Semusing #6 - Unidentified Baggage

I am all beaming today, cause the musing came in an unexpected package and with a metaphorical aura. As we put ourselves through the daunting task of a kitchen remodel, I am greeted with more than my plate could contain. First off, I had to empty all the cabinets and then find place to stow them away. Now, moi isn't a hoarder - but moi isn't a minimalist either when it comes to my kitchen. My substance abuse problem manifested itself into larger than life proportions. Well - I appoint a little bit of exaggeration when I say that, but the ones who know me probably know how rooted my identity is into my home space with special reference to my kitchen. My material acquisitions in both the foster land and home land are primarily the ones that are used in different surfaces of the kitchen and dining area - pots, pans, trivets, ladles, spoons, dessert bowls, china, fine china, bone china, porcelain china, enameled cast iron, crystal ware, stainless steel,  etcetera etcetera etcetera....I have a situation here - a compulsive desire to cook and feed people. Cooking to me is cathartic, life giving, inspiring, unwinding, relaxing, spiritual and a lot more adjectives that elude me as we speak. So, the stuff that aided cooking and feeding came tumbling out  figuratively, out of the literal woodwork, and out came many good intentions, mostly put to use - but some were grossly neglected. Some were buried into oblivion and were discovered only when I reached into the unfathomable corners of some ill placed cabinets..I got a good inventory of what's needed and what needed to be purged but there it was, this little message in a bottle of sorts - sealed meticulously, sporting the look of an intoxicant, contained in an unusual size - unlabeled and mysterious.

This is not the first time I spotted this bottle. I did before and showed it to the spousal unit, wondering how in the world, it forayed into my kitchen space without my knowing. "What is this thingie?" I flashed the bottle to him and asked and we speculated around what it could be. It didn't look viscous enough to be honey, though it looked the same hue. It didn't look like wine either. We looked at each other figuring out what it could be.

"Reckon it is one of your lotions or potions?, some essential oil may be? A cold pressed exotic blend for the muscle pains?" We had no clue what it was and we were reluctant to give up on it and chuck it in the garbage. What if it was liquid gold? May be it is some magic potion that could make us billionaires. You know the drift right? We cannot just toss stuff that way when it looks like it could be precious/important. So I carefully tucked it back into one of those less accessed drawers and left it there. To marinate or to age into an antique until it surfaced again.

This time around, I kept wondering to myself how this has ended up in the kitchen cabinet of all the places. We bring every thing into our homes ourselves - some consciously, some sub consciously may be! Do we bring them in and then forget them? Neglect them? I was in for my usual spin, rummaging through the senseless to find a treasure of sense. "Unidentified" I thought. Something that could have been important if we know what it was. May be we bring in so many such things into our hearts and minds as well and then just forget about them, or worse yet, hoard them while cluttering our minds, reluctant to let go because they should be, could be of use sometime, someplace, somehow. Until one fine day we either magically know what it is or just leave it behind. If it is tangible, the kith and kin might toss it out upon our departure from the earthy realm. Why do we tug on to things that don't serve a definite purpose? why do we hold on to things that need to be let go?

I have no answer for that. May be we should just let them go...it might clear up our homes and hearts for things that we need and want.

The bottle in question, I intend to open and inspect. I might get a better idea of what it is and if it serves any end and then keep it/toss it. But I wish I can examine the intangible, unidentified baggage that I carry around in my inside and unclutter my being so I optimize my function from the insides.

Operation clarity for me Operation eye roll for my blog following brethren :-)

Semusing #5 - The Oxymoron syndrome

I am mighty excited today, because my 'writer's block' decided to go on a break and I have a first person account to banter about, that has the potential of not being as boring as my previous musing. 

So let's talk music. Let's talk quirks, let's talk emotions,  let's talk tastes. Let's talk a speculation of being dropped on the head as a baby.

As I flip pages past to the eighties, I trace back to my love for a certain genre of music. And I have a strong feeling that this particular trait of mine was inspired by a particular song in a blockbuster from the eighties. It was from a movie called Hero and the director Subhash Ghai, I discover later, was the blue eyed boy of celluloid story telling back then. My maternal uncle, who is a huge music buff, was my wikipiedia of sorts. I used to linger around his conversations with his college friends with perked up ears cause there was so much information which was dispensed in there, that was awe inspiring. In one such eavesdropping episodes, I heard him rave about a singer named Reshma from Pakistan and how he actually bought the ticket to the film Hero multiple times just to listen to her sing. So there was a mention about Laxmikanth Pyarelal's flute as well. Uncle Raghu's conversations, I realized early on, were annotated with finer details cause he was a dog lover and a hard core connoisseur of the Carnatic style of music as he plays the mridangam himself.

