An Apology

As life passes us by, we meet several people and through our experiences with them consisting of interactions and conversations; we do end up hurting some of them in some way or the other. The intent is to never irk anyone, to cause unbearable pain and angst, however, there are manifestations of the mind that convolute our actions, behaviours, attitudes resulting in causing grief, hurt, pain, suffering to people. When we look back and look at those people from their viewpoints, and the clarity in context of how what we might have said, or done, would've affected them, a sordid realisation hits us. One would rather maintain a dignified silence than talk unnecessarily, in an effort to make random chats we never know how the other person is construing words being spewed aridly.
In order to correct this, and everything between that, it's time to make an apology. An apology to all those who have been hurt, affected negatively, faced the heat of an affront, been at the receiving end of a rudeness, meanness. This apology is nothing but an effort and an exercise to make them feel better in whatever manner it works. However, a mere apology may not be able to exonerate us and absolve their pain and sufferings. Yet, an apology goes out in the universe to all those who have reeked in hurt because of an attitudinal aberration, a nasty line, an obnoxious comment, an angry retort. Well, the devil may argue that the damage has been done, because words are irrevocable.

Irrespective, the apology stands it's ground strong, steady and consistent. May the pain be lessened because the carrier had no inkling that it would shatter the peace of the receiver.

" ILLAT, ZILLAT AUR KILLAT"

These three words hold a world of meanings and experiences in them. Let me try and flesh out these expressions.
"ILLAT", an Urdu word, means illness, literally. However, I would like to thrash it out a bit more. A disease that spells death could also translate into a meaning of "ILLAT". There are scores of people with various such death-stricken ailments and when they are battling against their "ILLAT", they are heavily inclined to ask questions which fall into the realm of Spirituality. Some of these questions rattle them so hard that the "ILLAT" takes a backseat and these questions become the real "ILLAT". Confounding as it may sound, the truth in these sentences is soul-tickling. So coming to the issue of what draws a person towards Spirituality, God and such inexplicable phenomenon; is the truth that most suffering people turn towards the heavens to satiate their quest. A quest that is triggered by their ailment. The questions that swarm in their minds are "What have I done to deserve this?" "I led a pious, clean, healthy life, yet, the orchestrator, has given me this disease that cripples me for life and moreover cripples life."  "Do I deserve this wrath of Nature?". One is susceptible to blame anything that one doesn't understand or has been unable to understand for his/her state of being. "Is it fair?."

"ZILLAT": utmost humiliation. This could be related to "ILLAT", in context of sufferings that are caused because of the "ILLAT" and in some cases none at all. Pain/angst/insults/offenses  directed at a human being which cause him or her to seek an intervention from forces which are beyond understanding. The humiliations sometimes stem from inflicting pain on one self arising from extreme forces of guilt and self pity. These guilts and reams of self pity that one thrashes oneself  with, are beyond  the realm of humiliations caused by others. In the end when one is pushed against the wall, the wall of inexplicable pain and agony mixed with guilt and tears of suffering, questions rise up like tumultuous waves in a turbulent sea. The sea reflects the conscience which has never been so enraged and so stirred ever. Questions again which are similar to the questions of "ILLAT" are reinforced because of "ZILLAT". As bewildering and convoluted as it may sound those who bear these revelations every waking moment seem to differ. This entire traversing of thoughts makes them seek God or any semblance of such a creation that satiates their insatiable appetite of understanding life and beyond.

"KILLAT" lack of resources. Despite the will, the spirit, the sheer, brutal insensitive tormenting fact that one does not have the means to help those who are afflicted and sometimes oneself leads them towards self deprecation and the brevity of their lives corrodes their souls coupled with "ZILLAT"; "KILLAT" is nothing but a conduit to self destruction. A destruction that one blames on destiny; on fate and on not being able to do enough to fight a battle already lost in the mind.

These thoughts are extremely erratic, yet somehow, in their randomness there is a pattern; a theory that brings me closer towards a semblance of understanding of the inexplicable nature of  God or any other sobriquet, that one has given to Life; or known or understood.

Brain-less endeavor!

I am confounded again. Sometimes I wonder, doesn’t the brain get tired, trying to astonish me with revelations and understandings. The kid on the street doesn’t have the time to think and pontificate like my brain does. His brain just chugs along smoothly, without any stumbling thinking chunks. This again brings the question to my mind,

‘Do those who are comfortable and have enough to satiate their beings have the luxury to go on these intellectual spiritual expeditions?’.

