Anna Karenina

Some books have a way of parsing through your thoughts and framing them precisely and exquisitely in ways that you couldn't even dream of. 

Anna Karenina, by Tolstoy is one such book and deserves all the acclaim it has been bestowed with. It is by no means an easy book - not because of labored writing or a flawed plot, but because of the deep and dark themes that lace the story. It is a tale of fatalism, plagued with uncertainty and unknowability. 

I have been procrastinating on picking up the book for a very long time but reading the following excerpt from an article in the New Yorker and an upcoming break were the last nails that hooked me to the story. 

"In “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” Isaiah Berlin writes that, for Tolstoy, wisdom consists in the ability “to grasp what human will and human reason can do, and what they cannot.” The only way to find those limits is to struggle against them, but gently, with the goal of finding and accepting them. You can’t think your way to the limits. You have to feel your way, learning through experience and suffering. And there is a risk in experimenting with what will and will not work in life, which is that it might not work. You might move to New York to pursue your dreams, and end up with no career to speak of. You might think you can wait to find the perfect spouse, but wait too long, and end up alone. You might think you can have that affair and still have the love of your spouse and children—but you may be mistaken about what’s possible, and lose everything.

There’s a deep conservatism to this way of thinking. It’s fatalistic, in an off-putting way, since it suggests that the limits of what’s possible are just not knowable in advance, and that experience and tradition are probably our best guides."

And despite its many dark themes, the story is unforgettable as it explores life from the perspectives of so many characters with great finesse and perception. Here are some of the many wonderful phrases and instances where the sentiments echoed with me and in that resonance, I caught a faint glimmer of hope. 

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“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

“If you look for perfection, you'll never be content.” 

“I think... if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.”

“Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.”

“Is it really possible to tell someone else what one feels?”

“Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed. ”

“Be bad, but at least don't be a liar, a deceiver!”

“Love. The reason I dislike that word is that it means too much for me, far more than you can understand."

“I always loved you, and if one loves anyone, one loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be. -Dolly”

“I always loved you, and if one loves anyone, one loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be. -Dolly”

“They've got no idea what happiness is, they don't know that without this love there is no happiness or unhappiness for us--there is no life.”

“it's much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it.”

“But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.”

“Something magical has happened to me: like a dream when one feels frightened and creepy, and suddenly wakes up to the knowledge that no such terrors exist. I have wakened up.”

“I'm like a starving man who has been given food. Maybe he's cold, and his clothes are torn, and he's ashamed, but he's not unhappy.”

“He soon felt that the fulfillment of his desires gave him only one grain of the mountain of happiness he had expected. This fulfillment showed him the eternal error men make in imagining that their happiness depends on the realization of their desires.”

“And you know, there's less charm in life when you think about death--but it's more peaceful.”

“There are no conditions to which a person cannot grow accustomed, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives in the same way.”

“All that day she had had the feeling that she was playing in the theatre with actors better than herself and that her poor playing spoiled the whole thing.”

“He looked at her as a man looks at a faded flower he has gathered, with difficulty recognizing in it the beauty for which he picked and ruined it. And in spite of this he felt that then, when his love was stronger, he could, if he had greatly wished it, have torn that love out of his heart; but now when as at that moment it seemed to him he felt no love for her, he knew that what bound him to her could not be broken.”

“He liked fishing and seemed to take pride in being able to like such a stupid occupation.”

"Some mathematician has said that enjoyment lies in the search for truth, not in the finding it."

"No one is satisfied with his fortune, and everyone is satisfied with his wit.'"

"I think… of so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love."

"I often think men have no understanding of what's not honorable though they're always talking of it,"

How splendid it is! This is how I should like to live!" "Why, who prevents you?" said Levin, smiling. "No, you're a lucky man! You've got everything you like. You like horses— and you have them; dogs— you have them; shooting— you have it; farming— you have it." "Perhaps because I rejoice in what I have, and don't fret for what I haven't," said Levin, thinking of Kitty.

Stepan Arkadyevitch had not chosen his political opinions or his views; these political opinions and views had come to him of themselves, just as he did not choose the shapes of his hat and coat, but simply took those that were being worn. And for him, living in a certain society —owing to the need, ordinarily developed at years of discretion, for some degree of mental activity— to have views was just as indispensable as to have a hat. If there was a reason for his preferring liberal to conservative views, which were held also by many of his circle, it arose not from his considering liberalism more rational, but from its being in closer accordance with his manner of life.

"With friends, one is well; but at home, one is better."

He was so far from conceiving of love for woman apart from marriage that he positively pictured to himself first the family, and only secondarily the woman who would give him a family. His ideas of marriage were, consequently, quite unlike those of the great majority of his acquaintances, for whom getting married was one of the numerous facts of social life. For Levin it was the chief affair of life, on which its whole happiness turned.

The study was slowly lit up as the candle was brought in. The familiar details came out: the stag's horns, the bookshelves, the looking-glass, the stove with its ventilator, which had long wanted mending, his father's sofa, a large table, on the table an open book, a broken ash tray, a manuscript book with his handwriting. As he saw all this, there came over him for an instant a doubt of the possibility of arranging the new life, of which he had been dreaming on the road. All these traces of his life seemed to clutch him, and to say to him: "No, you're not going to get away from us, and you're not going to be different, but you're going to be the same as you've always been; with doubts, everlasting dissatisfaction with yourself, vain efforts to amend, and falls, and everlasting expectation, of a happiness which you won't get, and which isn't possible for you." This the things said to him, but another voice in his heart was telling him that he must not fall under the sway of the past, and that one can do anything with oneself.

Anna Arkadyevna read and understood , but it was distasteful to her to read, that is, to follow the reflection of other people's lives. She had too great a desire to live herself. If she read that the heroine of the novel was nursing a sick man, she longed to move with noiseless steps about the room of a sick man; if she read of a member of Parliament making a speech, she longed to be delivering the speech; if she read of how Lady Mary had ridden after the hounds, and had provoked her sister-in-law, and had surprised everyone by her boldness, she too wished to be doing the same. But there was no chance of doing anything; and twisting the smooth paper knife in her little hands, she forced herself to read.

"The most utterly loathsome and coarse : I can't tell you. It's not unhappiness, or low spirits, but much worse. As though everything that was good in me was all hidden away, and nothing was left but the most loathsome. Come, how am I to tell you ?" she went on, seeing the puzzled look in her sister's eyes. "Father began saying something to me just now…. It seems to me he thinks all I want is to be married. Mother takes me to a ball: it seems to me she only takes me to get me married off as soon as may be, and be rid of me. I know it's not the truth, but I can't drive away such thoughts. Eligible suitors, as they call them— I can't bear to see them. It seems to me they're taking stock of me and summing me up. In old days to go anywhere in a ball dress was a simple joy to me, I admired myself; now I feel ashamed and awkward. 

"The one comfort is like that prayer, which I always liked: 'Forgive me not according to my unworthiness, but according to Thy lovingkindness.' That's the only way she can forgive me."

In his Petersburg world all people were divided into utterly opposed classes. One, the lower class , vulgar, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people, who believe that one husband ought to live with the one wife whom he has lawfully married; that a girl should be innocent, a woman modest, and a man manly, self-controlled, and strong; that one ought to bring up one's children, earn one's bread, and pay one's debts; and various similar absurdities. This was the class of old-fashioned and ridiculous people. But there was another class of people, the real people. To this class they all belonged, and in it the great thing was to be elegant, generous, plucky, gay, to abandon oneself without a blush to every passion, and to laugh at everything else.

