“Life has been a hazardous business, but the very fact of being alive is a miracle.”
(Woman – August, 1958)

“They teach you how to speak,
but they don't teach you how to think.
They teach you how to touch,
but they don't teach you how to feel.
They tell you life is a struggle,
but they don't tell you how to cope.
They tell you about love,
but they never act with love.
They gave you a name,
but you don't seem to know
Who you really are.”

I have always wondered what if we had no names? If countries had no names? If religions had no names? If people had no names? All the problems started with names and I have become fed up with them. What follows is even worse. Father's name? Mother's name? Date of Birth? Sex? Age? Height? Weight? SC/ST? Educational Qualifications? Good grief! They might as well start doubting whether you have just landed from Mars or some other galaxy! And why not??

This endless categorizing, defining, measuring... ooof! I wish I had met the fate of Robinson Crusoe... or Tom Hanks in Cast Away... I am sure if that guy was offered asylum in India in say, 1994 AD, he would have farted a big one and made off for his island on the double. Alas! I was not born under such lucky stars when my navamsa and dasamsa¹ synchronized with such heavenly tunes!!

I had to swallow all that gibberish and console myself as much as possible, confined inside the thick green walls of another college in a strange part of India where life rambled to the rhythm of bandhs and black-outs² called by belligerent youths whom I supported for other reasons.

I was just another lanky, bespectacled youth in S.Y.BCom³ trapped between the bulky weight of Accountancy and a cacophonic world of long hours calculating trial balances very far from the consciousness of things that lived.

Hidden under those piles of notes and endless mindless scribbling, were our dreams. But no, you didn't see them. You could only take a guess from the odd novel lying on somebody's table in a hostel room of Stephen Hall or a big poster of Cindy Crawford in another. Then those letters and photographs of far off places. Homes where those hostel boys came from. Where anxious parents were waiting for a telephone call, wondering if last month's money order had reached safely. You could also wander around in the campus to see those guys, tall, muscular, wearing tee shirts and shorts playing volleyball, and wonder where they got their energy? What do they think? What do they feel? What is shaping their aspirations?

Most of the two or five years were spent there, huddled in the corner of a room painted pale green, door and windows of grey, surrounded by fat books and pens. Silently contemplating an open page, scanning the printed lines of words and figures. A stubble on the face of three days, a shirt unwashed for more than a week, shorts exposing those long legs that cannot tire. If they did, fate would write a disastrous story.

The table next to the bed contained assorted things. Wills Filter, a bottle of aftershave, a mirror, an occasional birthday card from a strange girl who took a sudden fancy etc. A dusty tape recorder, waiting for a song. When it came on, one hummed along, thinking odds and ends, inspired by the inane sentiments of another Hindi movie or thoughtlessly absorbing the hopeless desperation of Bryan Adams in dilemma, “Do I have to say the word!!??” Well, everybody knew, the word got lost. And who will find it?

It was just another day in the charged up life of an Indian student who is supposed to become a doctor, an engineer or an officer or whatever, with a family behind, nurturing great expectations.

I yearned for something special. Something out of the ordinary, something to add some zing, something worth giving up some hardened resolutions for. Something inside fired that question ever so often but the inspiration always got blown out. I managed to put it off but it was relentless. In the end, I gave in. To what?

A curious development had taken over me of late. There were times I simply wanted to be alone. To think. No, not to think but Something that seemed to draw me away from the crowd of life. There was this monologue. An endless flow of thoughts in silence. And the world outside would feel very tired. I would either find myself alone or simply kept away from company. Then certain thoughts would come, small tiny insights into myself, my life. An odd memory, a tiny wish. I would be contemplative or buoyed up, depending on the mood of the moment. A general conclusion seemed to be developing...

“Most people live in a negated environment. Every hope, every desire, every wish seems to be invisibly suppressed under the oppressive weight of circumstances and there is a synonymous restraint in everything they say or do. There is a holding back. An implicit fear lurking behind always. Outwardly, there is a covering up of a lifestyle, the flow of events, and yet it is easy to see they are caught in a vicious cycle. Their life goes on around a certain condition which is assumed to be unchangeable.”

Like me, in college. What if I dropped off from studies to go trekking? God forbid! And so the drab monotony of life went on and on and on.

I am sitting on this table, an August evening and on my right through the window, across some rooftops, an orange sun is setting once again. And how many more sunsets, I am wondering.

