Words of Wisdom

“Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.”- Winnie the Pooh.

I am sometimes surprised with how much I remember of the pooh. For all his innocent simplicity, he sometimes comes to my mind in the sagest ways! And sometimes I remember him simply for how he spoke certain words in his own laid back style. There was a play I was acting in school, one of my dialogue started as ‘Oh dear!’ and I tried to copy the pooh style, dee--arr, to rhyme with tig—eer. My English teacher thought that I was trying to bring in a British accent, I just played along, whatever makes people happy!

Going back to the sage pooh, I wanted to talk of random wisdom that comes your way from unexpected quarters. You feel truly humbled when someone goes out of his way to help you out. This was one such moment and I thanked him to go wait for my bus and he ran to catch his passing bus, then almost prophetically he said something exactly what my father always tells me.’ Keep faith in the power above, he’ll watch over!’  I stood in the interview suit and this somewhat old person just walked in and shaking hands with me wished me luck. Then as he closed the door, cheerfully quipped, ‘Whatever you do, have fun!’

The wisdom of these words is most profound because it wasn’t intended to be, they were just honest words and perhaps honesty is more powerful than all the wisdom of the world. Perhaps simplicity is more powerful than the pretentious charade of big thought leaders. Perhaps you have to hit the bottom most pit so as to feel uplifted once again.

From worldly wisdom to love, Pooh again is the sagest of all,

“If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus 1 day, so I never have to live without you.” He knows his math well. “If there ever comes a day when we can't be together; keep me in your heart, I'll stay there forever”.  He’s no ordinary pooh to imagine 100 as the biggest number, he can think as far as infinity. His statements are just as eloquent as Pablo 

                                            

Love Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
So I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

“It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like "What about lunch?"”-Winnie the Pooh, time I get my lunch :)

Eloquent subtlety

Two year later, He walks past a bookstore advertising a new release with huge posters of the author's face. The book, billed as a novel, is called Sonata for a Good Man. He walked in because he had known the author.
Two years before he had heard the author play the sheet music and wonder "Can anyone who has heard this music, I mean truly heard it, really be a bad person?" He wept because he didn't belong to the wrong side.
Ah! life has its own ways to change people's belief..fate makes the author lose faith in his belief one day.
But then life has its own way to restore them back again..
He goes inside, opens a copy, and reads the dedication,
At the checkout counter the clerk asks whether he should gift-wrap the book, and He replies, "no, it's for me."- The Lives of Others.

"Looking towards the open window, I saw the wreaths from Joe's pipe floating there and I fancied it was like a blessing from Joe- not obtruded on me or paraded before me, but pervading the air we shared together. I put my light out, and crept into bed; and it was an uneasy bed now, and I never slept the old sound sleep in it any more"- Great Expectation

Somehow both portray the same emotion. Although not quite the same, one realization puts you at rest and the other makes you lose sleep. However the realizations dawn without the cumbersome exchange of words. Its the subtlety of the expression that makes the realization so powerful. Its the receptivity of the recipient which makes the realization so powerful.
Its the sheer beauty of such moments, which puts a smile on your face. Sometimes it happens to you in person and sometimes you just relate to it while watching a movie or reading it in a novel. I am not sure if reading this blog conveys that sentiment eloquently so either watch the movie or read the novel!

Lonely planet!

'She stuck on, almost reminding one of Fevicol ads that you might remember from your childhood. And somewhere I guess I wanted to stick on too. It made sense. It felt right...'

"And this is how the world begins to make sense suddenly one day.."
Wait.. no i don't want to count another friend who rattles off these lines on my face. Nothing ever makes sense to me, and I took solace in the fact that you my friend stood with me equally perplexed with life and people who make such statements. I wasn't prepared to hear you say this.

And yeah a little heads up would have been good. You don't have to literally translate the phrase, 'writing on the wall' even when you are a literarian worth your salt. While I am happy for you. Happy to know that your blogs would now have a different theme.. (haha.. you had over exploited the earlier theme) but then you were doing real good, there can be different ways to look at the same thing. But you choose to change the choice of subject and desert the fraternity to join the the pretentious V day crowd!

So i would lament, at being left behind in the lonely club. Would have done that, but for the warm snow flakes falling gently on my shoulders. Interestingly at least something made sense to me today. I saw a perfect snowflake on my black jacket. And I really know what my chemistry teacher talked about when she talked about the shape of snowflakes. And then i also understood what the poet meant, when he said



'each snowflake is unique,
the same pattern is never cast twice..'

