The candence of change...

They say the only thing that remains constant in life is change. Change is life and life is change !

For the last few days, i have been spending a lot of time wondering about one single question - Do people change and can we change people ? It actually brings up more questions like - why do we want to change people ? Is it right to change them ? This thought has been recurring for many years now but it has been consuming me in entirety for the past few days.

People change, things change.

I know I have changed.

From the little tomboy to the teenage rebel to the young woman of today.... I have discovered myself along the way and evolved to being who I am...

From believing in absolute right or a an absolute wrong, I have come to appreciate perspectives for how they can alter everything. I have moved on from the blacks and the whites and discovered greys. I realize that not everything is a monotone and that the world and its people are richly hued and multi-dimensional. I have learnt to judge people and then to not take the judgement too seriously.... I have learnt to view myself as a third person and see myself for what i seem to be... Time has changed me as a person and moulded me... I am a lot more tolerant and patient than I was as a teenager. Today, I am confident of myself and my abilities. I am aware at the same time of my weaknesses and my foibles. I love myself for what i am and I am ready to accept others for what they are (although it is a bit of a struggle still... I have indeed come a long way).

As I look at the changes, i also realize that through all this change has survived a part of me that has not changed - a deeper part that defines me. A part that hates superficiality, that values truth and honesty, abhors a lot of the worldly ways and therefore forms its own moral codes, a part that questions the world and isn't scared of the consequences, a part that wants to go beyond appearances and find the deeper insight. A part that finds it easier to accept a bitter truth than a pleasant lie, a part that hates being bound by opinions and people.

I am still the girl who questioned religion, superstition, cultural practices, the virtue of sacrifice and selflessness. I still believe that no society, culture or religion should have to dictate the right and wrong to the world. I still believe that doing anything out of fear or greed is not right; and that morality should be determined by the individual and that people being moral out of a fear of persecution are not actually moral. I still believe that i shouldn't want to mould and chisel people so that they fit my cast. I still believe that the world must move beyond its stereotypes and focus on the real thing. I believe that the world should move beyond conformity and learn to appreciate diversity. I also know that what i believe in not meant for the world of today and is perhaps far too utopian a picture to exist. As all my life's experiences have molded me... I find that while i have become wiser and calmer, the core of me is perhaps still the same. I am still the same girl who questioned everything, and believed in honesty; the only difference is that i am more aware and tolerant of others who don't.... Is this true for everyone ?

Do people basically remain the same or can they change.... ?

The more i think, the more i feel that people perhaps do not change at the core of their being. Certain aspects of their being probably just become more or less dominant as they adapt to the world. But, can people truly change ? Perhaps not... or perhaps yes... !! I know people can pretend to change and they can execute the part so well that even they could be fooled... but then, someday, the pretense just takes too much of a toll and the relationships which are based on that perceived change fall apart... I know it happens... At the start of a relationship, a small compromise may not mean much but over the years those tiny pieces of you that you kept aside at every step would come back to haunt you and nothing would then seem worth the relationship... Perhaps, that's why, people become bitter in a relationship... progressively over the years, till the entire pretense breaks open and one can only find bitterness within....

But does that mean that people cannot change.... ? I guess, one can change oneself provided one is completely convinced of the change and its purpose. Without this conviction, I guess people can never change...

But should we try and change people ? I must confess, I want to try each time despite what i believe in... but then, there is a voice of sanity which makes me leave soon after i present my picture.... And deep down, i honestly do believe that you cannot change a person until they truly believe in the change.

Certain experiences in life lay the foundation on which a certain future can be built...we all pass through different roads and start from different origins... our dreams and desires, our 'self' and our thoughts are all different and are a sum of many diverse parts. It is next to impossible for people to see your picture exactly as you see it, simply because they have grown up with a different world view... And why should they ? Differences are good and they highlight the other side and open your eyes to a world other than yours....

But then why do we have so much trouble with differences and why do we try to change people ? Why not just let people be ? Just pick out the ones you like enough (despite the differences) and build your life with them...

New "big-innings"... :)

I am looking for a vent.

I am looking to drain out the past -
The thoughts and the worries,
The words and the stories,
Some friendships and some foes,
The joys and the sorrows,
The hopes and the dreams,
I want to drain them all out.

I want them all to just flow out of me,
Into the unknown.
I want to feel emptiness after long...
Not the heavy heart or the wandering mind.
I want to feel stillness and quiet,
I want to fill myself up all over again with all that I choose.
I want to begin afresh,
Out of the shadows of the past,
As I walk into the unknown.
I want to make myself all over again,
Piece by piece, thought by thought,
Very carefully so as to not repeat the past,
But to build only a future,
I want to remember the lessons of the past and nothing else.

I want to start afresh
I want to start bigger and better
For I have found all that I need
My Self, and my people
My courage to be vulnerable and open
My awareness of my fears
My clarity about my confusion
My existence for my joys
My honesty for the world and my deceits to myself
My weaknesses in my strengths and my strengths in my weaknesses
I have it all and
Now its just time to move on….
To rise from the ashes of the past like the phoenix and to take to the skies again...


Thanks to all the people who were a part of this realization… :)

Nameless thoughts out of senselessness ...

Sometimes life passes you by like the shadows on the wall...

dark and distant, it creeps across as you are a little adrift.
You watch the events as they unfold in front of you,
you are no longer living them, you are a mere spectator... !
you wonder if you are a part of it or if it is just someone else...
there is a raging storm in the heart but the mind is numb to it all,
it cannot even hear itself as it drowns in the raging storm
you are just walking through the frames, living the motions
as the clock ticks through.

And then out of the blue, the light leaves and there is darkness,
darkness, that encloses your very being, that threatens to engulf you too,
that takes away the light but brings in the quiet...
you are faced with a dark wall, that seems insurmountable,
if you could remember, you would remember your first days of being,
in a world of darkness, suspended by hope
growing and finding your way
Its the same feeling, you realize, as you hear yourself amidst the silence and the stillness
the world is moving again...
the stillness outside drowns your heart
and the mind starts feeling again...

And then reality hits you like a beam of light
it bleeds through dissolving the darkest of the nights
you see the shadows back again
you feel yourself again
you find yourself in that maze on the wall and you can hear yourself again...

sometimes you need to lose your 'self',
to find it back again...

