Togetherness...

My Angels ...

Once in a while when you think life is unfair to you and everything seems to be falling apart... help comes through from unexpected quarters....

Like the woman who offered to share her umbrella and walk me to my destination when I and all my documents were getting drenched... I havent seen her before that fateful evening or ever since...

Like the two little girls who chatted up with me on one of my lonely walks... the sky which looked downcast all this while suddenly seemed bright and cheerful...

Like the old gentleman who spoke so lovingly, that we ended up having a conversation in two different languages... each unfamiliar to the other. While he spoke spanish and struggled with english, I struggled with understanding what he said and saying what i wanted to...

Like the old auto driver who patiently waited and politely enquired... was honest in his dealings and frank in his opinions...

Like the stranger at the airport who offered to check in my hand baggage when i was almost in tears because of the stupid regulations of the airlines authorities...

Like the young man who helped me drag my bicycle halfway across the campus when the key was lost and i was labouring under its weight...

These are the people who walk into your life as angels and make things easy for you...

You remember some but you forget the many others...

Tiny contributions that make you feel better and grateful....

They make you want to be good... they made a difference to your life...

At times and places when you look up to your friends and family for help and support, sometimes these strangers walk in to your life and make things better...

You thank some and some others you dont even realise what they ve done till they ve gone and then its too late... sometimes you dont even get to thank them....

they walk in to your life and leave without the tiniest sounds... sometimes they leave a footprint for life and sometimes there is no trace...

I am glad I met these people... :)

Strangers through my lenses... deep in my senses !

A bigger canvas....

"Where are you from?" is a question that I often encounter from people and each time I try and answer it, I am not quite sure of what I am saying. 

To put it succinctly, I have been more of an urban nomad with a life spanning over multiple regions of this vast country. 

As a matter of my lineage, I am a Palakkad brahmin, who of course are this tiny group of people, who originate from Tamil Nadu and settled in Kerala, several centuries ago. Despite the influence of the years, they are still not steeped in with the cultures and traditions of their host state of Kerala. At the same time, this group of people are no longer directly linked to their original tamil ancestors. We have as a group over the eons evolved into people with a distinct cultural entity, starting from our food, festivals and language. 

To add to this, i was born and brought up in a stereotypical urban center - Delhi, the capital city of the country was my home for the first quarter of my life. 

Being quite a historical city, Delhi was the melting pot of many cultures and being brought up in a such a place, had an indelible mark on me. I am an urban kid in more ways than one.... I studied there and grew up along the way and consequently, had the attitude of one. I was more delhite than a south indian (as is common reference for people of origin from south india in the northern parts of the country) for a large part of my life. 

Eventually, of course, I happened to move to the emerging city of Bangalore for my graduate studies in molecular oncology from a premier research institution in the the country. Far from the mad rush and politics of Delhi, Bangalore was a quaint little urban center which was on its way to become a major metropolis in its own right over half of the decade that i was here. 

 However, it was also a melting pot of cultures... having inhabitants from all the states of southern India, it was my "rapid fire" exposure to my cultures and inheritances. Within 5 years, the city of Bangalore and the diverse campus provided me with a new outlook of the people in a upcoming, developing city. I met people from as far as West Bengal and Kashmir and were a window of opportunity for me to learn about the diversity of this country. 

At the end of 5 years, I had my home here and the city became a part of me in more ways than one. A brief stint in the United states also made me define myself in this more broad context of my nationality as an Indian. 

Now, after nearly a third of my life, I am completely unable to answer where I am from. I instead wonder at this inherent tendency amongst us to define ourselves and form groups. Why do we raise these walls around us.. ?? 

Why define ourselves and others by the past, especially factors over which we have no real control? Why do we build walls at different levels - at the level of the individual (me), family, locality, state and country ?? Why brand ourselves and others based on such narrow perspectives... ? 

If only, we could break down these walls and make the world our home. It would be a happier place indeed... After all, we are part of all these communities depending on where we draw the walls. Let us use a bigger canvas to paint our identities and the results will be remarkable indeed.

