East or west, Home is the best. Is it really?

Readers of this blog and my previous one would know that I have, many a time, talked about missing my family, my home country, and everything related to it - nothing special, just your typical expat rant. The reasons are obvious - imagine that you are in a far away land, and you miss the culture you were brought up in, the people you love and even the sense of belonging which is never complete in another place - what else would your favourite topic be? But truth remains that I am still a nomad who still doesn’t seriously consider going home for good. What is it that keeps me here, in a foreign land, despite all the obvious reasons?

When I first left home, it was a sense of adventure. Maybe, adventure is not the right word. Curiosity, perhaps. The feeling of not knowing what lies ahead. The joy of embarking on a path where the destination is not clear. To break away from everything that you once thought you would do, and carve out your own path in the world. To pluck yourself out from your comfortable surroundings and throw yourself into the world of the unknown. Do you remember the song, “Confidence” in Sound of Music, that Maria sings on her way to the abbey to the Von Trapp house for the first time? If airlines officials would let me skip and sing, perhaps I would have sang the same words too:

“What will this day be like? I wonder.
What will my future be? I wonder.
It could be so exciting to be out in the world, to be free
My heart should be wildly rejoicing..”

As I grew up past the irrational teens and became more comfortable with my place in the world, childish curiosity gave way to someting else. The sense of adventure didn’t exactly fade away, but it wasn’t curiosity and adventure that led me on. It was a sense of freedom. The freedom to be away from everything. The freedom to do what you want. The freedom to know that your actions are your concern and only yours. The ultimate sense of unaccountability, if you may. Let me not glorify it - the honest truth may be that it is just a run-away attitude. If you could empathize with Kate in Lost, when Tom tells her, “You always want to run away, Katie”, you know what I mean. After I had lived for several years, in what I call my first stop , I had reached a point in life where I couldn’t walk in the city center without meeting someone who knew someone who knew someone I knew. Somehow, the place doesn’t feel foreign anymore, when that happens. And it was time to run.

The amazing feeling of walking into a place where you know absolutely no one, where you are as anonymous as the dust on the ground, where without the passport in your bag or the dog tag on your neck, post-mortem identification would be an impossible feat - that feeling, if you don’t know it yet, is one you want to experience, at least every now and then.

When you roam the streets with abandon
With no one to call on, no one to meet,
Is it left or right? up or down?
Lets decide at the toss of a dice.

When every stranger is your friend,
When every friend is a stranger,
What is heaven, what is earth?
When all around you is paradise.

Age brings with it, pragmatism. Reality and responsibility eventually nudge their way into the reluctant and well guarded fortress and claim their space. Nostalgia is a sign of leaving your youth behind. And you miss home. You find yourself with questions to be answered. Thoughts to be thought. Why am I here? Do I belong? Should I go home? Philosophy gives way to practicality. When the scales of the world are tipping, when the land of opportunity is calling, what is that still keeps in the old world? The answer is not so easy anymore, but I am still here. And here’s why.

(To be continued)

One of the many things that I have inherited from my father is the ability to weave impossibly incredible tales. Simple as it might sound, it takes limitless faith that anything is possible, unreined imagination that will fly without boundaries and the complete lack of conscience that the poor sod listening intently at your stories has no clue that it couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Did I forget to mention that you also need to be willing to bear the consequences - I had my first experience with that when, as a six year old, I had a classroom full of students enthralled in a story on how the Red Indians are actually Indians who dug a hole deep into the earth, so deep that it crossed the whole earth, and they arrived at the other end of the world, where they discovered America - and on their way, they had to pass through hot molten lava and thats why they turned red. It was a bit unfortunate that my class teacher failed to see the humor and imagination in the tale, and decided I had to be duly punished, even though I insisted I was merely repeating one of my father’s stories and had no clue myself that it was not true - guess I was not that good at lying, after all.

Sadly for me, S now knows all too well what I know and what I don’t - and its very hard to bluff him these days. Today was one of those rare days that I almost got away with it, when I was in the mood for a discourse on the 10 different ways of governing people. I was caught out while I was in the midst of a comparative analysis of Plato’s Republic and Kautilya’s Arthashastra when it struck him that Arthashastra has been on my Amazon wish list for a long time now, and there is no way that I had read it (Ok, he insists that he knew my bluff all along, but this is my blog, ain’t it?) , which he then extrapolated to how I had never read the rest of my 9 sources too, which really isn’t true. Now that I have lost the one listener I had, where else can I vent my thoughts than on my blog..