I had the good fortune of listening to the tape at my grandfather's house and add up a visual thanks to DD1's chitrahaar..Lo and behold, I was smitten. I was very little to understand much but It was probably my first brush with the feeling of being in love though the object of my affections was very abstract. The nasal twang, the forlorn expression on the Heroine's face and the melancholic strain acted as the perfect catalyst to my 'happy sad song' syndrome. I was launched into the wonderful world of lyric, music and vocals. As I grew up, I gasp every time I see a sad number being played in a sufi strain, folk dialect and all that... I realize, just like me, Bollywood has been in love with the song too, to get inspired over and over and over again.

It was all good. I loved crooning in a happy mood, all the sad songs that caught my attention. As I grew up, the data base of songs increased and I used to grind my mother's nerves to no end singing them in the background. I had this uncanny ability to pick on the most morose of lyrics that metaphorically spoke about death and my mom used to blow hot n cold asking me to shut up. I once asked her to elucidate why she disapproved every time I sang "O papa lali" number from Geetanjali. 

"Janma mottaniki laali padakkarledu" (Meaning, you don't need to sing a lullaby for the entire lifetime in one go) was her argument and she had to explain it to me that the lyric metaphorically indicated the terminal nature of the heroine's disease in that movie. How did I care? It sounded even more enthralling.

Then there was a phase when Indian movies had tear jerking versions of the happy song. Almost every single time I heard a song I loved, I used to wonder if it had a sad version and dig around to listen to it first before I proclaimed my love to the happier one. "Kucch na Kaho" from 1942 a love story was the national anthem of sorts in my teen years. I remember singing the Lata Mangeshkar's version every single time my friends sat around to a point where one of my close buddies threatened to hit me if I chose to sing that drag version and spoil the mood of the day. "What spoil people?" I was swaying in ecstasy. But then, some arguments were won by avoiding them. Or better yet, ignoring :-)

This is getting longer than I intended it to be, but no talk about sadness is complete without the heart wrenching sound of ghazals by Jagjit Singh and lyrics by Gulzaar. The movie 'Maachis' was my altime favorite album and one of its numbers had a whole imagery of Kabr, mitti, asmaan' - the foreground was serenading death and the back ground was, you probably guessed it - my mother's helpless pleas to shut the goddamned tape recorder. Ear phone's weren't a thing yet in my radar, but once the tape recorder was switched off, I used to relay play it in my own vocals. One of us gave up eventually, and I think it was her more often than me.

By this time, I also was lamenting (according to all and sundry) in my fake american accent, trying to sound like Celine Dion when her "Go on" appeared on the horizon with James Cameron's Titanic. Pain has no limits and limitations. So why be partial to tollywood or bollywood when there's a whole entire planet out there. Right? Right!

I'll have to truncate this for now, wrapping up with my happy sad song. This kind of brings my Oxymoron syndrome to culmination. When I first listened to Heer song from Tamasha, I froze in my tracks, cause it was a sensory overload. Rahman's music, surrealist poetry and Imtiaz ali's visuals....my my my! And a sentiment that aligned with my inner Meena kumari while its wordage matched my outer Ellen DeGeneres. When the lines questioned "Baji badi ab band heer ki ab is band pe naache koun?" I always gesticulate 'me, me me' while shaking my two right legs. By God, I tell you, Imtiaz envisioned this song as a tribute to me. He might not know it, but that is what it is.

1985 becomes 1995 becomes 2018....the miffed mom is replaced by an embarrassed daughter - "Amma, stop grooving. You look funny, you cannot dance, Give up already"

Me - "It is my home darling, you can take your backside to your room if you cannot see me dance"

Sometimes she walks away, sometimes she does a face palm and hangs around while the toddler (Who, I am happy to report, dances like a dream, unlike mommy dearest) and I sway away to the badi saad number.

I end it on a seriously silly note - I have to quote my P B Shelley, from The Skylark :-)

We look before and after, 

And pine for what is not: 

Our sincerest laughter 

With some pain is fraught; 

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. 

P.S - Pressed for time, publishing it without proofing.

Pic courtesy - screenshots from youtube.

Semusing #4 - Ten things.

It is funny how my mind keeps churning stuff to write about all day and once I settle and sit down to have 'my time', I find it near impossible to write. Especially when I have a deadline. So, I was searching around to look for prompts to kick start a ponder and I came across Ruchi More's 'Ten Things I discovered about myself' and decided to use the prompt for my fourth musing.

It is amusing how I am suddenly at a stage in life where all I seem to discover is myself. It is probably the age I am at, or the series of events that occurred in the past few years of my life, that I keep finding form to the blur of my insides. It is probably ironical too that right at the point where I discovered that I don't identify with the 'I' as much it seems to be necessary for survival, I am here doing a full blown ego banter about the 'I'. Why not? I thought. My future self might enjoy looking back at this blog and being amused at the consistency of me.

So here are Ten random things about myself.