It is so childlike, the kid’s antics in the rains, isn’t he a kid, so why will it not be childlike; because this kid on the street lost his innocence, his sensitivity, his plain curiosity and his spirit to battle life with a child’s determination; yet he has zero regrets, on the contrary, he wants to collect his bearings and leave Bombay, a city that he holds responsible for his state, not realizing that it could be anyway. Though, after his anger has boiled down, he says, “Shaher ki koi galti nahin, na zindagi ki hai, bas galti hai”

His sentence lingers in my over active brain trying to assimilate the sub-texts.

God, quit this brain-less endeavor!

Spiritual Quest?

Why are we here? What is our purpose? Our meaning to exist, is there any?

And more such questions rankle my being. Answers are elusive. Days are running by. Nights are endless. Time is short. What will be, will be? How?

Grab each moment and shake it up and what does one get after the shaking. More questions. Answers will come when the time is right. What is the right time?

Accept life as is. Adapt to nature, to people, cultures; no one will adapt to you.

Get your strength from acceptance and just writing it down it doesn't make it easy one bit.

Keep chugging along the path. Rehearsing and traversing the long and winding lane, where mystery of life keeps unfolding but one has to burn and burn till the end hits you.

Ennui

The power of boredom is such that it can force creativity to come out in a weird manner.

The following contents will try to capture one such outburst.

Courier companies have a strange way of functioning. I called up one such company to inquire whether they send or receive a certain item. Their immediate answer was in the negative. People who answer calls plonked in their chairs at call centres are not too forthright to give information and even if they are, the responses are usually , “No sir, We don’t know, sorry you have got the wrong information etc.etc.” The moment you tell them that the same product with a definite Consignment number has been dispatched from another city; they quickly change their stance, wake up from their laziness and agree to you.

Banality of it all is befuddling.

Yet, I empathise with their jobs and sometimes wonder how many times do they really smile before answering the calls or the most important training lesson is forgotten the moment training is over.

Yes, this post is a result of boredom and laziness.

Make posts while boredom shines.. Now, really!

A Rude Awakening

He woke up to a rude reality. It took him a long time to understand that he would never be able to see his perspective and he should quit the false hope that someday he would. Truth was all consuming yet it had a strength to it.

Past has a strange way of catching up and words that had a resonance of times gone by; hit you hard. Detachment is difficult to practise. A word from someone who has some significance in your life will rankle you, however a word from a complete stranger wouldn't affect you a bit. The power of emotions and attachment is overbearing at times. To distance yourself from the emotional baggage is sometimes the only way to preserve your sanity.

Let insanities roll in a quagmire of feelings and come out, hopefully sane.  

Heavy sword of Expectations

A life sans expectations is quite an unbelievable scenario. As human beings, it becomes inevitable to want something or the other from life.

"Why are people not like the way I want them to be?"
"This job is not getting me that extra kick, I want it to give me that spunk."
"Why can't people just leave me alone"
"Wish he could change his attitude."
"His nature could be altered."
"Why are people so callous?"
"My business should give me 30% return by the end of 2013."
so on and so forth...

These are a handful of thoughts laced with expecting: situations, people and life to be like how we would want them to be. Truth being, people, situations and problems will never ever change; we would have to learn to adapt. To wear a cloak of insulation; insulation against getting affected by what people say, events that are beyond our control and anything that displaces sanity.

How does one follow these words? Tough, of course. As time passes, we would like to believe,  we shall too pass through what it offers and what it doesn't.

There is no foolproof guarantee for anything except death.
We do not want to die but are not keen on living either.

Life becomes what we maketh it to be.

I cannot pretend to recount all that he told me, but I gleaned from what he said that he was the genius who presided over the contretemps of mankind, and whose business it was to bring about the odd accidents which are continually astonishing the skeptic. - The Angel of the odd by Edgar Allan Poe
 

"Katha Collage" - Influencer !!

Badebhai Sahab by Premchand
Directed By Naseerudin Shah
This tale of two brothers, narrated in the first person by the younger (the carefree, irresponsible but unknowingly brilliant one) about his older sibling, (the dour, studious but irredeemable mediocre one) is a study of contrasts of many kinds: a contrast of mindsets and approaches to life: a contrast of tradition and modernity, and a contrast of natural brilliance and natural dullness.
No sides are taken by the writer in this hilarious study of two people who should be alike in every way, but are obviously touched by different stars.
Chhote Bhai - Vivaan Asad Shah
Bade Bhai - Faisal Rashid

