भारत और हम

Here I am sitting in Geneva, writing about India and us. Ironic? Not the way I see it. I ask myself why I love my country because I'm not nationalist nor a patriot. In fact, the very concept of nationality is alien to me. That's what leads me to saying I simply love everything the world has to offer. I love India no more than I love many other countries in the world. I view humans as humans... individuals in control of their own circumstances. Nationalities are political boundaries drawn as territorial demarcations... mere instruments of governance emerging from the concentration of resources, cultural affinities etc. This makes us all humans... not Indians, Pakistanis, Germans, Mexicans, Russians, Albanians, Iranians, Israelis, Kenyans or Ethiopians. Going by this fairly lucid logic, we discover that people around the world are essentially the consequence of the same elements... Choices and circumstances. Hence, their personalities are a melange of situations resulting from the same fundamental drivers like pursuit of happiness, fear, courage and so on. Embarking on a detailed discussion of the redundancy of nationality and the innate irrationality of the concept of patriotism and nationalism is unnecessary since those who haven't already understood the essence of my point will not understand anything beyond it either.

So what do I imply by हम (us)? I speak about every single Indian from every single part of the nation and every single global citizen from every single corner of the world. However, owing to the political identity of being a sovereign nation, an identity to which the world's second largest population has agreed to, the responsibility for action is not the rest of the world's. Most of us already realize this ofcourse. However, for those who still think it is justified for a nation to live on the philanthropy of other nations... think again. Do these nations really deserve to exist? Shouldn't they be merged with another so as to justify their claim of sovereignty which is a claim emerging from the assumption that the nation has what it takes to keep its citizens happy and free.

What do I mean when I say free? That's a critical question. Amartya Sen made a critical observation when he drew a clear distinction between "freedom from" and "freedom to". Though portrayed as conflicting ideologies, I don't see where the conflict arises from. Freedom is essentially being free in every sense of the word, including being free to be free from! Actions resulting from exercise of this freedom are subject to, like all other actions, are subject to consequences. Understanding and embracing these consequences along with the actions and the root drivers leading to the action and every element of circumstance that provided the groundwork for this reality is total freedom.

Now consider those who claim, "I'm free to be free from starvation." If they say this as a statement of fact, it is completely valid, however if they state this as a demand from the rest of society, of which they are a part as well, they are infiltrating on another person's freedom. If the latter man were me, I would feel absolutely nothing for this person has chosen not to strive to beat his or her circumstances but chooses, instead, to place a demand on another's freedom. I'm free to refuse.

To put the concept of freedom further into perspective, I wrestled with the rationality of communism and came to one simple conclusion. It makes perfect sense subject to it being confined to those who want to be confined within it. I wouldn't call the ideology evil. It is built for a society of parasites and slaves giving them the upper hand over the "bourgeois" value creators.

I have yet to see a successful/pure communist nation or even a pure democratic nation. I choose to speak about India at the moment for no reason other than my intimate familiarity with its people, land, languages and culture. Patriotism as a sentiment is alien to me. That said, I'd like to enumerate certain fundamental flaws in our political, social, civil and religious/cultural fabric that will require to be amended if we are to be the land of the free. These, by no means, forms an exhaustive rendition. It is only some of the issues that are critical. I do not care about the burgeoning populations as much as I care about my own freedom in any society. It would be a fallacy to assume that all humans want to be free, so I do not indulge in that misconception. Instead, I am only interested that nobody steps on my toes...

Geo-political hypocrisy - Kashmir! Give them a referendum or quit calling India a democracy. For a detailed discussion on this, refer to my article on the "Kashmir Conundrum"

Socio-cultural fabric - It doesn't matter where you are from, the fundamentals of a human are the same. Caste-based discrimination within the country has taken a whole new dimension. Now it isn't the lower caste only that is suffering. All the ordinary citizens of the nation who don't come under the SC/ST/OBC category has to fight like dogs for everything from quality education to Government jobs while those who have the privilege of belonging to oppressed class grow by leaps and bounds with relative ease. This is an argument against affirmative action as a whole. Many would argue compassion. Forget compassion! Think about reason. What do these oppressed people need? Customized education and the tools to build competencies to compete in the modern world if they so wish to. In that case, it is rural development (Education and Entrpreneural development) that should be taking the upper pedestal in government policy. If any of you have traveled into a reasonable number of the villages of India you will witness the rubbish being taught at these schools and the inappropriate and ineffective development practices rampant across most of the sub-continent. Part of the reason of this problem is that these uneducated people don't realize the importance of a rational long-term approach. They can be easily made happy with affirmative action which fills the politician's vote banks and gives them greater control over larger parts of the country