Life and its vagaries...

Curiosity and a friend's demand made me undertake a 4 km long walk from my campus to the glitzy, newly opened "mall for the urban rich" in a major shopping locality in the city of Bangalore. The young and the old seemed to flock to this humongous jazzy mall in the heart of one of the oldest and busiest areas in the city. Although I had ventured on the trip as a purely exploratory exercise it did end up being an eye opener in more ways than one. 

 Amidst the glitz and the glamor of the bright, freshly painted shops, shining glass walls and displays in the mall, I managed to see the real "India of today" staring back at me. 

In the bright, air conditioned and well lit corridors of the mall, I saw this old destitute walking towards the counters selling wrist watches for the uber rich. I say so because each one there was encrusted with diamonds and were pricy enough that a graduate student like me would not even think of getting a watch like that for a long long time. 

The old woman in question was frail and had hollow cheeks which only emphasized the empty eyes and the sadness within them. Enamored as she probably was, by the world of glitz and glamour around her, I could only wonder what she was thinking. Along with her, came along a young man (who I supposed to be her teenage son) and at that instant, I almost felt guilty for being there !! In a country which is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, where professionals are being produced by the millions, where consumerism is on an upswing, where the erstwhile concepts of saving for the future are out of the psyche, it did indeed seem strange to see those two people there. Actually, in the regimented daily existence, enclosed in the academic havens of a premier research institute in the country, i rarely encounter poverty, illiteracy or any of the other social problems that we hear about. I live in a world far away from the concerns of the everyday mundane and my only exposure to them remains through the newspaper (which of course, i realized on this fateful day that i was reading more as a source of general information). Things of course became stark and ugly when i saw those two people. I felt as if i was being held by my collar to register the reality as it really was. I lived in a country where such disproportionate growth was the norm. 

While the rich got richer and more consumerist, mimicking the west, the poor seemed to get poorer. I could only stand and imagine what must be going through their minds as they saw such vulgar display of wealth and prosperity all around them. With an empty stomach and a leaking roof, i could'nt imagine anyone visiting this haven of consumerism and leaving without a sense of ill treatment and hatred for the others who seemed happy there. They seemed so out of place and lost in this maze and i could feel this incredible chill to the very core of me.. 

It was a picture that will remain etched in my memory for a long time to come. Life is unfair and for some reason, despite all efforts, i dont see a causality for it. Why are people placed in such diverse circumstances ? It almost seems that despite all the physical laws known to man, there is a certain degree of stochasticity associated with each of our lives. Some end up calling this element of uncertainity as spirituality, "supernatural elements" and God, I however, am content with calling it as purely random chance. 

I just happened to have a slightly bigger number on my roll of the dice than what that young man did...

Words of the wise...

Place three grains of sand inside a vast cathedral, and the cathedral will be more closely packed with sand than space with stars.
 James Jeans

The effort to understand the universe is one of the few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some grace of tragedy.
Steven Weinberg

In science one tries to tell people, In such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before.
But in poetry it’s the exact opposite.

The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.
Albert Einstein

Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.
Karl Popper

 I do not feel obliged to believe that the same god who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
Galileo Galilei

Living on earth may be expensive but it includes an annual free trip around the sun.
Anonymous

Physics is not a religion. If it were, we would have a much easier time raising money. 
Leon Lederman

Einstein's theory of relativity is probably the greatest synthetic achievement of the human intellect up to the present time.
Bertrand Russell

But the years of anxious searching in the dark for a truth that one feels but cannot express, the intense desire and the alternations of confidence and misgiving, and the final emergence into light - only those who have experienced it can appreciate it.
Albert Einstein

Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.
Charles Babbage

Heaven wheels above you displaying to you her eternal glories and still your eyes are on the ground. Dante

Theories crumble but good observations never fade.
Harlow Shapley

The known is finite, the unknown is infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land. T.H. Huxley

