Semusing #29 - Surrender

Letting go,
Things - the ones for touch, the ones for feel.
Digging into the earth
Rooted
But Flowing with the course
Of the divine design.
Not rigging things in favor
Accepting, embracing.
Not tracing back in time
Tagging on to 'only if' redundancy.
Not wondering, not mourning
Balanced firm on here, on now.
Molting the past
Shedding the pain.
Sweet surrender
In the tranquility of transience
Clutching to the infinite inside.

Semusing #28 - Experience

Reward. A great motivator. Every time I ask my daughter to complete her chores or homework she'd quickly ask me "What's my reward?" I roll my eyes and say "Your reward is doing them."

I'll not get into the sitcomish verbal war I get into with her but the last time I gave her that answer, I made an internal pause. Doing something is our reward? How did I mean it? And if I had said it to my preteen, I better justify it for myself I thought and suddenly I started making a laundry list of all things I did and what I got as a reward and though this would make for a good musing.

When I was twelve, I had to change schools - I was suddenly shifted to a regional medium of instruction from my convent school. I didn't give it too much of a thought then, and I did okay in the transition. When I look back, I see that, the change I had to undergo was the best thing that could have happened to me at that point in time. I faced a huge challenge, I struggled to make drastic shifts in my learning methods but at the end, I emerged as very versatile. Almost like one of a kind.

When I was seventeen, I was fortunate enough to have gotten a government Job.  In the late 90s when being employed by the government was a goal many people sough to achieve, I was there, fresh out of high school, drawing the salary of a grown up with the security and perks a central govt job had to offer. Many of my peers went to do their professional studies, some of them stopped back to opine that seventeen was a time to enjoy and study. I did enjoy, I did study too - through correspondence all while doing some real time learning of the world.

A few years ago, I went through a personal ordeal. A loss that I'd probably gather the fortitude to talk about on a public platform one day. There wasn't anything anyone could do to save us from it and I had to endure it as God's will, to the best I could, with the help of my significant other and my supportive family and friends. This event taught me to be grateful. Ironically, an incident that should have broken me, taught me to pause, look around and appreciate what all I have and all the support, backing and love I got in the process.

When I saw my MIL go through a terminal illness, I saw first hand, the power of impermanence, of mortality - of how fragile and short lived human life is. My MIL endured so much pain with an iron clad smile. I never caught her sulking, cranky or complaining. Watching her at close quarters was an experience that put a lot of things in perspective for me. She had been a tremendous influence on me. She rocked her life in all the choices she made while she lived - both in the peaks of fortune and the depths of bad times.

In the past year, I experienced divine grace upon me - some in the form of the most wonderful of events and some on the other side of the spectrum. I somehow, in the process of living all this life, gathered the insight to greet each of my experiences without sorting them into good and bad, they are here to teach me something. They are hear to make me experience something. And then to process those experiences and update my wisdom.

I think what ever experiences we are put through are hand picked, tailor made for us. Only if we cultivate the patience to step back and examine each of them as a experience catering to our evolution - as experiences that make our journey on this earth worth the while.

I know the answer now. I guess. If we make sure  each assorted experience that we are encountered with is embraced with grace, and with an intent to learn, we have arrived! Big time!


Here's to Experience - the biggest reward of all.

Semusing #27 - Saccharine

There's an instant
When reason eludes
When feeling emerges
Bringing down thawed emotions
Flowing like a river.

There's a moment
When stakes are high
When risks seem delightful
Pushing the limits
Rushing in the gushes
Of previously moderated commotions.

In that moment, stand staring life in the eye,
Challenge it to try you
Defy you.
Stand unfazed, stand for your truth
Embrace your Real.
It is once you live.
Just live.

Semusing #26 - Uni-Verse

I sit, back propped to the head board

Stretched, lounging in thought

Looking through the window.

Distant mountains of memories

Emerge in the horizon

I smile, I sigh

I laugh while shedding a silent tear.

Those many memories

Etched in love, inflicted in pain

Parade in the foreground.

A universe of experiences

Stowed into a database

That pops up like an unwelcomed guest.

I honor them all,

Bow to their presence

Hold hands in reverence.

Every one of those bitter sweet moments

That heaped to form the me

That muses, marvels and moans

Stringing meaningless excuses

For a verse.

Pic courtesy - Dhiren shah

Semusing #25 - Surrender

Here's an extension

A masquerade of confusion

As insights.

A tracing of wise footsteps

A grappling of meaning

In a abrupt world.

Here's a tribute

To all those creations that inspire

A yearning to surrender

Yet, a learning to have faith!

Semusing #24 - Haiku

Lush foliage 

Of laments and reveries

Hushing beneath.

Semusing #23 - Take away.

I am in a mood of precision and decided to do an objective type blogging where in I identify the exact take away, without much weaving around in elaboration.