I find it near impossible to park myself before a screen or to push myself to go to the movies. I don't know what it is about wanting to watch a show or a movie at a stretch that puts me off like nothing else, no matter the content. Even the most engrossing of them fail to entice me enough to take the initiative to go to the theater and watch. My friends often drag me along once in a while, and if the company is dear to me, I give in and join them. Most of the movies I watched with full attention are the ones I did aboard Emirates EK225/226 cause I am tied to the seat and have little choices to keep myself occupied as I cannot fall asleep on a flight.

I am scared of crowds. I like being around my people but something about being in a group of people makes me very nervous. I am a homebody that can find a million ways to entertain myself at home but the moment I need to go out to socialize or shop, my first impulse would be to look for a way of avoiding those trips. I get drained in social settings, just by sitting and doing nothing, in a way intense house work can never drain me.

I am very gutsy and am seldom scared otherwise. People that know me at a distance might laugh at this, but ask the spousal unit and you'll get confirmation. Fear and Envy are emotions that I very rarely experience.

I find it hard to react to my own pain. I find it very hard to cry for myself. I have been through some major ups and downs without shedding a tear. Makes me wonder if I have a heart at all. But I can sense the pain of a stranger and react to it in a blink.

I have a nonchalance towards death. Deep down, I probably have a very strong sense of the spirit and I look at my own life in third person. At the risk of sounding cuckoo and insensitive, I don't look at death as an end. To me it seems to be a transition into something beyond the illusion of life.

I find it impossible to hold hurts and grudges. Perhaps the most adorable quality about myself is my ability to forgive and forget.

I am completely devoid of ambition. I don't aspire for any bigger things in life. I am not motivated by money, fame or a sense of achievement. My goals consist of doing the simplest, most mundane things a human being can think of doing.

My family calls me 'innocent' probably in lieu of naive or stupid. Grin. I thought they were wrong, but lately, think I am in agreement with them.

I enjoy being with nature, books, animals, kids, music and art. All of these have been my consistent companions since my childhood.

It takes a lot to offend me or put me down. I am an exceptionally secure person.

And for my last discovery about myself - I am very slow with my reactions which often make me wonder if I am abnormal in some way. I am more aware than I am alert. And my awareness makes me slow to my reflexes.

Geez...I hope it didn't reek of self love. Truth be told, I don't have a sense of self. And I hope I would never be in love, let alone with myself.

Instead, I hope to be love. At least, that's what I'd been discovering lately beyond myself, that love is not a feeling. It is a state of being.

Thank you for your patience and tolerance :-D

Semusing #3 - The Duel

It is cool to be someone that despises routine and is devoted to randomness. But having a routine is always more productive than being guided by the mood and flow, though the latter is definitely more pleasurable. Once in a while, I do succumb to the allure of a routine as it makes me productive and gives me the thrill of realizing how well I function under pressure and commitment. This undertaking to muse all month is one such venture. But the problem with the likes of me is that once they have a thing they need to do, all they can think of is about how to complete that thing before anything else -  so in a way, I realized I become less productive when I have a routine as I spend most of the time in my mind, being less present in the moment while I do other things in the given day. Which brings me to the point of ponder - The Duality duel.

When I was a teen, a teacher of mine, who was a huge influence, introduced me to the works of Dale Carnegie among other writers he admired. I read two of Carnegie's books during that time which were his 'How to' Series and I was taking my baby steps into to the wonderful world of non fiction. In his book 'How to stop worrying and start living' Carnegie talks about living in 'day tight compartments' - a jugaad he suggests to win over worrying in a loop. At that age, I was just breaking into the habit of thinking over and over and when he had put the 'day tight compartment' thought in my head, I was more charmed by his play of words than his advocacy behind them. Talk about misplaced comprehension. A couple of years down the lane, when I was still a teen, a family friend of ours, who caught me reading another of those 'self help' non fictions made a snide remark about how it is lowly to read books to learn how to live. "Why do we need books to tell us how to live? Don't we have it in us to do it ourselves?" was his argument. Though I wasn't a very outspoken, argumentative teen, I was a very independent one. I dismissed his remarks in my head and continued to read all the books I could lay my hands upon, including the utterly cheesy tabloid and women magazines that my aunt used to carry with her every time she visited us. No book was useless and I had so few of them in reach anyway. 

Lately, I realized, that I had pretty much spent most of my reading time in non fiction, though the genre kept changing depending on what I could get my hands on, until I discovered  subjects I wanted to delve deeper into - Spirituality and Philosophy. I realize, most of the thoughts of all philosophers and mystics are very similar. They all seem to lead to the same destination while taking different roads and they all seem to focus much on the dissolution of mind and the ego - and by ego, they do not mean the "Ego" but the identity human beings have to their physical realms such as their body and material possessions. It is funny how, I find dots that connect almost all information I gathered through my reading escapades and I don't know if the books have a destiny, like everything else that I believe is orchestrated to reach us just at the right moment. If they have a road map of their own, if they choose the reader and the time they want to be read. I have some books that are in their shrink wrap for a good couple years and books that I grab from a friend's coffee table and take off reading through half way in one go, without planning it. 

