An English Wedding

Two of my friends are getting married today. Four and a half-thousand miles from where I am.

Correction: Four and a half-thousand miles from where we are. (They are not just my friends, they are our friends)

We once lived four and a half-thousand miles away from where we are now. London was a city I instantly fell in love with – the first time I took a taxi from Heathrow to Piccadilly (Yes, I did that – I didn’t know better; later I was doing the end-to-end on the tube on Piccadilly line, many times).

There’s no doubt about where we should have been today. And yesterday. We were supposed to be at that wedding. A few years ago, there was nothing that would stop me from being there. Today stands, hands on hips, part aggressive, part apologetic and tells me that I cannot. Agreement and acknowledgement seem to be having an argument.

There will be other times, I know, but there is a sanctity to this moment that I cannot absolve. From four and a half-thousand miles away, I wish both of them the best that my heart can imagine, and beyond.

My today tells me of the power of the tomorrow that it carries for me, yet, in spite of all the realisation of my dreams – it can do nothing to help me “be” in that one moment that has been yearned for long yet lost. That’s where tomorrow becomes humble; but it is up to me to be magnanimous and allow my tomorrow to manifest.

Today is real as it exists; tomorrow is as possible as I can make it.

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R&A, from where possible, I hope you will pluck the joys that this life has to offer. There’s more low-hanging fruit than we have known.

Lotsalove and God Bless!

Dreams of a Long, Really Long Drive

It may not come as a surprise to most of you that Google Maps is one of favourite sites and has a pinned position in my Top Sites. When I upgraded to iOS 6 a few months ago, my biggest fear (and eventual loss) was having Apple Maps instead of  Google Maps. Of course, Google released their independent app soon after, but it does not help, that the default Maps in iOS is still Apple Maps, which is far from a usable product.

But of course, this post is not about that.

Google Maps is my favourite site (and app). I’ve helped the map become better with many edits after I’ve been misled by it. (I’d be happy to do the same for Apple Maps, but apparently you cannot.)

So, I was a bit surprised to see that the National Highway markers, on Google Maps, usually seen as NH17 or NH3 etc, were now labelled as AH47 or AH-some other number. First, I thought this was new nomenclature for the Golden Quadrilateral. On closer inspection, I noticed, many of the roads labelled AH were not a part of the Golden Quadrilateral.

The cat started dying with curiosity, and searching AH in Google, for some reason kept showing Ahmedabad. As the dying and curious cat was breathing its almost last, the answer revealed itself and the cat was saved!

AH stands for Asian Highway. Surprise, surprise! (Well, at least for me, some of you may know about it). Wikipedia has a full article about the Asian Highway Project, also known as the Great Asian Highway – a cooperative effort between 32 countries, including India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, China, Japan, South Korea and Bangladesh. Reading the article made me feel worse, knowing that this project has been going on (and off) since 1959, though for practical reasons, it really started in 2003. I still feel bad, that I wasn’t aware of this project for almost ten years!

After reading the article, there was newfound excitement. There exists a definite possibility of a “very” long drive.

I’m thinking Mumbai – Tashkent – Istanbul – Ulaanbaatar – Tokyo – Bangkok – Dhaka – Mumbai should be a good drive. Exotic places, all of them, and I haven’t been to any of the places, except Tokyo, (where I’ve seen only the inside of Narita International). So I proceeded to map the itinerary on Google Maps, but it was unable to do that; I guess, some roads are yet to be built (huge JPG; display patience); so that gives me time to prepare.

And no, you do not have to remind me that I still have to complete the Golden Quadrilateral. It’s not that I have not tried; there have been quite a few false starts, but I’ll do it – soon – on my own terms. Folks who can contribute a month or so, are rare.

But a drive is always wonderful whether it is a couple of hundred kms to Alibag or six-thousand-odd kms around the country, or (soon) many more kms around the continent.

Because traveling is like writing; and writing is like traveling – and I love them both. That’s what dreams are made of!

Magic; Belief

There’s a conversation I know of, one that I cherish. I lived it, experienced it in a way that that my entire life participated in it.

It was a while ago. I have an opportunity to reconstruct it. I am there and so are you. I live it up. I try and make the magic that you and I experienced before. I choose the same venue, I try to be myself (which becomes my undoing) and I push to recreate the magic of what we once experienced.

