The age of innocence...

As we age, childhood seems simple to us. 


Not because there were no rules or no pressures, no tests or no fears then. Because, looking back, as a child, i have had enough things to worry about and to cry over - grades to exams, sickness and hospital visits, dust, smoke and the myriad allergies, parents and their rules, many questions and the few answers.... 


They seem small right now but they were pretty big concerns to me then. 


But despite all this to almost everyone, childhood was simple. Simple... because we were simple people. Our minds, thoughts and words were simple. Words meant just what they said. As did people. There were no double or hidden meanings. Lines were lines and there was nothing between them. Friends were friends and foes were foes. Things were either good or bad. Everyone could be a best friend ! :) We had favorite colors, fruits, foods, animals, flowers - pretty much anything and everything. 


And then we grow up and somehow things become more complicated. Tears are a sign of weakness. We hate to not be independent. Nothing is as clear as black and white. The shades of grey fill our world. People too are not just good or bad. We learn to read between the lines and to find other meanings. Nothing is an absolute : favorite, best-friend or biggest-foe; the world is fuzzy and we are confused. But despite all this confusion, we have to pretend to see clarity, to see meaning. Our minds in fact are so convoluted with thinking and rethinking, with dissecting and tearing apart every thought; that eventually, we loose our innocence and our simplicity. 


The following is the text from a forward i received a few days ago. A simple forward that I thoroughly enjoyed and duly forwarded. 


While I laughed at the simple thoughts expressed by the children here, i realized that as adults, we are so far removed from that innocence, that we actually find it amusing. Our convoluted minds, trained by years of social training, actually find simplicity amusing and laughable. It's sad but its also true and perhaps even necessary !


But the innocence is truly endearing. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did. 


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While taking a routine vandalism report at an elementary school, I was interrupted by a little girl about 6 years old. Looking up and down at my uniform, she asked, 'Are you a cop? Yes,' I answered and continued writing the report. My mother said if I ever needed help I should ask the police. Is that right?' 'Yes, that's right,' I told her. 'Well, then,' she said as she extended her foot toward me, 'would you please tie my shoe?' 


While working for an organization that delivers lunches to elderly shut-ins, I used to take my 4-year-old daughter on my afternoon rounds. She was unfailingly intrigued by the various appliances of old age, particularly the canes, walkers and wheelchairs. One day I found her staring at a pair of false teeth soaking in a glass. As I braced myself for the inevitable barrage of questions, she merely turned and whispered, 'The tooth fairy will never believe this!' 


A little girl was watching her parents dress for a party. When she saw her dad donning his tuxedo, she warned, 'Daddy, you shouldn't wear that suit. 'And why not, darling?' 'You know that it always gives you a headache the next morning.'

A woman was trying hard to get the ketchup out of the jar. During her struggle the phone rang so she asked her 4-year-old daughter to answer the phone.. 'Mommy can't come to the phone to talk to you right now She's hitting the bottle. 

On the first day of school, a first-grader handed his teacher a note from his mother. The note read, 'The opinions expressed by this child are not necessarily those of his parents ..' 

While walking along the sidewalk in front of his church, our minister heard the intoning of a prayer that nearly made his collar wilt. Apparently, his 5-year-old son and his playmates had found a dead robin. Feeling that proper burial should be performed, they had secured a small box and cotton batting, then dug a hole and made ready for the disposal of the deceased. The minister's son was chosen to say the appropriate prayers and with sonorous dignity intoned his version of what he thought his father always said: 'Glory be unto the Father, and unto the Son, and into the hole he goes. 

A little girl had just finished her first week of school. 'I'm just wasting my time,' she said to her mother. 'I can't read, I can't write, and they won't let me talk!' 

A little boy opened the big family Bible. He was fascinated as he fingered through the old pages. Suddenly, something fell out of the Bible. He picked up the object and looked at it. What he saw was an old leaf that had been pressed in between the pages. With astonishment in the young boy's voice, he answered, 'I think it's Adam's underwear!' 

Finding anchor...

Like many other journeys, this one too began with bookmarking an article as something to be read at a later date. I first  came across Andre Aciman's shadow cities on this blog post. And after what seems like a lifetime on my bookmarks list, I finally managed to read it a month or so back. And it was perfect resonance. It was beautiful and true. In someways, his words captured the thoughts that often skim the surface of my mind when the waters are troubled. 

Aciman said in shadow cities, "like all foreigners who settle here and who always have the sense that their time warp is not perfectly aligned to the city’s, and that they’ve docked, as it were, a few minutes ahead or a few minutes behind Earth time, any change reminds me of how imperfectly I’ve connected to it. It reminds me of the thing I fear most: that my feet are never quite solidly on the ground, but also that the soil under me is equally weak, that the graft didn’t take. In the disappearance of small things, I read the tokens of my own dislocation, of my own transiency. An exile reads change the way he reads time, memory, self, love, fear, beauty: in the key of loss". 

I could understand his words because a lot of me felt like that, a lot of the times. Somehow, the "new" at home was never as scary as even the "old" here is. Somehow the sense of being an outsider still lingered with me despite spending a year in this place. I still feel a little nervous when I'm doing something differently, even though I've familiarized myself with the place and the processes. Even though, I had a house that met my needs, I didn't feel like it was home. Something was missing. I still lived like an outsider, like a passenger who was going to get off soon. I lived like a nomad but out of fear of being uprooted again.

I have often balked at materialists and to those who paid attention to appearances. I have always thought that appearances are deceptive and that one should learn to look beyond them. But now after a year in this new place I have succumbed to the same "vanity" and have anchored myself in material possessions. And i have realized that sometimes appearances are all it takes to start with a new story.

I began my life in San Diego, with a strange sense of skepticism and wariness. I had limited my possessions and had built a life around few things. My house was cosy in its own way but it was also minimalistic - not how i usually live. Its empty walls and barely furnished floors also filled me with a sense of emptiness. I had let things drift in stasis only because i was wary of settling down. Strange as it may sound, I had spent a year here with the constant thought of being ready to pack up and leave. I was reluctant to accept this house as my home and this city as home for a few years. It was almost as if I was waiting for something to come along - something, someone, giving me some roots to anchor. But after a whole year, the wait seems pointless and i have finally decided to take the plunge anyways. I have always been someone who has trouble finding that middle ground between intimacy and aloofness. I give myself whole-heartedly to my people and it seems to be true with places too. Vacating that hostel room after three years, last year, left me in that nomadic state where I walked into a new country with nothing but three suitcases. And today after a whole year, I have finally been able to find some anchor in this new world. It's still nothing like home and I still want to go home in a few years but for now, this feels like another home away from home. I finally, ended up abandoning that sense of caution and anchored myself in some material possessions. I ended up buying some knick-knacks and some furniture. I ended up investing my time, energy, effort and money into making this house into home - a place where i want to come back to. A home where I could cherish old memories and form new. 

It finally feels like a part of me and I feel like a part of it. From living like a refugee, I finally decided to start growing some roots.

I finally feel at home - in a home I have invested myself in.

Musings from a road trip...

