What do I have?

An old sea man, with his beautiful collection of rock pieces looks at the passing inquisitive tourist and with an enigmatic smile that is deeply self satisfied  proclaims, "All I have is rocks.."
 'I ain't got no house/Ain't got no car/I got me a 1950 Les Paul guitar/Wont you take it mister. Banker'- lyrics of a Lynyrd Skynyrd song."All I have is my music... you might as well put a price on that.."

I stood looking at the water front that stood between me and the shining lights of the city. This wasn't the all powerful ocean, this was just a stretch of backwaters. The waves didn't surf and foam. They rippled and danced all synchronized. There was something in the sound of the waters. It was like the sound of the oar cutting through the waters. An invisible hand rowing across, creating all these gentle waves. It was perhaps some wandering soul looking in the waters of life, for that 'pearl'. For the answer to the question, 'what do you have to offer'?

Things that should change

I slept reading about the financial frauds of the developed world, the 'subjectivity' that shrouds financial transactions as you become the JP Morgans' and the Barclays' of the world. There is a causality like the Lehman brothers, which lives and breathes for hundred of years and then becomes illiquid and disappears from the economic world.
And then I woke to the cruel reality of my country, developing countries where lives are lost in freak accidents. Life and death is the fraud of developing countries. It happens on every scale, human error, natural calamity, terrorism. It is not to say that developed countries are immune to any such occurrences. Its just that our societies have become so passive that day after day such instances occur and we brace each one with a stoic face and move on with the guilty roaming scot-free. It is here that a Bhopal gas tragedy trial can stretch that long that the guilty die a natural death before being proven guilty. Why this apathy? Why have we become so numb? What will wake us up from our reverie?
We are a argumentative society, why do all our arguments turn mute when it is time to bring the guilty to the book. When I look at societies here, i find them more vociferous in communicating their disapproval. There is a 'system' mindset, which tells, this is how things are suppose to work and there is minimum tolerance for deviation. Our society is deviant is all regards it is hard to find a working system somewhere. There has to be a method to madness for survival and we somehow miss it in the entire conundrum of events around us.
My heart goes out for the families of people who lost their loved ones in the AMRI hospital fire in Kolkata. I witnessed two major fires in the last three years that I spent in the city. The city has places which seem as if there are waiting for an inferno, waiting for a tragedy to happen. Is it now about time to raze outlived structures and lay the foundation of new structures and new societies.. I don't want to be the bard who sings paeans of change, I want to figure out how to bring in the change.

For You

I keep coming back to you
For there is a part of me
that lives with you...
For there is a part of me
which is you..


I smile and I cry when I think of you
I smile for the good times..
I cry for the good times..
But the smile I'll always owe it to you..


You have always walked me back home
Listened to my stories of the day
You could read the sparkle in my eyes
You could sing back the song, i had in my heart..


I can't see you everyday
I don't hear from you everyday
But I just believe somehow
we can always pick up the threads
from where we left..
and walk along new routes
and sing along new songs..

Incorrigible optimism

As I look outside my window. I realize that winter is all around. The fall colors are gone.. the leaves lie rustling on the ground trying to have a hushed conversation with the trees that adorned them once. What could they talk about? What could they possibly share. Its the end of a conversation. The leaves will be blown away with the next wind and there will be far away.. all the dry dead leaves awaiting their burial. The tree will stand just where it is and wait for the spring to come to adorn it once again with new fresh leaves. The cycle will begin once again, the cycle of Life and Death. The beauty of fresh arrival and the bitter sweet pain of death and decay. It is the template nature follows.
When I try to decipher the rustle of the leaves.I try to look beyond the hurt of being cast down on the ground, of lying there trampled beneath feet.  All those sounds that I hear around me are not cries. At least that's what i want to believe. I want to believe that they are promises, they are reassurances, they are words that say believe that things will change. Believe that the winds will usher in new life. Believe that its all a part of a plan and someone up above has something good in store for us.
Surprisingly I try to sound convinced about my own theory only when I see someone else losing faith. I tower over my own doubts and misgivings and tell him to believe. Believe beyond reason that things will be fine! I myself have less of an inkling of where I am going and so just to lull myself for a moment I smile and think, 'why dis kolavari kolavari diii'. Its something you don't know, you just take in the craziness, to make light of the somber winter around in the hope of having an effervescent conversation with the sun, the leaves, the trees and the the breeze one spring morning :)

Resemblances II

Why do i see such a strong resemblance in everything that I have been writing in a while :)

I need a new theme to explore instead of just being nostalgic. And i just recalled this line Shashi Tharoor wrote in some article.
"Nostalgia is a middle-aged affliction; it attaches importance to the memory of experiences that mean little to the majority who did not share them."
The focal point is 'middle-aged afflictions'..  :) (Not flattering!)

Resemblances

Do we seek out for them or they just jump out to us? I am more inclined to believe that we try to seek out for them. At certain points of your life when you are unsure of which direction to take you seek consolation in the slightest resemblance of your predicament you see around. There may be real people but if you have a real good imagination then you can look up to characters from a novel or movie or TV series characters.  I am not sure if you should applaud your imagination for figuring out that uncanny resemblance or pity yourself for seeking out fictitious pillars of support. We like to believe that we are strong and rational but we are fragile and irrational at the same time. So we are willing to believe in a make belief world only to make sense of the situation that you find yourself in.

I wish I could dismiss this just as an over activity of my mind. However I can’t and I’m here to argue my case. The imagined characters we see, read about evolve out of someone’s own experiences at some point of time. They do have an iota of truth about them and there can be a possibility that that truth resonates with your own belief. Art comes closest to life when people can actually relate to it in personal terms. So I would say it is good art if it can make that relation and strike that resemblance. Moving from pure art to commercial movies and soaps, don’t sneer just as well because I was someone who did that just a few days back and then I realized I’m also culpable to believing that sometimes your life, your personality comes close to some fictitious character on the idiot boss.

