Chapters

So much has changed, without much changing. I have moved on, with parts of me still hanging behind. Here and there. Everywhere.

You never really leave a place. You never really leave people. You never really forget anything entirely. You have left chunks of yourself all over, at different cities you lived in, with different people, that it is sometimes impossible to just be at one place, with one person, even though you actually are. Of course it is all inside the head. But isn't that enough sometimes? Because memories are flawless. Because memories don't really change, even if the people in them do. Because they remain... and sometimes they're so lucid, so alive, that they seem more real than the real, truer than the truth. And that is what sometimes makes it impossible to listen to some song without thinking of a person...without being transported to another place and time.

I meant to write about so many things during my little Australian odyssey. Not the big life-changing happenings. The little things. The ones I will forget in a few months. Never got around to it. Even though I can remember vividly even now, the lone violin player I saw seated on a bench under a tree by the road while I was riding the bus...as if it were a scene out of a movie - the music in my ears substituting for the notes I couldn't hear come out of his violin. Watching smokers outside No.12 Creek street, a work culture that seemed so different from lab research! Almost like I could feel the pressure of the people bustling to work just by watching them. So much like Tokyo was, a few days later. The joy of cooking. Walking on Park road so many times with Niv, staring at the pricey restaurants we never ended up eating at. Weekly Soccer. Endless...

So today we toast to significant and not-so-significant memories. To finished chapters of never-ending stories. To the smiles and laughter that were, and will be. To new beginnings. To change. To dilemmas, ever so puzzling. To the unknown future, and the people who have walked and are walking with us towards it.

Chapters...that's what they are.

Yours "In another life, but not really" ly
Signing off...

Greys...and Abstract Revelations

Let me take this opportunity, on this auspicious saturday night, with the sound of moving vehicles filling my ears, and snoring sounds echoing in empty spaces of this huge house...as the clouds engulf the stars with their ethereal greyness, and the winds beckon to the drizzle to join them on their mysterious odyssey...as the sole glowing lamp in this household seemingly blinks at intervals, and as the massive typing of keys dwells in pride for being the only sound that teases the silence...as the air emanating from the sinusoidal breathing of 4 mortals in their blissful state of slumber (and 1 (im)mortal) stirs all stillness and the chill finds comfort on carpets and beds, blankets and spreads...as one mind wanders into non-existent, unlikely, untrodden land and and one heart hesitantly reaches out to a presently unattainable mist of peace...as a pair of eyes long to look beyond that opening in the clouds and a premature thought tricks the mind into fabricating neverland, to chance upon paradise lost...as a face with closed eyes remains half raised towards the open skies awaiting the return of the breeze and as a pair of ears mildly sense the melancholies of promises (un)made..songs (un)sung...whispers (un)said...

To (finally) tell you that... Life, is Beautiful. Life is simple and complex. Life is hazy and clear. Life is definite and ambiguous. Life is true and fake. Life is Treble and Bass. Life is ruthless and giving. Life is real and surreal. Life is a loss and a fairytale. Life is demanding and magnanimous. Life is separation and confluence...Life is confluence... Life is black and white....

But its not... Life... is Grey. The Grey...most prominent, seeming almost permanent. But... its beautiful nonetheless.

A large part of this post goes out to the part of my mind that has been travelling to places unrealised with Confluence of Elements, by Bombay Jaishree. An album so rightly named. Confluence of elements...an element... so abstract. Its true. The album would be a confluence of different things to different people... to me, its just so many things i can't even define. It just seems to bring the whole world in a swirl, making you feel like you're witnessing some kind of dance of life...a slow dance...in perfect harmony with everything...with yourself... waltzing away into the inner core of your being...pleasantly. Beautifully.

Niv said "her voice sounds like dew drops in the morning"... Jess said "She's something else. Her voice has this magic tinge"... so true. One feels utterly hypnotised. In a trance... brought upon by an immensely soulful voice. She sings every song like she means those words to the last syllable, and makes you feel like melting-butter...like what you heard just made you feel slightly less solid...left you slightly less composed...triggered your conscience in an inexplicable way...gave you a combined feeling of tranquility and being-messed-up-in-the-head at the same time...just drove you through your maze, and helped you get out of it...just threw on your heart this invisible blanket of joy and sorrow that makes you want to cry...just swallowed you into itself...like you lost yourself, to the unknown, and you wish it'll never revert back... just inspired you, like never before. Never before...