I know the two are antagonistic in some ways. The chemistry teacher tried to define the shape as a standard which could be explained by molecule spatial theory. She tried to kill all the romance by saying all snowflakes were just the same..& the well the poet romanticized the beauty, for him it was unique. Somehow both made sense together as I walked home in the gentle snowfall...

Perhaps this is how snow made perfect sense to our lonely planet for millions of years.It was easy to cut off the incomprehensible world outside and lie cozy beneath the warm blanket of snow..

Footnotes: this blog shaped during the class of sustainable business enterprises, and specifically a lecture on global warming. these lectures are messing up my head!

One more time

Three o'clock, this morning, I woke up in a dream.
Thought I heard a flathead motor roar, I thought I smelled gasoline.
A feeling came upon me, that I ain't had in years.
Something like a hot dry wind, whistling past my ears.
Saying "time, time, time is all you got".
There's a memory that's still burning, way down in my mind.
And that's why, I'm going out and trying, a flathead one more time.

I ain't seen my racing buddies in thirty years, or more.
One by one I lost them, out on the dry leaf floor.
We learnt to push those flathead cars as hard as they could go.
Just like old Whiskey Bob, down on Thunder Road.
I hear their voices calling, just across the finish line.
And that's why, I'm going out and trying, a flathead one more time.

I'll get back to you baby, don't you have no fear.
'Cos I been there, and I wrecked that, and baby I'm still here.
But I can't take you with me, when I cross the finish line.
And that's why, I'm going out and trying, a flathead, one, more, time.

Time, time, time is all you got.

Ry Cooder

These lines touched a deep cord somewhere :)
And that's why, I'm going out and trying , a flathead one more time..

Playing games with lyrics

When I walk beside her, I am the better man..
When I took to leave her, I always stagger back again.."


"..And when I climbed down to be set free
she took me in again"

He feels weighed down with the pressure of being the better man. His true self has his vices, his weaknesses but he wants his better self to be the 'man' she knows and admires. He feels like a stretched string that's tense, that's tied somewhere, that gets pulled back every time it strays a little far beyond the periphery. She doesn't hold the string he just comes back again...
He climbs down, down from the high pedestal he himself tried to climb for her once. He wants to truly climb down and be free again. This time he wants to cut the string that tie him and pull him back but this time she just takes him back again.. She wants to give him his choice but she doesn't believe somehow that this is really his 'choice'. May be he doesn't really know or may be he does know. She just takes him back again.

And it is here that Eddie Vedder bows out for U2 to croon.. ' I can't live with or without you'...This is the story that plays out when I hear these two songs play out in my playlist. But somehow it ain't just the songs, its my mind still reeling under game theory. How does this game play out, lets put the play-offs in place:

Interestingly this game is inherently tied to the payoffs for each player (This is so John Nash moment for me!!) In the situation above where you win all or lose all and you do so together makes this game play out in the following manner. Its a game which says both can win only if both agree on what they want together. The first mover makes his choice and the other chooses what maximizes the playoffs for both of them. Both are rational people, the first mover knows exactly what he wants and the second trusts the first player to have played his best move and he in return doesn't even look into making the choice where they both lose. Ahh so simple it would have been... But then

'there's a big
a big hard sun
beaten on the big people
in the big hard world'

Thank god for the rest of the lyrics to end the blog abruptly :)

A Journey A Day 3

It is 31^st Dec, the last day of the year and I am spending this day with 4 people I came across in the second half of this year. That is how it is with life- places, people all keep changing.  The plan is to spend the day in LA and be back in SD for the party.  We drive to LA, five people can make a lot of noise especially if 4 of them gang up against one. We were democratic in our choice of target, each one getting his turn, but then ‘some people are more equal than others’, and I get the largest share of leg pulling!

We did a tour of University of South California (USC), since we had an alumnus with us. I need to do a campus tour of my own university so that I can show around people if they land in god forsaken Illinois someday. Headed for lunch at an Indian restaurant that I had frequented once earlier in October, this is when you realize that you have had your share of LA! The locality is like an Asian ghetto, Indians walking around everywhere.  Sitting in the restaurant we were working out our choices, there was the Venice beach and then Hollywood. I had already done the Hollywood detour on a bright October afternoon looking around for Hugh Jackman, the night lights would be a novelty this time.

