for mass time)
He: 'Oh! Its over. Here is the card and the service timings are on it' again with a big smile giving me more details on the service.
Me: 'Ok, Thank You!' I didn't want to talk anymore. I'm  not like the ones who are confident to ask lot of questions in the first meeting.
I looked around to see if there are some benches like the ones in Catholic churches so that I could kneel and prayer a while, but all the chairs were stacked and  someone was cleaning the place. I walked out to the sunny ground. Didn't know what to do. Was this the place I was looking for?

Rode back to home, didn't know what to do next. However next sunday I was there for Kannada service. Few Sundays I attended the Kannada service. Then one day I moved to English service, they asked the new comers to stand and I did. They asked us to move out to a particular area where this beautiful lady met me and 2 more girls. We gave a brief on our background and prayer request and she prayed for us individually. I don't remember what was my prayer request but when she prayed for me, I couldn't stop crying. When I left the place didn't know what I felt..... Fast forward few years... I joined bible study... few years later was volunteering in church, made so many friends.. Not the kind who would say hi-bye or wish you once in a year on your birthday, but the kind who knelt and prayed and cried for you. Made me a part of their daily prayer life.

The place which I wasn't sure was the right place for me, made space for a person like me. They prayed, inspired and loved me. A pastor( Pastor in charge) who taught the word- as is, he understands you even before you say a word, a worship team who taught me to raise hands, to kneel and cry before God, Pastors who dealt with me personally, helped me in the study of the word, who guided me, friends who laughed, cried and loved me. God found this place for me which provided everything that I needed and much more.

Now as I look through the photos in the church website, I see hundreds of people, raising hands, kneeling, crying, laughing and worshiping the GOD ALMIGHTY. This place has place for every sinner.. tattooed or  clean washed up body, covering your head or with fancy hairdo, with lipstick or sweaty shirts, in jeans or saree, in high heels or with a cane... God did not come to save the righteous but the sinners... And this place welcomes you with the same attitude. God is working on each individual, shaping, crafting and transforming them to be more like Christ. This church helps you reach that final stage.

I know each one who has been a part of this church will call it a place of worship- HOME.

Bethel AG, I miss you!

Dec 20, 2013

Dec 20, 2013....

We all know what it is to have a routine.. You already know how your day would go tomorrow . I don't mean you know the future, it just means you have a set of tasks that you would want to or have to do tomorrow. This certainty gives comfort to a lot of people. Certainity on atleast 80% of things that would happen tomorrow, certain of what you would face or have to handle tomorrow. Knowing this makes your mind be prepared for tomorrow which helps you to stay calm today. Say this certainty is taken out of your life, you don't know what will happen tomorrow, that means you are taken out of your routine and all of a sudden  it is new set of task you need to handle on the go. Like a trip? Trip is exciting, you know the purpose of the trip is to have fun, so your mind is excited (not panicking) and ready for it. Let's say you are taken out of your bed and all of a sudden you are in war- front line.. first thing your brain does is to panic a little then try to understand where you are and then what to do. Since most of us untrained to handle a gun or whatever you are handling, your brain is in emergency mode, lot of adrenaline in your body and now you just know the aim is to stay alive. Your brain wont reach a stage where you know aim is just not to stay alive but also kill. By the time the day is over your brain is on a grill. Now lets take a realistic example, when we all stepped up from college and got into one of those jobs, though we knew this is what we wanted, this is what the right thing is, all your life you have worked for it, but the first day in office is a weird one.. why weird? Well when you actually mix happy, panic, scared, want a little bit of your yesterday life, whatever that feeling is called, it just becomes weird. You cant actually smile, you cant scream and run and you know you have worked for this very day and you should not be going back. So again your brain shoots many questions in rapid fire and tries to answer them all though answers won't be convincing. I assume that's what most people feel on the important days. But me I feel BLANK. I have talked about this blank before.