However nature is just not good at creating identicals, it doesn’t repeat its code. The closest it allows are resemblances, certain similar traits, but then the parts don’t add up to identical wholes. So it’s just about fleeting or uncanny resemblances and nothing more. The rest from here is your own imagination. And just like that a moment of your life may have a little resemblance with a character on the TV. And just like that you build comradeship with a certain character in the make belief world. And you wait to watch what happens next J

Voices

'You didn't know what you were looking for
Till you heard the voices in your ear..'

& so goes the song. '..I fell in love with you again.. Please can I see you ev'ry day'.

Its just some voices, some sights that take you back once again to the time you miss somewhere deep down. There are certain patterns of life that you grow up with. For me it was listening to Mukesh sing Ramayana early in the morning. It was my dad's ritual but slowly i found myself humming to it unconsciously. It was always there within me. I outgrew those days of getting ready for school. The cassettes outlived their days and just like that the pattern lost its continuity. Today after so many years my morning again had the Ramayana playing just like yesteryears. I didn't know that I was seeking it all along but when I heard the singing I felt the joy of discovering it.

There are so many things that we seek from life. Some that we are aware of and a good many that we are not even aware of. We realize it only when we accidentally stumble upon it someday. They were always so much within our reach if only we had known that we wanted them all along. The joy of reconnecting with the old and dear is inexplicable.

Then there is the other stuff. The things you seek and do not get. The connections that just lose their touch. The things that you really seek and the things you seek because everyone wants. The things you really bond over and connect and things you fake.

The quest continues always :)

Intrinsically American

'Hey how are you! is not a question its a greeting. It's something you say in passing and it doesn't imply that you would actually wait to hear the answer'!!!

ahh how eternally grateful I feel to the ethics professor for spelling this out and loud in the class as typically American. I had been having my own ethical dilemma with this greeting to the extent that I had devised a counter approach. Shoot this question in the other person's direction with a smile before he throws it at you and then rush off..

Then i can't get the deal of food that is served just 'too cold' for my pahari appetite.

I'm yet to spot something with a 'made in america' label, a bandanna scarf for a team building exercise also reads, 'made in china'

I'll perhaps keep adding to this list!

Stocks!

A: ‘So how is your stalker doing?’

Me: ‘I don’t invest in stocks (pun intended)!’

B:’Your stocks just went up!’

Me: ‘I don’t invest in stocks’

These conversations were in different points of time and in different cities and in different contexts. But the recurrence of the word stock stuck me in the economics class! New perspectives with the economics and accounting classes that have made their way into my life. However I’m not going into the economic value here but yes I’m definitely going to look at the ‘value proposition’. How much do we invest in the stocks of public admiration and ego boosts? How do we respond to market buoys and market dips?

For all the time I said, ‘I don’t invest in stocks’ the truth is none of us are really so detached. The market is all around us and we are very much there. However we all choose to be affected by it in different measure. There are the very aggressive investors and the highly volatile stocks and then there are the consistent performers and occasional shooting stars. It is interesting to watch the relationship for different people however the more enlightening part is to be your own audience.

When you find yourself in a different place, different geographically and far removed from your comfort zone and your circle of friends you get an honest audience of yourself in a new market! You get registered in a new stock exchange and there you go. Some days play rough and it seems you can’t make sense of anything around. It’s like you don’t fit in at all. I have had this feeling before but what took me by surprise is how I was affected thinking where I stand in others estimation. I was thinking of my stock. It is a different environment around. I look back at the relaxed 4 years of college and I know this is not the same deal. Back then it was more relaxed, it was more about friendship and now all I hear is networking. While I’m writing the above lines I can hear all the ‘told you so’ comments from friends ‘who’d been there & done that’! Dude I’m not complaining, I am experiencing it firsthand. However for everything that may change, everything that I may learn or unlearn I still wouldn’t bother myself with my stocks, intangible assets work for me J

New Friends need New Games

And then someday you just realize you played your best game of ‘mafia’ not today but the first time someone taught you.  I think of the mafia game and I recall the Nagarjuna Sagar, the Tata winger, the ‘shutter-island’ ah!  And the wonderful bunch of people I befriended back in Hyderabad. I suddenly realize how earnestly I miss them all.

And then we sit in CCD coffee shop assuming the characters of our favorite movie.  It was pure awesomeness, what an august company it was-the Kungfu Panda, Master Shifu, the Tigress and the peacock J Round and cheerful that’s how ‘S ‘qualified the Panda round. Sophisticated and prim R was the peacock through & through. I just recalled C was multitasking; she was the Tigress and the Master Sheep. To shadow the peacock in the Jade palace (Shilpa Park) we needed the Master Sheep.  And for this new school of histrionics Kungfu-style! I had to be the unassuming Master Shifu.

I still believe it was the rain dance on the roof top in Hyderabad that gave me the sneezes! All dripping and cold, that’s the way to enjoy a Sunday shower at home. And how do you enjoy the sun on weekdays? The team communal breaks in the evening.  Barista time in the ‘sprawling’ office lawn under the sun umbrellas, talking of life philosophically, talking of dreams, and cracking jokes at the manager’s expense…‘Pyar batete chalo!’

 I could go on counting all the ‘good-times’ but what strikes me today is how in retrospective all the days look so much more beautiful. Every time you move in with a new set of people you again have to make a fresh start. It will again take an effort to learn a new game because ‘the mafia game can never be as much fun as it was the first time when someone taught you’.

We Travel

“ We travel, initially to lose ourselves,

 And we travel next to find ourselves..