Economic policy - "Protectionism," a term that most would associate with post-independence India where the Indian Industry suffered greatly under the shadow of the STC and Nehru's socialist approach to development. He was, not surprisingly, a great admirer of Stalin. Signs of this remained as a stick in the wheel if economic progress until P.V. Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh began opening up our economy in 1991. One of the sole bastions of regressive protectionism is the Retail Sector. Again, the fear for loss of voter support leads politicians to place huge barriers for entry of larger, more efficient retailers into India. Most cry out about claims for compassion in the face of dying local retail businesses. Do they deserve to die because they are not as efficient? Should they starve in the name of progress? I'll say only one thing to them. They deserve to live using their own creative and intellectual capabilities not by inhibiting those they consider superior in intelligence. That's a long story cut short ofcourse. The rabbit hole goes deeper than this and my conclusion at the end of it is right here.

Religion - My response to religious movements in India is mixed. I, by no means admire or respect religion in any form. However, I don't have any problems as long as the religious folk keep their religion to themselves. This has been the case in India for quite a while now. Unfortunately, the practice of religion has become quite a nuisance. What will you think of when I say fundamentalism? Terrorism? Al-Qaeda? I think of Evangelists, born-again Christians and the related lot. I see the growth of these little groups mainly as a response to contemporary Hindu and Muslim fundamentalism. The Christians must have been thinking... "Hey, it's been a while since the crusades, and now other religions seem to be getting ahead of us... Time to bring in the mind control and life control into Christianity!" The dangerous bit is that anything can be now justified using one of the hundreds of interpretations of the Bible or Quran or whatever ancient piece of vague, myopic, narrow-minded, regressive rubbish that most live by. Stay out of my way and I'll let you be. Cross my path and I declare war. It's simple. In India, this is a slowly growing phenomenon. Though the emphasis on blood-lines is still deeply entrenched, conversions are yet to take front seat in religious agenda. However, I do see this changing and it isn't for a brighter and more amiable future.

Summer breeze

Warm and tender, soft and bright. Children frolic and ducks glide by. Insects scuttle around on rocks with purposeful fervor as though my arrival on their little island were a cause of excitement. For these little beings, the mass of water around them must seem like a seamless expanse of mysterious fluid and I look at this lake that seems confined to an ever decreasing phenomena we all call nature and as I look at it I wonder about the limitless possibilities that lay beyond the horizon... and within myself.

The wilderness beckons and I think of a time when man and nature co-existed. I think of a choking cry from small clusters sanity on our planet speaking with hopeful... almost desperate voices about sustainable development. I think of humanity and then I think of myself. I must choose a path... I must face an innate conundrum... Should I join this battle for the future of mankind or live my life to the fullest. While my deep respect for the best in all of us will never wear out... that respect is rooted in self realization. I found myself and feel that it is every individuals own choice to find him/herself. The choice is made instantaneously.

I look around me breathing in the summer breeze redolent with the scent of warm, naked rock. The bright blue sky glows vividly overhead splattered generously with blazing white clouds. This image is carved on the horizon with the Mt. Blanc rising tall and proud as though is burst forth unto the skies from the depths of the earth and frozen in it's journey towards the heavens. It stands there in the distance flanked by the silhouette of a soporific mound of rock and as my vision is drawn closer to my perch, I see green... Not the lush green of the wild that I have grown to love. This is a subdued green manicured by human will. It is indeed unfortunate that so many humans choose to live within the confines of facades designed to shield them from the truth. A truth that wrenches their hearts with fear... a truth that they'd rather not accept; that we humans are born wild and free.

Directions

We're all walking in different direction. How do we know where we are heading?

To start with, our lives are interwoven in a beautifully intricate fabric. Sometimes people cross paths, sometimes they walk together. So my choices are not only a product of my personality but also of your actions. My thought could be instigated by an inner drive or an external stimulus... and the resultant choice would then lead to an action which manifests itself in a direction.

So, to know your direction, you must not only know yourself but also know everyone else around you. It gets more complicated when you realize that you've got to know all this in terms of the future.