During all my life changing, important days, I feel BLANK. The day I was travelling to BBSR for my training - BLANK, the last working day in Infy- BLANK and the day I'm travelling to get married -BLANK. When I say blank I mean normal, as in the way I feel on any day with routine, which is abnormal to this situation. Shouldn't I be excited? or scared? or atleast worried? But none of these.

I got married on Dec 20, 2013. I had waited for this day for years. Well most girls dream of their wedding day since their teenage. We keep adding things which we wish happen on that day or to the life thereafter. We wish and expect a perfect wedding, a perfect partner and a perfect thereafter. Mine was also the same, may be a little filmy. But like every other girl I wished for many ideal things. When decision about the actual wedding were taken I knew most of it is not what I dreamed off. Every decision pulled and forced me to think practical. I wasn't happy about it. I was to give up on many things that I desired. On the day of the wedding I wake up as usual and I know the things I need to do, so I do. Dress up and show up. Everyone around me gave me a very different smile. my own family was smiling at me in a way which I have not seen for 27 years. Their questions are different, the way they talk is different. My friends showed up to the room that morning and the guys also smiled at me very differently. But having my girl friends there and talking to them, that is the only thing which felt normal. Rest of them behaved differently.

I dressed up and showed up at the venue. Made it through the whole wedding ceremony and next 1 week in R's house with the in laws successfully. Though I was meeting R's family for the first time, though I was in a state which speaks completely different language, though my family was not around, everyday felt just normal. Not even a single bit of this wedding or the life after that till today has any resemblance to my dream, but it felt REAL and comfortable. I'm not perfect nor is R neither are people or situations around us. We do not understand each other, we don't like same things and we have different opinion on every single thing. But on the other side of the coin we have our laughs, we both are trying to love each other, we both are trying to understand and we both have same basic beliefs. I pray and kind of know that our life will have most of the flip results with the latter side coin up. My heart was not scared or excited on the wedding day, but was calm and it still is. May be that is what is important, not the decorations, cake or dress that needs to be perfect, it is your soul, your heart. If you look through the photos you will find me smiling almost in all situations, whether my parents were happy or not, whether my in laws were happy or not, even if R was happy or not it somehow didn't affect me. I was calm and happy.

Since I'm writing about my marriage I thought of mentioning one of the special moments. There were so many little moments which brought me to reality as to what Dec 20, 2013 meant. Among the several here is 1 - when I was sitting in the hotel room in front of a mirror with beautician  trying her best to make me look beautiful, my mom walks in every few mins to look at me through the mirror, we have eye contact and then she smiles. There were so many details I had dreamt of for my wedding, but not that smile. That smile meant so many things, I felt mom was saying so many things through that smile and for that smile I can't thank God enough.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 - 'He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.'

A gift

The thought of writing this blog came to me just few minutes back. As soon as this topic hit me I was all excited about it because this is something that I absolutely love and I wanted to document something that I'm proud off - My Friends.

'Friends are the family we choose'. Heard it before? me too. This is so true. We meet people with a smile, strike small conversations, start to like each other and fall in love with each other and before you know it you would have made a friend. A beautiful relationship called Friendship is created. You created this relation so be proud of it. Friendship is a blessing more than we realise. We are allowed to be weak, we are allowed to be rude, we are allowed to be stupid, we are allowed to be what we want to be when we want to be and at the end of it, all is forgiven and all is well. How does that work? There is no formula or no thesis at the end of which I can say 'Hence proven'. But it always works. At the end everything is fine with no backlogs. The slate is clean once again. Whereas with family or any other relationship this may not be true. People tend to carry forward the past. In many of our lives Friendship doesn get credit as much as it deserves. Family does. Family gets more importance than any other relationship in our society. I don't say it shouldn't but my point is Friendship doesn't.