And we travel in essence, to become young fools again- 

to slow time down and get taken in and fall in love once more”

I read the above lines in some TOI Sunday edition long time back and it has stayed with me since then. Now when I have made the longest trek of my life this thought came back to me once again.  Yes I have come this far to lose myself. Literally yes, I keep losing track of the way and then with all the resourcefulness I can muster I find my way back. This analogy works pretty much with everything.  With people who initially look, speak differently than you, you shake off the unfamiliarity with a tender smile and work a conversation ahead. You lose yourself momentarily only to find your way back home.

Yes I travelled so far to become a young fool again! Had grown old (grey haired) working in the IT sector. I am pretty sure it will be difficult to unlearn things and learn new things.  I am not sure how easy it would be to become a fool again! ‘To slow time down..’ the ultimate elixir. For all the milestones and ‘to do’ things on our list, wish we had just some more time.  When I look into my parents eye why do I see a glance that almost wishes for time to slow down, or is it just me seeing the reflection of my heart’s desire to hold on to things I love.  Being so far away does make things move slowly.  When you sit all alone time does seem to go slow. Ironic how you get what you desire but not really as you would expect it to come along.

To get taken in and fall in love just once more..

Perhaps this is the most philosophical part. We walk gingerly along the shore afraid of the waters. They may take you in and throw you on unknown shores. Leave you all bruised, leave you all hurt. When you leave the familiar shores and step in, you are not always sure of what to expect and the only thing that can keep you afloat is if you can truly love the waters as much as you loved the shore.  And for all you may know, for all the time you were tip-toing along the shore your plank of ‘Bodhi tree’ was adrift in the waters (The 'Bodhi-tree' here has a contextual reference!)

Living on faith

“And beyond the last campfire man has faith for friend..”, Horace Shipp.
And you know it accompanied him to the top of the world..

“Drive no faster than your guardian angels can fly!”

At the hour of our greatest happiness and in the hour of deepest despair, each of us finds our own personal anchor. We hope against all odds, we pray for miracles, we look up to a power stronger than us, we live on a faith that there is someone watching over us and he has a plan for us. A believer or an atheist each to his, a little faith somewhere. Some look for a tangible reason others believe in stories and tales passed through generations.

I am trying to recall the stories which I never came across in course books. These stories had quaint sounding gods. These gods had small temples all over the hills. There were festivities in honor of these deities, but no official holidays. Incidentally these festivities coincided with the changing seasons. Incidentally the stories too talked of a time when civilization just started in the hills. These stories were about stoically facing natural calamities with the grace of god, about close encounters with wild beasts and miraculous escapes. In the darkest of night, in the thickest of forest when people lost their way, they found some generous help in the most unexpected ways. A diety, a faith was borne and upto this day generations living in the hills worship their local gods, their ,’Golijyun’,’Gangnath’,’Airy’, ‘Chaumu’,’Haru and Saim’,’Betaleswar’. Each has its ardent followers in certain pockets of the hills, and people believe that he is there to watch over their lives and livelihood.

After a very long gap, I am here at my home to celebrate one such festivity with the true hill-fervor. ‘Harela’, is a festival that heralds the rainy season in the hills. In every household the eldest member of the family owns this festival. A handful of five or more variety of grains are sown in a small container for almost 10 days. These grains sprout into small leafy stems, which are then cut and distributed in the entire family. These same grains are then sown in the fields; there is a special blessing that goes with the ‘Harela’ leaves. The exact verse I’ll paste in another few days, but the gist of the blessing is to welcome greenery in life, as in fresh enthusiasm, prosperity and well being.

Symbolism and celebrations have their own significance. Yet they may appear as mere charade if you don’t believe it in some way. You realize their true meaning when you internalize them. They become a part of your identity, a part of your belief, a part of your faith. These stories give you roots that will sustain you as they sustained the generations before you. These deities looked for your people when they made their tryst with a new place, they will look for you when you bravely embark on your pursuits.

NET-(act...INact)-ivity …

I accept that this word coinage may not be obvious to some people in the first glance but I hope to make it clear by the last word of the blog. However if I fail then try your luck to google and see(subtle hint!)

A lot of things have changed in the recent past. I am un-employed, having resigned from my job(clarification not thrown out for my activity/inactivity).I am peacefully at home and not sharing my space in a rented apartment. However the peace is not the utopian ‘comfortably-numb’ state because it is the preparation phase for the next lap which is a total stranger. Not delving much into deeper stranger stuff. I am going to write about the one change that makes me fret most often and gives my mom fresh ammunition to charge at an entire generation plagued with the ills of living away from home.

The simple act of connecting to the internet has turned into an infinite wait. After a patient/impatient ‘lucky’ wait I manage to get connected, only to find my connection crawling at 15kbps,20kbps and back to 0 kbps. I can always walk up to the AC cyber café near my home, however that makes internet too labour intensive when just a few days back it was so readily and speedily available at a click’s notice. Well I am still scouting for ways to bring my internet woes to end but that is not the point of this blog.

The point (my mother’s point) is- what makes me so restless? For any immediate need the cyber café is just a small walk away so why all the fuss. It turns out all my needs are immediate, for all the questions that keep coming to my head I need immediate answers. Then to aggravate matters I have developed a compulsive random surfing/downloading habit. Most often I scout for songs primarily English bands. Perhaps for me the initiation was a little late. It coincided with my younger brother’s guitar learning quest.

I trace a band and plough the net for all its relevant history geography. All I need is a cue to the band, may be a mention by someone or a shared audio/video link on Facebook. I might notice the song of the band feature in some movie or popular TV sops. Now this is an elaborate process, you listen to the song, watch it on YouTube, read the lyrics and further read the reviews of the song. This part is completely net dependent and I’m completely paralyzed with my awesome net connection. The next discussion phase with my kid brother is pretty easy these days. However all I can discuss sitting right across the room is about the awful speed and wasted effort. Thus not finding anything new to explore I thought of writing about songs that are a real treasure for me.