Did you know that Xerocracy is a form of government? And that it is the rule through photocopying, in which members spread and copy their opinions and convince others, rather than through formal organizations.

Did you know that Kleptocracy, which is governance through corruption, and kleptomania, where you steal compulsively, have the same root words?

Or that Vaishali was the first Republic ever? And that the first King of Vaishali renounced his crown in the name of human rights? And this happened somewhere in the 6th century BC?

Don’t you think India might be called a gerontocracy, where the average age of the ruling population is significantly higher that than of the ruled?

Haven’t you ever wondered if demarchy, where the government is chosen at random, might just work better than democracy? If you could make a perfect random generator, perhaps you could build a perfect government?

As snobbish as it may sound, geniocracy may not be as bad as it seems? As often misinterpreted, geniocracy is not a rule by the most intelligent, but it merely says that people who form the government should be above a certain level of intelligence, usually a certain % higher than the average.Now, is that really something unreasonable to ask for?

If there was such a word as malarchy, US just might qualify for it?

Had you heard of Ajayocracy, which is a rule by people who cannot hold their drink? If that isn’t a weird way to pick your government, what is?

Governance is not such a boring topic as you might have thought, is it?

On a sullen Dutch summer day,
With no hint of sun or rain,
When even the trees refuse to sway,
I search for hope, but in vain.

I hear her voice across many a mile,
Faint against the torrential pour,
And the cough that hides behind the smile,
Wishing I was there, and nothing more.

When my head was spinning and very hot,
She had picked me up and held me close;
Even though I was numb and but a tot,
That memory, I cherish like a golden rose.

When the world had all but fallen apart,
When even breathing was just a drain,
She had smiled, straight from her heart
And I knew then, all would be well again.

Yet, I sit here, worthless, in a faraway land,
What is it that keeps me here, I wonder;
When all I want is to hug her and hold her hand,
What could be worth keeping me and her asunder?

Could I go home, just to make a cup of herbal tea,
So she could watch the rain, with me at her side?
To answer without a phone, when she calls for me,
Just to be there, to hold her through every stride?

I stare out from my window at the sultry summer sky,
And wish I could be home, by any wild wonderful way,
Perhaps a pair of wings that would let me soar and fly;
Yet all that stares back is a dark dismal dreary day.

Get well soon, my mother dear.

You climb every mountain
You cross every river
To find the hidden gem
Ah! you poor fool
Did you look within yourself?

That happiness comes from within is not a new thought, yet why do most of us forget that? In our eternal search to be happy, we forget to search in that one place where it is most likely to be - ourselves.

Over the past few days, I go to bed with a general feeling of emptiness which I fill with sadness, for lack of any other emotion. Until last night, I decided to take a hard look at my own self and ask myself why I was unhappy - and truth be told, I couldn’t find a reason, which completely surprised me. I had assumed that since I had moved there must be stresses associated with it and that I should be unhappy. But once I started decomposing each of my reasons, I realised that none of them hold water. I had chosen for myself what I call a default state of unhappiness. And I was looking everywhere else to find my supposedly lost or stolen happiness, but at my own self. And hence it was time to reiterate to myself one of my philosophies of life, which I had formulated to myself eleven years ago.

(Now I know that I am propounding my own philosophies of life and maybe hard for many to stomach - firstly, you don’t have to read it, and secondly if you insist, you can always rip my theories apart in the comments section. This is not turning into a Dalai Lama kind of blog, just an occasional detour =))

Eleven years ago, I was supposedly in a state of elation - or so everyone around me thought. Something really good had happened in my life, the details of which are completely irrelevant here, and people around me thought I should be in the “seventh heaven of delight”. Just that, I wasn’t. And I was too afraid to confess that for fear of ridicule, for fear of being branded insane or just plain confusion. I myself wasn’t sure why I wasn’t as happy as everyone expected me to be. Having had the luxury of time on my hands, I pondered deep thoughts and decided to step back and for the first time in my life, wonder what makes me unhappy and happy. And the answers I discovered then, still hold true for my life.

