The End...Of The Year

Not quite there yet. Today is just the 30th. It's funny how we devise a year - and celebrate its end and beginning at the same time. Nothing can end without something beginning at the same time. And the other way around too. This concept of the year - we know it exists in our head. Oh yes, science says the earth revolves 365 times or so - so let's just make that a year. I wonder though if a year is that. Time has no end. Or beginning. It is ceaseless. It is formless. It is motionless. Time is the captive spirit of our restless hearts. Time is the aching wound on a wrinkled leg. Time is the last crease of a smile. Time is just a myth. Time doesn't exist. Time is unreal. Time is. Time was. Time will be. Time never will be. Somehow, still....there is a poignant hope to time. We want time so bad that we would do anything to lose it.

I don't know where I stand this year. It's been such a riveting year, if I can call it so. I have seen the depths of crassness among human beings. I have had my faith tested. No. Not in religion, I never was religious. But in people. I have set aside dreams. And taken up reality. I have learned everything that I can forget. And I haven't remembered what I should have learned. Tomorrow, I will sleep while the clock ticks over into 2011. And somehow wake up knowing that nothing much has really changed. Or has it?

To the two or so readers of this blog, my warmest thoughts for a beautiful time ahead. May this time be yours.

And I loved this poem from Shakespeare. So in tune with what I feel.

As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII [Blow, blow, thou winter wind]
by William Shakespeare
Lord Amiens, a musician, sings before Duke Senior's company

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
  Thou art not so unkind
      As man's ingratitude;
  Thy tooth is not so keen,
  Because thou art not seen,
      Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
  Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
      This life is most jolly.

  Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
  That does not bite so nigh
      As benefits forgot:
  Though thou the waters warp,
  Thy sting is not so sharp
      As friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing . . .

Read more...

Praying?

 I don't know how. But I was just playing around with a few photos I took last week...it's amazing how an image can just transform itself in your eyes. It reminds me of us. The human species. How we transform. At the touch of an emotional button. Into werewolf monsters preying on desire and living on egos. This photo..it made me think. Doesn't it look like there is a mini-man praying inside this flower?

Read more...

Flowering

Just to lighten up the dreary starkness of this blog, here's a little blue flower peeping out, wondering about the year to come.

Read more...

sTrUgGlE

I could hear the quiet calmness outside. Life seems to be like this. It goes in some rhythm. Lying here as I do, I cannot possibly tell you what the rhythm, but of the possibility of a rhythm I am certain. At some times, I can hear life outside. At other times, like this, I can just about hear its breathing. Sometimes, I am not sure which I like best. The noise of life or the silence of life. Both terrify me.

I know that I shouldn't be scared, but I am. I am scared of what is happening to me. It is strange when you have a mind that can observe your body. I remember my life before - I was out there. There was green, there was laughter, my friends, and the joy of movement. I didn't think I would love to move around so much - back then, all I wanted to do was just eat well and sleep. I don't eat now, but I sleep. I don't move. And now, I find that all movement scares me. Once inside, you never want to go outside. I am not sure why we feel like this, but I think it is part of the rhythm I told you about earlier. We are just ceaselessly crawling our way into disintegrated selves. I am sorry, I know I must not be morose, but darkness does that to you. It is not scary, this darkness. It is comforting. I wish I can lie here forever, and I would be happy. It's moving from darkness to THAT. That light I knew before, which is terrifying.

Yes. I am scared. I am so scared that fear is not an emotion I can even feel anymore. This strange thing now inside my mouth - it moves. I am not hungry, and I don't know why - I cannot remember the last time I ate. Inside here, space is a little cramped. I cannot stretch as freely as I used to, but each time I twitch a little, I can hear a gentle rustling. My back feels heavier, yet lighter. Is that possible? There is something at the top of my head that is new. I cannot seem to understand it, just as I cannot understand anything that is happening to me here. I wish I knew. But I fear that is how Life is. We move around not knowing why something happens. We are just supposed to be thankful that something happens. I am not. I understand change happens, but I am not thankful for it. Sometimes all you want in life is some stability, you know. I thought that being here would be so, but although I feel safer than I ever felt before, I am terrified. Yes. I repeat myself. I want to shout out. Ask someone. Anyone. But I was told not to come out till I was ready. How do you know? Just how do you know you are ever ready? I am not ready now. I was never ready to come here. I am not ready to leave. There! What was that? That hurt. If I had tears, I would shed them. Now all I can do is just weep my anguish.

Ah! Another one! Did I tear something? I have lost all my legs, you know. Now, I just have these two at the back. Two! What can you do with just two legs? How will I ever move? But move I must. Is this being ready? No. I think this is called being scared. I am caught between lying and moving. Suddenly, I cannot think logically as I used to. All I know is that it is now or never. I must leave. This beloved place of my eternal rest. Or so I thought it was. Now I feel it wasn't so. It was just Life playing another cruel trick on my self. I don't even know what my self is anymore. I can feel another rip. A tear. I want to cry out with the pain. But I am starting to love the pain. Someone had told me before, when I was not here in this darkness, that all pain is good. I had laughed. I didn't think how pain could be good. I remember when I lost one of my legs, and it hurt so bad. That wasn't good. I still think pain isn't good. There is nothing in Life that ought to have pain. Life should really be a beautiful wave of unending beauty. Pain. I don't understand. This thing inside my mouth moves. And then, I find myself stretching. I can't stop myself. I don't want to. But I can't understand myself. I wish to stay here. I wish to move. I don't know. Help. Please. Something tears at the back. Those two legs behind me have torn my den! I built it with love, you idiot! I want to scream. But I don't know how I can scream at this my other self, which seems not to listen to me. Pieces of my home shred down. I can hear them falling. But they don't make a sound. I can hear them because they are pieces of my soul. And you always hear your soul when it fails you. I can see this body that is not mine attack more of my soul. More pieces fall. I can not feel pain anymore. I feel the first glimpse of Life. With strength I didn't know I had, I push out. I gasp as the first draft of air hits me. Miraculously I can see. There is Light! Faint, but it is reassuring. Those two small legs of mine push me out. I am out. I am out. I sway. And I find that instead of all the legs I had, I have something else attached to my body. They move. Almost without me telling them to. They flap more. The air around me scuffles in anger. My head reels. The light. The air. The energy in flapping. Yet, I look back, and see the last of my poor little nest, shredded, hanging there almost waiting for me to come back. I smile. I don't know if I want to go back. But I like hanging in the air like this. I cannot describe how it feels...but if there was a moment in my life I could have said was perfect, it was this. This utterly incandescent feeling of being able to just fly. Fly! That's it, I am flying!! I am scared. Terribly scared. I swirl around in captive circles, but I laugh in happiness. I am giddy with glee. I am flying. I am.

Crack.Snap. It was over. The bird clasped the fluttering moth in its wings. Crunch. The flutter died. The bird moved away, unperturbed. It had just had its first meal of the day. A bit raw for its taste, but well, you know, you can't complain much in Life.

Read more...

Leaving the Remains

I read Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day last week. Stevens, the butler, somehow remains in my mind. How devoted can a man be to his work? I can't understand it since my devotion to my work is almost non-existent. If someone gave me a million dollars, I wouldn't work. I would instead maybe live life the way I wish I can.

But I digress. Today, I was watering this small bamboo house plant I was given as a birthday gift in June. How things have changed since then! The plant has grown - it is no longer small, and the yellow stalks it came with have now turned green with life. Yet, the plant reminds me of a person I no longer wish to be reminded of.

I have this policy - I never keep gifts from people who are no longer in my life. As in, not the people who move on to another life, but the people who move out of your life. In such situations, I usually throw away what was given before - not out of spite, but because certain painful things don't need any more reminders that our mind doesn't provide. It's my way of cleansing out the past, so to speak. But I was stuck with this plant. I can throw out all other things - but how do I harm a small, living thing? So the plant stayed. I wonder how the plant feels - it is unwanted, yet survives on largess. In fact, it thrives. Sometimes, I think that's all we need - a little bit of kindness. To thrive. To grow. Why then, is it so hard to find? And how ironic is it that the person who gave this plant that survives on my meager ration of kindness, never could find the kindness to stay on in my life?

Read more...

I Hate Saturday

Every Saturday. I just hate them. I can't recall the last time I was happy on a Saturday. Some of the worst things in my life have happened on a Saturday. Hell, I was born on a Saturday! Can't get worse than that!

I like the Indian name for Saturday - Shani Var. I think it is much the same in any Indian language. The day that the Shani God rules. I am not a great believer in some four-armed being ruling the roost from a cozy perch up in the skies - but hey, I think I ought to believe in Shani! Wikipedia says this about Shani:

Shani gives us the results of one's deeds through one's life through appropriate punishments and rewards.

Now see! Isn't that revealing. I think Saturdays are my punishments day! No rewards. No sir! Isn't it apt then that after months of careful driving, I allow myself to become a nervous wreck because my Dad decides to be the 2nd driver in the passenger seat, and then, while turning left I am so blind that I cannot see the sign marker there, and graze the left passenger door. Ugly scratches on black. I can cry. And I did cry. Saturdays. Remove them from the calendar.

Read more...

Wonders of Thoughts

There are times you go wondering if you what you meet is what you want, or what you want is what you meet. I am not sure what I mean by that myself. But I have noticed that the people I have met in the past few years have corresponded exactly with what I thought they would be. Was it my thoughts that produced such encounters? I read in this book that a thought is the picture that life takes. I liked that line. I kind of feel like I am a celebrity on camera all the time with life being the paparazzi. So may be I think it is my thoughts that led me to the path of thoughtless people.  I was completely deceived by the last such person I can honestly say I despise - this person was more of an angel's darling who no one will ever suspect of having the coldest heart.

But over the past few days, I have met some wonderful people. Those who make your heart come alive. Those you sing the song of life with you. Those who you can laugh with. Those you can trust. Those who have the grace to humbly seek your forgiveness if they think they have hurt you. Those who are just above everything, wonderful people.