It's been a long, long time since I've posted anything here. Part of the reason is that I've been busy (yes, I've had things to do other than work and chores at home and that feels nice) and the rest of it is because I haven't had much to say. 

One of the good things that happened recently was a surprise three day trip during the Thanksgiving break. I say surprise not because i was abducted for it at the last minute but more because it was not something I was planning for. A couple of weeks before the break, I was invited to this three day Trip to Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park and to Death Valley by V and G. 

Now, I love travel but am often daunted by the prospect of all the planning and arrangements to be made by and for one person (that person being me definitely doesn't help...;)) !! Anyways, when this opportunity came up, I jumped on the offer even though I had a few reasons to say no. But at the end of it all I am extremely glad I didn't. 

It was a busy trip by all standards - to travel across three or four state borders in a span of three days is no mean feat. And it being the thanksgiving weekend didn't help as there were many travelers like us who wanted to visit places during the break. I could only sympathize with the guys behind the wheel for those seemingly endless hours of driving in difficult terrain and with short days and long nights. We spent more time in the car than outside perhaps... ;) It was not the kind of trip I would plan on taking again left to my own will but in hindsight (oh how I love that word) it was fun. 

And, now that I think about it, this trip was like a wine sampling tour. I tasted many different wines in small amounts. I could figure out what I liked and what I didn't. I certainly will have to come back for the places i really liked and to know these places like they deserve to be known; But despite everything, it was a wonderful primer to road trips and National Parks in the US and it was with some wonderful people.

Some Highlights to remember : 

It was my first road trip in the US.... and to me that's big in itself.

My first experience with Snow (I felt like a child when i first saw the white mounds of snow at Bryce) !! I still haven't seen a snow fall and I know it will be a lovely sight but I also know that I love the cold only from the comforts of a fireplace and a blanket for a few days. The tropical Indian in me can only live for so long without the sun... ;) I still do want to spend a white Christmas making snow men and throwing snow balls just for the fun of it... but now i am happy (really happy) that I didn't go to Boston or Canada. I love San Diego for its warm and boring weather now... ;) 

I loved going back to my geography lessons. There is so much that you learn as a child about the various rocks, ores, rock formations, the modes of erosion, the movement of tectonic plates, mining etc etc but all of that information is stowed away as meaningless facts in some remote corner of the brain till you see them in front of your eyes, doing what you were told they do. And in this trip I saw many glimpses of that information and that made me want to go back to my textbooks to read more. 

The canyons, hoodoos and natural bridges at Bryce were a sight to see. The fall colours at Zion warmed my heart despite the chill. The desolation and beauty of Death Valley transported me back to a time when men roamed on these barren lands in search of treasure, battling nature with sheer human will. Borax, calcite, chalcocite, cinnabar, galena, pyrolusite, magnetite, gold and silver - ores, I had read about and memorized were in front of me in all their beauty, coloring hills like an artist's brush. It stumped me to imagine that some of the rock sheets in Death Valley were from the beginnings of life itself. They were millions of years old and despite changing with the times, they held the secrets of the past locked in them. It amazed me that geologists could read rocks like books and could tell so much about the past and the future from the dust and rock that we trample underfoot. 

This trip, like a few other past trips, evoked a strange mix of emotions : of pride and humility at the same time. When I stood at the precipice of Bryce Canyon watching rocks being carved, shaped, chiseled, chipped, flaked, bruised and broken over millions of years; it made me feel small, almost inconsequential in the grand scheme of things (It is true but scarcely does one realize or acknowledge the fact as we live our lives ticking off our to-do lists and musing about our problems and solutions {imaginary and real}). 

During the sunset at Bryce, despite the whole day's fatigue and the stress of the travel, I felt like I could just sit there and stare at the rocks as they changed color with every passing minute as the rays of the sun struck them differently. I stood there in wonder in sub-zero conditions, watching the first rays of the sun nudging the valley up from its slumber. I stood there thinking of what the first men would have thought when they saw something so magnificent and out of this world (I later read that the local tribes considered the hoodoos to be their ancestors who had been transformed into rocks by the local coyotes...). For a "big hole in the ground", as some one called it, the Bryce canyon certainly evoked a mix of sentiments. And this when I went on the trip without minimum background information and saw very little of the whole. And yet, even as I felt awed by the sheer magnificence of nature, I felt proud in a strange way at the achievement of man. To carve tunnels through mountains, to reverse nature's doings, to make our own path where none existed (freeways and highways through the deserts, mountains and plateaus), to understand nature for what it was, to probe the depths of the earth for the secrets it held... mankind has certainly shown a lot of fortitude and aptitude. But even as you marvel at the achievements and potential of humanity, you wonder where that it taking us in the future.

On a more practical note, this was a trip that took us to some of the coldest and hottest places in the vicinity. While Bryce Valley was freezing with temperatures around -5 and -10 C. Death Valley was a furnace by comparison with daytime temperatures close to 35-40C. Some extreme adventure it was for me ! :)

The skies were a highlight through the trip. Never have I seen such open spaces such clear skies. The stars twinkling in the night sky were like sequins suspended in the fabric of time, beautiful and ever so mysterious. To spot the constellations and stars I had read about was totally fun...  :) 

I have always had a fascination for all that lies above us : the winds, the skies, the clouds and in this trip, I have spent many hours sitting and staring at the skies. It was beautiful to say the least. And that has bumped up the visit to a dark sky conservancy in my "wanderlust list" a little higher than where it was ! 

So much to see and do and so little time. 

With those brief glimpses of my trip, I am going to sign off with some pictures from the trip. I hope I have managed to capture the sense the awe and amazement that i felt through this little exploration... 

Finally, I can't thank V and G enough for the organizing and planning of the trip and of course for the invitation to join them... :)

Discovering a life...

Some books keep taunting me with a fascinating storyline, a great review or a friend's recommendation but this one had all three and more; but despite that, it has taken me more than a few years of procrastination to finally get down to reading "Shantaram". The last straw which broke the back of my reticence with this book was this post which gave me a sneak peek into some of the best lines from it. And then i decided that it was finally time that I stopped waiting for the right abundance of time to launch an attack on this thousand page wonder and surprisingly it didn't take all that long. Now, that is a real testament to the writer's prowess that a 1000 pages flow effortlessly and leave the reader in me certain that I would want to read them again.
 

Most writers gift the world their words and their thoughts but in this book, Gregory Roberts has gifted to the world a life ! A life and the fullness of its possibilities and all the lessons that one can learn from it. Its words have transported me to the narrow lanes of Mumbai with its rush hour traffic, sights, smells and sounds. Its words have forced me to think of life's lessons and the choices we make based on them. Its characters have made me rethink my ideas of good and evil, of choice and circumstance. It has sketched a life for me which is an example of all that we can do right and of all that we can go wrong with. It has been a wonderful journey into the heart of a man and of a city, all through the words of one man.

And so I leave here a tiny footprint of that book in the pages of my blog... just so that I can revisit them at a later date. 

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"The simple and astonishing truth about India and Indian people is that when you go there, and deal with them, your heart always guides more wisely than your head. There's no where else in the world where that's quite so true."

"The past reflects eternally between two mirrors - the bright mirror of words and deeds and the dark one full of things that we didn't do or say."

