Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Beyond the River Mists…..
“We come, we do, we go, and I think we should not take ourselves more seriously than that……the doing can be a rather grand voyage if you don’t panic and if you believe, as I believe in magic and imagination and wizards who live along quiet country rivers.”
(- Robert James Waller, in “Old Songs in New Café”)
From the middle of an endless blue I look up at the deep dark purple above…of high seas and storm clouds… dreams of that grand voyage… But somewhere dreams will end, realities will intrude and wizards will vanish into river mists.
Or so I thought.
Once I was a cynic, or so I liked to call myself. And love was hopelessly lost and given up, that deceptive veneer of cynicism cushioning the mind and heart from all true realizations. But the supposed wisdom of age is leading me back….all the way back to those voices and old memories that come riding along the winds which speak of other worlds and other realities. For this life of mine may not be one that began when I was born. They say we have no memory of being born. I believe now that this is an old life caught in a new world. Birth may not be a memory then, but living is and always will be…..and the mind now willfully wanders along random lines, revisiting old streets and secret corners of lived worlds even while seeking out the pleasures of new places. The romance of living begins.
This attempted return to romance was and is not easy, for I was bound by the ideas of clichéd romance between two lovers….walks along the beach or roses or slow waltz under moonlight…..So then life was to be that sparse and stark experience of living for others? Was there to be no romance of the individual? Can romance not be a perspective? Can it not be a suspension of realities on one hand and the appreciation of the very same realities on the other? Romance is essential to love affairs. But what of an affair with romance itself? And that is what it comes down to, for romance is not outside us. If I choose to think of it as one of those old voices inside then I can think of this affair or this re-association with romance. In my earlier attempts to understand it I took to categorizations and definitions and naturally we parted ways. Now that I have returned I have no intention of pushing romance away. And with this I feel that my years of long wandering start.
It is not only the present which changes or the visions of future which now look different. From a black and white past I move to sepia-toned remembrances. I remember distant Sunday mornings of small delightful adventures...plucking sweet pink lilies…the first caterpillar…the tree with that swing of a branch…that first peek into the cinnamon spiced secret world of women…of that encounter with innocent adorations and naïve love…
And my father was ever my hero for bringing me that one yellow flower from the edge of a cliff drop that I silently eyed and that was long years ago.
As for the now….the mundane has taken on rather fascinating and altered appearances. The driving urge now is to look differently at that which was and has been a constant. The old will never be old if perspectives are constantly challenged and left open to changes. Every morning on my way to work now I meet the proud soldiers of a forest king. They stand tall and straight, stopping just short of the skies….their dark bodies seem to literally glisten after the night’s fall of rain and their robes of rich green wrap up a thousand stories of living. And as the wind sings along, I can all but hear the sounds of the forest creatures stirring back into life…a new day. And as one tree ages and falls, so does a new one thrust out. The cycle of life….
Living is no longer a singular human experience. It has now become a richly layered woven fabric of such intricate designs that it would take one life and more to see through it all, if ever that does happen. We don’t live alone in this world and as a matter of co-existence with myriad forms of life and ancient elements; our life itself is an interaction with everything. I like to believe then, that with every instance of association with the wind, I hear it whisper yet another story from yore. For old secrets come again and again in the worlds of mortals through threads of the infinite.
I saw a seagull some time back. A white flight of beauty and pride against blue skies….an unlimited freeness in movement ridiculing the limits of our perceptions. It was a simple enough sight….a bird flying high up in the sky as so many birds have flown and soared before. But logical understandings fail at certain points. There is no apparent reason for me to remember this moment. But I do and I will for years to come. And I no longer seek any explanation for this or for the implications of the memory. The Beatles did sing “Let it Be” didn’t they?
Even as I write the gardener is cutting the monsoon wilderness of grass just outside my window. Again, something I have seen a hundred times before today and again something I never really noticed. Yet today there seems to be something different about him. He swings the scythe back and forth, again and again in a loose arc. The fluidity of his actions somehow made sense….telling me of a simple appreciation of the fact of living and perhaps a temporary rejection or suspension of the economic realities of his life? Perhaps in the numbing sensation of that swinging scythe, he found the space to travel where he pleased?