Read more...

Underground

Day turns into the corners of my mind,
Tuning to the whispers of its underground.
A tramp was I.
Passing lit corners untouched.
Meeting roads ending
Caverns closed to every crevice
Shutting every door
Against the echo of a flight.
Is loving illusion a flight?

Swooping through every moment of time’s passing,
Etched in the mind’s marble,
Merging its presence in black
Absorbed in dark
Are trapped embers
Of all those dead hours
Savaged to death, ripping its existence
Life lay in still coffins.

Read more...

Peeping into the Past. Or Whereabouts.

I had the most delicious weekend. The sort of weekend that leaves you gooey inside, like molten cheese and chocolate. That reminds you that happiness is really within reach. That there can be wonderful people who can enrich your moments. Who can turn those moments into life.

Among the many moments this weekend provided, one of them that stands out was this time I went for a past-life regression therapy. Yes. You read that right. I have always been interested in the worlds that exist beyond our sight. Somehow it is not what you see, but what is unseen that seems to hold greater wisdom and mystery. Maybe that is why God is so sought after. If he/she/it was just strolling around your garden everyday you wouldn't want God all that much. If God was available as a number on your mobile phone, then maybe you would hardly call. Maybe we would tell God, "hey, I am driving dude, call later!" But anyway, that is part of the reason I am always attracted to things which I don't understand. This past life regression center was in the back of beyond. But it being a Sunday, it took just under 40 minutes to reach, and oh, it was a pleasure to drive! The hypno therapist, well, was a rather unsmiling sort. My two friends waited outside, while I went inside to her cabin. She asked me why I would want to regress into a past life. I told her why. That I feel my life has been falling into some bizarre pattern that I feel has some meaning. You can't keep meeting obnoxious people without a reason, right? She suggested a package that would take at least 6 sessions and includes aura cleansing, chakra cleansing and every detergent you can find for the soul. I demurred on the package. "That is my suggestion," she said. "However, you can also opt for a single session of past-life regression. But you may not be able to understand some of the emotions and feelings that the past life may evoke in you because you haven't gone through the steps before. It's a bit like going straight to the 10th level in school from the 1st level." I nodded. "But anyway, we can try for this. Many times some people cannot regress or see a past life, and then it is very stressful for me as well for them as they have to pay the money anyway." I took that not-so-subtle disclaimer in my stride. After all, let's see where this goes.

I was led to a wonderful comfortable recliner. She asked me to count backwards from 50. Two minutes that took. After that, it was more guided suggestion. I was to see a staircase. 20 steps. At the top of the stairs was a box into which I was to put all my doubts and worries. Then I descend down the steps, on her suggestion. I reach the end. To the left I see a corridor. I walk down it. There is a door. A red door. I push open the door. I see a garden where my mind has wandered thousand of times before. There is a white marble bench. I sit down on the bench. And I am instructed to ask my mind to reveal to me my spirit guides, who are supposed to descend on to my open palms. Really. And then I ask my spirit guides to guide me to a past life where I was successful.

Did I? Well, this is what my mind showed me. A village. A boy in shorts and a dark grey shirt. Peeping out from the house. "Do you see any people?" I was asked. Well, I saw a dark woman, who I think was my Mom in that lifetime. Then an equally dark man, who was my Dad in that lifetime. Move through to the next significant period in your life I was told. Well, I see a funeral pyre. The dark lady crying over the death of the dark man. I remain muted. Unable to cry. Another scene, I am running through the forest. Running like crazy. I am angry. There is a tightness in my chest. Barefoot. I stop, panting, bent over double with the effort. Then I see my wedding - at a temple in the village. I have come back from the city where I went to for my education.  Fast forward to my 40s. I am about to ride a bicycle.  But my thoughts are unhappy. I don't have children. The dark lady in my life is ill. I feel I have done nothing so far in my life. "Why did your mind choose this life as a successful one?" the therapist asked. "I was the first to go to the city to study," I replied. "First to build a cement house. First to own a bicycle. I am the only man who can read and write letters in this village." And then, several years later, I see myself, a wizened old man with a beard. Sitting in front of the cement house he so proudly thought was an accomplishment. The people he knew have left him. He is left with only a young caretaker girl to take care of him. Life indeed has turned. And revealed in the end, a fairly ordinary life. Rich in its detail but sparse in its scope.

So...do you think this was real? I doubt it. I was conscious throughout the session. I don't think that was correct. There is a thin line between imagination, and subconscious revealings. I feel this was more the outpouring of imagination than an actual regression into a past life. Yet, why did I think of this? Who was the boy I saw? The very accurate details that were rendered in my memory? Hmm. Enough to think about. :-)

Read more...

Walls

The walls are white
Lemony in their warmth
Through the windows
Stretch cement blocks of love
Labored testimonies that we humans
can build walls faster than friendships

My bed stands erect
its sheets of gold aching against a dim sun
Arch my feet against the leather backed chair
The repose for my butt
That sits here day through day


These walls are not walls
They are my dreams
I build them here
Home to my thoughts
Repository for staleness
They sit here patient

I seek not the world
when the world is here
for so much can walls
contain that the world can
never give

Four+Four I count
The sun can rise and set
And I sit here away
from the castration a world
can give to one who has no balls.

Read more...

When To Give an Arse

I think I detect a subtle shift in my inherent body mechanism. We come to grips with life armed with some practiced responses. Conditioned reactions. Throughout we are taught to control. As a kid, we are told, "now, stop crying." And we learn. We try not to cry. We are told to be polite and courteous and keep our emotions in check. Which is fine. But we learn to keep kindness and compassion, love and happiness in check too. Emotions are like a jar of honey, I feel. You can't keep the bottle shut - you don't get the honey then. But once you open the jar, then the liquid sweetness flows, and sometimes that means a lot of things - the honey can get slurped, licked or wasted. It can attract ants and other small things of this earth whose job it is to seek out that which is sweet. An ant may bite you in its hurry to get the honey. If you really allow your life to be extraordinary, you might find a bear staring down at you, waiting to get the honey.

Hence I was surprised to find myself open one bottle of emotions last week. It was Sunday. Having dropped my mother and cousin at a shopping exhibition in one of Bangalore's oldest districts, I was riding pillion with a friend on my way to lunch. We stopped at a red light. How many times I must have walked down this road! The theater opposite where we used to go for Kannada movies. Usually with my grandmother who was a huge Rajkumar fan. I would get bitten by bugs. The seats were just old leather stinking with human sweat of years gone by. But we endured. And laughed. And cried. And moved through the movie. I would usually leave behind something or the other- an umbrella, a handkerchief - leaving my Mom irritated. Afterward, the walk back in the cool air. I wasn't thinking of this when I was at the signal. I was only trying to tell my friend to go straight - the signal changed to green, a car in front decided to turn right, my friend stopped, I waved trying to tell her it's the wrong way, and my hands which were clutching a thin plastic bag along with my mobile, well, my silly hands dropped the phone. My friend moved ahead. The phone lay behind on the road. I shouted "my phone, my phone." I turned back, and I could see it. My dear little phone of the past 5 years. There on the road. Vehicles swerving around it, miraculously. And then. This autorickshaw. A hand moves out, the rickshaw doesn't stop, in one motion, the phone is scooped. By now, my friend has stopped in the middle of the road, unsure what is happening. But I wasn't unsure. I saw the autorickshaw go by. And I ran. Ran behind it, shouting "hey!" Faster I ran, the faster the rickshaw seemed to be moving. But I didn't think. I ran. Towards the next signal, he slowed down, and pulled over to the left as his passengers got out. I caught up. "Give the phone," I said, panting. The driver didn't bat an eyelid. He handed it over. I think I told him exactly what I think of people who snatch phones in an instant - he asked me, rather reasonably, what the phone was doing on the road. I didn't argue. I didn't want to fight. Because you see, I had already won my fight. I could not stand there and see my phone snatched away from my own eyes. I was going to run behind that autorickshaw as far as it took. I wasn't going to bottle it. No. Not this time.

And then...maybe it was that run, that fight that pushed me - on Tuesday or Wednesday, I opened the bottle again. And told a person who has caused much grief what I had been longing to tell, but hadn't because it is nice to be polite and sweet, but hey...sometimes the most you can do with firewood is to light it. It felt good. It felt delirious. Just like the mad run to get my mobile back. And somehow I realize that you have to learn to give an arse to those who give you shit.

Read more...

Coziness

Coming back from lunch on Saturday, my sister entered my room, and exclaimed, "Wow. Your room looks so cozy." I glanced around when she said that. True. It did look cozy that time. The curtains had been drawn. The bright sun outside had been filtered to just a muted light that seemed inviting and lulling. It was the light that made the room appear almost snuggled in. On my bed was Captain, the heroic mascot from the Empire State Building. A few books. A massage ball. I wouldn't call my room cozy, but it made me think...I love cozy.

I love cozy houses. And I thought, my best relationships too have a cozy feel to them. You just feel cozy when you are with such people you have that rapport with - I share that coziness for example, with my traveling friends - I can happily rest my head on the shoulders of one friend or plonk myself across the lap of another without feeling like I was violating some gay sacrosanct - it is just coziness that makes you feel so utterly well, cozy. In that light, great relationships are just that. They cast a warm fuzzy glow in your lives. A wonderful welcoming light. And they make you feel that you have well, come home.

Read more...

The Pursuit of Happiness

That was a lovely Will Smith movie. The Pursuit of Happyness. I watched it some three years ago, and it still stays in my scrambled eggs kind of memory. I am reminded of it as I write this post - it was a touching movie about the triumph of the human spirit. The other day I was driving with a very good friend of mine as the passenger. As I navigated Jayanagar's wide avenues, I asked my friend a question : Are you happy? He paused for a while. I turned right, down a narrower road with Ganesha idols lined up on the side. "It depends on what you call happiness," he answered. I shook my head, swerving past a buxom lady's swinging arms on the narrow roads. "It's a simple question. Are you happy? Yes or No only," I said. My friend looked ahead, I glanced at him. He has what many would consider a perfect, happy life. Great job. Boss of his own work. Enough money. Well traveled. Kid and wife to add to the family picture. Good enough friends. What can he possibly lack? He must be happy, surely! "No," he answered as I waited at the signal, ignoring the unnecessary honking of a billion horny people. "No?" I asked again, rather surprised. "Well, yes. Considering where I would have liked to be at this stage in my life, in terms of some dreams I had, some goals, some plans, no. I am not happy."

