Discovering the Adventure in Every Moment...

I always did hold it against the Powers That Be for depriving me of An Adventure of a Lifetime……

The day will go down in History as one of the most disastrous ones as Mumbai drowned in the furious deluge of Biblical proportions. Thousands of Mumbaiittes waded through chest deep water, walked for miles and spent the night on any nook and cranny of the city that wasn’t being choked with muddy water. I, on the other hand, got the last train out (before all services came to a standstill as water seeped onto the tracks). I waded through only calf-deep water and got back home while the phone lines were still functioning and electricity still powered the TV set to announce “Breaking News” of the mayhem that was just beginning to unfold. On the bright side, I did get soaked to the bone because I had unwittingly chosen this day to leave my umbrella peacefully resting on the window sill back home. But even this little silver lining around the large big black clouds (some of which were bursting with rain and submerging the city) waned when I realised that I missed my “adventure” by a mere seconds - one second too late and I would have been stranded like all the million others who did get their adventure (though none of them shared my enthusiasm, I suspect!).

However, a wise old man managed to swing my perceptions. “Adventure”, the great one quote with a great insight, “is not outside a man, but within him”. And in a flash I realised that in my pursuit of that ONE life-altering adventure I was ignoring the many little things around me that were just as exciting. In hoping for a night where I would skirt danger, win millions of rupees and find the love of my life (sounds quite like a movie, I admit), I was overlooking the inherent adventure in living each day.

Adventure is indeed within each of us. While for some adventure may mean sky-diving or bungee jumping, for others jumping in and out of still-moving, over-crowded local trains of Mumbai is an equally exhilarating experience. While for some white water rafting or jet skiing provides the rushes, for many others riding in auto-rickshaws over Mumbai’s many potholes, weaving in and out of heavy traffic and the occasional sudden swerve is enough to set the adrenaline pumping. While for some rock-climbing and hiking doesn’t seem like an uphill task, many others would sweat simply at the prospect of attempting to cross the roads at one of Mumbai’s many chaotic junctions.

Adventure could mean many things for many people – adventure sports, a whirlwind romance, a leisurely walk in the dead of the night, a back-packing trip across Europe, watching the kids play, wedding preparations, a trip, the miracle of birth, waking up each morning…! Indeed, life itself is a rollercoaster (Ronan Keating!) and Adventure, the pursuit of life (Daniel Roy Wiarda)!

And so I reassess my definition of adventure – scrutinising every moment of my life that I have felt a thrill or when the butterflies in my stomach stirred to life or when the adrenaline pumped so hard that I could hear nothing else over the buzz in my ear. Where I once believed an anonymous Smart Alec when he/she said “If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space”; I now adhere by Laurence Sterne’s philosophy that “A large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span of life, by him who interests his heart in everything.”

So just to recapture some moments that I now consider “adventures” now…

• First Days – in a new class, at college, at work
• Flying – the butterflies in my stomach during take-off, flying over the hills and the seas and then sailing above clouds, to the beat my heart skips when the plane jerks a bit during the landing…
• Visiting a new place – a new city, suburb, or even just a restaurant
• The slumber parties where we would share secrets, have heart to heart chats, cry, giggle and scare each other with outlandish stories;
• Sitting at our “Haunt” with my gang of friends reliving “those days”…
• The numerous games of “Truth and Dare”!
• Walking in the rain in the wet fields and rescuing a stray dog – we later called “stormy”
• Being stranded thanks to the rains and the not-so-reliable public transport…
• The many exciting Girls Night Out
• Dancing like no one’s watching – all night in Goa or at parties, or even all alone at home…
• Jet Skiing and para-sailing at glistening beaches or Skiing in pristine snow…
• Roller Coaster rides – feeling your insides turn and screaming because that’s the only thing you are capable of doing then!
• Learning to ride the bicycle after numerous collisions into walls and tress and a thousand scrapes to the knee.
• Sitting behind the wheel of a car for the first time…
• The first ever scratch to the car!
• The numerous near-misses – getting hit by swings, sofas and stones and of course the boiling hot water that left me a rather fascinating mark on my left arm (serves as a constant reminder of which is left and which is right!);
• Crawling into dark corners and under thorny shrubs (where no one else dared for fear of snakes and other creepy crawlies) to retrieve the little rubber ball we played with.
• The stress of Exams, then relieving the stress by watching the corniest movies afterwards and the imminent results later…
• Sharing a smile, a compliment or even a conversation with a complete stranger!
• All the movies I’ve watched with friends – sitting in dark theatres or on comfortable sofas at home, with a bowl of popcorn and laughing at the silliest of comments!!
• The numerous efforts to cook a meal
• Watching a nail biting cricket match – hopefully one day it’ll be in a stadium…
• The silly feeling every time I discover a new Crush!

So, slow down.. stop to smell the roses and catch the beats of music and take every exciting moment of this adventure called LIFE!