India calling.

Four Decembers ago, I took off to Ahmedabad with trepidation in my veins, wondering if I'd possibly made the worst decision of my life. Even though I didn't quite become the vegan yogi I'd envisioned, I returned half a year later an entirely changed person. India was the best thing I'd done for myself.

It's been a long time coming, but I'm finally going back, to the country that amazed even as it baffled and frustrated me.

You

I stand suspended
in your center
In a limbo
I linger

The unobtrusive voyeur
in your kaleidoscope
Impassive glances
upon your hazy throes

I reach out seeking
beyond the mad
for your spirit
one single thread

My fingers slipped through
your smudged translucence
And I returned untouched
A virgin maiden.

I wrote that during my first month, when I was bubbling over with an intoxicating combination of insatiable curiosity, bright-eyed wonder and homesickness in Delhi.

My itinerary's all mapped out, but before the road tripping begins, I'll be spending the first couple of days on my own in an Ayurvedic retreat. I'm looking forward to the quiet and solitude. The lack of everything may just prove conducive for meditating on life's great questions.

And though I know exactly where I'm going and who I'll be meeting, I haven't got a clue what awaits me the minute I step out of the plane tomorrow night. There they are... the first stirrings of wonder and, dare I hope, magic?

Recharge.

It's been quite a week - not a bad one, and on the contrary one that brought some pretty good news - but I've woken up each morning more exhausted than the last. Things are rolling along rather nicely at the office, but I guess I've been placing one foot in front of the other a little too quickly in my pursuit of fast-forwarding growth. Cryptic, I know, but that's the best I can do on this grapevine of a world wide web.

So what do you do when you're mentally exhausted and in dire need of new batteries? Take the day off, of course. I've postponed this my leave many times over because work kept cropping, until I realised that there'll never really be a good time to take off because someone or something will always warrant your attention. So off I went.

But while I had grand plans to spend the morning sipping coffee and kneading dough, my past week of stunted productivity had me pounding away at my laptop all morning in hopes of hitting my revised target of submitting my article at noon. I did, thank goodness, so I spent a long while watching the rain pound down, reveling in the illicit feeling of having the rest of a supposed working day to myself.

And then I took my aunt to tea at PS. Cafe at Ann Siang, where I spent another two hours revelling in the illicit feeling of having a working day off. :)

If there's one thing you do this week...

Make yourself lunch!

I've taken to making and bringing a salad to work on days that I know we'll be lunching in Pulau Loyang. It may sound like a hassle, but I really enjoy the process of cooking for myself. 

Picture this: A quiet kitchen and the rhythmic sounds of washing, chopping and tossing. Time-consuming perhaps, but strangely therapeutic.

Just today, I found myself in a really long, seemingly unmoving queue for wanton noodles. (What I really wanted was a packet of economic bee hoon but there was none to be found in the area.) My stomach was growling, almost howling, when I suddenly recalled the packet of asparagus and organic soba I'd picked up the day before. So I slipped out of the queue, albeit a little regretfully as is always the case after I've been queuing for awhile, and zipped home to make myself a bowl of miso asparagus soba.

Too quick and simple to be fantastic, but the sight of fresh green stalks nestled amidst the creamy brown noodles made me really happy.

:)