Then he changed tack. "You are happy, right? Everyone envies you." I almost crashed into the nearest scooter. "Me?" I asked in disbelief. "Yes. You are independent, traveled so much, a career you have made on your own, no obligations, the freedom to just be. Why wouldn't you be happy?" I laughed. I didn't know I could be the object of anyone's envy, really. I thought most people would only pity me. "Oh poor thing you know! Spinster!" (They do use that word in India!). "No child, no marriage, nothing." Tut tut. But yet, here I am supposedly envied by a lot of my friend's friends.

And to think about it - we all think we can be happy once that happens. Once this falls into place. Once I do this. Once I become that. If life is such a long process of doing and being, I think happiness gets very tired, and wanders into the distance. And then, that's when we go around pursuing it, forgetting that happiness is too fleet-footed. Too proud an emotion to keep waiting while we wander around doing other things in life. Happiness is kind of like me. Impatient. Restless. Wanting to be owned. Cocky in its knowledge that it is the best emotion in life, and cheeky with that arrogance. Happiness is too complicated to grasp, because it is so simple to have. And really, why should that be so difficult. But it is. I know. Let me try not run behind happiness. Although I think I have become better at running!

Read more...

Weird. Me.

They call me weird.

Freak.

Crazy.

They call me mad.
They call me weird because I talk
like the truth is not mine to hide.

They call me freak because I say
I value my self just as much as you

They call me crazy because I mean
what I say and do as I say.
They call me mad because I think
that I give  more than I ask.
They call me weird freak crazy mad
Because I can't use you
Because I can't lie to you
Because I can't cover your flaws
Because I can't love a pretence
Because I can't be normal stick this pin and call me weird freak crazy mad.
Because you see I just plain like it.

To think that the spectre you see is an illusion does not rob him of his terrors: it simply adds the further terror of madness itself -- and then on top of that the horrible surmise that those whom the rest call mad have, all along, been the only people who see the world as it really is -CS Lewis.

Read more...

The Miracle of Running

There is something so primordial about running. Maybe it's in our ancestral genes. I don't know. I don't know who passed it on in my family, but it is in my genes, for sure. Last year, when I was watching the insides of my left knee, which the surgeon was kindly slicing through, I had only one question. He paused in the middle to show me something that was cottony and fluffy, which definitely did not look like what a knee should like. If only perceptions were reality! I asked him the question then, during the pause. "So when I can run?" He looked startled, that razor in one hand. "Three months," he said, back to the monitor. I nodded. Content. Three months, I can take. Three months flew by. "Can I run?" I asked. "No," he said. "You have an ACL injury. Don't run at all." Apart from a rather long list of other donts. I went to another doctor. He was more sympathetic although he couldn't fathom either why I would want to risk everything to run. I am not a professional athlete. I am not a sportsperson. Why then, should I want to run?

But the second doctor told me something I never forgot. "Listen to your body. If there is pain, it's your body talking to you." And so I went back. I learned to listen to my body. I worked on improving strength and fitness. Then slowly, towards the latter half of this year I started to run. Body didn't tell me to stop. So I ran. 20 minutes 3 times a week. And then, one Thursday, I didn't stop at 20. I was angry that day. I think it was last month. So angry that I felt that I needed to get it out. Anger, if nothing, is corrosive. I finished 3.10 km in 20 minutes. And then finished 5km in 28 minutes. You know why I love to run? Because of this. When I run, I don't think. It's just me and my body. Try running when you are distracted. You find that you cannot. In that sense, running is meditative. It can block out thoughts. Completely. For those few moments, I can be at peace, not in this vortex my mind occupies all the time.

Last week was enervating physically. The cysts I have leave me with a dull ache most of the time, and then they sap me of all energy. On Saturday, I had to pause, take a break at just 10 minutes while running. I hated that. Today was no different. A migraine and nausea ate away. That dratted tiredness too lurked like a monster. I got on the treadmill with trepidation. And that's when I thought. Sometimes, I ought not to listen to the body. Because there is something way more powerful than the body. The mind. So I told my mind to do what my body didn't want to do. It was slower. More painful. But at 34 minutes, I finished my 2nd 5k run. This sounds very self-paenish. Yet, beyond the culled remains of each day, it is wonderful to know that the mind can obey you where the body cannot. And that miracle of running is what I crave. Each time.

Read more...

Docced Out

I have spent the better part of yesterday and today shuffling between doctors. I am not one to be overly concerned with the mechanics of the human body - I like to think I have a pretty high tolerance for pain. Physical pain, that is. My mental pain threshold, I think is pretty low. But then, so is my mental quotient! As I lay down in the ultrasound room, my mind could only think of the dreary walls that hospitals cloak themselves in. People are cheerless enough when they enter hospitals, why make it even more so? Why can't we have some colorful speckled wallpaper inside? Why not make it cheery? Sure, yeah, ill health is rather morose. But surely we can liven it up a little? Won't that help the cure, if any?

Well, I had a good laugh when the doctor who was doing the ultrasound couldn't find whatever he was looking for. He kept waiting, waiting, waiting, while I looked at the only picture in the ultrasound room - some fetus inside the uterus. And no, I don't have a fetus inside me, just a few cysts, which are another story. But anyway, the doctor laughed finally - "I have never had to wait this long," he said. I giggled along. "Is this a record?" I asked. Sadly, no. He chuckled, then finally caught whatever image he was looking for. And sent me home where I can look at the framed Chinese lettering on my wall, the Vietnamese scroll above my bed, another Chinese scroll to the right, this time of a young woman in traditional garb, and finally, a New Year scroll, and wow, think of the life and color this gives instead of the drab dull walls of hospitals.

Read more...

Somearelikethisonly

Sometime back, a person very dear to me, messaged me in anguish, saying that she felt upset in a relationship and felt used. Through the course of a long sms conversation, I understood just how much of anguish this wonderful person went through - is it wrong to expect attachment from someone when you give love and affection? she asked. I think I replied saying that it is the most natural thing in the world to expect a little back of love back  or attachment or whatever you can call it. But perhaps expectations are not too good, I preached. The person agreed, saying that expectations are never easy, placing the burden of your proof on the other person and expecting him or her to carry it. "But why profess attachment before, use you and then drop you? The used feeling can be terrible," she asked.

I don't remember what I say, perhaps because I love this person so much, I think I was more worried about her state of mind, and maybe foolishly tried to tell her not to take it so hard. Her answer? "I take people seriously and am sincere so it is hurting a lot to be discarded like an old rag." Even through the cold hard medium of a SMS, I could feel the hurt. I will never know who hurt this beautiful woman, but if I do meet that person, well, I can imagine just how much contempt can ooze out of my soul then. I must have said a few good things; maybe I said everything that happens, even the bad that people do to us is good in some way. She agreed, saying that she will take it as a positive development for her soul, and that one needs people like that for the soul's enlightenment.

Today, I looked at this SMS exchange, and I realized I can use every single message in it to reflect on my own recent life. Isn't that a bit bizarre? But there you see! To feel used? Ah, I know that one! Like it or not, we are all pawns in another's life. Bit like chess. Fit to be moved when the stage shifts. Who are you? A petty soldier? Come on, move over, make way, I got my rook and my knight coming! To be discarded like an old rag? Righto! Why profess attachment before and then drop you? Ah! The hardest to answer in a way, but the easiest to understand. Human behavior. It seeks convenience always. People are malleable, we fit them according to circumstance. And when circumstances are not favorable, it is the easiest to dump the people. Not the circumstance. And how many people really mean the things they say? It is surprising how a lot of 'care' can just disappear if that act of caring causes distress for you. And people say things. All the time. If I were to give a dollar for every word uttered that promised love, hope, affection, care, happiness or friendship I would be such a billionaire now.

I never did ask this person how the whole thing panned out - was it really a positive development for her soul? But I know that she is a tough one. Or rather as she said : I am a sentimental fool, add old as prefix. I think I am just the same. And somehow, I think that it is worth being so. Despite everything.

Read more...

Soulmates

I have tears in my eyes as I write this. It's September 16th, a date that has no significance for me whatsoever. Except that it does. For the most unaccountable reason, I suddenly missed my brother.  Perhaps it has to do with reading this fascinating book by Sue Minns called Soulmates. In that, she rips apart the cliched romantic ideal of a soulmate as your 'partner,' and shows us that soulmates are anyone with who we have an intense connection in life. And it need not even be roses. Rather these soulmates are like iron nail beds - they exist to hammer our souls into the shape it seeks.

I am a believer in the energy that people leave behind. I am in the process of clearing out no-longer-needed gifts, souvenirs etc from people who no longer are in my life, it is a symbolic process of clearing out the trash we surround ourselves with in our life. And I was thinking how I wished I have something like my brother's shirt, to breathe in his energy. I have nothing. Nothing except one small paper with his handwriting. And I thought of a time when I was less than 10  years old. I had had the entire box of coconut sweets that my Mom had made. My brother came in and asked for those very sweets, it was obviously over, and a fight ensued between him and my Mom.

My Mom, in frustration and exasperation, ended up hitting me for eating all of it. And somehow, this is so crystal clear. I remember the salty taste of tears, the strong biceps of my brother, the sting on my back from my Mom's beatings. My brother rescued me from my Mom's hands, drew me to him, and gave all the protectivness that only a brother can. I still remember trembling against his shirt, resting against the strong muscles of his chest, frightened...yet secure. Today, I wished I can do that again. Somehow, I feel he would do the same. He was after all one of my soulmates.

