How did an Invitation to this place “Cup and Kitaab” motivate me?

Sometimes you expect so much from days and other times you sit back watching the day just pass.  

The irony is, the days that you look out of your window for something different and special to happen, you are left gazing at the window.

 And when you keep the windows shut, your doors open making the windows wave at you.

This often puzzles me, how Life enjoys playing with our little fascinations.

 It might give us the best when we are not looking for it and keep us waiting for the things we ardently want.

Christmas week 2022 turned out to be one such when I had kept the windows shut. Not that I was not looking for Santa special but that the office fatigue was enough to make me feel better being home.

 I was home, a day or two before Christmas Eve when I suddenly received an invitation for the Evening.

A summer intern who had just spent a month and a half in my organization where I was the only female in my department, her association gave me some good girl time making the month a memorable one!

Post-COVID, I had stopped having tea in my office canteen and that somehow had caged me in my world. I had lost my social craving without being aware of how sabotaging it had become. My interactions had been minimized which I didn’t realize was making me an odd one out. 

This summer intern pulled me out of my den and helped me socialize again.

It was only after her training; I resumed to my canteen’s tea and coffee sips.

What surprised me was that I got along with her so well, despite the fact she was more than a decade younger than me.

The training month was a year back but the bond we nurtured is going to be for years.

Tanya, that is what people call her.

So, during the Christmas week 2022, She called me, and we planned for an evening to spend together a day out of Christmas Week. Not being much acquainted with some good go-to places, I asked her to find one. 

Being a student, a lively and cheerful one, who always enjoyed strolling around in the city with her friends, she had a list of some beautiful corners of the city.

So, she dropped a WhatsApp message with the name of the place that she chose to meet at.

 The name was “Cup and Kitaab”, which I almost didn’t get when I first read it. I still remember Kitaab being mistakenly written. Cup was what my mind picked up at that moment. 

Assuming it to be just another Café, I overlooked the name.

 Sometimes our mind reads but consciously we are not reading it and that is what happened to me.

I saw it but I did not read it.

The day was there, and I was about to leave for the place, so I asked Tanya to send me the location of the place.

Now when I started my Google Maps, the name “Cup and Kitaab” grabbed my attention, and now I consciously read it.

The name was intriguing and thoughtful. 

Being someone who had lately found her soul in writing and healing through writing,  the name Cup and Kitaab penetrated a little more than just a name. I could sense the eagerness inside me to see how the place would be.

I was driving and my mind was driving too. The navigation landed me in a secluded place that made me wonder how a Café could be in a residential area. 

I reached the place, clueless about where the Café was, I parked the car in a nearby area and I made a call to Tanya. 

Finding myself a little lost I asked Tanya, “Have I reached  the right place, or did my navigation bring me wrong?”

What I got to know from Tanya came as a surprise to me. 

Is there a park nearby? Tanya asked me.

And I just gave a quick peek around and found a huge park right at my back.

And the surprising part was that the café was inside this park.

A cafe inside a park, something I heard for the very first time.

Entered the Park and I slowly walked to a woman sitting on the bench to ask her where this Café was. 

She pointed out to me the other end of the park. I walked with so many thoughts popping up in my mind about how it would look. 

Well, the park was no less beautiful so my phone camera could not stay long in my pocket.

When I still could not see it, I asked a boy to confirm whether I was going right, and he told me to keep moving to the end.  I hopped and reached a beautiful corner that gave me a cottage-like glimpse. 

Cup and Kitaab was right in front of me!

Now what made my heart pound was the little caption written under this name.

“Sips of Stories”

 I found myself so connected to the name, to that little caption, to the place that It felt no less than a Santa gift on Christmas Eve.

I had just thought of meeting in some random place but had not anticipated how special it would turn out.

I entered the café and I just breathed differently. The ambiance, the fragrance, the folks sitting, the sitting and the setting, the obsequious service, and above all the cutest book rack just stole my heart.

The books stacked so neatly on the rack shelves with beautiful letters pinned on the top by people who had expressed their experience about their visit to this place made it all look like an utter piece of Beauty to me. 

The first thing that came to my mind was to click a picture and send to my special Squad (Kuttuz). They drooped over the pictures, and I wished to bring them to this place.

There was a rush of dopamine that I felt while I was in this place. I felt something so divine and good about this place that it felt no less than an omen making me fall more in love with my writing journey.

I Am a very positive soul so anything that gives me even the slightest nudge that the stuff I am moving towards, the stuff I’m putting my heart and soul in, is right, I take it as a message of the Universe.

So this place, Cup and Kitaab, was like a message for me.

Motivation is sometimes happening around us and for us, we just need to decipher the codes and take every sip of positive signal that Nature and the Universe keep giving us from time to time.

Tanya had not arrived and that gave me enough time to sync in with the place and its feel.

I was looking around and saw every corner of this warm and beautiful space.

Wherever I looked, I found something or the other that kept me hooked on. I saw words and words everywhere. 