Happiness comes from within. And the moment you let external factors dictate your happiness, you lose control of it. So, you aced your exam or you got that elusive promotion or you won that million dollar lottery - do you really have to be happy? Why are you happy if you aced an exam? Probably because you worked hard for it and you think you are being recognised for it. Probably because you will benefit from it, such as a great job. Probably because people around you, like your family or friends, are proud of you. If you look at it objectively, you no longer hold the key to your happiness. You could work hard, but you are depending on everyone else around you to act in a manner consistent with what could make you happy, which they may not happen all the time. All of a sudden, they have control over your emotions. Now if you think about it, why would you want to do that? If you have worked hard and if you feel you have done well, shouldn’t you allow yourself the happiness, no matter the consequences? Just because your friend may be jealous and doesn’t shout and scream with you, should you be unhappy?

The argument gets stronger if you consider that it would take care of the risk of unexpected failure. You have done exceptionally well in your job, but you were denied the promotion, because the CEO’s son wanted it too. Should you be unhappy? I don’t see why. Now, don’t mistake lack of unhappiness with lack of reaction. If you have been passed over for unfair reasons, you should react against it. But not because you are unhappy. But only because a logical analysis shows you what the best reaction in such a circumstance would be. I am not asking everyone to be machines, devoid of emotions. You can be happy or unhappy - but know the sources of your happiness to the lowest granularity, and give no one else the control over it. If you can be happy or unhappy at will, you are ready to go into samadhi. Not that we want to do it, but know that we can. Cultivate that power, and nothing can ever make you really unhappy.

The downside is that sometimes you are not happy when everyone expects you to be. I feel happy over small things - like a blossoming flower or a soulful tune or a lovely smile from a loved one - but I doubt that a million dollar lottery or a great Prada gift or an unexpected Ferrari - would make me really happy. And yet, if I got any of that, I would indulge in more external exhibitions of happiness than I would if I had woken up to a lovely sunrise. Strange are the ways of humans! Stranger are they when we ourselves forget that the external exhibitions are just that. We forget that the simple pleasures of life hold the key to our happiness much more than these huge non-events that we keep hoping for. We forget to find joy in the beauty of a job well done, rather than in the recognition of it.

Today, I reminded myself of a truth I had accepted once and forgotten over the years. Today, I feel happy.

(Translation: He who has realised the ultimate truth, is fully established in Brahman, poised in spiritual intelligence and devoid of delusion, he neither rejoices when experiencing what is pleasant nor is distressed when experiencing what is unpleasant.)
- The Bhagavad Gita

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
-Robert Frost

Few amongst us wouldn’t have come to cross roads in our life. That juncture in our life, when we have to choose where we want to head next. Whether it is what you want to study, where you want to work, whom you want to spend the rest of your life with - choices are one thing you cannot run away from. The most significant decision in my life was my choice of giving up the one thing that I loved very much, Badminton. I still play for fun, but it has been over 10 years since I gave up dreaming about being a professional Badminton player.

Robert Frost could have “kept the other road for another day”, but for most of us, there is no turning back. We choose, we decide and move on. The best we can do is wonder how life would have turned out, if we had chosen, in my case, the road less traveled. And if wondering so makes our heart ache, we often decide never to ponder about that path again. It then becomes one of the little closed boxes in our memory rack that we refuse to open. To me, badminton is the one that has been given the strongest lock. That nook of my memories that I never bother to look back at.

So, why today? I chanced upon a post about Nikhil Kanetkar today. I remember Nikhil from the time we attended a National Badminton camp in Goa, and then from several Sub-junior and Junior National championships. We even had a weird nickname for him in the girl’s dorm (which I won’t mention here), because he was freakishly clean (by the standards of 12-year olds in a sports camp). The other names in that post conjured up several memories too. In one of my best matches, I remember beating Aparna Popat & partner in doubles, the victory made all the more sweet because I had woefully lost in singles to her just the previous day.

