absence...

The glistening pointed church spire,
like a warrior's sword raised higher,
among the dark billowing clouds,
to rend the sombre menacing shrouds..
The timid, tremulous, powdery rain,
the lacy weave on the window pane,
steaming cup of coffee, freshly ground,
endless words, tepid brew, quickly downed..
The joyful liberated dance of trees,
the quest for freedom, of the leaves,
the gush of wind, music in the rush,
nature in motion, hearts in a hush..
The ballooning umbrellas, feet in a hurry,
the trepidation, the nostalgia, the glee,
all of the creator's power makes sense,

all replicated, but for you, as audience...

कल रात शमा से पूछा, यूँ ही,
है किसकी चाहत की जिसमे जलती हो तुम
कभी साहिल को देखा भी नहीं
फिर भी रात पार करती हो तुम..?
अँधेरे के दामन में छुपी हुई
किस उम्मीद को बहलाती हो तुम,
जबकि है साथ सिर्फ तन्हाई
फिर भी नाचती रहती हो तुम...?
कच्चे  से धागे से बंधी हुई
किसके इश्क में तबाह होती  तुम,
जबकि मिली है सिर्फ बेवफाई,
फिर भी यूँ लगन लगाती हो तुम...?
मोहब्बत का हक अदा करती हुई
कभी यूँ ही सहम जाती हो तुम,
आंधी जो आगोश में भरले कभी
वफ़ा की मिसाल ही कहलाती हो तुम...?
आज क्यूँ तुमसे मिलकर लगा यूँ ही
की जैसे जूनून की हो पहचान तुम,
मेरे जानिब भी हो ऐसी आशिकी
फना हूँ जिसपर, जैसे होती हो तुम...

...Lost for words...

Amit calls me an 'agony aunt' because of my ability to make people trust me with all their woes and worries and I have always prided myself on my 'higher than average' empathy factor which gets people to confide in me. I have also thought that I have the ability to listen impassionately though not insensitively and offer a logical and easy way of dealing with 'situations'. And yet today, I wished I could have been like most people around me, that I did not have this emotional-accessibility factor. Something happened which stopped me dead in my track and I have been feeling lost ever since...

There is a customer of my branch, an old lady, a sweet and gentle soul always full of cheer and kind words,  a little waif of a person, so small and delicate she actually looks like a  fragile china doll. She invokes such a protective feeling in me and for some odd reason she has taken a great liking to me and insists that I must take care of all her banking needs even though I am in another department and have no reason to do so. She never forgets to send me a cake for Christmas or Easter and has me forever indebted to her for all the love and affection she showers on me.

There is something strange I have noted about her ever since the time I have known her and this has also been a cause of concern for me. Every single time that she visits the branch she has one or the other bone broken! It is either the right leg, the left one, the wrist or the elbow..it goes on but I have never seen her whole and well. I have often suggested that she should visit a good ortho to have the problem examined but she laughingly passes it off as 'the side effects of old age' coupled with the  mishaps resultant of living alone (she is a widow).

Today, like all other times, she called (to confirm if I was free and available) and then dropped in to my office. One look at her and I knew she was in excruciating pain, so as I escorted her to a chair, I jokingly asked her, which one is it this time. Unlike her past answers, this time her reply was subdued as she said it was her ribs. Like all the previous occasions, I again entreated with her to visit a good doctor about the fragility of her bones, even offering to accompany her, if required. And then the unexpected happened - she started to cry!

I was stricken by remorse that maybe it was my casual approach to her ailment that caused the reaction and I tried to comfort her but it was as if a dam had burst. After a while, as she calmed down, she said words which ring in my ears even now; she told me that all the accidents of the past times, all those broken bones, had been caused- not by a deficiency or physical weakness- but was the handiwork of her daughter(!) who lived with her and was a spinster, who blamed the mother for her single status and thrashed her mercilessly at the slightest provocation.

It was at that moment I wished, albeit selfishly, not that she was elsewhere, safe and comfortable, but, that I could have been elsewhere or someone else. I wished it were possible to 'unhear' those words because today I lost my ability to remain impassioned and offer logical advice in the face of her reality. What solace can one offer to such a mother who only prays every single day 'that her own child would take what she wants but atleast leave her capable of fending for herself in her old age'. How does one offer logic to a helpless old lady who waits on her only child despite her broken bones, despite the pain and the injury, in the fear that she may be inflicted with even more, should she be caught slacking her pace. She, who has so much of love and affection to shower on a stranger, who speaks a few kind words, is treated like dirt by her own progeny? There are those who pray to the almighty to be blessed with a child and here, before me, was a woman who beseeched the lord each day, for deliverence from one...

