The crossroad...

We have truly no idea how the next moment would turn out. But we don't live that way. It takes immense courage to live like that. As if you are on the edge of a mountain. You can fall off any moment but then maybe you won't. Or maybe it is more like standing at the beginning of infinite crossroads- the point where a node breaks into many others- all in different directions and you can either just keep walking in the same direction or switch to another. What do you do? The road ahead is likely to be the same. But the road on the left could take you on a different path. But then is that yours to take? And usually it is all dark and you can't even see much ahead except a vague silhouette of what lies ahead.

Every moment brings up questions like this and all we can do is to nudge apart the shades of the past which cover the lantern of awareness. Then somehow, something helps you know which way to turn. And you turn and come to another crossroad.

At one point, I used to think that this was getting too difficult. I wanted a simple, well defined, clear path and take any surprise out of it. Having choice comes with its responsibilities. And, at times, we choose to live this difficult life of awareness. And sometimes, we prefer to blindfold ourselves, trust in luck and keep moving on the same path. And then we blame why it is not how we expected it to be.

As I grow older, I see that it is all right to change paths or to keep moving. Except without the blindfold. Then even though things don't turn out the way I expect, I am just that bit more at peace. Even when I have an accident. Because I know that it was the path that I chose and that is enough.

So, what do i deserve?

I never asked this question to myself for a really long time. Never. For me, life was more about doing the "right" thing and protecting others from my feelings. I searched for validation in authors, in friends, in characters on cinema...whatever worked.

But usually others did not get it. So far as I pushed what I felt, under the carpet, no one else knew my anger. When I expected something I wanted from others, something very reasonable like returning a call and did not get it, I rationalized. Oh! she must be busy right now. There must be a really important reason. Sometimes the saint in me told me - Move beyond expectation. Dont ask. Be Loving. Let it go.  Be brave.

It only helped for a while.

The anger grew within and then became sadness. It began to be the way to live. Loving others without loving myself did not work.

I slowly realize that it does not have to be that way. I can ask for what I think I deserve. It is all right to expect. It is all right to feel miserable when I do not get what I want. It is important, very important to find those who will listen to what I ask for and would make an effort to reach out. But ask what you deserve. Have that clarity. Don't be afraid of asking. Otherwise, how would others even know.

Yes, life is complex. Yes, sometimes we reach out and are frustrated. But it is important to wear your heart inside out. To be vulnerable. To show vulnerability. It is a softer heart and a harder path but I am coming to peace with it. 

Who is in your cloud?

"So, what do you do when you feel that you are ALWAYS in the minority?", asked a friend to me in today morning. "How do you react when what you say and feel seems to be different from what others say and feel?", she asked.

I looked back at her. My answer was "Self compassion". From where I am standing that seems to be the only way to deal with this. I have felt a part of such minority for a really long time. I guess many of us have. We try to fit in, adjust, make amends, say sorry and be like others. The urge to be "we" is strong. Overpowering. But sooner or later, for some of us, the "me" will rebel. It will grow stronger and keep asking - a voice that you can't really quiet down. But accepting and proclaiming our difference in perception brings the fear of being an outcast- separate from the herd. And separation is death, shouts another voice encoded within for survival.

Hence, self compassion. To love oneself without any comparison or judgement. Especially when you feel absolutely by yourself and without a hand to hold on to.

But, self compassion can be tiring. It requires rejuvenation. So, a more practical option is to also search for those who "connect" to you. Those soul warriors are few but they are out there. They might not have the same troubles as you have but they have suffered and they will understand what you mean when you say that clearing your emotional debris is no cake-walk. Their bag of worries and their baggage of past might be different but their path and their way of walking on it is the same as yours.

Then, when they talk to you, healing happens.

Today, the same friend who asked me questions about being in the minority mentioned Jeff Brown and I chanced upon his quotes. And I could connect to it. Like a child who sees one sea shell on the shore and then another ...and then one more, I began to read what he said. I began to fill my pockets with these lovely shells till my pockets bulged.

