Red Berries in the Snow

It was an extremely cold December morning in the year 2010 when I landed in one of the busiest airports in the world, London Heathrow International. The assignment was a requirement gathering session that was expected to last for a month for the client Travelodge. Far from the hustle and bustle of London, the taxi from the airport took me to a lovely small town called Thame where I was to spend the next one month before heading back home.

Travelodge, being in the hospitality industry, was where I stayed as well. Their head office was right across the road and was a mere ten minutes’ walk from the hotel. The location itself was a cosy combination of the hotel and a gas station complimented by a Burger King next door.

It became my routine for the next few days to leave the hotel, walk past the gas station and cross over to the other side of the road passing a roundabout and then reach the office, the approach road of which was lined with a row of trees. Being exposed to my coldest winter ever, most often than not I was walking with a warm jacket tucked close to my chest and my teeth chattering in the bone chilling cold. This was even after wearing a layer of thermals under the heavy jacket. It was COLD indeed, bold, and underlined.

A few days went by in this manner. One morning, as I got up and parted the curtain in my room, I saw the whole area outside turned white. It was snowing! My first ever snow in life. I was ecstatic to say the least. The walks to office continued. The snow could not deter my spirit of professional call of duty. Deep inside me I did not want to miss a single moment of this first in my lifetime experience of being in the snow.

The path to office didn’t change either, only difference being the white snow covering the entire stretch. The route next to the gas station, the footpath across the roundabout and the final stretch to the office, everything was covered in a white blanket that seemed to welcome me with open arms. It felt as though nature was welcoming me, but instead of a red carpet a white one was being rolled out.

There was one big difference though. As I was walking past the row of trees, I noticed a bunch of red berries on them clothed in snow. It was one of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen in my life. I asked someone in my office what those berries were. They said it was an edible variety and quite a tasty one that too, but once it snows you can’t have them since the texture changes, and it no longer became edible. As strange as it felt, I wonder why I never noticed them before, as they were apparently always there but it completely missed my sight. Unfortunately, till the end of my assignment in Thame, it continued to snow, and the taste of those berries remain elusive for me.

That is when it dawned on me. These berries are like the blessings in our life which are right in front of our eyes, but we fail to see them. They come in all forms and shapes. It could be a friend who is always there for you, but you never acknowledged them, or a facility offered by your company which you took for granted.

There are tonnes of these blessings hanging around us which we just zip past through since they are not clothed in anything at present. But a day will arrive when these blessings get impacted one way or other. Your friends may migrate to a different city, and you truly miss them since there is no one like them around. You may shift jobs and then realize how people friendly were the policies of your previous organization, but you were complaining then. All these are akin to the berries clothed with the snow which you can’t enjoy anymore. You look back and regret your past with a sigh.

Wake up, it isn’t late still! Hope and faith are two magical beings which still drive the world forward. As long as you are around in this beautiful world, take a moment to stop, look around and appreciate the berries alias blessings around you. Be grateful to people and situations that bring you these blessings. Do not wait till the snow clothes them for you to have a late realization.

Let there be snow, but you still reminisce the delightful taste of red berries. 

Maturity, it isn't just age...

Picture this. You are in a meeting with your own colleagues and two of the team members from the vendor team to discuss a critical showstopper for a go live. The topic was discussed multiple times in the recent past with no solution sighted in the horizon.

The situation rapidly escalates with discussions spiralling. Temperature levels in the meeting room rises with sparks of arguments flying high. After a lot of deliberations, an agreement on the way forward is reached.

A day later, when you catch up internally, you have a major realisation. While one of the two team members from the vendor side, who was equally senior, was boiling and reacting, the other was handling the situation in a calm and composed manner, topped with a subtle smile. Though his conversations were cut through many times, he remained patient. He even changed his strategy mid-way through to buy time by promising to stop talking exactly after ten seconds. De-escalation was definitely his cup of tea.

Colleagues like these serve as a constant reminder that professional maturity is not just about the age. It is a skill that we need to gain and grow over a period of time in our career.

Some get it, others remain a pain, you know where...

 

The Final Trap – Death Defying Dad – Part 3 of 3

 

Most of the children born in the early 80’s in India, who had access to a TV at home, will recollect having just one channel in TV those days. It was a national broadcast by the government and was called Doordarshan. Obviously, the number of programs were all defined well in advance with very few live programmes unlike today, where majority of channels do live streaming.

Among the limited set of programs on TV, there was one animated series called He-Man & The Masters of the Universe. It was quite natural that He-Man became my favourite superhero for all the amazing things he did to save the world.