As she got up to leave, I was numb and though I escorted her to her cab, she has stayed on in my heart and always will...

artistry?

A conversation on the go…a friend tells me that he thinks that artists of any kind must be such content people. They have the luxury ofnot only venting their desires in their art but also the privilege of seeking their fulfilment in its expression. This would make them truly content people as they wouldn’t have any expectations from a relationship beyond the one they share with their art. The freedom to create from their current state of mind or heart, without having any judgement made on them. So you could paint a grey picture or write a sad song or create a twisted sculpture in your blue moments and still cherish that as your creation, without remorse or guilt. Or you could pick the most vibrant hues from your palette and randomly throw them on a canvas, strike the highest and lowest notes and string them into an incredible symphony and raise it up as the expression of your most joyous moments. “If only we had a special skill too..”


A pause and my response..who says we can’t, each one of us, be an artist too? We have been given a canvas called life and a palette full of colours called time and each one of us can paint a picture every day, all the days of our life. True, sometimes the picture would be just sepia tinted(when life is stuck in rote) or plain old black & white (to reflect our sombre moments) , at others a charcoal sketch (emanating from sad thoughts) and sometimes a radiant depiction of our inner joy. But we do have a choice to do with it as we want to; To be able to feel the luxury of being the creator of our own story, to find fulfilment in the honest expression of our responses to each of destiny’s (?) twists and turns..

Perhaps where we go astray and lose this sense of wonder is when we start looking to others for confirmation of our own needs and desires. The Physical interdependence of society or family can not be negated unless one chooses to be a recluse but the emotional dependence is often the albatross around our neck. Our palette loses color and our skills fade away when subjugated to the needs of others. It is here that the two mischief mongers of guilt and anger step in and start the process of creating discontment or resentment. By this, I do not mean to imply that one needs to be totally insensitive or self centred but yes, there is a line beyond which only the self remains and in order to be truly content, it is my belief, that each one of us needs to draw and respect our commitment to that border.

And it is possible to remain an artist, content and fulfilled, if one knows that secret place where one can retreat and paint as the heart feels or create as the eyes see or write as the mood comes..sans remorse or guilt..for each such creation shall then be mine and worth being proud of and shall liberate me evermore..

"Wonderland?"

I am a self- confessed book addict; the aroma of a book, the feel of the paper in my hands, the sound of the turning pages are enough to transport me into another world. And fantasy has been my favourite genre , ever since I laid my hands on my first Enid Blyton. Till today ‘Alice in wonderland’ ranks amongst my most favorite books ever. I read with equal fervor all the tales of vampires and werewolves etc. that my daughter is currently hooked on. But there is one particular series to which I have never been able to subscribe, no offence meant to J.K.Rowlings, but ‘Pottermania’ has completely and totally eluded me.

Of late though, I have started feeling as if my body is behaving like a Harry Potter spell gone terribly wrong. Lets start with the events of about a year ago – I have always prided myself on being blessed with a fair share of the grey matter but Really! Does my brain have to make such a statement about it?! In an average human being there is a certain volume of Cerebral serum fluid which is produced which keeps the brain fertile and balanced. In my case, the brain, suddenly finding itself totally and utterly ignored and unused decided to take matters unto itself and started producing more than twice the volume of CSF giving me a disease called ‘Benign Intercranial Hypertension’ (quite a mouthful – but as my friends say , ‘anything less complicated would not suffice’). This means that the doctors have to stick a needle and pipe into my spine and drain out the excess fluid and keep me on medication until it is possible to do so without surgical intervention (which would require a shunt being placed in the spine to do the job- My daughter’s take on this is ‘after you’ve had your gall bladder and appendix removed now you’ve started having stuff put in instead?!’)