So, create a cloud. Put yourself in it. Put all those who connect to you in it too. They could be friends or colleagues. Even authors. Anyone whose reflections of their journey resonate with you. And even though your cloud might be small, you would feel that you are not alone. Let them go when you no longer connect to them. Let yourself go find another cloud if you dont connect with them. After all, clouds have no fixed boundaries. And neither have you.

So, Jeff Brown - welcome to my cloud. I am not alone, and neither are you..

Hugging the loser in you!

It is common for us to aspire for winning. Get attached to it. Run away from losing. After all, that is how you succeed and grow, you are told.

Let us take this piece of "conventional wisdom" and challenge the wisdom in it. Let us turn it upside down to see if believing this will create any scars.

As i piece my own life together, I slowly begin to unpack those aspects of me which, Debbie Ford or Carl Jung would say, have been disowned. In the last 4 decades of my existence, I have not respected my losing - even though it stared at me in my face from time to time. I turned away when it came near my face. I tuned away when it yelled. I did not acknowledge it. I was not a loser, I told myself. I will WIN.

Incidentally, in my rush to be a winner, I kept creating conditions which made my losing a matter of time. I would never relax. If a relationship was going down, instead of accepting that such things happen, I would either withdraw or push harder to win. It never worked. If I had relaxed, I would have seen how my actions were creating the very suffering I did not want.

The loser label was simply not acceptable.

Reality says we will lose sometime or the other. A job we want might go to someone else. A lover we see as our soul mate might walk into someone else' arms. The life we so tenaciously hold on to will lose to death. Losing is guaranteed. And it is not just OK but also sensible to accept being a loser when life hands you a tough one.

No, I don't want to run away from it anymore. I want to stop and say hello to it. Yes, i am a loser sometimes and that is cool. I want to hug this fear, this demon of losing I have been running away from.   Accepting that i can be a loser allows me stop pushing into those areas where there is no light at the end of the tunnel. It allows me to water those plants which will blossom. It takes away the burden of being all-knowing, all-good all the time. It allows me to look rather at what I do than what result am I going to get. It allows me to enjoy the process. It allows me to breathe.

It's a short life. Win some. Lose some. But live it fully. Thanks to Debbie Ford for bringing this to my awareness.

Let's Watch...

Imagine stories. Expressions from the heart. Words with feelings. Narratives with softness of sensitivity and the depth of human experience.

What happens when you want to play these stories out? What happens when you take a teller's tale and use your body to show how it all felt? Use your voice to capture its essence. With no preparation. All improvised. Play it back to them with honesty and commitment.

Playback theatre is all about enacting our life's stories...again. Sometimes as a fluid sculpture with voice and movement, sometimes as an image frozen in time, sometimes as vignettes unfolding magically and sometimes as stories acted out in a narrow corridor. So many ways to reach out and share. 

But what Playback theatre does is more than a re-telling. It heals. As we watch our own stories played out by an ensemble of actors, there is a part in us which witnesses and somehow puts it back in a different perspective. Almost as if the contents of our memory are re-shuffled. The pain that some of these tales are soaked in begins to subside. The joy these stories contain infects others. We feel better. Much better.

As an actor, I loved playing the stories out. I read somewhere that if we delve deep within, we realize that our feelings are replenished by the same source. Acting required me to dig in and drink from that source. No planning and preparation. Being totally there. Beautiful to feel so connected.

As a teller, I saw my own stories replayed and yet transformed magically. A short frail boy who hit three sixes again became a hero. His joy reaching out and embalming the souls of even those who had never seen him.

As a conductor, I had the opportunity to sometimes hold the threads of the teller's story together so that the actors could always make out its essence. I had to make sure that the art form fit the story. A fragmented story, for example, would be done justice to in the playback form of corridors. So much invisible work that binds the whole performance together.

As a watcher, I had the time of my life. Listening and watching as the human drama enfolded every day and I felt being tugged by invisible strings which reached out from the words of the teller and the expressions of the actors. The Me became a We.

My journey with Playback is new. And like all new journeys there is an overarching sense of excitement and a niggling sense of uncertainty. Who knows where it will go. 