The story of my life....

Thirty years ago on this very day began a story - the story of my life in many ways. This was the day when a young man and a young girl found each other and began their life as a couple. They got married that day and they began a new life together. In the then sleepy town of Bangalore, a wedding was conducted and two families were bound together by love and tradition. The two flew from their homes and came together to build a new nest in the faraway lands. They started off with a house where they fell in love and found each other. This house soon became a home, as they became a family from a couple and they had two kids, one of whom is yours truly.

25th of May 1980, was in many ways a day when the story of my life began as my parents began a new journey held together by the values and traditions of their time. They came together out of a sense of liking which was held together by the promise of love and trust. They built a relationship based on love, faith, trust and togetherness over the years to follow. They were very different people but their promise stood the test of time and thirty years from then they are still there for each other.

They have lived a life together, shared their joys and sorrows, shared successes and failures, fought and complained, saved and splurged, built a home together, been through thick and thin, lived through health and disease and managed to bring up two children who are able and independent.... they built a life of their own, for themselves and for us... !!!

And, thirty years from when they started, life has probably come a full circle for them as they try to help me find love to last me a life time like theirs did. No one knows where the road ahead will lead me or them, but from where I stand, I just want to wish them a life of love and togetherness for the rest of their lives. I hope that the love they had only blossoms, untarnished by the harsh winds of life, society, parenthood, responsibilities and expectations. I know they will be there for each other and i want them to know that I will be there for them too... forever and ever...

for at the end of it all... they are responsible for making me who I am and I love myself.... :)
I learnt a lot from them - what to do and what not to do... some of my best lessons in life are from them and they have made me into a person ready to face the world with spirit and gumption because somewhere deep down, i know that they will always be there for me no matter what.... And that's all that matters...

Happy Anniversary mom and dad... !!! :)

For all that you have done and wanted to do...
For being there no matter what...
For all the disagreements and arguments cos they alone let me figure out what i want....
For letting me be...
For all the care and concern...
For the strength and courage...
For just being there...

Lots of love

Me :)

The yellow pages....

Today I chanced upon the writings of a celebrity who is fighting Multiple Myeloma - simple yet profound, succinct yet lasting, elegant and yet honest. Quite unexpected and very endearing. The pages of that yellow diary of her's made a difference and made me appreciate a lot of things a lot more...

I found a whole spectrum of emotions there - of hope and fear, of exhaustion and strength, of courage and disappointment, of pain and ache… I realized that things are perhaps never absolute. They come in these pairs tied together by nothing but the differences between them....

I realized that disease does change things around… It teaches you to value life and take it to the next level when you have the chance… And that life has a way of making you appreciate it… and live it to the fullest !!

I realized that you never realize how lucky you are till something goes wrong.

I realized that what we do in the confines of our laboratory does manage to save lives, that it does make a difference, somewhere, sometime... that I am not fighting a futile battle only to meet my narrow ends... that there is a bigger picture at the end where people are really benefited... Someday, I hope to be able to make a difference, by pursuing my dreams and aspirations, through rational thought and planned experiments... I wish to be a change...

There is something unnerving about watching people fight problems. You are glad that its not you in their shoes
you are sorry for what is happening to them,
but it also inspires you to change things for the better…. To take charge while you can and not really wait for disaster to come calling at your doorstep !

I hope she recovers and I hope the pages from her yellow diary manage to spread hope and cheer around :)

Dear Sunflower, It was wonderful reading those yellow pages from your diary which held the essence of your life and its struggles ... :)
I hope the tiny sunflowers blooming in and around you continue to blossom as you take charge of your life and start living all over again... good luck !! :)

PS - For those who may want to read it all from the yellow diary - here's the link.
http://blog.lisaraniray.com/

In search for the human....

Man, I always thought was the most evolved creature on the evolutionary spectrum (For the feminists - it’s a biological term with no sexual connotations whatsoever !!). A product of fortuitous events that happened over billions of years that will probably never happen again. with the same consequence. A conscious and sentient being living within the paradigms of morality. A creature who had immense potential and possibilities, to think and to create. I have spent most of my life so far with this belief… However, as I open my eyes to the world around me and let the experiences alter me, I find a strong urge to alter this belief….

What does one do when you hear of the situation in Africa - of massive civil wars and genocide ? Cold blooded murder and assault. Rampant rapes. Children taking up arms. Female genital mutilation. Ethnic cleansing. I can imagine how I sound - like a yuppie, a neo-radical wanting to make a difference but not wanting to move out beyond the comfortable confines of her yuppie world, talking about the world's problems and wanting to solve them with not even a clue about how to go about it…. But I am still going to vent …. !!!

I have often started on this trail of thought… in fact, I get on this trail at the mere mention of casteism, gender discrimination, honor killings and rape… but then a lot of times you know things but they don’t really hit you hard…you manage to just block them out from the rest of your world and carry on with minimum discomfort… but, there comes a time, when the mind registers, its acknowledges the problem, feels the problem, aches and bleeds, you feel the problem !!!

This happened to me once, a few months back, when i sat in a coffee place reading an editorial in Hindu detailing the plight of the people in Congo… the heart wrenching, gut wringing, mind numbing tales of horror, of over half a million people or more wiped out from the surface of this earth because of a civil war for socio-political and religious reasons… half a million or more over the last five years or so… Tales of young girls raped repeatedly even before they had their first periods, to the point of having their internal organs torn apart, tales of doctors working to repair these ravaged bodies with stitches and sutures, of girls being mutilated (Female circumcision is rampant in many parts of the world) for cultural reasons, of women being rampantly raped while they go to collect firewood, of the breasts of nursing women being chopped as they are repeatedly raped, killing the children in front of the parents and killing parents in front of the children, of starving children scavenging for food, of headless bodies strewn, of entire villages burnt…. And the horrors continue. I was deeply affected, horrified and I felt abused by just reading the facts! I Cannot even begin to imagine the plight of the people who have to live through these horrors.