I fail.

Miserably.

Since that day when we experienced magic; things have changed. You have; I have. And the way we interact with our environmental variables has changed. There is no way to recreate the magic that we once experienced. That is the lore of scripted romantic movies. That is why movies make sense – we watch them over and over again – because they are a time machine of sorts – they operate without variables. The constant of the script allows us our illusions.

But your life and mine – it’s not that simple – I spoke with you – and I had no idea what I said. The time of the day, your mood and mine, what has transpired since we last met, that small angle of how you sit and therefore how I see you – it changed. The differential made all the difference. And suddenly we have nothing to say. All our previous adventures are only the markers of what made sense, then. Our today is an unfortunate clean slate where we are reluctant to scribble what we feel.

Time is the only currency between us; once in abundance – now scarce. The world has changed and I am now learning not to believe in magic.

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I’ve fought many wars in my time. Some I’ve fought for land, some for power, some for glory. I suppose fighting for love makes more sense than all the rest.

~ Priam, in Troy (2004)

Walking over Corpses

Happy Dussehra!

I almost know what you are thinking. He’s steadily losing it, choosing this title on such an auspicious day. For those of you who do not know Dussehra, it’s one of the big festivals in India; comes just before Diwali, which is a bigger festival in India. Dussehra is celebrated all over India and various states have a very specific definition about why they celebrate this day. There’s God, a king, a demon, a Goddess, some specific events and such. In glorifying the act of the God or the Goddess, we hold public exhibitions of the achievements of our immortal bosses, outdoing our neighbourhood representations by a foot or so.

Every third Indian will tell you that festivals in India are just a way to outdo the neighbouring festivities in height and decibel levels. The communal celebration of festivals was a pre-Independence phenomenon designed for awareness and political debate. Six decades later, all communal festivities have been reduced to an excuse for public display of alcoholism. The communal purpose has been abstracted and instantly made discrete to serve personal agendas.

Today is Dussehra. A festival to celebration the victory of good over evil; irrespective of the versions of the story that you will hear all around the country. It is still a celebration of good over evil.

Wait.

It is not a celebration. It is an annual reminder. To yourself. To identify the evils and your personal demons. Internal and external; a call to: first, identify them and second, to vanquish them. And you would do a disservice to yourself if you thought that the demons were out there. Those that you really need to fight and defeat are within. The challenge, to my mind, when you prostrate yourself before a deity is not to submit before a higher power, but to look within yourself and look into the eyes of your personal demons. Whether you can fight them or not, is secondary. To face them in an achievement by itself. The path becomes obvious after that. Indian history and culture is replete with rituals. Rituals were defined for those that couldn’t grasp the philosophical premise, and today we are slaves belonging to the lowest common denominator; further we have bastardised the ritual to street-class debauchery.

A while ago, I called it: Lost in Translation

Every philosophy, reduced down, is a call and a vision to live a happy, fulfilling life. That happy life lies some distance away – and to get there, we will have to walk over the corpses of our very personal demons, who inhibit us; make us live a lesser life than we deserve. Those demons.

Find them; vanquish them.

Watch/Out

My first one was twenty-seven years ago. It was also the first digital in the family. Given my age, it was easy and obvious that I was showing off and I couldn’t contain my excitement. My father bought me my first Casio watch in Nepal, so technically, it was also imported – a big deal in the early eighties. I couldn’t wait for school to start. As you may have guessed, I wasn’t looking forward to the studying, really.

There have been other ‘first’ watches after that. The first one that I bought with a scholarship, a very heavy automatic HMT analogue that didn’t need winding; worked on kinetic energy. The first one that ran on a battery. The first quartz. I’ve never had a calculator watch though.

Then came the swanky dual-dials, multi-functions and such. Watches caught my imagination and continue to do so. Any advertisement that displays a watch has me spellbound and wanting it. In some way, they represent time in your hand. My friends who did not like or bother wearing a watch and were content with asking folks around them, what time it was. Then, I found that very irresponsible. They were usually late, when we were supposed to meet. The need to be punctual was reinforced. If you had a watch, you could adjust your pace; you would know exactly how to, even. You could keep time.

