Want To Touch Her

Been trying to get some concepts into an idea that emerged... so took a while to sit and blog. However, its nice to see the counter hits increasing. Then about the pondering obviously uncouth (they are mine), think I am trying to have a system in my madness trying to arrange them; so have papers, charts and diaries strewn everywhere and am trying to network between books, transcending between literatures like a child lost in an amusement park. Whatever...

Yesterday, in the night as a friend and I were waving good nights to the kids across the house, we were silenced as we proceeded to hear the winding of my friend-that 9 feet long black cobra-around a cat. Undefinable screaming of the cat found no mercy with the reptile. The silence becoming stronger with every coil... The distant death was profoundly obvious and the mystery of the night camouflaged it quite well. We both looked at each other and said, 'its over'. Just as we said that, we heard a hungry whining of an ambulance speeding across the road. Another somebody at the grip of death... the siren silenced too at a distance. We looked at each other and said, 'think they will reach in time'. Hope and despair... both in silence endured. With every day going by, the coil just getting tighter, the siren just getting louder and death ineveitable.

The kiss of death, like a lover's kiss, a delightful surprize when mutual. Have I feared death? Never! Has death feared me? Suppose not too! Been kissed just as much as I have kissed it too. Never wanted to die several times fearing it-before dying that one time once and for all.

At the moment, I remember that little girl whose mother had died; who never knew what death was-she probably thought that her mother was sleeping a little longer than usual and there was a jobless crowd of people watching her sleep, quite strangely. The next day after the burial, when I felt that reality would have kicked in and she would begin to feel her absence, I went to see her and watch how a little child was coping up with pain. Reached her house and there were people consoling her father. My eyes searched for her and she was invisible. Kept moving till I came to the dining table where on one end her mother's garlanded photograph was kept. With the maximum stretching she could do, she was trying desperately to reach the photo frame (thats how small she was). Just then, I saw her and she saw me. With a relief, she came closer to me, hugged me as usual and asked, "I am trying to reach my mom; can you carry me and take me closer to my mom I WANT TO TOUCH HER". If there was anything that has killed me, this was it. To be in that place and to realize this innocence, even the uncouthed barbarian would have moved. Carried her. She touched. She looked at me and said, 'I miss her'. Tried very hard not to let that drop of tear clouding my eyes not slip away infront of her.

Bottomline: "I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter. " Winston Churchill

First Encounter With Death

There was a program I was watching on television about tatooing; this is something I am fascinated about yet I had and still slightly do, a sort of bigotry about the ones who get it done. There was an young lady who came along with her mother in this program with a photo of a very beautiful girl in hand and wanted the same tatooed in her calf. The girl she said was her sister and she kept blabbing about how close they were et all... the twist of the story came when she mentioned that she was getting the image of her sister tatooed following her first death anniversary. However, stranger was the story that followed... This tatooing lady had gone out for a party and had returned late on that fateless day to find her sister lying face down and when she tried to wake her up she found that she had collapsed beyond return. The interesting part of the story did not stop there. The tatooing sister was pregnant during this incident and was filled with mixed emotions-guilt and sadness to be specific following the loss. Guilt was due to her absence during her sister's suffering and sadness as she would miss her sister during her pregnancy. The mother of twists followed now... this sweet lady delivered a girl who grew up to look exactly like her dead sister in the exact same spot where her sister had died by chance... Wow!

This incident actually brought into me reminiscence of Jeba. Jeba was one of my best friends in primary school. The kind of person with whom you write your homework et all. His mother was a very sweet lady and I used to admire the way the house was kept-always organized and clean-quite contrary to the ever present havoc and catastrophe in ours. One day Jeba didn't come to school and later that evening I was told that his mother had died and Jeba was there besides waiting for his father to fly in from some country. This was the first news of death I heard. Never understood. Still don't. He wa so young and such huge a loss? He had walked in after school and his mother, neatly dressed as usual in her crisp saree, was lying in the bed as if peacefully sleeping, he later told me. He had gone and tried to wake her up and as his attempt to do so, grew louder, neighbours stepped in. Still kills me as an adult trying to empathize what a child would have gone through while trying to wake a mother who would never wake. Jeba never understood death either at that point. Later Jeba never came to school... was told that his father had taken him with him... never seen him so far. Its a small world afterall and I still remember this child.