Before I digress, which I am an expert at doing,  I'll get back to the duality principle.

So, this commitment to write all month is a thought that takes form and then there is this urge to skip it. The mind goes in a loop "What do you have to muse about today? It sounds too egotistic anyway, just put the laptop away and do something else" - Now I recognize that every thought we have has a duality that challenges it and pulls it down. And as if that isn't a distraction enough, there is a body that keeps asking you to give in to its comforts. "Nap for a while" it keeps egging you - while another side gently lingers around in the brain as a good intention that says "Take a walk in nature" It might inspire your next musing while keeping your body and mind aligned. This, I gather, happens as a constant in every human life, with every human thought that takes place. This probably is the battle of the conscious and the subconscious - the conscience or lack thereof. It is empowering to know and recognize the several voices, thanks to all the wisdom that is dispensed to me by the great philosophers and thinkers in those dozens of books that surround me as we speak. 

I sometimes get a little miffed at the maze of this existence and this illusion that pulls us in two different directions. What purpose do these serve? Are they those litmus tests, those loops of fire we need to jump through as mortals to realize the ultimate purpose of our existence? Are these the energies that let us sort out for ourselves the priorities in the process of our evolution? I let out a toned down expletive and choose what I perceive as the right thing to do at that given juncture - although, it helps to admit, that I drag myself to do it at times. I experience major gratification on minor wins in my day to day life when I know I am choosing right among the duality presented to me. For now, the win is this ponder. I know I ace at sounding abstract. I know because I was told (Grin) But for today, abstraction is the name of the game. It is the win I claim over that seductive little tone that kept wooing me to skip this and call it a day. So, I wrap it up with a sense of achievement - a little win in this unfathomable human existence - and I cannot thank enough, all those books that presented themselves to me over the course of maneuvering through this earthly visit.

Senseless Semusing hashtag 3 - It is a wrap!

Semusing #2 - The Stretch

It was the beginning of a brand new school year last month and the preteen showed up poker faced the first two days. I wanted to know more about her new class and teachers but as she grows, I see that extracting information from her requires a lot of knack, questioning and probing. It almost gives me the feeling of playing a law enforcement officer interrogating a suspect.

"So how was school today?"

"Okay"

"Do you know anyone from any of your classes?"

"Hmm"

"Is that a yes or a no?"

"Hmm, I don't know" "Wait..X is in my core class"

"Oh cool...someone we know for long. Must be exciting"

And then she goes silent. Until I gather the patience to ask more questions.

A couple of days after first day of school, when I was busy in the kitchen, I heard her from behind me.

"Amma, I don't like a particular teacher Miss D"

I paused for a while not knowing where this conversation that was initiated by her is heading. 

"But I thought they aren't teaching anything yet...So, you find her teaching too hard to understand?"

"No, no..She's not started any lessons yet. But she has this attitude. She is very strict about the rules in the class. She wants everyone to have a certain colored folders. How does the color of a folder change anything? Some kids bought folders already and it is all going to be a waste of money and effort for them"

"But how much does a folder cost? a dollar?"

"It costs 25 cents. That is beyond the point"

"What is the point then?"

"The point is that she has way too many expectations. And an accent."

"She sound like me then. Expectations and an accent, no wonder you don't like her"

"Very funny! I mean, she says Comfourtaible for comfortable"

"But you all know what she means when she says that. How does pronunciation matter?"

The know all preteen gives a pause. "Well, it doesn't matter really! But she says she would allow only one toilet break per week. Are we enrolled into a boot camp or what?" She does the characteristic middle schooler eye roll.

"Good for her, she has the rules down. As much as I know dealing with middle / high school students first hand, I would lay down rules of the game ahead too, just to save you all some surprises and save myself some being sassed"

"So you don't mind buying me new folders in the said color"

"I don't. It won't makes us go bankrupt for one thing and she might have a reason behind color coding. May be she teaches several classes and can bifurcate them easily based on the folder color"

"Well, that's not the point. She doesn't smile much. She is a serious type"

"I would only bother about the 'type' if I am going to spend the rest of my life married to her"

"And you call me sassy? look at how you talk to your 12 year old, do you even understand that there is a three year old that listens to you and picks up on your phrases?"

"Let us get to the point - why don't you like her? Is she not good at her subject?"

Suddenly she falls silent. "I don't know amma. May be I need to think through why I don't seem to like her"

Then I get on my soapbox and dispense my parental gyaan. Trying not to sound too imposing. "May be we stretch a little on our preconceived notions. Whether we choose to like or hate a person, we always find ways to justify it to ourselves. It seldom happens that you look at a person you dislike and say - He/she is very reasonable, it is me that chose to look at him/ her a certain way. If she is here to teach me something, the only gauge I would use to judge her is if she fails in some way to perform her duties as a teacher, I do not expect her to befriend me or pick the color of the class folder corresponding to my choice"

"You think so high of yourself don't you? Like you can simplify everything?"

