Gratitude Lost ... and regained.

Today, somehow, I am filled with a sense of gratitude. Off the top of my head here is a list (by no means, exhaustive) of things that I am thankful for –

Thank you, God, for …

1. Giving me parents who I can turn to for love, comfort, guidance, and shelter.
2. Giving me the ability to love someone with my heart and soul, and to be loved in return.
3. Giving me friends who make the journey of life more colorful and wonderful.
4. Giving me relatives who care.
5. Giving us Himesh Reshammiya who makes me laugh every time he releases a movie as lead actor.
6. Allowing me to be born in a household where I had everything I could ask for, right from GI Joe toys to the latest books.
7. Being born to parents who knew the difference between education and literacy.
8. Allowing me to take birth in the glorious land of India.
9. Giving me the love of all four grandparents till I was 18.
10. Kishor Kumar, Mohammad Rafi, Hemant Kumar, Mukesh, Asha Bhonsle, Lata Mangeshkar, Geeta Dutt, and Jagjit Singh.
11. Blessing me with a body that has, by His grace, never had any major physical ailment.
12. Giving me the gift of curiosity and reasoning.
13. My interest in books, even in this digital age.
14. Giving me the ability to make others laugh – sometimes with me, sometimes at me.
15. Guns N Roses, especially the troika of Don’t Cry – November Rain – Estranged.
16. Giving me the ability to work towards achieving my dream.
17. The ability to express myself through words – written and spoken.
18. The immense joy from the simple things in life like watching a rainbow, a paper boat in a puddle, hearing an old song on the radio, and watching a sunset over a steaming cup of cardamom tea.
19. Keeping me away from drugs.
20. Giving me the ability to store unlimited fond memories – a safe haven for the times when I feel I have hit rock bottom.
21. Giving me the ability to appreciate the works of Gulzar, Harivanshrai Bachhan, Paulo Coelho, and Premchand.
22. Giving us a Shashi Tharoor for a Sharad Pawar, a Kiran Bedi for a Mayawati.
23. Golmaal (Amol Palekar), Chupke Chupke (Dhamendra), and Andaaz Apna Apna.
24. Putting me in a position where I can give something back to the society.
25. Giving me the humility to know that my ignorance is infinite, and there can never be a day when I know ‘too much’.
26. The omnipresence of Murphy’s laws in my life to the extent that my mind is now trained to always expects the worst to happen, and on the rare instances when it doesn’t … it leaves me thrilled beyond imagination.
27. Making me filmy enough to truly believe in Om Prakash Makhija when he says that, “Humaari zindagi mein bhi humaari filmon ki tarah end tak sab theek hi ho jaata hai, aur agar theek na ho – matlab, picture abhi baaki hai mere dost”.
28. The ability to see that there is a spiritual world, beyond the material world that we live in, even though there is no scientific evidence for the same as yet. In other words, thank you God for giving me faith.
29. Himesh Reshammiya, once again (Hahaha!).
30. Giving me the ability to see that no matter how crappy my life gets, there are always things to be grateful for.