Let's watch.

The price of freedom...

The mind wants certainty. Make no bones about it. It wants to know, to make sure, to cling to certainty.  And since it is a part of us, we can be pushed into this deep craving for certainty. Like knowing where exactly a road leads to and how bumpy is it going to be.

But life does not offer any such solidity. No guarantees. Now, either we can accept it or we can fight it. And believe me how good a fighter you believe you may be, you cannot defeat reality. 

But, we live on, in the midst of this make believe. Hoping that tomorrow will be better than today. Hoping that the house on which you have made your down payment will be ready, that the child you have so carefully helped grow older will think of you fondly, that you will get a better job soon, that your friends will last... Some of it comes true and you begin to believe that you have actually cracked it. Done what was impossible for others. Got certainty in your grasp and life will listen to and honour your wishes.

It won't.

No, I am not trying to be a kill-joy and drive fear into you or push you into one of those "what would you do if it were your last day blah..." statements. I am just saying that being an adult is to accept this uncertainty and live with it. With joy if possible. 

Do all you can and accept whatever happens, seems like a good way to be, to live and to love. It is not a better way to live- it is, in my view, the only way to LIVE. Any other way means numbing your fear of something going wrong. 

And it can be very uncomfortable living this way. The mind resists it, at first. It cant build a story anymore of how things will actually turn out -whether bad or good. It will exaggerate your fears. Play with your anxiety. But you must plod on. Slowly lean into the discomfort. Keep at it. And then one day the spell is broken. 

You are free...only to fight a bigger battle this time. Only to help those who are ready. To respect yourself enough and to love yourself deeply. Because you see that you are not alone, the whole universe resides within. And it takes hard work of a lifetime to feel that connection.

But then, there are no guarantees!

Adult Vs Child

So, what is the difference in being a child and being an adult? My answer is choice. Deliberate choice.

To the unobserved eye, the actions of an adult and child might look just the same. But their intention and level of awareness are on completely different levels. 

How?

Its 6 am. You are doing your daily jog when you see a 5 year old and a 40 year old (dad) enter the park. The child runs towards the flower beds. The dad runs behind him. Playfully. They chase each other, the child cackling with laughter and the adult with a big wide grin till he finally catches the kid. A great start to the day- for both of them, you wonder.

But lets go back an hour. 

Its 5 am. Dad hasnt slept much last night. The new boss has been giving him a lot of grief - giving him stiff deadlines to achieve sales targets. At this time, leaving the job is not an option. Jobs are difficult to come by. And then there is the pain in the heels that refuses to go away. He has been planning to get to the doc for the last 4 days but the only appointment available is 2 days later.  And he has to be there for dad's surgery this weekend that has been freaking him out. Right now, life  is hard. He wishes he could just sleep away the troubles and wake up to a boss-free and pain-free day. But that is just wishful magic thinking. Not gonna happen. So, he talks to himself, reminds how important it is for him to spend these 45 minute with his son in the morning, and begins to get ready.

The kid had a good night's sleep. He looks forward to every morning when he can catch up and play with dad. He is groggy when dad wakes him up, but then he has the whole day to sleep since it is still summer vacation. He does not think too much. 

So, here they are, an hour later. Running around the park. But the adult made a choice. He accepted that life, right now, was hard. But that was ok. He knows that there never will be a perfect care-free morning. Something or the other will always worry him. He has to get into the arena and dare the bull, knowing that he will never have the complete armour. That the fear of bungling it all up would always be there and he has to accept the fear and yet act. 

Brave. Yes, that is what adult acts are like. And mind you, it has nothing to do with age. Some children never grow up.

The gentle beat...

Today, I decide to live with my heart. I realize that it has been constantly at work since I had my first breath. Constantly. Working harder when I ran or climbed, working slower when I rested. But working. It spoke silently when I went headlong into a direction which really wasn't mine- coming from shoulds that others thrust upon me. It sang when I found the right path again. Yes, sometimes the mind shifted into the driver's seat, giving meaning and interpretation to what I felt. Sometimes, even creating fear when I did not listen to it. But the heart was always there. Like a constant presence of the princess behind the curtains. Ready to be revealed if I reached out. And today I decide to...

