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... ;)

A "Dravid"ian moment - A quiet double century at long last !

Some journeys begin as accidents and it is only much later that we realize how much we would have missed if things had been different... If we had not taken that chance... if we had not gone with the flow. That is the beauty of hindsight... Things invariably look just right !

It is a number. Just another number but it feels like a big milestone.
200 posts.
200 posts where I have rambled on about things in my life and in my head, about friends and foes, about joys and sorrows, about books and movies. About life as it is and was. 200 vignettes of my life! 200 pieces of my mind !

What began as a simple exploratory exercise has been an important part of my life for a while now. It has been a chronicle of my life, of the ups and downs that have shaped my life. It has helped me vent, it has helped think and re-think....

Writing began as a way to innocently explore a new door. But it has helped me in more ways than one. It has helped me understand words a little better. I now appreciate writing a lot more than ever before. My perception of books and articles has changed from being simple statements of fact or fiction to works of art. I now see a lot more and listen a lot more.

This blog is a window to my past as through it I see me for what i was a couple of years ago. Through it, I can see the effect of time and experience as my mind has weathered its storms and learnt its lessons. I have also managed to hold onto moments I cherish as I flick through my posts in moments of despair to find those moments of joy that elude you when the going gets tough.

I have also come across more people and their writings through this one endeavor of mine and that has been a revelation of sorts. It has been wonderful to experience a sense of camaraderie beyond the usual borders of physicality - to see reflections of your thoughts in other people's words, to feel a certain resonance with other minds and at times a thought provoking challenge that questions your assumptions.

All in all it has been an enriching experience in more ways than one and I hope that I don't stop trying even as experiments fail, because sometimes, things do happen the way you wanted them to. And because sometimes what you get is better than what you could have even expected !

The universe is listening and I am ecstatic....

Rarely does it happen that one's wishes turn into reality so soon.

I spent yesterday night reminiscing about the monsoons in India and missing the rains. Today morning, I rode to the lab with the wind laden with tiny droplets of water caressing my face. It sure was wonderful. Maybe nothing as thunderous and relentless as the monsoons in India but today's grey clouds in San Diego did make me happy !

They sure made me feel blessed ! Almost like the universe was finally listening to me....
Its easy to stay happy if such things keep happening... ;-)





PS - At the end of typing this post, there is this one corner of my mind that wonders why it didn't ask for something else, bigger, better and shinier !! Ah the human mind ! But on the whole, "me" is happy like a child with a surprise treat !
Happy to know things can turn around ! Happy to know that things can happen your way. Happy to know that sometimes it can also rain in the desert just for you ... :) Yooohoooo !!!

Missing my Monsoon musings....

Even as the grey clouds hover in, I am enveloped my a sense of sorrow... not because i hate the rains but because I know these clouds will just drift away and will not shed more than a few drops here in this desert land.

Eight thousand miles from home, I expected to miss my home and my people, but I never thought I miss the rains. Those two months of monsoon when your life was led at mercies of the clouds and the almost-always inaccurate weather forecasts. When venturing out was dangerous if one didn't like getting wet. When monsoons meant croaking frogs hovering unbridled on the dark streets leaving ugly blotches for early morning folks like me to witness. Months with thundering nights and long walks through slush. Months where white was forbidden. When there were always more clothes to be washed and less time to dry. When colds and coughs caught up with you even as you struggled with work. The two months, when work was a torture, and all one would want to do was to laze in bed and sip on hot coffee. When one was stuck indoors on more occasions than one watching the heavens opening up with angst and fury, you never could have imagined.

But now after almost 8 months in this land where rains visit rarely and almost as if on second thoughts, I realize that the monsoons back home did a lot more than filling up reservoirs and providing respite to the farmers. They also soothed my mind and provided some solace. Staring at the pouring sheets of water had brought it more comfort that I had known. The sounds of the rain drops on the concrete or the occasional corrugated asbestos sheets would somehow silence the noise in my head. Staring at the raindrops dripping lazily from the bright green leaves after a heavy shower somehow also washed my worries away.

The thunderstorms that worried us after a late night walk lurk in my mind as I yearn to listen to them. The ominous grey clouds which used to worry me are what I miss, almost like the gentle reprimand of a loving father. The scent of the wet grass and mud that was the permanent fixture of the monsoon months especially in that wooded campus of mine, tempt me almost like the smells of the kitchen at home.