A far off evening comes to mind now. I was traveling in a train, the destination I do not recall. Life in all its color, smells and sensations went flying by my window. I became increasingly aware of this huge phenomenon of life and time flowing in continuity and eternally. I saw women carrying huge bundles of grass on their heads return home. Fields stood empty as men trudges back after a day’s work. Smoke curled up in thin wisps from homes faintly visible in the distance. A kid waved frantically at my train. Perhaps day after day he saw trains cutting through this countryside and perhaps he longed to be inside one everyday. Perhaps he wished too speed off and away to some other place, to fulfill some fantasy. Or perhaps he just shrugged it off as one more intrusion into his life? I crossed a hundred small towns and villages with strange unheard of names. Blurred images made them more dead than alive. Yet they all had rich lives. But some roads and some histories escape from our grasps forever.
A mango tree stood alone by the edge of a small rivulet….heavy with flower and promised a full fruit in the months to come. It would have been a delight then. And some children of the village would have climbed up its branches and snuck out as many mangoes as they could….somewhere in time I have seen them do it, as I did it myself in what seems to have been long ago.
That was life…
And this too is life……
(- Robert James Waller, in “Old Songs in New Café”)
From the middle of an endless blue I look up at the deep dark purple above…of high seas and storm clouds… dreams of that grand voyage… But somewhere dreams will end, realities will intrude and wizards will vanish into river mists.
Or so I thought.
Once I was a cynic, or so I liked to call myself. And love was hopelessly lost and given up, that deceptive veneer of cynicism cushioning the mind and heart from all true realizations. But the supposed wisdom of age is leading me back….all the way back to those voices and old memories that come riding along the winds which speak of other worlds and other realities. For this life of mine may not be one that began when I was born. They say we have no memory of being born. I believe now that this is an old life caught in a new world. Birth may not be a memory then, but living is and always will be…..and the mind now willfully wanders along random lines, revisiting old streets and secret corners of lived worlds even while seeking out the pleasures of new places. The romance of living begins.
This attempted return to romance was and is not easy, for I was bound by the ideas of clichéd romance between two lovers….walks along the beach or roses or slow waltz under moonlight…..So then life was to be that sparse and stark experience of living for others? Was there to be no romance of the individual? Can romance not be a perspective? Can it not be a suspension of realities on one hand and the appreciation of the very same realities on the other? Romance is essential to love affairs. But what of an affair with romance itself? And that is what it comes down to, for romance is not outside us. If I choose to think of it as one of those old voices inside then I can think of this affair or this re-association with romance. In my earlier attempts to understand it I took to categorizations and definitions and naturally we parted ways. Now that I have returned I have no intention of pushing romance away. And with this I feel that my years of long wandering start.
It is not only the present which changes or the visions of future which now look different. From a black and white past I move to sepia-toned remembrances. I remember distant Sunday mornings of small delightful adventures...plucking sweet pink lilies…the first caterpillar…the tree with that swing of a branch…that first peek into the cinnamon spiced secret world of women…of that encounter with innocent adorations and naïve love…
And my father was ever my hero for bringing me that one yellow flower from the edge of a cliff drop that I silently eyed and that was long years ago.
As for the now….the mundane has taken on rather fascinating and altered appearances. The driving urge now is to look differently at that which was and has been a constant. The old will never be old if perspectives are constantly challenged and left open to changes. Every morning on my way to work now I meet the proud soldiers of a forest king. They stand tall and straight, stopping just short of the skies….their dark bodies seem to literally glisten after the night’s fall of rain and their robes of rich green wrap up a thousand stories of living. And as the wind sings along, I can all but hear the sounds of the forest creatures stirring back into life…a new day. And as one tree ages and falls, so does a new one thrust out. The cycle of life….
Living is no longer a singular human experience. It has now become a richly layered woven fabric of such intricate designs that it would take one life and more to see through it all, if ever that does happen. We don’t live alone in this world and as a matter of co-existence with myriad forms of life and ancient elements; our life itself is an interaction with everything. I like to believe then, that with every instance of association with the wind, I hear it whisper yet another story from yore. For old secrets come again and again in the worlds of mortals through threads of the infinite.
I saw a seagull some time back. A white flight of beauty and pride against blue skies….an unlimited freeness in movement ridiculing the limits of our perceptions. It was a simple enough sight….a bird flying high up in the sky as so many birds have flown and soared before. But logical understandings fail at certain points. There is no apparent reason for me to remember this moment. But I do and I will for years to come. And I no longer seek any explanation for this or for the implications of the memory. The Beatles did sing “Let it Be” didn’t they?
Even as I write the gardener is cutting the monsoon wilderness of grass just outside my window. Again, something I have seen a hundred times before today and again something I never really noticed. Yet today there seems to be something different about him. He swings the scythe back and forth, again and again in a loose arc. The fluidity of his actions somehow made sense….telling me of a simple appreciation of the fact of living and perhaps a temporary rejection or suspension of the economic realities of his life? Perhaps in the numbing sensation of that swinging scythe, he found the space to travel where he pleased?