Then started the gifts; more watches were owned. Some were on a black dial, which I did not quite like. Digital still fascinated me, but I had a new-found love for analogue dials. A Seiko and a Citizen followed. But the best watch I’ve ever had, since the first one (It was always special) was an analogue-digital watch by Tissot and it was a gift from my father. I used that one for a long time, till I ended up cracking the LCD display and the ink poured out.

I was devastated. I had ruined it so, that it could not be repaired. I still have the watch.

Years passed, and 10-years ago, I bought myself a Casio Databank that guaranteed a 10-year battery. As you can imagine, I had many watches now and they had become an accessory. I could mix and match. A few years ago I developed an allergy to metal straps. My watch and wearing buying spree stopped. The Casio Databank became the default.

I then managed to break its strap in such a way that it could not be replaced. And then, a week ago:

A local watch shop did something and fixed the watch and the strap. So, I am back to wearing a watch after a gap of almost two years. For the last two years, the mobile phone has become my watch, but my ability to keep time hasn’t been affected. So, now, I don’t think much of people who do not wear a watch, but I continue to get irked by people who do not keep time.

And it reminded what I had written about time, six years ago:

The one thing – the only thing that is only ours – is the one thing that we share with everyone in the world, yet it remains ours for us to use, abuse, or waste as we please. We ask for more (as if it wasn’t enough that we have it all anyway) from others – I need more time from you. Can I have some of your time? Time is a currency of sorts – we ask others to “spend” it for us. We even give names to the types of time – periods that are apparently more cherished than the others – weekends, holidays, and festivals. Some of us think of gaining time as we cross time-zones – or losing it (depends on the direction of your travel). We have built icons to celebrate this one phenomenon which we are yet to understand – right from the Jantar Mantar to the Big Ben to a Rolex. These physical manifestations are an endeavour of our purported ability to “keep” time. All we have been able to keep are the physical symbols – the concept is long-lost. In this sense – time is ours – only ours – others need to manage it whichever way they can. We adorn ourselves with Casios, Espirits, Swatches, and Titans – rendering jewellery of the one thing that was given to us as a free gift at birth.

(Via It’s About Time, July 2006)

Statistically Speaking, Ms. T.

 

I remember her name clearly. I am not going to post it.

She was our statistics lecturer. She had a pronounced rural accent when she spoke English – the medium of our instruction. Some of us – who had studied in English medium and believed that we understood pronunciation and sentence construction better – used to make fun of her, after her lecture, at the college canteen.

It has been a while. Twenty-odd years; when I was twenty-something. She taught us the basics of statistics and some complex methods of using data – in the context of computer programming. I remember one influence distinctly. Our journals used to be checked sheets. To this day, I work better when I work with checked sheets. Now you know, why I like Rubberband Products. (No, I am not being paid to say this) Of all the things a teacher can influence us, she had an impact on the kind of paper I like to work with.

I seek those kind of writing pads, but they are rare.

Statistics was a holy subject for me, when, I was trying sincerely to understand what makes a computer work. If it was in our syllabus, it had to make sense – because according to our syllabus and objectives, we were destined to write the software that would change our lives. Like all of us, I held lofty objectives and visions of changing the world to make it a better place. We were at some point in the year, dealing with Near Sets, I recall – and I was wondering if I could use Near Sets and the Five-colour Theorem in developing a colourful  rubber-band algorithm. (It really does not matter if it makes sense)

The rubber-band algorithm requires you to write a code that enables you to ‘draw’ a line at any angle and of any length. The mouse was not an input device, then – we had to make do with the arrow keys. If you are still confused, think of a line that you drag-draw in PowerPoint. We were required to write code for that to happen. 

She said, “That’s out of syllabus – and in any case, you do not have colour monitors.”

“I could test it on Prof. Datar Sir’s Computer?” (Only our CS teacher had a colour monitor and 20MB HDD. It was a super computer for us.)

“No. It’s out of syllabus,” she insisted.

My statistics teacher was a gold medalist from Pune University. The fact that she was an OBC, highlighted her achievement. I never wanted or want to take away the achievements from her, but I wish she was more receptive to my questions.