Am I concluding then that it is not possible to know one's direction? No, I think it is.

If one does away with the mirage of time, which I feel is a deeply ingrained concept built to govern the rhythm of our lives, we will realize that the only direction that exists is in the present. The future does not even exist so the possibility of a direction existing in the non-existent concept of an imaginary context is flawed.

The only direction that exists is in this moment...Now. Needless to say that you know fully well where you are heading.

It is only in this flicker of the present that you will find anything of value. The past is a shadow, and the future... a dream.

Happiness

Ubiquitous yet surreal. This term has entered the lives of some while evading the understanding of most.

My understanding of the world is broadened by the scope of my experience and deepened by my understanding. While sitting back and looking inward, molds the shapeless mounds of knowledge and observations, leaning forward into this magnificent potpourri called the world is the other part of this little jigsaw puzzle called life.

In one of my previous blogs, I had written about the one thing that binds every single human on earth. His or her pursuit of happiness.

Trying to establish a uniform definition of this term is the most illogical act one could indulge in. How can there be uniformity in the experience of a sensation that is common to such a heady diversity!

In the field of politics, for instance... Everyone is trying to make someone else happy so that, somewhere down the line their own happiness is ensured. Is it?

Most of the ambitious people around me want to change the world. I find the world perfectly fine. Though I have absolutely nothing against their perceptions or existence, I wonder what drives them to desire changing the world then? Do they honestly believe that the world could be more peaceful, less bloody, more rational, less complicated, more happy, less tragic, more predictable, less exciting? Well, I don't. Call me a hopeless optimist, if you like! ;-)

So, what is this evasive concept of happiness? wrong question.

So, what is my concept of the pursuit of happiness? - To be.

It is this concept that connects people, builds understandings, nurtures relationships, breeds beauty, transcends conventions, unfolds passion and sparks new life.

रौशनी की एक पल

शमा के बुझने के पहले उटथी है ऐसी ज्वाला
जिसमे जल मरने का भी कोई गम नही
उस एक पल की ज़िंदगी के लिए मौत भी कम कीमत है

Feel

There is a river of life bursting within you... Surely, Steadily.
There is an ebullient fountain of fantasies quenching the thirst of your desires.

Strumming the strings of your heart, are the rhythms of your world.
All you've got to do is close your eyes and feel them.

Discard that wooden mask you call your friend.
Discover that tender flesh that envelops you like a gentle armor.

Let yourself flow with the currents of the river
as the cool breeze of wisdom caresses carelessly.

Then there are those shards of rock piercing your skin,
as you climb towards the acme of liberation.

Your life started as a dream that turned into a legend imprinted on the sands of a shore
to be washed into the endless oceans like countless others who came before you.

Why?

It's the one question that can topple the monolith of pretenses. Forget every axiom, every convention, everything "normal", look yourself in the eye and ask yourself this. Dig deep into the depths of your soul... Cleave through the undergrowth of conditioning... Hack those dead stumps... clear the field... because you are about to sow the seeds of your essence.

Every answer to the question "Why?" is a seed sown. Every confirmation of that answer from your interaction with the world around is fertilizer. Every action taken on the basis of that idea is water.

Some answers will not be very appealing... some will threaten to tear you apart with grief or anger... some might deflate that image you have of yourself... What matters is that you know it is the truth. What matters is that you aren't fueling your own facade by sowing dead seeds.

The only reason to do this is to run your fingers through that golden harvest even if it is just once before winter sets in.

Stop!

My body says stop... my spirit cries... NEVER!

We set our own limits. We run our own races. We fight our own battles. We bear the full weight of that sword... and when we are done running and fighting, we can look back and smile... smile at the passion, the glory, the sensations, the memories, the connections and then look into our hearts and smile at a life well lived.

I want to smile at death just as I smiled at life not because I believe in an afterlife but because I have been alive and squeezed every drop of life out of this journey. I have lived, loved, shared, grown, fallen, risen, hurt, been hurt, experienced, learned, feared, fought and stand this day facing my own soul, naked and proud, ready to put a full stop to a poem well written... But, not just yet!

Romance

What does this word do to you?