The old prince , like all fathers indeed, was exceedingly punctilious on the score of the honor and reputation of his daughters. He was irrationally jealous over his daughters, especially over Kitty, who was his favorite. At every turn he had scenes with the princess for compromising her daughter. The princess had grown accustomed to this already with her other daughters, but now she felt that there was more ground for the prince's touchiness. She saw that of late years much was changed in the manners of society, that a mother's duties had become still more difficult. She saw that girls of Kitty's age formed some sort of clubs, went to some sort of lectures, mixed freely in men's society; drove about the streets alone, many of them did not curtsey, and, what was the most important thing, all the girls were firmly convinced that to choose their husbands was their own affair , and not their parents'. "Marriages aren't made nowadays as they used to be," was thought and said by all these young girls, and even by their elders. But how marriages were made now, the princess could not learn from any one. The French fashion— of the parents arranging their children's future— was not accepted; it was condemned. The English fashion of the complete independence of girls was also not accepted, and not possible in Russian society. The Russian fashion of match-making by the offices of intermediate persons was for some reason considered unseemly; it was ridiculed by every one, and by the princess herself. But how girls were to be married, and how parents were to marry them, no one knew. Everyone with whom the princess had chanced to discuss the matter said the same thing: "Mercy on us, it's high time in our day to cast off all that old-fashioned business. It's the young people have to marry; and not their parents; and so we ought to leave the young people to arrange it as they choose." It was very easy for anyone to say that who had no daughters, but the princess realized that in the process of getting to know each other, her daughter might fall in love, and fall in love with someone who did not care to marry her or who was quite unfit to be her husband . And, however much it was instilled into the princess that in our times young people ought to arrange their lives for themselves, she was unable to believe it, just as she would have been unable to believe that, at any time whatever, the most suitable playthings for children five years old ought to be loaded pistols. And so the princess was more uneasy over Kitty than she had been over her elder sisters.

Alexey Alexandrovitch was not jealous. Jealousy according to his notions was an insult to one's wife, and one ought to have confidence in one's wife. Why one ought to have confidence— that is to say, complete conviction that his young wife would always love him— he did not ask himself. But he had no experience of lack of confidence, because he had confidence in her, and told himself that he ought to have it. Now, though his conviction that jealousy was a shameful feeling and that one ought to feel confidence, had not broken down, he felt that he was standing face to face with something illogical and irrational, and did not know what was to be done. Alexey Alexandrovitch was standing face to face with life, with the possibility of his wife's loving someone other than himself, and this seemed to him very irrational and incomprehensible because it was life itself. All his life Alexey Alexandrovitch had lived and worked in official spheres, having to do with the reflection of life. And every time he had stumbled against life itself he had shrunk away from it. Now he experienced a feeling akin to that of a man who, while calmly crossing a precipice by a bridge, should suddenly discover that the bridge is broken, and that there is a chasm below. That chasm was life itself, the bridge that artificial life in which Alexey Alexandrovitch had lived. For the first time the question presented itself to him of the possibility of his wife's loving someone else, and he was horrified at it.

At Petersburg, as soon as the train stopped and she got out, the first person that attracted her attention was her husband. "Oh, mercy! why do his ears look like that?" she thought, looking at his frigid and imposing figure, and especially the ears that struck her at the moment as propping up the brim of his round hat. Catching sight of her, he came to meet her, his lips falling into their habitual sarcastic smile, and his big, tired eyes looking straight at her. An unpleasant sensation gripped at her heart when she met his obstinate and weary glance, as though she had expected to see him different. She was especially struck by the feeling of dissatisfaction with herself that she experienced on meeting him. That feeling was an intimate, familiar feeling, like a consciousness of hypocrisy, which she experienced in her relations with her husband. But hitherto she had not taken note of the feeling, now she was clearly and painfully aware of it.

In the first place he resolved that from that day he would give up hoping for any extraordinary happiness, such as marriage must have given him, and consequently he would not so disdain what he really had. Secondly, he would never again let himself give way to low passion, the memory of which had so tortured him when he had been making up his mind to make an offer.

Anna. "I remember, and I know that blue haze like the mist on the mountains in Switzerland. That mist which covers everything in that blissful time when childhood is just ending, and out of that vast circle, happy and gay, there is a path growing narrower and narrower, and it is delightful and alarming to enter the ballroom, bright and splendid as it is…. Who has not been through it?"

There are people who, on meeting a successful rival, no matter in what , are at once disposed to turn their backs on everything good in him, and to see only what is bad. There are people, on the other hand, who desire above all to find in that lucky rival the qualities by which he has outstripped them, and seek with a throbbing ache at heart only what is good.

There was no solution, but that universal solution which life gives to all questions, even the most complex and insoluble. That answer is: one must live in the needs of the day— that is, forget oneself .

"It's this, don't you see," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, "you're very much all of a piece. That's your strong point and your failing. You have a character that's all of a piece, and you want the whole of life to be of a piece too— but that's not how it is. You despise public official work because you want the reality to be invariably corresponding all the while with the aim— and that's not how it is. You want a man's work, too, always to have a defined aim, and love and family life always to be undivided— and that's not how it is. All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow."

In life, we sometimes relinquish our freedom too easily, while, at other times, we struggle unwisely against laws that will not change. Give in too easily, and you drift through life; struggle too much, and you suffer for it.

The thing about Levin is that, through some accident of temperament and circumstances, he ends up figuring things out. He struggles and shapes his own destiny just enough to be happy, while never going out of bounds, and ending up like Anna, or like his brother Nikolai, a political radical, who dies impoverished and angry. Somehow, over the course of the book, Levin achieves everything he wants: he is married to Kitty, and they have a beautiful family. And yet, he senses, he has not really improved himself in his soul, and he has done nothing to deserve his happiness. He still feels powerless, pointless, useless. “Happy in his family life,” Tolstoy writes, “a healthy man, Levin was several times so close to suicide that he hid a rope lest he hang himself with it, and was afraid to go about with a rifle lest he shoot himself.” In the end, he is carried along by the flow of life, and keeps on living. He finds his way to a diffuse kind of faith. There will be no radical transformations, he realizes, either romantic or religious. What is, is. He will try his best to be a good person, within the constraints that his circumstances and nature have placed upon him, and that will be good enough:

I’ll get angry in the same way with the coachman Ivan, argue in the same way, speak my mind inappropriately, there will be the same wall between my soul’s holy of holies and other people, even my wife, I’ll accuse her in the same way of my own fear and then regret it, I’ll fail in the same way to understand with my reason why I pray, and yet I will pray—but my life now, my whole life, regardless of all that may happen to me, every minute of it, is not only not meaningless, as it was before, but has the unquestionable meaning of the good which it is in my power to put into it!

Roll of the dice...

There are hundreds of billions stars in our galaxy and then there are billions of galaxies in the known visible universe. The unknown that envelopes us stretches the very limits of our imagination.

Life, as it is today, evolved millions of years ago, from an oceanic soup, on one blue planet among an infinity of planets. The blue planet happened to be located at just the right distance and with just the right conditions for those early molecules to arise and interact. Life, that began with a roll of the dice, from the collisions and fusion of molecules over billions of years, has finally found its way to me - in a way that no one could have predicted or imagined.

And as a testament to those very unseemly probabilities, I stand here today, pondering on the nature of probabilities and life itself. Life evolved in a world that is driven by probabilities, in a universe that is being ripped apart by the forces of entropy.

