Small dreams like this

We still have the 'Worldspace' system but the subscription has expired and we haven't bothered renewing it. No time or space to listen to radio. 'We'll renew it once we shift to a new house,' I tell her. My dream: Make a hot cup of tea. Turn off the lights. Sit by the window. Switch on 'Moksha' channel on worldspace on low volume. In between sips, looking out the window at the night sky, listen to the soft music. Dream for hours on end. Just exist with the soul stirring sounds.

This ain't possible currently, in our single room, with Tejas asleep and the kitchen being two floors below, locked up. So my dream has to bide its time until it gets realized. And when that happens, in that moment, wanna type a few words straight from the gut on my blog. Without pre-meditation.

Quick notes before I forget...

Just a small observation--or self-observation. Unless something becomes a life/death situation, I generally keep off doing things and stay lazy. Especially if that something is a bit difficult to do and requires an effort. Amazing how long it took for me to make this discovery.

Four years ago, on this day, by this time, we were at a mortuary. Shell shocked. Waiting for Mouli's postmortem to get over. First glimpse at the loss of a close friend.
Remembering him today, especially when I'm reading and pondering into all of this

Tejas wants to pluck a small flower. I ask him to take permission from the plant. 'Plant, plant, can I take this one?' he mumbles and tears a little flower out. And plays with it happily for the next half an hour.

Autumn trees on a patch I pass through every morning, on the way to office. The trees will be felled very soon, owing to the new metro train track that passes nearby. In our burgeoing city, this railway track is required to ease the traffic clogs we face everyday. But at the cost of our lungspace.

Again, why should we think in human terms? Is the tree valuable only because it cleans the air we poisoned? Would it be okay to cut them down if they weren't so useful?

The trees stand there, shedding leaves, waiting for the season to turn to sprout greenery. Do they think, the way we do, in tree terms? Calculating and weighing something based on its usefulness?

Loads of movies getting downloaded every night. Don't know when I'll watch them. Time--a gasp of air to a drowing man. Right now, just collecting and hoarding all good ones.

Hot coffee on an especially cold evening. Biju, who supplies beverages to the entire office is always on the edge, always walking around with his tray, visiting every desk at least three times a day. Overworked. Always polite. Smiling at times.

On success

Reading 'Outliers' by Malcom gladwell.

It kinda answered or even confirmed something that I'd known all along. That it's not how well you do academically that determines your success in life. I have friends who were bigshots in studies(I too was one of them). They are nothing more than moderates, as far as career success goes. And there are a few 'outliers', some who didn't even go to school back then. They have more financial and social success than the high iq guys. It's not just the 'normal intelligence' that counts but the 'practical intelligence'--how you make sense of the world around and how well you can navigate it--that determines financial/social success.

Of course, it's never too late to gain practical intelligence. Gladwell pins it down to your upbringing, to the environment in which you grew up. I don't agree completely. I guess, your environment does play a role in shaping your personality. But you can always outgrow it, create your own inner models, on your own understand how the world works and adapt to it.

Then you wonder why people give so much importace to academic success. I see kids around being pushed too far into studies, the achievement of some high-fliers constantly glorified, etc. You don't need a book like outliers to tell you that what you learn in school/college is just one part, that there are a hundred other factors required for success. It's plain commonsense. How come people don't exercise it? Are they too dumbed down and stuck in the old paradigm which shaped their lives? Why is our vision so narrow?

Of course, there's a far more important question that arises? What the hell is this thingy called success? Your paycheck? What people around think about you? Your bank balance?

Or is it the opportunity to be what you've always wanted to be? To exercise your creativity? To constantly learn new things and enrich your understanding? To love and be loved? To explore new paradigms? To experience the diversity this life offers? To have the freedom to live life the way you want to? To make things happen, to teach, to share?

Or simply to be at peace...contented? Reminded of a passage from 'The power of now' where Eckhart tolle writes of his state of mind after his first experience of transcendence. 'For two years, I was sitting on park benches, without money, without social identification but I was in the most indescribable state of bliss'

Maybe success is a curious mix of all of the above. Or maybe, it's just subjective. I could consider myself successful but you may see me as someone who's totally fucked up. Or rubbish my idea of success. For all I care.

This book is already a best seller. Does that make Malcom gladwell a successful person? In the narrow definetion which he espouses in his book---Yes..... But in the bigger picture?

Walking new roads

It’s difficult to ignore certain ideas.

Last Saturday morning we were visiting our neighbours in the locality, to invite the kids for our son’s birthday party that evening. Just then she remembered that there was a recent death in one of the houses. We were in a fix whether to invite them or not, whether it would be appropriate to interrupt their mourning, so just to be sure, we spoke to one of the neighbours.

‘You’re right, but it’s okay, you can invite the kids for the party. It’s an old lady who passed away, and while I’m sure they must be feeling sad for the loss, she was almost 98, so you know....’

I guess this wouldn't have been the scene if someone younger had died, say someone in their 50s or 40s. What's the threshold age after which death becomes acceptable and non-mourning—even expected? You cross that age and, without anyone mentioning it, there’s an unwritten assumption that it’s okay for you to die. What’s that threshold age? 70? 80?