"I think that we all, each one of us, we all have to earn our future..... the future is like anything else that's important. It has to be earned. If we don't earn it, we don't have a future at all. And if we don't earn it, if we don't deserve it, we have to live in the present, more or less forever. Or worse we have to live in the past. I think that's probably what love is - a way of earning the future."

"What we call cowardice is often just another name for being taken by surprise, and courage is seldom any better than being well prepared."

"Optimism is the first cousin of love, and it's exactly like love in three ways: it's pushy, it has no real sense of humor and it turns up where you least expect it."

"Wisdom is just cleverness with all the guts kicked out of it."

"It's a fact of life on the run that you often love more people than you can trust. For people in the safe world, of course, exactly the opposite is true."

"A man trusts another man when he sees enough of himself in him. I guess. Or maybe when he sees the things he wishes he had in himself."

"Sooner or later, fate puts us together with all the people, one by one, who show us what we could, and shouldn't, let ourselves become. Sooner or later we meet the drunkard, the waster, the betrayer, the ruthless mind and the hate-filled heart. But fate loads the dice, of course, because we usually find ourselves loving or pitying almost all of those people. And it's impossible to despise someone you honestly pity, and to shun someone you truly love"

"They knew the place in me where the river stopped, and they marked it with a new name. Shantaram Kishan Kharre. I don't know if they found that name in the heart of the man they believed me to be, or if they planted it there, like a wishing tree, to bloom and grow."

"I don’t know what frightens me more, the power that crushes us, or our endless ability to endure it."

"Every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness"

"One of the ironies of courage and why we prize it so highly, is that we find it easier to be brave for someone else than we do for ourselves alone."

"If fate doesn't make you laugh, you just don't get the joke."

"Men reveal what they think when they look away, and what they feel when they hesitate. With women, it’s the other way around."

"What characterizes the human race more, cruelty, or the capacity to feel shame for it"

"Sometimes you break your heart in the right way."

"... in the long run, motives matter more with good deeds than it does with bad. When all the guilt and shame for the bad we've done have run their course, it's the good we did that can save us. But then, when salvation speaks, the secrets we kept, and the motives we concealed, creep from their shadows. They cling to us, those dark motives for our good deeds. Redemption's climb is steepest if the good we did is soiled with secret shame."

"The fugitive kind run, trying against their hearts to annihilate the past, and with it every tell-tale trace of what they were, where they came from, and those who once loved them. And they run into that extinction of themselves, to survive, but they always fail. We can deny the past, but we can't escape its torment because the past is a speaking shadow that keeps pace with the truth of what we are, step for step, until we die."

"You can never tell what people have inside them until you start taking it away, one hope at a time."

"...good soldiers are defined by what they can endure, not by what they can inflict."

"If we can't respect the way we earned it, money has no value. If we can't use it to make life better for our families and loved ones, money has no purpose."

"One of the reasons why we crave love, and seek it so desperately, is that love is the only cure for loneliness, and shame, and sorrow. But some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths about yourself are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. And some things are just so sad that only your soul can do the crying for you."
 

"They nailed their stakes into the earth of my life, those farmers. They knew the place in me where the river stopped, and they marked it with a new name. Shantaram Kishan Kharre. I dont know if they found that name in the heart of the man they believed me to be, of if they planted it there, like a wishing tree, to bloom and grow." 

"The tears, when they come to some men, are worse than beatings. They are wounded worse by sobbing, men like that, than they are by boots and batons. Tears begin in the heart, but some of us deny the heart so often, and for so long, that when it speaks we hear not one but a hundred sorrows in the heartbreak. We know that crying is a good and natural thing. We know that crying isn't a weakness, but a kind of strength. Still, the weeping rips us root by tangled root from the earth, and we crash like fallen trees when we cry."
 

“I was a revolutionary who lost his ideals in heroin, a philosopher who lost his integrity in crime, and a poet who lost his soul in a maximum security prison.”

“Loves are like that. You heart starts to feel like an overcrowded lifeboat. You throw your pride out to keep it afloat, and your self-respect and independence. After a while, you started throwing people out – your friends and everyone you used to know. And it’s still not enough. The lifeboat is still sinking, and you know it’s going to take down with it. I’ve seen that happen to a lot of girls. That’s why I’m sick of Love.”
 

“The world and I are not on the speaking terms. The world tries to win me back, but it doesn’t work. I guess I’m just not the forgiving type.”
 

“You said it’s important to have freedom to say no, but I think it’s more important to have freedom to say yes.”
 

“Sometimes I think that’s what heaven is- a place where everybody’s happy because nobody loves anybody else, ever.”
 

“People always hurt us with their trust. The surest way to hurt someone you like, is to put all your trust in him.”
 

“Mistakes are like bad loves, the more you learn from them, the more you wish they’d never happened.”
 

“The truth is a bully we all pretend to like.”
 

“I could never respect a man who didn’t have the good sense to be at least a little afraid of me.”

“Sometimes you have to surrender before you win.”
 

“Wisdom is just cleverness, with all the guts kicked out of it.”
 

“I take everything personally- that’s what being a person is all about.”
 

“It isn’t a secret, unless keeping it hurts.”
 

“Depression only happens to people who don’t know how to be sad.”
 

“Fate gives all of us three teachers, three friends, three enemies, and three great loves in our lives. But these twelve are always disguised, and we can never know which one is which until we’ve loved them, left them, or fought them.”
 

“Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears. In the end that’s all there is: love and its duty, sorrow and its truth. In the end that’s all we have – to hold on tight until the dawn”
 

“Some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. Some things are so sad that only your soul can do the crying for them.”
 

“A dream is a place where a wish and a fear meet. When the wish and fear are exactly the same, we call the dream a nightmare.”
 

“Fear dries a man’s mouth, and hate strangles him. That’s why hate has no great literature: real fear and real hate have no words.”
 

“You are not a man until you give your love, truly and freely to a child. And you are not a good man until you earn the love, truly and freely, of a child in return.”

“Be true to love where ever you find it, and be true to yourself and everything that you really are.”
 

"Some of the worst wrongs, were caused by people who tried to change things."
 

"It’s forgiveness that makes us what we are. Without forgiveness, our species would’ve annihilated itself in endless retributions. Without forgiveness, there would be no history. Without that hope, there would be no art, for every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness. Without that dream, there would be no love, for every act of love is in some way a promise to forgive. We live on because we can love, and we love because we can forgive."
 

"We know who we are and define what we are by references to the people we love and our reasons for loving them."
 

"Lovers find their way by insights and confidences; they are the stars they use to navigate the ocean of desire. And the brightest of those stars are the heartbreaks and sorrows. The most precious gift you can bring to your lover is your suffering."

"Guilt is the hilt of the knife that we use on ourselves, and love is often the blade; but it’s worry that keeps the knife sharp; and worry that gets most of us, in the end."
 

"Luck is what happens to you when fate gets tired of waiting."

"Sometimes you love only with hope, sometimes, you cry without tears. Sometimes, that’s all that is left, to cling together till the dawn."
 