Descending from the brain, lets move to the eyes. Having seen enough of the world around them and since I was not providing them with much variety in any case they suddenly decided that they had seen enough and gave up the ‘vision’ one fine day, leaving me (and my doctors) clueless. There were so many vials of blood taken out for testing so many possible diseases (some found even in the African jungles – must be a carry over of some previous lifetime or a lesser evolved state)that I think it would have been enough for entire body blood transfusion of a needy soul. And after all that when they could find nothing (having even suspected cancer and drilling into my various bones for biopsies) they simply shrugged it off as an ‘auto immune disorder’ with the possibility of recurrence at any given time. And I say Thank You Science!

During the above mentioned period of darkness they pumped in all kinds of steroids into my body and though my system handled it all bravely (other than for the fact that I started resembling a gas balloon ready for take off at any time), it did have its own aftermath. My intestines have now decided that they have had enough of digesting all those bitter pills that are my daily bread and need some fresh air and change of scenery! So they are threatening to step out of my stomach at any given moment of time and are required to be kept under close observation and near starvation lest they find that extra burst (!) of energy.

It doesn’t all end here though because adversity forges its own bonds and my ilia (the leg bone) and the hip joint have become great friends in these times so much so that they have broken all the distances that separated them and though im glad to see this show of solidarity, it is awfully painful for me when I want to indulge in normal human activities like walking or even turning over in my sleep.

And now I wish I had the magic wand of Potter and could mumble some jumbled up words and set it all right, as it were once…or maybe that was my fantasy too..

the karma chameleon

'The travails of life are a part of the travel of life' has been my credo and therefore, I have always believed in putting my best foot forward and moving on from the here and now, without wasting my thought on the how and why of untoward incidents.


And yet there are times when one is overwhelmed, by the regularity of mishaps and there comes to the mind the question about the relevance of ‘Karma’. If all events in life are a function of ones actions, past or present, one’s karma, as they say, then why is it that the conscious mind does not register such a plethora of negative actions which might be the cause of the spate of bad luck.

 We can, perhaps, then extend the karma to stretch to previous lifetimes, the cycle of life and death, which may be resulting in the ill fortune that strikes one. If it is the endeavour of the evolved soul to terminate this cycle in this lifetime, through the medium of one’s actions, then it also transpires that this fact would register somewhere in the so called eternal ledger of actions and their outcomes.



This could be the reason that one suddenly feels that there is an overflow of bad luck – because it has been registered in the Cosmos, that in the case of this individual, it is time for the vicious Circle to come to a stop and the good deeds notwithstanding, the karma of all bad deeds, past or present, therefore, has to be borne out in this one lifetime.

 The night then seems darkest because sunrise is  a little way away, on the other side of the horizon. Or maybe this is the wishful thinking of an eternal optimist….

in a meditative mode..

A disciple once went to his spiritual guru and requested that he be taught the art of meditation, to still his wandering mind and resolve the conflicts amongst his thoughts. The teacher asked him, "Tell me what you conceive meditation to be." The disciple's ponderous reply was thus, " Meditation is a technique of Yoga or spiritual awakening which leads the mind to freedom from constricting thoughts. It teaches a person to empty one's being from reality and the conflicts that arise from it. It is an exercise in the negation of thoughts and the self, whereby the practitioner becomes one with the universe." The teacher then smiled and said,"if this is your perception of what you want to achieve (where you want to arrive) then I'm not equipped to guide you there, you must seek another..."

I have always considered my spiritual quotient to be high and yet despite the fast emerging trend of seeking spiritual guidance to quell one's doubts and practice of various skills, acquired solely with the intention of finding 'peace', I have never had a desire to learn the 'art of meditation'. In the recent past, when the mind has been overwhelmed, at times, with confusing, often incoherent thoughts, the question has arisen in my mind as to how I would define 'meditation', were I to seek solace in the practice of it.

The wikipedia describes the etymology of 'meditation' as a derivative of the Latin word 'meditatio' meaning any type of intellectual exercise, which later evolved to contemplation. I believe then, that meditation is not a transition from a conscious to non-conscious state (so to say), it is an act of active will where one learns to tune into ones own thoughts, to an extent that one is able to smoothly transit from one thought to another, granting cognizance to the desirable and shunning the wasteful, so that there remains no scope for any conflict in the mind.

It is not the negation of thought. A thought is like a coiled spring and the more one stretches/pulls away from it, the greater the velocity with which it strikes back, when left unattended (and often at moments most unexpected). Thus meditation, in order to be a stress liberating process, has to mean the empowerment of the mind with the ability to recognise/sort/accept/discard thoughts and this is a 'state of being' which cannot be limited to a few minutes/hours of a day. It has to evolve into a mental framework through which one functions, every moment, each day and for all the days of one's life.