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not eureka but "that's funny".
Isaac Asimov

In general we look for a new law by the following process. First you guess. Don’t laugh, this is the most important step. Then you compute the consequences. Compare the consequences to experience. If it disagrees with experience, the guess is wrong. In that simple a statement is the key to science. It doesn’t matter how beautiful your guess is or how smart you are or what your name is. If it disagrees with experience, it's wrong. That’s all there is to it.
Richard Feynman

At the end of every smile lurks a shadow,

At the end of every tear lurks a smile.
life goes on for miles after miles,
with the tears and the smiles.
with the joys and the sorrows,
As our hopes lead the way, reality follows.
life does have a way of catching up with you,
but then your heart has a way of getting its hopes anew.
Its good that the heart does not care to remember,
and that the mind does not feel the heart's ember.
For only then can you live in the moment,
and not rue the days of torment.
Life goes on and so do I,
whether there is a smile or a tear in my eye.

Does one ever experience unadulterated bliss or is it that my joys are wedded to my sorrows and they will always stay together...

Only time will tell...
and so i wait...
in anticipation of those transient moments of joy that make me want to live life all over again...

Me and my moods...

Sometimes, I am lost in a sea of loneliness in the midst of a madding crowd…
I seek a steady hand like a lost child to guide me around…

Sometimes, however, I find company even in the spaces of an empty room…
Far from the madding crowd, I find solitude like a boon…

Strange indeed are the ways of the mind.

Spaces...

Sometimes thoughts fill the spaces of your mind....
and at times, spaces fill the thoughts...

reflections in one such moment... !!

Life on a Sail....

Sometimes in life, our course is determined by the gustiest winds of destiny's lot,
like in a boat on sail, the winds of fate lead us on, where we know not...
The journey is exciting and scary, the winds are strong and the future unknown...
but then there's a joy in just enjoying the wind and letting things take a course of their own...


At other times, we chart our course through the high seas, with a heart of courage and strength,
we tread our own will and make our own destiny, across life's length,
its difficult no doubt but the end is worth the pain...
for its you and only you responsible for the consequence, be it the pain or the gain...

But then there are these strange phases in life,
when you are just adrift and afloat, with a mind so full of strife,
without currents and without the wind, waiting to be the captain of your ship...
waiting for things to happen, for decisions to be made, as your days skip...
for others to respond, for life to move on...
these are the most traumatic periods because you lack purpose and direction, movement and action,
Life encounters a comma and is waiting for the next word...
Tempestuous is the mind, but still helpless without a sword...
with dreams of future beckoning you forward,
and the ghosts of the past holding you back...

These are the most dreadful phases in one's life,
When you are just adrift and afloat, with a mind so full of strife.

Resonating silences...

A window opened somewhere and a gush of wind carried with it thoughts of yonder into my head...

In the empty desolate corridors of my workspace, for some reason, i sensed silence...
silence deeper than what i had ever felt..
it enveloped me and seeped through me...
As i walked out of the sleepy building, i could still feel the silence working its way through me,
but instead of the silence resonating inside and getting transformed into peace and tranquility,
the silence was only eaten up by the voices in my head...
thoughts of the past as it blended with the present and the concerns of the future,
thoughts of my identity and my principles,
thoughts of my dreams and desires thoughts of what could be, should be and what IS...
thoughts, and more thoughts, there was a maelstrom in my mind and a silence in my soul...

somewhere, i tried to find the boundary between the two...
but all i could feel was the resonance of silence in a storm...

Parentheses...

Ryan Bingham: I thought I was a part of your life. 
Alex Goran: I thought we signed up for the same thing... I thought our relationship was perfectly clear. You are an escape. You're a break from our normal lives. You're a parenthesis. 
Ryan Bingham: I'm a parenthesis?" 

 ---- Up in the Air, 2009, Oscar nomination, George Clooney 

Something about the above conversation has been haunting me from the time i heard it for the first time... while, i loved the usage of "parenthesis" and the context, I could not come to appreciate the import and usage of the statement. 

