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.

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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...

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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