Never before and never since, I promise...

The weather is fantastic - sunny, clear blue sky, fresh breeze, robins hopping on our bird feeder and the trees growing red buds. So I can't be senti and nostalgic. Instead I'll recall my highest highs...

Adil's open jeep March 1998 - and our million trips to either the border or nowhere. Very RDB style Nup and I would be standing up on the back seat with the wind blowing into our eyes, hair and would be screaming and laughing. The boys would be adil and whoever my boy of the moment was (wink wink). Ya, very upper middle class brat behavior - but amazing thrill.

Players performance days - the first moment when you step onto stage, (preferably) you are the only one on it, every one is just looking at you and waiting for you to do soemthing - that used to give me the highest high possible. The heat of the lights, people breathing and just the energy of the stage.. mmmm ... where are those days! It makes me sound like a self obsessed prick - but whatever. I've never been much of a public speaker so you would think the main emotion on getting onto stage would be nervousness, but somehow it's never been that. Ofcourse, I did get nightmares even 5 years later my last performance that I am on stage and don't know what the heck the play is about! And ofcourse as good or better is when the play ends and you await the applause! HEE HEE that is sooo fun :). With Lesson the end was pretty evident (I was murdered) but with Gum and Goo, there were so many cuts that the audience was never sure when to clap for the final time! It was quite a feeling of power... I suspect that being able to sing in a musical would be an even bigger high? Or maybe Nandu could tell me how it was to perform solo (even tho the director was such a sweetheart that she might want to forget those days!)

Chandratal lake, early morning sunrise: I know I know I've raved and ranted about the place a million times already but you CANNOt imagine what it looks like. I swear, I am not being corny or pseudo poetic when I say it's spellbinding. The calm lake (the lake is calm in the norning and very restless at night I don't know why), with the reflection of the red orange horizon, the hills of different colors and a lone shepard grazing his sheep on the other end.. ouch it's almost too pretty to recall! My hungover friends used to be asleep and that was the time when tent waale bhaiya would come and do his pooja on the chandra devi rocks, I would sit by the lake side watching him and feel so peaceful, or just stroll by the sides of the lake and just watch it change colors as the sun shifted its position. No one around (except for the 4 of us), no sound except that of nature ..... JUST GO THERE and LIVE IT, once atleast!

Flying on top of the himalayas on the way to Leh Ladakh. Trust me, it is an unbelievable feeling that you are higher than the highest mountains in the world, just to be able to stare down at them, take photographs and scrutinize them at your will makes you feel so much in control and yet so small. Does that make any sense? Actually I feel that way every time I fly somewhere - just going thru the clouds (the first time I thought it was snow!), looking down at sudden rivers, little townships, big highways, setting sun and the best is to see another plane flying next to you!

On a sunny weekend, jogging with the pacific ocean and A (or if he is not there then with Beth orton on my ipod;), till my heart feels like it's going to jump out of my mouth.

This one is not really the highest high bit the surrealest surreal feeling I have in my tummy when I sit on the high swing in the field near my house, looking at the sheep and the llamas and the fall colors. In a small town millions of miles away from home, away from Ma baba, our tiny garden, the familar streets, DTC buses, Dilli haat, university campus, nainital .. away from everything I grew up with. I don't think I ever dreamt I would be sitting on a swing in new England - NEVER in my wildest imagination. But the strangest part is, it doesn't feel strange or lonely, just bewildering that it's me on the swing...

on a less moldramatic note, one of my favorite songs to hum (actually yell out at the top of my lungs when I am walking on the Emily Dickinson trail alone) is These are days by 10000 Maniacs. It feels so apt in this kind of weather and end of tem and a new turn to life coming up feeling..

These are days you’ll remember
Never before and never since, I promise
Will the whole world be warm as this
And as you feel it,You’ll know it’s true
That you are blessed and lucky
It’s true that you
Are touched by something
That will grow and bloom in you

These are days that you’ll remember
When May is rushing over you
With desire to be part of the miracles
You see in every hour
You’ll know it’s true
That you are blessed and lucky
It’s true that you are touched
By something that will grow and bloom in you

These are days
These are the days you might fill
With laughter until you break
These days you might feel
A shaft of light
Make its way across your face
And when you do
Then you’ll know how it was meant to be
See the signs and know their meaning
It's true
Then you’ll know how it was meant to be
Hear the signs and know they’re speaking
To you, to you....