I am nothing but another roll of that mysterious dice - a random product when one of the many millions of sperms found its way to this one particular egg, to set forth on a journey that culminated in me. I could not have been here today but for those sheer twists of fate and those random acts of probability that allowed two very different people separated by hundreds of miles to come together and build a life.

I could have been one of those twenty percent of pregnancies that result in a miscarriage. I could have also been among the three percent of children who are born with abnormal chromosomes - destined for a life different from the rest of us. I could have been one of the thousands of accident victims on the streets of Delhi. I could have been one among the millions of people who cannot read an alphabet. I could have been one of the thousands of girls who are forced to drop out of school. I could have been one of the seventy-four percent of people who give up education after a graduation; but instead, I am one of the one percent who complete a graduate program. I could have been a part of any of these statistics. I could have been one of the millions of women trafficked, burnt, assaulted - but instead, I am here, alive, aware and independent.

As part of my work, I try and answer the questions of why, how, when and what, but after a while, my very existence makes me believe in that elusive hope that is buried in probability. My very existence is mired in improbability and hope.

I am a statistic - just another number but its a good roll of dice that brought me here.

I have cribbed and complained, ranted and raged about every misfortune that I have encountered on the way - and it has not been easy, but once in a while, when I pause to look at what could have been - I feel like I was dealt a good hand.

But how much of our life is shaped by these random occurrences and how much is shaped by us - as people? Am I just a ripple in the fabric of time, just being carried forward passively by this billion-years old explosion or am I more than that - an agent of change?

People are a product of their times - from Hitler to Columbus to Einstein - we are all shaped by the times we live in and yet, we contribute to shaping it. It is a two-way street, it seems, but then why do I feel so powerless sometimes?

Why is it that my choice at home or in the grocery store or at work doesn't seem to have as much impact as it should?

Can my choices influence the world I am living in or am I just another number in the 7 billion?

Just another statistic, a blimp in that fabric of space and time... Are we mere puppets in the bigger scheme of things or can individuals really make a difference? And if we can't - should we just give up and wait passively?

What are the choices that I, as an individual am faced with and can any of them be responsible and right? Is buying electronics laced with conflict minerals responsible? Most would say, No. But does my giving up on technology have an impact? Does my not buying diamonds stop the trade in blood diamonds? Does my giving up on meat or avocados at the grocery store lead to better lives half-way across the planet or country? Does my buying quinoa starve the andean farmers or does my not buying quinoa starve them? 

Where does my responsibility to me, begin and end?

Where does my responsibility to the world, begin and end?

Should we as people not show moral outrage at Marius the giraffe or at the children in Syria because we can't do anything about it? Or should we just limit our actions to the occasional outrage in the media and nothing more?

Are our actions determined by morals or by the markets? Some think that the markets sanitize all these deals? Do you, because i don't?

But how much should we worry about these choices? About electricity. About water. About recycling. About food wastage. Is an individual equally powerless in all these arenas?

If yes, then are we merely prolonging our inevitable collapse and should we just give up sooner than later? Can we ever make the right choices considering we know so little of the global forces and the local problems? Does our burgeoning knowledge and awareness of these multi-faceted problems make our lives and decisions - simpler or more complex?

Can my choices influence the world I am living in or am I just yet another powerless, ever-shrinking number in the exploding 7 billion?

Am I just another statistic, a blimp in the fabric of space and time - another roll of the dice...?

The unexpected...

Life, it seems moves forward with one guiding principle - defying your expectations by presenting the unexpected.
Any time.
Every time.

Last few months have been such, where I have found things unexpectedly and lost them when least expected. One wouldn't complain if this brought on a sense of mirth, pleasure, happiness or even mild surprise. One does however, cringe, cower and explode with fury when this only pertains to bad news. One further teeters on collapse when the news affects your most favorite person in the world.

It is impossible to describe the heart break one feels when a twenty five year old is forced to bear the heavy burden of inheritance as he gets diagnosed with a chronic condition. A condition, that is merely an indication of a battle raging in him.

How does one fight their own blood? And how do you fight for your own blood?
What do you do when your own self turns against you - with a silent, seething fury? A fury that burns over years and decades as someone who looks perfectly healthy is actually being eaten from the inside.

What do you do when  your most favorite person in the world can do nothing to turn the tide of this battle?

So, you tell them the facts without letting go of the hope. You make them aware of the harshest realities of life and tell them how to cope. You pack them their care package, write a bunch of notes, explain all that you can without a trace a fear - even though, your heart is freezing numb with fear. You pat on their back when the chips are down and pray to a God, who doesn't exist to "Make this all a bad dream!".
You do this - every time you need it - hoping that you are helping, not hurting. You hope that your words are soothing the searing wound - not burning it in.

You go through each day - wondering what could have been different and if you could be next? You become more stringent about the fruits and vegetables, about that glass of milk which you might otherwise avoid. You teach them the same. You used to run for fun but now fear pushes you more than the fun.

You build a new life - a better life - detangled from the web of your habits, based on nothing but hope and your scariest visions of the future.
You live each day dreading the worst and hoping for the best. You thank the universe for its small mercies. You thank your stars for it could have been a lot worse.

You forget the whys' and focus on the hows' because what is at stake is your most favorite person ever....

You stay by their side even when you are eight thousand miles away and hope that maybe - life will surprise you again - with a better unexpected...

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.

Z

Z is that strange kind of a stranger for me - someone who you've known for a long time but never quite understood. I call her Z because she was like that odd letter in the English alphabet - rare, strong, firm (almost rigid) and impossible to ignore. She could be loud and sharp at times but at others she could soothe you with her gentle humming presence. 

Z could be Zoe, Zeenat or Zainab. She could be anyone she chose to be and she is everything I ever want to be. She is beautiful. Not pretty, unlike her name, which is both beautiful and pretty, but for the purposes of our story, she remains Z. The strong, rough edged, and rare voice. A singular voice that cannot be ignored or marginalized - not because she is loud and crass; but because Z, has that quality about her. She is not fussy or adamant but she would not compromise too much on her few principles in life - you can see that in her. She cannot be ignored, people remember her even after meeting her once. She jokingly says, 'people remember the best and the worst looking faces... and she knows she is not one of the best looking ones'.

But I know that is not entirely true because Z is a beautiful person. Her beauty lies not in the face though. It shines through her eyes and bears down through her smile. Her eyes wander constantly, almost as if they are searching for something. She doesn't care about appearances and she doesn't care about the world. Her people are her world and that's all that mattered. Z was full of dreams - life was never enough for her. This restless greed endeared her to me. She was always on the look out - for knowledge, for skills, for experiences - for life, in all its glory. She would race after things, demanding more from herself and from life.

She likes her people - I can tell from the way her eyes look back wistfully when she talks of friends and family. And yet, nothing quite thwarted her like people. She always had trouble understanding people around her who spent their time gingerly navigating the world by looking for the least consequential and controversial subjects to talk about. Z did not care for diplomacy or lack of opinions; she liked discussing controversial subjects and threading them to the bare-bones. She liked digging through the muck and the fluff to arrive at that one kernel of (almost always) gray truth. It left her wanting for more clarity but it was better than just accepting what someone else told her. She was led by intuition and logic but never by blind faith.

Unlike me, who had developed this patina of resigned tolerance, Z also expected the world from people. She sincerely believed that everyone had the potential for great things and that all they lacked was an opportunity. She held up men and women to a higher standard - of honesty, of fairness, of empathy, of justice, of rational and open thought.

There was this element of flickering hope that you could see in her despite the many jolts and stumbles - a hope that was often wounded but never quite destroyed. 