Bottomline: Just once we die and just once we live... yet just how many times do we die to live just once?!

Take Me Home...

For almost the past 3 decades I have seen this place... a small town, drenched with middle class values, crowded with people who know you or expect you to know them. Can't change a few things around us like the folks one is born to and the colour of the skin. Think about it, though born into one religion, one can eventually choose a religion or a spiritual line best suited for oneself... people knew it and thats why they brought in the concept of tribe and caste to keep us pinned to the floor or the sky and managed to keep some dangling in between. Then the one's who braved to surpass that too climbed the class ladder denying the virtue deemed upon them. At the end of the day, my nest, though unacceptable, seems to be this small town which I am neither able to deny nor adjust too... Yeah, my identity rests here yet I am a citizen of the world.

Having travelled quite a bit, I often have felt that this small town though nauseating, is the safest abode on Earth. No one bothers you unless you bother them. WoMen don't roam around like lost souls or diggers for male company on the streets once the street lights are on and it still is obvious. Oh by the by, woMen don't let their hair loose too... supposed to be "prostitutes" who don't tie their hair. The little shackles and those little tin shops have not changed, the people working there have not changed and they still recognize me and welcome me just as they did when I used to be there during my younger days... they surprized me by asking about my friends too. There is a shop I went to have parattas yesterday and I remember the guy who makes them who killed a rowdy in that area when I was in school... he is still there and still makes the parattas... everything seems the same.

Now the issue is that nothing changes. Nothing changes even for good. Now thats the issue. People hoard... money, jewels and land. Territorial I suppose. People are critics or snubbers of criticism rendered upon them... the others in between are treated as inbetweens (eunuchs).

Here, the grass is clean, the mountains really tense, the valleys really deep, the water crystal clear and pure, the beaches soft, the waves gushing and the rains frequent... a metaphor to the emotions of the people here as well.

Much can be said about this place... however, I am glad that I atleast have a nest and an identity that comes along with it. A place where one can be lonely in a crowd and feel dense even when alone. It heals as much as it inflicts pain. Where do I run away to from here? Where to? Have tried it several times only to return with humility over and over again.

Bottomline: "When you finally go back to your hometown, you find out it wasn't the old hometown you missed but your childhood" Sam Ewing

Hobsons Choice

Today, the day willing, I decided to write on choices. Right from picking the movie in the mall one decides to spend 2-3hrs of one's daily allowance of time to the decision to be with someone or not to be to the career to take up... every occassion redeems one with choices one has to make... many disagree... the same group who agreed easily that there was a planet called 'Pluto'.

Often one hears someone say, 'I had to do it. I was helpless. I had no choice.' Come on, who are they crapping with?! No choices??? or chose to not make any? a choice again... even if we went with the choice someone else made for us, that was a choice once again... hahaha!

There have been moments when I have been puzzled, almost everytime, I read a story about a girl being raped 'against her will'. Do we still attempt to pseudo-agree that a woMan can be entered without her involvement?! With the oldest (Male) virgins around, I think I will have difficulty explaining this. However, to make it simple, let me put it this way... its not possible. She had a choice and she made it. Rape or technically speaking an aggressive sexual encounter was only incidental. However, personally I feel that child-sexual abuse, where the child is unaware of the pleasure in it, devoid of it, experiences the pain, is offensive.

Anger is a luxury... very few can afford to show it. Passive anger as an option is even deadly making one a brewing pot of neurotoxins. At the end of the day, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. What do we choose? To react or to respond? Emotion or logic?

There are 3 things in life one would live for or die for... simplicity, truth and love... the Trinity I often mention. And the choices one has to make to find it!