Lessons from the Tarahumara

I love walking. It is like a religion to me. You can wake me up in the middle of the night and ask me if I could come for a walk, and I'll come. Walking makes me happy. Maybe, that is how I have survived so many hikes, so many treks. I just walked. Half the metaphors I write are about paths, trails and terrains- all linked to walking!

So when a few days ago, I woke up to a sharp pain in my heels, it threatened something I held dear. I had to know why.

And so began the search. Pronation, Overpronation, Supination, Arch Support, Plantar Fasciitis. The terms helped me come know what was happening and why but I did not like where they were leading me as a solution-" Buy a nice cushioned pair of shoes with a thick tongue and support for your arch", they said. It felt logical but something was missing. Till yesterday.

"Born to run" is a book about the Tarahumara (Tara-oo-mara), a tribe in Mexico known for their unbelievable running abilities. As Chris Mcdougall, who wrote the book, describes. a 60-70 mile run over an inhospitable terrain with stone walls and dry cold is nothing. They do it like a warm up. For them, it is fun.

So, here I am, walking a few miles everyday, in my modern nike and addidas and I get heel pain. While they have nothing but pieces of leather strapped to their feet and they run till the terrain ends and that too with no pain. 

How? If I were to simplify it to one word, it is love.

Love for running. They just love it. It bring them joy. It makes them happy. Perhaps a primeval feeling that we all get when we stretch our legs and run. The trees zipping past, the wind in the hair, the throbbing of the heart as the legs kiss the ground. The mind goes quiet. What is there to not love, I ask. It is hard wired into us. It is how we travelled for centuries. And then chose comfort and efficiency. Yes, we can now go to London in 8 hours but maybe we lost something more basic on the way.

But I am digressing. What I wanted to say is that if you really love something and you dont let someone tell you how much of it should you do, just do it. An 80 year old Tarahumara grandfather can run 100 miles because he loves it and because no one told him that he could not. 

In a strange way, my search for freedom from heel pain led me to another alley of insights. It solved another question that had been on my mind for a while.
  
You see, I love working and over the past few months, I have heard so many people and friends wonder why I should work so much. Especially, on Sundays. Take a break, they say. And every time I rested, it  felt strange, sad and unnatural. It did not serve to rejuvenate, it only broke the rhythm. And now I am beginning to understand why.

I guess I am made that way. Work brings me joy. Thinking through a new course, teaching a subject, designing a seminar or writing a report nourishes me. I can work hours and then a few more. I know it might sound strange but that is how I feel and now I am beginning to be ok with it.

Does it take a toll on social life? Not at all. Because when I stop, I am more happy to reach out and talk to friends. I am more aware of the of the cloudless skies in the afternoon or the headlights of the cars as they crawl through the roads at night. I am more in tune with myself and less cribbing of life in general. Is it tiring? Of course, it is. But, it is the kind of happy exhaustion which make thoughts cease and make me reach out for the bed at night.

I dont know if I would solve the puzzle of plantar fasciitis or whatever is the cause of this heel pain. But I do know that the answer lies somewhere connected to what I LOVE doing and if I keep walking on that path and being in rhythm with myself, irrespective of what others think is actually possible, I am sure that it wont be long before I discover what will make it disappear.

And as for the Tarahumara, bless them for telling me this.

No..we are not! Yes..we are..

I am walking in the city. The kind of aimless walking which does not lead anywhere and yet is soothing to the soul. It has just rained. The sky is still dark as if it is still giving the city streets a last look to see if they are wet enough.

The pavement is lined with shops. They sell everything. Clothes, jewellery, coffee, shoes...you name it and there would be some shop closeby that would give you something interesting to look at and entice you to spend.

The people breeze in and out of the shops. For some, the hunt is still on. For others, it is over. They got what they needed... for the time being. I look at them but they dont look at me. They notice me just enough to ensure that they dont bump into me as they are walking towards me. There is no eye contact.

