First month in a new city

One month back, I moved out of Chennai with a heavy luggage and a heavier heart. Moving out of the city that had been my home since birth was not really exciting. The next few months I had to spend in a city that I've never imagined of living in, with people whose culture was quite different from mine and a climate that melts my heart but freezes my body. Pune. I almost knew nothing about this city when i came here but today it excites me to know more and more about the places, people and traditions here. The climate is cool and rainy all the time, so different from hot and humid Chennai. The people are more social, outgoing and open. There are more trees and mountains than malls and complexes. Transitioning from college to work and at the same time adapting to an entirely new city would be a memorable period in anybody's life. For a moment it seemed to me like everything had changed..my breezy college verandas were now replaced with centrally air conditioned workplace, my dependency on my dad for every little work had vanished overnight, I could no more beg my mom for 5 more minutes of sleep in the morning, my tongue started tasting more of chapathi than rice and I had to use my umbrella more than thrice in a day. But in spite of all these changes there were things that still hadn't changed. People however different by region, religion, language and culture remain the same by nature in many ways. Everybody laughs for a good joke, everybody loves to learn a few words in a new language and everybody want a break when it gets hectic. Amidst all the changes I still get to listen to my favourite music, gossip with girls, and do all my favourite things. Feeling independent every moment, handling circumstances, adjusting and learning new languages and cultures are not just changes but lessons for life. At first I was afraid if I could accept all the changes that would come my way but now I've started loving them and that makes me feel that going back to Chennai would no doubt bring much joy to me but Pune will forever have a special place in my heart.

What did you miss?

With technology and science changing the world faster than what mankind had ever imagined, our daily lives have also changed slowly. There were times, I remember my friends used to fight with me for not remembering their phone numbers but these days nobody expects us to remember their details, for they know its all stored on our smartphones or on some social networking site. Technology seems to have reduced the load on our memory or should I say put our memory to sleep. But this is much more than us not being able to use the human brain to its full potential. We have attached ourselves so much to technology and its benefits that we have distanced ourselves from the actual active world. There is nothing like going shop to shop and getting the best birthday present for your friend. Wouldn't you miss that feeling of happiness when the gift impresses her, if you had ordered it online and sent some stranger to deliver it for you? Will not your loved ones feel more special if you wished them on their special days without any alarms or reminders? Don't you think feeding birds on road-side will be more fun than playing farmville games online? And wouldn't God himself be more pleased if you did not take VVIP passes to get His darshan. Together with all these little things we are missing, we miss the happiness that is tied to them, we miss the magic that makes our relationships stronger and we miss life itself that is to be lived with people and not gadgets. So the next time you are in your doctor's waiting room, lift you head from your temple run game and talk to the old lady beside you, the next time you go to a distant relatives marriage, stop posting fb statuses and try to play with the kids around. When you walk on the road or travel in the bus, don't search for your head phones but look around and try to know your city better. Taking a complete break from our mechanical lives might be difficult or even impossible for most of us but we sure can live our day-to-day mechanical lives as human beings. So today before you go to bed, take sometime for yourself and think "What did you miss?".