I am, recently, dealing with a situation that is looking to optimise human resources based on the density of users to define an optimal investment to help run a specific process. (Yeah, jargon and all – that’s not important) Not much from her lectures and learning is lost. But, if she had taken a bit of time to satisfy my curiosity – even if it was ‘out of syllabus’ I think, it would have helped me in what I am doing today – to solve a real problem.

And yet, when I am working and solving this problem, I cannot but help thinking of her. Most of us had written her off, because we believed she had got the job because of reservations that were rampant, then (and still are). Yet none of us considered spending time with her and seeking the knowledge she had.

It is unfortunate, that we had categorised a teacher by the manner in which she got her job, rather than what knowledge she had to offer us. Nothing, I am almost sure, has changed her life significantly. My classmates and I, however, have lost much. At the very minimum, we have lost contact with her. Today, our work and client requirements need us to extract the fundamentals of our education – unfortunately we wasted an opportunity because we were influenced by petty politics (Mandal Commission happened when I was in college and I say it with much regret; that I was carried away by the rhetoric.)

A young student may have the facts to develop an opinion; but often, doesn’t have the context.

I miss you, Prof. T, and I wish I had then, the inclination to learn more from you. I wish I had maintained my identity with you as a student, rather than the imposed hierarchy that our ex-prime minister Mr. VP Singh defined. It is unfortunate that I have to Google almost everything that you taught us, and remind me of what I already know.

It’s too late, after all the ridicule we bestowed on you; for what it is worth, I am sorry.

In that late morning lecture when you introduced us to Null Hypothesis, I was perhaps, far away, imagining of a date with the girl who sat on the third bench in the second row. The girl is long lost and married to someone I don’t know, but I am now having a torrid affair with Null Hypothesis.

Maybe I did pay some attention to that lecture.

I am proud of some work that I have done recently, and for what it is worth, let it be known, I owe it to you.

Middle of Nowhere

I am in the middle of nowhere.

Such a place, we all know, doesn’t exist as far as geography is concerned. You are always in the middle of somewhere or at the edge of some place. But it always sounds better to say that you are in the middle of nowhere. That phrase has certain expanse; some more width than your exact location. It creates that mystery and sprinkles a sense of romanticism to whatever description may follow the phrase.

So, I am in the middle of nowhere.

The boat I am on, is anchored here, in the middle of the water, the late afternoon sun sparkles diamonds all over the water and coconut trees lean over, as if to peek and see what I write in this post.

Rest of the family has had a wonderful lunch and are now lulled into sleep by the slow rocking of the boat. I am out on the deck, looking at the sneaky trees and listening to the silence that surrounds our boat.

Far away, in the fishing village that I can barely see, a few colourful boats are anchored, devoid of any activity. Perhaps someone else is describing this feeling in his or her own way.

Nothingness is a difficult state to be in. Even such thick and opaque calmness outside does little to calm the ruckus in your head. Earlier today, as I walked through the market street in this town, I imagined the townsfolk looking at me and being able to recognise that ruckus in my ahead – ah, city folk – they must have said. I have been here for a few hours now, and the calmness is taking over.

Nothing matters now, though it won’t be like this for long.

But, for now, I am in the middle of nowhere.

*

E&OE; Moblogged
Malvan Backwaters, April 22, 1625hrs

Remains of the Day: 011

This month ended on a very exciting note. No wonder this post is late. WordPress allows date manipulation, so thank them, for that. Excitement is like that, I guess, it makes you forget things. We get carried away as we prolong those moments of feeling good.

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It was wonderful having the cousins over – and a family gathering, which seemed like an extinct phenomenon, was a great event to shake us all out of our ennui of routine-ness. It’s always good to plan things, but it is equally important to allow surprises to sneak in. My nieces brought us much joy, newer members to the family were unofficially inducted and much fun was had with long, coffee-laced conversations, that welcomed the pleasant mornings.

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Years of others telling us things about us makes us believe those things about us which aren’t really true. (Often they are opinions.) Some of us are afflicted by this. Some time the affliction is serious and chronic. Some times, however, all we need is an event for us to see ourselves for who we really are. It usually helps if none of the people around you know you. They have no baseline. In that moment, if you are able to be yourself, it becomes the baseline.

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The world has much to offer. Open your hand and seek it. It will give willingly. It is the cynical mind that sits in the last row of the auditorium, closest to the exit, and is never able to see clearly.

