The Simple Pleasures

Usually, we get so caught up with trying to get the most out of life, that we sometimes miss the simple pleasures of day to day life. So, I decided to list some of the happenings that have made this week so much fun. Here it is -

• Visiting the Sunnyvale Farmer's market - This is a weekly must do for me. We always get seasonal fruits and vegetables from there. Nothing quite beats the atmosphere and the feeling of picking the best food available in our neighborhood.
• Cooking Okra - Okra is, by far, my most favorite vegetable. (Monday night is my cooking turn and my chance to cook something for S and hopefully impress her with my cooking skills!) This week I made fried Okra (which we got from the farmer's market) and it came out great.
• Watching "Barfi" - Usually, Bollywood movies disappoint me and are a waste of time. But, I was surprised by the refreshing and bitter-sweet love story in "Barfi". It's a cinematic ode to love (and all shades of it)...it struck a chord somewhere inside me. A. L. Tennyson got it right when he said "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."
• Bicycling to work everyday - Finally, I said good bye to laziness and decided to start biking to work again. In addition to good exercise, my contribution to CO2 pollution will reduce by half a ton(!) per year and I can think of doing better things with the $250 or so that I will save per year...which makes me wonder why I wasn't doing this in the first place. Anyway, better late than never...
• Enjoying awesome Bisibellebhath - I love south indian food. Sometimes, I think I must be of south indian origin because I like that stuff as much as my native Maharashtrian fare! I had the most amazing Bisibellebhath on Friday in Anand Bhavan...everything about it felt so perfect, it's hard to describe in words.  
• Reading Jimmy Carter's book on his mother Lillian Carter - I was intrigued when I found out that Jimmy Carter's mother lived in India for a while as a Peace Corps volunteer...haven't yet got to that part of the book by Jimmy Carter. But, I am already fascinated by the Carter family and their story which began in Plains, Georgia.
• Reading the theory of interpolation - I did not know about the mathematical and intuitive elegance of interpolation theory. Glad to have come across it in recent endeavors at the workplace. 
• Listening to Raag Jog - This rendition by Madhup Mudgal reminds me of why we say music is like playing with notes...nothing can soothe my mind as well as classical music pieces that I enjoy.  

I have realized (a little late) that it is far more important to pause, reflect and appreciate the simple, good things in life rather than sulk over the few bad things that happen in life. So, now everyday, I spend a few minutes recollecting all the events of that day that made me happy...