It just takes a drop – a drop of red food coloring to change the perfectly creamy white cake mix to a pale pink hued one. Just a drop. A teeny tiny one. I must have done this hundreds of times and it still continues to excite me – to make me smile and to fill me with a sense of purpose. Just a drop and tada! Change. And I am not talking just about the cake mix. The right thing even in the smallest of doses can push one out of the rut – the monotony of daily existence and the mundane. The right thing makes the waters bluer and the sun brighter. There is a rainbow and an unicorn too. It makes life perfect for the moment and makes you dream.

At the most unproductive moments when my mind doesn’t want to think and the fingers refuse to type out words I seek destinations. I seek pictures of places of beauty. Places that lie just beyond my daily existence. The wanderlustress within me gets fed via the eyes. I add places – from Tasmania to Tanzania, Tambaram to Tahoe to my bucket list, pin them and dream with my eyes open. They just don’t add the zest to my everyday existence, they complete me. These dreams motivate me to prod along in the quest of finding a way to travel more. The journey and destination matter but what matters most is the experience.

Sunrise in Dubai

Thoughts clutter my mind. I methodically catalogue them, group them and sort them. Many of these thoughts often turn into words and feed into my posts. But some thoughts refuse to fall into the blogposts, they linger around. They are usually the ugly and the negatives. The self-doubts and hatred. Thoughts that drown me. Thoughts I need to exorcise. When I need to fill myself with positives and I gravitate towards water. Beaches, lakes, ponds, swimming pools or even a fountain works for me. Water calms me. It makes me share my secrets and takes it away. It makes me lighter and adds the missing bounce to my step. It is like the zest of lemon adding brightness, flavor and color to an otherwise boring salad.

Taking in the perfectly blue waters at Heron Island

I am a ranter. I need to rant to let out those emotions brewing inside me. My rants vary but they are often related to our unsustainable lives, the patriarchal society and its so-called rules, the definitions of “settling down” and the battles faced for being born without the Y chromosome. I rant about them to people who care, who challenge my views and make me think. The people I call friends. Heated arguments supported with cups of chai or goblets of wine over the weekend makeup for the data crunching and boring meetings I endure during the week. Distance really doesn’t matter. In this age of connectivity, social media and instant messaging bridge the gap. I cannot do without the friendships that developed over social media and grew beyond. Long live social networking and the joy (and trolls) it brings.

There are times when I want to forget myself and the world. I want to leave the worries behind and disappear in my own world, I turn up the music and put on my jalangai. Bharatnatyam cleanses my soul, feeds my body and takes me to heights I fear. It is exuberating, exhilarating and zen. It is my zen spot. It is my adrenaline rush. It adds the much needed vivacious into my life.

As I wrap this list up, I think how the list would have been if I had written this post 5 years back and surprisingly everything above would remain the same. Travel, water, social networking, and dance added the much needed enthusiasm to my life for the longest time. The one person who won’t have been on the list 5 years ago is my daughter. I am no earth mother. I am too impatient to be one. I have my own guilty battles with motherhood like every other mother on the face of earth but watching my daughter grow and blossom adds piquancy to my mundane days.On any average day she runs me through the whole gamut of emotions. From trepidation to gratification, merriment to melancholy. She makes me wonder things I have not thought about and pushes me further than I ever hoped to be. She is the apple of my eye, the zest of my life.

Where have the 5 years gone?

This post is a part of the #ZestUpYourLife activity in association with TATA Zest and BlogAdda.com