But even before I knew He-Man, there was another man who was already my superhero, my dad. He did the most amazing things which a child would only imagine superheroes will do for them. Be it taking you to various places in and around during vacations or buying the tiny pottery set from the local market so that we kids could play ‘family’ along with our cousins in a makeshift house creatively carved out of the cardboard box of a recently purchased refrigerator. The list was endless. 

While dad did this and many other things for me and our family, he lived through his life with one motto. Live life to the fullest. He always used to say that you are given just one chance to live and make the best out of it. He also had a deep-rooted belief that eventually when death catches up with him, it will be an instant one. And so, he lived his eventful life, till one fine day in 2021, during Covid times as the world was reeling in the greatest pandemic ever known to the history of mankind.

A bit of a blood stain in his faecal matter was where it all started. A quick test at a local hospital led to the doctors finding out something was wrong. More advanced tests followed and by the time the New Year celebrations concluded for 2021, the diagnosis confirmed that his colon had embraced one of the most dreaded diseases in the world, cancer!

I still remember the first conversation with him over the phone as soon as the news was known. His response was typical of his personality. As with most things, he simplified it as though it was a bit of a dirt on his body which needed to be washed off. That was dad.

A couple of surgeries and a few rounds of chemo followed and a year later he was declared free of the ‘dirt’. Needless to say, we all were quite happy and relieved to see even cancer bent down before his will.

Dad did get to replace the calendar at home one more time before he handed over that responsibility to rest of us.

His legacy lives on…

Part 1 - The Limestone Trap: https://trexperiences.blogspot.com/2024/06/the-limestone-trap-death-defying-dad.html

Part 2 - The Road Trap: https://trexperiences.blogspot.com/2024/06/the-road-trap-death-defying-dad-part-2.html

The Last Word

'You should pen down your life dad. There are quite a few chapters which will be absolutely amazing!' I told him on that beautiful Valentine's Day in 2023 over the speaker phone while driving to office in the morning.

He brushed off that request of mine saying, 'Poda, who would want to read about my life?'

I said, 'You have inspired a lot of people dad. Even if that book of yours is read by only ten people, it will be life changing for them. You must write.'

'OK, let me give it a thought', dad said. I could imagine him smiling at the other end of the phone. 

'Tell me dad, what's left in your bucket list? Is there anything you really wanted to achieve and couldn't?'

It didn’t even take a moment for him to respond, 'Nothing da, am all done with God's grace'.

48 hours later, I stood next to his bed in the hospital where he was in a state beyond recognizing me and bid him goodbye with my last kiss while his heart was still beating with unconditional love as always...

Happy Valentine's Day in heaven Daddy 💙

 

Colour of Horror

He was careful not to mix light colours with dark ones while placing the clothes in a bucket of soap and water. It was even more important this time since he had taken one of her prized possessions, a grey designer wear which she was planning to wear for an upcoming party that was very special for her.

All dark colours together… That was the mantra and he absolutely followed it. He mixed his son’s black shorts along with her grey dress. The shorts were infamous for its jet-black colour which every time when washed, shed a peel of black layer. Anything along with the shorts was meant to get tainted!

A few minutes later he went back to the bucket and slowly lifted the designer dress. The cloth seemed to have inherited a special hue of black. She had initially reversed and placed the dress in the laundry basket which found its way into the bucket in the same manner. When reversed, the dress looked quite a dark shade of grey. The original outer side had a pearl white colour which now qualifies to be called black pearl!

She was passing by when he was trying to hide the catastrophe. A high-pitched blood curdling scream reverberated through the house. She took the dress and reversed it to expose the outer side. The only thing that had a deeper shade than the black colour on the dress was her face. A dangerously deep shade of red it was.

Remembering their recent visit to an apparel shop where they suggested dyeing as a method to get your colour of choice, he told her, the dress will look as if it was dyed. A total silence was the response. After a few moments, everything happened exactly how he predicted. Dyed indeed was the outcome, just that it was spelt differently.

He is now the President of the elite club of HDH – Husbands Dyed in Heaven!

The Chocolate Volcano

Jim stood at the bottom of the hill and looked at the broken pieces of wood from the well that were strewn down the slope. He recently turned forty and every time he came to this spot an overwhelming emotion imprisoned him. This is where he lost his siblings, well almost. The reality of what happened still sends jitters down his spine, though his siblings were world famous after this incident. But the truth remains hidden till date and he is the only one alive who could testify the fact now.

They were just like any other chirpy kids in the neighbourhood. Jim was all of six years when it happened. Just like every other day, mother asked his brother to fetch a pail of water. As Jack got the pail from the store, his sister, Jill joined him and they took Jim along.