Is this what man is ? Is this all we are capable of ? I of course went back and looked up for the reasons for the civil war which was drawn out for almost a decade now and that shocked me further. All this was going on because of opposing militia avenging for the deaths on their side in a war that was politically motivated for economic reasons such as sharing of natural resources. Deaths paying the price for more deaths ?? How can we not realize that deaths do not bring back life…. They only bring more deaths…. ! It is only the start of a vicious cycle that makes us more animal and less human each time. !! Of course, true to most people, I reacted emotionally, shed a few tears, was disturbed for a few days and then moved on with my concerns of the everyday mundane. Somehow the two hours of water supply in the hostel seemed more important over a period than the killing of half a million people !!


However, I ended up reliving the horror not very far from then, when I ended up seeing a movie - Tears of the sun. A very typical action flick reinforcing the "good American" image, set in the war ravaged Nigeria. Americans end up being the saviors, the men of conscience who fight the war for the native Africans in the throes of yet another genocide (but one must try and ignore nationalities and just focus on the bigger picture). There is something about Africa that is so wrong or perhaps there is hardly anything about Africa that is right !! This is a huge continent full of prospects, the cradle of human civilization and yet you look at its plight today and there is hardly something that seems right. Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya, Congo, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone…. The tales continue… It is a sore which has been festering for too long that it has now been neglected… but the problem is that at this rate, it will just blow up in your face one day like a gangrene with no easy solution… !!

Well, reading tales of distress has an impact but not like when you 'see' the horrors being committed in the garb of nation building, its another matter altogether. All the horrors I read about earlier came back rushing into my mind as the movie just gave me graphic pictures to fit the thoughts in… you 'see' the blood flowing, the fear in the eyes of the people, the crippled trying to fight and run, the headless men, the charred torsos, the children orphaned as they witness the cold blooded killing of their parents, the women being raped and mutilated, the children taking up arms instead of taking up education, the fear of death, the rage of revenge, the menace in the eyes of the evil perpetrator… what drives these killing machines ? What makes men so brutal that they are able to kill an infant forgetting the sanctity of life ?

Are these the people I placed at the vertex of the evolutionary tree… was I wrong..? Is this all we are ?

But then a ray of hope shines through…. Man made these machines, he fought against all odds and invented !! He is skilled. He has the potential. And while there are these battles raging on, there is also hope ! When someone decides to take charge and make things right… to do the right thing despite the consequences, shows courage in the face of death, lives through the horrors and still harbors a hope ! As long as we realize the pain of the other, all cannot be lost ! We should survive and there is hope ! There is probably a solution somewhere that will make us rise beyond our petty parochialism, our greed and our envy - that will make us realize our true potential !!

Some day…

I guess, it is always about the choices we make and I hope (from the very essence of my being) that people learn to make the right choices and be the bigger people that they can all be.....

I have vented and translated my frustrations from my mind to the words here, but that is not enough… the horrors still haunt me and I wish I could change something, in someway and make a tiny little difference… Some day…

As Edmund Burke said, "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." So, seeing fighters fighting the war gives you the strength and the courage to go on, to fight your battles in your own small way and to be the change you want to make…. I hope the good remains… !! I hope that humanity triumphs...

Missing pieces...

Its me in the corner,
Its me in the spot light,
I am nothing but a hostage...
A hostage to my dreams and my desires
to the visions of my past and my future
to my conscience and my guilt
to my fears and my nightmares
to my own walls and boundaries
to my love for myself and others
to my own thoughts
to my heart and my mind

But then what am I if not a sum of these....
Am I just the potential waiting to be realized or
am I everything in between ?

Its me in the corner,
Its me in the spot light,
I am nothing but a hostage...
trying to choose my confessions,
losing my religion in finding divinity,
losing myself in finding others, and losing others in finding myself...
Making myself from the parts and making parts out of me...
Searching for the world's place in me and for my place in the world....

But then i am trying,
to be the difference I want to make
to realize my potential and to find the "me"
and that's all i Can do...

(PS - Sometimes some words stay with you and haunt you, you can think about them, breathe them, eat them, but still not make sense of them, and you can never make sense of them till you find another phrase and they just complete each other and a picture emerges... That's what happened when i first heard "losing my religion, choosing my confessions" - A famous song by REM.... I knew there was more to it but could never figure out what... till of course i found the missing pieces over a conversation)

Happiness is ....

A - A dew drop glistening in the morning sun
I actually love my apple ipod also (have only the pod and wish to have the pad soon - anyone looking for a gift with a big budget.... Pls pay attention !!! :D).... but seriously, love it when the ipod plays a nice song all of a sudden on a day when i am gloomy...
(On my way to work on a gloomy monday (i think) morning and bang... i hear "pretty woman, walking down the street .... pretty woman..." That's all i needed and i was dancing through the rest of my way then... :D

B - baby's laughter - that gurgle, that toothless smile for no reason, coming out of the blue, it stays etched in your mind and makes you smile too...
A butterfly's flutter and
books...
and beach side escapades - Imagine sitting by the beach long after sunset, listening to waves, feeling them lapping at your feet, glistening stars over head and fabulous company !!! Ok this is becoming a long list already... But.. must do it sometime... sometime.... sigh ... !!

C - Chocolate - warm and melting and hot, strong coffee !! Ummm ......
Ooops, I forgot to add cakes and pastries (chocolate) and cocoa ... too many, eh ? I have a sweet tooth... A few indulgences, a few comfort foods... help you get out of a rough day with a smile on your face...

D - Driving with the wind in your hair, would actually prefer riding a bike... its fun to feel the speed and hear the wind whisper in your ear.... some good company would be an add on...

E - an elegant sentence, a witty repartee, a quick response, a double negative, a complicated phrase and god knows what - all understood silently, unquestioningly, all within friends !!! Lovely...

F - Freedom, to do anything and everything under the sun

G - Girl's night out, chatting about everything and anything under the sun with maggi and chips for company.... preferably on the terrace with a full moon... (and no mosquitoes of course - just realized that I can't seem to stop getting practical even in my wish list... Tooooo much)

H - Home - a place to cherish and celebrate, for being with your loved ones, to be your self in the whole wide world, its your place under the sun !!!

I - Ice cream with lots of nuts and chocolate sauce

J - A witty Joke and the splitting laughter that follows... love that pain in the stomach after a hearty laugh... phew.. tiring but soooo much fun... !!!!