Friends give you space to be who you want to be. They always encourage, they are always trying to make the whole atmosphere filled with laughter. Friends don't care if you fail again and again at something. If they believe in what you are doing they give all their support and say 'Try once again macha. This time you will surely get it'. Sometimes when your friends know you are doing something really stupid, which they know you are not made for, they don't hesitate or think what if you feel offended if they say what they want to say. They don't care what you would think of them nor do they care if they would offend you but they will put some sense into your head. They don't worry about what you would think about them all they care is you are in right track.

Why is that most of us like our school or college friends more than the ones we make during your professional life? Is it beacause those friends we had long back were very real to us and now we all are trying to be politically correct to each other? When we grow up why is what others think becomes more important than what you truely are? God didn't create you to impress someone else. He created you to be who you are inspite of what others think of you. I wish I knew how to get back the lost time and correct my mistakes and say sorry to the friends whom I have lost on my way. I dont want to regret again after couple of years. But I want to be real and I want real friends. No more being diplomatically correct.

Everyone is capable of making friends that is something that is natural to us humans. If you don't have any friends its because you are holding yourself back and going out there and meeting new people. You might be out in a new place, make new friends, get out of your comfort zone there are billions out there with whom you can fall in love or at least one out there who needs you. Be there for them your old friends are not running anywhere away. They will be there for you. Don't be scared, the max that can happen is not get a smile back.

I'm so blessed to have found a friend who gave me the space to be what I want to be, who has always been supportive, for telling me when I was acting stupid and then standing with me all this while. Right now I just want to hug her and say I so blessed to have her and that I love her(I did call her but did not say all nice things..we generally talked. Its so comforting. :)). She din't let anything change between us. I hope all of you have found one such friend.

Its not like she is the only one friend who has been good to me, who has stood by me or who has always been there for me. I have couple more of them. That is why I said I'm blessed. I know they are gift from God. God knows who exactly to be put in our life to make our life beautiful and worth living.

I know I haven't told this enough but I love you guys. I'm sorry if I was not there for you when you needed me. You better forgive me. You dont want to miss out on what is to come. You haven't seen my best yet. Love you.

JOHN 15:13 - 'Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends'

PS: The above all was about the ones who live with my physically, but there is one who lives with me spiritually and the love that I have in him is what completes you all for me.

PPS: This is a quote I found on internet 'The capacity for friendship is God's way of apologizing for our families' --Jay McInerney, The Last of the Savages. Please dont let my family know :D

A good good bye......

This is my last week here in Ireland. I cannot believe I have spent 11 months in this beautiful place. I have this vague memory of me looking out of the window of a Bus on my journey from Dublin to Galway when I first arrived here. That was my first glance of Galway. How I wondered about the whole lane discipline that people followed here, how cold this place is even when its summer, how green this whole area adjacent to the road is, how fat the cows are, all these thoughts running at first then they slowed down and then I gradually fell asleep. Was I tired by the flight journey or was the view so calm and beautiful? I don't remember, but I do remember how still I felt. After I reached Galway I just did what i was "suppose" to do. I missed India, my family and friends, my church everything I had ever known. The rain and cold here was getting to me. I wanted a familiar place to be and I know church was the place. I had searched for churches in Galway on internet and had found Discovery church. I was desperate to go to church. The day I got there I was out of control, tears just rolled down, I had no idea why. When pastor spoke to me, when his wife came to introduce herself, while the worship was going on.. I had no idea why those tears dint stop. But I remember telling God, 'You are same in India and you are same here'.

I had decided I won't make any new friends, the idea was not to get attached to people. Days went by so did the idea of staying to self. I had no idea when I let my guard down and started making friends, I made peace with the weather here, I started to have fun. We played football everyday during summers and in winters we played only on weekends. I broke my hand too.. I experienced my first snowfall here (though it wasn't much of snow). Several trips to different countries as tourist :P made me understand why do people travel to see places... Though you know nothing about the history, or the architecture, just to see something which was part of that particular country's history makes you feel tiny..I remember standing inside St.Peter's Basilica and wondering how huge these sculptures are and how talented these men and women were to create this without the modern technology. Standing in Colosseum trying to visualize the scenes seen in Gladiator movie made me realize that place has seen some of the bravest men in the world and some most coward ones. These men and women are dead and gone, and the ones alive we wonder about what they have created and left for the world to see. For me as a tourist the highlight was not the place, or the what historical buildings made me feel, but how this one man in a small village Oriveto, Italy brought out the kid in when me showed a small magic. I will never forget this man. I guess very few and rare influence the world, leave their mark on this world, but most of us can and will influence our near and dear ones and sometimes a stranger, a tourist for the rest of their lives and this is a great opportunity to bring in positive change or even to change yourself to become a better person.

