Words, I now realize, can be capricious and perfidious. They can be hollow and meaningless at some times and at others, they can encompass the entirety of our existence - the known and the unknown. I have used them on various occasions to various ends - intentionally, unintentionally, on request, as a challenge, to help myself, to help others, for mirth and to chastise.
Chance musings led me to some random excerpts I had written over the years and since this blog was meant to be a collage in text, I decided to post them here, for another chance encounter…
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This was the Nature Future's segment where they had asked for a short paragraph (200 words, I think) on how our future might look like. I didn't end up sending it so don't know how it would have fared among the other entries.
"My dear Maya,
It is that time in my life that parents dread because they have to finally let go of their children. It is time for me to pass on from here, to whatever lies beyond.
When I was in your place decades ago, I cherished my parents' memory through their books, their photographs, and through this house. The physical world held for me the essence of my parents in the form of their belongings. But now that the State owns my physical world and will take everything of mine from you upon my passing - I thought I should leave something behind for you. Something for you to hold onto and to revisit at a later time. In this portable memcore you will find my thoughts, memories and reflections over the years. I hope my mistakes, miscalculations, oversights and dilemmas will serve a purpose and help you navigate through this ever changing world.
Lots of love,
Mom"
Hope is a dangerous ally.
Something I have always felt and yet never managed to convey so succinctly… The right words just happened to fall in place while on a text chat. Strange are some days.
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There is a fine line separating chivalry and chauvinism.
Another of those glimpses from a random conversation that tend to grow on you…
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A dear friend asked me to try and write something for a public awareness campaign about giving the right of way to ambulances. It seems fairly obvious to many but somehow, in reality, ambulances are still stranded in rush hour traffic in India. And people still lose their lives, stranded in a traffic jam. It is a great initiative and while I can never be sure of how much of a difference these campaigns can make, I certainly would want someone to try. And I was glad to be given an opportunity to be a part of it.
A lot can happen in a year, you'd think.
I can tell you, a lot can happen in a few minutes.
It started as fatigue that I attributed to the training but it was a stroke of terrible luck - a life-altering event. Within a couple of hours of that cloudy , foggy afternoon, I knew this was not just fatigue. There was more happening here as words failed me and I felt like I was drowning into a deep, cavernous silence. What I realized later was that my brain was drowning in its own life-blood. A tiny blood vessel somewhere had ripped at the seams and was leaking blood. It was a stroke.
A stroke of misfortune that will stay with me throughout my life.
It need not have been so bad because the doctors later told me that I could have recovered full function if I had been attended to within the first four hours of that leak.
And… DON'T you think I waited too long because when I called for help, I was still only two hours into that disastrous leak. The ambulances arrived on time too - in half an hour. I could hear the eerily shrill sirens roaring down the streets as they picked me up and transported me. But what I did not know then was that I had not chosen a good day to have a stroke.
The streets were crowded with scurrying diwali shoppers driving to and from places, in a hurry to make merry. No one cared for our ambulance blaring its sirens because everyone was in a hurry to get somewhere - a theater, a mall, a school, a market or even just home. They all had promises to keep, deadlines to meet, festivities to begin. And stuck behind them all, was the white ambulance - blaring its siren and its red lights - that carried me in a daze. We stayed there immobile, stranded. Waiting for tiny spaces to open up in rush hour traffic.
Even as the ambulance was stuck unable to move; my blood was flowing freely into my own brain. Choking parts of it and drowning my life with it.
If only they had given us some room to get through to the hospital. Those shoppers would have been a few minutes late or even an hour late. They would have missed a meeting or been late for a dinner. But I, I missed my whole life in those few hours. As the blood leaked, it overwhelmed areas of my brain, and drowned parts of me never to be found again. If only they had given way to the ambulance. If only they had cleared the roads.
If only I had reached in the first four hours, the doctors say as they shrug helplessly. You could have made a full recovery but, now, you are too late….
I am too late.
And today, I sit here in a wheelchair, waiting for someone to help me clean the spittle off my face. I look at you people and I wonder constantly, how many of you were on the road that day. How many of you could have saved my life… by not doing anything heroic or dramatic. By just getting out of the way. How many? I sit and wonder…
Never did I think, this would be my fate, perhaps at 80 but certainly not at 35. I hope you never have to experience this, but tomorrow, when you are stuck in traffic, cursing the blaring sirens behind you and refusing to budge - stop for a second and think of me. Think of the person inside that white ambulance and the few minutes that you could give him. They could just as well make all the difference in the world."
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Everyone comes with their share of troubles in the form of idiosyncratic quirks and annoyances, some people just seem worth the trouble.
Hoping for a fair and logical world builds up expectations which only set you up for failure and disappointment.
Do all you can so that you don’t have any regrets and then prepare yourself to accept the outcome - good or bad. The universe is not a fair place that works according to what we want or deserve…
In one of those moods…
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