K - Kites, brilliant hued flying in a clear blue sky, as if with a mind of their own....

L - Letters in your name, seems like a lifetime ago but i have written and received letters and they used to make my day...!!! Tiny packets of love and memories traveling all the way just for U....

M - Movies with fairy tale endings - you know they are not true and that they will never happen - but what's wrong in loving them for that brief moment, when everything seems possible... !!
Music - to make you dance in the middle of the street, to share your nights after a hard day, to swing and jive with you and to walk with you...

N - This is actually giving me a lot of trouble... What do I like with an N ? News.. ? nah .... i miss my newspaper but it doesn't make me happy... does the opposite in fact...
Then what ?
I guess, i'll just stick my head out with 'Nice food'... umm... okieee ... Bad attempt but thats all i can come up with when i haven't eaten in some 6 odd hours...
So, 'nice food' it is... can think of pastas and salads, garlic breads and croissants, and the best part of a nice meal... Desserts !!! Yippeee....

(PS -I am so glad I got through N some how... would have almost entered into another writers block - the very thing i was trying to avoid... phew !!! )

Hah... now its O... !!!

O - Okie... Old friends meeting up after long with loads of tales to tell and stories to share... that's happiness right.... ? Especially when you can take off from where you left off, like there was never a break.... !!
Old houses with tales of the past, stories of their own... its like they have a life of their own and we are only passersby...

P - Photographs - of strangers and loved ones, of places and things, of parts of you and the world, of moments frozen in time, captured through your eyes, for yours to cherish forever and forever...

Q - Interesting "Questions" and the answers for them... love thinking !!! Actually the innocent questions from kids are hilarious too.... Imagine hearing someone asking you the difference between ride and drive... ? (This one of course is not from a kid but from someone who is preparing for the time when her kids ask her this... talk about being prepared in life... :D) I wish my kids never ask me this or such questions.... :)

R - Romance and love - to last through the silence and the noise, through the highs and the lows, through the joys and the sorrows, through fights and disappointments, through anger and resentment, through everything in life, till the end of time... there is a romantic in me underneath the steely exterior... :)

S - Surprises, unexpected and full of joy, they are a manifestation of someone's love for you.... when you least expect it... !!!

T - Travel, all across the world with wonderful company.... I want to see the world and the people.... from the biggest tourist spots to the narrow by lanes ... all of it... Hopefully, it will be more than a dream someday...

U- Under a starlit sky, lying on the grass, chatting till the wee hours of morning, staying up for the sunrise and then having the freedom to sleep when the day breaks... O what a dream !!!

V - Valleys and mountains, hills and trees, flowers and bees...

W- Window ledge, sitting and reading a book with the pitter-patter outside and coffee in hand :)
Water - the sound of the water, the feel of water ... sometimes that's all you need !!

X - An X'mas tree all decked up, with the gifts lined around it and a happy family in the foreground... somehow, I have always loved christmas and the idea of how it is celebrated.. just gives this warm, cosy feeling in the pit of my stomach...

Y- yakk, yakk, yakking... its so much fun to hear your loved ones go yakking all the time... I can sit for ages with my head on someone's lap and listen to them yak...

Z - Zest for life, a zeal for the future...
Second option... ZZZZZZZZ.... blissful sleep with someone to hug and wonderful dreams to wake up with !!! :)

Relationships...

Relationships, I guess are like clothes…
We grow into some
And we grow out of some…
You are born into some,
While you pick and choose some….
Some are dearer to you as they wear out,
Some you are just glad to get rid of….
They are what the world sees of you,
But they also make you what you are….
You don’t need them but,
Life is better with them...
Some fade with time,
While some grow in time...
Some need to be treasured,
While others are for the rough days...
Some protect you, while
some others need your care instead…
Some are based on the first sight,
while some are based on deep insight….
Some are casual with no strings attached,
While some make it difficult to stay detached….
Relationships, I guess are like clothes,
We grow into some,
And we grow out of some.

What do you do when you grow out of your old clothes ? Wear them despite the discomfort or get rid of them ? Or simply keep them aside to love and cherish… For me anything old is to be treasured simply because it was a part of my life at one time… I cant throw them away because they are mine and I cant wear them because of the sheer discomfort. So, I guess, as I grow out of clothes, I treasure them as the past and keep them as a part of my life but I then need to find new clothes to fill in the loss… I guess, you grow out of some clothes and you grow into some…


This post was a result of some quiet moments reflecting on some old friendships that I had grown out of… or perhaps, I had never grown into…

Bound by habits...

I have, as so many of us have, always prayed for action and adventure, freedom and excitement, a little disorder and a certain disregard for rules !! I hated to be bound by rules, to be a creature of habit ! As a teenager, or perhaps well into my early twenties, I wanted my life to be unpredictable, to have a certain element of surprise, to be free of rules laid down by my parents, friends, family, school, college or the society…. I hated rules… !!

And then, as the quarter century mark of my life approached, I moved away from home for my higher education (it was a long time ago now) and I came to a new city and set up my new world. A tiny room of my own in a lush green campus, with friends I chose and in a life I wanted. I had all the freedom I wanted, to decide the what, when, where, how, why and with whom of my life…

And then five years down the lane, I suddenly realized the other day, that despite all the freedom I had, I was still a creature of habit..... Deep down inside, I liked a certain predictability in my life, a rhythm, a pattern…

I hate getting up late and going to the lab late (no rule ever mentioned that and no one can force me to it but I go early cos I like it that way),
I hate staying up late - can't keep myself awake beyond ten or eleven on most days :( (a big complaint for all my friends and even i miss out on a lot of midnight movies and the pointless banter that happens at night)
I hate eating outside the mess (except of course on those rare days when I just want to binge)
I hate missing my two cups of strong filter coffee a day - this is my big and only addiction :)
I hate missing my newspaper (I seem to be unable to have my breakfast in peace without the newspaper)
I have a certain timing for my meals and don’t like them to change
I like my Monday to Saturday work plan with a break on Sunday :)
I like sleeping In my room (and my room only), with my blanket (they've been my sleeping partners for so long that i just miss them)
I like my room clean (and this fetish I am told borders on OCD but then, everyone is allowed one freakishness !!!)
I like reading before I hit the bed be it even for that minute or two before i drift off - I sleep with a book in a hand (and trust me, i do sleep reaaally fast... :) !! A blessing at times but then as with all other things, a nuisance at other times !! )
I can't eat without taking a bath (its weird but brushing alone does not help !!)
I am sure my friends can count out many more such habits (weird, crazy, irrational, habits, idiosyncrasies) which are so much a part of me that even i don't realize... !!

