Friday, December 31, 2010

Welcoming 2011...


Only a "bit" of information changes - from 0 to 1 - from 2010 to 2011. If we think deep, that's a whole new state of existence!

(Translated from my own Telugu blog post):

A second lost in utter haste, would it ever return?
Would each part of the day explain its own lesson?
...
Time doesn't pity, like us humans, if you falter or fall,
Nor until you come does even a minute of it stall!

(The original Telugu verse is a part of a lyric composed by "sirivennela Seetharama Shastry, but it's the language of our hearts - that's singular, yes, because these cautionary statements are being rendered by one unified voice that belongs to all of us!)

..."Your questions are yours [to resolve]", the time reminded us, only after already hinting us that "the answer is within the question". Off goes 2010 without fail, and 2011 has to come in surely too. Between this switch, how better did we get, how many/what did we reform, what/how many lessons did we learn? - these are the only important questions. Before the new year brings more lessons, revising the old syllabus thoroughly is our part. We do not complete that exercise, the fear of time doesn't change how many ever calendars may come and go. It's not the new year that we must welcome, but it's our own selves that we must proactively cleanse before we enter the temple of a new year. It's said that fear or devotion form the basis for our customs. We should know whether we are welcoming the new year with fear or devotion or an ignorance that knows neither ...before time runs over us.

Saturday, December 04, 2010

A weekend morning…

Ah, it's Saturday morning in early December! What do you expect? Sleep? ...Alas! I had to go to the lab for an 8-hour shift that starts at 8 a.m!

Bicycling three miles is not something I saw as an issue... if only it didn't snow all night! I knew I would have this experience in this Winter, but I didn’t expect it so soon, given that the first hint of snow was only the 1st of December; today is just the 4th. The experience started as an "Oh my, awesome!" one when I saw the heap of snow on the seat of my bicycle and the handlebar. Within a mile... I was like "Oh my God, awful!" ...Of course, anyone should say that - at least after slipping, falling, and sliding on the road "very smoothly" without even a forewarning... all in less than a second! What's more? I repeat the act after 100 meters or so, this time even more gracefully... so neatly that I can't even realize why my cycle chain came off its wheel! And, even that, I notice only after going for a “take #2” on the same act immediately after I get up - my shoes developed a new sole of ice and were sort of shaking hands with the road, thanking it for the makeover!

And, oh yes, the chain came off, and there’s no thinking of trying to set it back. After all, I had done that earlier on this same bicycle in the cold of a night, and it took me about 20 minutes to get it all done, not to mention the amount of grease I covered myself with! I saw a car coming towards me, and thankfully, it was a lab security officer going on rounds to find people like me (or that’s what he said)! Without him, it’d have taken me a long time to reach my lab, due to the slippery walk dragging along a bicycle, and did I mention the backpack with a laptop in it? (Oh, yes, I fell down all the three times with the backpack still on me!)

Before I tell out the moral of the story, I cite a little piece from Sreemat-bhaagavatam: Lord Krishna fights with Jambavan(tha) for a long 28 days and takes out all the energy out of the bear-warrior. (28 days of duel, man!, I am always amazed when I realize that! After all, even the Great Battle at Kurukshetra, with all those lakhs of soldiers, lasted only 18 days!) And, when Jambavantha expresses his inability to fight and pleads the Lord, Lord Krishna transforms himself to the previous incarnation of Lord Rama and explains why he had to fight. After killing Ravana of Lanka, Lord Rama asks the great warrior Jambavantha to seek a wish that he can grant, and Jambavantha wishes that he wants to fight one-on-one with Lord Rama after having seen how great a warrior the latter is. Lord Rama smiles and only says that his wish shall be fulfilled in due course of time, in the next yuga/eon. Reminding Jambavantha of this episode, (Can we use “reminding” to talk about a previous yuga? I guess we can, if we can talk about a bear-warrior talking in a human voice and living through eons!) Lord Krishna says that the wish had just been granted! ...So why I did I cite this story before telling the moral I learnt? Yes, like you might have guessed, I wished that I’d ride a bicycle in snow and see how it’d feel! Ah, what a foolish wish to seek and how nightmarish when such a wish comes true! (No, my wish wouldn’t last 28 days, but I am sure that I’d have to “carefully” ride my bicycle so many times in snow nevertheless this Winter.)

Oh, yeah, I loved the experience. No, really! Only, I’d have to drop by the roadside where I locked the bicycle to a “Stop” sign, and drag it along from there. I may even get a chance to fix the chain and ride it – again in snow – if it’s not snowing right then! Who knows how crazy I am! I don’t...

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Ten years…

Feb. 22, 2000 – That was the day when I stepped down a country outside India for the first time! (The airport in Frankfurt, Germany takes the credit though it was but a pit stop in my journey to the United States. Atlanta, Georgia was my port of entry in the U.S.A.) Ten years… ten years passed and I spent about 8 years and a half in the U.S.A! Most of it was in Ruston, Louisiana – that’s not just “some time” – in fact, I spent most of my life in Hyderabad (~12 years), and the secondmost was in Ruston! (I lived in Kurnool for ~7.5 years.) Okay, I’ll move on… into things that (may) matter.