A far off evening comes to mind now. I was traveling in a train, the destination I do not recall. Life in all its color, smells and sensations went flying by my window. I became increasingly aware of this huge phenomenon of life and time flowing in continuity and eternally. I saw women carrying huge bundles of grass on their heads return home. Fields stood empty as men trudges back after a day’s work. Smoke curled up in thin wisps from homes faintly visible in the distance. A kid waved frantically at my train. Perhaps day after day he saw trains cutting through this countryside and perhaps he longed to be inside one everyday. Perhaps he wished too speed off and away to some other place, to fulfill some fantasy. Or perhaps he just shrugged it off as one more intrusion into his life? I crossed a hundred small towns and villages with strange unheard of names. Blurred images made them more dead than alive. Yet they all had rich lives. But some roads and some histories escape from our grasps forever.
A mango tree stood alone by the edge of a small rivulet….heavy with flower and promised a full fruit in the months to come. It would have been a delight then. And some children of the village would have climbed up its branches and snuck out as many mangoes as they could….somewhere in time I have seen them do it, as I did it myself in what seems to have been long ago.
That was life…
And this too is life……
Friday, June 12, 2009
Vopos
It was one of those days when you are just so dissatisfied and so uninterested with the whole lot of music that you have that you’re willing to look for something new even in obscurity. An acquaintance had once suggested a classic progressive band- Camel. Obscure… but still new and yet unchecked. A search through the internet didn’t really yield anything about them and no surprises there. But persistence born out of boredom finally gave me some leads. But disappointment waited again, for most of the songs were mediocre and none of the ones I heard interested me much. But the boring persistence again and intriguing names of some of their songs pushed me into randomly picking and downloading songs.
So when all the deed was done, heard a few more tracks. By now I was prepared of what to expect. But, to my eternal surprise some of the tracks were worth becoming a regular fixation!!! I also realised that I liked Andrew Latimore: the lead singer/guitarist etc etc’s style. But the real discovery was their track called Vopos. Their ways are strange and strange were the ways they played with words. The song came from their 1985 album titled Stationary Traveller. To return to Vopos, the song fascinated me. I couldn’t figure out the meaning of the title and the OED didn’t help either. But that did not bother me much and I continued to play the song day in day out. I was simply enthralled with the dreamlike images that the song created. Its “atmospheric instrumentals” would create myriad detailed soundscapes in my mind. But for how long can one really ignore the lyrics? Words would only fill in the mental imagery of the song. So with the lyrics the song came anew to me, but with strangely harsher tones this time. The dreamlike images shifted and they sang on…...
“They woke you in the night
a glare from bright headlights.
Sentry's in a row……”
“Can it be a nightmare?
Will you wake and still be there?
So you try to run,
Frightened you're the one
Left inside.”
Images were more disturbing than ones I had imagined earlier. I was dying by now to know just what the words all meant, what the title signified. And this search took me back into history.
In 1952, The Times Magazine did an article on the Vopos and from there I realized that Vopos stood for Volkspolizei or People’s Police in German, a force of armed men from the East German region (when Berlin was divided), assigned to guard the Red Army’s (Communist) interests here. Most of them were unemployed young men, initially lured by the state into becoming a part of this army but later forced and threatened into joining it or face the possibilities of working in the dreaded uranium mines. Dressed in blue, this group of about 10,ooo soldiers of the Red brigade were trained in quite a few aspects of military activities like operating heavy machinery, platoon manoeuvres on field etc. They even boasted of a small scale naval and air force fleet. While former Nazi officials drilled them in the art of war, Red partisan veterans and their Russian counterparts (the Sovietniks) indoctrinated them and brought Communism to their midst.
Now the song grew more in meaning. It was more cohesive. The lyrics and the history that they hid within them now became more apparent. I could corroborate the song with all that I read in the article in the Times. And things became clearer still when I realized that the album itself was a concept album done by the band based on the division of Berlin and its subsequent political, emotional economic cultural impact on the people’s lives living at that time.
So between ignorance, boredom and dissatisfaction I chanced upon a piece of history within a song. The band and its work most often has been criticized owning to its failure to converge the lyrics and the music, and so pulling the listener in two different directions. I wonder if that’s what happened to me initially? No I don’t think there is any rationalisation of /to my ignorance. All said and done I am glad that they made this album, glad that at least someone was bothered enough to incorporate the sufferings of so many and transform it into a piece of art.
