Tube horrors

I wrote on here a couple of years ago about certain disgusting habits on the London Underground which seemed to get lots of people agreeing with me. I would like to share my experience from last Friday, where after a minor but painful eye surgery, I was heading home complete with a huge patch on my left eye. My husband was leading me down stairs and on escalators, manoeuvring around people just rushing to get home. Meanwhile I totally underestimated just how vulnerable I was with one eye, and how scared I was of any small knock from rushing commuters. 

When we finally got to the platform, I was even more petrified as we boarded a completely packed tube. However, a lady standing suddenly shouted to everyone in the carriage ‘Can you all step aside please and can one of you give up your seat, this young lady clearly needs to sit’. To this, two ladies the closest to me sitting down, just looked at each other and didn’t move, so the lady standing insisted again, ‘Can one of you get up please?’

Finally a lady stood up and I said thanks to both her and the lovely lady who stood up for me. She proceeded to tell me how it was just as bad for her when she was heavily pregnant and how no men or women gave up seats. 

What else happened besides this you may be wondering? Well for a start, once I sat down I saw so many passengers look at me and when I caught their eye, I’d smile , but they would quickly look away. Why is it that some feel so uncomfortable with something slightly different? If I saw someone smile at me, I actually grin straight back. There were some who just looked at me with a look of horror and pity, which I totally get, I looked at me in horror, though I also felt a huge sense of gratitude for having sight. 

What shocked me about this scenario is the lack of empathy and how in a tube full of people, one lady spoke up. Don’t get me wrong,I have seen men be just as gracious,but on Friday that just wasn’t the case. 

Is it just because I haven’t been on a packed tube in a while, or is this the new norm? Are we so engrossed in phones, books, TV shows and gossip that we can’t see when someone might need some help or to even smile at a stranger? What’s the worst that can happen from a smile? 

P.S: To the lady on the underground at Old Street, thank you, you made me not lose faith in humanity!

Music and love – the relationship…

Young Mathurini

I’ve been asked quite a few times recently as to what drives my passion for music, and how I’m able to write music. Firstly, I should explain, I was very fortunate growing up to have such dedicated parents who took me to music class and sacrificed a lot of their spare time to my cultural upbringing.

I like to call it a TFG (Talent from God) that I was blessed with writing my first piece of music aged 5. After that point, music was my escape, my life and my love. Growing up, I had a stutter, a bad one, that a lot of ‘friends’ teased me over, some of these kids used to laugh that I couldn’t say my full name without a stutter, or in excitement, I’d not be able to spit out a word like ‘When’ or ‘What’. It made me speak really fast just to get the words out quick enough to just stop stuttering. However, the one place no one would laugh, was when I was on stage, be it in a house, or a stage performing to thousands, I was the envy of these ‘friends’ and suddenly everyone wanted to know me. For me, it wasn’t the reason for singing, but it stopped the chatter in my head, that told me I had something to prove. It was just about the music and just about my connection with God.

The beautiful Bombay Jayashri aunty,..

So when one of my musical idols, Bombay Jayashri, says “Music and love are two sides of same coin. When we hear music, we can feel the music. When we think of love, we can hear the music”, I can’t help but think this is so true in my case.

I try to instil this practice in all that come across my singing, my playing of an instrument, or who go on to sing my compositions. I also try and showcase this love for music into my music students, so that even when they stop singing (unfortunately most do when they go to University) they never forgot the love it brought their life and to others around them.

Singing in Prashanthi Nilayam in August 2014. I was blessed to be able to sing compositions by the most talented forefathers of the Carnatic generation. I was also blessed to be able to sing and perform some of my own music .

What reminds you of love? For me it’s always been music and actually different art forms… more to come on that front… Leave your comments below if any of this resonates with your experiences. I’d love to hear from you as always.

Switching off

I hope you all had a restful bank holiday weekend. I’ve tried doing an evening or days without technology but with my husband running businesses it’s quite difficult for us to totally switch off. However, sometimes it is a great feeling to shut off that part of your mind like I did for parts of this bank holiday.

Recently, we took our wonderful niece, cousin and cousin-in-law to a restaurant and then afterwards to watch Paddington bear and just hang out. Every time I’m around family or just have long over due catch ups with friends and loved ones, I find I need nothing else. If I’m walking or going for a jog, I don’t need technology either.

I find it remarkable that sometimes we need to schedule time to switch off, or maybe that’s just me. I also find it amazing as to how much more calm I feel the less I look at multiple screens. So now, the only time I am at my multiple screens is via work or the blog. That’s a good balance. I also find that I return to screens more focused and more productive as a result of down time!

So what do you guys do? Do you switch off from the world from time to time, do you do it every day? Do you need to remind yourself to do it?

As always comment below. If you like my ramblings let me know, and let me know what your favourite posts are!

The World’s Most Expensive Food

Right readers, is anyone else watching this show, ‘The World’s Most Expensive Food’? In a nutshell, it’s about the London’s super rich and their spending habits and how much that group spend on products/experiences.

It blows my mind that so far in this series, we’ve seen a £300 cup of coffee, £5,000 for a shot of a rare alcohol and more than £200 for truffle. Oh and not forgetting, thousands for caviar. Also, did I forget to mention that this £300 per cup of coffee is made from the coffee cherries excreted by a wild cat and then left to dry and roast? You are, essentially drinking cat poo.

This is the fella who provides you a £300 per cup!

I also find it really intriguing that there are so many super rich that have that much to spend, yet we have a country like Nepal, suffering untold misery from natural disasters, where it will take potentially decades to get Nepal back with their current economic climate, without foreign aid.

I get it, you work hard, you can do what you like with your money; we all have our choices. I like to splash out from time to time as much as the next person but I guess what I don’t know if I understand is that these ‘super rich’ according to this show, seem to spend on dinner parties to outdo each other. I find it quite a strange concept, but perhaps I don’t know enough about that world. Not judging but does anyone else have any viewpoints on this or is it just me that finds it jaw dropping-ly ridiculous?

Leave your thoughts below…