"I don't know what I think of myself but you seem to know more of what I think than I do myself"

"You know the problem with you? We argue but you make sure you always win"

"May be I only argue if I have a winning point"

"Fine. I'll keep a close watch on the teacher and report her back to you"

A couple of days pass and I actually see the teacher in action at the 'back to school night'- She does have rules and an accent alright and she smiles a little less than me but she seemed to be a very sharp and sensible lady.

When I got home that day, the preteen eagerly greeted me at the door.

"So who's your favorite?"

"I like all of them. They all seem to have such different and wise personalities. I am so excited for you. You can pick some wonderful experiences this year going by the team of teachers you have"

"what do you think about Miss D?"

"Oh she is so smart. She taught honors in a private high school before moving to our city, did you know that? 

"Is that a big deal amma?"

"A bigger deal than you can imagine. And if you are too caught up on how less she smiles and how many rules she runs her class by, you'll lose out on learning all the cool stuff she knows - just imagine sitting through an hour judging her for her pronunciation and disciplinary actions. And I think she'll get her paycheck deposited into her bank irrespective of whether or not you choose to like her while you might be busy disliking her and staying only as smart as you were in your previous grade"

                                                    *********************

Fast forward to almost the third week into the new school year, the preteen comes to report to me that she is liking Miss D more than she thought she could and Miss D seems to like her as well. All this exchange of opinions kind of made me process some lessons for myself. My child helped me to put a lot of what we subconsciously assume and distort, into my awareness. May be I grow in the process of raising her, if you discount that random episodes when I raise my voice instead of myself and turn into a hot heap of temper when she sasses me.

"I thought you were meditating lately to find your inner peace. So much for your spiritual quest"

"God puts the devil in your way to test your peace sometimes. I should be more mindful the next time"

"Did you call me a devil? - The apple didn't fall too far away from the tree"

"Oh, they had a hurricane when the apple fell and it was blown a few miles away"

She chuckles but pouts to show her displeasure "You make sure you win all the time"

"I make sure I argue only when I have a point"

"Fine...you think you are perfect don't you?"

"That's what you think of me"

She rolls her eyes and stomps away.

I smile to myself. It is fun to sass her to her level and to raise her to mine. And I hope I'll finish my job of parenting with minimal dents and scratches - cause I am convinced that no matter how you deal with it, parenting is the toughest job in the world and it might leave some adverse side effects. She really thinks I am perfect notwithstanding my shortcomings. I am far away from it. But when I look at the responsibility I have before me, I try to be more sensible than I am as I cannot be perfect. It is an exhausting job and as long as it works, I am willing to be happily exhausted.

Semusings - To ask or not to ask

Right when I decided to write some fifty one fragments of fiction,  I get this inspiration to start my month long musings with my friend Shail Mohan - So here's a digress and hopefully an iron clad commitment - A series of musings in the month of September that I call Semusings.

 Here goes day one and the rhetoric is - Should I ask, or shouldn't I?

I have a huge block when it comes to asking. And then I wonder if I ever am comfortable about asking anything from anyone. The only urge I seem to have to ask is when I feel this intense need to learn something. Back in the day, I had my biology teacher put a limit of how many questions I could ask her in her hour. She called me "Doubtage kutumbam" which translates to "Doubtage Family" in queen's English. Other than that kind of asking, I felt little to no need of asking anyone for anything. "Self sufficiency" was the name of the game in our household. We were expected to not ask for any help unless it was absolutely necessary. It was our parents' way of making sure we were independent. Soon enough, asking became akin to dependency or a feeling of entitlement or expectation from the other party, all of which were things well bred people weren't expected to feel. This worked well for the longest time. In fact, it did until a couple of days ago. I saw a gofundme page created by a friend whose spouse is undergoing treatment for some serious health issues. "It is very hard for us to ask" she went on.. and those words loomed large in front of me. It kind of triggered a retrospect of my own 'hard for me to ask' and I went on doing what I do best. Ponder upon that trigger.

So why do we find it hard to ask? I cannot answer this for the whole entire human brethren, but I was determined to do the findings for myself. I realized I find it hard to ask because of more than one reasons. I assume that the other person might think I am using or abusing them and judge me for asking. I assume that if they are not able to do it for me, they might feel bad and I don't want to subject them to feeling bad. I fear that if they say no, in case they have to say no, I'd feel rejected and sad. Or may be I thought it would wound my pride. Or I thought if they are like me and cannot say no, they might go out of their way and trouble themselves by helping out. It was my defense mechanism to not ask so I didn't let people assume I am leeching on them or I protect myself from the possible rejection. Besides, asking is a sign of entitlement and expectation, remember that? But is it as lowly a verb as I assumed it to be? If we are in a social setting and we co exist and if we believe that getting ahead is getting along well with others and success is linked with co-operation, how does not asking and this whole ball of "I don't want to ask" wax fit into that co-operative setting? Does asking really put the asker down? And then I examined how I feel when people ask me for something. Do I judge them or assume they are acting entitled? - No I don't. I actually get immense joy out of helping others, to a point where I keep telling the dearest of my people that givers are the biggest seekers and every time I respond to someone asking me for help, I bask in this glory of being able to help others. I realized that helping others acts as a subtle reinforcement of my ego. Then why do I assume others think differently than me? Isn't it me that is assuming more than anyone else in this 'asking' scenario? Do I rate myself as 'holier than thou'?

