The Alchemy of Desire...

All desire and all love are legitimate. You do not have to desire for a hundred years or love for a hundred for it to be true. The love of a fleeting moment, the desire of an instant, is as legitimate and true as that of three score and ten years.

- Tarun Tejpal

An unsettling thought.

Once in a while you stumble across ideas which remove the rust on your engine of life and set it on fire again...kick alive comatose beliefs and force you to wrestle with them...either make them voraciously alive, or die a bloody death..

But you are never ever the same again...

The face at the door...

We delude ourselves about the neatness of life. The truth is no life is neat. Those we see – and those we read about – seem to possess neatness only because we know so little about them. The hidden sprawl behind the face at the door is always vast. Every life is beset by its unseen demons – avarice, jealousy, deceit, lust, violence, paranoia.

There is no neatness in any life – great or small. It is only an illusion men foolishly pursue. The face at the door is just that – the face at the door.

All lived lives are a mess.

Death of a Mulberry tree...

It had been standing in our courtyard ever since I could remember. The fragrance of its soft white flowers is still fresh in my memory. The carpet of white flowers in the driveway during spring always made me feel like a princess while walking on them. We both had matured together over the years. The years of familiarity had almost made it invisible.

But often it takes a tear in our fabric of life to realize the presence of fibers and the importance of each one of them.

Today it died. Or to be more specific, was brutally murdered. With every fall of the axe, a silent tear fell, mourning the death of a relation. The tenacious stump held on……long after the leaves and the branches were gone. Wounded and tired, its roots fighting to cling on to the ground, silently pleading to be left alone, to spend its remaining days in peace….

But what is a defenceless tree to do when faced with the collective and senseless wrath of the most dangerous species in the world?

Nothing, except feeling deeply betrayed. What do you do when the very hands that nurtured you conspire to kill you?

Amidst deep sighs from within….and collective cheers around me…the tree took its last shaky breath before it fell in an undignified heap on the ground…so much for the sanctity of life…how arrogant of us humans to believe pompously about the importance of ourselves and disregard anything that appears as a blemish to our perfect human-centric view of the world…

Now what remains is just a deep hole where the tree once stood.

When a relation dies, a deep void remains....

Numb....

I’m tired of being what you want me to be
Feeling so faithless lost under the surface
Don’t know what you’re expecting of me
Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes
(caught in the undertone just caught in the undertone)
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
(caught in the undertone just caught in the undertone)

I’ve become so numb I can’t feel you there
I’ve become so tired so much more aware
I’ve becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you

Can’t you see that you’re smothering me
Holding too tightly afraid to lose control
Cause everything that you thought I would be
Has fallen apart right in front of you
(caught in the undertone just caught in the undertone)
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
(caught in the undertone just caught in the undertone)
And every second I waste is more than I can take

I’ve become so numb I can’t feel you there
I’ve become so tired so much more aware
I’ve becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you

And I know
I may end up failing too
But I know
You were just like me with someone disappointed in you

I’ve become so numb I can’t feel you there
I’ve become so tired so much more aware
I’ve becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you


- Linkin Park

.............

The passage of girlish fun, frolic, fantasies turning to soul deadening routine as parents and tradition and clan conspire to make a cardboardbox out of a tree.

Pre-package and close every possibility of life.

- Tarun Tejpal

Life is but a dream....

Eager eye and willing ear
Lovingly shall nestle near.
In a wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die,

Ever drifting down the stream
Lingering in the golden gleam,
Life - what is it but a dream?

Teardrops from Heaven.....

Its been raining continuously since last night….thunderstorms and lightening…the dark, dangerously overcast skies mirroring the somber brooding within…

Its strangely comforting though…as if someone up there knows…and understands…the whole cosmos standing in solidarity in anguish…

Hv always found something deeply comforting and peaceful about nature…probably becoz hv grown up around it…shared a million secrets with it over the years…the silent symphony of rain on tree tops help to calm the constant cacophony within…to rise above the petty grumbles and whimpers of everyday living and look at life, the world and everything in between from a detached, philosophical viewpoint… the expansive horizons of the sea probably generate capacious thought patterns within….

Standing by the windowsill, bathed in the diffused half-light of a cloudy morning, I brood over the state of constant anticipation I’ve been in for quite some time now….the pregnant promises of the future….the unborn dreams of the past…the need to belong becoming almost more powerful than the need to eat…or sleep…

But the world is a hard place; it has evolved on Darwinian principles; it does not help to be wooly headed about it…there is just no place for sentimentality…except perhaps in your private dreams…

Life is strange…but the stranger it gets, the more predictable it becomes in terms of unpredictability.. and then you wonder who is in control? You? Or life? Are my decisions right? Are they even mine? As for the ‘rightness’ of them, who is to say whose pain is greater…yours or mine?

