Thursday, August 4, 2011

it is only rarely that a leader is born, worth following. and it is only rarely that the followers assess that fact.


Thursday, July 7, 2011

i woke up like an empty cloud today, drifting in mid space, having forgotten the state of mind i slept in, with the taste of sad dreams on my tongue. and so i purposelessly walked about the house, brushed my teeth, felt a little startled to see myself in the mirror. i did exist. then i made some warm water and sat in the garden, trying to remember what my plans for today were. instead, my mind had decided to dwell on other things. i remembered my childhood. i remembered how the garden has changed over the years. when i was small, i would dance on my father's car when it rained, looking at the open sky. and then jumped in the lawn across. i remembered how my brother stood at the gate with a brown little puppy he picked up on the street and asked mum if we could keep it. we named him jerry, and he stayed with us for long. i remembered how i would look at the sky and see the face of the guy from school i was in love with and a sing a filmy hindi song and smile to myself. i remembered how i smoked my first cigarette with my brother and my cousin under the pretext of  'experimenting' how rose petals change their color to purple when you let out your smoke on them. i remembered later days as well. the day i broke up and my friends came with a chocolate cake to cheer me up. how mom, dad and i sat and talked till late that night.

then i got up and left. forgetting about all these things all over again. living my present, living new dreams, new adventures. no matter how much the heart breaks, it still beats slowly and lives on. in the hope of a fulfilled dream. in the hope of finding everything that it yearns for. or simply, to express everything that it lives, lives for, lives with.

my cloud finally burst into rain in the evening. and the emptiness i felt in the morning was gone. only because, i know, someday, i am going to find everything i am looking for. and i won't look back till i do. and perhaps, this aliveness within me, is all i need to keep going...(if i go on writing, i will realize that that's not true. i do need a lot other things, so i better stop, not out of fear, only to let me cherish what i found today...) :-)

Thursday, June 30, 2011


what is it to be different? if i am looking at something beautiful, looking at it 'differently', would give me a 'different' understanding of it. what is it to look at it differently? am i, in my attempt to understand it wholly, going beyond the obvious and looking intensely? do i notice something i had missed out before, about that 'something beautiful' or do i contribute to what i see, when i see it differently?
seeing something is still a little external. this could be a different discussion. but i want to look at this whole stress on 'doing it differently'. and look at it, like J Krishnamurty would say, just observe, look,  and you will see. honestly, i want to see.

so the idea of doing it differently. whatever the task maybe, if 5 people are asked to do it, because of the particularity of the task, there will be a similarity in what they all do. however, there is going to be a difference. (remember what we were told as kids, you are unique, 'like everyone else'!, and forget the humor, i do see a point here). and that difference is actually going to make all the difference. is that difference related to the way one perceives the task? what is the objective? what is the purpose? why am i doing it? how is it going to be different if i do it and not Aishwarya Rai?

this whole thing reminds me of how i had to write an essay about 'why i think i can be a good young ambassador of my country' before going to Texas. i wish i kept that essay. i wonder what i wrote, its been 6 years. i am still trying to understand how I can participate as myself and not as a substitue for any young girl.

it is not always about being provocative, raising issues people would feel shy to raise otherwise, about an attempt to reveal truth no matter how unreasonably offensive it could be to anyone. it is also about just really taking that road. without a prior agenda to shock people. it is about seeing at something long enough to be able to understand it wholly, and long enough would sensibly involve 'differently'.

its about really wanting to be on that journey afterall...

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

It's a fresh wet morning. A drenched dark night is over. The sun slowly creeps in the blue sky, softly shining. The wind is making music with the trees. I just drove down to meet my grandpa and give him his breakfast. Since grandma passed away, he is a lonely man. Mom makes him breakfast everyday. I went to drop off the tiffin and found him sitting in front of the small dev-ghar. Slowly picking a white flower from the basket and keeping it next to the idols of god. It made me feel a little weak in the heart.

I remembered how as kids, my brother and i would pick flowers from the garden and give it to grandma, it was all so colorful then. There was fresh rangoli in front of the temple, a crackling aromatic incense filled up the room, there was the sound of bell in between her prayers, the temple was clean and happy. In Diwali, during Ganapati Festival, and practically every other festive occasion, we would gather around it and sing for a short while and then eat and enjoy. I don't remember singing the prayers though. My brother and i along with the other cousins would be playing pranks on someone engrossed in the prayer, or let the dog in when nobody watched, or eat the prasad before it was allowed to do so!

We grow up, eventually. Things change. Some die, some die out. Today there was a tiny cobweb behind the temple, there were only white flowers, no rangoli, no incense and a lonely old man in the house.