To Jayashree Ramanathan. Thankyou...for this album...for being the light at the end of the tunnel...for being the rainbow and the pot of gold at the end of it...for being sanity...for being ultimate glowing etherial-ness...for being the realm of almost-reachable liberation...

Mokshamu galada... bhuvilo jeevan muktulu...kani varuluku

Irakkam...varaamal ponadh-enna kaaranam?

Saramathi. Behag. Kaapi.

Yours "Purandhara...vitalana..." ly
Signing off...

*no subject*

It is the ones you like the most that you let go of...let them have it their way...bow out...and then, when your heart lights up with the memory of it, way into the years, you smile. Maybe you didn't do the right thing. Maybe you should have held on, displayed your stubborn-ness, the same stuborn-ness that disappears in the presence of a few. But no...if it wasn't the right thing to do, you wouldn't be smiling about it now. And ofcourse, there's always happiness in seeing them happy. Happier, perhaps. That, is the curious way in which the happiness inside the distorted head works. Quite marvellous sometimes. Painful sometimes. Giving some part of the mind a new lease on joy. Depriving another of the same. Laughing, but not really. Bitter-sweet. A battle you won, by losing. Where the victory exists, but not in your head. Loss or Gain? You know it for sure...but you secretly wish for an assymetrical slant towards the 'gain'. Maybe...

You let them go, you let them free, you make them happy, you're happy. Maybe thats selfish after all. There's something for everyone in everything that happens. Fringe benefits, or maybe, not.

Yours 'realisations of sorts' ly
Signing off...

Presence and Omnipresence

Its funny how you're quite comfortable with your life until you realise what you've been missing for a long time...when the memory of how it felt to have it all stares you in the face teasingly...and how even stranger it feels when you realise that the memory didn't visit you through the years and decided to just now. And then you think of all the people because of whom you didn't realise what you were missing...or you wonder why it took you so long to fathom the depth of some small things that are always taken for granted... and you don't know whether to be thankful or reproachful. Maybe its all about time... maybe its all about the level of understanding...its all about how much things can change in a few months.

We had a family reunion. Now you could go ahead and think its a whole big family of 124 members who came from all over the universe. :) Nope... just 4 of us. My immediate family. My father, my mother and my brother. And the past month...has been a festival at home. That should explain the first paragraph that you'd have given your raised eyebrows to a while back! :) But hell... sometimes you have such big realisations, revelations that they could choke you to tears.

Thus...i dedicate this post to 4 people. First... to the best man in my world - my father ( all those of you who were expecting johnny depp there, too bad!;-)). I don't know why sometimes things hit you harder...its taken me 7 years to realise the love, the concern and the protection i've been missing, with that tinge of hidden pride he has for his kids :) Next ofcourse to the best woman i know - my mother. Lets not even start on how much importance she holds in the life we run here... her absence sometimes is very dearly felt. And then... to the second best man in my world - My brother. For a million things i cant even list out...even for that expression on his face when am giving him a head massage! God bless :)
Now the 4th... its to all those people who've been there when neither of the above were there...even though they are in a way, omnipresent... there's nothing like presence :) So the list would have to start with my grandparents...and then all those friends...who i spent hours on the phone and online with, laughing, gossiping, holding small talk with...

There was once when my mother told me when we were chatting online that her kids are always with her...that every morning when she's praying, she calls us by our names and makes us sit with her infront of God.... and her kids have such small palms...they're so tiny...her daughter is dressed in a frock...and they all sit, and pray together. I dont think anything she ever said before that in the 20 years of my life ever affected me so much. I guess those are our Godly parents...

Whacky stuff to wrap it off... i think Neo sports has some illegal connection with the football club Manchester city. Whenever i watch the channel, they have a Man.City match in which it wins! That to against liverpool and ManU! How unfair is that? ;-)

Yours "Kanden, Seethaiyai"ly
Signing off....