Here's random things I learned during my home redo that spawned over a month, and is still work in progress in random order, though they are numbered for effect

#1 - The most comforting of foods is not a delicacy. It is not dessert either - it is the simple, unadulterated  meal, served off the stove, piping hot. It could be vegetable broth for all I care. Hot, freshly made if it is. (A takeaway from heating food in the microwave and eating it cold sometimes, when the situation demanded)

#2 - The biggest of our blessings are the most underrated ones. (A takeaway from the surprise hot tea a friend made and brought me in a thermos. It stayed hot for a good six hours. Imagine the comfort that slipped through an aggravated throat amid all the dust mites. Thank God for true friends and thoughtfulness)

#3 - A good chunk of our Bollywood, Tollywood music is, ahem, plagiarized - form Spanish music. (It is weird how many of those songs those workers blared in their phones as they worked away, sounded like something native I had heard somewhere , rest in peace - my quest for originality)

#4 - Humanity is a universal language. Though most of the helpers on the job didn't speak a word of English, they graciousness is something that touched and humbled me.

#5 - A space of your own is the biggest blessing - be it a shack or a palace, if you have your space, your privacy and your freedom to be yourself in your jammies, with hair marinating in coconut oil, piled up on your head like a rat's nest, while you sip your morning tea and giggle silly with your toddler. (Take away from having an army of men swarming in every nook and cranny, making me feel like I am in a public dorm, sharing space with a dozen strangers)

#6 - Everyone has a story, a life lesson, some wisdom to impart (Take away from the the struggles a few of them who knew how to manage a conversation in English shared with me)

#7 - Music is magic. It heals, it peps, it soothes, it inspires and it makes you pretend like a symphony conductor while spinning your Philips screw driver in thin air, with closed eyes, while immersed in a Mozart rendition (take away from watching the old man Pedro, that loved listening to western classical music like a zen monk in meditation, while he did odd jobs around the work site.

#8 - People are endearing, amusing and utterly considerate if we care to stop and stare (Take away from noticing a heavily wrapped something doing the rounds in my microwave - it was Roberto's  (the main contractor) way of being respectful of the fact that I let him use my 'strictly vegetarian' microwave to heat up his meat dish. I was planning to do a thorough clean up because I didn't want them to eat cold food - but was smiling when I saw how thoughtful they were of my finickiness.
"It won't smell now Senora" He beamed when he saw me observing him :-)

#9 - We are all born to be happy. But as we grow, the world gets to us (take away from noticing my darling three year old dousing in dust, feeding herself bread crumbs in lieu of spongy idlis and perfectly puffed rotis - all while bursting into a sing dance routine or engaging herself in an elaborate pretend play, enacting the workers she'd been intently watching all these days.

#10 - Everything is learning. Be it good, bad, ugly, challenging or awe inspiring - if we look at life with the right perspective, we can make the best of everything. We can connect with people that have nothing in common with us and we can live. And learn.

I have a lot more that would come - but here's a wrap. For there's more to catch up in my Semusing updation.

Semusing 23 - Verse

That stroll, on the shores 

Of uncountable, fleeting moments

We stream through

Lost in life, in making a living

Those days that slip away

Like sand in the fist

Those transient dents

That are leveled as waves of reality 

Splash on them.

Those many untaken roads

Unspoken words

Skipped through existence

Muffled through resistance

To those very moments,

Those days, those roads and words

Here's an epitaph of regret

Topped by the bouquet of a two minute silence.

Pic Courtesy - Chandra Elango

Semusing #22 - Acknowledge

I had noticed, that some of us are very cautious of acknowledging some of the times. An acknowledgement is broadly defined as the acceptance or admittance of the existence or truth but I am referring to the simple act of giving credit or a recognition where it belongs without even having to getting into the elaborate and graceful act of gratitude. For example, a friend does a favor - say, brings us a thoughtful gift. We do a lip service of "thank you" but in our minds or in conversations with others, we look at reasons why we deserve that gift and why the friend must have gotten it for us. We somehow twist it and stretch it and skew it so that it doesn't look as a favor that was conferred upon us. But somehow, magically, we step up onto a rung of entitlement.

There's another way of dodging this feeling of acknowledgement, that is even vile than the one mentioned above. We somehow put the kindness down - "So what if she made this for me? She did it for show off - or it is so easy peasy lemon squeezy that we don't need to even highlight it. What's there in making a whipped creme dessert? It's as easy as one two three - no biggie really!" I hope I am making sense. I get a little disappointed when I see people around me do this to themselves. I say to themselves because when we look for reasons to dodge gratitude, we are in a way putting ourselves down than anybody else.

There's a third prototype of entitlement that I came across. "They have this in abundance. They share it because they are going to waste it anyway. Or "They are riding there anyway. We are not piggybacking per say - cause they aren't stepping out of their way in any sense to accommodate us"

Huh! I wonder why we do this. Is this because it somehow belittles us to accept that someone had done something for us? Or is it because we feel it hurts our egos to acknowledge and give an accolade where it belongs? I don't know, really!

