The Art of Driving

I have been reading this book called Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walters. Juxtaposing past and present with equal ferocity, I feel myself being yanked back and forth into time periods that we never can in real life. That's why we love reading so much. The tenacity of knowing that we can cling to illusion and pretend it's real.

It rained yesterday in Bangalore. Sweeping torrents. I joke. A drizzle can be a flood in this city of potholes, potbellies and potpourri. I drive these days with something approaching serenity. I don't have to do anything or be anything except drive. People will honk. Push you off the lane. Ok. There are no lanes in Bangalore. They push you off whatever side of the road you are on. Pedestrians will either jump in front of you or sedately walk in front of you, wishing, hoping or praying or just plain dumbing their way across the road. Policemen regulate the chaos into infernal chaos. And there I am. Music on my Ipod and all the thoughts of work and off-work and friends and ex-friends and family and the World Cup and Indian cricket and life and love and movies all swirling around in my head. Honk honk. The occasional glare. The threatening look. The smirk. I absorb it all. And realize just why people from the West consider India the land of spirituality. You have to a saint or a sinner in this country. And when you sin, you sin. And then you pretend to be a saint.

And so I meditate.

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When A Run Does Not Mean Running Away

I think I am guilty of that - sometimes, I feel I have run away from problems. Every time I am unhappy, I find myself flying to China. But then, I think that's not running away - it's running towards happiness. Today, I ran a different race. For the first time ever, I ran a full 10k marathon. It wasn't competitive - and a timing of just over an hour is ridiculous, but somehow during these days when I feel that accomplishments are a mirage, even this cast a pleasurable glow over the day.

I could have run faster and harder I knew. That is what makes me feel the same for life too. I can do better than this. Better than waiting for Fridays. And dreading Sunday evenings. Run faster and harder in life - run for happiness, because that's all there really is. There is no other run. Run to happiness.

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When Little Things Mean Something

I wake up these days feeling like I have never slept. I don't know what it is - the lethargy of a hot summer kicking in? Or the ennui of each day that yawns itself into monotony? Or just the excesses of an adrenaline-packed week in Shanghai?

After a gap of just over 7 months, I was in China again for a week. On work. The last time I was in Shanghai was more than 5 years ago. I remember little much of that trip, fated as I was not to record it to the trusty device called a computer, but instead relying on my this failing memory of mine. It was during New Year's time, that much I do remember. I was with Allan and Birdy - and we found spots on the Bund with a beer each in hand, and watched as Shanghai welcomed the New Year. Very limply. The fireworks were bland. The Chinese were just awaiting their own new year, and this was just a Western tradition that had to be observed, because Shanghai after all is aspiring to be the Big Apple of Asia. Yet, I remember that moment though. Limp and languid, Shanghai was always a mesmerizing homage to capitalism.

Now there I was - these years in between have changed me. I was at that time a naive young woman. I still am a naive young woman. What has changed? The friends. The people. The jobs. The life. The passion. The commitment. Then, I didn't know much Chinese beyond nihao. Now, I am able to converse with taxi drivers, argue at ticket stations, and make and receive compliments. Slowly, China is opening up to me as I know its language. And I think to myself, what a wonderful fool I was back then, when I had the time and I never thought to learn. Still, we are masters in hindsight and fools in foresight.

It was during this week that I met Jack, one of my students from Xuchang. He is one of the few to keep in touch with me, regularly informing me of his dreams, his hopes and ambitions. Jack was in Suzhou, and he came over to Shanghai to meet me. I immediately recognize him - the names may dim in the eyes of a former teacher - but we remember the faces. All the time. He walks over to me to the nearest mall, helps me while I buy little nick knacks to give to the people back home. We then walk back to the Marriott's luxurious coffee lounge, and it is there that we talk for a while. Jack is eager to tell me the stories of students I once taught even though the names mean little to me. A few are married. A few are mothers. Or fathers. One is out of the country. I listen, my eyes scanning the doorway awaiting the arrival of another friend. And it is then that Jack gives me the most precious thing to take away from the city that has it all. "You were such a good teacher. When Allan used to teach us, he was very serious. But you made us laugh. And we would talk then in your class," Jack said, referring to the Spoken English class I used to handle. These words - they mean big. At a time in my life when I constantly search for some meaning in every job I do, I realize that it was only in teaching that I found that meaning lasts. When people remember you and give a little space for you - that doesn't make a job. It makes a life. It makes happiness. It makes living. Now, if only I wish I can live again.

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Endings and Beginnings

A few years ago - was it almost 6 or 7 years ago? - when I left China I wrote to a good friend of mine about the ending of one stay - she wrote back saying that all endings are beginnings. It stuck in my head. Just as one thing turns over to an end, it merely means that something else new has begun.

February 10, 2011 was the last day at work for me. After 3.5 years, I was left with a bag of mixed feelings. I had enjoyed working there. Nothing more. Nothing less. I had had the pleasure of meeting wonderful people - and the pain of watching one of the wonderful people turn into some unrecognizable form that I can scarcely call a human being. I have learned much. And unlearned so much more. It was good. It was lovely. And like all times, it's changing now for the better.