"He had said. 'Every human heartbeat is a universe of possibilities'. And it seemed to me that I finally understood exactly what he'd meant. He'd been trying to tell me that every human will has the power to transform its fate. I'd always thought that fate was something unchangeable : fixed for every one of us at birth, and as constant as the circuit of the stars. But i suddenly realized that life is stranger and more beautiful than that. The truth is that, no matter what kind of game you find yourself in, no matter how good or bad the luck you can change your life completely with a single thought or a single act of love."
 

"For this is what we do. Put one foot forward and then the other. Lift our eyes to the snarl and smile of the world once more. Think. Act. Feel. Add our little consequence to the tides of good and evil that flood and drain the world. Drag our shadowed crosses into the hope of another passionate search for a truth other than our own. With longing: the pure, ineffable yearning to be saved. For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on."
 

"Money stinks. A stack of new money smells of ink and acid and bleach like the fingerprinting room in a city police station. Old money, vexed with hope and coveting, smells stale like dead flowers kept too long between the pages of a cheap novel."
 

"The cloak of the past is cut from patches of feeling, and sewn with rebus threads. Most of the time, the best we can do is wrap it around ourselves for comfort or drag it behind us as we struggle to go on. But everything has it cause and its meaning. Every life, every love, every action and feeling and thought has its reason and significance: its beginning and the part it plays in the end. Sometimes, we do see. Sometimes, we see the past so clearly, and read the legends of its past with such acuity, that every stitch of time reveals its purpose, and a kind of message is enfolded in it. Nothing in any life, no matter how well or poorly lived, is wiser than failure or clearer than sorrow. And in the tiny, precious wisdom that they give to us, even those dread and heated enemies, suffering and failure, have their reason and their right to be."


"... She had found it incongruous to hear me describe criminals, killers and mafiosi as men of honor. The confusion I think, was hers, not mine. She'd confused honor with virtue. Virtue is concerned with what we do, and honor is concerned with how we do it. You can fight a war in an honorable way...."


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Fact and fiction...

Somehow as a child, I had long held these rigid boundaries between fact and fable and it seemed always that stories that you read about or see in movies do not intersect with our everyday life trajectories. And now as I have learnt my lessons, I know that i couldn't have been farther from truth ! 

Our lives are these growing, tangled web of stories and it is only a question of knowing the people around you an the stories that they have lived and are living. There are stories all around us - stories of war and struggle, of exile and escape, of struggle with disease and death, of struggle with poverty and fear, stories of love and hate, envy and anger. 

Stories that are impregnated with truth even as they embolden the people who have lived through them. Stories that show human courage and strength even as it reveals our foibles and our weaknesses. Over the past few weeks, I have heard of stories of escape from the Vietnam war followed by a struggle with poverty to rebuild a life in exile. I have heard of battles with cancer as family members use every skill at their disposal to dissect the disease at hand. I have seen a woman working hard in the labortaory trying to find a cure for the cystic fibrosis that afflicts her husband. I have seen unity and harmony in strangers and a strange separation in couples. I have seen relationships unravel like a blanket that frays I have seen cover-ups and close-ups... I have seen some lives and heard some stories and all these experiences have completely eroded those naive illusions that i had about the separation between fact and fiction. I now see every life as a story in making and i only wonder if i will ever get to hear it. I now see every person as a potential story teller and I am left wondering what the end is of these many stories that are weaving themselves into the fabric of my life.

Will I ever read the whole story ?  Will I become a part of these stories ? I guess, only time will tell us the answer.

A sign and an epiphany...

For the past few months, i have lived a life of insulated isolation. I have also perhaps sought this out intentionally because this insulated numbness was easier to deal with that the daily fluctuations of loneliness and solitude. Very few things in this period have managed to give me an ecstatic high or the heart breaking, gut-wrenching low. I have just lived ! 

But then something was different that day. As I came home from work and left for my run, my mind was perceiving more than what I would normally allow it to. I noticed the fullness of autumn as it painted the leaves in these rich hues of reds and yellows. I noticed the disappearance of green and the abundance of leaves on the tracks. The air smelt of water as it held promise for those rare days of  rain that we see here.  It also smelled salty from the breeze that flies in from the oceans, every evening, like the fishermen returning from work. The streets smelled of eucalyptus even though I couldn't see them as the darkness was fast enveloping my strides. Everything was signaling a change but I was to have no premonition or inkling of anything extra-ordinary or special. But in those few minutes at the cusp of night and day, everything was going to make sense to me.

In that darkness, as I sauntered back towards home after my run, with my heart racing and my chest muscles heaving, I saw a "left turn yield" sign. A sign, which I had strangely missed the last time I was at that junction in my car and when another car had almost rammed into me. Seeing that sign made me see that almost-accident in a completely different light and made me count my lucky stars. It doesn't happen too often that I feel lucky but today I felt blessed. I had survived a mistake, a big one at that ! Yes, a lot of people make mistakes and I had not done anything that bad but as things played out, the consequences in my case could have been grievous. 

It was in the first week of my driving solo that i had once driven through this residential stretch at dusk; and driving did not come to me easy! I could happily bike to work, ride close to freeways and speeding monstrosities but in a car, i was daunted and scared (strangely and unexpectedly). I think the power of the machine and the possible consequences of a mistake daunted me and scared me into a frenzy. In my early days, when I did not even know "my car" well enough to judge, I was on a constant adrenaline drip when in the car. In the incomplete darkness of that evening, I couldn't read the fluorescent ink on the sign and the fading light had not helped me see the sign too. Normally it wouldn't have been dangerous as it was a residential area with few cars and I had made the turn on the green light. But then that day, as I made that turn, I realized that I had missed the front end of another car which was approaching me at high speeds from the other side by a whisker (quite literally at that). It could have been a major disaster. At that time, the almost-accident had scared me from driving for a couple of days as i couldn't understand how the signals were designed so. I was sure that i had turned on the green and i expected the mistake to be at the other end but it was a rather unusual occurrence here, where people are usually more disciplined on the roads. I told myself to go slower and got back on the road with a little more courage and a lot more caution. But the mystery of that day had remained till this day when everything became clear in those few minutes after dusk. It is a feeling difficult to describe in words but it is probably something like the vision that a painter has when he imagines a painting; it has everything right, it is complete and it is heart-breakingly beautiful and joyous.

I had that feeling of clarity in those few minutes on that day. Despite the lingering presence of the atheist and agnostic somewhere deep in me, I wanted to believe. To believe in purpose, and meaning and a personal God. A God who did not roll the dice for governing my life but who had a plan with my best interests at heart. Because while it was unfortunate to be almost run into by another car, it was extremely fortunate that it was only "almost". And in that hour, that "almost" made me feel like the luckiest person alive. It was a feeling of great intensity and purity. But as i reached home and let the monotony of the daily chores divert my mind, the feeling was gone. But its not something i want to let go of without a fight and so here I am finding words that best describe it, only in the hope that even as my memory fades, these words would hold the key to atleast partially unlock that feeling of revelation. That feeling of joy - pure and simple and that feeling of "belief" that wanted me to have faith. That feeling of optimism and positivity that saw a greater good hidden in every tear shed and a jubilation in every sigh uttered ! 