My most recent discovery is the band, The National. It is a pretty much quaint band (judging by the fact that I have encountered it just a few days back.) The baritone of the lead singer and the musical arrangement really got me hooked. One of my favorites is also the first song that I heard of this band-Slow show. Interestingly in their songs, the lyrics have certain lines that just cling to you. There is a vivid visual imagination that goes with the song, sample the following lyrics with the instrumentation.

You know I dreamed about you
For twenty-nine years before I saw you
You know I dreamed about you
I missed you for
For twenty-nine years—Slow show, The National

I’ll not quote further from this song, because I’ll end up pasting the entire lyrics. Then there is the deeply melancholic, About today. The last lines as he croons and the song slowly fades..

How close am I to losing you
How close am I to losing—About today, The National

We're half awake in a fake empire
We're half awake in a fake empire—Fake empire, The National

I know you're a serious lady.
Living off a teacup full of cherries.
Nobody knows where you are living.
Nobody knows where you are.—So far around the bend, The National

How can anybody know
How they got to be this way--Daughters of the Soho riots, the National

The other songs that I downloaded of the band and am now listening with the backdrop of pitter patter rain drops are: ‘Mistaken for strangers’,’ Racing like a pro’, ’Afraid of everyone’,’ Apartment story’. I just realized that all these songs are beautifully melancholic although not quite upbeat. I have lots in my repertoire for all moods but for today this is the flavor.

Coming back to the NET-(act...INact)-ivity, let me try my luck if I can post this blog in the next 15minutes and gladly sigh a breath of relief.

Sun and shadows..

Have you ever noticed the pageantry of the setting sun?

I have seen it follow me all orange and big racing along as I eye it from a moving bus/train/auto.

I have tried to catch the last of it as it lazily snuggles behind the cold mountains and I try to still feel the warmth in the receding light.

I have seen it; in all its majestic glory descend into the thirsty expanse of the blue waters.  The golden rays gurgling and playing with different hues on the palette of the ocean.

And today I made the sun just disappear flat out...  

It was this little cloudy and hazy sky and the setting sun looked like this meek boy you could look right across in his eyes. It was faint but still held on to his well rounded form. I took off my eyes and meandered a while in a conversation. It’s a strange conversation where you are all but searching for words- the few words, the few glances and the hanging pauses before you know you have to say goodbye. You glance periodically at the cruel timekeeper; it was 6:30 pm. I look into the treasure trove of yester day’s and yester years to fish out a conversation. For all my efforts I am back to looking at the moving hands at 6:35pm. I didn’t fare well but a conversation is a two way effort so my friend why don’t you push the cart for a while and I’ll pitch in just as you want.  

It’s no good ever ..you lose it quarter way or inch somehow midway then fade out.  And fade out we did, and the only thing to rest my eyes upon was this faint little sun in the sky; almost scooped up by the arrogant clouds. It was 6:54pm and I was stalking the sun watching its every move.  And then I made the sun disappear, it faded right before my eyes...

Ah what an emotional fool to believe that I could make the sun to disappear..

Perhaps you can make the sun to disappear at times. And then your only hope is that perhaps protected by the looming shadows the conversation still carries on uninterrupted in an unknown world, while we walk into the daylight of the world as we know it.

Simply put it’s not easy for me to say goodbye!

Smash...

Smash! The voice bellowed... It was time to go for the kill, serve the most potent ‘power-speed’ smash and leave the opponent defenseless. There was at least four pair of eyes following the shuttlecock (old joke, a speck-y player so 5 pairs of eyes). Well there were other people waiting for their turns and so watching the game and so following the shuttlecock but the command was strictly picked by just a single pair of eardrums and relayed across to the brain, my brain! And so I positioned myself all alert and taut, ready for the action.



Well if it wasn’t a well executed smash, best case it would have landed in my court itself, not angled well enough to cross across the net. A technical alibi is any time better than an embarrassed grin. Then there could be the case ‘not powerful enough’, ‘not speedy enough’, here the opponent gets a high for having just saved a smash shot.


Oops now that wasn’t a smash. It went long and outside the badminton court. It was a naïve shot just a last minute attempt to just get it across, far-far across. Your partner knows exactly that he’s got a raw deal, but thankfully he isn’t the sneering kinds but still you become a miniature version of yourself dwarfed by the real players. The opponents discover soon enough the weakling in the court and target you left, right and centre. There are some occasional freak shots that get applauded to keep your morale boasted but all in all you are trying to save your face through the game. The opponents score courtesy you, the onlookers are happy seeing that their turn to play next is coming sooner than expected again courtesy you.


Its that moment of your life when your entire life passes in front of your eyes, your childhood days when you never learnt to play ‘the game’, the college days when u preferred lazing around and then the office days when all you do is dream to do something productive. What the hell! Who cares if I never played before, I am playing now. I am the weakling today but I’ll outsmart at least few even pathetic souls tomorrow. And best of all I know people who promise to teach me the game from afar and even better come and ‘avenge me for all the 15-luv’(just an expression not that it really happened!)

Said the mountain to the girl…

The sunrays play lazily in the valley in the winter days. It cozily snuggles in, slowly takes the little houses and the tall trees in its warm embrace. It’s the time of school holidays, college breaks and the time to break free from office and head home for a while. It’s the time to pack a little picnic lunch and hike to a sunny little place around.


She prepares a light lunch, packs a bottle of water and a few seasonal fruits. She’s sure to find those fruits en route but still she prefers to carry her own bounty. She packs her camera religiously, a sweatshirt to ward off the evening chill and heads onwards.

