The Unplanned and Planned

I can name a lot of things that happened in my life according to my plans and quite a few things, both pleasant and unpleasant, that went unplanned. I always thought unplanned, pleasant things are more satiating than planned, pleasant. The reason could be my determination and hard work to make it happen. Also I could feel and enjoy every step as my destiny neared. I could be a part of those steps, experience and celebrate every minor event. But when it is unplanned, the joy of whole thing is enjoyed at once and in a greater amount. It is like diluted and concentrated joy, respectively. Here is a story of how I realized this was wrong.

Being in United States is something that I dreamt and planned. But being with Bharath right from the day one was unplanned. It fact it is best of all planned and unplanned things of my life. At the end of a beautiful and eventful year, we planned to go on a vacation. Being in a place where it snows extensively, our choice was to visit west coast and particularly San Francisco and Los Angeles.

How do we decide on what attractions or places to visit in a particular area? Of course, Google is our friend now and it answers anything and everything we want. Out of innumerable things that are in San Francisco, the prime attraction in everybody's list is The Golden Gate Bridge. After this our (Bharath's and mine) list had places like Lombard street, Stanford University, Union Square, Chinatown, Muir Woods National Monument and Point Bonita Lighthouse Trail. Apart from this I personally wanted to visit the dosa restaurant that one of our friends suggested. Also our Bucket list in SFO included a lot of Indian food.

As soon as we reached SFO, we headed for brunch and next was The Golden gate Bridge. I am not able to frame a sentence that explains how I felt as we drove along the bridge. I indulged myself in clicking pictures and recording videos form my phone, while I wow-ed in wonder. While I put my camera to work, a page from my book of memories got turned into and I wish to share it here.

I was around 7 or 8 years old. There was a calendar hung in my grandmother's room. It was an ACC cement promotional calendar. I don't remember the month of that particular page, but I vividly remember the picture of this marvelous bridge. I was amazed by its beauty and even asked my grandmother about the bridge. She didn't know anything about it to give me any information. As days passed I found out the facts about it, of course I did not go hunting for the information. It was just a part of knowledge that I gained in the process of growing up. I never told myself "I might get a chance to see the bridge someday".

After this story popped up in my mind, I started to recall how did I find out about the other places in the list. And next story is about that second page of the book that I mentioned earlier. All of us who watch Kannada movies remember one of the influential movies, at least for me, which is: "America America". The title track of the movie visually attracted me more than other songs. There is a sequence where Bhoomika wears a Tulle skirt and sits in the back seat of a red open car, waving her hands as Surya and Shashank drives down a curvy road. I don't know why, I loved that scene. Of course I observed such detail when I recently watched the movie. I found out that it is a place in SFO and is called the Lombard Street. That's how this got added to our list.

Lombard Street is the world’s crookedest street that last’s for a block with 8 hair-pin curves. It is decorated beautifully and looks amazing. With only these available facts, I turned on the navigation from The Golden Gate Bridge to Lombard Street. Before reaching the mouth of the street we have to ascend certain distance after which we can drive down through the hair-pin curves. As beautiful the descending part of the street was, the ascending part was as scary to me. The uphill inclination was around 60 degrees. You might feel as if I am exaggerating, mind you it is not a lie. I was terrified and did not move till we drove till the mouth of the crooked part, after which I was relieved. It was an awesome experience.

These two instances are the examples of unplanned and planned things, respectively. Although The Golden Gate Bridge was in bucket list of San Francisco, it was not in my planned list when I learnt of it. I digged down the information about the Lombard Street. I cross my heart and say, that it is about the beauty of destiny that matters and who you share that sight with. Planned or unplanned, as long as it is pleasant, it will be beautiful. This idea popped up randomly when I saw the bridge and this platform is meant to share ideas. So here I go again.