Do you think of love, bollywood and glitz?

or of a world... flushed with color and life, a world where the sky is a deep blue, interrupted only by the ragged gray mountains beckoning to your spirit, you look down to see a lush green welcoming you into its soft and endless bosom. The trees around are flowering and strong... You look down at your feet... just as strong, your arms... craving for action... you feel the breeze brushing against your naked brow, teasing your hair... the grass pushing through your toes and you realize that this is the moment you have been created for, this moment of ecstasy... just before flight... like a fountain that breaks through the rocks... like a child who learns to stand... like a moment of life multiplied a hundred times packed into a single instant.

Your pulse races as your feet lift off and you fly..... fly towards that endless horizon... a horizon blurred my seamless stretched of peaks... a horizon crying out with promise... the cries echoing in every corner of your soul... cries of delight, cries of victory, cries of passion...

Romance is wonderful!

A large part of the world would view it as baseless and fanciful. My question to them is this... Is the condition of the human spirit not a base? Isn't creation of a parallel realm of life a simple manifestation of the colors of your own soul? Why treat reality as a purely normative phenomenon?

The gift of expression is irreplaceable! Most importantly to understand yourself.

Siddhartha *

What is perfection? What is a balance? What is the essence of "me"? As I begun forming words to express my thoughts, i felt a strange sense of history reiterating the words I was creating in the present. Siddhartha.. Of course! He is the only other person who spoke these very words to me as I would to another.

These are my words through his mouth... a privilege I don't get to use too often.

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"Listen well, my dear, listen well! The sinner, which I am and which you are, is a sinner, but in times to come he will be Brahma again, he will reach the Nirvana, will be Buddha--and now see: these "times to come" are a deception, are only a parable! The sinner is not on his way to become a Buddha, he is not in the process of developing, though our capacity for thinking does not know how else to picture these things. No, within the sinner is now and today already the future Buddha, his future is already all there, you have to worship in him, in you, in everyone the Buddha which is coming into being, the possible, the hidden Buddha. The world, my friend Govinda, is not imperfect, or on a slow path towards perfection: no, it is perfect in every moment, all sin already carries the divine forgiveness in itself, all small children already have the old person in themselves, all infants already have death, all dying people the eternal life. It is nor possible for any person to see how far another one has already progressed on his path; in the robber and dice-gambler, the Buddha is waiting; in the Brahman, the robber is waiting. In deep meditation, there is the possibility to put time out of existence, to see all life which was, is, and will be as if it was simultaneous, and there everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman. Therefore, I see whatever exists as good, death is to me like life, sin like holiness, wisdom like foolishness, everything has to be as it is, everything only requires my consent, only my willingness, my loving agreement, to be good for me, to do nothing but work for my benefit, to be unable to ever harm me. I have experienced on my body and on my soul that I needed sinbvery much, I needed lust, the desire for possessions, vanity, and needed the most shameful despair, in order to learn how to give up all resistance, in order to learn how to love the world, in order to stop comparing it to some world I wished, I imagined, some kind of perfection I had made up, but to leave it as it is and to love it and to enjoy being a part of it.--These, oh Govinda, are some of the thoughts which have come into my mind."

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"Bent down to me!" he whispered quietly in Govinda's ear. "Bend down to me! Like this, even closer! Very close! Kiss my forehead, Govinda!"

But while Govinda with astonishment, and yet drawn by great love and expectation, obeyed his words, bent down closely to him and touched his forehead with his lips, something miraculous happened to him. While his thoughts were still dwelling on Siddhartha's wondrous words, while he was still struggling in vain and with reluctance to think away time, to imagine Nirvana and Sansara as one, while even a certain contempt for the words of his friend was fighting in him against an immense love and veneration, this happened to him:

He no longer saw the face of his friend Siddhartha, instead he saw other faces, many, a long sequence, a flowing river of faces, of hundreds, of thousands, which all came and disappeared, and yet all seemed to be there simultaneously, which all constantly changed and renewed themselves, and which were still all Siddhartha. He saw the face of a fish, a carp, with an infinitely painfully opened mouth, the face of a dying fish, with fading eyes--he saw the face of a new-born child, red and full of wrinkles, distorted from crying--he saw the face of a murderer, he saw him plunging a knife into the body of another person--he saw, in the same second, this criminal in bondage, kneeling and his head being chopped off by the executioner with one blow of his sword--he saw the bodies of men and women, naked in positions and cramps of frenzied love--he saw corpses stretched out, motionless, cold, void-- he saw the heads of animals, of boars, of crocodiles, of elephants, of bulls, of birds--he saw gods, saw Krishna, saw Agni--he saw all of these figures and faces in a thousand relationships with one another, each one helping the other, loving it, hating it, destroying it, giving re-birth to it, each one was a will to die, a passionately painful confession of transitoriness, and yet none of then died, each one only transformed, was always re-born, received evermore a new face, without any time having passed between the one and the other face--and all of these figures and faces rested, flowed, generated themselves, floated along and merged with each other, and they were all constantly covered by something thin, without individuality of its own, but yet existing, like a thin glass or ice, like a transparent skin, a shell or mold or mask of water, and this mask was smiling, and this mask was Siddhartha's smiling face, which he, Govinda, in this very same moment touched with his lips. And, Govinda saw it like this, this smile of the mask, this smile of oneness above the flowing forms, this smile of simultaneousness above the thousand births and deaths, this smile of Siddhartha was precisely the same, was precisely of the same kind as the quiet, delicate, impenetrable, perhaps benevolent, perhaps mocking, wise, thousand-fold smile of Gotama, the Buddha, as he had seen it himself with great respect a hundred times. Like this, Govinda knew, the perfected ones are smiling.

Not knowing any more whether time existed, whether the vision had lasted a second or a hundred years, not knowing any more whether there existed a Siddhartha, a Gotama, a me and a you, feeling in his innermost self as if he had been wounded by a divine arrow, the injury of which tasted sweet, being enchanted and dissolved in his innermost self, Govinda still stood for little while bent over Siddhartha's quiet face, which he had just kissed, which had just been the scene of all manifestations, all transformations, all existence. The face was unchanged, after under its surface the depth of the thousandfoldness had closed up again, he smiled silently, smiled quietly and softly, perhaps very benevolently, perhaps very mockingly, precisely as he used to smile, the exalted one.

Deeply, Govinda bowed; tears, he knew nothing of, ran down his old face; like a fire burnt the feeling of the most intimate love, the humblest veneration in his heart. Deeply, he bowed, touching the ground, before him who was sitting motionlessly, whose smile reminded him of everything he had ever loved in his life, what had ever been valuable and holy to him in his life."

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* Hesse, Hermann, Siddhartha, 1992

My direction

There are moments in life when you see a vision so clearly that it pierces through your being. I saw it today, too clearly to be a passing fantasy. I saw evil again, human evil, coldness to life and everything associated with it.

I saw visions of gunfire, blood, screams and tears as i felt my own soaking my palms. Men, women and children being killed. Cameramen, soldiers and civilians being massacred.

This is the essence of humanity. This is my world. This is where I belong.... On the front lines of hell.

Burst of life

A light streaks across the pitch black sky
lighting up a path reflecting the glow above.

The water pours from the heavens with a graceful caress
touching my warm skin as though to comfort a body
rearing for action, craving to fly into the dark night towards the setting sun.

The droplets streak diagonally across the glass like
tadpoles of light with a life of their own hurrying towards
what seems like home.

The puddles smoothen the rough roads and carry away the
remains of the day making way for another morning
of toil and rest, joy and distress.

Shudders

I shuddered with anger today. The kind of anger that brings me tears. The kind of anger that stems from my respect for humans... for mankind.

I felt this while flipping through a collection of some war photography covering inhuman acts of war through Afghanistan, Iran, Vietnam and other nations ravaged by human evil. Calling man an animal for this behaviour would not do justice to any animal. Animals kill to survive. Man begins to feel sadistic pleasure while inflicting pain and death around him. Animals aren't capable of cruelty. Only man can feel pure cruelty.

Mangled, bloody bodies grovelling in the dust and debris of the world fallen around them devastated by grenades and bullets. Faces of humans contorted with wrath, weilding guns and batons, looming over another human who is cowering for his life... his very existence. I saw evil in those eyes.

The brilliance of mankind overpowered by evil! A man staring coldly at another man squinting in helpless anguish with a revolver stabbed against his temple seconds before his death. Right wing activists slamming a chair against the head of a dead leftist already hanged with his body already broken. People surrounding this scene some staring coldly, some in awe and some smiling. I won't describe the smile.

WHY?!

Taking pleasure in another man's suffering. What could instigate such a feeling in man? Why?

Making human life the equivalent of a twig that can be broken at the whim of a fanatic. Why? Don't they see the potential and value of human lives? Don't they love themselves? Don't they feel?

