In that place where mind meets mind

Free verse from Chandrahas Choudhry

In that place where mind meets mind
Eyes speak to eye, and in the same breath hears
The long barred self is interwined
With one that it both needs and steers
A peace opens out and a music binds
One moment to another, and day to day
The soul runs free and all that it finds
It somehow both keeps and gives away.
Such was the place, or such the dream
That smiled, and then from me was taken
I slipped back into the common stream
My live moved on, but my faith was shaken

As I laughed

I don’t know if it was the day or was it more the reaction from Manoharji or just the words “thaki gayi dikri ? ” but I laughed till tears welled up in my eyes. I was too engrossed to realize that everyone on the floor had heard me and was even wondering what made me crack up. This was followed by another spurt of laughter after I read an email from a client.

As I came back home and squatted on the couch I tried hard to think of a time when I laughed like that.. Uninhibited and simple... I am amazed at how the smallest remarks make you laugh like there is no tomorrow. I have no particular reason to be unhappy but I still dont laugh all that often..

Hope there are more days like this..

Optimism

I came across this quote some days back and just felt the need to post it here..
"Watching you walk out of my life does not make me bitter or cynical about love. But rather makes me realize that if I wanted so much to be with the wrong person how beautiful it will be when the right one comes along."

Outbreak

Though I have not read Robin Cook in a very long time now, I admit that I used to love reading his work! Over the years I felt that though the suspense bit was something I enjoyed reading but there was something starkly unreal and the plot of the stories could never occur in real life ever.

I remember reading Outbreak many years back which dealt with the deadly Ebola virus. The H1N1 outbreak and the swine flu deaths in the country in the last few days, just reminds me of this story. Needless to say I feel amazed how sometimes reality can be so close to fiction !

Money and Self Actualization

I belong to this bunch of 20 something’s who have passed out of premier B and when I say this I don’t feel ashamed to admit that we belong to another species of living beings. We toiled to get into one of these schools and then harboured aspirations to make lots of money (at least that holds true for most of us). After trying to put up with all that we could to get our dream jobs something has changed. A rich investment banker wants to do something “meaningful” with his life. The marketer wants to take his chances of rather being an entrepreneur. The entrepreneur feels lost as he is not a part of the rat race any more. The commercial banker looks forward only to the pay day and wishes something could change sometimes even unable to figure what. It is probably only this lot of people that seems to be so dissatisfied with what they are doing. I wonder what makes us so unhappy anyway?
The drivers I believe in each of these cases is the same of being the desire to earn money and yet derive meaning out of life or rather have the life that we always wanted to with all the money. I can’t think of any occupation that gives not one but both but. I only know that we can move up the Maslow’s hierarchy and the first and the last level are far apart. However I always wish I could have the two together. So it is not money vs meaning but more like money and meaning!! How I wish....

In praise of idleness

It is a Friday evening and I am quite kicked about the approaching weekend. After a fairly nice day, I decide to come home early. As I approach my building, to my horror I realize that there is no electricity. Hoping and praying that it would come back soon, I decide to go about small chores in the house. After having eaten, used all the candles and the batteries in the torch to read newspapers I decide to take a power nap. After 2 more hrs I realize that I have killed a mosquito, played minesweeper (after the stark realization that I have no games on my phone ! ) spoken to my parents, texted my boss and even checked emails on my phone courtesy GPRS but no signs of electricity yet. As I seriously contemplate going back to work , I decide to use the last few mins of the battery charge to type this post.
Light failures at home always used to be a time to listen to childhood stories of my parents and each one was like a treasure being pulled out of a chest but as I am alone, this time is killing me. I am not sure what to do. This makes me suddenly realize that not only am I slave to technology, I feel alien to the concept of idleness. Bertrand Russell has written an essay on this topic and even criticized the education system for not inculcating this virtue. I wish I could gaze at the starry night and ponder about all the times that have gone by and all the time to come but that psyches me out completely. As I curse myself of failing to enjoy the small things in life, I realize it is time to change. Hope the realization of this fact makes me discover something about my own self if not gravity like Newton !

Mumbai Revisited

Mumbai Revisited

So I get myself to writing a post again after what seems like light years and one more time this is not about anything profound. I finally broke the drudgery of my mundane existence by planning a trip to Mumbai last week end. Lot of plans went awry as I had to leave earlier than I had planned to, could not get to meet all the friends I wanted to and more so party hard !

Something however felt very different about my trip this time around. As soon as I set foot on the station I suddenly felt creepy with the stench and the dirt which made me realize how much this was a part of my existence during my stay there. I also had a sudden realization regarding the crowd and population of Mumbai city when I reached HardRock Café on Saturday night to find it more cramped than the Dadar station at 8 am in the morning. After the vain attempts to clamber for a drink at not one but 3 places I was realized that it was time to head home while it was still 12 am. The cloudy skies on Sunday afternoon however provided the perfect opportunity to loaf around South Mumbai on feet. The empty streets made me feel like I had been transported to a different era. Book shopping at Strand was pleasurable as usual and so was the brief stop at Hajji Ali but what I loved the most was the chai and parantha at the small stall behind TISS which transported me back to campus days.

It was probably not the perfect weekend but packed with experiences enough to stop me from cribbing for the next few days !

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING

Something today made me put up this quote from one of my favourite books of all times, Nineteen Eighty Four by Orwell:

Whether he went on with the diary, or whether he did not go on with it, made no difference. The Thought Police would get him just the same. He had committed— would still have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper— the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thought crime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever

Random Mumbling

I started reading the very popular book “Shantaram” by Gregory Roberts a few days back and couldn’t help but post some quotes from the book . So here I go:
“Love is the opposite of power and that is why we fear it so much ”
“Honesty can be tested and loyalty. But there is no test for love. Love goes on forever once it begins, even if we come to hate the one we love. Love goes on forever because love is born in the part of us that does not die”
“Some truths about yourself are so painful that only shame can help you live with them and some things are just so sad that only your soul can do the crying for you”
“When the wish and the fear are exactly the same, we call the dream a nightmare”
“The real trick in life is to not want anything and succeed at getting it”