……………………………………..

The tired rain kept pouring throughout the day…relentless and chilly…..went out on the terrace in the fading twilight….got drenched….stood soaking beneath the purple skies….empty and cold….strains of the Azaan from the mosque come drifting in my ears……Allah…ho Akbar….a litany from my heart….beseeching the heavens above….the last wisp of light fades away…the street lamps light up…one…by one…by one…and a temple bell starts ringing somewhere…

………………………………………

Pilgrimage...

Pilgrim, how you journey
On the road you chose
To find out why the winds die
And where the stories go.

All days come from one day
That much you must know,
You cannot change what's over
But only where you go.

One way leads to diamonds,
One way leads to gold,
Another leads you only
To everything you're told.

In your heart you wonder
Which of these is true;
The road that leads to nowhere,
The road that leads to you.

Will you find the answer
In all you say and do?
Will you find the answer
In you?

Each heart is a pilgrim,
Each one wants to know
The reason why the winds die
And where the stories go.

Pilgrim, in your journey
You may travel far,
For pilgrim it's a long way
To find out who you are...

Pilgrim, it's a long way
To find out who you are...

Pilgrim, it's a long way
To find out who you are...

Haunting words coming back to me as I started a last silent, lonely round around NID Paldi campus….biding my farewells…

to the walkway from the main gate remembering when I had first come here with Papa to check out NID….

to the ruins in the garden…where I and Sappu sat on my first day here…

to the Foyer where we spent countless evenings, waiting, chatting, presenting…

to the Amphitheater where I had posed as a dancer for animation…

to the BMW with its stone benches and charged up conversations….

to the KMC….where many a hot afternoons were spent lazily reading Tufte in the cool AC comfort…

to the BBC and that unforgettable night of ice-breaking…

to the Audi with its vibrant rainbow of movies and presentations watched within…

to the…

to the…

to the…

Can the weak crutches of words really provide support to a heavy heart?

I will my legs to move slower and slower….in the misguided hope that somehow time gets slower…..trying to look at everything as if for the first time….trying to get rid of the indifference which creeps in as a result of a long time spent amidst familiarity…

I enter the small stationary shop bursting to the seams with a designer’s tools…

“Do you want something?” I saw the stationer looking at me strangely…and I realized I had been standing stock still for quite some time…

“Err….ya, I was looking for a few colored sheets of paper….” I mumbled vaguely and stumbled out..

( I don’t even know the guy’s name….so much for the attachment to this place….)

My untimely presence at the mess….where I had cut my fingers cooking dinner for 30 people and serving it in shit pots during Niels Peter Flints course...sweet, sweet Ajay….eating and dancing with the slum dwellers next door…aaah….crazy days and crazier nights…. the trauma of monotony threatens to engulf…

The names have already become difficult to recall… conversations beginning to fade away….the mind has been crowded with too many people in the last 2 years…competing for space, attention, memory….

And that is the reason for me making this feeble attempt to make feelings a prisoner of words…the feelings for this place being too precious to allow them to escape….

The infamous backfields….where I had hoped I would be spending some beautiful moments with someone special….I laugh mirthlessly…the NID garba did make it almost worthwhile though…

The imposing Speaking Tree....working for days and nights to make it happen….Rajan and that turning point…

DCC….Primary Education….schools and slums and NGOs…..working throughout the night….

The magical Dating weeks….the romance and the tingling anticipation….

Aaah…..the list could go on and on…..each word apologetically trying to do justice to the memory it represents…this place a testimonial to probably the only decision in my life so far which was not a compromise…and that’s why its so close to the heart….because it is completely, unapologetically, irrevocably, MINE…

Probably I’ll come back, probably I never will..
The memories will warm the heart still
And when I’ll look back on these years
The eyes will only brim with joyful tears…

something remains...

“ long after everything is over we might not remember exactly what was said and what was done.... but we would always remember what we felt”

i hope so...it wud be be a pity to forget.

Only Time....

Who can say where the road goes,
Where the day flows, only time?
And who can say if your love grows,
As your heart chose, only time?

Who can say why your heart sighs,
As your live flies, only time?
And who can say why your heart cries
when your love lies, only time?

Who can say when the roads meet,
That love might be ,in your heart?
and who can say when the day sleeps,
and the night keeps all your heart?
Night keeps all your heart.....

Who can say if your love groves,
As your heart chose, only time?
And who can say where the road goes
Where the day flows, only time?

Who knows? Only time
Who knows? Only time

When words are not enough….

My last night at gandhinagar.