Politics! It's horrendous just to imagine the honchos doing the high-level diplomatic talk while nations destroy each other. Not addressing the loss of lives but the protection of some amorphous concept of 'society'! Are those people who are killing themselves and killing others not part of this damn society of theirs!

What is the solution? To destroy the people who are already dead... I wonder if there is an alternative... Until then I will believe in and do what is most necessary when it is most necessary.

Life!

At the age of 13, Lydia fell in love with a grand opera tenor. She kept his pictureon her dresser, with a single red rose in a thin crystal glass beside it. At the age of fifteen, she fell in love with Saint Francis of Assisi, who talked to birds and helped the poor, and she dreamed of entering the convent.

Kira had never been in love. The only hero she had known was a Viking whose story she had read as a child; a Viking whose eyes never looked farther than the point of his sword, but there was no boundary for the point of his sword; a Viking who walked through life, breaking barriers and reaping victories, who walked through ruins while the sun made a crown over his head, but he walked, light and straight, without noticing his weight; a Viking who laughed at kings, who laughed at priests, who looked at heaven only when he bent for a drink over a mountain brook and there, overshadowing the sky, he saw his own picture; a Viking who lived but for the joy and the wonder and the glory of the god that was himself.

Kira did not remember the books she read before that legend; she did not want to remember the ones she read after it. But through the years that followed, she remembered the end of the legend: when the Viking stood on a tower over a city he had conquered. The Viking smiled as men smile when they look up at heaven; but he looked down. His right arm was one straight line with his lowered sword; his left arm straight as the sword, raised a goblet of wine to the sky. The first rays of a coming sun, still unseen to the earth, struck the crystal goblet. It sparkled like a white torch. It's rays lighted the faces of those below. "To a life," said the Viking, "which is a reason unto itself."

- Ayn Rand, We the Living

Ulysses

Typing this simple word makes my hands shudder with excitement... "Ulysses" Every time I read this poem, it fuels my passion to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield... The very thought is Orgasmic!

With tears of joy that someone, somewhere thought this way and that I am not alone, I engulf myself in the intensity of these thoughts, feelings and words...

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Ulysses - Alfred Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife,
I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees.
All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known,-- cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honor'd of them all,
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.


This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
to whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.


There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me,
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads,-- you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho
'We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Metamorphosis

As the day of my departure draws closer, I've started realising how much I love this city. They've been the most fruitful years of my life, the seven years I've spent here.

Thinking back to where it all began... Before Bombay, life at Pune was quite calm and unflustered (now that i think back). A failure who thought he wouldn't be anything else in his life being transformed to a performer setting new records for himself on a daily basis was only the first personal transformation I witnessed in this city. For most of these 7 years, I haven't looked back and now that I do peek into my past, I feel a tremendous amount of happiness in the present. A satisfaction that helps me face the shadows of the future.

From a boy who was so uncomfortable with the torrent of adolescent whims, there emerged a feeling of pride in existence and after a journey of love, hate, anger, anguish, desperation and bliss, came the knowledge of the stuff I am made up of.

There have been numerous people who have flowed in and cascaded out of my life. So far, none have stayed forever. With the transformation in me, there was a transformation in every one of my relationships. Love, family & friendship didn't hold the same meaning for me any more. However, each of these people have left an indelible to my life. Each and every one of them helped me learn and grow. Some more than the rest.

However, I often felt those all-invasive feeling of loneliness. I learnt how important it was to share and how difficult.

Now that the moment of departure draws closer, I feel the strain wrenching at my very soul. Another phase of my life that I'll be leaving behind walking into the darkness of the future, into another metamorphosis, with nothing but my own vision.

Defining life

A critical part of communication is defining the terms we employ through our language. What often happens is that we communicate expecting others to understand us and are left perplexed when they don't. The reason is usually our different interpretations of the ideas and terms we use.

Building relationships would involve defining life together. Agreeing on definitions after true and clear discussion leads to a great amount of fluidity in interaction, understanding and growth.

This holds true especially for the overused lingo in the world today. Let me take, for example, the phrase, "I love you". Now let's isolate the word 'love'. We commonly use this term for other phrases like, "I love my dog", "I love Metallica", "I love extra cheese on my pizza" and so on. So what the hell do I mean when I say that I love you?!

We need to be so much more specific and elaborate (and creative) in our communication to get our point across the way we feel it (that's assuming that we really feel it).