Like the painter whose vision of the painting fades a little as he paints, because flaws emerge and limitations stare back and that initial vision of perfection gets a little jaded with each brush stroke. My vision of perfection is also being eroded constantly; But i want to hold onto it because that vision is all that keeps the painter going.

If only everyday could bring such intense and complete perceptiveness, I would never want to build that cocoon around myself.  But till I reach that stage of continuous epiphany (an oxymoron screaming "impossible"!) I guess i will have to revisit this post to re-consolidate my weakening synapses !

Just one of those things...

Having recently written a post on the ineffectiveness of current scientific research in helping to save lives in the immediate future here,  I found it ironical when I read about Ralph Steinman, the recent Nobel Laureate and his struggle with Cancer. Now Dr Steinman died three days before the Nobel was announced and the committee announced the decision without knowing of his demise. However, despite the fact that the Nobel prize is not awarded posthumously, in this case the committee on being appraised of the situation, decided to let the award hold. That itself to me was dramatic and a very appreciative and practical gesture. 

But the whole story behind Dr Ralph Steinman's life and his struggle with the disease make the entire situation very poignant in more ways than one. Many of you may have already come across this article but I thought I would share it just in case... 

 http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111011/full/478163a.html

Occupational Hazards...

"Every life is a profession of faith, and exercises an inevitable and silent influence."

So said Henri Frederic Amiel. 

A slight mutation in the statement is going to be what this post is all about. 

"Every profession is a life of faith, and exercises an inevitable and silent influence." 

I am sure there are a lot of puzzled expressions but just sit back and think about how much of our profession actually shows up in our life - in the way we dress, we talk, we think ! With a little observation and experience, one can actually try and predict people's occupations. And it could be quite a fun exercise. 

Take for example the scientists - the clan that I happen to belong to ! 

We mostly have the rather disheveled and unconcerned appearance, quite unlike a management student who is forever seen in these carefully tailored outfits/ attires - shirts, suits, gowns, dresses. We walk into interviews and conferences and expect people to disregard our appearance and focus solely on our work and our brilliant ideas. We talk jargon all the time and we think everyone will understand it. Its almost second nature for us to think that everyone on the street understands what a gene is or what cancer is or what DNA is !!  

We have a weirdly nerdy and geeky sense of humor as a lot of our jokes will involve names of proteins, experiments and results etc etc. 

How nerdy can one be, right ? 

And academic life was the only life we had when on a residential campus like IISc. When on a residential campus, in a PhD program, your life usually moves from one experiment to another than from one day to another. You friends are all geeks and nerds and everyone is going through the same phase and our conversations would reflect that. 

Imagine these conversations at some of the dinners that we would have at friend's homes (actual homes, where non-scientists lead their normal lives... and in our "off-times"...  ;)) 

"Hey, Let's cook in situ today na ? Let's not pick up something from somewhere! Its been soo long since we've had a home cooked meal !" (Instead of saying "let's just cook at home na")

"Hey, what is the volume of that thing? How much stuff can it carry ?" (Volume ? Seriously... i ve rarely heard any of the normal people use the word at a suitcase shop... nothing wrong, it perfectly conveys the point but perfectly occupational too!

"Hey, I made that completely de novo - no precooked ingredients in that !" (I made it from the start/ scratch ! - how difficult is that but no that's we end up doing)

"Hey ! Can you please aliquot the dessert for everyone ?" (Aliquot ?? Seriously)

"Don't give me the abstract of the story. Give me the full version of the article !!"

"She talks like a Nature article while I go on and on like a Cell article" 

"How much do you think this will shrink  - 10%, 20% ?" 

"Come for a run, the endorphin release will do you good !"

"Listen, we'll put this at 4 degrees and this at  -20. We can heat it tomorrow." (Fridge and freezer... but no, we use 4 and -20 degrees Celsius)

And so for a long time, our work life invaded our life and took over it completely. And that was a life in faith. In faith and in hope. 

All through those years, closeted in the close confines of the academia, I didn't realize that all the professions leave an imprint. From history, to management to psychology to photography, they all invade our life... we use words from there in our everyday life... and no one but an outsider would find them odd. Software guys routinely use bug, chip and code everywhere; Business guys use proposal, data, balance, turnover, policy and presentation; and accountants and finance guys use debit and credit, deficit, fiscal and budget everywhere. 

Every professional does seem to have a lingo, a personality, an attitude. What is cause and what is effect is of course difficult to speculate ! Do all nerds become scientists or does science make one a nerd ? Who knows ... ? And at this point someone might tell, we need an experiment but the right controls are difficult to get... ;)

Life lessons from the kitchen....

Apophenia is the tendency to find patterns where none exist. And we all do it at one time or another, intentional or unintentional. We are constantly trying to put pieces together and trying to make sense. Perhaps this tendency gets more acute when life is moving along on an auto pilot mode as was happening with me. And so on one of those lazy saturday weekends, when i spend half my day cooking (in the kitchen, not stories in my head... ;)), this odd idea popped up in my mind. The idea was about the many parallels between life and cooking or rather life and food... other than the very obvious one that each is essential to the other (of course)... ;)

Somehow, even as i chopped and boiled and ground and seasoned, this idea did not leave my head. From a stray thought, It grew into a metaphor. It may sound crazy but hopefully by the end of this post, you might be able to come up with more similarities than what I' ve managed so far.  

Now, these are weeks approaching Halloween and thanksgiving and squashes and pumpkins seem to be sprouting up everywhere in grocery stores. The story began as I ended up buying a green acorn squash just out of curiosity. I mean, I really had no clue about the taste or cooking protocol for this vegetable but I was curious. So I said to myself, what the hell, we'll figure it out! So I bought that acorn and the first thing I wanted to do (before cooking it) was to find out about the vegetable itself. How hard is it  (and trust me it was quite an exercise cutting it with my inexperienced but old knife) ? How long should i cook ? Does it expand or shrivel on cooking ? How does it taste - is it sweet, sour, bitter or bland ?  I was only looking at making some good old simple soup as the mercury was dipping lower and lower for my tastes... But then even for that, i needed to know this information ! And that's when it occurred to me that in some way people are like the ingredients we work with. They are all good in their own ways but not everything works well in every situation and you don't like everything all the time... When working with new vegetables and ingredients, its good to know what they taste like on their own; with people too, its good to know them for what they are before coloring them with your expectations and visions. Every ingredient has its unique flavors and one has to use its talents appropriately for the magic to work. With people too, one has to know their flavor and their personality. Expecting people to do what they hate simply because you want it that way is a recipe for disaster ! But then I couldn't possibly know about a person like i did for that acorn squash now, Can I ? And so I have to observe and be patient and be non-judgmental in that period...  Cos, after all i really dont know anything !! And once that exploratory phase is over, I may not like what i know and that doesn't make anyone good or bad. It just means that fitting is off...  and so you look for another glove / sock or whatever it is that you were looking for...