She enjoys her solitary excursion. It satisfies her need to escape, the need to be with herself at peace. The city she has been carrying with herself feels lighter as she climbs up the hill. With every step forward she feels the fetters loosening. All she has for company are people who are deeply engrossed in their daily activity. The laborious ilks are collecting wood for the evening fire or tree leaves for animal fodder. They glance at her nonchalantly and continue with their activity. She occasionally flashes a smile across that gets shyly reciprocated. Along the way she finds scanty shops that give her a sufficient look as if satisfied with their regular customers but humble enough to provide for her if she goes asking. They leave her in peace and don’t shout across to sell her something.


She comes across fellow travelers who carry a backpack like her and brandish their enviable cameras. They are there to soak in the peace, away from the clamor of the city they took refuge in the hills and seem to be overwhelmed with the serenity around. For them it was a first time experience. For them the beauty of the hills and the sky overhead is a novelty that they want to capture in their cameras and take it with them. They look at the glory of the hills on ‘one’ wintery day, they have not seen it all verdant in monsoons, nor in blossoms in April. She had. For them the river flowing below was all tame and somber, they had not seen her wild and gurgling in the rains. She had. It amused them to look at the antiques of the monkeys around, the young ones trudging along their mothers. However she had fought them when they came to uproot the pretty geranium she had planted and gnaw at their stems.


But that was long back. She has been away all these years. She had to move out for her education. She had to move out for her career she always had her reasons to march ahead and leave her home behind. It suddenly struck her where did she belong now. Is she the outsider who looks all around with a sense of surprise? Her life spent in the hills is now a memory for her, will it slowly keep fading away. Would she gaze at these photographs some day and not feel nostalgic. Will the alienation someday make her a tourist in her own beloved home?

She stood by the still mountain top overlooking the meandering road and watched afar at the lazy bus as it tried to negotiate the turn with utmost care. She spread out her mat loosened her backpack and sat still with her eyes following the approaching bus. It amused her to look at the so very familiar roadways bus that looked like a lost leviathan from her childhood days. It brought back memories of all the trips to all the relatives spread out in the hilly-hemisphere. Spreading her hands on the grass beneath her she found the little ‘lady bird’ as it scurried its way hurriedly. She picked it up, looked closely at the beauty of her red and black spots as it walked across her palm. She felt lighter within. Just as light as the blooming white dandelion that allows the wind to just sweep it away.

She looked reassuringly to the hills. Her every childhood memory was still preserved with them. It was as if when she was around they could sense her, and then they would playfully toss around all those memories, which bounced and echoed loudly enough for her to recollect everything vividly back again.


They would speak to her even when she returned after a long silence. And the girl knew deep within, she will always return, for it was the only place that she would ever call home.

Remembering Tagore..

"Jodi Tor Dak Shune Keu Na Ashe, tobe akla cholo re" - (if nobody comes to you when you call for them - then walk alone .."

I do not recall from where did my fascination for Rabindranath Tagore’s literature all started. It may have been class 11 when I put up on notice board a poem by the bard on a self designed poster since I was in ‘Tagore house’. May be it went further back when we sang his songs in the school choir. Although to be honest, singing the English translations of his Bengali songs was a slightly tedious affair. A song is more lyrical in its native language, translations can’t do that justice.

I cannot put my finger down and say what drew me towards his literature but the romance lingered. I randomly came across his quotes in newspapers. The following quote I picked up from TOI and wrote across the first page of my diary. This was perhaps around the time I was sitting at home waiting for my results for Engineering entrance and I felt as if someone was speaking to me directly to stop being anxious about my future.

“Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers
But be fearless in facing them..
Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain
But for the heart to conquer it..
Let me not live in anxious fear to be saved
But hope for the patience to win my freedom.”

My college library had a good old literature section and provided me with enough Tagore material to scribble in my diary. Interestingly around this time I got my first mobile and with that I started texting Tagore across to my friends. A handful of us had really caught on the literary bug and soon my collection started expanding.

“Praise shames me for I secretly beg of it!”

“Death belongs to life as birth does
The walk is in the raising of the foot as in the laying of it down”

“How small is the earth and confined
Watched and followed by the persistent horizons
The light like a cage has shut out the dark eternity
And the hours hop and cry within its barriers.”

Imagine texting the following poem. All this effort my neighbor had put in to send across her Tagore favourite.

Fireflies
"I touch God in my song as the hill touches the far away sea with its waterfall
The butterfly counts not months but moments and has time enough.
Let my love, like sunlight surround you and give you illumined freedom.
Love remains a secret even when spoken, for only a lover truly knows that he is loved.
Emancipation from the soil is no freedom for the tree.
In my love, I pay my endless debt to thee".

Then finally I picked a personal copy of Gitanjali. (Now that event is dated, 5th Oct 2005). It’s a English translation. Even a good translation cannot match the glory of the original creation, but nevertheless I found immense beauty in the little verses. When I read the verses I feel as if it is the voice of a person deeply in love that echoes across. You can sense the vulnerabilities and fragilities of the human existence submitting to the strength of an all-encompassing love. The human ego is lost in the strong undercurrent of love. It’s the humble sole rejoicing in the bliss of a selfless love and yearning to embrace the loved one. The idealism here very rarely manifest in our relationships but then its exhilarating to look up to the ideal of love. I for my part appreciate the imagination that can perceive this beauty in relationships. The imagination, subtleties, submission and humility in the verses fill me with a tender feeling.