From the time I could remember to when I was 16, I lived, breathed and dreamt about Badminton. While most kids worried about exams and the cute boy around the corner, I just had one obsession - and that was to win. On the Badminton court. I think I had my very own racket at 3. A small wooden one. As I grew older, the rackets grew lighter and my trainings grew longer. I trained with the Sports Authority of India (SAI) facilities in my home town. A typical day would see us at the courts from 6 am to 8 am and then from 4.30pm to 8.30pm. And this was five days a week, 52 weeks a year. Pepper it with the all-important tournaments where you pit your skills against the rest who have been undergoing pretty much the same grueling training in different parts of the country, and you have an idea of an aspiring sportsperson’s life. On most days, it was well past 9pm when I started my homework. Stressful as it might seem to an outsider, I loved those days. I traveled to many parts of India to participate in the tournaments. I had friends in different parts of the country. Above all, I loved the sport. And I seriously believed that I would make it big, one day.

Yet here I am, 10 years hence, in a world far removed. As I think back to the time when I was presented with the two diverging roads in my yellow wood, I wonder why I didn’t take the road I wanted to. If I had let the naive teenager choose the rosy path, as seen with her tinted shades of optimism, I probably would still be playing Badminton now. No, I borrowed some logic from the future risk analyst I was to become, some wisdom from the world weary traveler I am, and some pessimism from the disillusioned old woman I might become - and decided that it was not to be. Why did I decide to follow my head, rather than my heart? I could be just one among the millions who chose a less risky route, but the answers to my questions could well be relevant to anyone pondering the sad state of sports in India.

Reason numero uno was politics. From the time I was young, my mother, who was a successful sportsperson in her days, used to tell me - be the best; far better than the rest, so that they can’t ignore you. Because if you are number 2, you could just as well be the dust on the carpet, swept away to make way for the bold and the beautiful. I still remember the time when I came runners-up in a state tournament, and I should rightfully have been selected to represent the state in both singles and doubles. Young as I was, I was happily sidelined, by the coach and team manager who decided to play up a minor shoulder injury I had. It took a lot of tussle between my parents and the organisers before they let me play the singles, while they still didn’t let me play the doubles, because they had to somehow fit in the district collector’s daughter into the whole equation. I could play that day because I had very supportive parents, but in subsequent years, I have seen many kids being sidelined because they don’t know the right people. The lack of meritocracy can sometimes reach appalling heights. Forget team selections, I have even seen coaches advising trainees to lose matches on purpose. Whatever the reason might have been, match fixing, even in its most crude lame form, is never acceptable. And yet that happens in India, even in the lowest level of sports.

The second was lack of support, lack of exposure, lack of opportunities. Sports were encouraged in my school, to a large extent. That is, as long as it did not affect your studies. I was lucky enough to be able to manage both relatively easily. So, I got by without many problems till I was in the 10th standard. But with the board exams looming near, many were those who told my parents they were crazy for letting me play sports and miss so many classes. To the ordinary man, sports is still a waste of time, with not much hope for the future. And I wouldn’t fault them for that mentality, because it is true to a large extent in our country. At least if you are not playing cricket. Only because my father was willing to spend money to buy me shuttles and rackets and sports gear, and even pay for the trips for the tournaments, could I play even as much as I could. I wouldn’t kid myself that there weren’t more talented kids with less support from parents.

In most other countries, there is infrastructure for children to play a variety of sports in school, and then if someone shows talent, the national bodies of that sport, or private sponsors would pick up the tab for the child’s sporting needs, as long as he is willing to choose that career path. But not so in India. By the time sponsors come knocking at your door, you must have made a very significant name for yourself. And many are those we drop on the way, just because they couldn’t hang in there till they were good enough. Indian sports collectively lack the infrastructure to pick up young talent, nourish them and bring them to fruition. Who is to blame? The government who has to bear the primary responsibility (though I believe that the SAI schemes are a step in the right direction), the media who with their excessive hype on cricket and tennis forget all else, and private companies, who should consider sponsoring local sporting talents as a way to contribute to the community they operate in.