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A car tyre can teach you a lot. There are times when you can plug the puncture. You have to know when you need to change the tyre. If you wait till you get to a specialist to tell you that, you would have spent a lot of money and time plugging holes that will never get plugged permanently. I have no idea when and how you will know it. But, now I know this is how things work.

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Richard Bach said it right; you teach best what you most need to learn.

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Time is such a funny thing. You never have it. Yet, our language and our behaviour describes time as something that we possess. It plays its own game and we believe otherwise. In Mumbai, we measure distances in time. Like it is currency. In life, we measure relationships and growth in time. Like it is an indicator.

 

 

In Fourteen Years

It was a lovely long conversation yesterday.

We talked much, of life. The setting couldn’t have been more appropriate as the youngest in our family was sleeping blissfully in the middle, as experiences took off and landed all around her and above her. We were like four ATCs sending our prized flights to each others’ airports. And there was a lot of traffic.

In fourteen years, you tend to accumulate a lot I guess, of material possessions. And of emotional baggage, making their rounds on a conveyor belt. Only one or two belong to us, but each bag gets our attention. We have accumulated and stored a lot. Most of them however, are memories. Some are good, some not so good – but they are ours.

In fourteen years we have understood what it means to travel light. We have learnt to identify our bags very well in the baggage claim.

In fourteen years, we have discovered where we want to go – it’s not a place where most people want to go. When we check-in, the queue at our counter is much smaller and there’s no baggage to check in. When we arrive at our destination there isn’t a queue for the taxis. They some time give us funny looks, usually they do not understand where we are going, but we don’t get bothered with that any more.

In fourteen years we have taught ourselves to get surprised. Sometimes the surprises are nasty, but in return we have experienced the most exotic destinations in the world and in our hearts. We have found ourselves in ways that we didn’t know we existed. We chose not to play the tried and tested games because the rules were designed for the same result that everyone wanted, and we have won unusual trophies.

In fourteen years we have wandered the forests and have been scared and angry and happy and excited. We have lost a lot and because of that we have gained much.

In fourteen years, we have discovered ourselves because of each other.

And, after fourteen years, it seems just like yesterday.

*

Song for the day (and forever): God Only Knows – Beach Boys (Prefer the version that was used in Love Actually)

The Zephyr

It started with The Shawshank Redemption. I am sure.

A friend proudly spoke of a movie that he had seen and I had not. He seemed to enjoy the tone of blasphemy that he was able to incorporate. “You haven’t seen The Shawshank Redemption?” My life was suddenly not worth all the years I had spent living it. Lately, I usually get very upset when people express their utter surprise and shock when I say – nope, never heard of them. This fellow – I was willing to forgive. He is on no social network other then email. People who are addicted to reading everything that is shared, usually suffer from this affliction of blasphemous spit out.

A few weeks later, DVD in my hand I walked back home that Friday evening with a promise of a pale ale paired with a prison break.

Since then, The Shawshank Redemption (TSR) has been on the top of my favourite movies. It has been a while that a few movies starring Sean Penn, Daniel Day Lewis, Geoffery Rush and Jeff Bridges, have tried dethroning TSR, they have not succeeded. It may have something to do with an education I received via TSR.

[Potential spoiler ahead]

Andy Dufresne, in a scene in the movie, plays a song from Le Nozze Di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro). According to Wikipedia:

Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) defies Warden Sam Norton (Bob Gunton) by playing the duettino over the prison’s loudspeakers. Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding (Morgan Freeman) remarks in his voice-over narration that, “I’d like to think [the singers] were singing about something so beautiful it can’t be expressed in words, and it makes your heart ache because of it.”

It is an opera composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It was my first introduction to opera – and I am glad for it. The song that is played in the movie is from Act 3 and is called Che Soave Zeffiretto (What a gentle little Zephyr.)

Since this basic introduction to opera, I have been fortunate to attend an opera (Il trovatore - The Troubadour; an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi). Interestingly, this visit to the opera was due to another friend, who shuns social media. And I have been blessed, since.

Recently, Mahendra started a very interesting series on his blog about Western Classical Music. Call it WCM 101, if you will. I am just glad that I have friends around me who enrich me, every time I get to know them better. I have been trying hard to understand opera in the same way – using clues from Mahendra’s series.

