Incredible India!

India, many say, is like an addiction. I agree, because I need my fix every year or two. Else, it leaves me miserable, strung-over and frustrated, teetering on the edge of a collapse. There is something about the air that slows my pace and my pulse down. Time there seems to move at a pace more manageable. People are more personable, even perfect strangers. The days do not leave me feeling rushed, dazed and exhausted like they do back ‘here’. I become my own person, not some harried, do-it-all who is unable to do it all. 

This year’s trip, after two long years, came differently though and I didn't have any expectations. Friends were all too busy, family – close and far, ranged from disinterest and skepticism to occasional excitement. I wasn’t looking to get anywhere, only trying to get away and this has usually never been the case with me. I came on a vacation laden with fatigue, anxiety, trepidation, anger, skepticism and very little of hope for anything wonderful.

There was a surgery planned but no vacation. There was a hospital stay planned, but no hotel stay. There were tests planned, no get-togethers. I was prepared for nothing and yet, this time, I couldn’t care. I was above and beyond caring and needed the space and the time.

Surprisingly though, it was not a bad trip. It wasn't all that I had imagined because I didn't manage to visit all my haunts; the get-together’s have been different, have felt a little incomplete; home has felt different but reassuringly same; and people have changed – aged, some in ways favorable, but some in ways sad and unexpected; some places which were defined by their people have changed and become a little more alien. But despite the lack of expectations or plans, I must say things have not been bad. I wonder if it is because of the lack of expectations or because of that deep-seated fear of something terrible about to happen - whose mere absence is reassuring enough… 

After two years of a never-ending maze, I finally feel empty, peaceful, quiet. I can now sense the person I used to be – emerging from the haze. The camera, the books, the places and the people - are slowly becoming appealing. I think I am an addict and need my fix of this country held-together by nothing but its people and ‘jugaad’. 

I still don’t feel ready to pack up and leave forever.

Explore India…

to become aware of the vastness of space.
to encounter history in every day life.
to become aware of the smallness of your being.
to learn that wealth has little to do with happiness.
to learn to find your identity in a mass of humanity
to find a nation that is bursting at the seams but manages to hold together because of its people.
to find order in perfect chaos.
to find harmony from noise.
to find a nation that encompasses the climes of the world.
to learn to cherish diversity.
to become aware of the forces of nature.
to become aware of the eternities that lie before and after you.

Explore India….
For it tests your limits and grows them one step at a time.
For it reveals unsuspected abilities.
For it highlights the weaknesses that you have successfully ignored.
For it let’s you live happily with very little.
For a digital detox.
For the chai-coffee and gup-shup.
For the scenes of gully-cricket that beats with a pulse of its own.

Explore India….
to remind yourself of the better side of human nature as perfect strangers come out to help you.
to also learn that people have a dark side.
to learn to watch out for yourself.
to learn to enjoy the world with caution.
to communicate without words.
to stop and smile, to feel the wind in your hair.
to watch butterflies crash into your windshields.
to watch majestic elephants roam the wild.
to understand the language of horns, sirens, blinkers and reflectors.

Explore India….
to expand your palate.
to notice the sunrise and the sunset.
to slow down your pace of life because time here does set a different pace.
to float above the clouds.
to feel the wind in your hair and to feel the rhythm in your pulse.
to tickle your senses.
to meet new people.
to sing new songs.

In short, visit India if you really want to live your life... and that is why I need my dose of India to function sanely.

Mercurial stillness...

The universe is a vast space filled with silence. We all carry that silence in us, not as a dark, vacuous, empty space but as a stillness, that connects us to what lies beyond. A stillness, that reminds us of the eternities before and after us.

A stillness that urges us to look beyond the concerns of everyday, and into life itself.
Life, they say is a marathon, not a sprint; but for the past few months, life has felt like a marathon-long sprint as I have been trying to race with and against time. Trying to keep running, to avoid falling from this giant, ceaseless ferris wheel.

Like the mice being tested on the rotor wheels for their motor performance; I too felt, like I was being tested - by some one. Or may be something. For weeks, I had good musculoskeletal strength, good persistence and stamina but even as my body carried on, my mind felt rudderless, fatigued, exhausted, scared and helpless. After those initial weeks though, my muscles too felt like the tightly strung chords of a violin and they groaned loudly when plucked.

But despite the weeks and months, I did not give up and the wheel wouldn't relent. 

After months of this ceaseless battle and at the end of miles and miles of running, my feet and my mind just wouldn't and couldn't stop. They were gripped by this mad frenzy - a visceral need, to keep moving, to not stay still, lest something go wrong.