What can 10 years do to anyone? A lot… but the answer depends so much on one’s age, and circumstances, and family, and society, …and life, of course!

What happened to me in 10 years? When I tried to list the good, the bad, and the ugly… and “publish” only things that are passable in public mention, a few highlights came up:

* Life outside India: For someone who loves India so much, this might seem the toughest thing… but no, why would I miss something I love? India is, and will always be, (in/with/around) me!

* Family: Now, that’s mostly out of scope for a “publishable” blog, but spending about 2 years with family is …less, more, alright? Again, the family that I love is with me. I did lose some people on the way… it pains, ever!

* Friends: For someone who spent nearly 50% of life with friends, it’s tough to separate family from friends - call me an emotional fool, but that’s what I always have been. Some friends, whom I don’t even want to call friends but only treat them as family, got closer than before the 10 years, and a few walked out of my life. It hurts to this day, to miss one of my dearest brothers for over 8 years… since Jan. 16, 2002… some damage is irrepairable. (At least one brother returned… and a lot more joined the flock in my heart. Time to rejoice? Time to forget the lost one? Never!) Most people who were close 10 years ago are still dear, and that’s something I still cherish – that’s something that tells me I am not “all wrong”… A lot more walked in and walked out, some casually and some closely… But, nothing is more hurting than the first wound that’s afresh always. I am sorry, brother, I still am… and I shall ever be! (Oh, by the way, let me admit that I wounded myself and several others too through my wails and wounds!)

* I: What have I done to myself?! Where am I!? Am I still around? This is the question that lingers on my mind each day, sub-consciously most of the time (thankfully), and conscisously several times in 10 years! A few attempts to end it all, a few attempts to try to learn what’s happening internally (albeit with external help), a few attempts to “refresh” and “reload” myself like a webpage by rejuvenating myself from my ashes (burning myself in the pyre of my poetry), several successful yet futile attempts to be “correct in everything I do”, several attempts to try to love people unconditionally (yet expecting reciprocation and thus failing myself many a time), all the while trying to keep myself “alive” …without knowing what happened to ME! Peace… has been evading me - as much as I avoided it – and short-(lived) temper had been a friend that took me in many a time. I succumbed to the temperament that hugged me tight and assured me that I can turn to it in any situation - against any individual/group/circumstance – the temparement that told me to accept my peacelessness and move on into the vanity of the vacuum that I soon learnt to call L-I-F-E. It took an effort… a lot of it… to believe that my people were not mine (And, how can they be, when I am not “I” any more?) and those that stayed with me thought I didn’t change any bit! Strange, isn’t it, that people who were in touch thought that I didn’t change in many ways (despite my attempts to clarify to them that I changed), and people who lost touch thought I changed a lot (though I struggled to prove that I didn’t change any bit)! …Wait a minute, what am I doing here?! Brooding over the past? Or, leaning over the future? Since when, my dear self, did you stop living in the present? How can I remember, when I lost the sense of time!? Yeah, yeah, ten years… it’s a sudden realization, of course! As sudden as all the rest of it is!

* Society: This has been my best teacher, friend, philosopher, guide, mentor, …and tormentor! All in all, it’s been my best love! (What else can I love unconditionally, when I expect something in return from every individual, God included, that I love!?) The Society of the last ten years made me a much better poet/writer, apart from reminding me that I was an aesthetic, artiste, critic, reviewer, student, learner, teacher, guide, philosopher, friend, lover, giver, taker, …parasite, maniac, rouge, escapist, and various other things unpublishable! Most of all, Society made me realize that I exist! That’s most of what I can today call “juice of my life”! Isn’t that why I push it constantly and try to expand it beyond all known bounds!

…One thing is certain. I did lose a lot of “something”… something that belongs to my family, to my friends, to my society, and to my self – innocence, purity, patience, piety, serenity of my own Ego! The child in me is still alive… struggling each moment to be alive …for all those rightful “owners” that I just mentioned! As much as I failed, I still can be quite successful at keeping a lot of my parents’ hopes on me shattered, at keeping my friends’ minds puzzled about my mindset, and keeping myself guessing about me still trying to understand myself while I try and answer all queries about anything else in the grand old Universe!

Ten years… what can ten years do to you? Time passes, of course… don’t let yourself pass! I am struggling with myself right now… but I know I am not letting myself pass with time! …I started writing my first major (English) prose aboard the flight from Mumbai to Frankfurt, ten years ago… “My Experiences outside India”, I titled it. It never moved on beyond a few days, yet all of it is fresh in my mind, how many times ever I may “format” and “reformat” my mind! See, I am alive! After all, what can mere ten years do to YOU!?