Now, I go back to the same place where I once thought of endings as endings before the beginning began. Once again, I go to China thinking it will be the beginning. And I will come back knowing that the beginning doesn't end. It's for those lessons that you live for. And somehow even silly idiotic and neurotic people make you live.

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Some Days Are Like This Only

I have had a very happening day. It's odd how we spend days together seemingly closeted in a little space of inaction, and then there are days like today where it seems that all of life's clowns have gathered together to pull your ears and twist your elbows and dive their fingers through your nose.

The morning was fairly uneventful. I had had a dream in which I was back in class, except it wasn't class, but the office, and I was irritating my manager in varied ways - including rattling my desk, against which he was sitting in his chair, and opening the newspaper in such a way as to cover his head. Naturally, he was irritated, and naturally I think to myself what's eating him! There is a strange character in the real office, who I have taken a fond dislike to. My good friend at work is fascinated by her weirdness. But me thinks that considering that this new gal is occupying an old throne of a colleague who was the weirdest of them all, you can't expect much different. At breakfast, I snatch the comb from the pockets of an unsuspecting guy.

After lunch, on our usual walk, my friend and I are accosted by India's own special characters - eunuchs. One eunuch followed us for a while - but he/she was relatively mild. Her friend who came along clearly was hungry. He/she tugged my friend's shirt. My friend moved away, or rather tried to. "I have nothing," I protested showing my empty hands. "Give me your trousers then," aggressive eunuch asked. It seems so funny now, but back then we were just irritated. Just how a society can allow open extortion in broad daylight is beyond me. We shook them off, but it was a sour end to a good lunch. But then the wheel swung again! I was so happy to know that something I was waiting for so long had arrived! In my mailbox! Then the wheel moved crazily - I didn't know what to do with what I was waiting for, because I still have to wait for another to arrive in my mailbox. Horribly confused is a state of mind I hate.

As if that isn't enough, I was to go on a trip over the weekend. Then again, I wasn't. Oh, now I can. But no, the resort is full. So shut the case on that for now. On the drive back, Bangalore has well and truly entered the World Digging Competition. The rules of the game are simple. Dig as much as you can. Wherever you can. As wide as you can. As deep as you can. As messily as you can. Dig. Dig. Dig as if your life depends on it. And the last I checked, we are right in the Top 10 of the Competition. The prize of course is the well-deserved and coveted label of being called the Worst Jokers on the Planet, as well as the Only People Who Can Systematically Destroy Whatever They Have Built, and the title of City of Diggers. So I meander through narrow lanes that have sprouted huge mounds of earth on either sides, navigate through treacherous swamps, and come home thinking that I don't need a trip to wild Wayanad. This is as wild as it gets.

Come home, still confused about Dilemma One Regarding The Possibility of Waiting for More Waiting. Hurry through my workout, then buy vegetables from the shop downstairs. Quarrel with the guy at the counter who tells me that the vegetable I want is over, even though I have seen it myself, simply because he is too lazy to fetch it himself. I give the guy at the other counter an earful, but nothing seems to work really because this is also the Land Of The Great White Scam Called Customer Service. Did you not hear about it? Those damn Pakistanis have taken all the Customer Service we had! Drat! Interfering Pakis!

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Wow

Yesterday, one of my good friends, Birdy, did something absolutely amazing. No, she didn't fly to the Moon and back. She did something better than that. She reached out to an ex-friend. What's amazing about that? It is. I am in awe.

Physical acts are hard to perform. We all admire the ones who run the Iron Man or Woman marathon. The ones who finish the Tour de France. The ones who climb Mount Everest some million times. There is a certain sense of respect, admiration, jealousy, and plain wonderment that accompanies such acts. But to me, breaking the boundaries and barriers of the physical self is one thing, trying to break through emotional barriers is another. It's just as much a huge feat as climbing Mount Everest to reach out to someone. And unfortunately, this gets such short shrift these days. Sure, we need the climbers and the runners, but I feel our world needs the reachers - the ones who can keep aside their ego, and reach out to another person. Especially after things have ended spectacularly acrimoniously, bitterly and sadly with the other person. Especially after you know in your heart that you are not of much value to the other person. Yet, you take the risk. Why? Because that person is of value to YOU, never mind what low role you play in that person's life.

I know I wouldn't have done what Birdy did, being ruled as I am by the presence of sinful pride, and the knowledge of rejection. I know many others wouldn't have done what Birdy did. It's a different matter that I think the person she reached out to may be dumb enough not to understand the value of the offering, and be ruled instead by the sacred vaults of fear. But to me, Birdy climbed an Everest yesterday. The emotional Everest we all keep in our hearts that allows us to store petty grudges and painful swords deep in the past, and refuse to throw it out even if the past is bleeding us to death. In climbing this Everest, she showed me just how beautiful a person can be. And how small Everest can be if we allow it so. Indeed, she reached the Moon. And back.

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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.

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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. :-)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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