There are at least a thousand people on the streets but they could all be walking in an empty city. If I screamed aloud, at least a hundred would hear it clearly. It is easier to hear the swish of the traffic on the wet roads than to hear the words they murmur to each other. Never to the strangers.

Where am I? Dont these people feel the way I do? Do they have the same struggles, the same issues, the same dilemmas? Do they feel happy the way I do when I meet someone I love? Do they also have the same rush of blood when someone pushes them in the crowd. Of course, they do. But then, why dont they say something aloud. Why be so quiet?

I am not in India. I am in Singapore. And I keep wondering if they are the same like us or they are not...

The beautiful thing that writing is...

There are times I am compelled to write. I just get pulled into a chair and my fingers start typing. Often, I have struggled to come up with something rich and insightful, something so honest that its nakedness is hard hitting. But all that comes up is regurled bits of conversations, phrases, books...

I want that energy, that intensity to lead to something profound, something magical. I try hard to wrap my mind around what i am feeling. I want some answers and I want writing to throw them up so that I can catch them and see where they came from and what do they tell about me. It is a lovely game. But what if I often missed something else when doing this catch and tell.

Let me explain.

When I let go of this desire to find something awesome, I am much more at peace. If I am sad, my eyes begin to water as I write, the outside noises fade away and the heart warms up as if it is in tune with something larger and deeper. If I am happy, my hands become a living embodiment of an energetic dance. Sometimes, the energy is too much to stay put.

There is no purpose in writing, except to write. Can I stay with that? Can I just relish that writing is just like the hands that massage my soul. It is a path I take to find my lost rhythm. It needs no one but an honest me...and sometimes a cup of coffee. Peace comes cheap. Believe me, I know.

A place to discover you...

Why do we hate some cities? Why do we love some? I struggle with this question every time I come to delhi.

For a person born and brought up in delhi, I ought to have some really pleasant memories of it. It should remind me of my playful childhood, my good schooling and my childhood friends. It should feel like a homecoming. But it does not.

Every time I come to delhi, I think that maybe this time I would really love it. But I dont. Two days in the city and I want to run away. Back from where I came.

No, it is not some bad childhood memories which haunt me. I was an ordinary kid. I had ordinary parents and an ordinary childhood - full of love and care and everything that is human. I loved school too and had a blast. But still....

I think there is a place we are born in. A place where we physically come into this world. And then there is a place where are born again. Where we realize who we are. It is like the stone discovering that there is a sculpture inside. A place where we begin to knock off this piece, chip off that block, where we sometimes get hammered into shape to see who we really are.

For some people, it happens to be the same city. For me, it was Delhi where I put on the inches to my height and Mumbai where I learnt to grow. I feel like blaming the city for not allowing me the right air which would have nurtured my spirit. I came across people who happened to be insensitive and cold, who judged me constantly by how I looked than what I really was capable of and who had little respect for my need to be quiet and on my own. It was a place where you had to “fit” or you are not left alone. For me, the place had turned as cold as the frosty winds that sailed through its streets in winter. It just never warmed up.

No, it is not delhi’s fault. I do not match what it takes to enjoy the city. I think it is for the braver-hearted. For those who can stand the aggression and learn to blast their way through life. As far as I am concerned, I prefer a gentler place, a place where my need to be alone is respected and I dont have to fight for it. Maybe a place where I can change the stone that nature gives me into a putty and merrily twist it into shapes to reveal who I am.

Yes, that must be why...that must be why.

It's only words......not really!

Words are dangerous. They can drown you. Ask me...am usually floundering in them. These days, I am sucked into Zorba. I dived into him when I came across his character in a book a few days ago. Vibrant, insane, a physical manifestation of man’s basic desires. Driven towards women, wine and work. Definitely, a character buried inside each man. Enough about him...lets get back to words.

Some words are shallow. They don't collect much. You can wallow in them but you ll tire out soon. They are usually complex with lots of syllables..like submersible, deskilling, reification. No one speaks them aloud when they are emotional. Just intellectual nonsense, I say.