A long time ago, I was visiting some distant relatives with my Dad. There was an old lady in their house, very old and she was kept in an outhouse. Apparently, she was the one who’d looked after dad when he was a kid, so I was half expecting a sentimental scene since he was meeting her after a long time. Nothing like that happened. Dad spoke to her, standing at a distance, probably feeling embarassed and awkward with his emotions. Of course she was in tears. But what struck me was the utter neglect of that household towards this woman. It looked as if their contempt was for the fact that she wasn’t dead yet, inspite of being old enough to leave. She was absolutely unwanted!

Such things may not happen in every family but why do we carry these assumptions? Young—you’re not supposed to die and if you die, it’s terrible. Old—you can live but if you stay long enough, it begins to get difficult. I have some relatives who have crossed this threshold and are still hanging on. I’m sure their deaths will come as a relief to those around although nobody will dare speak it out.

Why is this so?

One could argue that it's because of health, where the elder person has become fragile and beyond treatment, so people around him would wish that he'd depart peacefully. But imagine a younger person who's in ill-health and beyond medical care. I don't think their departure would be welcomed with the same detachment as that of an older person. Whenever we hear that someone has passed away and if he's around 40-60, the immediate reaction is 'so young?', but if he's more than 75, it's a muted silence. If he's less than 30 or worse, even less, the expression turns to horror. I've wondered why. Why should we feel this variance in emotions --since we know very well that death is a reality for young and old alike?

Is it inbuilt in us, an evolutionary mechanism similar to what's found in Nature where the Old naturally gives place to the New, the fresh? Or is it handed down to us by society? A society where youth and strength is revered and the old are carefully pushed aside--for economic and utilitarian purposes? Are we born with this world-view or does our environment fit us with this paradigm?

So many paradigms go unquestioned in our daily lives. Recently I came across this arguement against the 5 day work-week? Who made this rule that we should work for 5 days and then relax on weekends? Why do we accept it so blindly? Why not work on weekends and then relax for 5 days? Really! How many of us even begin to think in this direction?

Then there's this dominant idea, that what you see, hear, touch and sense is only real. Nothing else. Anything other than these must be your 'imagination' or 'hallucination' and hence should fall outside the boundary of 'reality'. That which is validated by the scientific community(?) is only to be accepted but if something that you believe goes against the grain, then you're a freak! I observe this when we speak about 2012! 'What's the proof?' is the question. 'What do the scientists say about this?' Speak about meditations, about shift in consciousness, about expanding awareness. Speak about entering a New Age of peace and prosperity, about the collapse of old systems and the birth of new ones. Or about experiencing things directly, subjectively with the help of spiritual practices and hence 'knowing' reality--- and you'll invite wonderful smiles.

At the other end, if enough people get to speak about it, such things might soon come to be accepted--not because anyone has directly experienced it, but because so many are speaking about it, hence it must be true, somehow!

If there's a choice between accepting a direct subjective truth or going with a popular belief--something that's validated by those around us, how many of us would choose our inner voice? How many of us would risk unpopularity and trust our gut feeling?

Coming back to the initial idea, in the first place, why is death feared and despised? Is it because we don't know what exists beyond that? Is it because our identity is so totally glued to our physical selves that we shudder to even think about the deterioration and demise of this finite self? Who gave us this paradigm that we are just this physical self, and death is the end--the black hole?

As someone said, 'the spiritual isn't hidden, it's ignored.' Maybe true, but again there's this question. Why do we ignore it? Is it an inbuilt paradigm or something that's handed down to us?

When the existing paradigms are getting screwed up, are we willing to consider new ones? Or do we wait for the majority vote to even begin 'un-ignoring' what was ignored all along?

What does it take to shake us out of our rut? To make us sit up and take notice? To pay attention to our gut?


pic from

http://www.flickr.com/photos/petrichor/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Humour and Pathos

If you haven't let out a hearty laugh, God help you!

* * *

Have you watched 'Raincoat'? Good movie but what really has stayed in me and is still ringing deep is this tremendous song by Shubha Mudgal. Been listening to 'Mathura Nagarpathi....' for the umpteenth time since last morning.

Then you have this line:

Biraha ke aasoon kab ke pahuch daali, Phir kaahe darad jagaav

(She has wiped off those tears of separation long back, so why are you opening those wounds now?')

You can listen here. And a good translation can be found here.

As they say in Enigma, 'Turn off the lights, take a deep breath and listen...'

Just wonderful!

Chotu rant

Two things happened. One, a long awaited dream got fulfilled, when I purchased a Dell inspiron Laptop. Which means that I can browse/chat/blog/translate late into the night, sitting in the comfort of my small room instead of having to use the common terminal a floor below. Wife and son too have joined the party. He loves Tom and Jerry on Youtube. She's revelling in the new discoveries she's making in the virtual world. Loads of movie and music downloads in the pipeline. Rashomon, An unfinished Life, what not...

