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

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...) :-)

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...

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. 

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. 

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.

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.