Some go way deep. Take Buddha, for example. Just like the ocean, you can explore it by staying on the beach and trying to guess whats it like deep inside it by looking at the sea shells it leaves. Or you can run into it. Madly. Savour it. Relish it. Go deeper to find that sea shells are nothing even close to what it feels like to be next to a whale.

I think right now, that is what I want to do with Zorba. Feel it with my body, taste it and then take a deep breath and dive in.....Will I survive? No way. The present I, will melt away and another I, a different one will get created. Will it be better? Will I grow? Don’t know. But then, that is not really the idea. From here, the journey looks dangerous and exciting. And I am happy to go ahead with that. Three cheers to Zorba!

Stumbled upon a lost me...

I sit on the same writing table as I have for years. But every time I write; I become a new me, a different me...sometimes a me that even I am not aware of. No, I am not playing with words here. Everyone who writes or speaks from their heart has felt this.

Over the last one year, I have lived mostly through the mind. I have found it to be safe. There are rules to live by. I follow the rules that I have embraced, usually blindly avowed to and feel that I am in control. That if I continue to follow this way of living, nothing bad can happen. The rules are like a casket...ready to protect me in case life throws a surprise.

But then caskets are not fun.

As I read through Zorba's way of life, it seems to cut right through the clutter. He comes alive and tells me that rules and philosophies might make sense to the logical mind but they bind me. He awakens the creative spark that has since long been buried by the mind. Where did the heart go?

An archaeologist rummages through an old mine and finds a statue. He holds it in his hand, caresses it and gently rubs off the dust. The features of the statue become sharper. He finds that the face on the statue is his own. I am the archaeologist. The statue is the me I had buried because I had blamed it for leading me astray. I was angry then. Very angry.

I hug the statue. It feels like discovering an old friend. The hate has lost its edge. The embrace melts off the bitterness. Tears roll down my eyes. I am glad to rediscover a me which I thought had choked and died off.

I want to explore again. I want to take more risks. When I see a woman who tugs at my heart strings, I want to go and tell her just that - even though I saw her moments ago. I want to travel to lands where they can only understand me by the hand signs I make. I want to learn the pakhavaj. I want to be up before every sunrise and watch every sunset. I want to be insanely in love with life again.

“This is true happiness: ..to have the stars above, the land to your left and the sea to your right and to realize of a sudden that in your heart, life has accomplished its final miracle: it has become a fairy tale.”  - Zorba the Greek.

  

Its time...

Here is a story etched in my memory....

A certain rich merchant was walking through the market place of Baghdad when, standing across the street, he suddenly saw the figure of Death, beckoning him.
The terrified man ran home, mounted his fastest horse, and raced five hundred miles to Samara. Later that night, there was a knock at the door. When the man answered it, there stood Death.
"Why did you beckon me in the market place of Baghdad today?" asked the man. "I did not beckon you." replied Death. "I was merely surprised to see you, for I knew that tonight, we had an appointment in Samara.

Might feel depressing if that is the way you view death or destiny. But take a step back and see yourself. What are you running from? Will it go away? Will it stop chasing?

More than often, I find that the more I run away from something, the more likely I end up running towards it. When I avoid a new colleague at work who is insensitive to others' needs and muddles his way through life, I am pretty sure that my new boss (or the neighbour who just moved in) will just have the same habit. And I really cant avoid them...  

The lesson shall present itself till I learn. Hard though it may sound, but as soon as I learn to deal with this in a self-respecting way, I feel larger, bigger and grateful. 

So, when life throws a question at you which irks you, it is almost always better to accept that sooner or later you will have to deal with it. Avoid it if you are not ready. Run, if you are not ready. But run, lift weights and turn back to face it. It is only when you stop, that you are  no longer chased.