Perhaps I do!

I got to admit, I feel that I am finally in the 'now we are talking' mode - In the idiomatic sense of it, as I grow older and hopefully wiser than I was yesterday. My friend's post suddenly made me realize that like everything else in life, asking isn't black or white. Sometimes asking is a sign of hope. A sign of optimism and a sign of faith. Asking is a sign of being unassuming about the other person and letting them decide how they want to respond to our asking without taking it personally or over analyzing their response.  Asking is a sign of inclusion, a sign of humility. An act that lets us admit to ourselves that we are but humans and we need help from time to time and there are many souls out there, eager to help. If we are to survive by ourselves, I am sure we'd not have this whole support system of life into play.

I decided to step out of my comfort zone and ask for my friend. The result was a heartwarming response. Many of my friends pitched in and donated to to this friend in need and that made me feel so blessed. Asking for help and receiving it felt magical, fulfilling and wonderful. It put a whole new spin on this inhibition I had around seeking help.

As with every privilege in life, I understand it has to be used sparingly, but once in a while, when we feel inadequate, helpless or at the end of our rope, we should let our hope, trust and faith kick in and ask. We'd be surprised at what all can be offered in return.

Many things are lost for the want of asking, so next time we are in need or in doubt, we shouldn't be hard on ourselves or others. we should just ask! It can change our life, our day, our perspective, our planet. Into a better place.

Fiction fragments #3 - Bridge

He sets of on his long ride by the scenic seventeen mile drive, his 'go to' road of epiphanies. When he particularly feels lost or low he steers his way into what the outdoors has to offer as this exploration leads him to unexplored territories into his own psyche. Lately, he is experiencing a slight dislike about the way things are shaping up in his life. Again, it has to do little with the outside and a lot to do with his insides. He is a man of answers. He has them at the tip of his fingers...answers to every quandary, every dilemma life might present. But even heroes have hindrances on their way. Even heroes cry and complain. Even the strongest of men falter sometimes and their true feelings surface, for once, betraying their fortitude.

And it isn't happening just once. It has become a pattern lately. He finds it so easy to share his joy about the littlest of things - like a man child. He smiles when it drizzles and exclaims that rain makes him happy to the random passerby on the sidewalk and talks to a stranger at Starbucks and tells them how ecstatic he is to meet his niece. Sharing joy comes naturally to him. He likes to spread the smiles and bask in his extrovert overtures. Until the inevitable antihero of life kicks in. Pain. Yikes! What pain? He denies it almost viciously. He is at this juncture in life, face to face with the urge to confess. That's where she comes into the picture. He finds himself blurting it out to her like he had taken a truth potion, something about her triggers in him, the inexplicable compulsion to come clean and tell her his deepest of hurts.  There's a magic about her presence, the nonchalance with which she listens to him, never interrupting or judging, and then saying something that wondrously simplifies his agony. She annihilates all his facades, all his inabilities to process painful emotions with the precision of a skillfully administered antidote. This leaves him flustered enough to look for answers to the vulnerability she subjects him to, and then miraculously dismantles them into non existence.

He sees a bridge in the distance, faded by the dense fog - and he smiles. The epiphany. Happiness might make us think of a hundred people to share it with, but sorrow has the power to reveal our most intense bonds to us. He smiles because at that moment, he learns a valuable truth about himself. A bridge that leads to his treasure when he is struck with the deepest of hurts. 

She flashes in his mind during his every moment of pain, as if she is the only one that could salvage his trauma. Bingo! The solace, the shade, the relief, the solution. Suddenly he feels blessed for all the pains, for they lead them to the most cherished, sacred connection of his heart. A few lucky souls like him experience it.

Pic credit - Chandra Elango

Fiction fragments #2 - Reflect

She's someone who likes to do things promptly. But her promptness in communication is something that makes a stand out. Whether it is a voice mail, email, text,call or an evite- the moment she receives one, she makes an instant effort to respond. She doesn't have a laundry list of pet peeves, but she gets mildly miffed when people take correspondence easily, or worse yet, when they choose to ignore it. The modern day 'read receipts' give her some kind of solace, that the communication has happened as sometimes, that very comfort of knowing it happened and the party in receipt of it chose to ignore it, for whatever reason they had, put her anxiety to ease. She liked to observe things without being judgmental and suddenly finds that she is in the middle of judging herself for this quirk. She  ponders over how her otherwise easy going self takes this particular aspect of human behavior seriously and one day a flash comes to her from nowhere, in the form of a childhood memory.