I dream of the cold nights where I waited, with a cooling cup of coffee under a tiny umbrella, for a brief respite from the rain just so that I can walk back to my home. I wait for the time when I would wake up in the mornings to that heavenly smell of rain and wet mud and sleep at night to the constant sounds of it. I long for a few more days of rain even with the frogs and the croaks. I long for that burst of green due to weeds and grass sprouting with gay abandon that accompany the first few showers. I miss those tiny white mushrooms that would sprout up overnight almost like the work of elves. I miss those unending conversations with friends over maggi and hot cup of tea waiting for the rains to cease. I miss the snoozing of the alarm clocks as I snuggled deeper under the blankets due to the early morning chills. I long to get drenched in the rains just as then, even if it were just to sneeze again. I miss those two months in the year which renewed more than just the plants.

And now when I watch these grey clouds, hovering above on their way out, they are not a source of joy or comfort. They are nothing but an empty promise. A promise of what can be but will not be fulfilled. A constant reminder of what I am missing. Of what I long for among many other things. A constant reminder of the past and of what was not truly appreciated then. And even as the world around me craves for the sun, I sometimes wish for a little rain and the cloudy skies because more than anything, they make me love the sun when he will inevitably come out again.

Mother and child...

The relationship between a mother and a child is unique in many ways and also universal in some. Some mothers are friends with their children while some have trouble understanding them. Growing up pangs, tiffs, arguments, spats and quarrels over everything and anything are part of almost any relationship but more so with a mother and a child. There are always things to criticize and opinions to disagree on. They are after all a generation apart. But one thing I learnt early on in life was that no matter how much we disagreed with our mother, we never liked anyone else to point a finger at her. There is this fierce sense of protectiveness that rages from deep within, something we didn't even know we had because we had forever been complaining about her. But you watch a stranger say the same thing accusingly and you are ready to rip his head off. One was protective (almost to a fault) when it came to one's family, especially your mother. No matter how much you fought with her just minutes before. I guess that's what being a family is all about.

And I always thought that the same sentiment extends for your motherland. You are in some ways connected to her too with this invisible, but ever present umbilical cord, that constantly tethers you in this constantly changing world. Someone once told me that after living outside his country for more than thirty years, he realized that he had stopped defending his motherland of late. And that was when he said he decided to apply for an altered citizenship. For after all, a passport is only a label of convenience when your other ties have withered. For some reason, although accompanied by other flippant utterances, this statement latched onto me. It was true. So true, that most people dont realize it. But it also raised a conundrum in my mind. Of family members who spoke ill of the family.

I have always instinctively hated it when someone spoke disparagingly of my country. Not because they were always wrong because sometimes they pointed out things which I have ranted ceaselessly about but because they were strangers. And as outsiders, they had no right to criticize my home and my family. After all, you have to know the whole story before you can criticize it and how will the outsiders know the whole story, without having lived it. The complex social and cultural factors, the religious sentiments, the environmental factors, the bondages of history and footfalls of future. No one from the outside can know it all and make sense of it all. More so when I struggle with understanding her and her manifold forms despite having lived most of my life with her. But I would still control my impulses and try and be rational about the whole thing. I would try and explain the complexity of the situation and the multitude of factors weighing in, even as I defended her helplessly. There was nothing else I could do because the urge to defend is more primal and instinctive than one would like. But I don't do this in a passionate and blinded sort of a way, but more as a daughter who defends her mother with strangers around only to tell her the same things in the privacy of her home. And this is somehow what I thought every non-resident fellow national would do. It seemed like a natural and instinctive urge to me, almost unquestionable.

But then I end up meeting these people who for some reason have no good words to say about their homeland or its people. They criticize everything from the traffic to the education, from the dust to the weather with no sense of remorse or compunction. How are they so distant from their mother ? And how do they manage to stay so much in awe of their adopted country or a mother-in -law, so to speak ? After all, you are who you are because of your mother, who gave you your sense of right and wrong; who gave your view of the world. And while your mother-in-law likes you and treats you well, she really only likes you for what you can be; unlike the mother who loves you what you are ! How do people get so carried away in their awe for a new country that they fail to see the blood ties with their own. If distance is supposed to make the heart grow fonder, how can these few not feel love of their motherland so far from home. How can they not see that they were a part of the problem back home and that they can be the solution in the future too ? How can they not see that, everything they are today is because of that one unchanging presence. What they like and what they dont like, what they say and what they dont say are all driven by that one constant presence in their life. They may not acknowledge it but they can't deny it. How can they not see the many wonderful things even as they crib about the problems that abound ? How can they not think of the warmth of the people even as they crib about their tardiness ? How can they forget her rise from the ashes, almost like a phoenix even as they compare her to their new found "home-country" ? How does one snap that umbilical cord and still feel connected ?

Every time I meet such people, I wonder - is this what they truly, deeply feel or is this just a poor facade to try and fit in with the newer people... ? Can anyone truly hate their mother ?