Thereafter I picked up ‘Complete work of Tagore’ which has essays, short stories and his poems. It was a complete delight. Since I read it back in college, I remember certain scenes and characters like a distant memory. I still have this image of a postman living in a quaint village, a woman silently accepting her plight while gazing out at the sea etched in my mind. The stories give a deep insight into the interaction of the individual and the society around that time. Further the psychological portrayal of the characters gives you a feeling of déjà-vu (at least I can say that for myself). The most endearing characters are perhaps the women in his stories and literature. They are enigmatic, intelligent, real and strong. Very few writers can delve this beautifully into the intricacies of the female mind :)

The next phase of Tagore came in when I was working in Kolkata for 2 years. The Indian museum in Kolkata has an entire set of paintings by the Tagore family. The city has a unique relation with him. There is this metro station in Kolkata ‘Rabindra Sadan’, the graffiti on the platform draws inspiration from the poet’s life. There are sketches of him around, his poems, his songs are all written across. Being a non-Bengali I missed out on the ‘letter’ but still enjoyed the ‘spirit’. Then there is the ‘Rabindra Sangeet’ that is an integral part of all social gatherings. Well a little story here, we watched the Hindi movie Rock On in Priya theatre Kolkata, when the movie finished, the casting didn’t have the Rock on track playing instead it was the Rabindra Sangeet. Perhaps I still have to develop an hear for that. I still have Shantineketan to explore.
This is his 150th centenary year and I am truly overwhelmed how he still continues to exist in our midst. His creative faculties have well surpassed him and continue to challenge minds. For me the romance is far from over, there is lots to explore yet!

"The traveller has to knock at every alien door to come to his own,
& one has to wonder through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine in the end".

May Days..

May has been an eventful month so far..

Along with the usual spate of birthdays in the first week, marriages in the subsequent week, the soaring mercury, the mid-year blues. My mind has been too cluttered to say the least. Or perhaps this is just the beginning..

“Whenever there is the least sign of the nest becoming a jealous rival of the sky my mind like a migrant bird tries to take flight to a distant shore…”- Tagore

Just when I was getting comfortable in the place and the job, I decided to take flight. I tendered the second resignation of my life, clocking one exact year. Resigning on the same day I joined, we come with hopes and leave with a momentary sense of relief, of freedom. How false or true who is to judge..

Talking of hopes..

“Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness..” Matrix

How we muster all the strength to banish the weakness that persistently woes us at every step,  while precariously holding on to hope! How people place their hopes with you and for all your heart’s desire to live upto them… you fail one ‘May’ day.

Then there is the disappointing CCD Kerry crush(the spelling may be wrong). The first time you just love it and the second it tastes nothing better than crushed ice colored green. How you wish you had taken an orange ice-candy instead or a ice gola. I’m sure anything would taste better.  Is it just with that ice drink or is it always a big risk to revisit something you have loved first time around. What if the magic didn’t work this time.. and what if it’s always magical always true J  Thank god for keeping some things always magical. 

‘Magical realism’, that’s how people reviewed, ‘One hundred years of solitude ‘. I for my part found it strange. It stuck a note here and there but largely stayed abstruse. It went in circles flirting with reality on the outskirts but still remained in the realms of magical imagination.

So goes the tale of ‘May-days’.. and may the rest be magical. Atleast I can hope that..

Mere Color



Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.~Oscar Wilde



Of the lives people live..

We are suddenly more aware of the ‘lives ‘people around us live.. or atleast appear to ‘live’. One hot-lazy Saturday afternoon when even afternoon nap is elusive, I log in to facebook only to spend the next 1+ hours tracking the lives of friends, acquaintances. Yeah something like the peeping  Tom or generally face-booking!

As I browsed through the photo albums, I was entering into their worlds and trying to juxtapose those random pieces to create the storyboards of their lives. I knew this girl way back in school. Our fathers were college friends but we didn’t really much carry forward the family legacy. So I am totally out of touch with her since I left school. And today unable to think of doing anything more constructive I look at her album. Honestly as kids we had no inkling of what each one of us would grow into. Or perhaps back then we never tried to fast forward into our futures and picture that stuff. Now all thanks to Facebook I can rewind back into the little snippets of the past which are public to ‘friends’ and witness the part I missed. And see my ‘friends’ grow into the people they are now, and the life that they apparently live. Well I cannot imagine a conversation between the two of us exchanging notes on our lives so far but in an impersonal way each of us is remotely aware of others existence.

Next I moved on to track down a dear teacher from school. I remember her as this sophisticated, young pretty woman who stood almost 6 feet and to add to her spell she spoke impeccable English. Today I see her looking seraphic, flanked by her daughters, holidaying in Europe, Jaipur. Lovely!  It was wonderful to see her after so many years.

Our social space has definitely undergone a radical change with the growing advent of social networking sites. How we ‘project’ ourselves, ‘express ourselves’ has changed because we are now aware of a bigger audience waiting for our ‘updates’.  ‘Prohibition never stood a chance against exhibition’, and it seems like exhibition has just found a new stage. Yes at some level it appears as if people are merely exhibiting their lives, their every move- well keep it coming, who’s complaining.  Birthday, Weddings all personal events, official/nonofficial trips,  daily trivia everything has an audience. One has to comment and tweet, to make others aware of his existence in the impersonal cyber space. There is the maddening physical world where we live and another virtual world which is getting louder by the day. It’s almost like striking a balance to retain your sanity J

Silence..

Silence is full of music..  The silence of a girl as she nods a ‘yes’ is music to the ears of the soul hanging at the other end!

A moment of silence can sometimes put at ease weary nerves, balm bruised souls. You can almost hear the music of life pulsating if you sit silently under a shady tree, along a flowing river, sit gazing at the starry sky or observe the antics of a new-born child. The most eloquent silence that I have experienced was along this nearly deserted water front in Kanyakumari, sitting on a boulder with my eyes closed I could sense the speed , direction of the waves coming from afar and hitting the shore. There was a rhythm to the coming and the crashing..