Sorry, I drifted away from the topic. Did I even have a topic? I just write what I feel like at that moment. Galway is a beautiful place, people are always wearing their jackets, always prepared for the rain and always prepared to help. Yesterday when I said my good bye to few folks at office, it seemed we connected deep at that moment with each other. I knew I would miss seeing them and this office and they knew they would miss "a character". At the end of any journey when you look back, it seems everything turned ok. Those fights, anger or anything that seemed important at that moment was actually not important. At the end of it all it is just the overall experience that you would carry with yourself. and Galway for me is and was a Blessing.

Now to say good bye to all of these places, all these people, all friends you have made is so weird. I'm not a word person and weird may not be the word for what I'm feeling right now. Right now I am seated in bus which is taking me away from Galway towards Dublin airport, and me looking outside the window, its green again, everywhere, with a little of drizzle outside, and my heart again still... makes it a perfect way to say Good bye.


Jeremiah 29:1-: For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

I LOVE IT!

Have you ever experienced this?.. When something you have been hearing for years, which you know is true and it has become a part of you.. but then, when that time comes all of a sudden you actually believe what you know... I just had an experience like that...I actually was trying to realize what just happened...the joy is limitless, I couldn't stop smiling, I couldn't stop thinking about it, it just made me happy and I wanted to tell the whole world.

If you have had that kind of experience already, close your eyes and think about how it made you feel and never forget that feeling. Its beautiful..

God Bless You!.


Exodus 4:12 - 'Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.'

Someday... Oneday... I WILL be who I WANT to be

I have been trying to blog for long time now. I have had so many ideas in my head on which I could blog about but nothing seems to keep me focused beyond few minutes. I had been to couple of trips in last 30 days and I wanted to write my experience, then I wanted write about the people I met there and then on how I was missing Galway, few days later I wanted to write about my reaction to the news that I might have to return back to India. None of them held me interested long enough that I could write a long blog on them. When these ideas took birth in my chaos mind, it caught my attention and I framed and reframed in my head the sentences that I would write. At that moment all I thought about was the topic. Few minutes into it I got distracted. I guess thats my personality. I get bored of things too soon, everything seem interesting at the beginning and then it all falls apart. This leads to lack of committment in me and that is a huge problem that I have to deal with. Its not like I haven't tried to stay committed. I have made plans, kept myself to a routine, took really serious decisions not to ignore the decisions made, but then it all falls apart again. I'm actually tired of this whole process where my mind takes things seriously, commits itself for few days and later ignores, feels lazy about the whole process.

I don't know if you are like me, lacking commitment. Each one of us have a problem that they need to work on. Something in them they want to change, they have tried and failed. And then they try again. We know what exactly is wrong with us and what exactly we need to do to overcome it. We feel guilty and ashamed when we repeatedly repeat the same old mistakes. I feel yuck about myself when I repeat my mistakes. I don't know how you feel but I'm sure its not good. But what we fail to notice is that we haven't stopped trying, we haven't stopped being creative in coming up with solutions that would train our minds to not do the same thing over and over again, we are coming up with ideas which could cheat/train our minds to NOT do something which which is natural to it. How awesome are we? That sound so cool, cheating your own mind stuff. Anyway what I want say is we all are like the itsy bitsy spider. Who tried and failed but tried until it had success and that is what even we should do. Never give up. We will train our body and mind to work the way we want it to work. Someday but that oneday we will achieve it.