Read more...

Urban Myths

Living in a city, people say, is death for the soul. The urban chaos of modern living makes life so enervating and consuming. But look closer, and we find that the rural pastoral scenes we spend thousands to travel to can also be obtained here. How difficult it is though to open our eyes and see something new in the every day matter. "We are strangers unto each other," Eliot famously wrote in his play The Cocktail Party. I think we ought to treat life so - to wake up each morning, and greet the strangers we are.

In the morning, I was woken by the screech of a myna. I walked to my sister's house to pick up my lunch. In the kennel, her German Shepherd dog gave a sleepy greeting. Outside, six cows stood, waiting for their owner, their job of milking done, and now the more difficult part of the day to come - finding food. As I took my lunch and came outside, the cows set off. Fresh dung littered the roads. Dung on wet roads is an enticing rural aroma.

Out on the roads, a tractor trudges along. Further along, six or more dogs fight with each other to get the spoils from the milk van. On the flyover, a dog is standing on the safety barricades, and peering down at the police grounds below the flyover, fascinated. Near the market, a row of kites stand patiently. They perch on that one building, waiting for their meal that comes from the fish mongers in the market. And then, a cockroach walks over the car's windshield. Rural life? We live in it every day. Strangers as we are.

Read more...

The Ant In The Car

Just the day before I killed an ant by inaction. Now, I have an ant living in my car. I saw this ant two weeks ago actually. On the dashboard. Before I could reach out and flick it away with little respect for its dignity, it had already scampered inside. Inside where? I don't know. The engine?

It appeared again on Friday. This is not a small ant. But a big red one. We have a different word for that in Kannada, but in English I think an ant is an ant, regardless of size. Once again, it disappeared before I could catch it.

Today morning, there it was again. This time taking a walk on the windscreen. I was on one of Bangalore's busiest roads, and in between trying to avoid screeching horns, scampering pedestrians, and irate motorcyclists (Why irate? Bangaloreans just like to drive in a rage, for some reason), I could see this ant walking merrily across. I had to smile. This fellow is something of a survivor. I wonder if I have a family of ants living under the car's bonnet. He hovered for a while, and then disappeared into the AC vents. I drove without company after that. But it makes me smile. To have an ant for company. Considering the quality of human beings I have met recently, I will take them any day.

Read more...

Blessed

Today, I just wanted to write just how incredibly blessed I am. In between the moanings and musings on this blog, it may not seem apparent just how thankful I am for the life I lead. But I am. I have had rough times. Tough times. I have lost more than I could hold. But I still hold more than I lost.

I am blessed in leading a healthy life. Yes, I still can't run 5km without grimacing, but I can run!

I am blessed in having parents who don't push me the way I have seen others do. Yes, I have fights with them. Each time, I understand them better when I do.

I am blessed in earning more money in a year than most of India's population do. Yes, it's not as much as others I can compare to, but it is sufficient. With this money, I have traveled. Bought books. Bought gifts. And done all the wonderful things that money indeed can buy.

I am blessed in having some wonderful relationships. People who came into my life, enriched me with their presence. Not all of them stayed, but sometimes it's not the staying that matters, but the lines they draw on our lives well afterward. I am blessed in having learned more of myself from them. And for the ones who have stayed, I can only be more thankful.

I am blessed in seeing a little bit more of the world each day. Each year. I am blessed with experiences that have nurtured my soul, watered it with the precious water of life itself.

I am blessed I can read. Write. Walk. Run. Love. Hate. Scorn. Move. Cry. Laugh. And really I can only say thank you to Life for such blessedness.

Read more...

The Ant and the Loofah

Today, I caused a death. It was a slow, painful watery death. The death of an ant. As I was showering, I took the loofah. Clinging to the loofah, I was this red ant. Without a second thought, I vigorously shook the loofah. Said ant fell down. I thought it would crawl away to safety. As I stood there watching, water was also flowing. It was one of those moments when you know you can and you must do something, but inaction and inertia force you to remain inert.

The ant tried to move away. In vain. The stream of water from my shower was a force too much for its little body to bear. Its feeble legs beat against the current. And then it was still. I stood there for a while watching the little body. Then some more water. And it was gone. Into the drain. I wondered about its life. Did it think that it had a minute to live only when it landed on my loofah? Could I have saved the ant in any way? Yes. I know I could have. Why did I then, allow it to die? What can I learn from this? That inaction is the greatest bane to life. It's nice to relax when we have too much to do, but sometimes we think that really it's just an ant. Why bother so much? Me? I care for the little things. I really do. Rest in peace my little ant. I am sorry, may we meet again sometime. In another life where waters don't rage in a small bathroom.

Read more...

When A Thought Slides By

It's funny how some memories come unbidden. There are things I would love to remember clearly - my brother's face for example. How we used to fight. Long physical fights. Scrawny me. And big muscular him. I remember it. But it's like being at the back of a very fuzzy lens. You try to focus. Sharpen the picture. But it's always watery around the edges. Memories like that are frustrating. And then there the ones that stay in your mind. You are never sure why. But they creep up on you when you least expect it.

Like today, for instance, I was watching the cricket match. And reading. I was reading more than watching. The phone was switched off. And then it suddenly flashed. Me walking into an office on Old Madras Road, Ulsoor. I had taken the bus there. From Koramangala. The office of a few months old magazine called Bangalore Trends. Thick and glossy it was. I wasn't sure how I obtained the interview. Did I apply? I don't remember. But I walked in to the office. I met a guy there. We spoke. For a while. He was the editor and publisher. I wasn't sure about the job. Clearly, he wasn't impressed with me. I remember him saying 'right, we will get back to you.' That time, I honestly thought that means they will get back to you. I exited his cabin, and there was this girl waiting for me. By her desk. She stood up as I entered. She was everything I could never hope to be at that stage in my life, fresh from graduation. Smartly dressed in a chic salwar with a matchingly chic haircut. Dark green. That was the color of the salwar. "Don't believe him," she said, startling me, referring obviously to the man I just met. "He just has lots of promises. Talks a lot, but doesn't pay. He has not paid us in two months. Don't join," she said, half smiling and half challenging me. I don't remember what I say. Perhaps I just nodded in shock.

I left the building. And really, at that point, decided not to take up the job if it ever came. It's a rather useless memory to have - I would rather have clearer brothers - but isn't life just still as wonderful. Maybe we need to give space for these memories - for the memories of loved ones - they don't exist in our minds, anyway.

Read more...

Touch

RIP the Internet, gently suggested a headline. I didn't read the article, but it made me wonder. I have known life without the Internet - but I will be the first to say that the Internet has made my life indeed better - materially. I have also benefited from its enormous reach - it helped me maintain friendships that otherwise would have deteriorated into nothingness. It has offered an extra dimension to life - indeed, my very job would not exist if it weren't for the Internet. So yes, I welcome it, and if it ever died, I would say RIP -Return If Possible.

For some reason, I thought also of the times when I didn't have a mobile phone. Oh yes! Those days too! Now, I have justified reason in feeling old, but really technology has advanced faster than I have aged. I remember long conversations on the fixed phone line in full range and vision of all in the family- but these days, I shut the door, move away from the window, and use my mobile phone only when I know no one can hear. Why is it so? I don't know...since when did privacy become such an integral part of my life? It's strange how we use the past limitations to impose fresh ones in our present.

And rewinding the tape further, what about those days when neither phone or Net existed? Those days when physical touch was the only means of 'keeping in touch.' That phrase! Like the word 'sorry,' ' keeping in touch' is one of the most abused ones in the English language. What is touch? Impossible to define - so it seems if you look at the dictionary, which produces volumes on this one word. I will just take the first one:

1.  To cause or permit a part of the body, especially the hand or fingers, to come in contact with so as to feel: reached out and touched the smooth stone. 

And those days before the phone and the net were just that : you really had to reach out, and touch the other person. And isn't touch the most intimate of human gestures? The most soothing? No wonder, I always feel peaceful when I think of those times. However much the phone has brought us closer, it has also pushed us away. The phone cannot be a medium for touch, although we can be 'touched' by what someone says on the phone, it is just that : words. The real physical art of human communication is what has died. And to that too, I would like to say Return If Possible. 

Read more...

Past Memories of Present Tense

Last night, I slept late. By my standards. At 11:30. I stayed up reading Anne Tyler's The Ladder Years, which was not worth the staying up for. But well, reading. Can't blame its hold on me. :-) It's stronger than any person so far! In between, the fragments of a dream. I don't recollect the dream, only the sensation of the dream, which was neither warm or forbidding, but much like life, just a memory of nothingness. Then it rained. I woke again well after midnight to hear the cat meowing. We have a resident cat now with its kittens. It has made the trash can outside its home, and frequently at nights, I can hear odd noises - who ever said cats are silent? - as it scrambles and turns the trash inside out.

Uneasily, I slept. Only to wake again at 5:30AM. It was not light yet. But not dark either. A bird or two chirped. Restless, I tried to sleep again. Eventually, I gave up the effort to perform the Sun Salutation yoga that is my latest fad. But I was still uneasy. Was it the dream? Was it the cat? Was it life? I couldn't know.

And then, later in the morning, at work I had a visitor. A good old friend, who I have known for a decade now. We met leisurely over an akki rotti (traditional South Indian pancake) at a nearby restaurant, chatted, and that's when that uneasiness became apparent in its absence. All I had required was someone to talk to - the treasured warmth of old friendship, the companionship of understanding, an ear to listen to, and the fun of being with someone  with whom you who have shared happy memories. And that's so important. To be with someone you have had happy times with. For then, it helps you believe that if you were happy once, you can be so again. The past needs no remembering, but sometimes, it needs a little prompting. And I am glad I met my past today. The happy past. After August 10th, when I had to meet and confront the worst in my past, this was timely. And magical.

Read more...