A few days and a few cups of coffee later, I think i understand the statement... and i do not quite like its usage above... In the context of the movie, Alex is treating Ryan as a break in a her normal life, a parentheses, escape from reality and therefore an exclusion from her life... 

I, on the other hand, am looking for the parentheses to define my life... It is not just a break from normalcy... It encloses and protects you, It adds meaning to your life and grows with you... binds you in love and defines you... 
It is a break from the maddening crowd outside.... It steals you from the rest of the world... Its where you want to be at the end of the day
Its your niche - unspoilt and intimate.. 
I am looking for my parenthesis...

The light within "me"...

For some reason it started a trail of thoughts in my mind which all culminated in my visit to NIMHANS a little while ago. The identity of "me" is a question with multiple dimensions to itself and has been encountered by most people at some point in time or another. The question, I guess, becomes more poignant when one ends up visiting an institution of mental health as i happened to do. 

A forlorn look, haunted eyes, a wandering smile, a sleepy gait, a stuttered speech, a lost look, a cheerless and hopeless visage... these are all the sights that one can't miss in the dark corridors of NIMHANS. What one sees is a striking reminder of the question - what makes you "you" ? In the damp, dark and dusty corridors of NIMHANS, I have seen people who hardly appear conscious of their existence. They wander through the dark alleys holding the hand of their guardian which appears to be their last connection with life. Then there are those who seem like they are lost in themselves….these apparently healthy looking individuals fail to show any sign of recognition of the world around them. They meander through the corridors unresponsive to the world around them. There are some who are the ultimate personification of havoc and misery. Their eyes are devoid of any signs of life and they haunt you forever with their despair and hopelessness…. These people seem to be lost in a world that we are not a part of, even as they trudge through our world, leaving their footprints in our time. 

The idea of being a stranger to oneself is a very scary thought indeed!! 

Such encounters only reinforce in me, my belief in my mind and in it being the core of my existence. In these people, I find an able body trapped in the world in the absence of an able mind, lost in the maze around them, moving through space and time with no recognition of either... while, on the other hand, an able mind can leading to a happy and fulfilling existence despite a challenged body... 

 I think i just found my biggest fear in the last few days... I hope that I never have to lead an existence without knowing myself, lost in the maze around me… I hope, i never have to encounter such darkness within me...

Knowledge...

Is the rose aware of its beauty ?

Does the water know of its power to give life ?

Does the wind know of its ability to direct water ?

Does the river know its course ?

Does the rock know its abiity to alter the course of the river ?

Does the sun know of its power to create the river ?

Does knowing or not knowing change anything ???

Silences...

Silences

sometimes can be deafening, sometimes dreadful

sometimes they fester and sometimes they evolve

sometimes they break with a word and sometimes even the stories fail

sometimes they make you, while sometimes they break the core of your being...

sometimes they grow endlessy, while sometimes they wither despite all care...

silences

sometimes they haunt you, while at times they escort you

sometimes they give strength and sometimes fear

sometimes they are empty and yet sometimes they are so full of meaning

sometimes they build faith and at other times they breed doubt

Sometimes they build relationships while sometimes they break them beyond repair...

silences must be heard as they have their own story

silences must be heard...

The tree of life ...

I have this very strong tendency of humanizing the things that i see... and i tend to do it more often with trees. There is something about trees that touches the core of my being. Trees in their various shapes and sizes and moods and colors are a fascinating sight and they remain my greatest source of strength and joy ....