R. Kelly croons,’See I was on the verge of breaking down
Sometimes silence can seem so loud’. You try & try to shut it out but there it is, the looming silence. It doesn’t let you in peace just leaves you anxious all along. The consciousness of the absence of words which you can almost see hanging in mid air. Then there are times when its pitch dark to even see the writing on the wall, it’s a blind silence but again ‘loud’. The long wait where you strain to hear some human voice beyond the all-encompassing silence. The childhood days when before the results were announced, all you could here in the silent auditorium was the loud sound of your own breathing as you wiped your sweaty palms. The silence of anticipation and the cruel silence of hopeless waiting, we have all experienced it one time or the other. The disciplinarian demanding ‘Pin drop silence’ seems almost kinder than being caught in an awkward silence with a close friend .

‘With time we become people with more of silence in between. Perhaps, we mature into more keen beings. But we tend not to express..’ This is where things get complex, when we choose not to express. It may be because of that old brute, ‘ego’ raising a sky high mountain for us to surmount before we can speak up. It may be because we think too much and call in prudence to restrain the mumble within. Strangely at times it happens that all you want to do is speak but words betray you completely. It was so effortless to talk to the person standing in front of you but now as hard as you may try to speak up, all you can muster is silence. There is a natural rhythm to conversation with people, it flows, at times there may be some ebbs and falls but the continuity remains.  Yet some conversations make you stray into the territory which is the abode of silence. Some make their way out some stay there forever…

Musings on Women's Day

“Sheer words merely demean what actions alone can redeem..”

When I look at all the Women’s day hoopla around me, it is this thought that rhymes in my head. This is what I feel when I hear people make customary ‘Women’s Day’ speeches.

I live in a world which has given me more opportunities, more choices more independence. Yes there is reason to celebrate, reason to acknowledge that we’ve come a long way. However nothing steers within when well organized cosmetic campaigns play out as scripted. I may not be quite a cynic to dismiss outright all celebrations and symbolism around all such ‘Days’ but with each passing year I see myself slowly turning nonchalant to such one day gestures. Yet today is the day when I want to reflect on the dichotomies of a women’s existence on a personal note.

What better a reference point than my own mother? Compared to the choices, opportunities she had I am way ahead. Honestly her say was merely namesake whether it was with respect to her career or her marriage. There were others in the family to look for her. Yet for all the decisions that others made for her she bore them with dignity, adjusted, learnt to strike a balance even if she was the only compromising party. She made personal sacrifices with a smile on her face. Her needs, her aspirations always came secondary. She made the perfect team with my dad to give me a life she herself could not claim. She raised me, fought for me and above all she believed in me. My heart truly goes out to her.

As I sift through her life I become conscious of the duality in her life. I may have taken some special likeness to the word ‘dichotomy’ but then in some way it is the strongest undercurrent in a women’s life.  Men can be selfish and get away with that, a woman is less singular in her choices, she’ll think of her family, society. It is here that the dichotomies-trichotomies(if there is a word like this) emerge. It is the nurturer instinct in her that comes into play. I remember having read somewhere,

‘Its not a bad thing, is it, to be strong in some ways and fragile and vulnerable in others’.

An invincible woman is not my idea of womanhood. She’ll lose her vitality if she becomes all ‘me’. There is a beauty in the duality of her existence. However it is a tender balance, it’s ruining if the duality overpowers her existence and makes her lose her own identity. My mother contributed in her own way to help me carve out my identity and my father supported me throughout. I’d find my way to live with the dichotomies J

As for the Women’s Day, I choose to find my own meaning, away from the clamor mills!

(Lit-Treat)^3

Hey Feb is here and no blogs.. ?

Oh!! I was busy reading, you see three much acclaimed novels. (Pretentious Literati!)

‘Insanity is contagious’-Catch 22
The back cover of the book reads,”Catch22 is a microcosm of the twentieth century world as it might look to someone dangerously sane”. The novel explores varied themes, sanity vs. insanity, hero vs. antihero, absurdity of bureaucratic set ups, capitalism & its amorality, personal integrity but it is the dark humour that is the unique flavor of the book. Well after an abortive first attempt at the novel, this time my taste buds finally adapted to the tantalizing ramblings and to the tantalizing brevity. The writer has invented people, who are totally unlike real human beings, all appear as a pack of psychos yet their most abstruse ways find resonance in real world people. I agree that the above statement sounds most contradictory! The book is unconventional in more than one ways-the characters, the situations, the rhetoric, the structure of the novel.

“But suppose everyone felt that way.
Then I’d certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn’t I?


‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others ‘-Animal farm
I read this book in one straight read. The symbolism of the characters through different animals, the characterization of different world events kept me hooked to the novel. It was my first attempt at a political novel written in a satirical story telling format. ‘The novel describes how a society’s ideologies can be manipulated and twisted by individuals in positions of social and political power, including how a utopian society is made impossible by the corrupting nature of the very power necessary to create it.’ And the last lines..(man-to-pig) made me sit bolt upright- ‘The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again, but already it was impossible to say which was which’

The third read was, ‘The portrait of Dorian Gray’-Oscar Wilde
The style of the story's narrative is closer to drama than a novel. Conversations that through up ideas, an almost poetic rendition, an intricate tapestry of words which mesmerize you with their beauty. I narrated the story to at least 2 people on the very day I had read some 100 pages. Then came the pithy one liners. I am still reeling under some. I read attentively the portion which dealt with Dorian Grays love for a woman and how he dismisses that whole emotion away. I smiled when I read, ’Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot . . .’ I smiled nonchalantly as I read the usual chauvinist rant, ‘My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mid, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.’

Recommended the above books to friends & foes, have been recommended to read ‘mrityunjay’, hope I get my hands on that book soon.

Hoarder!

Happiness is a myth that was invented to make us buy!