And for those who care to read more about the Vopos itself, well I also include the link to the article in the Times magazine here:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,859786,00.html
J
So when all the deed was done, heard a few more tracks. By now I was prepared of what to expect. But, to my eternal surprise some of the tracks were worth becoming a regular fixation!!! I also realised that I liked Andrew Latimore: the lead singer/guitarist etc etc’s style. But the real discovery was their track called Vopos. Their ways are strange and strange were the ways they played with words. The song came from their 1985 album titled Stationary Traveller. To return to Vopos, the song fascinated me. I couldn’t figure out the meaning of the title and the OED didn’t help either. But that did not bother me much and I continued to play the song day in day out. I was simply enthralled with the dreamlike images that the song created. Its “atmospheric instrumentals” would create myriad detailed soundscapes in my mind. But for how long can one really ignore the lyrics? Words would only fill in the mental imagery of the song. So with the lyrics the song came anew to me, but with strangely harsher tones this time. The dreamlike images shifted and they sang on…...
“They woke you in the night
a glare from bright headlights.
Sentry's in a row……”
“Can it be a nightmare?
Will you wake and still be there?
So you try to run,
Frightened you're the one
Left inside.”
Images were more disturbing than ones I had imagined earlier. I was dying by now to know just what the words all meant, what the title signified. And this search took me back into history.
In 1952, The Times Magazine did an article on the Vopos and from there I realized that Vopos stood for Volkspolizei or People’s Police in German, a force of armed men from the East German region (when Berlin was divided), assigned to guard the Red Army’s (Communist) interests here. Most of them were unemployed young men, initially lured by the state into becoming a part of this army but later forced and threatened into joining it or face the possibilities of working in the dreaded uranium mines. Dressed in blue, this group of about 10,ooo soldiers of the Red brigade were trained in quite a few aspects of military activities like operating heavy machinery, platoon manoeuvres on field etc. They even boasted of a small scale naval and air force fleet. While former Nazi officials drilled them in the art of war, Red partisan veterans and their Russian counterparts (the Sovietniks) indoctrinated them and brought Communism to their midst.
Now the song grew more in meaning. It was more cohesive. The lyrics and the history that they hid within them now became more apparent. I could corroborate the song with all that I read in the article in the Times. And things became clearer still when I realized that the album itself was a concept album done by the band based on the division of Berlin and its subsequent political, emotional economic cultural impact on the people’s lives living at that time.
So between ignorance, boredom and dissatisfaction I chanced upon a piece of history within a song. The band and its work most often has been criticized owning to its failure to converge the lyrics and the music, and so pulling the listener in two different directions. I wonder if that’s what happened to me initially? No I don’t think there is any rationalisation of /to my ignorance. All said and done I am glad that they made this album, glad that at least someone was bothered enough to incorporate the sufferings of so many and transform it into a piece of art.
And for those who care to read more about the Vopos itself, well I also include the link to the article in the Times magazine here:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,859786,00.html
J
AN OBITUARY
January 23rd. 5:35 pm.
The cold statistics of a death.
The frantic ringing of the phone and the continuous repeating of details. The passing of news from one person to another. Soon, the steady trickle of mourners. The crying of the women, their red eyes, the hushed whispers of the men outside, their carefully controlled faces….and the heavy silence stretching throughout. A house of death.
The death of my sister.
Slow hours of waiting. Nearing midnight, the cold red flash of the ambulance, and the sudden increase in subdued voices….
They are here…they are here!!!!!
And all eyes turned towards the gate.
My sister comes back home…..
The wailing begins…..
Death gets bound up, in a thousand rituals through the thirteen days that follow. Everybody falls into the cycle of numbing performances, of rituals, of social demands and of collective mourning…..
When the days of ritual mourning will have passed by, life will calls on. It will be a turn to normalcy for most of us and to a broken one for her husband and daughter. Even as they assume a carefully studied normalcy, their lives seem to stretch out before them like a bleak endless road. Or perhaps time should be expected to heal….but how much? And before how long? Could healing be a diminished remembrance?
The death of one who gave their lives and their individual existence, so much of meaning.
Pictures are shown and passed out, stories are told and re-told…..people remember and people recollect. But I had nothing to say, no stories to tell, no contribution to make. For I was without any concrete memories of her, with her. In the limited association I had with her over the phone and over very infrequent meetings there wasn’t much I could salvage by way of memories…but through the days, it was through the stories and through innumerable fragmented memories that she came alive, yet again.
And pictures filled out.
One seeks a justification of death. But none comes. You want to not believe in god, like an act of defiance. And yet somehow somewhere along the day you loose that silent battle with god, or with whatever it is that one believes in.