As I age, I realize that very few people have the grace to acknowledge, compliment or give credit where it belongs. It is unfortunate that we let our fragile egos get bigger than their britches and let ourselves bask in the false sense of superiority while we deprive ourselves of the magic of gratitude or the joy we get when we identify and honor the good that we come across.

I know, I am getting old. But, as I turn each page towards the inevitable, I notice that we don't grow up as we grow old. I vow to do the former and avoid the latter....We'll see how that goes!

:-)

Slide courtesy - Google

Semusing #21 - The hapless knowing

Taare Zameen Par is a movie that captured my rapture to the tee - probably in a very egotistic way. I related to both the protagonists, swooned over the treatment and the camera angles, hummed the soul stirring lyrics set to body swaying music and marveled at the story telling prowess of the perfectionist Amir Khan. It is the kind of cinema that makes you proud, that makes u want to own it and brag about it to non Indian movie goers, much like a mom enamored by the achievements of her child.

As a non screen goer, I watched the movie, parked on my living room couch and was in awe. I was in love. I was in an intense feeling of contentment. It was as if an amalgam of complex emotions was transferred to a visual in perfect form. It brought to my heart's realm the many layers of this animal called life. It's been close to a decade since I caught the movie, but there are scenes I recollect to the minutest of detail. I wished to do a full reviewing of the film through my words, but I decided to confine my verbal awe to just one song "Maa"

Before I muse about the song, I need to mention tidbits of wisdom I heard from veteran mothers. "No matter how you ace it, how perfect you are at it, you'll always look back with a regret or two" One wise mom opined. "So don't ever judge yourself too harshly, you do your best, and remember that sometimes your best isn't good enough and that's okay"
"You always play it back in your mind's eye, and always, find ways to improvise" Another mom added.

 Twelve plus years of mothering 2 kids, I am already in agreement with the above sentiments.  This is kind of a digress form the song, but I had to mention it, cause as a mom, I cringe to put myself in the shoes of this screen mom.

Shankar Mahadevan's classically trained vocals lend the perfect despondence to the heart ripping lyrics. There isn't a need to tell about the visuals that are married perfectly to every word in the background. The song as a whole perhaps nutshells the plight of many helpless situations we face in failing our loved ones - some situations that we are put into, and some, we put ourselves into. But the beauty isn't that at all - the beauty is the empathizing plea of the child - A child that would always, in ways beyond its scope, finds reasoning behind everything the parents put it through...It isn't until later in life, probably, that it gathers a tally of the scratches or scars that it is put through in the name of being raised well.

The choice of words, from the child confessing that he is scared of the dark but never tells - and the urge not to send him away so far that he couldn't trace back the steps to home. There's a particular line where he speaks about "Jab be khabhi papa mujhe jo zor se....." Every time I hear that line, though I know what follows, I brace myself in a pain that only a perfectly administered lyric can inflict upon you. "Chehre pe aane deta nahi, man hi man main Ghabraata hoon maa..." Woah! wait. How is it even possible to take an abstraction and give it the perfect wordage? , and then, as if that isn't enough, we see the child, opening a faucet and wiping his tears. On the count of three....Sigh!!!


I know I can go on and on about every frame and every word and every pause and still not get over the profundity this song had achieved - from the expressions of the dad in the foreground, to the brother weeping in the background and all the brimming but never flowing tears the little kid holds in his large eyes. It is sad that we as humans, sometimes, somehow fail to translate our intentions well into actions. We are so bent upon doing what we think is right for someone that we might crumple a soul in the process. We might be true in many cases but we cease to be right.

The song in a way makes me second guess every decision I make that I think I make in the best interest of a loved one. It tenderizes me, opens me to the soreness of misplaced, well meant decisions.

Like the wise mom said - "We'll always look back and wish we'd done something differently" This thought is probably a redemption we give ourselves to the our shortcomings in the name of love.

For now, I am off to another looping of the number, while I pray I'd look back with as few regrets as I can manage in this hapless emotion we call love and in all the atrocities we commit under that umbrella.

Semusing #20 - Verse

Let me make the best of light

Making the shadows my playmates

Amuse myself between the yin and yang

Creating fluid artwork to keep me company.

Let me look at every moment

Like a treasure hunt, a chance at joy

Looking for happiness in havoc

Patting my own back, giving my own being a push.

Let me squeal in joy, at every encounter

Greet each fleeting minute with rapture

Let me trace back my path. beyond the formatting of the world

Beyond the shackles of a 'fit in' algorithm.

Let me sing like the bird in woods

Dance like a peacock in the wild

Not worried who would watch

Or who would care to approve, appreciate.

Let me do it for myself, not giving a damn about the accolade.