Last evening, while swimming with my little cousins, i realized they've grown up as well. The breeze made pretty light ripples on the water in the pool and our laughter circled with it, making it a memory and dissolving quickly. I taught my little sister how to float in the water, we stared at the sky which reflected the blue around us and i wished that moment stayed a little longer. The both of us were some place where it was all light and beautiful.

She is going to grow up, break her heart, earn money, feel like an individual making her own decisions...

There is nothing to complain. This is life. Lonely but pleasant. And it is all going to be over someday. 

Monday, June 13, 2011

my heart is like the little pond outside 
little drops of anguish overflow it
can the little pond burst into rain?

if it doesn't,
little raindrops will silently fall
and how i will contain it all till you come,
only you'll know, oh love. 

Friday, June 3, 2011

growth is in breaking yourself again and again, and building anew. in washing yourself off with every tide, and springing afresh. convictions in the form of ego, in the annoying form of 'I' only destroy purity of being. being, is in truly 'being'. it is a process. if it stops, and if it stagnates, there is death. no creativity, no growth, no life. then it becomes difficult to see, because convictions clog off the beauty of the moment. the trick is in 'being'yourself inspite of washing yourself away every moment. i will learn that trick. i want to. 

like the puzzle nicole was trying to solve today. he kept destroying it. deconstructing it, to construct it. :) how nice that is.

this, i was thinking about, as i swam against the beautiful waves in the black sea. the sea was so clean, i could see the bottom even if couldn't touch my feet. i saw a beautiful shell too, closed, perhaps the litlle life inside was making a pearl still. i am making my pearl too, for the world, life has given me so much, so much, i want to give back to it the pearl i make. i will finish sometime, i am sure. it's only started right now...

i will make, break, make again, break again, until it is ready. will it ever be? who knows? do we need to know? happiness is the way, there is no way to it, really. 

life is beautiful.


Thursday, May 26, 2011

I have made a shelf of books that i have read a long time back, say around 6-7 years back. Today i was looking for a book that i could carry on my trip tomorrow and found The Great Gatsby. I bought it in 2005. 16 October, to be precise. I remember it because that is the day my parents got married long time back. And i found this note i had written at the back of the book, it says ' i got this book at barnes and nobles for 12$ and there is no exciting memory, no cherished moment whatsoever about today.'

I don't remember if i really liked that book that time. But i remember being greatly influenced and troubled by it. So i decided to start reading it again. This note at the back page basically made me open my laptop and write something about today. Because like that day, there is nothing exciting about today. It is still a day that is going down in my life, never to return. I might as well write something today. or let me reconstruct that sentence with just 'today' instead of 'about today'.

hmm. I am remembering sad stories of my life that have been left un-ended, dissolving in the stream of time...or is this whole un-happening part of these stories still a part of it? i don't really hope so. no feeling about it. not that there is a value-judgement about it.,,

so one day, long time back, i started running on a beautiful jogging track close to my house. I have been going there on and off for the last 4 years now. When i started off, i remember this guy who wore a yellow jersey and black trousers everyday and ran quite sincerely, as if he intended on doing long distance sometime. I ran quite sincerely too, hoping i run a marathon someday. his presence was quite motivating. we never exchanged a glance even (that is, a glance such that we notice it) the first year. and then the next year, we started smiling after finishing our workout. it was good to have him around, besides the old grumpy people dragging their flesh as if they are forced to do so that particularly lazy gloomy evening. only last year did we speak. he knew by then how much i ran, so one time i stopped quite early and started walking, and he said, 'hey, come on run'. i had cramps in my stomach, but i didn't want to tell him, afterall, this was the first time i heard him speak, and i didn't want to begin a conversation by telling him about my tummy ache. so i smiled and started running. that was quite stupid, now that i think about it...

cutting the story short, we spoke a few more times later...about running and health and fitness. never a word about our personal lives...
i stopped running for a week last month. i forgot all about this guy, got busy with life etc. only last week when i started running, i was told that the guy in yellow, whose name i never found out by the way, was asking for me before he left the country forever. he apparently has found a job somewhere in europe. i miss him on track. not in a romantic way obviously, but it saddens me to think that i will not see him again, forever?

nothing spectacular about this story. but i thought of it today.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition, to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded.