A few days back, I realized that deep down inside, I was a creature of habit like my parents had been… I was becoming parents.... I only wanted to pick and choose my habits, and not to be blindly led into them.

I guess, I am old now and lack the indiscipline and the brashness of a teenager. I guess I do like a sense of order in my life… !! But then, at the same time, it is not that I am ready for the mundane monotony of everyday life, staid and stagnant… Its not that I don’t want adventure or excitement or travel or any of those fun things… I do more so than ever BUT on my own terms.... At the same time then, I have a rhythm and I like being in that flow because it tells me deep down inside that all is well… I guess we all like that constancy in our life to suggest that things are normal and as usual... that the world is as it was yesterday and that I will get through it ...

Perhaps that's the reason or perhaps not .... !!!

Meandering in my mind's spaces.....

The rational and the logical part of the human mind is a rather distinct entity from the emotional which is probably what gave rise to the heart - mind duality as it exists even today. Human emotions are far from rational, yet they are powerful enough to direct the course of history!

I was having a rather innocuous conversation the other day which began with my cribbing about having to do something that I didn't feel like. My friend, bearing the brunt of my cribbing, of course supported me and said that one should only do things you want to and not because you have to. True, very true! This is something I have always believed in, being a non-conformist who has often supported an existence and relationships based on beliefs and desire than on need and opportunism (to clarify, I hate people who are cordial and polite when they really dislike you, only out of social propriety - that really gets to me to no end !!). But then at this point in the conversation, I realized that I was saying the exact opposite of what I believed in. I had done things and was in fact going to do things simply because I thought them to be right… not because I wanted to do them… this of course raised a question of some importance, What do we do ? How do we choose our actions ? Do we choose the right things to do (when we have that clarity of course) or do we do what we want to do ? Is doing the right thing always a more difficult option to exercise ? Is following one's heart always easy ? {Imagine a situation - someone you really dislike from the bottom of your heart (for follies of their own) is in a spot of bother and requests you for help… your desire would be to refuse any help and move on … but the right thing would be to do what you can to help)… What do you do ?

Complicating matters further is the realization is that a lot of times in life, we do not necessarily want the right things in life (starting from that innocuous extra chocolate or ice cream when on a diet to desiring the company of a person for the rest of your life who you think may not be the best for you - questions of varies magnitude and implications !!!)… the heart does have mysterious ways and it does want things which are not always right…

We end up listening to our heart more often than not, we indulge, we form relationships based on our likes and dislikes… We don’t always do the right thing… We go with our instincts and I always thought that was the way to go because then I am the only person responsible for my actions and I have no one else to blame. I have always believed in minimizing pretenses and not giving false impressions (to the extent that I can appear cold and insensitive and maybe even scary to strangers)… But the fact is that when I care for someone, I do it with all my heart and soul and with all the honesty I can muster… The people in my life are the most important to me and I don’t really care what the rest of the world thinks… but then the other day, I realized that more often than not when it comes to a question of choosing between the right thing to do and my choices, I almost always chose to do the right thing. Why do I deny myself happiness, this freedom to do what I want to ? What prevented me from following the selfish course I so often preach and instead resort to doing the right thing ? I don’t expect anyone to do it, then why do I ? Am I scared of being happy or am I scared of guilt ? I guess, the answer lies somewhere between these two… I am scared of being happy since I know it will not last forever and when melancholy comes calling It would hit me hard. But I probably do so because of guilt… If I don’t do the right thing, I will never be able to feel happy… I will never be able to redirect the blame for the injustices meted out by fate, I will have to bear with all that goes wrong in my life (as it more than occasionally does) to be a result of my actions… I will be responsible for all the "bad" that happens in my life (perhaps in a more mystic and karmic way but hey what goes around comes around !!)… I guess, I just choose the easier way out when I decide to do the right thing in my life. It does perhaps take more courage sometimes to follow your heart and not do the right thing… !!!

I guess our choices and our actions are all contextual… its just about perspectives and the shifts therein… !!

Life is indeed a box of chocolates...

Life is a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to pick out.

This statement is true in more than a metaphorical way… life is indeed like chocolates…

Life is indeed a box of chocolates,
you never know what you are going to pick out first.
A little bitter and a little sweet,
A little addictive and a little irresistible.
Sometimes melting in your mouth, smooth like the cream ,
but sometimes flaky like a scream.
Sometimes dark and bitter,
at other times its warm and tender.
In myriad shapes and colors,
And in many different flavors.
Life is indeed a box of chocolates,
you never know what you are going to pick out next... !!

And I love chocolates... :)

Wading through the past...

I am always surprised by how much people remember about their childhoods.... I am somehow always a little lost when it comes to remembering my childhood. I don't remember much perhaps as a consequence of the limited hard disk that i was configured with (I show signs of it even now, so it is not that i had selective memory loss in my childhood) :). But then, every time, i go down memory lane and clear out the cobwebs crowding my vision, i see only a few things ....

I remember my efforts at cursive writing at my dad's insistence... everyday, for many months on end (or probably even years) i would religiously write the following sentence and i could not stop being amazed at the fact this sentence contained all the letters in the English alphabet... "A quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs".

I remember my visits to the book shops when i would want to buy soooooo many books (books are something i still find hard to resist). My love for stationary is something which is still unabated although the electronics age has diluted my passions. What better smell than that of fresh paper and ink ! What's better than the feel of fresh, crisp sheets of paper. I love the smell of old, hard bound books as well but the fear of the dust (ingrained by the fear of an asthma attack) do curb my adventures amidst piles of old books !

I can still remember those letters which i used to write to my thatha (grandpa) detailing my studies, exams and results. I always used to feel special when i received a reply. Well, it was special because in a big family with nearly a dozen cousins, i was the only grandchild who still wrote letters... He made me feel so special then! With time of course, the letters became far and few till they ultimately stopped and now i don't have him around to write to... I still love writing letters and find them extremely romantic but then the fact is that it is a lost culture now... !!