I am failing.

My relationship with music has been necessarily of association and emotional recalls. In the Wikipedia link above, you will find the translation of Che Soave Zeffiretto – there is hardly any body to the ‘content’ of the song – you will notice. And, I wonder if that is the beauty of it. Low on content; high on emotion. But it does mention Zephyr – a soft gentle breeze, blowing from the west. There’s romance in that. That it blows from the west is a technicality, but the soft gentle breeze is what I am talking about. It does me in.

A couple of days ago, this word – Zephyr – came up, in some other context.

And I tried, with significant effort to talk of this song (I am not sure even, if I should be referring to it as a “song.”)

I gave up, explaining. I promised, I’d play the song, someday.

Red (a character from TSR, said it well enough for me):

I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don’t want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I’d like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can’t be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.

Enough, enough now.

 

 

 

Remains of the Day: 010

When you realise that something that you said that you hated had no foundation for the hatred, you cannot continue hating it. It’s not just about a fresh perspective, it is about objectivity. The aspects that are revealed to you are wondrous – and there’s much more that you can enjoy, now. Hate is a strong word; mostly, we just intensely dislike. And if we attempt to look at it from a distance it is usually inherited.

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Taking up a challenge – whether offered or self-inflicted – needs a context. Especially if you are taking up the challenge to bring change and not just for the short-term win. Else, we will wander without purpose and fill up this world with more of meaninglessness.

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There’s a good chance that you are much better, much smarter than you think you are. Someone else will have to tell you that for you to know it. Not everyone will tell you how bad you are, however. Most people consider it impolite to point out your flaws.

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Adjacent birth dates and death dates offer an interesting 48-hour window for contemplation.

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Every month cannot throw up loads of learning. Some months, just pass you by.

Water Hater

It wasn’t the first time I was accused of not loving water. It has happened before. Last week though, it poured around me with crystal-clear icy focus. I confess, I love mountains. I love deserts (though I have never been in one). I love valleys (as long as certain cities aren’t based there — no pun(e) intended). I love roads — any kind – smoothened expressways to bumpy village roads. I especially like ghats (Mountain Roads)

Many romantic notions are dunked and sloshed in and around water. From private pools to beautiful beaches, and random sprinkling of rain in between, water has been the brand ambassador of the liquid concept of love. Think of rains in Hindi movies, and there’s a good chance that illegal population will soon be +1. Rivers, rains, and all forms of H2O are messengers of love, apparently their fluidity is often mistaken for communicative powers.

Years before, there must have been a reason why our ancestors came out of the water an adapted themselves to land. And now, we try and seem to do exactly the opposite. Water is nice. I don’t hate it for what it is. I like (a little bit of) it in me and I like it (some of) it around me (Conditions apply) – but I do not like water on me for a long time and I don’t like to be in water for a long time. It seems un-natural. While we are at it, I can tell you that while I enjoy disaster movies, I have never liked movies like Hard Rain (1998), 2012 (2009), Titanic (1997), The Perfect Storm (2000) and similar movies. At the same time, The Shipping News (2001), Message in a Bottle (1999), and TPOC series has been my all time favourites. Go figure.

But I have significant respect for water, and I am thoughtful about it too. I have been, for a while (this was originally written in 1997, when I didn’t have a blog). My early fascination and respect for water started when I saw The Famine (1980), and dialogue by Anant Nag, “Water; the most intoxicating drink.”

The word “hate” with reference to “water,” when speaking about me, needs a context. And you will have to read the full post, if you want the complete context. You cannot just float over and headline-read any of my posts about water, rains, oceans and other water bodies. You will have to dive, deep.

But we are simple land animals, not complex sea creatures. And we need simple answers.

Happy Ganesh Chaturthi

He is back! With as much fanfare. This year with even more relevance for me. The lord of start-ups. Wishing you all his choicest blessings all year round.

Hearts and Bones

To love is not to look at one another: it is to look, together, in the same direction.

~ Antoine de Saint Exupéry

This quote is not new to Gaizabonts or the readers (if they have been following the blog for a while). It has made it’s appearance twice. Once with (the same) visual and once with words.