-Bessie Anderson Stanley

 My anger overwhelmed me yesterday, the city was ugly, fast, speedy, lusty, loud, poor, rich, full of problems bubbling forth and ignored and suppressed out of insensitivity, or ignorance or speed. Could it ever change? 
It made me restless. And i wished i could get in my running clothes, wear my shoes and run and get rid of the heaviness i felt in my heart. I couldn't. I was in the city, with work to be done. Restlessness often makes you explore, push things to their limits, search desperately...for peace? for self realization? It makes me want to reach out to the ones i love, tell them that they mean everything to me, it makes me want to act, to write, to run, to play music, to read, to live...it makes me want to jump on a trampoline a hundred times. It makes me want to breathe fresh air, unpolluted, wafting from a trembling green jungle or a clean snowy and misty mountain. 
All these desires, haha, when i am sitting in a green and white government bus in the window seat, bearing silently the heat the sun is pouring down and the sweat and a thick lack of sleep in the eyes...
and the news of my dear friend's loss. 

it's better to take refuge in simple pleasures, i realized. and chose to be happy about the fragrance of jasmine flowers that the girl next to me wore in her hair. and the clouds moving silently in the hot sunny sky. and the love in my heart. and the sight of an old man lazing under a blackberry tree flossing his teeth with a small twig. and a mother concentrating on cleaning her daughters hair off lice, separating every strand of hair and looking for the tiny bug. 

it's all still unsolved. do we really find peace? or do we choose it? no matter what, every peaceful moment in surrounded by a lot of chaotic restlessness. and vice-versa. or is it all the same and we change perspectives about that one thing, calling it peace and restlessness? i don't know where this is going...

so i stop. (proves my point exactly) sigh. 










"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." 
— Oscar Wilde


Tuesday, May 17, 2011

when i am jumping from a cliff down in the deep waters, there is this moment of truth that flutters between diving straight in and staying on the ground. the heart beats, shivers, supportless... i am not too ready to dive in but not too boring to stay on the ground. there is a risk there. oh not of losing my life etc, a risk nonetheless, of leaving the comfort behind and exploring the mysterious waters, of being in the air without wings, of experiences unknown.

i understand what they say when they say , what is life without risks. its breaking these walls, these fears, untying unknown knots...being in the discomfort, in search of comfort, but moving away in another discomfort again, persistently, in search of comfort.

we are a funny species.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

I have been rediscovering an extremely common statement of fact. Perhaps a reader of this post will sigh at the pronouncement i am just about to make, and not care to read what else follows. it is so obvious. but it is one thing to think something, and another to live it, to realize it. have i realized it or is it just a thought lingering in my head too long? but let me not regress, and pile up this post in the other unpublished ones in my blog account (because most of the things i want to write about are left unwritten with the amount of questions words ask me, when i place them down here, and then i take a detour and try to satisfy them, and it leaves me extremely unsatisfied, because it is not easy to satisfy words...precisely this. today i am going to let the glaring stares of a few questions just be. and move forward with what i think i want to say (why am i saying this at all? and who is going to read this anyway) whatever. i will still say this. (i realized i didn't find a spot to even close the parenthesis i opened.) oh well.

so, to state the quite obvious. People are different. period. and the difference is impenetrable, its like saying, the sky is infinite. what do i mean by it? i know what. but i can't limit it with definitions. one can never know how exactly the other is perceiving-smelling, touching, feeling, looking at the world. what we know is what we think we know. i walked a beautiful shadow strewn road in the sunny late afternoon today, and met someone very nice. we shared a very rare moment in life, and the more i spoke with this person, i realized that i am a person so different from this person. and in sensing this, i was defining my own self. realizing my own framework of viewing the world. we both saw though, how the flowers were in full bloom by the side of the road and the shadows of big banyan trees made our faces look really pretty. it is one thing to travel together. to journey together. share, care, love, fight, argue, hate etc. and quite another to know the other's journey.

i don't mean to adopt a solipsists position. i only want to convey the realization, that we are saying too much, when we say we know the other. there is nothing like that. it is merely a convenient thought. we could understand the other. but never know, in the philosophical real sense of 'knowing'.

to accept this, to take it for what it is, is where the real question arises. can we really love?

my heart asks me shut up. and lets me love. :)

honestly, if the heart could think, it would stop beating. phew!


Sunday, April 3, 2011


i sit by the window that pours in pure sunlight. there is such peace here. i am a little weary of poetic descriptions of where i am, what i am doing. (i blame it on excessess)  but somethings are just truly, phenomenally, beautiful. and then if i use the word beautiful too often, its not my fault. how else shall i begin writing about this incandescent moment but place it in the serenity and calmness of maitraban. a moment of candid conversation with the self. perhaps not a conversation, but a moment of seeing the self, existing wholly, trully, as it is, in the blue quiet water below. and when this moment lingers in the heart, even the laptop screen reflects me, exactly as what i am.

 at such moments, most certainly, there is a feeling of incompleteness. of a lack. i realized though, as i saw ten thousand stars blinking in the night sky, that there is no urgency to fill this blank, that life's strongest and most intense moments are in waiting. waiting with dignity, waiting with hope, waiting with persistent growth, waiting without helplessness, waiting without sorrow. there is a rhythm to life one can't dream of meddling with. how i admire that elephant there, slowly walking, with the burden of his being, with childlike innocence in his little eyes, slowly, steadily, like a King out on his journey, oh but without indifference! there is an acceptance of the world, of the people, of the soft breeze touching his eyelids, of the hard dusty ground he walks on. no, waiting is a wait only as much as a seed is a tree. there is happiness in being the seed too... i didn't know...

