Die-hard dreamer

How many people can claim that they taught a foreigner a language? I am writing this post to claim that I did. Well, I did not teach a language but helped someone with it. The only change I need to make in the claim is that in this case, I was the foreigner who taught a native. I spent an hour and a half with a Japanese lady today, correcting her English grammar. She volunteered to learn from me, and I was flattered. I would have planned the teaching session properly and in a civilized way but it wasn’t going to be that way. Yesterday, Hayashi Aunty, as we call her, proposed that I help her with a letter she is writing. I was more than willing. I was flattered because I haven’t known her for too long and she thought it fit to ask me. After all, watashi wa Eigoga wakarimas. It means: I understand English. As I was saying, I had thought of making the session proper but it wasn’t meant to be. I woke up this morning to bid my husband bye and thought that I wouldn’t go back to bed after tha...

Thoughts, thoughts, everywhere, nothing that translates into words. For the last few days, I have been thinking. A lot. I have been thinking about everything that my senses encounter - from the colossal electronic city of Akihabara to the three slices of bread I burnt this morning, from the open display of erotica in shops to the absence of English in this part of the world, from the desire to win over the world to the acceptance of things beyond control. The voices in my mind do not seem to translate into sensible sentences in any language. Yet, I do not despair. I am, surprisingly, extremely content, rather happy. I seem to be high on something. I have been, for a drastic change, living in the present, living the moment. The next decade, year, hour or even the minute, do not seem to trouble me. The moments of solitude, sans introspection, make me happy. The voices in my mind seem to be taking me to places - places inside my head, inside my heart. I guess this is what living the momen...

It's snowing outside. It's the first time I am experiencing snow. Surprisingly, I woke up before six today, and a little while later, found small white feathers gazing through the windshield. I stood in the snow in my backyard and felt warm. A bit of warm sunshine seemed to have invaded into my day with the snow all over me. I find myself humming Don William's 'Lord, I hope this day is good.' Listen Readers, I hope your day is good, even if you are reading this a year after it has been written.

I know I owe my occasional readers a taste of my life in Japan. So, here is a description of one of my non-typical days spent here. It was Monday, the 14th. Well, there is nothing special in the date. What’s special is that it was a holiday for my husband and he could take me out sight-seeing to Yokohama. The plan was to go on Sunday, but I was too lazy to get up in the morning for the purpose of sight-seeing. It sounded like the worst idea ever when my husband tried pulling me out of the bed. I promised him and myself that I will make it on Monday, and so I did. We stay near the Hirama railway station. Hirama is a place in Kawasaki and falls on the Nambu line of the Japan railways. In order to go to Yokohama, we were supposed to take a train from Kawasaki. You can compare these two stations to the Whitefield and Bangalore City railway stations respectively. We reach the Kawasaki station and head towards the Keihin-Tōhoku line platform. My husband had told me that it would take an hour...