A few days ago I found some pictures of my sister and her daughter; taken long years back at our grandparent’s house. Candid shots they were and I had seen them a million times before too. They were just a few of those hundreds of pictures one keeps stuffed in albums, envelopes and some old corner….
But not so anymore. They become symbols now of a part of life gone by….a tangible memory of sorts. They would be more precious for her daughter than they are for me. In time I will probably give them to her. But as of now, I don’t want to part with them.....a selfish act on my part. But I have managed to justify it to myself. The pictures I keep hidden in my drawer…..and I cling to a memory which isn’t even mine….
Nothing else of hers remains with me. Without these pictures I fear how I would remember her.
I realize even as I write this that I still struggle to find ways to mourn her and to miss her…..to remember …..I debate whether I should write this or not….I have nothing more to say or add to this obituary of sorts. I have to end it here for now it seems to be lingering….and I do it, I stop. But an obituary calls for words of loving remembrances, of beauty and grace for she who is dead, of expressions of loss….and I have none to give.
G
The cold statistics of a death.
The frantic ringing of the phone and the continuous repeating of details. The passing of news from one person to another. Soon, the steady trickle of mourners. The crying of the women, their red eyes, the hushed whispers of the men outside, their carefully controlled faces….and the heavy silence stretching throughout. A house of death.
The death of my sister.
Slow hours of waiting. Nearing midnight, the cold red flash of the ambulance, and the sudden increase in subdued voices….
They are here…they are here!!!!!
And all eyes turned towards the gate.
My sister comes back home…..
The wailing begins…..
Death gets bound up, in a thousand rituals through the thirteen days that follow. Everybody falls into the cycle of numbing performances, of rituals, of social demands and of collective mourning…..
When the days of ritual mourning will have passed by, life will calls on. It will be a turn to normalcy for most of us and to a broken one for her husband and daughter. Even as they assume a carefully studied normalcy, their lives seem to stretch out before them like a bleak endless road. Or perhaps time should be expected to heal….but how much? And before how long? Could healing be a diminished remembrance?
The death of one who gave their lives and their individual existence, so much of meaning.
Pictures are shown and passed out, stories are told and re-told…..people remember and people recollect. But I had nothing to say, no stories to tell, no contribution to make. For I was without any concrete memories of her, with her. In the limited association I had with her over the phone and over very infrequent meetings there wasn’t much I could salvage by way of memories…but through the days, it was through the stories and through innumerable fragmented memories that she came alive, yet again.
And pictures filled out.
One seeks a justification of death. But none comes. You want to not believe in god, like an act of defiance. And yet somehow somewhere along the day you loose that silent battle with god, or with whatever it is that one believes in.
A few days ago I found some pictures of my sister and her daughter; taken long years back at our grandparent’s house. Candid shots they were and I had seen them a million times before too. They were just a few of those hundreds of pictures one keeps stuffed in albums, envelopes and some old corner….
But not so anymore. They become symbols now of a part of life gone by….a tangible memory of sorts. They would be more precious for her daughter than they are for me. In time I will probably give them to her. But as of now, I don’t want to part with them.....a selfish act on my part. But I have managed to justify it to myself. The pictures I keep hidden in my drawer…..and I cling to a memory which isn’t even mine….
Nothing else of hers remains with me. Without these pictures I fear how I would remember her.
I realize even as I write this that I still struggle to find ways to mourn her and to miss her…..to remember …..I debate whether I should write this or not….I have nothing more to say or add to this obituary of sorts. I have to end it here for now it seems to be lingering….and I do it, I stop. But an obituary calls for words of loving remembrances, of beauty and grace for she who is dead, of expressions of loss….and I have none to give.
G
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Falling through a Song
They used a million different words, for life, for living...for loving.
And each time I thought I knew it all.....I sang along. Through older lives and remembered words of wisdom, I hoped to live it all....
Ah but I fell....
A beaten body....bruised and hurt....I try hard to stand up. No hands to help me up. None.
Strange....they all spoke of hands which would catch me if I ever fall…
A song.....a song....
Why did I fall? Did somebody push me off the edge? The cacophony of a hundred questions inside my head.....relentless.
shut it...shut it....shut it somehow.
I falter and then, the onslaught of realizations, merciless in their honesty and intensity.
Nobody pushed me. Like a blind fool I stood on the edge and thought the world was never as beautiful as now. I never saw the fall below. I lived deeply in my reality of love and life. But a reality without existence? An illusion, a reality.
Love they said is blind......
The first thought is hard to find in this confusion….a storm brewing inside and a heart only in search of deep peace.....living only and always through contradictions.