When the winds are chilly and when things are not going as well, there is something so eternal and stoic about a bare tree standing amidst the remains of its past waiting for the return of spring.. The old has been relinquished as it bravely and patiently waits in anticipation of the new. It reminds me of a lone warrior battling his horrors in the face of his shattered dreams... It gives me strength and succor and hope and peace ... And as i look at the tree, i am compelled to say that I will wait for the return of spring for i know it always comes for however brief a period it might be. And then, after a long and dry season, patience bears fruit... One sees the first indications of the arrival of spring... you are still not sure because the winds are still strong and chill but somewhere out there on that same bare tree, you see a tiny little leaf peeking out of its folds, as if waking up from a good night's sleep and you know that spring is around the corner. That tree remains a beacon of hope as it heralds the first shades of green that emerge in the barren landscape... Very soon, you know, there will be a new beginning as the new shoots emerge and begin life anew.. and so it shall happen for you as well... Hope abounds !!

And then comes spring... Well, a graduate program and the associated research often does not give one much to feel happy about. Despite the pleasant breeze and the sun playing hide and seek with you in spring, your heart may not always soar with joy when you think of the last experiment which flopped !! At times like this, the blooming gulmohur tree lining the sidewalk and the roads with a red carpet of flowers does fill my heart with joy. It almost makes you feel like destiny special child as you walk on those petals despite not wanting to because there's no way around it... It makes my heart sing as i see the flowers swing from side to side in the gentle morning breeze... It gives me hope when i think of the same tree a few months back devoid of all color, patiently waiting for the return of spring... And, then I have a spring in my step as i stride through the spring outside and return to the lab only to face another flop experiment ... :-)

Life goes on holding on to the tiniest shreds of hope and the joys that come along its way... hoping for a better future but braving through the present and learning from the past...

An affair to remember and cherish...

At the end of a light but tiring day, I attended a violin concert on campus. I have always loved the instrument…. A tiny piece of wood that when used by a master reproduces the human emotions with amazing finesse and dexterity. A master violinist can make a violin sing, quite unlike the other musical instruments (well, so I think !! You are free to agree or disagree… ). The sound that it makes, although melancholic always touches my soul. I love everything about the instrument from its sound and its range to how it is played. Seeing a violin being played is reminiscent of a love affair… the violinist cradles the instrument gently on his shoulders as his hands deftly play the strings. The fiddle flirts with the strings and what arises is a beautiful symphony of love, agony and ecstasy… While the tone of the instrument is a little elegiac, forlorn and nostalgic, It also brings out rapture and ecstasy like no other instrument simply because the contrast in stark … !!! The ecstasy appears to come from the depths of agony and is therefore surreal…

The violin inspires me … something about it is just so intimate and romantic, distant and honest and so wonderfully alluring that every time I hear it being played, I wish to learn it. In some ways, If I were to liken myself with any musical instrument, I would probably choose the violin….
A violin reminds me of man's ingenuity and greatness… imagine making a piece of wood sing like that. I can only imagine the joy of the person who first made the instrument !!! :)

Today's concert was great as I had expected. Being no musician myself, I do not understand the technicalities of raagam, taanam, pallavi or kriti but I like attending classical concerts . Firstly, I love the feel and sound of the music. I like it when my body feels the rhythm in the music and moves along effortlessly. I like the rhythm as it gradually builds ultimately reaching a crescendo and envelops the entire hall in a frenetic dream. Secondly, seeing such ability in others reaffirms my belief in human skill and ingenuity which often gets eroded in the my daily encounters. What I also love seeing is the expression on the musician's or artist's countenance. As he creates a beautiful melody a beatific smile lingers on the face, the eyes dance with joy to the rhythm that was newly created, the fingers dance as if in a divine trance and at that moment in time you can see sheer bliss and joy.

I guess a concert is a gentle reminder of the sheer brilliance of human skill and ability which I tend to lose track of amidst the daily monotony.

Black - unforgiving, stong, powerful, influential ----- nothing remains untouched with black around, a great leader

White - peaceful, quiet, loving and forgiving ----- tempers the strong and imbibes from the environs, a great moderator

What do I want to be ????
I guess, grey is my colour … :)

love as it is ....

Another post from a blogger whose writing i really like.... 

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 Second sight, first :) 

 I don't believe in love at first sight. 

To tell the truth, I don't believe in love at all. 

The world is a logical, reasonable place, and love is just a rush of hormones. 