Listening quietly to the stillness of the night, silence has never been more eloquent…every pore of my body alive with awareness…faint strains of music drift in….giving company to the omnipresent sounds of nature….the natural and the man-made harmonizing in perfect symphony…my nerve endings straining to absorb as much as they can…struggling to fill my cup of memories…to last a lifetime…

People pass by….carefree and irreverent….in stark contrast to the flood of emotions threatening to engulf within…none caring for me, me caring for none.

There is something magical about night…probably the concealment provided by the darkness highlights the dark recesses of the mind…and the heart…the subdued activity outside calls for a heightened activity within…to maintain a balance..

Have never felt compelled to be a part of a network for prolonged periods….probably the fear of forever being trapped in tht network being too strong….have come to think of myelf as an electron belonging to the last orbit of an atom…on which the nucleus exerts the minimum force and thus they hv the highest momentum and the ability to jump from one atom to another….because the nucleus has changed…aah….the lonliness of that electron….

Of course the atom doesn’t take too kindly to it…..it becomes unhappy with the renegade electron…which dared to disturb its stability….and swiftly, the electron is replaced…with a lesser ambitious one which is willing to be a part of the network unquestionably….

And once in a while the renegade electron meets its former mates….and it realizes its ambition has been touted as its curse….the insecure and wary mates defending their atomic network zealously….secure and comfortable in each other’s harmless unambitiousness…

And then it realizes…that it shud leave immediately….if it wants to preserve its beautiful memories…of connections once strong…of suspicions unborn….

Twisted Realities…

An embittered life….like a Poison Ivy affecting everything in its vicinity….suffocating with complete domination…for as long as I can remember…my days are not my own…my life is not my own…I struggle to bide my time….clutching at a wisp of sanity…fighting for a morsel of hope, the ambrosia of my life…

It’s a strange thing…memory. A double edged sword. Makes one want to remember, yet want to forget…to remember the lessons, yet forget the experiences….is that possible?

I hope I remember.
I hope I forget.
I hope

White Flag..

and when we meet
which I am sure we will
all that was there
will be there still
i'd let it pass
and hold my tongue
and you would think
that i've moved on....

Voices in my head…

There are voices all around me
My enemies and my friends
Do this, dont do that
The chorus never ends
But I shall always listen to that quiet inner voice
Its strong and gentle; and I have made my choice..

…….familiar strains of a hymn learnt long back…when life was simple…choices were uncomplicated…and thinking meant deciding what to wear at my best friend’s birthday party…

As years flew by, and I ‘wisened’ up to the ways of the adult world…I realized it became more and more complicated to keep life simple…the no. and gravity of decisions I had to make each day just kept on rising exponentially…and a day came when I realized I had a problem….which has caused me endless suffering over the years…I cant seem to stop thinking…..ever.

There is just no place for silence in my head anymore…and it is scary….coz I know,
‘its the spaces between the notes, that create the music’ …

Preoccupied all my waking hours…(and mostly the dreaming hours too), trying to sort out the voices in my head…sifting through the barrage of probabilities, possibilities, consequences of decisions already taken, and those to be taken in future…people and places….hopes and fears….conversations already had and the thoughts I have yet to put in words…mental attack and defense…..past regrets and wishes for future….thinking about friends tht have become strangers, and strangers which will be my friends….

Imagination has almost become a curse…the need to escape becoming more and more frequent…

........

where are you?......

i have become tired of searching....

An alibi for a life….

Each one of us goes through life hoping that we made a difference….that our presence mattered in the grand scheme of things; for the short time we are in the state of consciousness….thinking we know exactly what we want out of life…setting and unsetting priorities….looking for an alibi for a life…probably that’s why people marry…to ensure that their lives didn’t go unnoticed….their children and spouse…a testament to their time spent on earth…

As for me, I have yet to outgrow that adolescent preoccupation of figuring out where I am headed in life….what I want out of it, and what I m willing to give…I keep waiting for that epiphany…a sudden awakening to my role in the grand scheme of things…a call for my vocation….thus explaining my predilection for uncertainty; probably one of the multitude of opportunities it spawns might lead me to my THE GOAL in life…

Then again…I have been searching so long….that have developed a comfortable familiarity with instability…trying to escape the wastefulness of a routinely led life…am almost beginning to accept this exploration as THE GOAL of my life…probably there are others like me, I hope…who are destined to be the travelers….their lives one long saga of exploration….just like the bees….whose goal is to flit from flower to flower….thus contributing their bit in the name of the bigger cause of pollination…

And I do believe we have a role to play in the bigger scheme of things….a part to perform in the grand saga of the universe…we all like to arrogantly think that our decisions are ours alone…attributed to what is called ‘free will’…but then what is destiny? Does it exist? And has it already been written? Are we then mere puppets that are given the illusion of free will to keep them happy?