Venice beach reminded me again of Indian beaches, colorful shops selling colorful wares and lots of faces around.  It was foggy at the beach but our cameras went clicking any ways. Well they clicked all the way into Hollywood. Bright and glittering and jostling and singing and dancing and some deranged man was getting his kick by setting parked car on fire, so the shrill fire brigade and the LAPD were also at their alert best. That’s Hollywood, you’d say.

I decided to give the passing year a peaceful goodbye so I was fast asleep by 11:30 p.m. and did not make the drive back to SD.  My new years are always this peaceful because I don’t want to give my dad a sleepless night the last day of the year and in this case a restless day! (nice alibi)

4^th Jan, I finally said adios to the warm weather and beaches of CA and headed for the frigid Midwest- Milwaukee Wisconsin. This was my first day time flight from LA, so I saw the sunrise in LA, had a small layover in Vegas (it did get me to touch base there!) then fly across the breadth of the country (west coast to the mid west). I surveyed the Grand Canyon from atop (aha! I count that as the reward for three aborted plans). I saw the frozen waters as I headed towards my destination, and steeled myself for the awaiting cold. Fortunately the sun decided to play kind and I was greeted with an unexpected warm weather.

Wisconsin counseled me back to family ways after a nomadic stay with bachelors. I was waking up early, fetching groceries, visiting temples, spending time in a pre-school where my relative was doing a part time, going out for post dinner walk in the chill for 3miles. I was living in a clean apartment having regular meals, listening to baba ramdev (you can’t block off a high decibel rant if you are anywhere in the house when he’s on TV) now that’s a lot of change! I met another engg-college batch mate, who drove me to the Lake Michigan water front. It was so cold and deserted that it gave me an eerie feeling.  There were big brick buildings around but not a soul in sight.

After a cozy stay for a week, it was time to move again and this time it was the last leg of the Journey.  It did end in style.

Thank you everyone who played a host to a broke. Thank you for taking your time to show me around places. My apologies to Roadstar-R for embarrassing him in writing, but since he’s on the reading list I guess it’s all in good spirit! There were other names as well that didn’t make it to the blog, but I’ll give them a roll call for sure… starting with poooja, ace, dave and yes the Bhaskars and the Bharatis(oops there was just one).  Thanks people!

A Journey A Day 2

Lake Tahoe was like homecoming for me. We reached Lake Tahoe in the evening, it was brightly lit up with Christmas lights which gave it a certain warmth but in reality it was dark and cold at 28F. Well the Christmas lights didn’t completely work their charm on the Roadstar-R because there was no snow and so he couldn’t enjoy his CD of Christmas carols while driving. The Casino lights sure worked their charm on him, and he hit the slot machines and the low bet Black Jack tables after a ‘I am not a gambler’ prelude. I just walked around looking distractedly at all the flashing lights, the electronic sounds and trying to identify the amateurs with the real players. I was tasked to lose a dollar Roadstar-R had won on one of the slot machines and get photographed doing so, which I generously obliged. All throughout I heard stories of how this place compares nowhere to Vegas, and I just thought good that I came in here first!

The next morning brought with it the radiance and the warmth that the sun reserves only for places with the hills and the lakes. After a breakfast of French toasts, pancakes and coffee, we headed to explore the lake.  I am tempted to put pictures of Tahoe instead of writing about it, since it was completely a visual treat, with the picturesque mountains and the clear water.  It was the closest I had gotten to Ladakh. (I am inwardly smiling at the use of the word, ‘closest’ when I am in US, ‘closest’ when there was no snow around). In real winter, the lake freezes and the mountains are all snow clad, but this year it hadn’t snowed yet. I was witness to the beauty in sunshine and honestly coming from Illinois nothing seemed dearer to me than the sun shining on my back! They say when you have a good breakfast; you get a good Italian lunch- well I just cooked that up. So I had two things to thank my guides, getting me to the awesomest place and feeding me well :)

 

We drove in late to SF, watched the latest Sherlock Holmes movie, ate again at an Indian place we had tried earlier and then said goodbye to our SF friend. Tomorrow was again going to be an early day-on the road at 7am; we were to drive all along the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH).  Roadstar-R  had claimed that once I have been on the PCH drive, I would realize the meaning of, ‘the whole is greater than the sum of the parts’.  Now this is not exactly how he put it across, but this is what I realized at the end of it. I had seen the parts all along in Malibu, Santa Barbara, San Diego, LosAngeles, Ventura- a part of the ocean.  We drove in all day and all along the Pacific Ocean, I saw the metaphorical ‘whole’ which again was just a ‘part’ of something even bigger.

