Sunshine through my window - thats what you are!!

I have been inspired by Phillip Tolerado and his website about his dad - http://www.dayswithmyfather.com It made me cry and smile at the same time. I have often wondered how our lives would be if our dad was alive..would we sit down next to him during dinner and enjoy his stories..would he still be bringing us the sweets on every first day of the month when he gets his salary..would he still be having his passion fruit garden..or his crazy "medicine experiments"? I have faint memories of him taking me to this tiny icecream shop infront of my school and that was actually my very first ice cream..I was seven then.

To be honest, we have never really known our dad..Our strength has always been my mom. I have watched my mom too many times, feeding my sick dad, crying next to his bedside, working in different houses to get money so we can have a good education. My mom is my "Mother Teresa"..The strong bond my sisters and I have is because of my mom. Of how she taught us to take care of eachother..to love unconditionally..to grieve openly..to protect one another no matter what and to stick together. For us family had always come first. I have seen how protective my brother could get when it comes to his sisters and its his funny way of showing how much he loves us. I have seen my sisters cry over my little mistakes or triumph over eachothers successes..

Life has taken all of us through hell and we survived - because of my mom. Today I salute Phillip Tolerado and all of his kind for showing us that there are people still in this world who lives for their parents. I hear too many times of old people living on streets because their children doesnt have a place for them at their house. The men and women who gave up their lives, their dreams, who cried over the tiny bruises of their kids, who celebrated the first steps of their kids, who stood up and cheered for their kids in their every step from then onwards..are left out to suffer on their last days. Shame on these people who left their parents when they need a shoulder to hold on to...

I know any one of my sisters and brother would jump off a cliff to make my mom's day ..and this blog I dedicate to my sweet rainbows (The Sandy Family) and my sunshine my mom for making me who I am today!

Here I am..Spilling coffee on my prada dress..

So here I am..my last few days of work and checking out the emails that inspired me, frustrated me, made me laugh, sometimes brought a tear to my eyes..

here i am wishing, and thinking "I dont want this feeling to go away.."

Here I am..an old women who lost her walking crane, making my way through the darkness. Did I just step into a dump..did i just avoid the running train. And as I cross the dark bridge and face the light...I hear the faint sound of thunder, see the clouds covering the sun..and RAIN!!

Here I am standing..in the rain, cold, confused and waiting for one of them to cover me, and take me home! Wondering..should I stand here and get all soaked or jump off the 10,000 feet cliff to see if I survive.

Lifes an irony ..all these days I played safe, avoiding the monsters and just when I get out of the dark room and face the light or whatever it is that hides behind the walls..I see darkness and feel the walls covering me up like a mother putting her child to bed.

Here I am still ..standing in the rain.. all I hear is a cricket singing its lullaby, feel the angry wind brushing through my skin..& here I am waiting for my train to take me home. Take me home...

Feeling good dont ever cost a thing..

Yesterday I watched a red light turn green..yeah its normal for all those billion of people living around the world but for me ..its just a sign of me slowing down. I had an ongoing war with traffic lights. Me..and the red light glared at eachother for years. I would dash off regardless of the honking, the cursing of pedestrials, the angry look of all the traffic lights cos i always need to be on time. I have been dashing off to office, to meetings, to coffees, from lunch and back...and to kill all the cursing i always had my ipod on.

And yesterday as I felt the red light glare at me, probably it recognised the rebel and dared me..and while Nelly Futardo screamed " i am like a bird.." I breathed, and waved the white flag. I am sure I heard a sigh of relief as the red turned to green. The world stopped..the motorbikes, the cars and as Nelly Futardo sang I crossed the road. I felt like a queen for whom the world bowed, while she crossed the bridge. As my world slowed down and I lost my first battle to the street lights..I felt like royalty.

Yes, Nelly Futardo ...Im like a bird, Ill fly away..but not today! Today I slow down..and breathe!

the sun is on my side & takes me for a ride..

Life comes in different forms..sometimes in the shape of a flood and sometimes with the smell of daffodils and colors of rainbows. I wonder how many times your life has taken you to a place so extraordinary that it becomes part of you!! I wonder how many times you had to close the door to that place that breathed you for a while in the hope of having a better tomorrow…& have that feeling of losing part of you!
Today I stand in a cliff of hope and dreams with an empty heart. I have a whole new perspective of life, love and friendship…& a bucket full of memories..Some of them bitter and some of them a sweet melody..and as I sail through to my new path, I bury all those memories that could haunt me and take with me the love of all those who had genuinely loved me and made me feel loved!
Life today is in the form of a sunshine …beyond the clouds all you see is the mysterious light! & I keep walking towards my life..

For I am my own mirror and my shield

It was as if the world has suddenly gone back to 12 years..like those movies where the flashbacks are so intense and clear that you think to yourself whether you have really time travelled and lived the same day all over again.

As I sat with this girl (lets call her Ms.J) at a small table in a corner in Bank of Maldives loan department, trying to find more information about study loans, the same sick feeling of disappointment crawled into my veins. I tried to explain to her that my purpose to coming to her wasn’t to apply for the loan but to grab more information or see the registry of the small land I owned in Male’ is applicable to mortgage for a loan. Ms J stared at me with her sleepy eyes that I am sure did close for 2 seconds while I was talking. And as she started repeating the same line over and over again, I felt like some kind of charity case. She didn’t feel the need to look at my registration papers or at any documents I had. I was very tempted to tell her that perhaps 50% of what the bank earned came from the ridiculous amount of interest the bank charged from the people so stop treating me like a beggar. I was also willing to mortgage my land, had the payment plan and proposal ready and was simply there to do my research before I applied. When I say I am disappointed in Ms. J I am not blaming the whole Bank of Maldives system – I am simply hoping that Ms. J will read this and realize that her way of talking to the customers is offensive and totally out of line. I looked around, confused, thinking whether this is the tone she was supposed to talk to me in and realized that everyone in the background was too absorbed in the football match that they would rather crowd up and talk about their red costumes rather than bother about their customers. I stood up and walked away ..

As I came out of the building, the flashbacks started to disappear slowly and as it did, its pointy fingers scratched my soul, tapped my long erased memories out and my hopes bursted into tiny bits of dusts . 12 years back I was selected for 3 scholarships. The government decided that they would take away the 2 scholarships and select me as a candidate from Maldives to compete for a scholarship with 10 other candidates from Commonwealth countries. I pleaded to the ministry that I don’t want to compete against international students and I would rather take one of the other scholarship that I was already selected for. But I had already become the bait and ofcourse I lost it to a Pakistan student. The humiliation kicked in when I found out that my mom had gone to meet the Min of Education back then and begged to give the scholarship back to me. But as the so called “system” goes, I was the “chosen” one that was put there to make the country proud... I also found out that one of the girls to whom one of the scholarship was given to is related to some of the “big boys”. I swore that I will never put my mom in a position where she would need to ask for any “favors” so I had never applied for a scholarship since then. After couple of years of fixing computers, I had also given up my career as an IT technician and applied for a job in a resort. And now from the place I am, things I have achieved, friends I have gained..I had made the right choice.

Nelson Mandela (my idol) says ““The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” and I shall rise again like the way I have rised too many times in my life. Thank god for internet I was able to get as many information as I can from their website. I could have easily gone from the back door and used all the contacts I have in the Bank of Maldives. But I wasn’t taught to use “favorism” as my tool for success. So here I go again..I close one door end of this year, in the hope that I would be able to make a way to the beautiful life we have dreamt. Studying is not my goal it’s simply just a hand that would help us to find our way to butterflies, rainbows and hopefully children.