 I seek to transcend myself to that level of consciousness and not make do with interim intervals of awakening in the form of the commonly perceived notion of meditation..

the script..

I was talking to someone recently who plans to write screenplays/scripts for hollywood. He gave me some interesting information; that in any good Hollywood movie the twist in the plot, so to say, happens at around the 27th minute. He said  it wont happen at the 17th minute or after the the 30th and you can actually time it to happen around the 27th minute. He also said that every story has a beginning and a climax at the end, its the middle which lags and people who are learning how to write professionally are really trained to handle that middle.

This set me thinking.. isn't that somewhat true of most of our lives too. We have a beginning and the 'twist in the tail' which sets the pattern for the future narration happens around the 27th year, give or take some and then we have the ending, as pre-ordained, settling down into the susnset years and then fading away into another life or land, maybe...the sequel waiting to be written. Its 'the middle which lags' that holds true for the story of our lives that rings out clearly; hence the term 'mid-life crisis'.

Most people who live truly happy (aka successful by my definition) lives are the ones who have trained themselves to handle the middle well. Sadly though, there is no school for training us in this, life itself being the classroom. And if one can learn to handle the 'fall years' with grace and enthusiasm, it will be a story well lived, one which can be narrated or remembered posthumously, with a sense of joy and nostalgia..with a desire to be part of the sequel too.

a time to fly..

In the last few days my life has suddenly assumed a new aura, a warm glow that fills my heart with peace even at the most turbulent times. This blog then, is symbolic of the new pattern that emerges. My child, who has achieved what she has been striving for, for the past two years, is responsible for the glow that envelops me. While I was taking her through the preparations for her interview, there was a moment of insight for me as well. Her spontaneous answer to the question, “who is your role model and why” was," my mother, because she has taught me that one must live by one’s convictions and have the courage and belief to know that you will reach your destination in life, wherever it may be, if you can stand up for what you believe in and never lose faith”… A mouthful of words in a voluble gush (just like the wordsy person she is) but it set me thinking. I should have felt pride but the only feeling that I had was of an intense desire to shield her and hold her in my arms, for a moment I even thought that I should tell her to reconsider her response but it was so straight from her heart that I couldn’t. But I wish I could tell her that its not an easy path to tread..there is a lot of loneliness and at times heartbreak too. And one has to constantly draw from one’s soul to find the courage to walk alone, if there is no fellow traveller, it can be emotionally draining and there are times when you wish you could take the easy way out. However, I do know this – if my child has chosen to walk a certain path she will emerge a winner because even at this young age she has the courage to dream (and im an eternal dreamer too) and the fortitude to make those dreams a reality. She is ready to test her wings and a silent prayer (which is always in my heart for her) will be the wind beneath her wings and she will fly, free and spirited. If I could be even a small part of her flight to happiness, I feel blessed, not proud…

closure...not compromise

Two travellers on a road together look at the distant horizon, see a storm gathering, the sky takes on a sombre menacing view. One of them, the wiser one (?) chooses to change his path and avoid a confrontation with the storm and correct his course later, when the storm has passed. He asks his companion to do the same. But the other opts to continue on his chosen path, undaunted by the gathering clouds...I know which of the two travellers I would choose to be and yet there is this question, is it foolhardy to go on in the face of danger, to ignore the looming threat? Most people would say that it would be false bravado rather than bravery. It would be wiser and saner to take retreat until the danger passes you by. I cannot abide by that, however. I think it would make me that much more hardy, having weathered the worst of times, my steps would be steadier and surer, in the face of the next calamity that strikes me and i would find within me the courage to withstand rather than the instinct to withdraw. This perhaps is the reason why I cannot abide by people who seek refuges or shelters, who would rather be stifled in the cocoon than sacrifice their comfort zone. It is also a yardstick by which i measure the degree of acceptance that i can accord, in my personal space, to a person. For those who do not have the conviction to stick to their chosen course, I am no one to sit judgement but i do have the choice that they be not more than faces in the milieu, not co-travellers on the journey of my life. For people who I might have held dear and valued but can do no more, this is all i have to say, you chose what was right by you and i will stand up to my convictions, please do not seek a compromise in either and undermine the essence of our individual lives....