I am a little too impatient with cooking (and a few other things but that's perhaps for another post). Not for me the long waits next to the stove, stirring, boiling, waiting for something to cook or reduce. It certainly pays off in terms of taste a lot of the times but mostly, I hate those periods of inaction staring at and stirring the pot... One thing I do of course is to cook multiple things at the same time as result of which, my empty periods are occupied with one hing or another. So while I wait for something to boil, I chop another. Or while I wait for something to cook, I beat another. But for the same reason, I also love a pressure cooker. (As much as it had surprised my american flat mate the first time she saw it and as much as I hate that sudden whistle shrieking its way through my quiet room), I love the pressure cooker. It cooks things soooo fast - pulses to potatoes to rice and what not. And now the parallel: As with cooking, pressure helps in life too. It forces us to commit ourselves entirely to the task at hand - but again, too much pressure only leaves you mushy, over-cooked and tasteless after a point and it does destroy some nutrients. So as with cooking, pressure in right amounts is the key in life too... Something that some of those maniacal bosses and coaches need to learn !!

Now I have a weird system at my place as I cook multiple things but in large quantities. And then I eat small amounts of each in daily aliquots in permutations and combinations. And I also like a wholesome meal... It makes me feel wonderful when I have a full three course meal - as in with a soup, a main course and a dessert. None of these are fancy or exotic but they are just there in their basic elements. One could, on principle, disregard the order in which we eat (or are rather supposed to eat) but then I can't ever imagine having a nice warm soup after my chocolate/sugar fix. And in some ways, so it is with life; some things are best done at certain stages in life. There is always plenty of room for variation and occasional try-outs but its good for adults to be mature and for children to retain their innocence. It alarms me when i see some of these young kids on facebook and internet, looking up and knowing all kinds of stuff before they are even capable of knowing or understanding it.

Now, coming back to the kitchen, I have a gigantic sweet tooth. I can probably never refuse a dessert and everyone who knows me will believe this... ;) But even for me, desserts are tasty only upto a point. I can only have one cheesecake or a mousse at onetime. After that, I hate the excessive sweetness soo much that i am hunting down some chips. And I know in life too, too much happiness will never be satisfying...Life is good only when you struggle to get what you want and when you've fought hard to get what you deserve. As with food, life is good only when it has all the emotions - sweet, sour, bitter and tangy and all those other tastes that i am not writing down.

Now some people eat for living and some others live for eating. I am definitely of the former kind. I love good food but not so much that I undertake a lot of trouble. I could eat just about anything to keep doing what i have to. Yes ! It is not a great way to relish food and life but then that's how I grew up. What this also does is give me a certain kind of fearlessness when i am cooking for myself. Because I know that whatever it is I can eat it, I experiment with almost gay abandon.... ;) I only try to see the basic physics of what I am trying to do and then I just go about it... Recipes are not things i adhere to rigidly. I feel that recipes are a good platform to get a feel for the dish you are cooking but you make it your own by being fearless when cooking. You can't keep waiting for all the ingredients to be in your hand...you have to adapt and start making it your own. As with life, you will never have all that you wish for before you start up on your dreams... you just have to work with what you have. I just wish I could be that fearless in life as i am in my kitchen... ;) Yes, disasters will happen (more so when you are experimenting) and one has to be innovative and creative to come up with solutions. And sometimes, you end up inventing wonderfully weird things just because you were not boxed in by what was done...

But while I dont strictly follow a recipe, I do have a plan. Before i head out for my weekly grocery shopping, i do think of what i want to eat the coming week and then i buy things accordingly. I make sure that I am not eating more junk than i should and that all my major food groups are covered. I am sure everyone who manages a kitchen has to do this to maximize efficiency. In life too, one must be prepared and one must know what they are trying to do. Randomly chopping or mixing is not going to be productive. Working towards a goal needs a plan and some degree of forethought. 

Sometimes as with all other things in life, things go wrong in the kitchen too - things burn, char, stay soggy or raw...basically, things go wrong. Either the dough is too watery or too dry. Either too soft or too brittle. Not everything happens the way you expected. And that's when one has to think out of the box and come up with solutions. Adding more water/flour or salt may fix some problems. Dilution or concentrating or mixing something else may help too. One has to let go of the problem and think dispassionately and rationally. Also one has to know when to stop and when to start afresh. In life too, things will go wrong... sometimes you can mend them, sometimes not. Be prepared for failures in life but also know that there are times when you should stop and there are times when you should go on.

Now imagine a basic kitchen. Nothing fancy. Just something you would want to have if you were forced to cook in a new place for a few days. What are the spices you would want to carry ? What are the ones you can leave out. As much as you may love the taste of basil or the smell of oregano, they are not the ones you cannot live without. Salt and sugar as the essential ingredients in a minimalistic pantry. In life too, a few friends and family are essential. The others are the other spices. They make the food richer and more wonderful but they are not essential. 

Now, any cookery show or a chef would insist greatly on presentation. The coriander leaf on top or the chocolate swirl around.... they definitely make the food look yummy and stir up the salivary juices. But we all know that no matter how good-looking the food is outside, we all eventually miss the shabby looking "ghar ka khana"... As with food, so with life, appearances can be deceptive. One can get a lot of pleasure (and health) from the plain or rather ugly looking khichdi while the rich and wonderful looking steak-roast can do a lot more harm in the long run.

Now for my final nugget.. (I Promise.. ;)) 

Nutty as it may sound, nuts make our food and our lives richer ! Just as biting into that occasional nut in the middle of a delightfully chocolatey brownie improves the taste of the rest of the brownie, meeting an occasional nut in life too, makes you value the goodness around you. I have re-assessed my evaluation of so many people around me and my expectations from life - thanks to those occasional morons i have run into... ;) (And even as I write this, I am sure i have provided the same pleasure to some other people...things afterall tend to come around a full circle) !! ;)

Anyways, to wind up that stray thought/ metaphor...  Happy living and happy cooking !! ;)

The sea of stories...

Salman Rushdie wrote of a sea of stories. It was a beautiful concept - that of many stories drifting in the ocean as they merge, mutate, evolve and grow. 

It is easy to imagine our lives as stories. Stories of real people and how they lived. Stories that emerge, evolve, breathe and grow. Stories that are authored by chance and choice. Stories that make us and the stories that we make. It is fascinating to listen to people and their stories.

I have often wondered what would be the one superhuman ability I would want to have If i could. And while I have often favored invisibility over many of the others, mind reading has been the topping the list for a while now. Mind reading - not to know what others are thinking or what they plan to do but more to know their story. To know what their life was and how it has changed over the years. When I look around me, I see these people from diverse backgrounds and each with his/her own story, large parts of which are somehow buried in the sands of time. Stories of sickness and health, stories of refugee camps and battles, stories of friends and families, stories of travel and rest, stories of fun and disaster, stories of choices and decisions, betrayal and trust... It is unbelievable how much we learn about a person when we know his story. 

It is also amazing that knowing the whole story doesn't lead us to judge him. Instead, seeing the whole picture gives greater perspective. It helps us see the person for what he is and for what life has made out of him. We stop judging people based on what they did yesterday or what they said the day before, because we see their whole lives in perspective. I wish I could just hear their lives and their stories... just to see a bigger picture. To see their present in the context of their past and to imagine their future knowing the whole.