I learnt of this quote, way back in college, when we used to do really funny things like write down quotes that we liked, in a diary or a notebook. Like, on real paper and real ink. No, kids, we did not have Google notebook or Diigo those days. Life was a bit more linear and serial access then. Unlike the random access we have today. Interestingly, I was being taught the mathematics and algorithms-type of things that enable random access and other such things.

So, I liked it because I read it in some book (not on a web page) and wrote it down. Those days it appealed to me, but I confess it did not make much sense. Those days, I was in love with the concept of being in love, rather than being in love with somebody. But I did not know that, so I was searching for that somebody.

I took that quote a bit literally, then. Over the years, it started making a different meaning, each time I read it. Every time I was in love or thought I was in love. Very recently, this quote resurfaced in a conversation after a very long time. It played out in a photo I had taken, and the conversation grew from there. Very few people know this quote, and to find, amongst friends, those that have lived by it, is a rare blessing indeed.

I find comfort in philosophy. Direct meanings seldom make complete meaning for me. Direct meanings often have a way of deflecting attention from that which in inherent. And if we do not attempt to understand that which is inherent, we walk on a thin wire with the threat of landing on the uncushioned surface of superficiality. But philosophy does not come to me easily. I have to make an effort. And it has become better with practice, so much, that I often miss the obvious. Not quite smart, often.

The easiest way to communicate — is to face the other and express. More often than not, it is taken at face value, a meaning is presented and a meaning (usually the same) is received. And it works well in most situations — even when in love (or, perhaps — especially when in love). It is an altogether different experience though, when you make meaning together without having to look at each other and present and receive a meaning wrapped in words or gestures.  The “direction” is not towards a point in 3D where we focus our energies. It is not near or far. It is neither an object nor the infinite. To my mind, it is the same intersection of thought and emotion being experienced by both, at the same time, in the same manner, without having to ever utter, and more importantly — confirm it. It is a sense of unity, of being one. It is an exhilarating experience; and I feel privileged to know it.

Locked, intertwined, and meshed into a single lump of forever love.

Paul Simon, to the rescue, again:

You take two bodies and you twirl them into one
Their hearts and their bones
And they won’t come undone

That’s what happens, when we look in the same direction, together.

10 Years; Few Words

In the last few months, I have visualised this day a number of times. Each time, a different picture emerged. And what I am experiencing today is nothing like all that I had visualised. The feeling is weirder than anything my imagination could conjure.

You do one thing for ten years and then a day dawns when you are not doing that one thing. That definitely counts for weird, in my books.

For those of you who aren’t in the know, I left my job at the company I started with seven wonderful people with nothing but a handful of dreams, a twinkle in our eyes and no resources, but our belief. What this journey was all about is obviously not within the scope of a single post, but suffice it to say, ten years later, I walk immensely rich with the love and learning that has been the continuous yield of this time.

Here’s to each and everyone of you that walked together: love!

Lucky 13

My first real post about this day was on the count of 10 years. I evaded all means of being clear, meandered through the real point of the post, and engulfed it in a ball of emotions. Which, apparently, made for interesting reading, as most comments on that post will demonstrate.  It was the first time I ever wrote about this day – as such – but in spite of my deflective attempts, the post sounded out the day – loud and clear.

A year passed by.

You could have easily concluded that it took me a whole of 11 years to know that it was love, after all. The title, was such. But then, love is a many-fangled and often-mangled thing. Each makes his and her own meaning and assumes that the other feels the same.

Another year passed by.

Now that love was (apparently) understood, 12 years later was all about beauty. Not the visual kind, but the one that we experience and hardly pay attention to. And the thing of wonder is the experience of experiencing such beauty. The actual process of it – as much as I hate using the word in such a post, in such a context.

One more year has passed now.

At 13, I think I am blessed. One theme has been recurrent every year – since the first one to this day. We ask each other one question every year this day – does it feel like these many years – and the answer is always resoundingly negative. We do not know why – even after thirteen years – why we don’t feel the stretch of the time as a strain on us. But we don’t care. I think, after a while the sharpness of it all blurs away, making understanding much easier. In the detail, is the strain that time imposes. In our lives and our work this sense has been growing beautifully on us.