Shadows of thoughts

Pleasant and pointless chatter is what it was turning out to be. Chatter with no consequence, words spoken for the moment alone...like all that mattered was the minute. Not what happened after that, or what had happened before that. A feeling like any time before that moment never existed, and any time after that moment was meant to remain frozen and unmovable, so that the moment wasn't lost in time. There it was, a feeling of togetherness that hadn't been felt in a very long time. The happiness of seeing what was being seen...like finally fulfilling an escaping agenda. They should have been lost in the din, should have been unable to hear each other, should have been unable to enjoy the company... yet, it seemed like the din was a world away from where they sat, even though they were in the middle of it. The over-rated din.The smiles and talk showed that they could hear what was being said perfectly, and understanding it seemed like the most obvious thing.

A while later, 4 shadows lay still on the sand. The shadows cast by the street lamp...yellow light. The owners of the shadows sat on the parapet wall, half talking, half staring at the starless sky, half listening to the breeze...and perhaps, fully thankful for the moment. It was in those few minutes that the reality of life itself seemed to dawn upon each one of them...there were times before, when each of them thought different things about life, about reality. But this experience seemed new...seemed fresh...seemed true. And the pleasant chatter that was enjoyed in the middle of the din suddenly seemed to disappear in the quietness of the night...like chatter and noise called for noise, but silence demanded silence...like the breeze was craving attention, and the clouds pleaded an audience for their slow dance...like the waves were trying hard to be heard at the distance and the sands weren't satisfied with being still and ignored. A little girl walked on the sand...stamping on every one of the 4 shadows on the sand, and then paused slightly to take a look at the 4 long shapes. Perhaps it amused her, but it wasn't good enough to take her attention away from her sand bucket. She walked on...leaving tiny footprints in the sand...footprints that stayed for hardly a second before the sands filled in the space, as if in anger of their even-ness being mutilated.

The words that were spoken, or heard were never to be forgotten. The very words seemed to give them a new purpose to their lives. It made them thankful for the years that breezed past, with tests and obstacles that seemed meagre compared to other things in the world. One felt blessed and in an inexplicable way, guilty, for leading the life that had been led so far. Another may have felt a mixture of pride and fear. The 3rd, seemed to have felt a resgined feeling with a tinge of pride that wouldn't be displayed... Sometimes, talking about small instances makes one realise the significance of the big picture. Part scary, part depressing, part challenging...all encountered with part hesitation...part courage. At the end of it all, when you know you can't achieve everything in a day, when you know things happen for a reason, when you feel like sometimes, you just have to believe in the existence of destiny, you pray. For there doesn't seem any other way to comfort one's feeling of worthlessness... insignificance... small-ness. But again you think... everything has its place and time. And you live on...do the little you can... and hope that someday, you too, will have a story to tell, and that story... will hit someone hard. Someday....

Yours "Every face has a story. every man has a destiny"ly
Signing off....

Out of a painting, Out of a moment

Blood stained skies, red. With blotches of purple, like a blood clot on hurt skin...patches of blue, like hope showcases itself in a less intense shade of copper sulphate, streaks of angry orange... the flame displaying its ferocious acts... an even spread of pink, almost making the wide open space feminine... hints of pale green...tranquility among the pleasing harshness of colour, tinges of yellow...blending with, and getting lost in the orange. A sombre sun, half hiding, lazily drifting into the unknown, throwing its last rays out in impeccably straight lines, acting like it has nothing whatsoever to do with the riot of colours dancing in the sky, holding a pair of eyes in awe, a pair of eyes that refuse to look away for any reason, big or small. The trees, the coconut trees, blessed with a green so natural, sway slightly in the breeze, appear black in the hours of twilight. A black that reveals the symmetry of the big leaves, and their patterns, their ends pointing into the open, poking the air with their sway...reaching out for the hues. Birds, big and small, shed all their colour and fly into the horizon in all blackness, their formations flawless, their wings moving in waves, like a lullaby at a distance.