Too close for comfort...

It was just another Saturday morning and since I walked in later than usual, instead of seeing empty corridors and desks, I found the usual culprits in the lab, trying to do the little things they could after a long week of work. But today the lab was a slightly different place from all the other Saturdays. Today we had a tumor sample in the lab.

A colleague of mine was trying to isolate some cells from this tumor sample to do a microarray analysis and compare its gene expression signature with other known cancers. This would be routine for a lab like ours but for the source of the tumor. This was a unique tumor sample. It was not from a mouse or an anonymous patient but from his mother. And he was working on it to try and get some answers.  The whole situation was so full of poignance and resilience at the same time that it was hard to just let it pass. 

I am a scientist and I have worked on cancer. I have seen patients and I understand in some corner of my mind that patients are real people. Real people, who are just like us except for this one unfortunate burden that they are forced to carry. And trust me it is easy to lose sight of this one simple fact as you deal with cell lines, genes, stables, drugs, IC50s, xenografts, so on and so forth. Ever so often we all need to be reminded that the samples we are working with are from real people. People who have heard probably the worst news of their life and people who might be counting their last few days. People who have poison leaching through their veins and people, whose families are living on the edge dreading every phone call and every doctor's visit. Families who are feeling betrayed and helpless. Families who are struggling with putting up a brave front even as they feel all hope drained out of them like as they stand mute spectators to life draining out of their loved ones. Amidst the hustle and bustle of a laboratory, amidst all the graphs, bars and p-values, It needs some reminding for all us researchers and academicians to know that all our work is ultimately aimed at benefiting those real people. Real people with real problems and concerns. 

But this incident was cutting it rather close to that dim realization of mine for me to carry on as usual. Someone I knew was working with a tumor. A tumor from his mother in a last ditch attempt to find out what went wrong and what should be done. It's only been a fortnight or so, since my colleague's mother was diagnosed with a large (25cm) tumor in her retroperitoneum. A biopsy didn't tell much and the hope was that a surgical resection would tell the doctors more. But as things played out, removing the tumor and a kidney with it didn't really give any more answers. And so he got into action and got some of the tumor sample to check for the gene expression signature of the tumor with other known cancers to try and get closer to an answer. He looked calm and quiet as he dissected the tumor and isolated the cells to get their RNA but I could sense something more. He was unusually quiet or unusually talkative in phases. Or maybe I was just imagining. But it was difficult to place myself in his shoes and still be so rational and composed about the whole thing. It was difficult for me to even imagine sitting thousands of miles away from my family in such situations and do what he was doing. To do what should be logically the right thing. Do what could make a difference. Do the practical thing. While his mother was battling the disease, I am sure he was fighting his own battles. He was working with the problem in the way he knew best. It was rational, practical and pragmatic but I could never be that way. To me, it seemed more important to be closer to my loved ones in the time of crisis than to actually work at finding a solution to the problem. Its irrational to the core but the "heart" is hardly known for its logic. It certainly is a difficult choice to make, to be rational and clinical about something so deeply personal and I thought his choice was truly courageous.

But it also raised some questions... If there is a gene expression signature that researchers can use, should we keep waiting for a company to develop it, test it, package it and come up with ways to maximizing profitability before releasing it to patients ? How much research can we bring into the clinic and how ? If there were a drug in trial, can we give it to patients with no other hope or should we wait for a clinical trial to be conducted with clear results. Should we let patients make their choices as they gamble with their lives and take a calculated risk ?

These questions are really the wanderings of a mind at the periphery of the unusual. I have never seen such a close intersection between our research and the life of a patient. We all talk of the great future potential of our work and the great possibilities that shall hitherto be opened by our pioneering work but deep down we also know the reality. The reality that our work is fairly far from the clinic or from actually making a difference in the lives of patients. But then when something like this happens, you are forced to acknowledge that which was conveniently buried in the sub conscious - that there is not much your work can do when it comes to saving a life in the immediate future. And even as I marvel at his courage and question my own lack of rationality i hope against all hope that the tumor would not be malignant.

But of course, hope is just a mirage in the vast deserts that span our realities....
But sometimes... hope is all you can do...

Marking time...

Years, months, days, hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds and so on... So many ways to measure time but sometimes all these metrics pass you by and the mind fails to register that what it obviously knows. The mind seems to be looking for some other signs. Some other ways to mark time. Festivals, Anniversaries, birthdays, seasons... These are the metrics that seem to register the passage of time in our mind. The rest remain as just numbers, facts and extraneous details to be recorded. 

As I walked back from the car today after a looong week and anticipating a light weekend... something happened to change my perception of time. I looked up at the trees and I saw the beginnings of fall colours. "Fall" is hardly the fall one thinks of, in sunny California, but this is perhaps the closest that I will get to from where I am. And those stray vibrant hues of yellow and orange amidst the greens seemed to be able to tell my mind something that my daily scribblings in the record book failed to - the passage of time. It is going to be a whole year since I came here. I am still away by a few months from the "anniversary" but the "home-sickness" and nostalgia have hit already. What seemed like a little while back till yesterday suddenly feels like a long time ago today... just because my mind finally registered the passing of time... And there are only more such metrics yet to come - Diwali, Christmas, Birthdays..... A lot of days to remind me of the swift pace of time... a lot of days to remind me of some distances and some relationships...  

The bigger picture....

We are all searching for the truth. An honest answer. A simple explanation. But what we forget is that often there is none to be had. Answers are often not simple and direct. 

Events are a result of causal chain of events - one leading to another while we are only able to catch a snap-shot of it at one finite moment. Science and scientists have understood this inherent defect with our mode of study. We know that we are limited by only being able view snap-shots of a disease in a progress or of the life of a cell. And so we have struggled to put together a story based on vignettes here and there adding in our own intelligent speculation. As we do this, we narrow down the variables and focus on the minutiae. 

We stare down at a microscope and tear apart a problem to its smallest parts. To the tiniest, tangible parts that we can intelligently handle and comprehend. To parts that can be individually tampered with, studied, modified, understood and exploited. So we understand truth one experiment at a time. We paint our pictures, one pixel at a time. But life is not really waiting for us to complete our experiments and paint our pictures. 

We keep working and looking under a microscope and ever so often, we need a reminder. A reminder to the fact that we are only looking at one flower, in a big garden of flowers, in a big city, in a big country and all of this in one big universe. It helps to stop once in a while just to step back from our microscopes as we dissect every truth, every statement and every answer to just see a bigger picture. A bigger picture, where we are all the part of one big whole. A whole where progress in one stimulates progress in another and knowledge in one leads to more questions in another. A whole, where understanding the past is as helpful as imagining and creating the future.

And this is why, I often feel like slipping into the folds of history. In fact, as the years have passed, my fascination with history has grown steadily. From a clear and unequivocal dislike to the subject to tolerance, to curiosity, to fascination and to a strong interest now, I have grown to love the past. Nothing seems to make sense except in the light of history. I could sound anachronistic when I say this because talking of the past when people are building humanoids does seem like a sacrilege but If asked today, I'd much rather spend my time reading history than futuristic science fiction. Every one of the books I have read that have detailed the origin and development of a field have made me realize that one needs to look at a bigger picture, the whole story. One needs to step back from the microscope to see the world as it was and is. And that is the only view that can show us our blind spots and our prejudices and open our eyes to new facts which we had ignored for so long. 

