Sep 10, 2015

Mirror! Mirror!

Last 8 months have been very interesting... Life lived and travelled in a different way. A reflection of the past gave me amazing insights at how blessed we have been all the way... New things, events and opportunities coming our way...

Last week we were on a long awaited monsoon bike ride to Pune. Somehow that has been our way of connecting back with nature... The Ghats are very inviting and the old highway has become even more safe and open thanks to all the other traffic speeding over the expressway. Open lush green fields, open roads and milestones...


Travelling has been our passion and it helps connect us better in many ways than one. This ride seemed to offer more than just connection with each other. 

Friends with common interest are fun to be around with. We do not meet often but can strike the right cord instantly.  Kamlesh, is one such friend we met. A man of few words ;) and deeper thoughts... :) Loves his EV and is enthusiastic about life and its journeys. 

Interestingly, met a lot of enthusiastic people and shared lots of joy and reasoning about life, for life. :) The visit to the Ananda Yoga retreat was enlightening. Meeting Dharana, a well read and enriched soul, was inspiring.

To my surprise I even connected with a different creature at the retreat. It was not me who took the first step of course. I have never been fond of dogs but this one was so giving that I gave in too. :). She has been there at the retreat from the time of its creation. "Mamma" as she is called, approached us the first day, took in our smell, and as usual my instinct was to avoid. She would wag its tails (like any other) showing its approval of us being around, lead us to the places / rooms / halls we were heading towards. Guard / clear our path of the crawling creatures. Lead us to our rooms and stay out for sometime till she knew we were settled for the night.
One evening on a trek, I was falling behind from the group... she stopped and started walking next to me. She accompanied me to the walks in the morning and even sat beside on a hill side. She was so expressive in her ways and actions but I never patted her back. One morning we were running towards the reception and she sensed harm... she pushed us back and ran ahead to only find that she had won over us. :)

The trip on the way back was like a fantasy. We had a bright blue sky and the blue Enfield with us on our journey back home. Raphae was brilliant in his reflexes, navigating our way back home. On this trip there was no bike-lag after we were back to the city of lights. The big contrast of living in a metro, and living in a valley struck us when we inhaled the polluted air at Panvel. Over all a great fulfilled experience.

Link to 'Ride for Joy': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46JENEx7sao

This experience reminds me of the Rumi Quote, it says:
"You have forgotten the One, who does not care for ownership,
who doesn't try to turn a profit from every human exchange."