Two. When I opened the shiny new laptop and began explaining its features, there were murmurs of approval and congratulations. But amidst these, the congratulating voice was repeatedly getting choked. Lots of clearing throats, all of a sudden.

I know why this happens because it happened to me when I couldn't swallow the fact that my juniors were getting a better salary. My throat got blocked and I had to repeatedly clear it. The emotion found an outlet through my body.

Not that I blame someone for feeling jealous because I could get a beautiful gadget. It's my hard earned money, my long cherished wish, so if you can't enjoy the comfort/success of someone close to you but would rather hide it behind a false smile and artificial words, be warned that your body is speaking the truth. That's all.

Small things

If you wanna do something, just do it, don't speak about it. I told her last night that I'd want to meditate once tejas falls asleep. 'Atleast for an hour', I thought. And it never happened. Tiredness overtook my will to wake up, get out of bed and sit for meditations.

Would I have done it had I not spoken about it? 'If you want to do something and you're desperate enough, you'll do it no matter what. Why put the blame on something external for your lack of will?'

Maybe not speaking about a goal is also a part of that Will do to something. A tiny part. The major part must be one's desperation and passion to pursue a goal, to do something one finds important.

Until this lasts...

It's a small cave, not more than 20 feet long. But you need to crawl on all fours to enter it and go all the way to its end. And the entry and exit points are on the same rock face, so in effect you enter the cave, crawl through a bend and come out exactly next to the hole where you entered. Doesn't take more than a minute.

But that one minute would appear like eternity. Anything could be hiding in that bend, any animal or snake and you'd never know until you came face to face. Outside, you had a heavy breeze blowing from the nearby sea but inside that small tunnel, the air was thick, suffocating. The fear, the uncertainty I'd felt inside that small patch of darkness was undescribable.

That small memory is fresh again, thanks to what's happening around in my life right now. I feel as if I'm back in that cave, that small dark tunnel, on a remote mountain of my native village. Suddenly Life appears scary, uncertain, constricted and absolutely suffocating at times. It's as if I'm down on my knees, crawling ahead, not knowing if I'm moving or just scratching the ground. I know that this tunnel has an opening and there's fresh air outside. I also know that this compression will not last long, maybe a couple more months. And nothing's hiding in that bend that's ready to pounce on me. But boy, is this struggle intense!

'Be like tarzan,' He said.'Move around the jungle amidst all danger but hold on to the rope. Be connected to the source. Amidst all difficulties, be aware that God is taking care of you... you'll never suffer, let anything happen.'

The rope vanishes and before I panic, it's there again. I grab hold of it for dear life and stay afloat. I meditate. Slap myself for the small mistakes. Sit still and stare out as the endless night slowly brightens up. The stars fade. The horizon has a faint glow. The sun is arriving.

Everyone's on a journey...

And nothing stays. Absolutely nothing. Good, bad, ugly, stunning, horrible, pathetic, pleasant, blissful ... name it and it's gone or on its way out of the window. Your wonderful life or your miserable life...it ain't gonna last for eternity.

You are a traveller. Out on this extraordinary journey.

And it's nice to become aware of this, at times. Because most of the time, we get so lost in the details of living that we never realise the bigger picture. We may not even be aware that there might be a bigger picture, something beyond our own small, private nests. That a great network of something... is out there and we're but a part of this complex, beautiful system. Insignificant yet important.

As they say it, 'For the world, you might be just another person, but for someone, you might be the whole world!'

That someone need not be anyone but yourself.

Knowing that you are insignificant makes you humble. Knowing that you are important gives you strength.

It's good to be strong and humble...

...when you're travelling this path.

Rains...

Downpour.....
cascading
all day long
The whispers of these water drops
from heavens
as they kiss the earth.
A Soothing melody.
You know these whispers
from deep inside,
in your bones, in your cells.
Like you know them from so long ago,
from your childhood moments,
from inside your mother's womb,
from beyond that
in a previous life,
from countless lifetimes,
from eternity since rains were created...

Rolling clouds high up there

gloom in mid-noon

warmth inside a tight blanket

aroma of a hot chilli bonda

fried crisp

wafting in the air.

This sound, this moisture,

these droplets, the cold,

the energy that makes all these possible,

the way it affects and decides
a million varied life-forms,

the way it blocks

and brushes aside everything else

from your awareness,

shutting out all that's mundane
and profound.

This energy...

doesn't come from memory.

As if you've always known it,

beyond the time-space loop which
your present awareness is bound to.

All of these

are not separate
from you.

You

Are

These.

This moment,

when you sense
that you are one

with this aspect of nature,

you also grasp that you're one

with the rest,

with the whole.

The Whole has extended

into a tiny form,

which is you,

which is contemplating

feeling its oneness

with the Totality,

after an eternity of separatedness.

These whispers from heavens

to the longing earth

also wake you up

from

an

infinite

sleep.

Moist earth,

Clean air

Rising mist

Freshness

arising out

from

somewhere deep

inside.

A void

within.

The void

isn't empty

It was never...

pic by roby bon