No matter how long one takes to make that choice, finally the choice is made at the last second. That split second. Its so simple yet so complex... the drama that goes with it, around it et all that comes with it... that bloody split second. Probably thats why Henry Ford said, "Any colour as long as the colour is black" to make it easier for us to make the decision. Then why so long a time in turmoil in the process?! Its a simple 'yes' or a 'no' or 'Oh! look a third dimension!' the last happens in very few situations though. Again Swami Vivekananda says, "Forces cannot be created, only directed." Everything around us makes it simple for us to make choices and we waste Time, Energy, Emotions and Money (TEEM).

Uncalculated redemption with genuiness is what scriptures in the spiritual world redeems upon us... this genuiness is uncomplicated substituted with the word 'innocence'... Expecting nothing out of our good deeds... even forgetting the incident; for there are more to do... not taking reminders in for feeling good. Moving to the higher road where one simply does good. Thathuvum Asi.

A friend of mine once said that behind everything one does, there is a selfish reason. 'Mother Teresa did all that she did because otherwise, she wouldn't have felt good and so to feel good she did what she did'... thats what he used to say. Point well taken. However, I agreed to disagree and wanted to test that theory. The way out, 'don't feel good.' Feeling thus, one begins not feeling bad as well... thus comes in a guilt-free living. Emotions becoming a straight line... that way sacrificing happiness to not experience sadness.

Bottomline: "Two roads diverged into the woods and I took the one less travelled by; and that has made all the difference." Robert Frost

Knowledge Reapers

People have different ways of interpreting 'goodness'. In the small community I live in, if one is a teetotaller, then goodness is crowned upon him... all this need for goodness comes into foreplay when finding the ideal match. Yet, I have seen superbly nurtured teetotallers who abuse the woMan they are with and smoking drinkers who are wonderfully good to their partner. Now whats goodness?!

Yesterday I told Arun that goodness is all about how you take care with genuine consideration sans any ulterior motive the person next to you... be it your partner or your friend or our neighbour or simply anyone next to us. Nish Kama Karma. Immediately he connected it to the movie '300' where the Spartans are adviced to fight for the one besides... to help him with further connections, I told him that in warfare, the military secret is to protect the comrade besides.

Information, knowledge and news we gather to curb ignorance, losing innocence, that which we rapidly search for at the end of the tunnel... Duh! However, History has taught us one thing and it sure has that we create more of what we consider is good for us and the excess of this produce is what will kill us at the end... applies to the hunger for knowledge as well. Probably thats why the knowledge gatherers resort to wisdom by opting to cut the noises and voices that clouds the brain and resort to silence as seen in the lives of many for whom climbing into the caves in the Himalayas becomes more important than frantically stepping on the corporate ladder or leading a kingdom... rendering to thoughtless thoughts.

It is often the lonely mind that tries to preoccupy itself with information, knowledge and opinion dumping; lest it suffer the burden of loneliness... often relaxing in books and more often surrendering to relationships to find solace in bodily comfort for diversion.

At the end of the day what do we carry? Nothing! Nothing at all... we leave a lot behind though. The more one gathers, the more he leaves behind. Simple, isn't it? Ces't la vie.

Bottomline: Yet it moves...

In Response...

After a long time I received an intellectual feedback to a post and I felt it would be ideal to respond. The comment goes as such:

>"I don't know the context behind the pseudo misogynist rant, but you are right on expecting the woman to take care of herself. But the expectation would be mutual, right?"

"mutual", depends on where you decide to stick your relationship to-the heart, the mind or the soul. That sounds very oratory... so let me put it this way. If one were to respond sans react (which seldom we adhere to), the choice between instinctual reaction (slightly barbaric often our own and so natural) or logic response (a civilized option always imposed, cultivated and nurtured) needs to be made.

Yet often the instinct is hungry and needs to be fed, the animal within screams for release for the better, rather than seal the coffin with restrictions even before one dies.