I enjoyed the sky darkening as a pale twilight descended, leaving a gloomy evening aura. Exactly like the way my life was being overcast with lengthening shadows of loneliness. It was just right for a sad ghazal⁴ and I sat looking through the window, overcome by a strange desolation. As if the whole world was deserted and I was the only one on the planet, apart from the voice of the singer, who seemed so far away. The solitude reminded something, deep and remote but coming closer...

Twilight

“Aeons ago when life was sprawled in the midst of nature's expanse, sunset had another aura. The western sky would turn a flaming red and birds would fly eerily, tracing circles in the evening light. Dusk would slip in quietly, filling the air with a sad longing and slowly it would darken. As the light became very dim, only silhouettes could be seen. The sound of night would press on the ears, hundred of cries and shrill calls like an incantation everywhere. Quietly we would look on the day gone, swallowed by the enveloping darkness. Pitch dark everywhere and then little sparks of light in the sky would make us wonder. Something started flickering in the distance... We had discovered how to light a flame and that is what our story is all about.”

I simply could not reconcile myself to shrink my horizons. I knew it so well that when a person adapts to a circumstance which one never resolved to overcome, even though it may take a long time, never actually finds the inner harmony. One becomes embittered with one's own decision. One feels one should have had the courage to try harder. So it was with me. I was extremely awkward with the way life was, trying to make the most but feeling restrained most of the time. I simply could not accept the  unconditional conformity of middle class sentiments because that is the way people fade into the common mass and die a silent death.

The Drop of Life..

“Falling,
like a raindrop in a wind,
never knowing where
never knowing why.
An invisible but cruel destiny
tests the momentum
and gravity is the only inspiration.
Made of the same water
but separated,
The End
Is a shattering realization.”

Serendipity

It was spring. I sat in our veranda basking in the fresh warmth of a morning sun. I closed my eyes, thinking nothing and floating in some kind of un-describe-able bliss. The sun's rays touched me sensuously all over, as I reclined on a cane chair, surrounded by the cacophony of chirping sparrows and an occasional vernal wind ruffling the leaves of a large shrub nearby.

After some time, I was disturbed by the desperate chirping of a single sparrow on one of the branches. I opened my eyes to see only sublime green leaves, turned yellow-gold in the sunshine penetrating the rich foliage. I was trying to locate the sparrow without moving a centimeter. It took a while for my dilated pupils to finally spot the sparrow, a slim young one straining its neck and chirping madly. What's wrong, I wondered. It was the only sparrow on the tree and it sounded as if it were calling someone. So it was! Suddenly another sturdy sparrow came flying wildly and jumping from branch to branch, finally settled near his girlfriend. Almost at the same time, she stopped chirping with the previous desperation and her tone became much milder, softer, as if exchanging pleasantries. “Hi! Where were you? I had to scream so loudly didn't you remember the date??” “Oh sorry! I was just enjoying flying in the morning sun. Feels great you know, spring with a spotless blue sky and all.”

I watched them for almost half an hour, elated at the sight and jealously sharing their excitement. The sparrows got busy enjoying The Great Ritual, to notice a young chap eyeing them from nearby and turning green with envy and making him think such wild thoughts.

Serendipity

I found her when she was just bursting like a flower in the first sighs of spring. She was beautiful and everything she looked at became so with the intensity of her gaze.

She looked at me, and hesitated. There were no promises, only some fragile moments in fondness. Excited, definitely excited by how far the likeness may go.

I loved the way we walked. We were close but an uncertain space remained in the closeness. A space we both knew was totally conquerable. We were thinking differently, but thinking about the same thing, and somewhere in our inexplicable growing up wondering, we remembered.

“Well,
you are better looking
than your spectacles.
I too wear them,
a rose tinted perspective
Wherever I go…
Together we see
separated from the true,
an illusion of reality.”

The year was 1992 and for me, love was in the air, palpable and immediate. But violence dominated the world outside. Shillong was rocked by communal disturbance. Huge mobs collected to agitate for demands and clashed with the police. People were burnt alive. A pregnant lady was brutally knifed. The cold blooded violence spread wider. A mosque controversy in Ayodhya fuelled the flames of communal hatred all over the country. Riots scarred the face of Bombay. At the same time, I quietly mused on the possible connection. How could people kill on such flimsy grounds? Surely the murderers lacked something. They were a deprived lot. Could anyone burn with hatred if they were amply provided for? If they were loved??