But despite the many disappointments, Z was not tempered by them. 

Unlike me, she didn't change her expectations or learn to be careful and cautious. Much to my puzzlement, she did not even want to. She managed to view the world untainted, with an openness and an eagerness that astounded me. He ideas were remained utopian despite her frustrations with their practicality. Me, on the other hand, had been made brutally aware of the practical world and its strange motivations. Unlike Z, I would often curl into a ball and avoid problems. I would pick the battles I wanted to fight and I would compromise. But Z, unlike me, was unwavering as she faced every battle head-on. 

Z was tough on the outside and yet she was fragile because the world left its deepest impressions on her. She could brave a storm when she needed to but it only left her ravaged and wounded. She would passionately rage through them, burn herself out and get hurt. There would be days when all she wanted was to be with herself and her few people. The world would have let her down then - yet another time. And then she would come back again with that same undying hope. 

People say it is foolish to not learn from your mistakes - sometimes, I think it is also brave. It takes courage to not paint the world in broad strokes, to be patient and open to the universe, instead of locking yourself in that cycle of fear, retrenchment and regret. 

Z is brave - unlike any one else I had ever known and she paid the price for it - every day. 

Ironically her strength lay in her vulnerability. And yet over the years, even as I have scolded her and chided her for her naiveté, I have wished for some of that. For that ability to welcome everyday in this world, like yet another unopened gift. She is not yet bitter or heart broken or cynical. She has held on to her innocence, joy and her faith in people. 

Z is that strange kind of a stranger for me. She is a part of me, I do not understand yet. 

Portents and signs...

As I stand at the store-front, looking at the colorful flowers and their fresh, spring-green leaves - hope courses through me. 

The graceful white lilies with their calming presence; the pretty pink tulips with their dainty elegance; the smiling sunflowers with their shockingly bright countenance; and tiny violets with their arresting presence - at some point they become me as I search frantically for clues from the universe. 

In a world that is constantly threatening to split apart at the seams, they are a source of comfort, reassurance and hope. They are my hope for a better future. They hold in them the seed of hope and the prospect of a brilliant bloom in a not so distant future.

Every now and then, when I find myself in need of hope, these plants and flowers transform into symbols and portents for the future. They have always meant more than they should and possibly ever could.... 

But what can you say to the deluded human mind that is desperately scouring the world for hope?

Today is one such day as I walk from one end of the store to the other, trying to think scientifically while my heart is moved by the colors. I try to weigh the pros and the cons - the clay pot for aeration vs. the aluminum pot for protection; the depth of the soil; the ease of maintenance; the temperature; the sunlight; the water, shade and the other many needs of the plant. 

I go through these many confounding factors over and over again because I desperately want this one to last.  

I NEED this one to last. I actually need it to thrive because in my deluded, searching mind, this plant is me - trying to find its place under the sun. Trying to find a firm footing in an ever changing world. It is 'me' being subject to the changing climes. It is 'me' being bombarded by showers, being left to wilt in the sun. Its 'me' in the world and all I can do to comfort me, is to protect them. 

And so, time and time again, I bring another new portent home and keep it by the windowsill. I water it - sometimes before it even needs. I bring it out into the warm sunlight out of the shadows of my apartment walls. I gaze at it longingly, hoping that this time, things would be different. I hope against all evidence that this time, this tiny new plant would manage to find its own space and that it would finally find its potential. I hope that this plant will learn to grow in the small, dark places and will learn to thrive despite the challenges.

I come back from work and search for the blooming bud or the tiny new leaf. I check on it everyday - waiting for that sign; but all I find are the drooping leaves and the withering flowers.  I find the leaf tips being burnt by the sun and the flowers being blown by the wind. I hold on to the vestiges of my hope unrelentingly; but then one day, some animal decides to come and uproot my hope in its entirety.

I come home and search for the two of them - but all I find is the empty water stained spot that was left behind by them. They did not make it - yet again. Like me, they struggled to stay together as the elements rattled their very existence.

Sometimes that is what life comes down to - searching for answers even when there clearly are none to be had. We end up looking for comfort in the strangest of places only to be disappointed... and only to hope again.

Life in hindsight...

She woke up when the world around her suddenly shifted and she found herself adrift. She was flying and finally she was free.

After being anchored firmly to her roots all her life, a sudden gust of wind had yanked her away from everything familiar and had set her free on an unknown journey.
She was in flight at long last.
At first, it was exhilarating, thrilling and intoxicating as freedom often is and as the wind alone can make you feel.
But then the gust of wind died away and with that, died the transient feeling of freedom too.

The sense of freedom she experienced a while ago was replaced by a sense of dread and fear. She felt rudderless, powerless and out of control as she plummeted rapidly to the ground, only to hit a hard place - first, of the many that she was to encounter.

It was then that the incredible loneliness of her situation hit her. She was now all alone in this big, wide world - far from everything she had known or seen. Someone will look for her and find her surely. It can't be that far away. She thought to herself and willed herself to stay calm.
"They are family, they will not abandon me", she repeated the same over and over again, as fear gripped her and loneliness crushed her.
Will she never see her people again? What is to happen of her? Will someone ever find her? 

The world was a wicked place, she soon as learned. No day was easy here as she was jostled, pushed and kicked from one hard place to another. She was often kicked around, trotted upon and bruised. She stumbled, fell, knocked herself over, but she never left the side of hope. She found comfort in the familiar. She gazed at those wings that had brought her here. There was a time when she had longed for them but now she blamed them for bringing her this far, to this dreadful, unknown place. They had abandoned her much too soon and had left her in this desolate place - but she did not lose hope. Not yet, at least.  

Even as hope fluttered in her, she found herself drowning in a warm sludge that had appeared out of nowhere. She tried to hold her peace. Surely, this is just another bad spot and this too shall pass, she thought. Maybe, this will protect her from those jagged edges, stones, rocks and hard corners. Maybe people will finally leave her alone because drowning in the sludge, she would be invisible, she thought. Her worry was that she would not be visible to the search party, if ever there was one. "Surely there must be and I can scream my lungs out when they come", she reassured herself. 

Things did become better as she was finally on firm ground again and this time, it was not too rough. She had found a comfortable spot to rest until her family came looking. She decided to save her energy by not putting up a futile fight. She quietly bided her time and waited for her rescuers - in the hope that she could scream her lungs out when it was needed of her. 

It was but a matter of time, she thought. And it was.

And before long, she witnessed a miracle. It was a sign from above, she hoped against all hope. 

On a chilly morning, as she lay there, dried and shriveled, she woke up to a gentle nudge from above. She had been touched by something pristine - cold and glass like - with rough, raggedy edges that  strangely did not quite hurt her. It had glided there near her, just as she had probably done, a long time ago. Maybe her family had finally found her and maybe this was her ticket home. 'Maybe', she thought. 

She lay there admiring the glass-like perfection in front of her, as it slowly dissolved around her. It was nothing short of a miracle - something so beautiful had disappeared into nothing - right in front of her own eyes. Hopeless as she was, she took this as a sign of good times to come. She had been looking for signs for far too long now and this seemed like a pretty good one - a secret message that was delivered to her, and her alone. 

But before she could admire and wonder at the miracle and rejoice in the possibility of a great future, she was attacked. She was pummeled by an army of these cold, pale, glass-like structures. They fell on her from all directions and buried her fast. What was a pleasant chill was now a deathly, freezing cold. These pale, glassy ghosts were hounding her. What looked angelic in isolation, seemed like a demonic presence when in such large hordes. She heard joyous screams from somewhere far above announcing a snowfall, but she saw no reason to be happy.

