I dream of resting your face in my lap and sitting under the stars on a beach. As the waves wash my feet and the breeze dissolves us, we will let the silence of the moment take over, our hearts growing and swelling up with the love we have for each other until it transforms into love for everyone and everything and until they are one big entity, until all the ocean is one big heart. So when I bend down and kiss your forehead, I'll taste the saltiness of the love of the heart that is the ocean. In the silence of your calm presence, I have often felt my heart become fluid as my eyes join them in thanking the universe for being alive. Your love is sacred. It is the language in which the universe speaks to me and tells me that I'm whole.

What is life

If it is not the quiet place

That wants to keep staring at leaves that move in the wind

And listening to the water make waves

What is it even

If not the desire to allow

The most natural thing which is growth

While also wanting to clutch hard

At how things are

What is it

If not the moment of being held and wanted

And the warmth of your bare skin on mine

When we are half asleep

And the blurring of the rest of the world to background

In that moment

What is life

If not, wanting love and acceptance

At all costs

And then losing and finding oneself

And learning to be truer, braver each day

What is life

If not this beautiful, eternal, messy balancing act

Of letting go

Of holding on

Sometimes reflections come to me in silly rhymes

May I always think of work and love as inseparable synonyms

May I find ways to color the world with my unique fingerprints

May the contents of my heart paint rainbows in clouds

May I create more 'permission' around me, to be crazy, to be loud

May I become an expert at making visions true

And may those visions never end, may they deepen and grow more hues

May I create, may I collaborate, may I err, may I correct

May I sing, may I dance, may I paint, may I direct

May my being all that I am help make the world all that it is

May the full glory of individuals unleash and never cease

May I create a new world and show you that it is possible 

May I show you that it's not me, it's also you, and you are irreplaceable

I have this tiny dream, come join me if you will

The fire you vaguely remember, it's alive in you still

Everybody's a Stranger

Inspired by Sindhuja Sarasram's beautiful anthology, Everybody's A Stranger in which a dear friend is a contributor

It was 2007. Second year of college. I spent every day making the most of my new found freedom. Internet was this beautiful rabbit hole that had something for everyone. Back then, people loved meeting strangers online and it wasn't so frowned upon. Something in me wanted to find spaces to be myself. That took me to Orkut writer communities. There, among many brilliant writers, I met a writer called Raj. His poetry had this distinct Bengali intellectualism to it, which I really liked. He seemed to like my writing too, and we became 'Orkut friends' who sometimes exchanged messages. Somehow, we managed to loosely stay in each other's lives and in admiration of each other's writing for a few years. By 2009, most of my friends were moving to this new platform called Facebook. On first looks, it seemed overwhelming. There were too many pictures, too little text. I didn't relate to it. Reluctantly, I too, though, fully migrated to Facebook. In 2011, Raj messaged me and asked me if I wanted to be part of this 'secret' incredible online group of writers on Facebook that he was part of. He told me there is only one rule. There is no rule. You write whatever you want, without inhibition, without judgement. When I was added to Blurts, I held back for some time. I read other people's writing. There was Anupama, whose writing took me to a small town of Kerala, simple pleasures, sticky, mundane afternoons, complex family relationships, a bicycle and ice lollies. There was Sidra, who happened to hail from the neighbouring country and whose writing was familiar, raw, honest, and at a very deep level, a reminder of the female experience on the subcontinent. There was Abhipsa, whose poetry felt like hope, like flowers in spring, like love, and Sarat, whose writing about bike rides and mental illness and heartbreak represented this honesty with himself which reminded me often of Bukowsky's brokenness and almost spiritual bravery, and Esha, who wrote right from the deepest place in her heart about the world, about family, about making sense of a very harsh world, and Richa whose words, like her photography, represented presence and taught me that presence is sometimes joy and sometimes brokenness, and Vibha whose words contained her whole heart, and Vaishalee whose writing was her ode to learning to love oneself, and Kinni whose writing was rebellion and a fierce expression of her soul, and Smriti who was the 19-year-old mother hen. Smriti's head and heart and hand lived in that group. Her writing was summer, it was childhood, it was dissent, it was love, and it was like K, her partner, honest, clear, true. There were so many more - people who didn't write much but read often: Smriti C and her humour and attempt to figure life out, Madiha and her constant encouragement, love and commitment to learn, Sanjeet and his unwavering friendship, Santon and his quiet, deep reflections. When I first wrote and received love on that group, I felt overwhelmed. It was the first time I felt part of anything. Blurts was community. It was not just a bunch of strangers who liked to write. It was a bunch of us who were courageous enough to be our whole selves in our writing, and a bunch of us who were somehow able to hold that space for each other. We were from different parts of the continent, and some of us got a chance to meet, but even the ones who we never met, never felt like strangers. We did birthdays and Secret Santas. Raj and Vaishalee married each other. Smriti and K are still together. Sarat and I dated briefly and remain active parts of each other's lives as very close friends. We have seen each other through graduations, first jobs, career transitions, marriages, kids, divorces, and we do not write as much on Blurts anymore, but we remain - a community. Sometimes, stars align and strangers become much much more. Everybody's a stranger...until they aren't.