Brush with a Thief

Today, I went shopping. It was only meant to use the birthday money my Dad had given me months ago. I ended up using that and Rs2000 more. But that's fine, all the money in the world is useless if I don't spend it on myself. So I was at this place - Brand Factory, they call it. I bought what my friends would be surprised to see me in - traditional Indian clothes. They are sort of used to seeing me in leaves, you see. :-).

The salwar I bought required some alteration. So having left my Dad and nephew downstairs, I made the tedious way up again. Fought with the security guard who insisted that he would not let me inside with my Coke, directing that I throw it in the dustbin. Now, I am fairly reasonable most of the time, but asking me to throw an almost full can of Coke is sacrilege! So, I protested, and finally ordered one of the employees inside to fetch my dress instead. Which task accomplished, I took my bag, and sauntered out. I usually take the steps, but in a fit of absentmindedness I took the descalator (my word). I turn the corner. Pai Electronics showroom is all glass, I am captivated by the rows of televisions. I don't know why, I am captivated by multiple screens like that on the wall. Still in a stupor of sorts, one feet over another. And then, I suddenly was pushed. Hard. To the right. I almost stumbled on the smooth flooring. A young guy. In blue jeans and a lighter blue T-shirt ran past me. Without a glance. Cursing the rudeness of such people, I walked ahead. But no. This time, another light push. "Sorry Ma'am" said a heavily panting guy in brown trousers, and a store identification card dangling by his side. He chased the extremely fleet-footed blue jeans guy down the steps. Curious, the jab in my side forgotten, I followed. The action spilled over on to the streets.

People too were looking at the scene in the distance, which I could not see. (too short-sighted I am). I don't know if they caught the thief or pickpocket or whatever he was. It aroused excitement all around. A woman watching asked the security guard if someone had planted a bomb. The man laughed, no no, I don't think so. I went back inside, thoughts in a whirl. And somehow, I don't know who is worse. Those who physically harm us or those who emotionally damage us? Somehow, I think the latter is worse.

Read more...

Lessons

The cat came down the steps. Paused. It saw only the milk. Drank the milk. And turned down the steps where it lay by the fire, curling up and warm.

The dog came down the steps. Bounding with life. It saw the milk, but looked for its master to offer the milk. Master said "yes," and tongue lolling with drool, it lapped up the milk. And came with a sigh to rest at the Master's feet.

Then, the Master's wife came down the steps. Tenderly. Gingerly. One at a time. She saw the milk, and cursed the bowl that held the food for the cat and the dog, which now lay strewn to the side. Bending down, she picked the bowl, and sighed her way to the sink where it lay among all the other vessels that once held food that satisfied man dog and cat.

And then the Master rose to go out of the door, for his life was at the moment so complete. He turned his back, for to see his wife would be to know just how incomplete his life was.


-------------------------------------------

I write woefully so many times. Especially at times like these when I cannot believe the obtuseness and deliberateness that accompanies human behavior. But there's a lesson here. Lesson one, never ignore signs. People speak more through actions than words. Ah words!! Lesson two, don't believe the words! Such pitiful bastions of communication! How well we can package words, and make it seem we invest it with emotion. How much we can be swayed by words. These two and more years, words were what swayed me. That is why I chose to ignore the signs. The oh so obvious signs.

Three, we all have utility value to another. Affections rank higher as we offer more utility. Remove the utility and the affection crumbles and dies a natural death.

Four, everything comes with a shelf life and expiry date. People more so. Judge accurately your own shelf life after considering the first few lessons : see the signs, balance the words, and consider your utility.

Five, you are more dispensable than you think. This illusion is one we nurture the most - we really think we mean something to another. But we are no more than disposable contact lenses or plastic feeding bottles or a disposable camera. We mean something within that period only, so we start to think we mean more beyond the period. But we forget that lesson four - shelf life.

And six, live on the surface and life is fine. Scratch it a little, and you will find a whole seedy moss of undergrowth crawling with leeches beneath. People are like that. Especially those who conform to the above five lessons.

But am I being too pessimistic? Too harsh? No. Because the ones who teach you these lessons are the ones you ought to thank. Because they are the ones who by showing you just how rotten the undergrowth is, can shine the way for you to find those who are not. You have to wade through the scum to find the diamond. So thank the scum. Someday, there may be a diamond.

Read more...

Superficiality

adj.

   1. Of, affecting, or being on or near the surface: a superficial wound.
   2. Concerned with or comprehending only what is apparent or obvious; shallow.
   3. Apparent rather than actual or substantial: a superficial resemblance.
   4. Trivial; insignificant: made only a few superficial changes in the manuscript.

Thesaurus adjective

   1. Lacking in intellectual depth or thoroughness: cursory, one-dimensional, shallow, sketchy, skin-deep, uncritical. See surface/depth.
   2. Appearing as such but not necessarily so: apparent, external, ostensible, ostensive, outward, seeming. See surface/depth.

Wow. I am expanding my vocabulary. Not out of curiosity but because superficiality is what I have seen today. I didn't even have to see it, I just had to hear a conversation as related by one friend. Superficial relations. Superficial people. The artlessness of relationships. The formality of friendships. The show. The disguise. Why sweep the mud under the carpet, when there is no need for a carpet? Why dust the floor when you have no ground? I have a lot of why's and I know the answer to all the whys. Superficiality. It's easier to hide than confront. It's easier to mask than reveal. It's easier to be everything but yourself because that is the hardest to be. And especially because you have no idea what yourself is.

Read more...

Night Soul

When the fingers of the night
Moved up my body
I felt not a tremor
not an itch
not even the touch
of mortality

But when the fingers of the night
crept up
my soul
and clasped it tight
never letting go
I felt the touch of
immortality


In the morning I woke up
and found the sun was out
the milkman came
the newspaper fell
the crow rasped
the milk spilt
the paper shred
all the doubts
I ever had that the mind can see
what fain the soul cannot touch

Read more...

Amistad

Isn't it interesting that the word 'idiot' is derived from the Greek work 'idiotes' which means a "a person who lives only for themselves?" Interesting. I would love to turn it over in my mind because that draws such a line between loving your self and leaving your self to others. And then we have 'amistad.' Latin for friendship. Recently, Thoughts, Birdy and I had an interesting email exchange on friendship. Now, friendship is a much abused word. Friends more so. I rather like amistad and amigos better! But during this conversation, we drew interesting parallels on the role friendship plays in our lives. I was surprised to learn that the three of us share much the same values in cherishing this ancient relationship (Oh yes, it is ancient, friendship was Aristotle's favorite subject!). Things change as they inevitably do, but I am happy to know that I can see a few values that I had lost faith in, replicated in two good friends.

Now for example, I have this grand notion that love can't be restricted to the select ties of blood and relation. We are born into loving our family, entertaining any other thought is a sacrilege wound on fear, and we try hard to love our relations - spouses, mainly. Right, some people don't have to try hard to love their spouses, they just don't love their spouses. So for me, loving a friend is no different from loving my dog to loving my sister. What! You put your dog, friend and sister in the same group! How can you! Yes I can! Love. Pure. Simple. If you can love, you do so. Just pure and simple. Love doesn't know that one is called family, one is called a pet, and one is called that ready-to-be-cast-off-at-any-stage-object called friend.

But events over the past week have forced me to re-question and reexamine my life. As Aristotle again said, 'the unexamined life is not worth living!' I wanted to see if people behave unto you the way you are unto them - if so, what use is it really? Or are there people who behave unto you despite what you do unto them? I wanted to see if I can find such a person - and no, I drew zilch. People will only be nice to you as long you are nice to them, this whole 'scratch my back, I scratch yours,' extends to everything. And above all, I didn't want to take the easy way - I have fallen many times in life - but I prefer doing that because its only when your nose is in the gutter that you can really smell the roses. I have had easy friends - easy-to-leave friends and tough friends - tough-friends-to-leave. Of the latter, I have very few. 1? 2? But I am happy I have them. And wasn't Nietzsche also the one who said 'people often conduct their friendships from behind high walls and fortified towers'? "Friendship is a problem though worthy of a solution," he added. And indeed it is. My problem over the past week was that. Precisely that. But I have realized that to think of a solution is not worthy enough because that problem called friendship was never true in the first place. It can't be because it never met the commitments of friendship, which sadly people seem to think rank lower in their life. First family, then whoever else I live my life with, then job, then home, kids...friends? Who are they?

How wrong such people are! Through the ages, philosophers and writers have obsessed about friendship. More has been written about amistad than romantic love. And where does it stand now? I read this interesting article - this was more about the effect of Facebook on friendships - but the author struck a few truths. I quote the passages I like:

Achilles and Patroclus, David and Jonathan, Virgil's Nisus and Euryalus: Far from being ordinary and universal, friendship, for the ancients, was rare, precious, and hard-won.

We are nothing to one another but what we choose to become, and we can unbecome it whenever we want. -

So true!! This unbecome is precisely what has happened to me over the past two weeks!

Friendships serve no public purpose and exist independent of all other bonds. Friendships, unlike blood ties, are elective.

When all the marriages are over, friends are the people we come back to.

As for the moral content of classical friendship, its commitment to virtue and mutual improvement, that, too, has been lost. We have ceased to believe that a friend's highest purpose is to summon us to the good by offering moral advice and correction. We practice, instead, the nonjudgmental friendship of unconditional acceptance and support—"therapeutic" friendship, in Robert N. Bellah's scornful term.

I love this too! I often chastise myself for making observations about a friend - but perhaps, I am not being such a bad friend, if one were to consider this. Indeed, I took the Mark Vernon friendship quiz, and blush blush, scored 82! Out of 100! Hooray! And there was this question 9, that seemed to answer what the three of us also contemplated earlier.

Question 9
(b) We move onto another sort of friendship – work friendship: perhaps the quintessential example of ambiguous friendship. Although people form friends at work, even good friends, they are readily dropped, dissolved or disregarded when the pressures or vicissitudes of life take over. You mostly feel puzzled by your feelings when someone with whom you were friendly at work finds a new job and leaves: you have much in common with others.