She fought for a long time, struggling to keep her head higher but before long, she was engulfed by this white nothingness with no possibility of an escape. She was frozen still by this unforgiving cold - colder than anything she had experienced ever before. This was the end, she thought. She was going to be frozen to death. 'This is how it is meant to be. This is the time to give up the fight', she thought as she cloaked herself in her old blanket and dug deeper than ever for that last ounce of comfort. 

She had decided to give up the fight.
The cold, harsh outside had seeped into her and had strangled the last remnants of hope too. Now, it was just a long, interminable wait till the end. She wondered if it would be painful. What happens when you die? Do you go back to the old beginning or is it THE END? Why had no one taught her all this? Why hadn't someone warned her of the risks of freedom? Of the price one has to pay.

She replayed these questions over and over again as she waited for the darkness around her to swallow her existence. She had drowned in this cold, dark, interminable silence - where nothing moved. Maybe this is what the end is like, she thought to herself. 

But then, one day, the world shifted again and the cold, dark, silence that had drowned her in entirety was rudely shattered.
The silence around her crumbled as the spaces around her rumbled and cracked. She woke up, only to find the world crashing down upon her. She was surprised that she had survived the cold death but this must be the final blow - the nail in her coffin, she thought. She held on by habit, even though there was nothing to hold onto. 

Her world was fracturing all around her and all she could do was to let go and wait. And wait she did, but unlike the last time, this was shorter. Soon, the cold, icy whiteness that had swallowed her, ceased to exist. She could suddenly feel the warmth, the way she did when she was with her family - in what seemed like eons ago.
She had survived.
That was all she could think of as she marveled at her strength. She had done the unthinkable. She had survived - alone and away from everything she knew.
She had survived - through dark, freezing, unending nights; through repeated assaults, bruises and stumbles.
She had survived.
Being alive felt like an achievement and she thought - "maybe this story will end well, after all".  I have braved so much and survived through so much - it couldn't possibly be for nothing. And so the warmth of the sun, rekindled the hope in her heart and she decided to persevere - just a little longer. 

But this time, instead of hiding herself in her cocoon and biding her time, she decided to take matters into her own hand.
Surely, after having survived death itself, she cannot give up. Perhaps she can fashion herself a new set of wings and begin afresh. And so she began the painful process of division. She divided her old blanket and fashioned herself two new brilliantly green, wings. But, she was still trapped in this hard shell that had been pressing down on her for ever so long. The shell had protected her all this time but now it was suffocating her.
It had pressed on her from all sides and had held her back, forcing her to work all day and all night, in tiny, dark, cramped quarters but now she needed to break free.
She needed to break free, but how?
She reasoned that she could possibly push through the walls by build pressure from the inside. And so she began the long, winded process of division - the only time when division actually leads to multiplication (and an increase in numbers).
Day after day, she clawed at the walls around her. She scraped through them even as she shredded her old blanket. The new green wings lay there by the side. Their brilliance gave her hope. Soon, the shredded blanket was building up pressure. It was suffocating her. She was drowning in it. There was no more room and it seemed that her plan might fail after all this effort because, no matter what she did, she couldn't break through.
She was going to be suffocated to death by her own efforts.
She was left with little to sustain her and if she didn't get out now, this would be the end. There was no other escape for her. She was hopelessly fatigued and could see no other way forward. After all this struggle, her very survival was questionable - yet again.

It was then that she felt a crack in the walls. She could see a ray of light seeping through from above and she sensed the darkness around her melt. There must be crack somewhere high above for she could now smell the air above. The suffocation inside was finally giving way. The mere possibility of a crack reenergized her as she continued to claw at the walls. She pushed at them and pounded them with all her might. She kept at it, till her entire existence became one painful bruise - sore and tired.

But at long last, finally, her efforts paid off and the walls crumbled. They slowly peeled away - as if made of nothing but scraps of paper, revealing a gloriously blue sky overhead. The world felt new, with the sun shining on her. It was the most glorious thing she had ever seen, much prettier than what she remembered from her days before at home.

During the day, she would feel the breeze caressing her gently even as the sun soothed her aching body. She would gaze at the blue sky with the patchy clouds. At night, she would be mesmerized by cool, white, shimmering light from above. She would drift off every night gazing at the big, shiny moon above. In the mornings, she would wake up to gentle drops of dew, that would roll all over her, tickling her. Life was good and things were getting better; but fear drove her to hold on tight. She put down her anchors - firmly in to the ground, because she did not want to be adrift and unmoored another time.
It had been much too long for her to hope that someone would come and find her, now, after all this time. That was but just another dream - unlikely to come true. She was destined to a life of solitude, she thought, but then, she at least had life. And she could get used to this life - even when alone. After all, she had made it thus far.

She slowly started to find her feet again. She held her head a little higher each day. Things were better, she told herself. But deep down, she was paralyzed by this gnawing fear that it may not last very long. She was worried that another strong gust of wind would uproot her anytime and flung her into the icy darkness again. But things remained pleasant and she became stronger and healthier. And then one day, she saw her home, her family and her people - just across the bend. She recognized the twin nests on the sloping branches and the giant hollow in the trunk - just as she had remembered them. She was not far away after all - she realized. Her heart rejoiced in seeing them so close-by. Her fear melted as she realized that she had survived through it all - all on her own.

She no longer felt alone, vulnerable and abandoned.
She was strong.
She was a survivor.
And in that epiphanic moment - her life made perfect sense.
Every struggle in her story was not a step backward, as it seemed then, but a step forward. The wind and the wings that she had cursed for so long had only brought her to a better place where the sun would reach her. Sometimes, one needs a little distance from the past, to come into one's own, she thought.

The bruises, rocks and the footfalls had been rough on her tiny, tender self then, but they had only helped weaken those walls. Those walls, that she thought were trapping her, had only protected her from the world outside till she was ready to face it all. The snowy glasslike demons had buried her in a dark, icy place but they had also vernalized her. They had primed her for the good times and shielded her from the bad times. The suffocation she felt later-on also seemed essential now because how else could she have pushed through those walls. Her struggles so far, suddenly made all the sense in the world and she no longer felt alone and abandoned. She gazed admiringly at her strong family up ahead and longed to be big, strong and independent. She was glad to see her hidden potential, her future form, as she went from one day to another... but she now knew that time makes a world of difference too.

She had needed the benefit of hindsight to make sense of her life so far. And now, she needed persistence, patience and time to realize her latent potential. But this realization was all she needed - to trudge through the rest of her life with hope and perhaps a little faith.
For after all, hindsight seemed to be the only perfect sight.

Seeking misery...

We do the strangest of things to get through bad days but hunting for more misery is the most twisted of them all.

I can understand trying to forget it, running away from it, drowning it - in pills or alcohol - but, no. This involves actively looking for misery. Who in their sane mind would do that?

I do it every now and then, in one of these carefully nuanced moments, when life seems to be getting to that point when every step forward is two steps backward. When every force seems to be a drag to overcome. Suddenly the rules of forward momentum, friction and inertia don't make so much sense, because no matter how much effort you put, there is no net movement. It feels like trying to pull a wagon-load of misery on an oil-spill. The harder you try, the harder you fall. The less you try, the less things change.

That is when I go trolling through other people's memoirs - books, movies, blogs, stories. Anything and everything. Anything that opens the lives of these perfect strangers' to me - in their own voice. And I look for these oil-spill moments in their life. Their miseries and struggles seem to numb my own pain. It helps me wallow in the depths of someone else's misery for a while only to come back and find my own pool a little less shallow.