Itsy Bitsy spider climbing up the spout
Down came the rain and washed the spider out
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain
Now Itsy Bitsy spider went up the spout again!

And once I achieve that I will move on to another spout.

Galatians 6:9 - And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up
Philippians 1:6 - And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ

Making it our own...

INDIA..My Nation..I love my country. I love every aspect of what it is to me. I have had a wonderful childhood here, I have made a lot and lot of friends here, I have chosen my partner here, I found my Love here. India will always be special to me, I would never be able to love another country like I love this one. This country may not be all that great for a someone else or as organised, powerful or advanced as many other countries, but its MINE and thats enough for me. 'There is no place like home', and this is home.

If you have to write an essay (like you used to in school) about India you might have used the following words in it - developing nation, slums, poverty, festivals, colors, bollywood stars, unhygenic, unorganised, poor infrastructure, IT minds, mathematicians, pollution, population and more. Any nation has both positive and negative aspects to it, depending on the person you are you would focus on either of it. India too has both positves and negatives to it . We are a developing nation. Yes we are not China, we are slow, but we are growing. We are a land of colors, festivals. You can see different colors in the rangolis we draw, sarees in a marriage, duppata of a college student, recently in the vastu appropriate houses. Everything that a foreign mind thinks about India is true, but its not all. We are much more as a nation, a nation with more to offer to world and also a nation with a lot more dirt to clean up and a lot more internal problems to solve.

In this post I want to present an idea to solve one such problems we face. Not a solution but one small step towards solving this problem. Close your eyes and imagine (both video and audio) of the following places- you in a Mumbai local train..... now move to your school class room..... now move to Majestic bus stand in Bangalore......now to Forum mall in Bangalore. Lets do the same with a different country, take yrclose your eyes again and imagine similar places of a different country........ Let me give you few more minutes to relax :).... I hope you are back... Was your brain less stressed in the second set of places? I'm sure the difference you saw was the number of people unless you imagined China in second set (If you did, why would you imagine China of all the places???). We Indians say population is one of the major problems of this country. People are everywhere, there is a queue for everything, waiting list from train, waiting list for college admissions, we don't know the term 'personal space' because there is no such thing called personal space in India. (This dialogue just came to my mind- if someone asked me for personal space i would answer- There is NO personal space in public places and your father is not the 'Father of Nation' to demand... even if he was, know that 'Father of Nation' was killed by one of us).

Problem - Population. Solution - to make it our own, by which I mean solution is adoption, to adopt a child to make this child your own. Whenever you decide to have a child think of adoption too. If you want only 1 kid and want it to be of your ''own blood'', well go ahead and have one. If you want to have 2 kids, why not give birth to 1 and give life to another by adopting. If you decide on more kids, it would be great if you can adopt as many as possible. I know most of us would adopt a child when we cannot have our own. We go to a orphan child when we are helpless and we cannot have our own kid hoping it would make us its parents. Instead why not go to a orphan child and make them as our little angel or little prince even when we don't need to. Adoption should be from heart not the step when thats is the only way to have a child. If you cannot adopt a child and bring it home due to what ever reasons atleast adopt a child's education, donate to a child's education, its health care, its future. We spend a awful lot of money in branded clothes to parties in an expensive restuarant all for a image. Why not adopt and change the image that you see everyday in the mirror, to an image much gentle, much kind. Giving money to charity work is an excellent deed but doing the charity work in your home taking it as a privilege would be Beautiful.

I just realized this may not reduce our problem- population, but on the other hand may help in cleaning up dirt, dirt from some child's life, that it may not have to suffer in streets or grow up without guidance or love. I urge you, if you can, talk to your partners about this. If not to eradicate any of our nation's problems atleast to go beyond the call of duty. Think about it.

I think to give birth and love your child is human but to adopt and make it your own is -divine. Why divine? See below.

Ephesians 1:5 - 'God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.'