Resurrection

My heart beats fast as I type. This is Indulgence - a labor of love - a place that has hosted so many of my feeble attempts at expression. I started Indulgence in 2006 - on the insistence and encouragement of friends in my first year of college. Since then, much has been said and much has been concealed from this place, but it remains - a place close to heart, a home almost, that today I have decided to return to. 

A lot has changed in the past few years - in the outer world and in my inner world. If anything, the relationship between the two has become stronger. I believe that I have become clearer - with both my unique identity and my oneness with the universe, with my shared misery and suffering with all of the living world. As it is early January, I feel compelled to reflect on the year gone by. It has been quite a year - a year of the illumination of truths. We saw the world come apart, systems of health, education, public provisions exposed, shattered and rebuilt, we saw the power of the collective human spirit - systems that emerged outside of all rulebooks of organizational behaviour - systems of love, of collaboration, of showing up - for complete strangers, for each other, for ourselves. Personally, the year held a similar trajectory for me - it made me confront truths - external but most importantly, internal. And, it shattered falsehoods and false systems and through much messiness and struggle, brought me on the other side, where there was light - of awareness, of compassion, of a self that was a little bit more true. Of everything that 2021 taught me, the biggest learning was to always show up for oneself. 

As I write today, my heart is heavy. Most states have entered partial lockdowns again, schools have been shut (ironically, malls, pubs, restaurants, places of worship and even wedding gatherings are allowed to function with some restrictions). The COVID statistics have become relevant again. I have spent much of the day ensuring the people in my team are okay, have the support they need - many are symptomatic, some have tested positive. I have been unsuccessfully trying to avoid the news of the Bulli Bai app - this is the sort of thing that has the potential to cause utter despair at the state of things. But, I know that 2022 holds promise. I can see that as a collective, we are having conversations we weren't having. We are despairing over things more publicly, more openly. In 2021, we have seen minor and major wins of democracy. In 2021, I have seen wins - many, many of them. I have managed to get better at keeping up routines, at being easier on myself, at being truer to myself, at standing up for myself, at holding dualities. So, I hold this duality in my heart - that at a higher, divine perspective, may be all of this that's happening is just ebbs and flows - the way of things, but also that with a human perspective, it is okay to despair, for oneself and for fellow human beings. It is okay to allow the heart to sometimes, sink and not be hopeful. It is also the nature of things.

Speaking of hope, Indulgence is back in the public domain today. I hope to be better at allowing myself and my innermost world to be seen again - unless some days I am not, and that would be okay too.

July 27, 2018

Tonight, I am grateful for growth. For this wisdom that allows you to accept, to let go, to be. For rootedness. For the realization of the power of seeds, of sparks. For the exploration of true humility, true service, true love. For paradoxes and middle paths, for ambivalence and balance. For hope. For the luxury to ruminate, to let structures fall and rebuild, to shine light on the darkest, dustiest corners of self. For the feeling that it all comes together. Of course, to fall apart, but it does. For this rhythmic convergent and divergent nature of existence. For okayness and now and this breath that's been faithful for yet another day.

November 18, 2018

"Is human life worth living?", you ask as I tell you the story from my mother's childhood when she returned home to find her pet rabbit tortured to near death by her adoptive brother. "What builds or rather unravels this capacity to be so cruel. Is it even something that blame can be attached to?". 
"We do this to each other through our inability to love. But loving is so hard and has so many definitions."
"How did we end up creating a world where we enable so much hurt that leads to so much cruelty?"
"It is our inability to adapt to all the diversity that we all carry. Each human being's need is so different, and our capacity to cater to that so limited."
"That is why I wonder, if human life is worth living"
"It is. Even if it is about learning to love one other person."
"Would you want to come back?"
"At least a few more times if I had you to love each time."

February 10, 2019

Dear T,

I write to remind you of the gift that life is. I want you to realize and remember that it is a gift that you must never take lightly. That you will go through many dark phases, but always emerge stronger, clearer and a little more compassionate. That the demons of childhood do go away, and when you are 30, memories of that time will feel like stills from another life, or reels from a movie that you felt deeply. They will not affect you or define you, but they will shape you. T, you will spend life looking to get better, and this will sail you through a lot. But you must remember to not seek perfection, which you tend to do. You must let go of shame and fear. You know that people do not need to earn love; they deserve it, irrespective of who they are. Do not make yourself an exception. You will love and laugh and forgive easily, and you will get hurt a lot. But you must not get cynical. At around 30, you will learn that you do not carry the weight of the world on your shoulders and that the only way to change the world is to begin with yourself, and that the process of change begins with acceptance. You will learn to hold greys, and be gentler on yourself and others. I hope you remember to laugh and have fun.

Love,
T

Banjara Hills

There's something intriguing about this part of town, the hills have been carved into roads and streets with beautiful bungalows and showrooms, but you take one left turn and you are in narrow lanes with near vertical drops lined by houses. Young boys in kurtas running down the lane with hands on each other's shoulders, women in burqas(always in groups and never alone) returning home with their children, men sitting outside their houses, bonding over something on the phone or sharing a conversation about the day gone by, and another left turn and you are going through probably the biggest graveyard you've ever seen, innumerable graves on both sides of the road with not even inches between them, and you think about how you're looking at more graves than people, and a thela with someone hawking something to eat and little lights on the cart just outside this graveyard. You think about the juxtaposition of life and death, how there's something beautiful about the acceptance and assimilation of the graveyard into the landscape. You think about the people, the children you saw, and wonder about their ancestors that are perhaps buried there, watching over them, and the living watching over the dead, co-existing with them in their dance of life. The next left turn takes to into an impossibly busy market. It's lit up and alive. You wonder what lives of children are like in this community. You notice that this whole area automatically registers as a community. You know nothing about them but you know that these are people who live intertwined lives - they create safety nets but also nooses, they live, love, laugh, fight, cry and die together. You dream of a community of your own some day - some place you'd finally belong.

Minimalism and Leadership

One of the ideas I have found myself to be most influenced by in recent times is that of minimalism. Minimalism in possessions, but also in thoughts and actions.

Being in a new role where the stakes always seem high hasn't been easy, but the only idea that has helped me cope is the constant guiding question of: is this strategic? What is the best use of my twenty-four hours? How much of it is going towards quelling short-term fires, and how much towards longer-term growth, well-being, and slow but stronger and systemic change. Could even the first kind be a step towards the second? What is life but a series of decisions we make in the face of constraints? What is life but a long workshop in strategy? Isn't minimalism just strategy - choosing only what adds value and recognizing that any surplus might actually deplete value?

Some of my strongest successes in my role as an enabler have been when I've found the sweet spot of 'enough', when I've let go of the desire to prove *my* relevance, and have found comfort in my role of planting ideas and enabling conditions for them to be nurtured, when I've freed myself from the comforting feeling of *doing* a lot. Last week was a significant step in this direction. In attempting to find my method in madness, I stumbled upon the life-changing link between minimalism and trust. The challenge we are attempting to tackle requires a collective, and that requires that we don't just support, challenge, but also trust each other. That's the only way we'll be able to define a beautiful line of action around our roles - a limiting line of action that will make our locus of impact limitless.