And the third reason for me, was lack of exit options. Just about the time I finished high school and had to think seriously about my future, three of my friends and fellow Badminton players were off the Baddy scene, because of various injuries. Add to that a nagging knee injury I used to have every once in a while, and I was forced to think of what would my future be like, if I had to quit somewhere halfway through. And the fact is, it looked bleak. If I were to decide not to invest in academics, and then not be able to complete the race to sporting glory, there weren’t too many options. Forget falling by the wayside, even if you retired with fanfare and glory, it doesn’t get much better. How many of India’s sportsmen remain truly rich? Or attain the kind of iconic status like those in other countries? Fact is, not many. Haven’t we all read about old champions pawning their gold medals to buy food?

If I had to choose between aspiring to be a businessman like Narayana Murthy or an economist like Manmohan Singh or a successful professional like Rajat Gupta or a sportswoman like P.T.Usha, and if quality of life, especially after the heydays, were a criteria, sadly P.T.Usha fares way behind. And that is because, for all our occasional rant about lack of sportspeople in India, we just don’t care enough about those who fly the national flag in the sports fields. Sports is a high risk game. If the rewards don’t make up for the high risk, it is just not worth playing. Be it money, power, prestige, popularity - there ain’t enough for sports in India.

I won’t prolong this post any longer. I don’t follow the Indian sports scene much these days, and thus I don’t claim to know all about what ails Indian sports. These are just the reasons why I personally chose to ignore the grassy road that wanted wear and took the one that looked nice and fair. I don’t blame the pathetic nature of Indian sports infrastructure for the decision I took - in fact, I look back and am amazed at the prudence and clarity of thought I showed at that age. If I had to do it again, I might probably choose the same road I did back then. Yet, I would be lying if I said that the state of affairs in Indian sports had nothing to do with it. Somewhere, someday, when I have enough resources and capabilities, I hope to do something about it. But for now, it will remain the closed door of my mind. And I will just be happy wishing all the Badminton players of India the very best, as they prepare for the National Championships.

Love is strange. It makes you feel like there is no one else in the world. And something this beautiful has to be unique. I bet no one else has ever felt this way before.

But then why are there are so many amazing poets out there who seem to have read my mind and said it better than I could have imagined? Why do some songs seem to have been written just for me? Every once in a rare while, why do I come across a story that relentlessly tugs at my heart strings?

Maybe the joy is more beautiful because the world knows it too. When I flit and float happily the morning after and the old lady at the bus stop gives me a knowing smile, maybe I feel happier? Not because the world knows I am happy, but the world joins me in being happy. We all know the same happiness and the same sorrows - and its those connections that we feel - across the borders, across cultures, across languages - that makes us feel at home. No matter where we are.

During a little detour after lunch today, something pink and something white smiled at me from the window of a shop. Before I knew it, I was at the cash counter and happily handing out my credit card. And guess what I bought! A beautiful pair of ski clothes. I walk back to work, still dreaming of the lovely white slopes, when some inconsiderate soul reminds me that it is only October. And another lets me know that I have no vacation - let alone a ski vacation - planned for a long time. And then a stranger that I meet on the lift is curious about where I am going to ski. Well, I don’t know. And I also don’t know IF I will be skiing this year. NOW listen to the clincher, I don’t know how to ski!!

But people, haven’t you ever heard of love at first sight? Haven’t you ever had a dream? Haven’t you ever come across something too good to be true? Or something that you absolutely must have? Its no surprise to me that the three otherwise-wonderful people who did not quite understand these concepts seemed to be of the male species. Anyways, this post is not about male-female differences in shopping, although that could be an interesting topic for discussion some other time. For now, I am just in a mood to talk about my shopping-categories.

First in the list is love-at-first-sight buys, aka impulse buys. You see it and you have to have it. You just know that if say, a shoe, could be your soul mate, this is the one. You are made for each other. And indeed love is blind, especially if his name is Manolo Blahnik. I may fall out of love later and it may turn out to be a rather blisterful relationship, but the momentary ecstasy could arguably be worth the bread and water I survive on till my next paycheck arrives. Ah! the sacrifices one makes for true love.

Then there are the aspirational buys, things you buy because it represents a dream to you. I want to finally learn skiing this winter and I really hope I will. But for now, its as much planned as my trip to Mars. Except that I don’t have a space suit, but I have my ski clothes. Thats aspirational buying. Although there are times when I wish that I am just a tad bit realistic in my aspirations. Like the time I bought a suit of the exact same design as the one worn by Charlize Theron in Italian Job. Its a lovely suit, and I would love to wear it to work. But the eternal optimist that I am, I bought it with a 24 inch waist. It was a 2003 movie and we will soon be in 2006 and I still cant get into the pants. But the hope remains.