Shatranj ke Khiladi by Premchand
Directed By Naseerudin Shah
This delicious satire set in the days just prior to 1857, about two indulgent feudal lords obsessed with the game of chess at the cost of everything else, personal or political, has uncanny echoes of the modern apathy of most of us.
The fate that catches up with these decadent gentlemen is one which probably awaits all those who refuse to be drawn into taking a stand about anything except their own misguided sense of pride.
Mirza - Rakesh Chaturvedi
Meer - Manoj Pawha

Sankraman (The Circle of Life) By Kamtanath
Most of us on hitting middle age, are often startled by memory flashes of or own parents and by how similar to them we have unconsciously begun to sound or look or behave. The realization that we could not possibly have been any other way is sometimes bitter, and always inevitable. The writer has perceptively captured this remorseless circle of life in which all of us are caught. These three pungent, straight-from-the-heart points of view of a man, his wife and their son are set in a middle class home of Uttar Pradesh, but are representative of parents and progeny everywhere.
Pita - Naseeruddin Shah
Putr - Rakesh Chaturvedi
Maa - Seema Pawha   

Courtesy: Handouts at the venue

I am still reeling under the heady effect of these plays. Humour has the capability and the elan to say the truth as it is. Such a narration of the truth doesn't seem to ruffle any feathers.

To realize how I could see a clear glimpse of myself in each character, though, through the glaze of humour, the impact of the realization lessened. However, the truths of who we are can never be escaped from.

With passage of time, we all would like to believe that we are evolving. The tough question we need to ask ourselves is: Are we?

Words fail me currently to say what I want to. An Experience sometimes can just be, well, experienced. 

The Character

It is music which decides; whom it will influence and through whom will it shine like the morning light that disspates the darkness of the soul.

I looked for the answer from my previous post and it took me some time to realise that music chooses it's people and Music is the one with character. One could be simply sitting and out of nowhere the most humdinger of sounds play in our minds like beautiful notes. The experience is ephemeral, though it seems, truth is, it is anything but that.

The quality of any sound is to play like a soothing piece, however, if one is in a poignant or disturbed frame of mind then the most elegant, soulful sound becomes jarring and instantly one wants to block it out. This again is based on individual experience and music to one ear could be dissonance to the other. Interpreting sounds into melodies or noise solely rests on the faculty of how one is feeling..


Somehow everyone gets affected or rather influenced by music. It is an escaper, and a great one at that; makes you gallop away from whatever is playing in your head repeatedly and the sound of those thoughts are replaced by the sound of music. It helps in overpowering in a positive way.

To such an empowering phenomenon. I take a respectful bow.

Setting of Music !!

The setting was pulsating, rather, because of the music it felt pulsating, strip it sans music, serene and surreal. Such is the impact of music. It has the ability to transform not just a place but also a person. The place in point is Bandra Fort.

Now the above lines are a result of Indian Ocean's invigorating impact. They have a soul in their renditions. A soul is different from a character. So that makes me ask myself, "Which music has character, rather, is it the musician who has the character to play soulful music/melodies etc or the other way around?" Answer to this eludes me. I will search for it and post it soon.

Music, as The Bard said, "be the food of love then play on."

Play on, certainly.

Overrated days like Birthdays etc.

It is simply another date in the calendar and a reminder, for some grim, for those who wear a couldn't-care-less attitude, about the passage of time. Time the ever constant in the mundane, in the chaotic, in the pain, the joy, the ecstasy, the banality, the meaningful and stops at the Dead.

All I am saying is that why do we have to lend so much significance to the already significant? It is a known Unknown. We all know the importance of time. Nothing can ever stop it, our beings will cease to be, Time nevertheless moves and how.

Celebrate every moment in the ticking Clock. Maximise it. To leave some event for the future seems useless. Do it now. However, Destiny says, "What will be, will be and the time has to come for everyone."
It can be perplexing but therein lies the fun!

To Time and beyond. If there is any.

Synchronicity of Multi-cultures

A cosmopolitan city like Mumbai, Dubai, London, New York, San-Francisco and Sydney best understand multi-cultures. Those who live in any cosmo-city witness myriad cultures everyday. Be it on a bus ride, hailing a cab, walking in a park, at a restaurant, work-place, movie theatre etc.

The people in these cities, I think anywhere in the world, experience synchronicity. One of my friends had told me once about his experience in Bombay. He was in Andheri (suburb of Bombay), waiting for an Auto and thinking of his ex-girl friend from Delhi. After waiting for an hour he managed to hail an Auto. The passenger getting out of the Auto was his ex-girl friend. "This was unbelievable, I thought the movies were happening to me." He had no logical explanation to what he just experienced. Synchronicity happened.