What words will my anger find for itself? The death of hope....a dead weight. How long will I keep this with me? Long miles I have walked and more stretch out ahead of me.....but I tire soon with this stone around my neck…
I fear it like a disease.....an affliction for life?
Where is the cure? How long before I find it?
Too long…too long now. I want only to be whole again.
But I left pieces of me behind…with him who don’t even know that...
Bits of me are carelessly flung into some distant corner of his past....I lie in dust.
I want my pieces back......
A song....a song....all of life is there in a song.
Where is mine? Where is my song?
But.....i see it now....I fell through my song....
And now only the faint haunts of a melody lost....
And each time I thought I knew it all.....I sang along. Through older lives and remembered words of wisdom, I hoped to live it all....
Ah but I fell....
A beaten body....bruised and hurt....I try hard to stand up. No hands to help me up. None.
Strange....they all spoke of hands which would catch me if I ever fall…
A song.....a song....
Why did I fall? Did somebody push me off the edge? The cacophony of a hundred questions inside my head.....relentless.
shut it...shut it....shut it somehow.
I falter and then, the onslaught of realizations, merciless in their honesty and intensity.
Nobody pushed me. Like a blind fool I stood on the edge and thought the world was never as beautiful as now. I never saw the fall below. I lived deeply in my reality of love and life. But a reality without existence? An illusion, a reality.
Love they said is blind......
The first thought is hard to find in this confusion….a storm brewing inside and a heart only in search of deep peace.....living only and always through contradictions.
What words will my anger find for itself? The death of hope....a dead weight. How long will I keep this with me? Long miles I have walked and more stretch out ahead of me.....but I tire soon with this stone around my neck…
I fear it like a disease.....an affliction for life?
Where is the cure? How long before I find it?
Too long…too long now. I want only to be whole again.
But I left pieces of me behind…with him who don’t even know that...
Bits of me are carelessly flung into some distant corner of his past....I lie in dust.
I want my pieces back......
A song....a song....all of life is there in a song.
Where is mine? Where is my song?
But.....i see it now....I fell through my song....
And now only the faint haunts of a melody lost....
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Tribute to a friend.....
Long years these have been…..18 years to be more precise. And the memory of that first meeting still remains fresh in my mind. I was in the first standard when I was first introduced to him. I remember feeling awkward and conscious around him, especially when my class mates and friends were around. That first week of knowing him, was spent in a continuous state of being conscious and fidgety.
But time passed we grew used to each other. It is from him that I really and truly got my sight. Through the years he has taught me how to see things. All images in my mind come through him. It’s a dependence of sorts one could obviously argue. But it has not been an easy road for us. There were a number of times in my teens when I rebelled at the need to have him in my life. He had become a necessity more than anything else. But for me he was an irritating fact which no matter what I did, would just not step out of my life.
In fact, in the initial years even my parents had not been very keen to have him become so integral a part of my life. My father would constantly make efforts to take me away from him. But as fate would have it we stuck together, much to my later distress.
Another point against him was the way he looked. He was just never able to keep up with changes in styles and was a reminder always of things long declared outdated. Already labeled a geek-in-the-making, his presence only quickened the process for me.
There were so many problems with him really. For instance, he was and remains to this day prone to getting heated during summers and naturally irritating the hell out of me. Even more offending was the peculiar way he just sort of fogs up on me during winters. Its strange really to see his extreme reactions to climatic changes...but now since i am in more generous a mood, i can pass it off simply as one of his eccentricities....
But those years went by and I made final peace with his presence and with his appearance. And then, just then he changed.
It was so sudden and so drastic a change that I couldn’t really believe him. And he did it all for me. On that fateful day in October 2004, he came, totally changed, radically transformed.
It was a literal make-over and nothing less. Things aren’t the same for me anymore, they are clearer for sure but not the same. I miss his solidity at times. He was more tangible a presence then than he is now. But he isn’t totally gone. Sometimes at night he reverts back to his older self and then once again I meet my oldest friend…..
There have been times, when my carelessness and harsh actions have broken him, literally. But he has been amazingly patient with me. He never complained. He just went ahead and mended himself. Truly amazing….
Because I call this a tribute, I should say a thanks to him here. We’ve had good days and bad….we’ve been together through rain and sun…we've lost each other and found ourselves again. I never thought it would have lasted so long. Many have told me to get rid of him but from where I stand, I see this as an affair for a lifetime….
For my dear friend and comrade...my glasses whom no pair of contact lenses can ever replace.