Then there are the too-good-to-be-missed buys, which IMHO are the most dangerous. Thats when that Hermes bag you had always noticed on the shop window and smugly told yourself that rich people have no taste and thats why that ugly bag could hope to get sold for a 1000€, is now suddenly available for a mere 200. Don’t you think it is an awful sin to buyers all over, if one lets go of a 80% markdown? And then you realise that Hermes or no Hermes, you don’t even want to be caught dead in it. Or when you buy an 8-in-1, which is a coffeemaker and an a alarm and a breakfast maker and a radio (and I can’t remember the rest) all rolled into one, even though you have all of them at home as separate perfectly functioning entities. When such a marvel of design and innovation is available for a mere 59.99, its definitely too good to be missed. That is, until it becomes a 3-in-1 after a mere 63 hours. Or when you buy the 1€ T-shirt, thinking you can wear it to bed and then you remain paranoid why it was available for a € - has it been already worn by someone and if so, what do you think think they did while they were wearing it? Well, these buys are usually useless and an absolute waste of money, but many of my too-good-to-be-missed buys have made me a legend in our family book of horrible humor.

Then of course there is the category of this-is-how-you-do-it buys. That is when you recognise your need for an object, you analyse the benefits that you have out of buying it vis-a-vis its cost and make an informed decision on whether you should buy it or not. And if the decision is to buy it, you research about it and buy it at the shop that gives you the best deal. I only have hearsay about this, and despite strong rumours that such buys actually do happen in this world, I remain a skeptic about the existence of such a category.

And lastly, there is the necessity buys category - despite what you might have gathered about my shopping habits so far, most of my buys actually belong to this category. And they happen when I realise that all my half decent suits are at the dry cleaners and I have to make a career-making presentation tomorrow. Or I have a job interview the day after and I realise that the only shoes that match my good luck shirt had a broken heel the last week. Or when it dawns on me that there is such a thing as laundry that one needs to be done regularly and now I have a choice of wearing a stinking used shirt the next day or be benevolent and contribute to the ailing economy - as a responsible citizen, there is obviously only one right decision.

Today, I sat down to write an email introducing myself to someone. While I was struggling to think of some sensible mundane details that define me to the external world, my mind meandered down the memory lane. I was reminded of an exercise I had to do sometime back, as part of a corporate leadership workshop. We had to choose one object from nature that we resembled the most (not physically of course) and describe it. Don’t ask me what this had to do with leadership - there was some explanation about self discovery, which I can’t really remember now.

Anyhow, I chose a river.

A river meanders, yet it knows where its headed.

A river is well aware of its source, yet it can never really flow back - it left its mountain top where it was just a little innocent spring, now it must flow through the many lands until it will end up in the sea.

Rivers are well traveled and run a long way, from the lofty mountain tops to the faraway seas.

Unlike the sea which just touches the surface of every land it visits, a river gets to the know the lands it visits, becomes an integral part of every land if flows through and gathers parts of the land into its own persona.

A river runs deep, and often appears still on the surface. But dig a little deeper and you will be surprised to find the wealth underneath. It carries the sediments from many lands and many lives, yet hides them well and flows its merry way.

A river is usually calm and people tend to take it for granted, but you never ever want to know its wrath.

A river has many different persona and many different names - when it flows through each land, its given a different name. And in some places, its wide and deep. Sometimes, it slows to a tiny trickle. And sometimes it has high beautiful waterfalls. Yet its all parts of the one.

A river sustains life, yet its often underestimated in the role it plays in our lives. Riverbanks have always been the bed of civilisations and almost every big city was built near a river.

Sometimes rivers help people. Yet sometimes, it can be obstinate and difficult. While rivers can provide a fast and delightful way of traveling, they also form natural barriers in a landscape.

A river lets itself be shaped to a large extent by its surroundings. It likes to adapt and to adjust to the environment. Yet, only to a certain extent. No landscape can make a river flow upstream.