 

Over thirteen years we have been able to let go of looking life in small detail, somehow. Apart from marking a conventional stamp on a calendar, this day’s significance has also begun blurring to a more meaningful abstraction.

A Non-Post

This one post is difficult to write: The only way I can write it is — to deny content, in the post.

This peasant of a post has only context to offer.

The emotions that wrap around you at a time when you are most vulnerable are the very emotions that cannot be expressed. If you bring your rational head above the water, you could find a few words, scourge the thesaurus, and express in words what that emotion really makes you feel.

This one, isn’t one of that.

Perhaps because it is the confluence of a million smiles and tears. And every intersection of a smile and a tear has a unique meaning, a unique context. It is almost a complete life.

Therefore I confine this one to the only higher abstraction that it is capable of.

With numerical markers like dates, numbers, counts, measurements, and time that unfortunately marks such moments. Unfortunate, because these moments within them hold a cauldron of boiling emotions that cannot be numerically expressed. Our education, comprehension and understanding however has been reduced to a numbskull slave of demanding science and unforgiving mathematics, rather than an a forgiving and an encompassing art.

I agree with you; this is yet another incomplete post!

Happy Ganesh Chaturthi

There is an introspective quality to this year’s Ganesh Chaturthi, for me. The call to look through the year that went by. All the events that occurred, since his last visit. These events that I speak of have formed a crescendo of intensity of experience, that have culminated to this year’s Chaturthi. The final one — the most intense — a day before his arrival.

His arrival is usually one of huge fanfare and festivity; for me however, the call is to seek the silence in this din, where I can listen. Listen, very attentively.

I wish you all a very Happy Ganesh Chaturthi Festival. May you grant yourself all the wishes you seek.

Poet for the Moment

There is joy in rediscovery. One such was:

तुझको मुझको जीवन अम्रित अब इन हाथों से पीना है
इनकी धड़कन में बसना है, इनकी साँसों में जीना है
तू अपनी अदाएं बक्ष इन्हें, मैं अपनी वफ़ाएं देता हूँ
जो अपने लिए सोचीं थी कभी, वो सारी दुआएं देता हूँ

This is an extract from the song, “Main Har Ek Pal Ka Shayar Hoon” (I am the Poet of Each Moment), from the movie Kabhi Kabhi, written by Sahir and rendered in the soulful voice of Mukesh.

Amit and I have this thing going about translations, (and it has been a while since either of us translated anything) so I’ll invite his comments on this average translation of the stanza above:

You and I have to drink the nectar of life with these hands
We’ll reside in their heartbeats; live in their breath
You bestow your grace on them; I’ll pledge my faithfulness
Prayers that I had once wished for myself, I grant to them.

(The “their” and the “them” are the moments that the poet belongs to.)

A few days ago, I had posted the stanza on my Tumblr blog, and said that it was possibly one of the best expressions of commitment to life. Having played this stanza a few hundred times, since then and having marinated it long enough with the context of events in my recent past, meanings for this stanza in particular and the song in general, have evolved. It’s not about a commitment to life or the moments, it’s an expression of commitment. Period.

One theme that this stanza insists on, is that commitment is full-duplex; not simplex. Which makes sense, and overthrows a traditional belief that you commit. There is always a “commit-to”. In that sense, the full-duplex makes complete sense. It’s almost like saying, “I give my commitment”, but it’s incomplete without hearing, “I take your commitment.” Can commitment be complete if it is not accepted; acknowledged at least?

Over a period, all that you loved once gets mired with cynicism and disenchantment; the clouds float low and obstruct vision. Without getting into the obvious complications of defining love, what goes amiss is the energy and the sense of being alive, we feel when we are in love. We look at the cracked walls and we doubt the foundations. The drudgery of everyday life and continuing disappointments wear off that sense and it is replaced with zombie-like state that isn’t easy to ward off. I believe it may be so, because the zombie has neither a head nor heart nor a soul. Somehow, we manage to pay more attention to the negativity. Without warning it becomes a habit.

 

Along comes a song – a stanza to be precise – that you always knew but never really paid attention to; awakens you to the state that made you love something in the first place. There were words that once poured of the angst and the ecstasy of being in that state. They come back to you.

And you become what you were – a poet – a poet of the moment – a poet of each moment.