My brother… he was a source of constant joy as this cherubic, cute little kid. I remember as a 5 year old praying (I was not my thinking self by then !!) for a little brother to play with and finally, I had my bundle of joy when I was seven. He was my dream come true though I didn’t always like him being the centre of attention, my complaints were only with my parents and not with him. I still remember teaching him to walk and talk and write all before time… I couldn’t wait for him to grow up and play with me! By the age of one, I had given a pencil in his hand to try and teach him numbers…. He was and still is the apple of my eye, the witty little one who can keep blabbering for ever mindless of the time or the distances… Love you bro !! :)

Those weekly ice cream parties at home when appa would buy a huge brick of ice cream (once a week or a fortnight) and cut it into 4 and i and my brother would keep eying each others share... :) So much excitement for an ice cream... !! That's problem with growing up... you stop valuing these tiny pleasures that come your way....

Maggi at lunch used to be a feast... :) I remember how much i had to cajole amma to make maggi and not idly or dosa for lunch (sucking in those long, spindly threads was exciting) ... And, now comes a time when maggi is the food for the sick days in the room and a good appam or a dosa seems like such a delight... how much times change... !!

I can't but remember "biscuit aunty", a wonderful malayalee aunty who used to live close by and had an amazing terrace garden... ( i used to envy her gardening skills and i sooo wanted to have a garden in our third floor apartment !! Now, I can only imagine my mom's fear of having a terrace garden in addition to two kids !!! ). I dont know how i came to name her so, but i guess, she was generous with biscuits... !!! :) From my childhood to my teenage tantrums she was there pretty much all through, (as a friend for mom and as my biscuit supplier) however the bonds we shared became weaker as i grew up into more of a rebel than anything else... but i still remember those wonderful words of wisdom she so readily gave.. As a dark, plump, south indian child growing up in Delhi, i was often subjected to taunts like "kaali" (Darkie), "moti" (Fatso), madrasi (Tamilian) etc... (well contrary to the general impression, kids can be quite heartless at times) and then ever so often i remember coming crying to biscuit mami and there she would be, patiently telling me these wonderful things! She would tell me that being dark does not matter because i was fair at heart and that i will be a wonderful person; and that the other kids troubled me because they were jealous of my abilities and so on... and at that time, as a little kid, coming back from a bad day at school, that's all i needed to hear... I think she is one of the reasons for my strong disregard for appearances till date. I learnt early on in life to not judge people and books by the cover and that lesson stays with me still... Some things in life make sense only at a much later time.. :)

I still remember the excitement in the house when appa would be coming back from an official tour... We would clean our places, finish our homework and wait in anticipation for him... What will he get this time used to be question top most in my little mind i think ... I still cherish the mekhla and the beaded necklace that he brought for me from Assam along with the stories of tea estates and the vast greenery (the Darjeeling tea was not high on my priority list then).... or the big can of rasagollas he got from Calcutta (I always had a sweet tooth... inherited it straight from my dad) :) !!

At school, I still remember playing with the boys and beating them at basket ball.... I was a tomboy then and got along famously with the guys in my class... (I guess I still get along well with guys - old habits die hard) :)

There was also this one lesson in school which is imprinted in my head and despite my many attempts i haven't been able to lay my hands on this old text book from school... I remember reading in school this lesson on Dr Marie Curie and her childhood... My memory of the lesson itself is vague and rather fragmentary but i remember the book saying that she as a child would peek into her father's chemical cupboard and be fascinated with chemicals therein. She of course went on to be the first woman to win two Nobel prizes and then it seemed like the most inspiring story to me... In many ways, she made me want to become a scientist (and today while i am close to being one, i also realize that a Nobel is but a dream :))... As a child, Marie Curie was the most inspiring woman and my awe has not worn off even now as an adult... !!!

I once remember appa advising someone on picking out the toughest options to start with, so the rest will end up seeming easy. Picking out the more difficult option does not come easy to us and is in fact a little masochostic but there is a deeper wisdom in the statement that I agree with. I guess, some where along the line, these are the ideas and the ideals that have shaped me into who I am… and now given a choice I wouldn’t change any of it…

Growing up in a traditional, middle class family, i was taught the right values of religion, obedience, academic excellence, propriety, social considerations etc but all i can remember now is rebelling against almost all these values and questioning each one of them in my head. I was a rebel then and i have challenged almost every advice i was preached about... I can only wonder at the plight of my parents then when their teenage daughter questioned why she should go to a temple or care about what any one said... (I am not bohemian or hippie, or a tattoo sporting, rock music loving kind of a rebel, but more of the elitist, intellectual sorts, who wouldn't mind sticking to tradition as long as it is voluntary, out of my own choice and without sermonizing and the usual diktats).

As i sit writing down with these glimpses of the past, I realize that life was so much simpler then.... a simple vanilla ice cream or a maggi or a pack of biscuits used to make my day... and now, i just demand more out of life... Is that why as adults we lose out on happiness... ? Because those small joys in life, those tiny moments of bliss are no longer sufficient... that we want more out of life and that we have a bigger picture in mind... I wish I could think like a little child once again ... have someone tell me the right things to do... just for a day (I know I will not be happy like that for a longer time as i like being an adult but just for a day... :))

Judging the past in the light of future....

Come to think of it, I have always found this one thing strangely irritating all through my school... at the end of every theorem or hypothesis, there used to be section focusing on the limitations of the landmark achievement.....Imagine reading all about Rutherford's neutron scattering experiment and his very sharp hypotheses about the structure of the atom and then bang ! comes the next paragraph highlighting the drawbacks of the model... all of course based on the information available from present day science and the technology it permits. I have always felt (even as a teenager) that one ends up being extremely harsh on these great minds in the light of information which was unavailable to them... We ended up judging the past in the light of future.