And what did Mark Vernon himself have to say? I haven't read his book, but the excerpt, his premise, is interesting.

My experience told me that whilst friendship can be great, its affections and commitments are often ambiguous. When a lover calls they automatically get first priority and family commitments are, well, family commitments. So perhaps the soaps are romanticising friendship, the agony aunts are falling back on it too fast, and the sociologists and politicians are being overly optimistic?

Indeed Vernon. I know that well. Priorities and their places. But here are more answers from that quiz I took. And I loved the fact that Aristotle would have agreed with me on this answer too:

(a) When it comes to the individual virtues that someone needs in order to be a good friend, self-awareness is certainly number one. Without that, you will delude yourself, and delude others

Indeed. I consider myself a pitiful, mean and little to like about soul. But I like to think that I am aware of my own meanness. My decrepitude. It feels good to know I do some things right, at least.

But amistad. Never knew there was so much written about it. And I am glad I have space for 'amistad.' Somehow, I can't think of life beyond my self. I live for my self. And you see, amistad is very much a part of my self.

Read more...

The Mirror

Apropos to a previous post, I decided to practice what I prattle. So I looked in the mirror. This mirror - it is no ordinary mirror. It is like those body scanners that  work in airports, that rip your clothes off, and shred your so-called modesty to the world. Why did modesty ever become associated with lack of nudity? The human form is so beautiful, or else sculptors wouldn't spend so much of their lives trying to recreate its perfection. But I digress. This mirror I looked into - it is the soul scanner. It is capable of digging deep into the scattered remains of your self, and bring to the surface that which passes for it. So I looked. And looked. And here is what I found.

First to come was meanness. Pettiness. They came floating up, threads of old memories still sticking to them. They looked so threadbare. I must have used them so often. Still use them.

Then came jealousy. This wasn't green as most people assume (green is the color of nature, why again is it associated with a negative emotion?). But this was bright red. I love red. But I hate jealousy. Never knew it till perhaps three or four years ago. But there it was. Sparingly used. But sparkling, well maintained.

I cast that aside. Or at least I wished I did.

After that came an odd-shaped container that looked like a tongue. And it was indeed a tongue! A tongue that was almost yellow, turned so with the bile that often spews out of me. I looked at in repulsion. Surely this can't be my reflection? But it is. The one organ in our body we use the most with the least respect. Right, no dirty thoughts here please!

And then came an assorted debris - pale buttons of regret, old socks of despair, colored brown, beyond all use, and then buckets of tears for things minuscule and hollowness for things beyond minuscule, those scars that cut deep across the soul, those that require open-soul bypass surgery.

I coughed. The fumes from the mirror were overwhelming. Yes, it is a bit of a live mirror. Tends to take on to itself what it projects. Bit like us actually. Its form changed slowly. I glimpsed bits of kindness, all warm fuzzy golden glowing. Then some moldy remains of love that held fast despite the stench in my heart. Or soul. Or mind. Or wherever it is that love resides. (Not just that family-spouse-children-boyfriend-girlfriend love, please). But love that can take many forms - love for reading, love for a country, love for a dog, love for a friend, love for a lover, love for a teacher, oh why restrict it! And then there emerged a fuzzy image. I couldn't see this properly. I peered closer. It remained fuzzy. Then it slowly swirled and I saw that it was the mind. My thoughts! Casting around and moving like thousands of sperms in a cell. And I was aghast. The mind can't be here! This is a soul scanner. But the mind and the soul can't be all that separate, can it? And then the image became clear again. And I saw what I have always wanted to see. Nothing. Clearness. It was just the mirror telling me to offer a clean slate. Or perhaps telling that I have a clean slate. Or that I have nothing. Or that I have everything. And that perhaps, makes it something.

Read more...

Synchronicity

Serendipity.Synchronicity. Simplicity. Of the three, I like simplicity the best. I consider myself a simple soul. That makes me very complex.

And then there are some numbers that synchronize. Just as your relationship with that person does. In sync they say. And so I found that 9th and 30th will always always always be on the same day. No matter the year. If 9th June is on a Wed, then 30th April is on a Wed. If 30th April is one a Sat, then 9th June of that month will also be a Saturday. In 2010. Or 2011. Or 2012. Or 2354. It may seem a small thing, but it made me go 'wow.' There was another number that also synced with 9 and 30 - that number was 16, but the person doesn't belong to that number anymore, so what use if the number does? But 9 and 30. Amazing. Simple synchronicity.

Read more...

Ververtia

What do you say when you have the verve for life, and the inertia of living? You say "ververtia." I like coining new words, I just realized. Vladimir Nabokov too had a particular fondness for creating new words. Esteemed company indeed!

So, what do you do when you suffer from ververtia? It's a peculiar state to be in. It is like being bound in chains while flying... on land. You feel free, as long as you choose to ignore the apathy of your existence. You feel free, as long as you recognize the apathy of your existence. You see, you feel free to feel free, but therein lies the rub. Freedom is never free. Never comes free, that is. And so you choose not to pay the price, expensive as buying freedom is, and that is when you slip into ververtia. You long to explore the boundaries of existence, to dip your feet in the moil and toil of living, and to set limits for your soul to overcome. But it takes time. Effort. Will. Courage. Respect. Carelessness. Reverence. And none of this can be bought in the supermarket.

So ververtia it is for me. But you know, the more I see people around me, I realize we are all the same. Everyone desperately trying to justify their existence. They move up and down some imaginary ladder that they call career, they marry because they fear that old age might creep on them faster than you can say 'companionship' and have kids because that is the next imaginary ladder called 'fulfillment.' Somewhere, in between, we can't stop to think and see our soul. Because doing so would mean looking at that mirror called life and wonder what the hell it is that stares back at you.

Read more...

Doing WroRig

That's my word of the day. It's a combination of Wrong+Right. I intend to use these for those times when we really don't know if we have done the right thing or the wrong thing. In my case, WroRig can be used to pretty much describe everything in my life, including my rather free-floating, free-falling mind, which deserts me at the most opportune moment, and a cruel heart that stops beating at the most critical moments. I had one acute case of WroRig on said mind and said heart for sometime now. I could never resolve it. And the thing with WroRig is that they don't leave you alone - no, both Wrong and Right combine to create a wulderwig sort of chaos (that's my second word of the day, and I haven't the faintest idea what it means).

Two years ago, a friend of mine. Nay, a close friend of mine. Nay, one of my closest friends was about to do this.

http://www.salon.com/life/since_you_asked/index.html?story=/mwt/col/tenn/2010/08/11/engagement

It's a long letter there. But that writer described everything I went through. To shorten it for you, this person's friend is getting married. To the wrong person at the wrong time. Her friends know it. She doesn't. What do you do, her best friend asks? I asked myself the same question. I was in the same situation. The letter writer in the Salon article agonizes over how to tell her friend. "What I want to tell her is this: "I love you. I don't feel like I've seen you be your true self or grow with him, and I worry that you're doing this because you feel you need to be at a certain place in life and not because you really want to." Ah!! I wish I had these words at that time! Instead, I had some two-pence nonsense about making choices in life, and how they have consequences. It wasn't a pretty battle, and it almost wrecked the friendship in my case.

Our letter writer phrases it even better. "I will always support you and be there for you, but I think marrying him is not what is best for you. Deep down I think you know all this, and I'm sorry if this is hurting you." I am not sure I said all that either. Because I have a dumb way of saying things that tends to put fire on a raging soul than calm it, and to stoke embers in even the calmest soul. Ok, I really don't know how to gently say "You are being a fool," and pat you on the back for being a fool. In the end, the tortured letter writer asks "What does being a true friend mean? I think she's throwing her life away for somebody who will never do her justice. But at what point am I doing it for myself and not for her? Do I risk one of my closest friendships in the attempt to throw her a lifeline she may reject?"

Most of the people I know follow a policy of non-interference inspired probably by Nehru, and approved by Gandhi. They believe in 'allowing the other person to realize.' I always wonder, which one of these 'friends' will sit back and allow 'the person to realize' if that person happens to be their daughter, sister, son or spouse? Which father will not utter a word if he thinks his daughter is making a mistake? A mistake not in the school exam but in marriage? I mean, it's not one teeny weeny step that, although seeing the way people get married here in India, they probably devote more attention to buying a car than choosing the person they want to get married to. So, which sister will keep quiet if you know that your sibling is being rather dumb in a matter of great significance? So why should friends be different? Is it all that nonsense about 'accepting you as you are' that has led to accepting your mistakes too as yours to own? If my role as a friend is to watch you kill yourself, and then turn up for the funeral all weepy-eyed, then I decline that role. I may never know if I was right or wrong in saying what I did to my friend at that time, but I am glad to know that I wasn't the only one who thought it right just to say it. You see, that is the point of it all. To just say it. That was right.

Read more...

The Cat and Infinity

The cat crawled
into the sea
watching the waves
carry its life
it still had 8 more to go.

Watching the cat
the man crawled into the sea
and watched the waves
carry his life
He still had infinity to go.

For some bizarre reason, this seems to resemble Khalil Gibran. I don't want to write like that masterful writer. Sigh. I only want to write like the petty peddler of words that I am, without trying to ape artists like Gibran. So hush! Away these thoughts that make me type such lines as the above on screen! Away!!

Or is there something called original left anyway in this world? Hmm.

Read more...

Investigations

I investigated my soul
and found that it had fled yesterday
I looked beyond yesterday
and found that it had nestled
in wait in the future.

I looked at the future
and found it disappearing
into the dust of today.


In this dust I float. Am I Cruel? Yes. Am I Mean? Yes. Am I Vain? Yes. Am I even understandable? Yes. No. That's why I investigated my soul...and...

Read more...

Spinal Shock

Sometimes you find shock when you don't expect. The kind of shock that creeps up slowly on you, and jolts you like a tender bucket of coffee dumped on a sleeping brain in the middle of the darkest hour of night.