Firstly the non-driver seat is the ocean facing so you have the advantage. I saw the ocean first from a height, then we came at level with it; at times it was an inch away, at times there was a small hillock of grass or small rocks standing the guard between. Sometimes it was hazy with the water spray then sparkling in the sunshine, it changed hues, it changed forms, ah! it was always changing.  We stopped regularly to take photographs or sit still to take in the place and left just when the place got swamped with other people trying to do the same. I just wanted to impress the views somewhere in my mind, where I could recall them at will and have that beautiful feeling of awe stay with me forever. We reached Ventura after almost a 12 hour drive.

This brings to end the Christmas lap. New Year leg will take another day and another blog :)

A Journey A Day 1

The initial plan was to base camp in LA and then to be in San Diego around Christmas, be back in LA for New Year and then fly back. So much for the plan, I was in San Diego before Christmas and LA wasn’t an option to stay any longer.  I didn’t want to overstay the invite in San Diego(SD) so I contemplated flying back to Chicago OR OR (HIMYM style) I could go on a road trip to San Francisco(SF) and beyond. That’s what I did.

First I was to travel to Ventura where I would meet up with the true Roadstar-R (not as in Rockstar but one who knows the roads and places very well!).  I was well advised to take the train route and not the bus route as the train goes all along the pacific coast and it is a treat to gaze along.  But what do you do when you find that the only available seat is on the right hand side, when the ocean side is on your left. You can try to peer outside, only till the time the blessed soul on the left doesn’t pull the curtains across.  So I was glued to my laptop sitcom collection for the 4:00 hr ride.

Roadstar-R had a good laugh at my cost, for I didn’t get to see the pacific all along, the wifi in the train was not working and the train was also delayed due to larger volume of passengers and longer stops.  Once he was done laughing he took me to see the sunset at Ventura pier (was by now aware of the American obsession with pier)
 

 

At Ventura I saw the ocean in all its moods- a calm sunset when I walked along listening and singing old Hindi songs. Another evening when the waters were at their restless best, it was overwhelming to see the water cave in before it rose into a huge wave and surged across. Then another afternoon in the small shipyard where I could have happily dozed off if not for the breeze and my constant talking. At Ventura the beach was more personal to the locals; there weren’t the typical tourists but regular people walking their dogs, playing with their kids, going out for a jog. There were the more ‘posh’ RV tourists who lazed around in their own foldable gears with iced beers around. Chronologically aforementioned afternoons and evenings were once I was back from SF and then again back from SD before leaving CA.

We started for SF early morning, Ventura to SF is close to 360 miles and we had our lunch waiting at a newlywed college couple’s place. No wedding gifts for them instead we almost got them to cancel their Vegas trip and join us for a road trip to Grand Canyon. Grand Canyon might have to wait a little more, because I am sure we made more than 3 aborted plans this time. For the evening and the next day, it was SF touring. I saw the golden bridge in the dark, in the afternoon and I happily opted to imagine it at sunrise! The city looked beautiful with Christmas lights and I had my fair share of them at all the major landmarks. The other attraction is the SF port with its multiple piers. It’s a delight walking along the bay front and watch all kinds of street performances. This place is also a culinary delight for sea food lovers (I could tell that from the smell I could barely stand!). However the city has food for every taste and i had my fill of Indian food with Thumbs up while reminiscing good old engg-college day. The brick apartment with fire escapes, the trams, the narrow lanes that dive and rise freakishly, the city has its own character- the ‘city of gays and gypsies’-my friends version who lived there. A popular quote for the city reads as "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.", the city has quirky weather, heterogeneous population, undercurrent of liberal and cultural activism- the city is alive!

The next destination was Lake Tahoe, we reached there because Roadstar-R believed in going where ever his ‘gaadi’ took him. The co-passengers didn’t complain, we alternatively dozed in the back seat and dutifully kept awake while on the front seat.

I guess I’m sleepy now to continue about Tahoe and the Pacific Coast Highway-PCH drive. I’ll continue tomorrow and may be ramble less!