Thursday, March 3, 2011

in the whirlwind of life, the center should hold. it shouldn't tremble. we live so many realities, we wake up from dreamy nights, sleepless sleeps, thoughts mulled over and feelings clogged up. and every day there is something new, some new thought, some new face, some new newness. and we are dealing with it. i only wish the center to stay. only if i knew which is the center exactly. a formless pervaded life can have a center, i know, but the task is to find it and hold on to it. no, i don't want to be swept away. not so soon. and the center cannot be the ego...

Monday, January 31, 2011

the long black tar road

i walked down the foggy road this morning, which, rolled itself up suddenly and punched me on my face! no kidding! i was like, what the hell?, what did i do wrong? wasn't this a perfectly beautiful day and perfectly beautiful morning and wasn't i out on a great creative new journey? i was really taken aback. the road however, rolled itself up with more strength and punched me harder. 
obviously, i sank in a black hole. can you fight a long black tar road? if you can, let me know how. but i couldn't. and i drowned and drowned. as i drowned i saw all the dirt accumulated in corners and the rotting little live bugs i wished to have forgotten. i tried to cry. so many tears sprang up that i wanted to stop. the cruel punch from the road was not enough or what? what will i do with all those tears?! so they stopped. then i called some people i knew will lift me up and kiss me on the cheek and smile a smile that'll make me take another road, not this mean one. one after the other, i called. all of them said its ok. please be better. we love you. i looked at the black tar road and made a funny face. i knew, someday, i will have climbed the hill and rolled the silly road myself  :) and i can't let it occupy a rent-less place in my heart like that. better to be forgiven! punch as much as you want, mean tar road!

Thursday, January 20, 2011

indissoluble

what is it that you want?
 love.
 yes love. but what does that mean? 
care. attention. 
well, granted. ok? 
no, i want something more. 
what?
 i want love.
what exactly do you mean? 
well, love. you see. love.
that i do. i do love you. i don't have to say it all the time right? 
oh yes, of course. you don't, you shouldn't say it all the time.
then? you should know what you want. you have what you want. 
no. i want something else. 
tell me. put it in words.
i want to spend more time with you.
that we don't have.
well then, i want to spend more of myself with you. 
:)
and want to know more of you too.
well. we have our lives for that. 
oh no. this is not what i mean.
what do you mean?
i mean i want to be loved. intensely. the way i do.
really?
yes. thats what i want.
i can't give you that. there is only so much i can give.
but i want it from you.
where from?
where from?
this is me. 
but i can't live without you.
:)
eh? 
i dunno. 

sunset. songs. night. nightmares. sunrise. a smile. a new blossom outside the window. and another day... 

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Ajji

I cannot help admiring the grace with which some people grow old. and equally so, cannot help hating people who don't.one thing is for sure, i don't want to tread the world for 75 years and then rest in bed because my knees hurt! shouldn't these many years add to the strength of the spirit of life? 

today i met a beautiful grandma. she wore a soft cotton sari, (signature beautiful-grandma-sari) and smiled with her eyes as much as with her wrinkled cheeks. i got slightly annoyed when she couldn't tell me her own address (how am i supposed to know where she lives when i was to meet her for the first time?) but that snapped away the instant i saw her open the door. i hugged her, as i cannot help affection overwhelm me most of the times, touched her feet too. she innocently looked at me when i gave her the apples i got her but made a face that said 'was this necessary?' and then she thrust in my hand a big mug of mild milk-less and sugarless amazing ginger tea! it was a foggy morning and we sat in the porch, sipping tea. i was in love with her, instantly. the way she walked around and made a fuss when i tried to help her and went on with her "when will i do the walking then?, shouldn't i get some exercise too?" (aww). her hero is Winni the Pooh, him all over her blankets and mugs and cushions and bookshelf! she has a wooden old swing all for herself in the garden! she has a study scattered with books and diaries and papers! she writes! she has friends she cares about (still)! and she stays alone...accepting the darkness as much as the light and realizing life every day, with a new spirit.

That must be nice, to grow old like this, fully, as a human being. i almost felt like i cannot wait to be a grandma.