I went to Copyscape. Entered this blog address there. Why? I don't know. An instinct to protect these mad mutterings and utterings of mine. To see if anyone else has copied the stuff on this blog and to flatter myself hence. Copyscape claims to retrieve pages that have content similar to yours. It threw up just one result.

http://www.thescatterbrain.com/

None of the content here was copied. It's just that this particular site has the same Problogger template I use. Out of curiousity I went to the site.

And that's when the first nerve endings of shock shivered up my spine.

There is just one post there. Just one. Weltschmerz. World Weary, in what I think is German. The post is almost suicidal, and the footer ominously says just this "GoodBye." Who is ScatterBrain? I went to the About Me section. She is Karissa Lang. And I gasped at the photo. It was like looking at myself. Perhaps a few pounds lighter and thinner, but the resemblance was uncanny. And Chinese too...I am not Chinese, but my association with China is well known. There is nothing else on that site - links to a few songs, almost all of which are melancholic and well, despairing.

I googled her out next. And then the shiver of jolting shock reached a thumping crescendo. There was one Twitter entry. And this was it: Seriously considering killing myself, but don't know if I can handle being dead...http://suicidemachine.org/

This was on 29th July. The Twitter page doesn't exist anymore. It's all a bit bizarre, the way this happened. And I wonder what is there in it for me, today of all days, when I have new plans, ideas and dreams. In this random world of ours, there are no coincidences. And I can only take this as a sign that my life is too precious now much for it to be wasted.

Read more...

Looking or Going

When you look at the surface
You wish to go deeper

When you go deeper
you only find
what was always on the surface

Is it how you look?
Or how far you go?

Read more...

Weighing Scales

I weighed myself today. And found I was still the same.

Those scales though only measure the body.

For if they were to measure the mind, then they would find,

That I dropped 10 pounds off today.

Read more...

Pickled Poetry

Ragged edges
on a serrated knife
can cause no harm
unless they meet
your hand.

Knives are harmless. Unless they meet skin. People are harmless. Unless they meet skin. Or so you think. People are harmless unless they meet skin, or unless they meet mind.

Ragged edges
of people's minds
can cause all harm
even when they never
meet your heart

Dedicated to an 'office friend' whose existence ceases for me now that the wings of the phoenix have closed:-)

I wonder if my poetry is so bad that it can become good? Maybe once you slip into a ditch, even the molehill appears huge?

Read more...

An Encounter

Life came to me the other day, and said,"Hey! what's the matter?" Perplexed, I asked in return, "What? Nothing is the matter." So life asked me, "Why then are you walking with your back so bent and your head so bowed? Is it humility?" I laughed. "Humility? You would need to have something that you can boast about so that you can boast about being humble. Me? I am proud because I have nothing to be humble about."

It was Life's turn to laugh. "Maybe you are right," he mused, pulling his long scraggly beard. "So what is the bent back for?" he asked. I straightened myself. "Laziness?" I replied. Life laughed again, he is a pretty jolly soul, this chap. "Perhaps. Is that all?" he asked. I said yes, that's all. "Years of inertia have created this slouch." Life nodded, and went his merry way. And as I said the words, I turned around, ready to walk down my own weary way. Two small feathers fell down by the side. I picked them up, surprised. And realized it was just the past's wings, which lay clipped when I refused to acknowledge his weight.

Read more...

Unknown Reaches

Today, I received a mail from a stranger. A good friend of mine once passed on this quote to me: there is no such thing as strangers, only friends never met. That quote has stayed in my head and today I was reminded of it again.

This stranger stumbled across an article of mine on teaching English in China, and wrote to me. Now, that one article on Transitions Abroad has sent a lot of strangers my way. All of them have remained strangers with the exception of two, who I went on to meet, and whose friendship and warmth I cherish till this day. I know how difficult it is to reach out to another, totally unknown person on the Internet, knowing well that suspicion and neglect are likely the only two companions you are likely to find. I have done that just once in my life - writing a mail to a complete stranger, on a personal basis. But I never had occasion to regret it, as that one mail established a beautiful friendship that continues to this day, despite differences in culture, distance and time. Since then, I have reached out to others on forums, but that has been only to obtain this piece or that piece of information. And the ones who contact me through that China article are usually just the same - they seek something from me that they need. Information. Knowledge. The folly of wisdom.

This mail was no different. This stranger needs the same. But the mail. There was something in that mail that moved me. He wrote unabashedly, without reservation about his life. The accommodation he says he lives in would make a church mouse proud. "My enthusiasm for life has been ebbing away every year, it seems," he wrote. "I'm an individual whose low ambition and severe gentleness has molded a humble and dissatisfied life.  I want to start from the begining, reverse my conditions, and experience what it means to really live." These lines!! These are the very lines I parrot to myself. "Experience what it means to really live." How often I have told that to myself. There were lots more to that mail, his longing to visit China, his fascination with the Chinese culture, but I won't divulge that here. But in the end, he added. "In closing, I have said much to someone I've never met." And I thought to myself. Do we have to meet to meet? This stranger is a vegan, and I am a vegetarian. He loves China just as much as I do. He has the same desire to "really live," as I do. And the 'strangest' thing is not strange at all, really is it not?

My wonderful friends in the U.S., who I mentioned above, whose warmth and friendship I said I cherish, those two are in San Antonio, Texas. And this stranger wrote to  me from San Antonio, Texas. Really, there is no such thing as strangers.

Read more...

When a Dream Fails

The other day, Serena Williams, that wonderful athlete won Wimbledon, and declared that it pays to believe in one's dreams. Those words sound inspiring. All the more inspiring when you stand on the green hallowed lawns of the most famous tennis court in the world, holding the most cherished trophy in tennis history. Dreams seem almost achievable. But I wonder, does it pay to have dreams? What of dreams that lie shattered? Believe in the beauty of your dreams, they say, but I say that dreams are what can make us disbelieve life as it is given to us.

To dream is to have higher aspirations. But what is wrong with existing ones? Is it too less to have a good bed to sleep in, food to satisfy your stomach, books to nourish your mind, and love enough to keep your soul content? Why do we instead dream of  more? People dream of kids. People dream of travel. People dream of becoming this CEO or that manager. We are so in the processing of wanting to become - our dreams, don't they lay waste to our soul, and destroy our illusion of the present?

I dreamed of climbing one small mountain. I failed. Out of lack of mind power. Out of lack of will power. Out of lack of food. And plain commonsense. I failed because of a number of reasons. Why did I dream this dream? It was the culmination of something that I promised myself that I would and could climb a mountain when doctors told me not to climb even stairs at home. To the others who came along, no one understood this dream as I did. So when I had tears in my eyes at not reaching the summit, it also marked the disintegration of one dream...to lie asunder under volcanic ash, the kind that our mind spews with regularity...all those thoughts we enmesh ourselves with.

This was a small dream when you think of all the things people dream of. But it's there, nagging away at me - this failure, the first such I have had in my life. I must learn from this, learned ones say. And I guess eventually I will. All learning comes from severe disappointment. We don't learn from winning as much as from defeat...so if life is a school, it pays to lose. But dreams? I hate them. I really do. But I can't stop having them...perhaps that is the beauty of it. To just dream.

Read more...

The Ethics of Being Indian

This a rant post. Or a rave post. It's a bit of both. But for a change I am not cribbing about my life. Nor am I musing about its changes. No, for a change, all I have to ask here is for some change.

This might anger 'patriotic' Indians, but it's a democracy, right? Freedom of speech et al. Not China, right? So here goes. I have traveled a little. Not much. Mainly in Asia and to the US and UK. I have seen a bit of the developed world in the US, London,  Singapore, and a lot of the emerging economies in China, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. Through every trip, I have come back amazed at the state of infrastructure in these supposedly poor countries, and appalled at the state of our own. But that's fine. Governments change. Corruption may disappear. One day, we may have roads to be proud of. Trains that are fit to ride on. It will happen. We can't be dumb too long in that sphere.

What though galls me, what I think will never change is the average Indian. Yes, I am one of them, but am I proud being so? Not at all. I feel that the state of a nation and its people is often best expressed on its roads. Not the quality of the roads, but how we behave on them. As I roamed through Laos, I was amazed at the fact that there seemed to be no honking. No honking? You must be kidding me? In Ho Chi Minh City, entire masses of bikes swerved all around, but there was peace. How to describe it? There was a certain civility. In Laos, I abruptly stopped my bike, uncertain which turn to take. The signal was green. As I stood there looking perplexed, not a single vehicle honked at me. No one tried to swerve here and there, and make their own way. They waited. Patiently. Till I realized what a dumb thing I was doing, and moved to the side. Can I expect such behavior in India where I get honked at for staying put at a red light signal? No! I was glared at today, and shouted at (hey, get out of the way was shouted in coarse Kannada) because I had the nerve to wait while the signal was red. Yesterday, another vehicle decided to honk mercilessly at me - and I, poor thing that I was, was 7th in line in a row of vehicles all waiting for the signal to change. He flashed his lights at me. Then once the signal changed to green, overtook on the right, while I was turning right, barely leaving 3 inches gap between his vehicle and mine, to go screeching down the turn. Why would a person do that? Lack of education? Can't be - take all the other countries I mentioned, not all of them rank high in the educated sphere. It's not to say that road rage does not happen in these countries, road rage happens everywhere. But it's the way we carry ourselves.