It doesn't hurt a whole lot less but there is comfort in knowing there are others out there. It also makes me see the flicker of light at the end of the long, dark tunnel - through my cloudy, foggy eyes. If they managed to get out their oil-spill, maybe I will too. If I held on just a little longer. If I just tried something a little different. If the dice rolls a little differently this time.

Perhaps, all is not lost. And perhaps even if it is, there is a new beginning to be made.


Thank God, we can’t see the future because if we could “we’d never get out of bed.”

August: Osage County 

Falling...

I have fallen countless times - tripping over words, blinded by hopes, slipping over trust, guided by shadows and sometimes just stumbling through the dark.

Every fall taught me a different lesson, but more importantly, it helped me get up faster and with drier eyes.

And so today, when I fell again, outsmarted by fate and happenstance, I could not dwell much longer.
It was at a time I thought all was going well and in the right direction. It was when I thought i have found my lowest of lows and now the only way should be up. But then fate had other plans.

But despite all that and more, strangely, I am surrounded by a cloak that's come on every time I've felt a shiver run through. Something has held me through - from shattering. From crumbling. It has kept me going.

I guess, this is the time to thank all those falls - terrible, painful, untimely, brutal and vindictive as they might have been then - today, they let me move on with nothing but a tear or two and a few lines in memory.

Have I stopped feeling or just reacting? Have I become immune to failure? Or is this just another delusion, another fall waiting to happen?

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. 

Memories outside of me...

People coming to my house for the first time, have often called it a museum. 

They walk around for a while in that small space trying absorb the individual elements. It is not a disorganized mess. No, but it does have an abundance of stimuli - sights, sounds, colors, images. It is strange to many - the amount of stuff that is present in such small quarters without being an absolute clutter. 

My dad considers it a sign of wasteful accumulation, consumerist gluttony and a materialistic lifestyle. 

I think of it as storing memories outside of me. 

I have saved a lot of my experiences in the form of tickets, pamphlets, pictures, brochures, and books. I hold onto materialistic memorabilia simply because I learnt soon enough that I couldn't trust myself to remember it all. 

These tiny fragments of my experiences: that pamphlet from the play; the pine-cone from the hike; the figurine from that trip; the snow-globe from another; the photograph from elsewhere - they all seem to serve as keys to the wonderful days, hours or moments that I have had. They help me recall my memories more faithfully and accurately than I could ever do on my own. Strange as it may seem, they are the gatekeepers to my memories of my experiences. They are the keys that help me unlock my memories as they slowly get buried behind the dusty-cobwebs of time. 

I walk into my one room, studio-esque, home and I don't find it cluttered or overwhelming. I see the home in pieces, perhaps. Things catch my attention every now and then, sporadically and in elements. A book here. A pamphlet there. A photograph somewhere. These are things that are associated with specific memories. And under moments of duress, when the chips are down, my eyes wander and lock onto one of these. 

I drift for a few moments, dust off the memory and relive it briefly. 

I experience the very same sense of awe, joy, beauty, thrill or gratitude as I had months or years ago and I am ready to step out of my microscopic view of the problem at hand. 

Through the past, I learn to step back and out, and gain a better perspective on my present. The good times, calm my nerves and restrain my anxiety. With the memory, I also recall the wonderful people associated with my life - in one way or another - and I gain that valuable outside perspective during a crisis. 

My home is perhaps a museum but everything here is a part of my story. Everything here holds a story within it. Stories, that I don't always talk about, but they are stories that prop me up, when the tide is against me. Stories of friends and family, stories of adventure, of dreams getting fulfilled and of life in all its glory. 

In some sense my home and perhaps of anyone else too, is more revealing than I could consciously ever be. 

My home may be a museum to some but to me - it is a constant reminder of the best of me. It is a reminder of the glorious potential of life when the present is overwhelming. It is that perfect amalgam when the best of my past and future come together and help me to cope with the present. 

Hands we are dealt...

As a child growing up, I was never much of a card player. There were perhaps a couple of odd years in between when I used them as minor distractions with my brother playing games as unremarkable as, "who got the bigger card?." Yes, that mundane. 

In fact, I was one of the few kids who was more fascinated by the designs on the back of the card than the numbers, hearts, diamonds and clubs on the front. 

Increasingly, though, I can sense regret and remorse at not having spent enough time playing serious games with them. 

After all, all of life now feels like a game of cards. 

Sometimes even a house of cards. Delicately balanced, carefully executed, teetering on the brink of possibilities - ready to sway with every opportunity to either find a new balance or to come crashing down only to begin afresh. 

People seem to be bluffing with that bonafide poker face as I seem to unravel trying to read between their lines. 

I am not so deft with chance or luck and have grown up with the idea of working hard and biding my time. 

I did not learn through these childhood games, the art of playing with the cards you are dealt. I entered the world a little ill prepared I feel. 

Because, in reality that's what we are all trying to do - make the best of a given hand to try and get that elusive win. To deal with unknowns and to doubt the knowns. To read faces and to read between lines. To be prepared to win big or lose big. To be prepared to just accept and move on. 

Instead growing up in a world of books, words and colors, I became a dreamer, an idealist and a reformer. In wanting to make a difference, in trying to change the world and doing the right thing, in waiting for the right opportunity, in being transparent and straightforward - I learnt to hope and dream - against all odds, if I might add.  

But life is not like that. There is pressure and sometimes the stakes are high. People lie, deceive and cheat - all with that unmoving poker face. The cards are dealt at random and you can't always walk away from the table. You can wait for a while but how long will you stay out of the game. At some point, you have to start playing the cards you are dealt to make the best you can. 

Ever so often, this question haunts me nowadays. How long will I wait patiently and stay safe? Is it better to stay in the game and lose big or is it better to wait for your time? 

In life too, there may be a perfect set of cards but its not going to come your way ever so easily. One has to get in, get dirty and play the game or choose to sit out and stare at life passing by.

I wish I had played more - just to be able to gamble a bit. Just to be able to get rid of that fear of uncertainty. To be able to accept the hand dealt to me and not wait any longer. To be able to read people, their words and their eyes.

I wish I had played more if only to not tremble with fear and trepidation with every sway of the house of cards. 

How much longer....

There are many things we yearn for as children but in most cases, the years make us wiser and strip away our childish fondness for them. 

But a few of childhood fantasies remain as points in that 'list of things to do someday' - a list that we hold onto in that secret compartment of our life, waiting, hoping for a better future. A day when we will be ready to take on more responsibilities, to move beyond the pressing concerns of our own existence and to try something new. A day when we will have a plan and a backup ready. We hold onto that list because the rational part of us tells us we are not yet there. Not yet ready to take additional responsibility. Not yet ready to spread wider, lest we spread ourselves too thin. 

And so they remain - these childhood fascinations, that grow on us and return in occasional pangs of yearning and envy. 

Having a pet, or more specifically - a dog of my own has been one such fascination for me. As a child, we (me and my accomplice in crime, my brother) tried every excuse in the book to get ourselves one but our tricks never really worked and my parents always had a good excuse in my asthmatic lungs. 

Today, decades later, I still want one; but I hold myself back. I wait for a better time - a time when I would have more time to take on additional responsibility. A time when I would have more stability and more clarity. A time when I would be able to give more time, more space and more of me to that dream.