This entire thought of course was lying in some corner of my mind till i came across it again in the essays of Stephen J Gould (he of course, needs no introduction for biologists but for the others, he is an evolutionary biologist who has had a lot of impact on the field and he has a rather unique style of writing essays). He has very wonderfully highlighted the bis we approach history with and his ideas have been beautifully described in the following excerpt from his essay -

"History reveals patterns and regularities that enhance our potential for understanding. But history also expresses the unpredictable foibles of human passion, ignorance, and dreams of transcendence. we can only understand the meaning of past events in their own terms and circumstances, however legitimately we may choose to judge the motives and intentions of our forebears. Karl Marx began his most famous historical treatise, his study of Napolean III's rise to power, by writing, 'Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please'."

Think thee not !!!

Sometimes, very often these days, i end up wishing that i could just stop thinking, stop pondering over the past, stop wondering about the future, stop dissecting, stop extrapolating, stop hypothesizing, stop imagining !! Oh, how I wish I could stop my brain from firing and just be... without needless speculation, without thinking ! Sometimes, I think (despite attempting not to) we end up complicating our lives needlessly... !!! If only one can voluntarily block the random thoughts as they stealthily invade your private space, crowd and clutter your mind and create a din in you head... If only...

Sometimes, it almost feels like I think compulsively, cos if i don't have problems of my own to think about, i end up focusing on problems of others and still keep thinking... !!!
Why can't we stop thinking and just be... just feel and experience each moment and live life as it comes up...

I wish I could... !! I am trying nonetheless ...

I have had so many random thoughts crowding my mind space for the last week and for some reason i haven't been able to resolve them and clear them out. Honestly, I haven't even been able to define them. They just made me quieter (and not in a serene kind of a way) but rather in a restless-quiet kind of a way (like the silence before a storm). It was as if I was enveloped by a quilt of thoughts which i was breathing in and out and never really thinking about. I could feel a weight settle in on me but could never lift it off. I so wanted to write but there was somewhere a stop cock that kept the vent closed. Words refused to fall out... They stood there frozen in some corner of my mind. I wished they would flow and help me get some space....

And then, something happened... I chanced upon a stranger's blog and started wasting away my precious monday morning reading it (instead of indulging in more tangibly productive pursuits like work)... !!! This is the best thing about blogs.. somewhere, in some corner of the world, someone has probably experienced what you are going through now and has written about it... you can completely identify with the situation... it gives you clarity beyond words.... its like we all pull out our random thoughts, solemn moments of our existence and put them into a worldwide thought pool. Out of this common consciousness, you chance upon thoughts, some fit, some don't... all in this very strange and mysterious kind of a way. You find people who think so much like you, and have expressed their thoughts with so much clarity that you find the clarity too... Whatever it was, now, after a morning spent in reading, i can now breathe free... I can write and i want to write... I can think and that's all i need... for now at least :)

Glory to the good... !!

This post takes off from a question that a friend (A) recently raised after watching a movie - Why do we reward a good deed (someone fighting a battle for justice, someone returning a lost object) ? Why do we feel the need to reward the just ? Isn't it the right thing to do and therefore the obvious and only recourse left open ? Why is being good glorified so much ? Shouldn’t that be the first and the only mode of action ?

"Be good unto others,
Do the right thing,
Perform your duties without any expectations
Selfishness is a vice and sacrifice is a virtue
We can find true joy only in the service of the mankind.... "


I am sure I appear to be sermonizing, as the many others we have all often heard….
But then every time I heard these statements, I could never follow any of them as a natural recourse…
These are all qualities that are counter intuitive to us (definitely to me)... becoming any of these or following any of these principles requires an added effort on our part (curbing a natural instinct)... But then these are qualities that are preached in all societies and it all religions... Why then would a religion or a society preach something that is difficult to follow... ?

I guess, the answer very obviously lies in our past. We are all products of millions of years of evolution driven by the principle of "survival of the fittest"... We are here today because our ancestors were selfish and took care of their needs for the perpetuation of their genes.... If they had been altruistic, they would not have survived long enough to have their offsprings and therefore those genes would not be inherited.... Simple enough (Of course, altruism has survived so far and the most satisfactory explanation for it comes from the kin selection theory, but leaving that part aside - We are selfish beings)!! But then why is it that we humans are so obsessed with glorifying the principles of altruism, sacrifice and selflessness... ??

I would hazard a guess that goodness is glorified because it is counter-intuitive... we are not "good people"... we are selfish to the core !! Given a situation, our primary reaction is to carry out a cost-benefit analysis (Sadly, this is not something unique to managerial whizkids and corporates !!!)... It is this thinking which is ingrained in our minds through the millions of years of evolution. Our instincts are to first protect ourselves and our immediate family and finally the others, depending on the extent of familiarity..... We are selfish and being anything otherwise is a difficult and an unnatural choice to make.

The social evolution of man however required a fabric where trust, faith and goodness could abound (how do you live with a group of people and trust your life into their hands when you think that they are out to kill you… :)) Thus, the fundamental pre-requisite of the social nature of man (A natural fallout of the fact that he was physically weaker and mentally stronger than the wild beasts !!) is that he trust his neighbors (also the beginning for our feelings of parochialism and xenophobia). This of course, necessitates that values of goodness and righteousness are preached from childhood and they are made to abound in the society.

The underlying principle as I see is that, humans are not inherently "good"; we are selfish creatures and are only interested in safeguarding our interests and therefore it is necessary that goodness is rewarded and selfishness in abhorred ....

I guess that is why doing the right thing is treated as the more courageous option to take and something which deserves a reward (to try and offset the costs incurred to the individual). We as a society try and propagate these values to ensure our survival as a group. No wonder religion and the prevalent social structures establish this view…. And try and goad us into doing the "good"/right" deeds which are against the very grain of our nature….