True love, as science has proved, lasts only eighteen months. 

If the first sight comes from the heart, the second must come from the brain, must it not? 

And how much happier we might all be, if we realised that and just waited for second sight to come first. 

 Poets believe that the heart has its reasons, that reason knows nothing of.. A contradiction in words and in belief. 

I choose to deny the reasons of the heart. Except once. 

 Late one night, you asked me a question, and I said, "Yes". And true to intellect, I have questioned it a million times hence. Was it necessary? Were we not happier apart? Did we have to dance this stage together- through regret and anger, cutting our feet and bleeding over the shards of unrealistic expectations, slipping on tear-stained patches- Sometimes graceful, others clumsy. 

Standing still, leaping weightless through the air.. the whole rigmarole of the dance. For what? What reasons did my heart have, to make me choose this life? 

As love stands questioned, what defends it? 

A snowflake. 

Well, a few of them, really. 

Falling on a bright winter evening, as we walk in a garden by a sorcerer's felled tree (Even his strong magic could not hold against the October storm, and now his birds are wintered in other places.) 

It has been a long, hard day- Only one person believes in my work, the others have all trashed it. 

Not caring to read it through, it is easier for them to invoke terms like "not enough effort" and "vague", and ask me to re-write until they can understand it without reading a word. 

In the face of their critique, I am a child once more, questioning my abilities, exhausted with the effort of justification. 

And then we go for a walk in the park. You speak of the tree, and the ducks, and the snow. We throw snowballs, I fall in the snow and you help me up. Walk across fallen tree trunks, make snow angels. Find a quaint coffee shop, and you sit and wait until I am ready to tell you my worries. 

Buy me chocolate cake, and hot chocolate, and we sit on an overstuffed couch and dissect the mural on the wall. And somewhere in the evening, the world spirals back into normality. 

 I was told once that the love of a good man can save your life. 

A gentle spirit to lift my own, a strong heart to lean back on, peace to come home to... What more reason is needed, to justify each step of that painful dance? 

 Sometimes, second sight and first come together, and the only word in response to their question is- "Yes." 

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 Love is a word often used without clarity. 

 At a time when I want to hold time back and prevent it from racing ahead into the unknown, love is a word which i end up using a lot. 

Sample this - I love my present life, I love my family but i cant do all that they say, I love my work, I love myself, I want a love marriage not arranged, If arranged i want to be loved for what i am, I love science and I have a passion for research... love love love... 

The fact of the matter is that all of these are the thoughts of a confused mind as it faces a new world. 

While at times it is excited about the future ahead, it sometimes stands a little scared of the unknown, at times it is hopeful for the future, at times worried beyond reason...  

And as i read this blog, all i wanted was love like that, which would make my life come back to normalcy even on worst possible day... 

Well, I guess, i just want someone who makes me want to be a better person makes me feel special even when the entire world makes me feel like a loser makes me want to get up and get going in most difficult periods for i want to be with that one person for the rest of my life... makes me to want life despite all the ups and "more often than not" downs... 

A Simple wish list but extremely difficult to be fulfilled ... :)

Invictus...

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.


William Ernest Henley (1849–1903).

Happiness...

Once in a while, 

the hot summer sun that you always crib about, seems to be giving a warm hug to you, 
the warm breeze that usually blows dust into your eyes appears to be laughing with you, 
the bare trees which shed off their leaves littering the roads and ruining your food, appear to be swaying with you, sharing your joy... 
the birds who ruin your day with droppings from above (this happens very often in the wooded campus where i stay), seem to be singing with joy as you long to... 

Once in while, one notices the beauty in the everyday mundane and feels true bliss... 

Its just the perspective that makes the world different, everything remains the same on a good day or a very bad one... 
You just look at things differently... 
If only the world remains the same place as i felt it today morning... 
It is that moment of true happiness that makes life worthwhile... that makes all your struggles fade in memory... 
I wish I could see things everyday as i saw them in those ten minutes today....