She remembers being awake to the door bell of her dad coming home and her mom answering it. She shuts her eyes in an effort to go back to bed when she listens to her parents talking in the adjacent room. Her dad's voice sounding strained and low "RS has passed away" He tells her mom to which her mom gasps and exclaims "What?" in utter shock. Her dad's friend in question was someone she heard of but had never seen, but somehow she knew that this man was an important friend in her dad's life.

"He sent me a message through a young boy yesterday and this morning as well. I was busy at work and said I'd show up later" Her dad continues to sound drained. "I had no clue he was dying. Only if I had remembered and taken the message seriously" She hears his voice shake a little and the room falling to a deathly silence. She fails to recollect if her mind went into her usual thinking spiral upon overhearing her parents or if they just stayed silent in the helplessness of the situation.

That event forms a lasting impression on her to a point where she never takes a message easily. She, always, in a deep subconscious, wonders if that friend had something to tell her dad - one last favor to ask, or probably a burden to share which would have made his passing easier. A message that would never be conveyed and  would always be conjectured. she inwardly knew that it was a burden her dad had to drag along whenever he remembers the friend.

She smiles to herself when she discovers the foundation of her obsessive need to respond to every sort of communication, even when her ESP senses a cold caller on the other side of the telephone ring. She doesn't ever want to allow herself to slip into a self wrap that might deny a dear one  or anyone in some sort of need - whether it be a deathbed wish or a mundane favor of picking up kids from school while they lay stuck in the notorious commute traffic or the simple need to say hello to someone close amid a tough day at work.

Life, she discovers, is death lurking around the corner - and an opportunity to alleviate someone's pain might flip into a guilt that creates one's own pain in no time. and she at that very moment, obliterates the distinction between her pain and someone else's - cause from the perspective she chooses to see, they appear to her as the sides of the same coin. 

Fiction fragments #1 - Repurpose

She walks in the garden getting a whiff of the foliage. She halts and bends to snap a leaf off, gently rubbing it in her palms to sniff it. What in the world does this remind me of? A familiar smell perks up her senses to a point where it tricks her to feeling hungry.
"Italian" She whispers to herself, "Parsley!"

Her mind wanders around into the database of her recipes, wondering what she could transform this lovely flavor into, except her taste palette, quiet confined to the finicky familiarity of her native cuisine, rejects the prospects of taking some into her kitchen and whipping up a freshly made 'from the scratch' pasta sauce for instance. She remembers how her sister measures up dried parsley leaves to add to her home made marinara to smear on the pizza crust.

"Too much work for something I might not even taste" she dismisses the idea. But the herb holds her attention. She runs her thumb on a leaf, while gently holding it on her fingers, and smiles to herself.

A recycled glass tumbler holds the fresh cascade of parsley on her dining table for almost a fortnight. She would light her candle next to the herb and gently pluck a leaf to sniff every now and then...this tiny indulgence of her senses acting like a  pleasant punctuation to her daily chores. The leaves fade to an interesting yellow at the edges and the smell dwindles into a milder version as the days flip by. She feels a sense of achievement to have put the herb to some use, albeit unconventional. She realizes that she's slowly becoming an expert at her game - to find 'out of the box' ideas to fit into her pesky rigidity. Sometimes she wonders if a lot of what does linger around in her heart could be revamped this way - if a heart ache could be plucked and arranged into a display, somehow making it an eye candy. If a loss, a void or a suffering could be used to generate similar sense of achievement. She smiles to herself. Sometimes, she could only let the time wither them into subdued, faded versions of themselves - their remains, still burning like embers in some concealed corners of her heart.

"How cool it would be?, If we could feign a suffering into sanctity, a deceit into a delight?"

But for now, the delicate bunch of parsley substituting as a centerpiece of her dinner table is enough distraction for her. Until the next opportunity to repurpose a shrub or a slash presents itself...Then she'll up her ante, and one day, lets hope, that she might transform a deceit into a delight!

Illusions

Through your opaque coolers,

Those bangs that dilute the hazel of your irises

Many masks you sport

Of indifference, joy and intensity

Through the filters that distort

The inmost of your feelings

Through your self depreciating humor

Or exaggerated self worth

Gently shoving an insecurity under the radar

Of an appraising world. 

Through the scars that your camoflauge

As decorations

That mist around your peepers

That disappears before its formation,

Freezing forever in some depths 

Of your unexplored pain points.

Through your machoness

Or your delicate etiquette,

Let me explore

Beyond my five senses

The real deal that lurks beneath.

Come, be my muse

Let me, reveal you to yourself

Distilling all those add ons

Making your being 

Accessible, acceptable, tolerable.

Perhaps, my words would 

Then gather some meaning

Reflecting in your own meaningfulness.