It was quite a climb for a six year old and hence Jack asked him to wait at the bottom of the hill. He looked up the hill, just the way he did now, and saw the well from where his brother used to draw water. Jim loved the tiny yellow flowers that were aplenty at the foot of the hill. As the siblings climbed up, he started to look around and started collecting the flowers. Their mom loved them and he always had a basketful for her every time they returned from the hill.

Everything happened in a jiffy. Jim heard some noise and as he looked up, he could first see Jack rolling down the hill with the pail of water promptly followed by his sister. He could hear their cry and almost started climbing up the hill when the cry suddenly started to fade. The sound seemed like they were far away and then it was gone, totally. Complete silence followed.

Jim did search the whole hill but was unable to locate neither his brother nor sister. He was scared to go back to his mother without the siblings and decided to wait near the well. He even tried to follow the path took by his brother and all of a sudden he tripped on a dry twig and fell down exactly how Jack fell. He started rolling down the hill and as he was half way through the slope he felt like being suddenly sucked into a hole.

He was taken down a large sand dune, the likes of which you only see in deserts. As he was made to slide down the slope he noticed the texture around him slowly changing. From the sand like form, it gave way to what felt like coarse grass and finally something quite soft and squishy was all around him.

Jim didn’t know how long he slid down through that tunnel. After a while with a loud thud he landed on a soft bed of what appeared to be dark brown mud. He was almost fully covered with it though it smelled like anything but mud. He took a bit of what was around him and brought it closer to his nose. The aroma was heavenly and something which he loved when mom made it, once a while. He was so tempted that he even took a small portion to his mouth. Voila! It was delicious chocolate!

He couldn’t believe that he was literally inside a mountain of chocolate! Without wasting much time he started to fill himself with the best chocolate he ever tasted. He was so overjoyed that he remembered about his siblings only when he heard someone calling out his name. It was Jack along with Jill who was already full with loads of chocolates and was equally surprise to see their little brother down as well.

Together they started to devour more and were about to take something along with them to mom when it happened. A loud rumbling sound and soon the whole ground filled with chocolate started to shake. Before they could even move a muscle, were immediately jolted up in the air and along with the rich tasty magma they were thrown out of the chocolate volcano. All of them landed on the slopes of the mountain which were now covered with multi-coloured soft chocolate pieces that trickled down from volcano that spewed out the best chocolate in the world!

Jack, Jill and Jim grabbed as much chocolates as they could and walked back to their village. It was a long walk ahead, but a sweet one indeed!

It is a jungle in here!

As the practice these days, Sandra checked her Outdoor App which still showed a red icon that meant danger. She awaited the green icon to appear, the signal for humans to leave their house safely. Ever since the crazy scientist at the genetics lab innovated and spread the animal survival virus, the whole of animal kingdom has multiplied and spread unlike any other time in the history of mankind.

People can no longer go out as they wish. They must wait for an update from a complex combing operation that keeps scanning the entire locality to ensure that none of the dangerous animals are lurking in the region. Once the safety is established a message is sent to all those in the neighbourhood informing them that it is safe to leave their house.

Even with this arrangement, the risk is always at large. There are these occasional beasts that manage to dodge the radars that are meant to detect their presence. Cases were plenty on how a quick pit stop to get a coffee turned out to be a horrendous experience for many. Too many precious lives were lost and many more at stake.

Jungles across the world were brimming with life. Amazon, Jim Corbett, Black Forest and many others across the globe were overflowing with animals. Naturally they’ll look for alternate dwelling places. Villages were the first ones to fall, smaller towns followed. Literally the animal dynasty spread its wings and conquered the places one after the other.

There was a massive exodus to larger cities which offered a safe place to stay to all. But it was only a matter of time. Giant trees now thrive where the villages and smaller towns once stood. Soon the borders of the concrete cities started to see an influx of greenery. It was as if the jungle had its mouth wide open and slowly swallowing the city from all directions.

Initially people in the cities were too busy to notice the change. By the time they realized the gravity of the situation, things started getting out of hands. The military was called in to help. But the army barracks faced an unprecedented series of attacks. Humans knew very well to fight with their race, but this was the first time they faced an enemy that was attacking totally using their instincts. It was absolutely a new experience for humanity, and they simply failed in predicting the next moves of the enemy. Finally, it reached a point where even the most powerful of the nations in the world announced Code Blood Red, the highest order of danger for human civilization ever.

When all hopes seemed to be lost, a shimmer of faith came from the deep forests of Alaska. A previously unknown strain of virus seemed to have broken out that deeply affected the survival abilities of animal species. A team of brave young scientists came together from a dozen countries across the world.

Their Mission: Save humanity and retain animal kingdom.

The work has begun.