But time passed we grew used to each other. It is from him that I really and truly got my sight. Through the years he has taught me how to see things. All images in my mind come through him. It’s a dependence of sorts one could obviously argue. But it has not been an easy road for us. There were a number of times in my teens when I rebelled at the need to have him in my life. He had become a necessity more than anything else. But for me he was an irritating fact which no matter what I did, would just not step out of my life.
In fact, in the initial years even my parents had not been very keen to have him become so integral a part of my life. My father would constantly make efforts to take me away from him. But as fate would have it we stuck together, much to my later distress.
Another point against him was the way he looked. He was just never able to keep up with changes in styles and was a reminder always of things long declared outdated. Already labeled a geek-in-the-making, his presence only quickened the process for me.
There were so many problems with him really. For instance, he was and remains to this day prone to getting heated during summers and naturally irritating the hell out of me. Even more offending was the peculiar way he just sort of fogs up on me during winters. Its strange really to see his extreme reactions to climatic changes...but now since i am in more generous a mood, i can pass it off simply as one of his eccentricities....
But those years went by and I made final peace with his presence and with his appearance. And then, just then he changed.
It was so sudden and so drastic a change that I couldn’t really believe him. And he did it all for me. On that fateful day in October 2004, he came, totally changed, radically transformed.
It was a literal make-over and nothing less. Things aren’t the same for me anymore, they are clearer for sure but not the same. I miss his solidity at times. He was more tangible a presence then than he is now. But he isn’t totally gone. Sometimes at night he reverts back to his older self and then once again I meet my oldest friend…..
There have been times, when my carelessness and harsh actions have broken him, literally. But he has been amazingly patient with me. He never complained. He just went ahead and mended himself. Truly amazing….
Because I call this a tribute, I should say a thanks to him here. We’ve had good days and bad….we’ve been together through rain and sun…we've lost each other and found ourselves again. I never thought it would have lasted so long. Many have told me to get rid of him but from where I stand, I see this as an affair for a lifetime….
For my dear friend and comrade...my glasses whom no pair of contact lenses can ever replace.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Defining, Identifying, Categorizing: who, why and how….
We got here accidentally. Well not really in the strictest sense of the word because for about a good whole year we kept talking about doing this. Everybody around us was so much into blogs that it got to us after a point. But so many hassles…creating a joint mail id, then the name, then the profile, then the setting…then this…then that…and then on and on and on….really. Amazing how we made it!
So it was a year long of dilly-dallying and then one sudden strange day of working through details and all…and here we our, trying to impress our eventual readers with a smart and intelligent statement of purpose! I truly and honestly think that we were stoned throughout this weird spurt of activity. Nothing else can possibly explain this.
Anyhow…that’s for another time….
We think that we here are here also because, well…we are unemployed. We have nothing better to do with ourselves. Really. It could have been a case of true bollywood style job hunting (read long torturous bus rides, file in hand, walking from darwaza to darwaza in the hot merciless summer sun, sweaty drenched, thirsty, a possible fainting scene too) but well we decided (very sensibly I think!) to wait it out. After all this wretched recession is going to get over sometime or the other!
And for who we are…just bloggers….
This is what happens when you read a bad book.
So what am I doing right now? Well, I am making yet another attempt to publish my thoughts, ideas and feelings (“yet” being an indication of failed attempts at the same in the past). But what the hell, here I am once again with my loaded gun (proverbially).
I am in a somewhat strange mood right now. How do I explain?
I just had some amazing food accompanied by an amazingly A-wful book! Yes, I realise that am dawdling but err… I will get to the point…..eventually.
On that note, why can’t I just ramble aimlessly? Why does everything have to have logic? A purpose? Why can’t I just vent my frustration and irritation over picking up a bad book and wasting a whole day just to read it!
You might just complain that no one forced me to it, did they? I’ll say, no they did not.
I believe I am just projecting the troubles of my life on a harmless (bad as it was) piece of text. So where does that take me? What does one do when they realise that they have probably made one of the biggest mistakes of life and that there can be no going back?
That does make me sound like some character of a bad screenplay. See what a bad piece of text can do to a sane thinking person!
My suggestions to overcome the ‘mistakes’ in life?
Well, go into denial. (works wonders)
Cry, howl,shout,sulk (helps to reduce the magnitude of it)
Get drunk or stoned. (nothing beats that, and when you wake up with a hangover…there! You,ve got a new problem in your hands or head in this case)
Get high on music. (the harder the better, or whatever works for you)
Read a good book (something that has a happy ending, gives you hope about everything)
Give yourself a big mental kick, promise yourself that you won’t fall for that again. Kick some ass (proverbial again) and move on.