These are just two isolated instances. But there are many more. I have seen that people here are rarely courteous. On the road, we act like we are in a tearing hurry when our very philosophy in life as told through our scriptures emphasizes patience. We curse, we swear. We make driving the most unpleasant experience. Traveling abroad, I have seen that the only ones who break rules are Indians. I remember forever a trolley ride in Hong Kong, this was a heritage car no less, which requested visitors not to eat or move when the tram is in motion. An Indian family sat down, promptly opened assorted packets of snacks while sending the little ones up and down to pass the snacks. No one else on the train moved. No one else ate or drank. And this was a multi-national train, if I may so call it so. Another isolated instance? Maybe. But we pee openly on the  roads, then blame the government for not installing enough toilets. Fair enough. But how many women do you see peeing on the roads? Are there toilets for them? Nah, it ain't easy for a woman to zip down and pee, is it? What do the women do then? Whatever it is that they do, why can't the men do? Nah, they lech and leer and pass comments all the while rigorously scratching their balls, or whatever it is that runs in their pants. Again, a kind of Indian trait. Very much an Indian trait. I have seen women in most other countries, in Laos and China, both communist countries, but I have never been harassed  as I have been in India. And in case you think, its coz I am a foreigner, I don't look like one there, so friends tell me. I can blend with the crowd in Southeast Asia, they say. Comments that used to hurt before, but now, I am proud! I, at least, don't look Indian!

Let's not talk about 5,000 years of civilization please and beat our chests about it. If 5,000 years have produced this kind of primitive behavior, then it is time to abandon that so-called golden history. Can we begin to act civilized now at least?

Read more...

The Inscrutable Reason for Living

The dark clouds from the window seem almost a reflection of my own life. Never have I felt so like more like wandering to those very same clouds and plummeting down in a deep delicious fall to the ground. Life, they say, is very vast. But how is it that living it in a coffin makes it so unbearably small? You try and claw your way for air, you scratch the walls of the coffin as much as you can, but you are stuck. Barred. Buried. A pidgin midget masquerading as a monster. That's what life is!

Read more...

Be+Ing and Potatoes over Cactus

• This is a rambling post. Read at your own risk. No offence to anyone intended.   

To be or not to be. Poor old Hamlet's existential dilema has been churned into so many movies, plays, books and even greeting cards that it is exists now as one of the fastest ways to cull yourself into literary dumbdom. But take a moment to pause that tape in our minds, and forget Shakespeare to just take those two words : to be. We are human beings. I like that. Human Be+ing. We are not just a past form of the verb be. But we are a process. A work in motion. Art in transition. We are always a future progressive. Be+ing.

Very often I am confronted by people who say "accept me as I am." I am often baffled. It is another one of those sayings that slip into the bloodstream of human consciousness, and then circulates as a cancerous cell, destined to uproot every living thought you have ever had about yourself. Too often, it is used as an excuse to camouflage failings in your own self. I know. I have used it many times myself. "Oh! You think I am rude? Sorry! That's the way I am! " (translated : obnoxious I may be, but I have a right to be rude because that is me, see?)

"Oh! I am like this. I am a loner!" (translated : sorry, I really don't like talking to you much). Of course, I exaggerate, and not all who are loners are people who are avoiding you. But take this further. Take that Pakistani terrorist, Kasab. Ask him. "Who are you?" And what would you do if Kasab says "I am a killer. Accept me as I am." Would that excuse his obvious cruelty? As over-the-top these examples are, I think this right now because I hear this "accept me as I am" thorn thrown so often these days that I wonder if people ever really sit down to ask themselves - their "self" what is this "I Am" that they so desperately want others to accept? It's a part of yourself? I agree. But just because something is merely a part of you doesn't merely mean it was meant to be there, was it?

If life is just about "I Am" and not about "I Am Being....," then we might as well all die as babies. What is that unknown quality within us that motivates change? That makes want to evolve? It is us! Our self! Our soul! We are born to evolve. Not stagnant into "Amness!" We are a process of Be+Ing. If what you are is that you are a bitching backbiter, then see if it serves your soul's purpose. Chances are it doesn't. If what you are is that you are a lost-in-the-woods damsel, then see if it serves your soul's purpose. Chances are again, that it doesn't. If so, see if you would like to change it. Change is a beautiful form of existence. The only form of existence. But don't give me that "accept me as I am" excuse.

These thoughts come to me now on a cloudy day on a Friday at work because I wonder what serves us better : to show the best part of ourselves or the worst? I wage a constant battle within myself. A never ending chaos of confusion. At no time can I call myself a good person. Whatever good may be. Or perhaps I can. That too is a choice. I posed an interesting choice to a colleague here : given that impossible gift, which of the two would you prefer to be? One of the two referred to me. And the other to a friend, also a coworker. The colleague, very sensibly, chose the friend. It was a choice I would have made myself.

But I wondered perhaps : what choices we make are based only on what the other person reveals to us. And the unrevealed is an unspoken connection that is rare and uncommon. What if I were to tell the colleague that yes, no one would choose to be me knowing me, but what if I were to tell the colleague that the friend can also exhibit one of the hardest hearts and be ruthless in ways I could not have imagined? The problem is in the revealing : if I were to be cute and nice, would it hide the worst in me? This has nothing to do with the friend - poor thing, she fully deserves to be what she is considered as - a wonderful person. But she too has a cave, a cavernous darkness. The question is I chose to reveal mine. Hers lies buried. And that is where I think : should I be the potato that grows underground or the cactus that grows above ground?

Read more...

The Air Within

Sack Saturdays. Strike it off the calender. Delete it from all records. I don't remember a happy Saturday in my life. Think Saturday and I can only think of one old day that I came home from school to find life in ruins. Think Saturday and I can only think of a friend saying "I don't need you anymore." Think Saturday and like today, I can only think of deadlocked roads, scrapes and hurts and insane demands on the soul. And somehow, I always wonder why we remember the bad so well, and forget the good?

Is there a reason why we remember the digested remains of yesterday's past so well? If life is breath, then the air within me is stale. Rotting on the insides of yesterdays dead. And putrefying on a future that never will be. Lungs decaying with every breath. Fungus swarming every cells. Flies gnawing at the throat. Feasting on the flesh. Loving the odor of the past. And the farting of the future. A reeking smorgasm of suffocation. In this stupefying atmosphere does the past revel. Memories multiply, imposing their laughing hatred of the present. Dreams tussle in a whirlwind of terror. Die. Rapidly. Frighteningly fast as the future rushes out with each breath. Air within. All this air within. To me, it might as well be Air Without. 

Read more...

Thirty Thoughts

It's funny the thoughts that race through your mind when you are driving a bike through a seething crazed jungle of human traffic on wheels. Even as you are hemmed in at all angles by boorish people who apparently all have to reach their destination in the most suicidal form possible, you start thinking of life. Well, it's not so funny then because each time we are on an Indian road we do put our life in others' immensely incapable hands. So what better time to think of life then, really? Sitting alone in the safety of your room and staring at the ceiling does not really bring the pang of immediacy - the smell of looming death and intervening life - as close as an Indian road does. No wonder they say India is the land of spirituality! I understand why now!

As my mind wandered off into crazed highways of the past, a suicidal ride suddenly seemed like a life-affirming one. And no, I am not suicidal. We all are - unless you are some chained-at-home-creature, stepping out on to the road really is suicidal. Or the pavement. Oh really. Try it. Just get out there. And I did. I got out there. This is the beginning of the out.

I am 30 now. I like numbers like this. The decade-beginning or decade-ending number, depending on which way you look at it. And of course, it is better to look at the beginning. Last year, around this time, I thought I wanted to do something special for the 30th. You know, go stare into a komodo's face or kiss a lion or something like that. Things we feel we "need" to "do" so that we feel "alive." It's not merely enough that we get up each day. We need to be "alive." Isn't that what they all say? All these life-affirming books/movies/gurus/swamis/bankers/businessmen/coolies/teachers. The whole milieu. And I was/am one among them.

I am a petty writer. A stringer of words which simply don't capture the mess in my head, but I keep trying anyway for want of not knowing what to "do" anyway. But life tends to kick away plans as if it were a soccer ball on a playing field. Especially half-formed ones like mine. What is it to be truly alive? one may ask. Hell, I don't know. Or perhaps that is being alive. Being in one form of Heaven or Hell in alternate periods of time. Just so that we know the geography really well and don't mistake one for another when we finally reach wherever religion says we ought to reach once we choke on the bile of goodness and bitterness we churn all our life.

So just BEFORE I turned 30 last year, I got kicked in the knee. Literally. By that unforgiving piece of metal that juts out of a car and calls itself a door. The pain of that bodyslam was nothing. It was the afterbirth that left me gasping. Watching a surgeon slice through your knee was one of the scariest things I have "done" in my life. I know there are others who have cut their heart and livers out of themselves and lived to talk of the goodness of life. I am not one of them. I don't think I needed a meniscus and patella to tell me about life. It can sit quiet and do the work it is supposed to do.

So on the day I thought I would glare at a komodo, there I was, limping along to a cheap Mexican restaurant near North Orchard Street, Chicago. Lovely, I was in the fabled A of US. But it didn't quite cut it, you know? With just one good friend for company and a dazed unhappy-to-be-here colleague. Nah. That didn't cut it. That was miserable. Hell, is this the way to begin the Thorny Thirties? Even the burritos were slumping down in beanish misery.

Misery begets sorrow. Sorrow begets pity. Pity begets understanding. Somewhere, within the slices of tissue that were scarred out of my knee, there also began the process we try to call experience. I was at once awed and depressed. Awed because the body can be cowed by something so small. Depressed because the body can be cowed by something so small. I had little choice in choosing either of the two reactions so I chose both. And it is a state I still alternate with.

As I cut across the right lane into the left lane to overtake a vehicle on its left (Indian traffic rules are different), I think I love the 30th after all. Not because I did see the U of S of A, from the sweeping roar of the Niagara to the beautiful Smokies to the vast spectrum of the Grand Canyon and odd little excursions into Chicago's suburbland. Not because I wandered through to Laos and whittle time away endlessly and peacefully there. Not because I bought a car. Not because I plan to visit the Buddha this year in May. No. I think I love the 30th because I think it is just like any other year. It has a maddening sweet quality to it that every other year has had. I love the 30th because I know that I can celebrate the 31st just as if it were my 30th. I know that because I think I love the way that minutes add into hours that turn into days that burn their weeks on to the months that form the years that we say is our life. I love being where I am and watching the years go by. Because sometimes, that is all the doing you have to "do" to just be.

And I would still love to do that komodo thing.

Read more...