The ideal pair is just as much complex as it is simple to find the right combination. A masochist is an ideal match for a sadist and an exhibitionist ideal for a voyeur and so on and so forth... arranged marriages shown desperation and lack of hope where 2 souls come with a bowl of expectation to be filled... how can 2 people with begging bowls feed each other?! yet we decide to give in to arranged marriages?! The dilemma between 'have to marry' and 'want to marry'... yet just as everything in life comes, this too comes with choices.

">people asked me whether he was impotent
Poor cousin. But poorer are the people who asked such a question.. they are 'sans intellect'."

Sans intellect or maybe they were opinionated. After all, all the facts, we believe in, all the theories we learn, all the knowledge we feed ourselves with, correcting and recorrecting, pondering and wondering, information, news and all the "intellectual" feedings we push into us, are all a maze of opinions of others... Probably they too just came out with a hypothesis and I can't confirm the null hypothesis yet... probably they could be right too.

">attempts were made to save the girl's face by telling my cousin that she had refused him first
Bollocks! I guess if it hadn't been the family folk who said this, he would have given them the ... He could still do that.. euphemistically. ;-)"

Women typically (when generalized) like to refuse and not be the refused. So a gentleman will always grant that wish to her as a final kiss goodbye. And there is no need to attack the arrow and spare the archer... the comment was designed elsewhere, so whats the point fighting the messenger?! hahaha... Once again sticking on to barbarism I personally believe in, diplomacy or euphemisms are only a compromise for a deadly mixture of a cleverly designed instinctual logical attack-which requires patience... yet everything of class comes as a result of patience... don't they?! The longer it takes, the thicker the venom and heavier the strike and at times a venemous strike is not even necessary with time passing by... So, till then I shall route in my "pseudo" rants naturally misogynist. Hahaha! Buddhism helps.

Bottomline: Truth is lie told the way you want others to hear... 'relative truth' and 'absolute truth' as Buddhism notes... "a pathless path" as truth often is explained, is only a bubble...

Bring Them On

These days I see really young people getting married. Do they know the 'committment' factor in it? Are they aware of the sacrifices, compromises and accomodation in perspective? From where the guts? Are they ready? Is it just a license for desperates for sex? or is it just an awaiting experience? whatever...

The problem for me is the comfort that people reach when with someone they are with... so comfortable that they no more take care of their body, become evidently clumsy and so obviously boring. What did they expect?! The other to be with them sans being with someone else too (a.k.a "cheating")? when women they are with become pathetically stinky, filthy and pms'ing 24/7... Wow! great expectation.

Marriage-a life style? a committment? a burden? a headache? an adventure? an experience? whatever...

Recently when one of my cousins refused a girl his parents were trying to fix for him, people asked me whether he was impotent... hahaha! the next unavoidable question when I asked them to find it out themselves, was whether he was gay. Just as I was wondering if people missed expecting him to have some kind of STI, attempts were made to save the girl's face by telling my cousin that she had refused him first. The thing was that she 'was' a very attractive lady I had known earlier, she thought so too and took it to her head too... that being the sad twist of being rejected at this stage. However, everything upright sags as the skin shrinks and there shatters the ego when one gets only the second or the last look. Come on, even old actresses, once cabret dream stalkers and beauty queens die lonely when old.

Recently I was telling one very beautiful woman how men tend to screen a woman's hair to assess her unseen neatness, hygiene and cleanliness... split ends, dandruff and hair fall ofcourse a justified cause for worry. For many men, the scent of a woman can be a total turn off just as much as it can turn them on non-stop. Some times undone underarms, unwaxed legs and sprouting moush-a classical hint of too much comfort mentioned earlier-a dangerous gamble often a pitfall.

Some men just put up with this mess of a woman sans feeling that she does so because she has taken him for granted; and living they sure do in that illusion... afterall everyone wears a mask. whatever...

Bottomline: Life is just once... why not make it worth living?!