I and my true friends feel a ‘happy’ rush seeing the first hoarding calling out SALE! Yet as I put the word happy under the saintly quotes I was in for a surprise. Instead of a seraphic happy angel, I saw a greedy devil looking back at me. Oh! We were unscrupulous believers to fall for the myth and now we walk home with lighter wallets and baggages of things we wanted and not quite wanted.

I am a greedy hoarder. And over the years I just feel that the things I hoard has grown leaps and bound. Back in the monsoon season in Nainital I was all eyes for the dark green ferns. Walking along I used to scan through the green outgrowth looking for a leaf I didn’t have in my collection. There were those artistically shaped fern leaves, which ingeniously had a brown powdery substance on the backside. It almost worked as a carbon sheet and you could stamp the pattern of the leaf on your hand :) The leafy skeletons(jackfruit leaves) buried under the stones was valuable treasure to me.

The acorns were another favourite of mine. Perhaps there were the monkeys, birds, squirrels and me vying for them. Well I couldn’t climb on an oak tree unlike my competitors so I had to scout the ground beneath the tree to collect them. I collected the pretty luscious green ones and then the shiny brown dried acorns as well. I have already mentioned the wood roses in my previous blog so I’ll give it a miss this time.

Let’s move on to stones. The most beautiful collection I have is the scaled golden stones I picked up from my maternal grandmothers orchids in the hills of Paharpani. Imagine the mud glistening golden in the sun. From the glistening golden to the sublime whites from some rivers bed I had them all. The perfectly round, and then the perfectly flat all made it to my collection. Very close to the stone collection I had the shell collection. Picked up from the shores of Kanyakumari and Kovalam, then some kind soul got me a handful from mandarmuni as well. For every shell I had, I had a story about its colour and texture.

All these stories sound so quaint today. I don’t scan the grounds, the grass, and the trees around me anymore. I have found a substitute today for my hoarding happiness, I scan the stores! And come the sale season I’m on my way.. Hey I’ve become this materialistic hoarding woman..:(

A thing for swings…

I trust a hemp rope as much as I trust the rusty iron chain when it comes to swings.  I don’t discriminate between a wooden, a plastic or even a rubber tire seat when it comes to swings. I just have a thing for swings. I’ll bribe away the kids or may be even shoo them away if they make me wait too long for my turn.

On a little windy evening, watch the dancing shadows of the dusk swing into night.  The receding shadows at their elusive best! I love the highs and I love the lows. I know the tricks too well; I’ll throw myself forward I’ll pull myself behind. It’s just a matter of time, when I begin to hear the sound of my hair playing in the wind-(I’d shampoo my hair any day if there’s a swing in the itinerary!). It’s lovely gazing at the night sky, leisurely swinging and spying on the stars above.  You might never reach them but there’s no stopping you from trying so here I tug the ropes more briskly taking my swing still higher above.

On a lazy afternoon, putting my swing under a shady tree, I like to swing gently with a gossipy partner.  It’s fun to start with small talk and then muse philosophically but it’s equally convenient vice-versa. It’s all the more special if someone buys you an ice-cream and then you relish it on a swing. (All the above events are no figments of imagination they bear close resemblance to few eventful days in other wise mundane life.)

I caught on the ‘swinging  bliss’ in Kolkata. How I miss the park nearby my apartment where I’ve spent countless evening with my roomies and close friends. Then there were the innumerable fairs year long in some or the other parts of the city, and the biggest draw-yes the swings! Bizarre swings, some made your head spin, the others had some serious momentum issues but I’m willing to forgive that all as long as I get to scream and shout with friends.  I have managed two swinging evenings in Hyderabad so far. I was fortunate to have a swinging morning in garden city Bangalore while on a weekend trip.  I’m surprised at how vividly I remember each of the days. Perhaps my childhood is swinging back again for all the days that swung past without a swing. 

Take a bow..

Reclined on my chair with ease I take in the last scene.  Of all the suspense, drama tension built over the course it is now time for all the pieces to fall in place.  The lost lamb will finally head home. .The wronged will get their rightful place under the sun... There will be manna for the hungry soul.  Maybe a reunion for the star crossed lovers. There is this comfort in the knowledge that ‘this’ would be the end. You may choose to appreciate or disagree but the end is inevitable. It is time for the curtains to gently fall down.

Walking down one wintery December evening I felt the same peace. I made my peace with the year that was just heading to its end. I could recall places and people who came into my life with this New Year. I felt tender warmth towards all the new faces that had turned familiar and known during the course of this year. I tried to fathom my own impressions of this new city, I moved into. And with a generous gesture smiled for everything ‘new’ 2010 had ushered into my life.

The wintery chill was also walking along and so was also the recollection of all the failures, heartbreaks and set breaks. I glanced gloomily at the distant light slowly fading in the wintery fog. I recalled all the friends I left behind as I strode past them. The reasons for which ranged from being genuine to silly or simple incomprehensible.

The curtains then finally fall; they have the finality of the end as meditated by the director. All the characters come forward join hands and take a solemn bow as they try to read the applause. But in life as a New Year rolls in, it is the hope of new beginnings which is more emphatic. I thought of giving a nostalgic bow to things, places, people I had left behind but still I hope that it is not the final bow and our paths will cross again. I would revisit the city which somehow feels so familiar in all its idiosyncrasies, incongruities! Yes Kolkata it was.  But alas this era that I lived in the city will have to take a bow...it can never be the same again. I wouldn't say so for the estranged people in my life. I may not retreat to make amends as yet but I would still reserve the bow. I would still hope that we warmly shake hands again and laugh aloud unhindered. Well some material possessions will have to take a bow or perhaps a handing over to younger siblings.

It is interesting how we measure life with the years we lived. How the moving hands of the clock one day suddenly fill us up with newer aspirations and the calendar graciously takes a bow.