Its just one life you get to live. Don’t waste it in rehashing the past.
Moral of the story ( not the one that I read):
Every cloud has a silver lining. (if you can truly believe in that! God be with you)
Posted by: Jaya
I am in a somewhat strange mood right now. How do I explain?
I just had some amazing food accompanied by an amazingly A-wful book! Yes, I realise that am dawdling but err… I will get to the point…..eventually.
On that note, why can’t I just ramble aimlessly? Why does everything have to have logic? A purpose? Why can’t I just vent my frustration and irritation over picking up a bad book and wasting a whole day just to read it!
You might just complain that no one forced me to it, did they? I’ll say, no they did not.
I believe I am just projecting the troubles of my life on a harmless (bad as it was) piece of text. So where does that take me? What does one do when they realise that they have probably made one of the biggest mistakes of life and that there can be no going back?
That does make me sound like some character of a bad screenplay. See what a bad piece of text can do to a sane thinking person!
My suggestions to overcome the ‘mistakes’ in life?
Well, go into denial. (works wonders)
Cry, howl,shout,sulk (helps to reduce the magnitude of it)
Get drunk or stoned. (nothing beats that, and when you wake up with a hangover…there! You,ve got a new problem in your hands or head in this case)
Get high on music. (the harder the better, or whatever works for you)
Read a good book (something that has a happy ending, gives you hope about everything)
Give yourself a big mental kick, promise yourself that you won’t fall for that again. Kick some ass (proverbial again) and move on.
Its just one life you get to live. Don’t waste it in rehashing the past.
Moral of the story ( not the one that I read):
Every cloud has a silver lining. (if you can truly believe in that! God be with you)
Posted by: Jaya
In Loving Memory of the Bottle.......
I wonder if I have changed.
For a good three months now I have been away from the life I had for the past six years. It wasn’t a totally conscious choice to give up that life, but somewhere I did choose to move. Perhaps in moving I changed too?
It’s a frequent question these days with me. About change. Days I sit and think. But of course I cannot answer the question. Another year has gone by. Another year added to my life. And I think of changes. I ask friends but of course they give diplomatic answers. Ironic is the fact that it is because of them that I wonder thus, for them that I ask the question….
I see these people around me who were just like what I was until now. Life was shared with them. Through them I lived and experienced this world, this life…myself too. But somehow, somewhere it has all changed. I don’t know these people anymore. They are like these passive strange beings caught up in some very every strange inertia. When i see them i imagine a more-or-less lifeless figure doing a slow spiraling dance suspended in mid air.
They say that with time priorities in life change, so people change and the way they perceive things also changes. Perhaps it is so. But I stand and wonder what is it that has brought so much of a gap between these people and me? Is it that they have stopped living or that I have started living truly now. Or they have stopped and are unwilling to move on and I have moved on and away too soon too fast.
When I ask, they tell me that things have changed drastically for them also. I disagree not to this for change is but a truth in life. But then they say that they do not have it in them to move on with their lives, to restructure. They say they need more time…time?
Time?
Time has become nothing but an excuse behind which they hide…and for years they hide…and time goes slipping away.
Time after all has its own pace.
They blame me for changing, for not being sensitive and understanding enough. Maybe it is true. But I wonder now, even as I sit and put this all together into words, that how is it that I was with them? Did I dance this slow wretched dance? How could I live in such passivity? Leave aside how, why was I living thus?
I have seen a lot of random deaths in my life so far…not that death is ever definite. Nevertheless…random in the sense of…..well….being unjustified at that point of time. And I only wonder that if life and all these things, this whole world is so fragile then why is it that we run? Why is it that we run and run…and transform our lives into this stupid idiotic race? And for what? In this denial of death, we fail to live. I wonder if we accept death, maybe we would be better at living. Maybe existence would become a life?
As I grow another year older, and this I realized after a long conversation with a friend, dreams and illusions are changing. Years ago what had been a realizable possibility for me, became an illusion and now as the years pass on, even these illusions are dropping off somewhere along the way, one after the other…..now ever dreams are peppered with a good heavy dose of reality and practicality. Perhaps this comes with age….
And what I find even stranger to understand is that it those very people who encouraged these dreams and illusion within you who bring them crashing down in the name of practicality and sensibility. Of course they do it for our own good…after all it wouldn’t do to live a life of a useless dreamer now would it? So much for a life of passions and of dreams….
But these are random disjointed thoughts really…they say that most coherent and clear are the thoughts of those who are drunk….perhaps that is all that remains…..
Maybe a shot of vodka is all that one needs….but the bottle lies empty by my table…
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