But then I meet her and that childhood yearning returns - ever more powerfully like the hunger pang that has been denied for long. I love walking with her, sometimes unaware of who is leading whom. I love her whining,  as she runs from one window to another when she bids me goodbye. I love her paws and her muzzle as she gently nudges me into patting her. I love how as a 14 month old, she ran scared from the ocean but was soon trying to intimidate the wild waves  into submission, attempting to save her master and friend from the menacing ocean. My heart goes out to her when she scours the grounds frantically looking for us - her friends, running from one end to the other, relentlessly. Who is lost, I wonder! We or her...? I love her when she majestically stands by the car's window with the blustery wind racing her by. I love her silliness when she bumps her head trying to reach out to me in the moving car only to be patted. 

The world does look a lot different when you are look at it from her height. 

People seem taller, buildings seem gigantic and things are moving so much faster. And yet, she fights for us, holds on tight to us - unable to let go. She might forget me in a month or perhaps in a year, if I am lucky. We have, after all, met only a handful of times.  But what she shares with her 'master' is something else altogether. Its a bond unlike any other. In one moment she is the child who likes to be appreciated and cooed to. At another, she is the adult scouring through the crowds looking for her lost charge. At one time, she is the defenseless puppy being intimidated by the other dogs as she runs to your protective fold. At another, though, she follows you into the scary ocean, fearlessly, because she wants to protect you. 

She might forget me in a month or perhaps in a year, if I am lucky. We have, after all, met only a handful of times. But in those few days, she has become a part of me - a part of my dreams, a part of my future - like nothing else. I don't know if I have clarity about much else in my future but I do know, that one day, it will have a dog - as silly and intelligent as her, as loving and lovable as her. The question is - how much longer should-could-or-would I wait? 

PS - Having a giant teddy, a canvas to paint on and a garden are the other childhood fantasies of mine still buried on that crumpled sheet of paper.... they are all waiting for another day and another time. 

The question is: how much longer? 

IF

IF

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

- Kipling

A broken world...

Sometimes the world appears broken but the problem is in your glasses. So check your glasses before you complain...

The glass menagerie

“Memory takes a lot of poetic licence. It omits some details; others are exaggerated, according to the emotional value of the articles it touches, for memory is seated predominantly in the heart. The interior is therefore rather dim and poetic.” ― Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie 

“Being disappointed is one thing and being discouraged is something else. I am disappointed but I am not discouraged.” ― Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie 

“People go to the movies instead of moving. Hollywood characters are supposed to have all the adventures for everybody in America, while everybody in America sits in a dark room and watches them have them.” ― Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie 

“But here there was only hot swing music and liquor, dance halls, ban, and movies, and sex that hung in the gloom like a chandelier and flooded the world with brief, deceptive rainbows.” ― Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie 

“People are not so dreadful when you know them. That's what you have to remember! And everybody has problems, not just you, but practically everybody has got some problems. You think of yourself as having the only problems, as being the only one who is disappointed. But just look around you and you will see lots of people as disappointed as you are.” ― Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie 

“People go to the movies instead of moving.” ― Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie 

“The cities swept about me like dead leaves, leaves that were brightly colored but torn away from the branches. I would have stopped, but I was pursued by something. It always came upon me unawares, taking me altogether by surprise. Perhaps it was a familiar bit of music. Perhaps it was only a piece of transparent glass.” ― Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie 

“You are the only young man that I know of who ignores the fact that the future becomes the present, the present the past, and the past turns into everlasting regret if you don't plan for it.” ― Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie 

Memory takes a lot of poetic license. It omits some details; others are exaggerated, according to the emotional value of the articles it touches, for memory is seated predominantly in the heart.” ― Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie 

“Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.” ― Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie 

“Time is the longest distance between two places.” ― Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie

Samsara - a personal journey around the world...

I have always acknowledged the power of visual imagery.
And despite my preparedness for it, I am overwhelmed and pretty much reduced to melancholy as I watch these hauntingly beautiful snapshots - shot over a period of 4 years - from 25 countries around the world.

That is Samsara for you!
Art through visual snapshots that transports you to some of the most spectacular places on earth within a span of ninety minutes. And yet, it is not a travelogue or documentary or even a story. It makes you find the words for the story even as it compels you to make the story. 

Samsara is only what you make out of it - left to your own means. Some could just appreciate the cinematography and camera angles while some others could be struck down by a sense of despair, gloom and hopelessness - as one stands witness to humanity gnawing through its very own foundations. As much as I hate to use the word, Samsara to me, IS a spiritual journey. It is a personal journey even though it traces the past, present and perhaps the future of the rest of humanity. 

As I sat in a darkened room, watching these images streaming by, accompanied by nothing but hauntingly appropriate music in the background, my only thought was - "Imagine if some aliens from another galaxy or if our future generations, after an apocalypse like event, were to watch this to try and understand the world as it exists today:
What would they think? That we drove ourself to extinction and that we were a weird and extremely social herd of men and women who couldn't/wouldn't/didn't think!!!"

That is what Samsara is. A brutally honest and yet spell-bindingly beautiful portrait of us, as a people, a race and a community. It is us, as we exist, today, in at least 25 countries around the world. 

Samsara is art - not because of the stunning images shot on 75 mm film - that makes it rather special too; but Samsara is art because it doesn't tell you what to think. It floods you with these diverse images and leaves you to make sense of it. I left disappointed and disillusioned by everything I saw. Maybe you will not.  Maybe you will manage to see the human ability to survive and thrive despite the odds. Or maybe you will be consumed by a sense of despair stronger than mine. Nonetheless, it is a journey I will strongly recommend.

There are images that you see and then there are stories that you build 

Stories of: (Spoiler alert!!!)

Regimented battalions of hundreds of thousands of men, working like machines repeating the same task over and over, and over - until the world's end - only to get their two square meals. 

Imagine an army of perfectly sculpted, identical looking, pretty but unthinking women - trying to fit the stereotypes of the world. 

Imagine ghost cities and towns - abandoned, destroyed by natural disasters with names of their own. Disasters that left behind nothing but a haunting presence of all that was and could have been. 

A world where tiny, multi-storyed, one room shanties are built with corrugated tin pieces glued together and tied by ropes - threatening to collapse at a moments notice - all in the shadow of giant, multi-storey, apartment complexes that are furnished with swimming pools, gardens and other amenities. 

A world where animals are bred only to be consumed by the select few who can afford. Where life is dismembered, packaged and sold faster than it can be grown. Where life is sometimes just food. 

Where history from hundreds of years stands witness to the atrocities of the present. Where nature unleashes its fury every now and then but human will always strives to overcome it. 

When men are united by the name of an unseen god and by a book of prayers than by the plight of a fellow human. Where men and women, live in fear - trained and ready to fight/kill at a moments' notice.  A world where borders are made in stone and sand and yet they are strong enough to separate people of the same kind.

A world where body art continues to make statements - of power, culture, and individuality - in the oldest of tribes to the youngest of civilizations. 

Where creation with meticulous labour and exquisite attention to detail is only the first step towards destruction - a symbolic, cyclical ritual that we, as a race, seem to initiate everywhere. 

A world whose lungs are fast being choked with the overwhelming amounts of garbage generated everyday. A world which looks gloriously beautiful and hideously ugly - both at the same time - through the eyes of the unspeaking, unflinching camera. 

A world where the cities buzz through the day and are glittering by the night; in hues of red, orange and gold - looking quite vulgar and expensive.

Single stories...

Men are bad with multi-tasking. Women are bad with directions. Girls are more responsible. Boys are slow learners. Indians are bad with punctuality. Trees are good for the environment. Meat is good for health. Japanese are hard-working. Americans are... Germans are... Italians are... French are...  The list goes on. And on.