Nowhere is the contradiction better depicted than in popular commercial movies. The innumerable heroes in countless stories always fall in love, rather merrily and then the saga of violence begins. I have always wondered who is the actual villain that the hero has to assassinate before he can safely cuddle in his beloved's arms. An ever-greater Love is always pitched against an ever-greater Hate and we cannot have one without the other, it seems.

“You approached me
in half steps
posing unruffled
at my sight.
Then you stopped
like a question mark
and ducked a smile,
gabbled a smidgen
of confused infatuation
and left in a hurry,
searching for an answer
to the storm in your heart
I could see in your eyes.”

Real love always starts with a fight, or so they said. Our love was too real for comfort. There was an apprehension lurking within, in the guise of many things. The pressure came from the surrounding environs, from the emotional climate of that time and fuelled my vague fears. Ages ago it was religious difference. Then differences of caste and social status destroyed all the dreams young lovers nurtured. And now it had come to the demands of possessing certain trivial attributes. Like a designation in a government office, or a red maruti car.

“A disturbance in me
to see you
being devastated by illusions.
Those glittering colors
dancing around you,
those disappearing bubbles
floating near your eyes.
Funny, your pupils dance!
Your sweet essence
falling prey
to subconscious fuss,
Making you say
such strange things
Now, I almost believe
it isn't you
from that faraway skies
where we were shining…
Fallen on this earth
bound by space time
and a warped memory,
you are always yonder.”

“Your obsession for total security is really your undoing. You want to be absolutely sure about everything, every person, which reveals your weakness to unfamiliarity. In your mad rush you often put yourself in a situation, far worse than what would have been otherwise, had you done nothing at all!”

“There is no romance in being provided for completely. Our spirit thrives on the vulnerability of the future, which is uncertain, while we are forever engaged in an effort to grasp the uncertain and make it certain. All this because of the changes in the aura of mankind, which is longing for the ultimate happiness of all.”

“It is not your tears
that will fall
when you cry.
It is not your desire
that will rage
when you crave.
It is not your dream
that will unfold
when you surrender.
Only the fragments
of your ego
will fall in love.
Drawn into its depths,
the violent waves
will lift and drown
washing all your hopes
until it is calm.
In tranquil silence
You will contemplate,
with eyes closed
and a half smile,
One lazy afternoon.”

I knew it well. I was in another crossroad of life, standing on another precipice edge. On one hand my exams and the subsequent career, while on the other, an emotional upheaval that had the potential to destroy me completely. I tried, with clear, neutral and balanced thinking, an ironic placidity of a philosopher but I felt exhausted, and terribly apprehensive. A certain feeling of apathy and then the coolness, because it all goes the way it goes... the futility and the fuss, unable to understand why it just goes on and on and on and on??

“Being and Becoming. Now they tell you to be YOUR self. But there is only ONE self. Can they explain the enigma? Would you be that one self or your self??”

To find one's calling, to watch in awe as another layer of life unfolded to see one's faith deliver. As much as I was confused like any other hapless young graduate in the country, what to do for work, I found an opening with the local newspaper as Sub-Editor. The best part of the job was being in contact with the happening world. To observe things taking shape, opinions traversing the battleground of the world and drawing the line between what people should know, could know and finally got to know.

Few professions as this have so much scope for expression of conscience. The opportunity for careful deliberation and molding public thinking by informing them. At last, there was something to keep my creative flame alive and not get bogged down by the tedious routine, which was unavoidable.

“Holding on to a frail sense of being, nascent pains of a larger selfhood, uncertain destinations wait. To comprehend how everything is and then to be alone is not loneliness, calm in the knowledge, we must eventually belong together. There can be no clinging, no searching for a windfall but a constant reckoning within. To make life concord with the rhythm of the universe, playing in all things at all times and manifesting as truth, beauty, peace and joy. A silence, but a peaceful one pervades and everything is reconciled.”

“It is all about developing empathy with the spirit. Once established it is possible to see the same spirit at work in every human life, albeit at different stages of a similar journey. We simply need a sensitivity of perception.”

(.*_*.)

1. Navamsa, dasamsa, astrological charts
2. Bandhs and black-outs, protest closure of public utilities
3. SYB.Com, Second Year Bachelor of Commerce
4. Ghazal, song composed to Urdu poetry