Rivers change the landscape through which they flow, and in many ways - they erode the land, they deposit new sand, they even change the way people feel.

What Emerson sings about the Musketaquit could just as well as apply to any other, be it the amazing Amazon, the mighty Mississippi, the glorious Ganges or the resplendent Rhine.

Thou in thy narrow banks art pent:
The stream I love unbounded goes
Through flood and sea and firmament;
Through light, through life, it forward flows.

I see the inundation sweet,
I hear the spending of the steam
Through years, through men, through Nature fleet,
Through love and thought, through power and dream.

Go on, give it a shot - what object in nature do you think resembles you the most?

I am sad today. Very sad. I am lonely yet again. I sit alone in my unnecessarily and wastefully large apartment, which seems even more so today. The silence is broken only by the sporadic typing on my keyboard and the incessant ticking of the clock on the wall. An occasional car on the street claims to create some noise around me. Yet it is the silence that is deafening.

The simple pleasures of life are the hardest to come by. My mom cooking in the kitchen. My dad reading a book in the living room. S surfing in the study room. I flit and float across the three rooms, happy that the three people I love the most in this whole wide world are under the same roof. And I dont have to worry about them. I know how they are and where they are and I can talk to them, without worrying about the IDD charges or the time zones. In my life, this is a rarity. Almost like once in a blue moon. When it happens, it lasts a day or two. And today, they are all gone again. Back to their own lives.

“Loneliness has always been a friend of mine”. I am too old to listen to Backstreet Boys, yet that line always seems like it was written just for me. But today, even the loneliness is not a comforting friend. He is upset that I had ignored him for the last two days. It takes a while to pacify my oldest friend and remind him yet again that all my life I have always come back to being alone. And that I will eventually find happiness in being alone. And then somehow that pact will be broken again, when people walk in and out of my life. Like there are no doorbells they need to ring. I love them, and I miss them. I understand why they have to leave, but it doesn’t make it any easier. I am angry at the world and at my life. No matter how fast I run, I just never seem to reach my destination. The closer I get to people, the farther they seem to move away.

Tears are flowing down my eyes. I move the keyboard away so that it wont get into the spaces between the keys and ruin the internals. Other than that, it could hurt no one else. Coz theres no one else to know. And there seems no particular gain in wiping my eyes or in trying to stop the tears. So I let it be.

Dont feel sorry for me. Self-pity deserves nothing from anyone but myself, not even the time you took to read this. And from me, I take the time off to recognise that I am sad. That I am not addicted to loneliness. And to remind myself that I am not a loner by choice and thus not a freak.

Now that that deed is done, I get back to do the many things that I have to do and love to do. And then I forget to be sad.

There are things in life which you wonder whether you can do? Whether you are capable of taking that mighty leap of faith?

You look around and you wonder, there are so many people better than me who would do it better than me? Who are capable of it much more than me? Yet, should I just give up?

My heart wants to try, even if I might fail. But then there is a part of me that says, if it all ends in nought, it will be such a colossal waste of time. And then you have to start all over again. Not to mention the heartaches and the shattered self-confidence? Its like standing on the brink of an empty stage, where no one in the audience knows who is coming up next. If you turn around and run, no one will ever know you were up next. If you go ahead and make an utter fool of yourself, the world will be laughing at you. But then, if you do take that giant leap and you do make it big, you will be a star. The shining star.

Someone told me once, that you don’t regret the things that you tried and failed, but only the ones that you didn’t dare to try. I wonder if thats true.

Maybe the people who are better than me never get down to it because they don’t dare to. They might be the ones who will grow old to regret the wasted talents. Maybe what differentiates me is not that I am any better, but that I am not afraid to fall. Am I not afraid to fall? - I don’t know. The world will believe in you, only if I believe in myself. Wouldnt it be infinitely easier if the world believed in me first.

At least, if I try and fail, I will at least know that I tried. That I gave it a shot. I will know that I wasn’t good enough - but that I gave it all I could. When I live to be a hundred and sit by the fire, I will laugh at myself and my ridiculously misplaced confidence. Wouldn’t that be better than not knowing how it might have turned out? Wondering if I would have made it, if only I had tried?

I wonder..