In life too, as in science, one needs to step away from the details and minutiae of everyday living to look at the bigger picture. A whole where stepping away from the microscope only shows us how grainy our pixels looked up close, but with millions like those, our picture is not all that bad. A picture where we can count our "blessings" and thank our failures for the lessons we learnt.  A picture where we can view our lives in third person in addition to living them in the first person. Where we can be objective about our past simply because we are removed from it and because we have seen that what seemed like a catastrophe was actually a blessing in disguise. Sometimes, this understanding takes years to come because I still rue many things in my past... but I don't stop looking. Looking for that one clue that would make sense of it all. That would show me that things, for what they were, have only left me better and stronger !

The first taste of flight...

Some people watch their step. They look at the ground and take every step with great thought and care. Some others stare at the skies above even when walking the ground and often find themselves up, close and personal with the dust on the ground. It is almost like they are looking for something above and are indifferent to the affairs of the earth...

For better or for worse... I have always been in the latter category. The skies always seemed to fascinate me. Flying with the birds was a dream for as long as i can remember. Nothing thrills me more than the wind in my hair and the sight of open skies...It is very easy to find me staring at the open skies and birds, especially during the sunset. And this has caused many a downfalls... However, despite the many falls and injuries, I have always been unable to keep my eyes glued to the ground.

This dream of flight came a lot closer to reality when I moved to the Salk Institute which is situated right next to the San Diego Gliderport. The paragliders with their bright, colourful sails would dot our skies ever so often as they took off from the gliderport nearby and I would watch them with this never ceasing child-like fascination as they fluttered about like bright, cheerful butterflies. It was always a sight to behold and an ever present temptation.

I finally succumbed to the temptation last week and made the leap of faith... And it was an amazing experience. Bravely or foolishly, I was not afraid all through the flight. It was definitely not very daunting too. I enjoyed my twenty minutes of flight with my camera and landed with a single regret .... I wished the flight was longer ! The best and almost surreal part of the entire flight was this moment when a flock of birds flew past us and that will remain etched in my memory forever. It was probably then and only then that i actually registered the fact that I was airborne... ;) The entire experience feels like a great beginning to me right now.. because though paragliding was fun, it didn't give the actual feel of flight. I now seem to want to sky dive and hang glide. And so even as I tasted flight for the first time all I learnt is that I will do it yet again and hopefully differently...

Below are some pictures from my entire experience and a quote that I really liked...

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."

Symbols....

A rosary, a cross, a hijab, a burqa, a turban, a bindi or an attire.... symbols they are. Symbols of religions, cultures, traditions. Symbols of where we come from and of those who went before us. They come into our lives through our family and society and become a part of us, our appearance, our beliefs, our mannerisms and even our thoughts.

If we follow these symbols... are we doing so because of fear, respect, habit or indifference ? Does following these customs blindly mean much ? Does leaving these customs behind mean insubordination and disregard for one's roots ? Does moving away from symbolism mean rebellion against one's own ?
Does following your culture mean captivity and compulsion ?

What makes us free ?
The ability to drink, drive and use drugs ? Is that what being liberated is all about ? Does freedom translate into disregard for others, drunken binges and one-night stands ? Or is freedom all about thought... all about choice. The choice of what we believe and what we do. The choice of what we think and what we say.

Why is the world swinging between these two extremes of complete subordination to the past and complete rebellion against the past ?

Why is no one able to accept a middle ground where tradition and culture are reflected in our thoughts, where attire and mannerisms are just other superfluous extensions of our being...
Where who we are is more than what we wear or do not wear. Where freedom is best represented as freedom of thought and choice ! Where people can accept their past as what made them and yet recognize the flaws in them to make a better future...

Why is the world unable to accept a middle ground when it comes to issues of religion, morals and culture ? Wearing a saree should be just like wearing a burqa or a suit...Why then should one or the other be frowned upon ? Wearing a cross should be like wearing a kippah or wearing a sacred thread... but still, one is considered more accepted than the other by one or the other ? Why is no one able to see through these minutiae to focus on the person underneath it all.... Why do we mix the physical with the metaphysical ?

After all aren't we more than these symbols ? And in some ways, aren't these symbols irrelevant to who we really are ? Why focus on the cover when the story lies in the book ?

Will we ever be able to find a peace and security in spirit of honest questioning than in blind answering ?
Will we ?


(These thoughts have remained amorphous in my mind for a very long time. They were crystallized into words thanks to a small but unexpectedly beautiful movie called "Arranged". Dealing with the subject of arranged marriages, this movie traces the friendship between two young women who, although from very different backgrounds, are brought together by their shared experiences with the system of an arranged marriage. This movie traces the life of these two unlikely friends, an orthodox Jew and a Muslim... as they hold onto their faith, family and their culture in a world that constantly pushes them to do otherwise. Its authentic simplicity forces one to question the very essence of freedom and culture.)

New kid on the block...

There is a new kid on the block,
To add to our eclectic flock.
She waltzed into our lives with love and life,
with those tiny cooing sounds, she wiped out any signs of strife...

Blessed with parents who love her dear,
With uncles and aunts, all far and near,
She is the apple of our eye,
She is our little "Nittilai" !

Happy birthday Nittilai.... ;)




Time flies !

Six years ! That's how long it has been since I met this stranger for the first time - Nittilai's mother and my dear friend.

She sat across me with her friends and I barely noticed her presence. Over the next few days, I realized that the stranger was a course-mate but that's all she was for a while. Gradually she became more than a course-mate. She became an acquaintance, the friend of a friend and that's what she was for a long time. We would laugh together, share jokes, eat out and talk but something was missing. The connection was limited.

And then there came a time, when a lot of things went wrong.

When some friendships withered and distances blossomed in grounds where intimacies had flourished. And somewhere then, a new seed of friendship was sown. This acquaintance for the past few years became a friend. A friend unlike any. It was friendship that took root under the toughest of conditions and turned out to be a sturdy little plant. With the years, the climes changed and this young sapling soon grew well.

It was a friendship that got me closest ever to unconditional acceptance. A friendship that gave me courage and strength to carry on by its sheer presence. A relationship where words were superfluous, where somehow there was this implicit acceptance of the other person, for just who they were. We had found something special. A friendship that strengthened with time. That was almost four years ago and it has stayed the same, in a way that is difficult to explain, to understand and to question. And I don't !

Today, six years after I met that stranger, I find a miniature version of the same person in front of me. A tiny being who is the essence of two of my friends. And even as i wish that i could have been there with them through these wonderful life changing moments, I hold onto the faith that our friendship with withstand all the changes that life brings and will only grow from strength to strength.

This post is just to mark a celebration. To raise a toast to a new member in our extended family. To welcome my dear friends to a new phase of their life. Here's wishing them a wonderful time ahead with their little bundle of joy.

And Here is hoping to meet that bundle of joy soon... ;)