In fond Memory

The word "Kadali" - A Telugu word for the ocean was introduced to me as it happened to be the moniker for a coastal village set in remote AP. My uncle Shri. HariKrishna Mocherla chanced upon this village, owing to his employment in a National Bank. Kadali was very close to my home town, and Uncle Hari and his family used to religiously visit us on Sundays. He was my father's maternal cousin but was probably the most prominent of our extended family that was present in my formative years.

"It is beautiful out there" He used to exclaim with a perpetual twinkle that graced his large eyes. Their dreamy look transformed me to the seashore - a visual I didn't discover in person until I was in middle school and traveled to Vishakapatnam. But somehow, his awe for the ocean made me conjure up pristine sand shores and frothy white waves breaking on my tiny feet. It was probably then, that the nature enthusiast in me took birth. And the lover of words and descriptions.

"Kadali" I used to roll this word in my mouth during episodes of imagination, wondering how it would sound as a name for a little girl or a pet dog that I'd one day adopt. Uncle Hari, thus brought into my life the very valuable source of my imagination along with the many others he had brought into my life. 'Unconditional love' for instance. I used to see him at regular intervals, even when his job took him to the the neighboring states. Our bond cemented and I got see a substantial amount of him and his family when his sister got married in my hometown and we played host to the marriage party. His sense of humor was legendary, his smile - gentle and reflecting every bit of love he had for life. And me, as I would discover later in my growing years.

We used to take the train to Hyderabad together during my high school years there. I always felt like an equal with him. perhaps because of the way he bent down to the level of a teen or he raised me to the level of a matured grown up. His affection never had too much ammunition. Just simple actions and the occasional pat on my back when we met. We used to converse endlessly, often foraging around quotes from Shakespeare, and random lines form Keats and Wordsworth , A subject my grand uncle (Uncle Hari's dad) was an authority in, during his tenure as an English professor. His memories of his childhood gave me glimpses of my ancestors . He had that special smile for me in every family gathering, his eyes searching the crowd as he looked to spot me and bestow upon me, his fatherly love in the most purest, subtlest form I had the good fortune of experiencing.

In one of the many letters he wrote to me, he once mentioned about remembering Harry Belafonte's Jamaican Farewell, as he left me at the bus stop. "I kept looking back to trace you till you were out of sight" he wrote - remembering Harry Belafonte's lines

  “...Down the bay where the nights are gay and the sun shines daily on the mountain top, I took a trip on a sailing ship and when I reached Jamaica I made a stop...
But I’m sad to say I’m on  my way, won't be back for many a day, my heart is down my head is turning around, I had to leave a little girl in Kingston Town"

(The little girl in question was legally an adult then, running her eighteenth year, but the love she felt that day would definitely go down as the top ten 'goose bump' moments in her life)

And then, there were a series of celebrations in the family, including my own wedding. As tradition has it, the Telugu Brahmin brides were carried to the wedding altar in a basket none the less and her maternal uncles would lug her with all their love. Uncle Hari was the one who tugged on to my basket along with an army of my uncles, and as I had these jitters, he bent down and whispered into my ear "You are in for a wonderful ride, trust me and brace yourself"

His prophecy came true in heartwarming ways, as I embarked upon the wonderful ride of growing up in the truest sense, always powered by the tremendous amount of love I received on my path and the perspectives that were shown to me through examples.

He would be the first one to visit me on my every trip to India, dropping in with that wonderful smile of his - not once taunting me for not taking the initiative to visit him. Infact, he never gave me a chance to initiate a visit, cause he was always there even before I got over my lag. He used to bring me his writings, musings and the wonderful, pleasant spirit that left me empowered and utterly loved every single time.

On a particular occasion, I called him after I heard the news of his younger brother's untimely passing. I could, that day, sense the strength of his soul. The way he remembered his brother in glimpses from the day he was born and the discovery of Robin Sharma's book in his brother's room...
He put a graceful twist on mourning. And I discovered more reasons to love this man.

During my last visit to India weeks ago, he was there at the venue of  a family celebration, looking back at me and flashing his smile. We sat together and held hands for the longest time. He updated me about the achievements of his kids and grand kids and looked radiantly content with his life. He brought me an envelope this time around, with printouts of pics he had of me and my siblings - there was a solo photograph of his too, tucked in there - on retrospect, I realize, if it was his way of giving me a piece of him till I tread on this earth, in his absence.

" I cannot believe I am pushing on seventy" , he said to me - that were bits of the last conversation we had. I sit here now, with an inexplicable feeling, somewhere in between a sense of deep love and irreplaceable loss - but then I brace myself and trust him that a wonderful ride is ahead of him now and until our eternal spirits cross paths again, I draw strength from his example, his love and the positive legacy he left back for the fortunate likes of me.

Thank you for existing Uncle Hari, for not just talking the talk but also for walking the walk and loving me like you loved your own children. I'll always count you among my biggest of blessing and I hope, I had in some small, insignificant way, reciprocated the love you had for me.

I dig into my wedding album today and look at this picture in a new light. Actions, always speak louder. Words are lousy translations.