Perspective

"Aapna Ranch" means "our own" or "your own ranch" in Hindi (it should have been "apnaa" and not "aapna" but let's not get into my Hindi right now!). 

I started this blog 4 years ago almost precisely when I knew we were going to leave our corporate lives in Singapore. The idea was to eventually come back to India, preferably to the hills where it's cooler, and to have our own ranch, hence "aapna ranch."

Four years down the line we are indeed back in India, we have horses, more dogs than ever before, more cats too. But we live in the city. And not just any city, one of the most polluted cities in the world. In summer, the heat is unbearable, the air is dusty and because of the haze the sky is a permanent grey. In winter, the smog is so thick you can't see further than a few meters ahead of you. During the monsoon, the ill-designed streets fill up with water, sewage spills everywhere and everything comes to a standstill. 

Needless to say, I am still fantasising over "our own ranch" somewhere where it's green with nature, with fresh air and a blue sky. We've been trying to move but for a number of reasons it just doesn't make sense right here right now. The unusually hot summer and the fact that we decided to live without air conditioning (another story for another time) has made the last month particularly difficult and my desire to move all the stronger. 

But last night something happened. 

We were at the riding club in the evening, sitting around doing nothing special. We'd brought plenty of groceries so that the stables cook could prepare his speciality meal and while we were waiting we just sat there. It was night, the horses were all in their stables. And we sat there some more. In good Indian fashion, the dinner arrived near midnight. But in good Indian fashion, it was absolutely delicious, slow cooked with a lot of care. We sat around each other and ate with our hands. The dogs sat quietly around us hoping that a crumb would fall here or there and they might get lucky. 

That's when I realised that we already had "our own ranch." It was not the one I had built in my movie-filled and magazine-fueled imagination but it was sort of a ranch all the same. We have our tent, we have our horses, we let the dogs run free. There are peacocks, there are jackals and plenty of wild rabbits. Sure, it's not ours. Sure it takes 45min to 1hour to reach there from the house through a busy traffic. But still, it's there. And when I think about it, even when it's insanely hot and we're trying to find a cool spot in the shade (a complete figment of our imagination lately) it's still a little piece of paradise. 

So instead of looking at all the things that we don't have yet, and that we may never have, I have decided to look at what we do have. We have the incredible luck to be living in the capital city at less than 1hour drive from a farm/riding club with enough space to go on horse hacks and plenty of room for the dogs to roam free. 

If someone had offered me my current life back when I was sitting in my living room in Singapore I would have leapt on the occasion, thanking the skies for this opportunity. So this is exactly what I'm going to do. Put everything in the right perspective again.