We live with these stereotypes everyday.

Stereotypes - the broad sweeping generalizations that we make and refer to every single day. Generalizations, that minimize the effort involved in making a choice every time we face a familiar situation. Generalizations, that make a quick and easy lesson for us to pass on. Generalizations, that err on the side of caution in their sweeping declarations, encompassing all things remotely similar with a small footnote for the minor exceptions.

We see the world through these tinted glasses. Some of these stereotypes are what we effortlessly imbibe from others' experiences and some others are based on our own little forays into the world.

And as Chimamanda Adichie elegantly says in her talk on the danger of a single story, "The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. "

Stereotypes, to me are the perfect example of an anachronistic asset - a key to evolutionary success that is fast becoming a handicap, a liability and a source of conflict. Stereotypes underlie our innate ability to learn, to extrapolate from our lessons, to transmit them to others and in the process flattening the learning curve of a society as a whole. This is a great evolutionary asset. To be able to learn from isolated experiences, to be able to spot patterns and to be able to form generalizations of pleasure or pain is a vital asset - a key to survival. It would have saved lives of our ancestors and aided in the transmission of their gene pool.

But today, this very asset traps us in the world of single stories. Of stereotypes and generalizations. We extrapolate based on the tiniest slivers of information. We search for patterns where there are none. We find out a few things and we assume the rest - all in our quest to arrive at the simple generalization. A stereotype.

Stereotypes are universal - to the extent that we don't even realize when we resorting to them up till the point, when we are at the receiving end.

Listening to a talk (A TED Talk) by Adichie recently brought all these thoughts and more to the fore. Here is a transcript of the talk - on the danger of a single story.

But for a trait as inherent and instinctive as this, there is no avoidance. We need to battle it out, make conscious choices to detect it and avoid it. All we can do is to consciously make a choice to not form that first impression. To then not generalize that first impression. To consciously weed out cursory value assignments even as we form those first impressions. To be aware of how we are thinking and why we are making certain choices. It requires the benefit of second-sight and of hind-sight to overcome the bias of the first. It requires reading the second story, the third and the fourth, after the first; before arriving at a conclusion.
It is a lot more work certainly, but it brings us closer to the truth as it exists and farther away from the truth as we know it.

Words of wisdom...

After a while(You learn)

After a while you learn the subtle difference
between holding a hand and chaining a soul
And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning
and company doesn't mean security.
And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts
and presents aren't promises
And you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes ahead
with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child
And you learn to build all your roads on today
because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans
and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn that even sunshine burns
if you get too much.

So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul
instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure
that you really are strong
and that you really do have worth
And you learn and you learn
with every goodbye you learn...

- Veronica A. Shoffstall

If you want to walk fast, walk alone. If you want to walk far, walk together. - African proverb Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won't come in.

- Alan Alda 

 There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. 
- Leonard Cohen 

Bubble-wrap...

Bubble-wrap. Fairly transparent, unseemingly sturdy and exquisitely protective. So simple and yet so desirable. The world would be a broken place without it.
It cloaks and shields in a way that your most delicate belongings can breathe and still survive a tough ride.

How very magical...

So much so that on some days, that is all I want. Some bubble-wrap.

To wrap myself and stay away from all that is wrong in the world and all that can go wrong - because as Murphy says, what can go wrong, will go wrong.

There are days when I want the world outside to be muffled because the voices in my head are loud enough. When I want to be sealed into a safe place without being suffocated.
There are days, when I want something as reliable as bubble-wrap just so I can tread out a little and come back to safety it if things get too rough. Having that sanctuary within my reach made me a little more daring, a little more adventurous - to take that extra step and to walk that extra mile. Because I knew there was a safe place within my grasp.

There was a time when my relationships would do just that. Bubble wrap me - giving me the time and space to heal, to recuperate. They were but a phone call away. Today, they feel far - separated by time and space, the folds that cocooned me seem to have become bigger, more open. Time and space have taken us farther apart, a little each day. Not too far but far enough for me miss that tight niche. To miss those embraces that would hush me to sleep on a bad day. To miss those gentle folds that would give me my space and yet shield me from the worst of world.

There are days when that's all I want - my bubble-wrap.

Life lessons..

We wade into some relationships, unsure and ready to bolt.
We walk into some others, thinking all will be well.

Some glide us through, like on a gentle feather.
Some fling us about, like a raging tornado.
Some carry us away, like an ocean's powerful sway.
Some guide us through turbulence, becoming our own little parachute.
Some keep us grounded and secure, like the roots of an age-old banyan.
Some leave us scarred, like the old burn mark, that stings a little even after the years.
Some hold our hands and wait for us to lead.
Some lead us out of darkness, like the moonlight on a dark night.
Some stand by our side, and some fester in our hide.


We wade into some relationships, unsure and ready to bolt.
We walk into some others, thinking all will be well.

Life is all about the sum of these relationships and the lessons we learn from them.

Slow down...

Running has always symbolized everything desirable in the world for me - freedom, effort, reward, stamina, endurance, solitude and perhaps most importantly, free-spiritedness. Running with the wind-in-my hair brought me closer to myself and strangely to the world around me. The steady rhythm of my pulsing heart and the rhythmic footfalls would often take me to a place of peace and rest - far from the turmoil of the world. 

It was the one thing that I have always wanted to do - even when I couldn't actually do it. When my breaths were clouded by puffs of asthalin or when my lungs hated the very air they breathed refusing to cooperate - running was all I wanted to do. Not swimming, not tennis, not pilates - just running. Years of steroids, anti-histamines and inhalers later, I can run today! Perhaps not a marathon yet, but I am a lot better than where I started out from a couple of years ago - gasping and wheezing my way to the kilometer mark.

Over the years, even as this simple act of putting one foot ahead of another at a steady clip has morphed my body, it has also constantly moulded my mind. In fact, I am probably still trying to learn my most important lesson - to slow down.

A simple five letter word - speed, has stood for all that is good and desirable for so long. Speed, to me, always correlated with efficiency and was always desirable and subject to improvement. Despite the childhood stories of the hare and the tortoise, I only learnt to blame the over-confidence and lack of consistency of the hare, not its speed. 

But that was the understanding of youth - where faster meant better. 

Today, I know the virtues of being slow and steady and I also know that I have always tried to run faster than I should. Both on the road and in life - making speed my biggest handicap. 

My biggest weakness.

The one thing that would restrict me to shorter distances and hold me back with longer recoveries. 

I had always pushed myself too hard. I was the survivor who was trained to pick the difficult option at every intersection, because 'life is never easy'. I was the one who pushed myself in every way imaginable, chasing dreams, passions and goals - so much so that life felt like a long, interminable marathon, where I was breathless for a large part of the way. 

In my eagerness to finish, I would run faster and harder - only to tire myself sooner and further. It was a vicious cycle where the only solution was to learn to slow down. 

Today, after months of conscious effort, I have slowed myself on the road - a little but not enough. I run longer and easier. 

But the same skill needs to be applied in everyday life as well. Sadly, life doesn't come with easy mile-markers and stop-watches. One has to learn to pace oneself, to know how much one can and must endure. 

Each day, as I slip on my running shoes and head out in the evenings, I try and remind myself to slow down and to enjoy the happiness for as long as I can - to not go chasing the end. Even as my feet hurtle down the familiar terrain, I will myself to slow down because there is a long road ahead. 

This is a reminder for the rest of my life too - to slow down and to not rush into things; because sometimes the journey is more important than the destination and there is a long, winding road ahead.