There is a lot I am confused about…

method and madness....

My time at NID has made me realize one thing – Sanity is overrated.

Insanity, or its less pungent cousin, craziness, is a much more productive state of mind…History reveals that no truly great work of creativity, whether in arts or science was achieved by pure logic alone..whether it was Einstein or Leonardo da Vinci, Van Goh or John Nash…all true geniuses had a twist of madness to their method....makes me wonder why logic alone is perceived as the one great hallmark of intelligence…..in fact madness, in my understanding, is the single thing that will always ensure the superiority of man over machine…of a human mind over a supercomputer…

NID, on the other hand, has always extolled madness as the single great indicator of genius…madness IS the method here…craziness being considered as the petri dish for creativity; and logic frowned upon…

Probably, both the view points are the extreme ends of a spectrum…of the age old rivalry between madness and method….and the creative maxima is reached somewhere in between…at what point this maxima is achieved depends on the individual, and the field of work..

In engineering, we are always taught, that there is just ONE right answer…one perfect solution…and all other solutions are wrong…this has the effect of looking at life as a series of zeros and ones….blacks and whites…without acknowledging the presence of grey…we forget that grey is what acknowledges the presence and necessity of both black and white simultaneously…in the same world…..grey, then, is the most stable state of existence…not only for everything in the world outside, but also within our own being..

In our logic driven world, undue importance is given to the sovereignty of the Solution…while the context is relegated to a background…unable to see parallel realities, we don’t realize that what maybe appropriate in one context maybe completely misappropriate in another context…why then, are there heated and endless debates on The Right and The Wrong…without little, or no awareness of the context?

Like I read somewhere….

“I have my way, You have your way. As for the Right way, the Correct way, or the Only way, it does not exist.”

So true.

spaces....

Have been recently back from NID….my home for the past 2 yrs….it was an overwhelming experience..

Wondered what it was about its empty corridors that made my heart so full…cud still hear the laughter…feel the people….a feeling of absolute, rare calm...jutst like the perfect tranquility of a fish bowl when the fish dont move...

I am a nomad at heart…the fear of stagnation always keeps me on the move…both mentally and physically…and I never thought it was possible to spend a great length of time in any one place and not feel restless…the urge to move on usually comes too soon…

But was wondering what was it about this small pre-fab structure in the middle of nowhere…with crickets and beetles for company….tht tugged at the heart strings so? I realized it had nothing to do with the space outside but the space within…the way I hv been affected and changed forever…

Every animal (including us humans) is a territorial being…I remember feeling very hostile when my juniors came to share my campus…wht I till then thought was ‘my’ space…we always like to believe tht we were better…our times were better…probably to substantiate our illusion tht our lives didn’t go waste…..tht we made a difference…. and tht the place was special becoz we were special…this may be a very arrogant view to see our relationship with the space…but if this belief contributes to the highly valued thing called ‘memories’ then I think it is worth it…

And any external space is only as important as the degree to which it affects the space within… thts why the places whr we spent our childhood are the most beautiful… thts why thr is only one home…

a passing thought...

“The scars of a battle with one’s self take longer to heal than others. And sometimes, perversely, you desire that the scars remain, as a reminder of what it is like and what it could be like again.”

a long, long time...n then some more...

Its been a long long time….a lot of water has flown under the bridge since I poured my thoughts out….not that I am in a habit of doing that often…maybe its sheer laziness, or maybe my belief in the sheer transient nature of most thoughts and feelings…the few that are of permanent nature….they are, well…permanent..

Also, deep down, my long held belief that nobody gives a damn anywayz…yet a lingering hope, that somebody does…and thts y this outpouring..

Two years have passed…two years of peeling away…of layers of prejudices, hang-ups, doubts and judgements…a return to innocence…purging away the algae over my mind…

Two years of preparing myself for the long journey into the horizon….like a small boat tied to the anchor….bobbing up and down along with the tide…low and high, low and high…the tides just clearing away the debris of yester years….gradually realizing the fleeting nature of the tides themselves…the only constant thing being the immense ocean…TIME…the only balancing force…

How many wrongs must a heart suffer
Before it knows there is no right?

How many people do u look to for happiness
Before u know it lies inside?

How many paths does a traveler walk down
Before he finds the one that leads Home?

How many ‘choices’ does a mind make
Before it realizes they are just a compromise?

How many hurts does a heart suffer
Before it knows that the healer is Time?

How many ‘values’ does a child have to learn
Before his innocence dies?

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind..