The Now.

For once I want to draw and I don't want it to be about symmetry or shape. I want it to be blurred and foggy and mildly reminiscent of intangible, unidentifiable memories. I want to paint, not with a brush, but with my fingers and a knife, and I want to not care about the outcome. Once, again, I wish to be a word stuck at the back of the head that becomes a whole story, and then a whole new life, a whole new existence, a whole new me. 

Inhale. Exhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaale. Inhale. Exhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaale. Inhale deeeeeeply. Hold your breath. 

*And never ever let go.* 

"Life starts with a deep inhalation which triggers the baby's first cry, and ends with a long exhalation at the time of death. So life is just the space between a deep inhalation and a long exhalation. And when we do Pranayam, we try to bring in this life, this prana." Such an astoundingly beautiful analogy! 

I have brought some discipline to my life. Long walks, Yoga classes(finally), visiting and teaching in a school on the weekends, and right diet. Yet, something is amiss. Something elementary. 

I am unable to write, or frame sentences. I will have to wait. It will come back. It always does.

December 17, 2011

Some more interesting pieces and footnotes from the journal written in December last year:

There are times when you wonder if you know yourself, if all that you so solemnly believe in, is actually true, if the love that warms your heart is just self-deception, aimed solely at easy, less painful living. And then, you ask yourself again, why we always blow the future out of proportions, what is, so peculiar about the unknown, that is not about the present, the certain territories? Why, if you can laugh and love now, do you think, the same traits would not suffice for future circumstances? Worry, is a dangerous thing, more deceptive than deception itself. And since when, did we become wise enough, to avert misfortune anyway? What is meant to happen by providence, will happen. Que sera sera.

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Guess I will just lie down a bit. For I am tired, of loving, of being what you want me to be. The ways of your world, they tire me, really; they don't cause me anguish any more. They just cause fatigue, deep, calm fatigue, to the point that nothing I think of gives me joy or sorrow any more. I am tired of searching for meaning in all the absurdity, and running, and running when I don't even truly seek the bourne. I will just breathe a bit, and warm my senses, for they are cold and disillusioned, and deeply, hopelessly lonely. I wish my pursuits were just mine to have, so I could just kneel down and weep by a quiet fireplace somewhere, and then repose, for a long time, in slumber.

November 11, 2011

Another journal entry from last year:

And when all is said and done, I want to be able to say that I lived a happy life. That I looked forward to living every moment of it. That sometimes I didn't do what I was supposed to do. Sometimes, I escaped, I failed. But most of the times, I followed my heart. I let it take me on its beautiful adventures and I lived them. That I loved with all my heart, being aware that it can shatter me. That I worked on the small things in life because they always mattered the most to me. That I made sure to surprise those I love and I made sure to hide the truth sometimes to make them feel secure. That sometimes I fretted for more freedom but at all times, I knew I was happier than most, and I never forgot to be grateful. That I believed in goodness and it helped me be good. That I also believed in the bad and the cruel and the unjust and it kept the blood flowing in my veins. That I strived, in my own infinitesimal way, to change. To change the world, starting from myself. That I never stopped analyzing my actions, because if I would, that is when I would stop to grow. That I took that step of asking forgiveness to someone I had hurt, that I felt my ego melt and love grow in that moment. In the end, I just want to be able to say, that I lived. In the best way I knew.

October 2, 2011

I was digging through some old files, and I came across this diary entry from last year. It's always interesting to read what you thought, felt and wrote about on a given day; it makes you see how things picture in the long run, how sometimes we place too much emphasis on things that are ultimately insignificant. Anyway, here goes:

"You can look at my house and tell the kind of phase I'm in. There is clutter everywhere, like in my mind. There are questions hanging like cobwebs from the walls, layers of doubts on the kitchen slab, clothes,like my thoughts are scattered. I wish I could collect myself, quickly, gracefully. I did not step out of the house till evening today, when I went to buy vegetables. And I saw that it had rained. It was still drizzling. I was too lazy to change so I was just wearing a jacket over the shabby top, and I felt the need to zip the jacket up at the vegetable store. I regretted that I came out after the sun had set. I hate missing sunsets. I think it is one of the most unfair things to happen that you were inside closed doors, doing nothing of much value, while the sky was painting a beautiful sunset for you. Last evening I accompanied a friend to the doctor, and we had conversations that lessened the burden on our hearts. She is a painter at heart, and an accidental engineer. It was like an exchange of songs between birds inadjacent cages. I explained my plans to her, and for a moment, they almost made sense. Talked to dadi today. I have not seen a 'proper' Durga Pooja for 6 years now. Thinking of DP still brings a smile. I remember feeling lost in the crowd at the Pandaals and clutching at Papa's hand. I remember planning which Pandaals we wanted to see by looking at their descriptions in the newspaper. I remember 'Shree Shree Durga Pooja Samiti' announcing, every year, that a child named 'Chotu' wearing navy blue half pants and a yellow shirt was lost, and that his parents could come to the announcement desk to take him. I always hoped he was found. I guess he was, every year. I remember being 13 and trying on a top I had bought for DP in front of mom's dressing table, and feeling 'beautiful'. 

I had a long chat with a friend yesterday, and we were talking about how life changes so quickly and suddenly. I remember reading a few pages of a book called 'Future Shock' which talked about how we as people might not be able to cope with the speed with which the world is changing. I guess that book was about changes in technology. But I wonder if its ok to live like this. To 'move on' and lock your past away in a black box. How do you always stop your mind from roving inside the restricted territory? If you ask me, I would say, talk about it, cry yourself hoarse, till a point that you are done doing that. That is the right way of 'moving on'. 'A' and I often discuss that we are a generation that has grown up in the cusp of change. We were there when telephones were becoming more 'common', cable TV had arrived, then computers, mobile phones, internet; in the process of growing up, life changed from street gulli dandaa to the point when you have a screen in front of you for everything. Somewhere, some part of me is still stuck in mango orchards and cassettes. I would have preferred a more 'gradual' change, perhaps."

Tonight I can write the saddest lines. (Love you, Neruda)

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Like the breeze from my window touches me incompletely
and I diffuse, only half-ly, into slow moving frames of us.
Like pieces of me remain, time-trapped, in this moment
doomed to watch us from a distance in soft bokeh lights.
Like you were a dream I almost had, before dreams started to vaporize

These are foggy times. Dark. With only the illusion of a sun.
It will never warm us, love. It will shimmer in the distance,
reminding us of what we were made of, 
hope and love,
and broken sighs.

It does not matter. The length or breadth or depth of what we feel.
Thought is redundant, as are we.
Our lives, our songs, as lost as the love that once was
or was allowed to be. 
You know, you and I, were the cosmos once.

5th August, 2012

I have hidden enough from myself. In the chaos of people, plans, places, I did not heed the one who needed me the most - me. It's time to compensate. To pamper, to nourish, to entertain, to encourage, to hand myself the rainbow of a dream. Again. 

Nothing heals like walks. And weather. And books. And innocence, children and the elderly alike. Sometimes, you don't want to take pictures. Because you don't want to interfere the moment with a lens. So, you just flash a smile, and take only a mental picture. From a distance. The two little boys of exactly the same height in raincoats, grinning, mischief written all over their faces. The little tiny wild white flowers, glorious against a bright, brazen green. The children, doubling up with laughter and excitement on a carousel. The sun, surprising you with a stray gleam on your eyes while the evening rain is still drizzling mildly. And the scent. Of rain. Of earth that has been made love to. Of grass that has been aroused. Of youth and infant, ochre dreams.

There is something wordlessly endearing about the grace of old age. About the stories, sickness and beliefs hidden in those wrinkles. Wasn't he just a stranger to me who had a five-minute conversation with me? Why did I choke then, when he talked about all his kids, and then said with a laugh that he had just one responsibility now, and then, pointed above with his stick? Love can find you anywhere, unaware, off-guard. Isn't love, the place where everything boils down, or melts up to?

4th August, 2012

I saw a small group of protesters outside the tech park last morning. And as I walked towards the company building, I heard receding slogans of 'Anna Hazare Zindabad'. I kept walking like the others, pretending that the sound stirred nothing in me. I thought about protests and revolutions in general, wondering about how the present age has enabled us highly for such things, while surreptitiously taking away from us what it takes to actually participate in them. I doubt my convictions. I doubt if something done with a good intention is necessarily good. I doubt if such things ever bring about a change at the micro level. What, for example, is the freedom that we fought so passionately for? Wasn't it just a shift of power from one group of people to the other? The more I look at revolutions, the more I see a disappointing pattern of dictatorships replaced by oppressive fanaticism, monarchies by pseudo democracies, and so on. And even though things change, I wonder if they ever change for the better. And yet, it's in the nature of the human to fight for a future that always seems brighter. Sometimes I wonder if we, our convictions, our perceptions, our governments and our revolutions are just reagents meant to help achieve a certain equilibrium of chaos.


Yet, individual freedom is something too precious to be kept silent about. May be what we do will be nothing but glorious chapters in history books, may be it will change nothing, but that glory, that story is worth creating. And possibly, it will bring about a difference, a minute part of which will be positive.

If I ever write again

If I ever write again, I would write us. I would write about how sometimes love is not enough. How sometimes, the way you love is important. How things wither. How fear eats on beauty and possibility. How sometimes, you see your own life slipping out of your hands. How you suddenly realize that society has a time bomb under the bundle of your freedom and happiness. How sometimes, you live your life as a series of reactions to situations. How inspite of everything, we love and lose and take chances.  How hopelessly I loved you. How hopelessly I still love you. And yet.

If I ever write again, I would write us. And then erase it all.

23/07/2012

I loved Rajesh Khanna. I have not had the time to grieve for him, but he meant a lot to me. He was this inexplicably intimate link to the past, this beautiful face, and this heavenly voice that I could never have enough of. I have never followed cinema ardently, but every movie of his that I happened to watch on TV made a certain impression on me. I have loved him forever, from the age of black and white TVs and Doordarshan night movies that people waited for. He was this white , pure, shiny thing that I have never coveted, I have never wanted to have him, or to have a man like him, he was an object of reverence and divinity. Something sacred. Something beautiful. Something to be sighed about from a distance. But may be it was the philosophy of his movies that he so convincingly portrayed, or may be his smile, his tilt of the head, his voice, there was something about him that made him part of me. He denoted cinema for me. Technicolor cinema of large duplex houses and empty streets and white saree clad mothers and helpless unmarried sisters. He denoted that socialism-influenced, high-on-emotion cinema that always, invariably, explored newer meanings, raised newer questions, and made you laugh and cry at the same time. It doesn't make sense to say this, but I'll miss him. 

I painted my toenails red, took a long aimless walk in the evening, and I feel collected. If and when I move out of Bangalore, I'll miss her evening weather. Bangalore is like a graceful motherly lady, the kind you can rely on. You can count on breezy evenings, and cool days after a dry and hot spell. Sometimes, I miss the moodiness of Manipal's weather. It's a place where you simply mustn't step out without an umbrella. I remember occasions when I would be sipping coffee at a shop and then it would suddenly start to pour. Rains never interrupted life there. Nothing interrupted Manipal. Nothing could contain the brimming life of thousands of young people in a small town, arriving and leaving in batches with ranks and branches, talking of GPAs and assignmesnts and internals, who would walk endlessly up and down those winding roads, only to be replaced by newer faces, newer dreams, newer friendships, crushes, heartbreaks. I miss Manipal. Sometimes.

I spoke to two of my friends for hours yesterday. They don't know each other, but the similarity of their circumstances struck me. I ended up giving out similar advices, speaking out about the same fears that I have. I wish I had met one, at least one guy in my life who understood me as completely as any of my girls. Sigh.

I will go to bed now. And hopefully wake up to a beautiful day. I need to take care of myself.

23/06/2012

It's a beautiful place. This bed by the window with the park outside. All the breeze of this gracious city seems to be blowing in my direction through the window. 

Al had a minor throat surgery on the 21st. While her sister and I waited outside the surgery room in the morning, two women were taken in for delivery. Their families were outside, fretting, nervous, expectant. One of them had a little girl expecting a younger sibling, another one was a large family with a really tall and strong looking would-be-father. Suddenly, some of the staff came near the door and asked for the first woman's husband. He cautiously went near the door. And then, I saw a hand stretch out from the other side of the door, shaking this guy's hand, and a voice congratulating him, and telling him words like 'healthy' and '2.75 kgs'. My eyes were fixed on this new dad's face now, and a smile was plastered on my face. He was smiling wide too, and then he walked towards his family and picked up his little girl as he shared the news. I was still grappling with the enormity of the moment, when the voice from inside called out for the family again, and then, a tiny being on a trolley was brought out. It was the pinkest and tiniest baby I had ever seen, and I realized, with a lump in my throat, that I happened to have a glimpse of him at the same moment as his father and his family. Everyone around was almost in giggles. Some women from the other family had also surrounded the baby. I kept myself from congratulating the father, not wanting to violate his immensely personal moment. He kept clicking pictures till the baby was carried away from his sight in the lift, to be taken to the care room. 


The restlessness in the other family was evident now. This tall man was most probably expecting his first child and was surrounded by lots of family members, including, I guess, his and his wife's parents. I heard him telling an elderly man of the family, probably his father, that there was nothing to worry and that these were seasoned doctors. By the sight of him though, it looked more like self assurance to me. This time, he was called from the other door, and he went alone to get the news as his family had just drifted away to the door through which the first baby was brought out. He just received the news and stood there, with no expression on his face. My heartbeat stopped with suspense. His family had surrounded him now and were begging him to say something. He finally uttered, "Baby.." and started to weep. There was a very brief but very chilly silence, and then his mom/mom-in-law rubbed his shoulder and said, "It's ok..". He now said, "Boy"...."Baby boy!", still in tears. My heart started to beat again, and there were smiles on every face in the family, accompanied by tears in the case of the women. He was congratulated, slapped gently for almost giving everyone a heart attack, and then, calls were made and news was spread. After a few seconds, everyone was smiling, and on calls, but he sat there in silence, that tall heap of a man, dealing with the magnitude of the feeling, and wiping his tears. I wiped a tear or two too, I guess.


Soon, another trolley was brought out carrying a weight of 3.8 kgs and large round eyes. The father looked like he was scared to go too close. He just stood there, smiling a serene smile till this baby was taken away too.


I wondered a long while at my extraordinary luck, and at the fact that I will figure as a side character in a very important chapter of these people's lives. And then, I read a friend's post and realized it was solstice, the longest day of the year. It had to have something special about it, didn't it?


Well, I started pacing to and fro after the second baby was taken away too, because Al's surgery, which was supposed to take 45 mins, had already taken an hour and fifteen minutes. Finally, the doctor came out and informed us that it was over and she was fine, and that she was to be kept in the observation room for an hour and a half and then sent to the room directly. She is fine now, and enjoying the prescription of icecream and milk shakes at regular intervals.