Sing. Never mind the words

Flipping through the channels today, my fingers stopped on a Charlie Chaplin movie.
He is preparing for a song, helped by his girlfriend. She is sitting on a table, her legs on the chair. He does a short walk and then poses but the words don't come out. He forgets. Another try. Same result.
Then she gets an idea. She writes the words on his cuff. He gets back to his position, does the walk, looks at the cuff and sings. Moves a few steps left, looks at the cuff and then sings again. Moves right, quick look at cuff and sings. He is happy. He has cracked it. He holds her hands and thanks her. It is his turn now to go before the audience.
As he does an opening waltz, he throws his arms in the air. The cuffs leap from his wrists. Gone. He is unaware as he does a couple of more steps. Poses. Looks the cuff. Disbelief. The music goes on. The crowd starts to boo. He looks at his girlfriend. What do I do? - the thought written on his face. She says, "Sing. Never mind the words." He bats his eyelids, uncomprehending. She says it again. "Sing".
He sings. The words are gibberish. A mix of Spanish, French and languages never heard of. "Se bella giu satore Je notre so cafore Je notre si cavore Je la tu la ti la twah " He dances as he sings. He mimes about the love story he is singing about. He breaks into silences and then sings again. The audience loves it. He is a hit.

And I wonder...do I always need to know the song before I sing it? Do I? The answer is not easy. A part of me is afraid of making a mess of myself. Of being embarrassed. Of being laughed at. But you know what, if I am in the mood, it does not matter. When I talk to life, life talks to me. It always does. It is like a law. So, let me do that next time when I am in the soup. When I don't know the words. Se bella giu satore....
If you want to see the video, click here

बहुत कुछ करना है, हाँ, बहुत कुछ।

अभी पंख लगाकर उङना बाकी है,

सागर की गहराई में क्या है, यह देखना बाकी है,

दौङते हुए बहुत दूर अा जाना बाकी है,

बिना बिजली के गाँव में रहना बाकी है,

फिर से बारिश में भीगना बाकी है,

सिर्फ किताबों में डूबे रहना बाकी है,

काम की मौज में लुट जाना बाकी है

गाना सीखना बाकी है, गाना सुनाना बाकी है

दिल खोल के हसँना बाकी है, रोना बाकी है

एक बार फिर से जीना बाकी है

बहुत कुछ करना है, हाँ, बहुत कुछ।

Haiku

Tried writing a haiku. Followed the 5-7-5 syllables and the where-what-when rule. Totally immersed trying to capture what I have been feeling this whole morning.

Crouched below a shade

Hot summer winds gush by

Childhood dreams

I am not sure if it makes sense when read once. Perhaps it is a poor haiku or perhaps it just takes time for the reader to engage with it and get to the layer underneath. I ll opt for the former. It will take time for me to become good at it. But at least it is a step and I feel nice.

One of those days...

One of those days when I want to put on wings and fly

One of those days when I want to give everything a try

Of a sun that sparkles as hours become fuller

Of hot summers nights as they become cooler

Those moments of breaking free from the everyday

Those days of making new memories that are here to stay

Days that are awake, full of creation

Days that forever sparkle with imagination

A whole new layer to it...

I have been working on a project for the last 9 months- the last 5 months in just writing it up. The report has gone through at least 10 revision and complete re-writes. By now, some of the member of the team are just tired of it. "No more!", is their call. Any talk of the document and they take cover. But that does not stop the edits from coming. Every time one reads a report, one wants to polish it just a bit more, maybe just rearrange stuff to see how it looks or just add a personal touch. It is natural.

I greeted these changes with annoyance. Can we stop being perfectionists?, I wondered. This continued for almost 2 months till I noticed something really strange. I began to like this process of making changes. There was a sense of satisfaction in implementing them - like I had crossed another hurdle on a steeple-chase. As the noted violinist Stephen Nachmanovitch would say, " ...the secular and the sacred merge". Work and play suffused. It became almost fun to incorporate the new set of changes which keeping the old integrity and philosophy of the report intact. I actually denied admitting to this pleasure. This can't be true, I should be angry as the others are!

Now, as we are almost ready to print, I feel a sense of having achieved more than I would have if there were just 2 rounds of edits. I leave the project happy and content- so different from what I felt two months ago. Throwing more time at a problem, doing something you hate agan and again can sometimes allow another deeper perspective to emerge. Isn't it?