[This is perhaps why I really liked Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism because it allows you to lead a moral life without going against your instincts…. But more about that later… :) ]

(I am not sure why i wrote this post and i am not sure if i even make enough sense, but i sure hope that A will understand... )

Some things and some people grow on you, knowingly or unknowingly, you give them so much control over your life that its difficult to live without them around. Life seems such a pain without those few things and people. I have come to hate myself for giving so much power to so few…

Friends, coffee and my books, I feel handicapped without these things… I am sure there's more on the list that I haven't yet spotted…
I hate myself for being unable to live without these…. I wish to be independent of such influences because I absolutely detest the pain I go through at the time of withdrawal every time… !! Its an addiction to a support system and that weakens you and prevents you from marching ahead alone… which you have to do, a lot of times in life… These things hold so much power over you that out of the fear of losing them you leave them untouched, to their whims and fancies…
You build your life around these elements… but sometimes, one just needs to break these self imposed barriers and move into the unknown, face the pain and the loneliness and learn to walk alone…

The sun and the earth seem to have some love lost between them
The earth shriveled as the sun glared from the heavens
She prayed for respite but there was none in sight.
Seeing the earth's plight, the clouds gathered around ready to embrace her…
To comfort her and to shield here from the sun's wrath,
The clouds loved the earth and sent rain drops from heaven as messengers of love…
the earth rejoiced upon hearing the tender notes of love from its beloved
She could only profess her love and gratitude in return
As she blossomed with joy….
Her pale brown was now a tender green
She danced with joy as the wind caressed her tenderly….
Her joys burst forth like the tender seedlings anew
She blushed as the blossom's bloom
She was a new being
She was in love…

Song of the Flower...

I am a kind word uttered and repeated

by the voice of nature;

I am a star fallen from the

blue tent upon the green carpet.

I am the daughter of the elements

with whom winter conceived;

To whom the spring gave birth; I was

reared in the lap of summer and I

slept in the bed of autumn.

At dawn I unite with the breeze

to announce the coming of light;

At eventide I join the birds

I bidding the light farewell.

The plains are decorated with

My beautiful colours, and the air

is scented with my fragrance.

As I embrace slumber the eyes of

Night watch over me, and as I

Awaken I stare at the sun, which is

the only eye of the day.

I drink dew for wine, and hearken to

The voices of the birds, and dance

To the rhythmic swaying of the grass.

I am the lover's gift; I am the wedding wreath;

I am the memory of a moment's happiness;

I am the last gift of the living to the dead;

I am a part of joy and a part of sorrow.

But I look up high to see only the light,

and never look down to see my shadow.

This is the wisdom that man must learn.

– Khalil Gibran

An ode to Tagore...

A sunday morning chat with a friend about Tagore in the morning and articles about his 150th anniversary today made me take out a few moments from a lazy Sunday to pour over a translation of his "Gitanjali". I have always liked his poetry and his writing and have always understood his ideologies and often agreed with them. I havent read Tagore extensively but then the few minutes I spent with his work today revealed a couple of gems, which I really liked. Here's one... I Thought that my voyage had come to its end At the last limit of my power, - That the path before me was closed, That provisions were exhausted and The time come to take shelter in a silent obscurity. But I will find that thy will knows no end in me. And when old words die out on the tongue, New melodies break forth from the heart; And where the old tracks are lost, New country is revealed with its wonders. And another... When the heart is parched up, come upon me With a shower of mercy. When grace is lost from life, come with a burst of song. When tumultuous work raises its din on all sides Shutting me out from beyond, come to me, my lord of Silence, with thy peace and rest. When my beggarly heart site crouched, shut up In a corner, break open the door, my king, and come With the ceremony of a king. When desire blinds the mind with delusion and dust, O thou holy one, thou wakeful, come with thy light And thy thunder.

All you ever wanted to be...

Finding oneself is perhaps the hardest thing that one ever has to do… It’s a long journey into the world…
We are born into a family and a society and these are the influences that shape us and mould us into who we are.
We adopt the culture, the practices and the thoughts that we see in our early life.
These beliefs and thoughts shape our life and our beliefs to a large extent. These early influences set our boundaries and our walls.
Along the way however, as we grow, we read and we think, we dream and we imagine, and we form an ideal of what we want to be. We set that goal and we work towards it but then the norms of the world and the society are working their way on our dreams molding them, rephrasing them.

Till at some later point in life, one may realize that this is not what they ever wanted to be. That this is merely a reflection what is and could be our true potential.
And, that is the time to get started on the journey of self discovery, to find true meaning to your life, to fulfill your true potential, to live as you always wanted, to fulfill all your dreams and to become all you could ever become.

There could be the mistakes in the past that could never cease to haunt you but then there is a time to let go and a time to start afresh. One must not procrastinate for who knows what may happen in the morrow and what horrors you wake up to… so, while you recognize your dreams and you remember what it feels like to have what you want, get going and work to try and achieve all that you ever wanted.


Cos tomorrow, it just might be too late....

The circle of life...

The creed of greed ...

Contentment, satisfaction, being happy with what you are... these are all things that I have always aspired for... till of course recently I realized the flip side of it all.. !!! I have always asked for more, from myself, from life and from people around me... This has however never worked in my favor because i end up being called a perfectionist who frets over the tiniest details which probably will never make a difference and in the process I often end up making things difficult for the others around me.. But then the other day, in an attempt to try and motivate a friend, i realized that I was at a loss for words... She was always happy with what she was and what she had... She knew what she was capable of and what she was not... She didn't dream like me and she didn't fret and fume like me ... She was happy and confident... all things that i would have liked to be ... and it was perhaps for this reason that she didn't have a driving force to lead her forward. She knew what she had to do but she could never get herself to give that final push and take that final stride which often takes you across... She lacked the madness and the frenzy i had (and these were never my most cherished character traits)... I had always wished for a lackadaisical approach to life so that i wouldn't feel the anxiety, the stress and the pressure of everyday living. I have always had this engine in me propelling me forward, asking for more, driving me to achieve greater heights.... I barely manage to tick things off my wish list and i would be ready with more... there is soooo much i want to do before i say die... so, yeah, i ve always valued time and and i ve always asked for more and i ve been ready for that little bit extra effort.... that is why i have worked hard and that is why i can still work... because i dream... !!! I dream of being able to see the world, of flying, having my own home and a family, learning, reading and knowing all about the world, of being able to excel in all that i have ever wanted to, of being a good human being and a capable person ... and i dream of being able to all of this without being dependent on anyone... ambitious... ? So, I am ... but, then why crib when these dreams give me something to hold on to and to move on... Perhaps, contentment is not always a good thing !! Greed is probably also a virtue as it helps you stay motivated and working in the right direction... It helps you aim for the best and brings out the best in you... So, for now, I take recourse to being ambitious and greedy knowing however fully well the boundaries that need to be drawn in my pursuits...