And the eyes still remain fixed, resisting blinks, in an evening reverie, a reverie that got invited to prevail forever, but didn't, looking at something beyond the colour, beyond the festival in the sky, beyond the horizon...lose strands of hair tickle the neck and ears, as if answering some ungiven order of the wind. And the lips, now dry from a continuous half open mouth, in conspiracy with the eyes in admiration, begin to mutter...words flow out in such brilliant coherrence, that interpreting meaning would seem useless, all that mattered was the words, near poetry, poetry without rhyme, a song without a tune, a story without a plot, a play without characters, a voice without varying tones, like a dream on earth...an unwritten destiny pulling the cart of life. And a thousand hapinesses were lived in that moment, a thousand heartbreaks burst out in that single tear. The eyes still remained fixed. Watching the spectacle through a glistening tear that refused to trace its way down the easy path of the cheek. And there it was, a minute of completeness, a balance of emptiness and fullness, a moment of equal clarity and haziness, a tear of joy and sorrow in one, a mixed sense of achievement and loss, a moment of the truth and the fake on par, the bridge between that relished past and the feared, ambiguous future. All in that moment of complete one-ness. Of self acknowledgement. Of a floaty, dreamy truth. Of life itself.

Yours "moments..."ly
Signing off

"Veiled", Unveiled...

This is a special post, because it contains a special piece :) i wrote something on paper after a very long time... And i just thought i'd put it up as my blog is anyway suffering from lack of proper posts...

Before that... My cousins, who were in town for the past 2 months are leaving in a few hours... getting back to their routines...getting pulled back by duty. Its been such a lovely phase in my life...so much... i don't know... just felt so complete! Not a single idle moment...nothing really worrying... just something new to do everyday, and so much fun...so much colour... so much laughing and horsing around and doing alot of nothings but being so glad about it! Its this wierd 'sisterly' feeling! That i haven't really experienced before...i know it sounds so cheesy.. but hell, what are blogs for! So... Sanjana, and sandhya... Farewell! And just to suit the mood thats been floating at home for the past week cuz of the Kabhi alvida na kehna songs.... ALVIDA! Love you guys...And waiting for next year july! :D

This post... maybe just a series of questions to some of you, may mean more to others... may be loads of 'can you?'s to a few, and 'will you?'s to others...read it the way you want it.

I don't believe in the existence or non-existence of ability,
But in the willingness to do, or not to do something.
--an admirable killer line from... a friend.

VEILED

Can you take a moment, complete with ethereal happiness, and make it a lifetime's solace?
Can you accustom yourself to echoes and shadows, and places overflowing with emptiness and accept them for company, comfort?
Can you dwell in pretences, and trust in illusions, and be satisfied with lies that make you laugh?
Can you let the ship of life by stirred by the gales of time, and move effortlessly in that direction?
Can you live through a plethora of failures, and live to face the next improbability of success, still to name it 'experience'?
Can you grace undying punishment in your heart to fulfil sweet vengeance?
Can you stare at atrocity in the eye, and walk past unmoved, for the love of your own soul?
Can you smile through helplessness, and stand like a fortress, when the world within you crumbles?
Can you preach to others, what you don't believe in, just to see a hint of a smile?
Can you fill the unforgiving minute with a lifetime's worth memory, and hold it in your fist till the end of this odyssey?
Can you relinquish your pride in the face of simplicity, and lose it forever, in tender benevolence?
Can you kill the expectation in you, and distance it from your blessed being, so that you hardly ever experience insatiability, disappointment, pain...?
Can you mutter a world of hope in a silent prayer, and patiently await fate's judgement, the call of God?
Can you bear to see your dream shattered...but pick up its pieces and build a bigger one with resigned involvment?
Can you refuse to accept the death of a bond, and live on in belief of its revival one fine day?
Can you give, unconditionally...with no returns, no regrets, no complaints...only overwhelming joy, only eternal love?
Will you allow the breeze to carry your burden away...
Will you smile at the rainbow after the storm...
Will you appreciate blue skies when in pain...
Will you find melody where there is no music
Music where there's no harmony,
Harmonywhere there's no rhythm,
Rhythm where there's no symphony,
Symphony where there's no ode,
Ode where there's no joy,
Joy where there's no hope,
Hope where there's no pain,
Pain where there's no reason,
Reason where there's no heart,
Heart where there's no... Life?


Yours "unveiling some questions that have veiled answers"ly
Signing off...