My mind was observing and my soul was absorbing every little thing that was inspiring me.

I felt a strong sense of motivation to keep moving with my writing journey without looking back.

What the whole space made me feel was that the moment you become ready to go beyond your threshold to pursue your endeavors, Universe starts sending you its little divine messages. 

Coming to this place Cup and Kitaab turned out as my Divine message.

I took a seat, but the seat could not hold me long and books grabbed me.

 So, I walked around the book rack corner and pulled out a book that I had been wanting to read for a long time, Ikigai.

Opened it, went through a few lines, and felt a strong connection.

Ikigai which meant, “Happiness of always being busy”.

So what did Ikigai have?

There is a passion inside you, a unique talent that gives meaning to your days and drives you to share the best of yourself until the very end. If you don’t know what your ikigai is yet, as Viktor Frankl says, your mission is to discover it.” 

Our ikigai is different for all of us, but one thing we have in common is that we are all searching for meaning. When we spend our days feeling connected to what is meaningful to us, we live more fully; when we lose the connection, we feel despair.”

Once you discover your ikigai, pursuing it and nurturing it every day will bring meaning to your life.”

I felt empowered for I knew I had discovered my IKIGAI.

And it was Writing.

After being a Microbiologist for more than a decade, I felt I was a Writer for Life!

The whole experience was such a Majestic one.

The menu on the table could not tempt me anymore because Ikigai had grabbed it all.

A couple of minutes later, Tanya arrived.

A warm hug and smiles were exchanged, and I poured over to tell how ecstatic the place made me feel. I went on to thank her for choosing such a beautiful place to meet which was no less than motivation in my new endeavor.

When I got to know that Tanya had specially chosen this place keeping in mind that I was into writing so I would love the ambiance of this place, I was awestruck by the gesture.

We ordered the best the place offered, a sandwich and coffee.

My association with this beautiful girl is not the one hanging out together often or even calling each other on weekends, it was the one like meeting when we could squeeze some time out.

We had not shared a huge part of our lives, yet our meetings never went short of conversations.

 We had the stuff to exchange for the simple reason that we connected.

Our lives were on two different poles.

Tanya was filled with anxiety as she was searching for her very first job. 

And her anxious state gave me so much to think about. There was this young girl who was putting in her arduous efforts to fetch her first piece of work and then there was this me who had invested a decade into my career and honestly, I was done with it.

This was something that looked like an enigma for me, two people standing on two different poles of life with different aspirations.

 One was striving to get a full-time job that the other was wanting to get rid of..

This was such an irony!

But then it is only after you invest a certain period in something, you figure out what you really want in life and where you truly want to invest the rest of your Life.

After having spent a decade  I had found that my job was not something that I wishfully longed to do forever.

 As said above, my profession was not my Ikigai and sometimes it takes years of experience and wisdom to understand what your true Ikigai is.

 Tanya was about to start the process and I was hoping her journey would guide her to the right destination, her Ikigai!

Tanya went on and I was enjoying her talks.

Though very young to me, she talked so much sense that I was all ears to her.

Our order was on the table and our convos became like tweets. 

Some bites and some tweets.

Thoroughly enjoying the vibe of the place, our conversations also gained momentum. And Tanya headed to share some experiences that I got glued to.

We started talking about how our perspectives towards various things are and listening to Tanya was no less than a treat.

I am not going to keep the convos secret so closing the blog by telling you even the stuff we talked about.

So everything that we shared, I am summarising  the takeaways from the conversation we had and I am listing the ones I could remember:

• Never go to a holy place immediately after stuffing food.
• Sharing the pickings of food does not show the depth of love.
• Don’t commit to relationships if you have to go by your family’s rules that are stringent enough.
• Try cleaning your wardrobe once a week at least a month.
• When you are about to marry someone, keep respect before love.
• Try starting your New Year by taking God’s blessings before you celebrate it with a New Year Bash.
• Parents cannot teach you everything, a lot of stuff your friends make you learn.
• Make your conversations constructive, you can talk about material stuff but let it not always be the prime topic.
• Sharing everything with your parents does not qualify you as a great child but how maturely you use the freedom does. 
• Relationships become toxic not only because of a wrong partner but sometimes because of you too. Overdosing and expressing excessive love at times is self-sabotaging. Make home together and not dwell in their homes.

We had such a great time together that the whole evening felt like Santa Special.

Leaving the place without pinning my piece of letter on the book rack would make the whole experience incomplete. So, I asked for a paper and pen and added my few words.

And while we walked down the steps, we saw a beautiful decoration for Christmas Eve. 

We took pictures, we strolled around in the park, and it was around 7 that we moved out of the place.

Giving each other hugs again and now with Christmas wishes along, the evening felt warm, happy, a blessing and a super motivation for me.

I hope you enjoyed reading this personal experience that nudged me more towards my ikigai. 

May you find your ikigai if you haven’t yet, and believe that once it is discovered, you will keep receiving divine messages in some hidden ways telling you that you have found your true Purpose of Life.