But how long can fear propel you? At some point, the body is left fighting the fright without the adrenaline.
That's when fatigue sets in, a fatigue that tires the mind, more than the body. A fatigue that leaves you feeling drained, of more than just energy as it saps away hope, happiness and love.
Life becomes a computer program, a force of habit - with strictly regulated hours of sleep and wakefulness, that followed rhythms of habit and not of will.

Sleep becomes death at the end of a long day, everyday; deprived of dreams, the sense of rest, calm or peace.
Meals become the mandatory pitt-stops that you must make to keep the engine running.
And all this while, a tiny voice in my head kept asking me to slow down. But tiny voices are easily drowned in the roar of deadlines, to-do lists. In the angry voices and in the relentless echoes of the mind.

But then one day, a storm broke through all defenses and laid claim to that primal silence of my heart. In that silence, I could finally hear the little voice urging me to stop. Reassuring me, that nothing would go wrong. And I finally succumbed to the fatigue.

That day, I ignored all deadlines and lists, and I walked to 'my' cliff. The cliff overlooked the pacific, but in my mind, it teetered on the brink of eternity, this vast unknown. At that edge, I sat. And I wait.
I wait for that stillness from beyond to find its way back to me.
I wait for that inner silence that has been shattered into bits with this flurry of activity.
I wait for the tiny drops of that shattered silence to roll into the center of my being. To come to a standstill and to become a meaningful whole.
I wait for my mind to reach that stillness before it disappears again.

On that wonderful sunday morning, I sat there, on my usual bench, acutely aware of the gentle breeze, the sunlight streaming in and the distant sound of the ocean. I will myself to forget all but that sense of stillness. That quiet and that peace. And that sense of awe that liberates you by trivializing your existence in the grand scheme of events.

It takes me a while to drag those fragmented pieces from the different corners of my mind but finally, I have a glistening mercurial pearl in the core of my being.
I close my eyes and I can see its brilliance.
I urge it to stay with me. I plead to everyone and no one in particular.

With that stillness, I become aware of the vastness of time and space before and after me. I feel like a spectator to my own life, as I stop by the edge and watched life itself flow. I was a happy bystander to my own life and at the edge of that eternity, no problem seemed big enough, no sorrow seemed deep enough and no pain seemed vast enough.

I had finally found myself in that stillness and I wasn't to let go.

Getting it right...

Gardening is a life-affirming hobby.

You plant the tiny little seeds with hopes and trepidation. You water them daily. You wait eagerly for the tiny seedlings to emerge and find their bearing. You worry about the sun, the shade, the heat and the cold. You worry about protecting them from the weeds, the bugs and the bullies. You worry about giving them all the nutrients they need and then you await the day they will blossom. You await for their blossoming, not just because flowers are pretty but because flowers are about more than beauty. They are an indication of a job well done. Of having taken care of a plant well enough that it could reach its full potential and blossom.

It is a source of great success and pleasure - to know that you did something right.

In many ways bringing up kids is a lot like gardening. Each one is an experiment under your special circumstances. You bring them up in ways you think right and in ways that life allows. You treat each one differently depending on their needs, wants, strengths and weaknesses. You hope that you did everything correctly but you never know that for sure.

But then one day, even as you can't stop worrying about them or fretting about their future, you see that they have turned out alright. After everything that happened, despite it and perhaps because of it all. Not because they won this competition or that, or because they earn this much or that, or because they bought this or that, but because somewhere along the way, they have started to take care of you. Not only did they learn to but they are also able to, at a young age. 

That in my opinion is a big transition - a moment of great pride and joy.

I don't know if my parents have seen that day but I have seen a glimpse of that - thanks to my little brother. I say a glimpse because a child is perhaps a much bigger piece of you than a sibling... 

And yet, coming into this world, seven years after me, he was more of a child and less of a sibling. 

When I saw that tiny, chubby, talkative toddler, growing into a six foot young man, I appreciated nature. But today when I hear that naughty little kid (who once blamed the table to breaking the glass and the bear for jumping off the balcony), talking of embracing life, removing expectations and doing the right thing - I appreciate nurture. 

And then one day, sitting in the middle of a curfew or in the middle of a crowded barracks while giving me honest, practical and sane-minded advice; when he told me to get myself a big gift - whatever I may want; that is when I could smell the roses for I realized that he has made it after all. 

That he has learnt to survive in this world and to cope with it without losing sight of the important things. He has learnt to appreciate money but also learnt to value his people. He has learnt from the flaws we perceived as children and has mended at least some of them in time. 

I finally learn that our little munchkin has finally grown up. Up and beyond the age of tantrums, arguments and fights. He has learnt what the important things are and he has learnt to value them. And now I know that he will make it alright even if I am not there to watch over him. 

It is a moment of great pride and joy - even the memory of which brings tears to my eyes because buried in it was the message - we probably got more rights than wrongs.