Train rides of Bombay, a setting for meeting people from various cultural hues. A Bihari discussing Stock Exchange numbers with a Marathi. A Gujarati sharing his dhokla with a North Indian. A Tam-Bram sharing food with a Muslim. Their respective baggages are nullified by the warm and amiable contact of human beings.

Carl Jung explains it lucidly:
"Anyone who wants to know the human psyche will learn next to nothing from experimental psychology. He would be better advised to abandon exact science, put away his scholar's gown, bid farewell to his study, and wander with human heart throughout the world. There in the horrors of prisons, lunatic asylums and hospitals, in drab suburban pubs, in brothels and gambling-hells, in the salons of the elegant, the Stock Exchanges, socialist meetings, churches, revivalist gatherings and ecstatic sects, through love and hate, through the experience of passion in every form in his own body, he would reap richer stores of knowledge than text-books a foot thick could give him, and he will know how to doctor the sick with a real knowledge of the human soul."

We could call it destiny, fate, kismet. Some events are beyond the realm of human logic and a mind proclaiming to be all cognizant can never decode this one.

P.S. Life continues to delight me. This post has somehow not made too much sense.

Marwari & Poppy Tears!

Since the time I read in the papers about the association of the Marawari community with the Opium trade in the late eighteenth - early nineteenth century, it has led to a gamut of constructs. My first reaction was that of awe and bewilderment followed by what happened to their devil-may-care attitude down the years.

Now the construct in my head of a marwari is very skewed, so i thought. They are docile, amiable, calculated risk-taking folks who will do nothing to endanger themselves and their business. However, their involvement with Opium, spells something else about them. Daring, intrepid and blasphemous. Yes, blasphemous, since they take matters of their religion with great earnest and will.

Now this leads to the prefixed notions that are present in some part of our brains, it could be because of what we have read, heard, been told, seen and experienced. To break the shackles of these preconceived ideas can be challenging. To uncondition conditioning is what I aspire for. It works when everything and everyone is evaluated without judging the contents.

Marwaris as the Poppy Tears exporters or Gold businessmen. Who cares?

'Boulders in the River'

There is always some kind of bickering that goes on between couples. It is the understated bickering and communication thereof that leads to a trajectory of deep understanding. Something the older generation believed in tremendously. It was easy for them to fight over issues than discuss them at length. To sit across the table and exchange views and counter views is a new age phenomena. An excellent one, i think.

There are such short lived relationships these days. Some marriages last for a few weeks, some for a few days (case in point Kardashian) and some are just a long drawn drag, smoke is barely there yet the addiction is difficult to kick. While all these relationships, i am sure, had begun with the vows of forever-ness and a honest intent to keep those vows. Forever-ness, somehow soon is forgotten and what is supposed to be for keeps is anything but that. Remorseful.

If one listens intently to the voices of dissent between couples, there would be strains of laughter, memories and love. They probably will realize that a few boulders in its course makes the river sing sweeter as its flows!

Music - The great Calmer

There are several voices buzzing in the head. Some are saying banal things, others are driving intellectual points, while some are simply reflecting and few are whispering nothings. Then, boom, comes the sound of Bappi Lahiri, popularly known as Bappi Da, singing "jeena bhi kya hai jeena" (living is, well, banal, honestly can't decode this one) So it brings a smile and the voices in my head get drowned by this psyched up music, no nomenclature of music can capture the essence of the "dhoooinsh". Bravo Bappi Da.

To Bappi Da for the music that rules the myriad sound waves in my head currently. Hope this doesn't last too long. Truth is nothing does. Impermanence does though.

Wisdom on the road

It is an observation that some of the most wise advices have stemmed from those inconspicuous people who simply do their business of ferrying folks from one part of the city, sometimes from one city, to the other.

This post is courtesy: one such experience.

Anonymous driver says, “Aadmi agar imaandari se koi bhi kaam kare toh kabhi museebat main nahi padta, agar kismet ki galti se padta bhi hai toh uski imaandari use bacha hi leti hai” (If a man works with honesty and diligence then he never lands in trouble, however, if fate plays foul and he does, then it is his honesty that saves him.)

Now these words ring in my head. He said the most simple fact without much ado. Context to his sentence was nothing, he was pontificating while driving.

There is so much truth in those words, only if it were easy to follow the advice to the letter H.

Another day under the same Sky

Another year. So that's why this whole fuss. I think a majority of people consider this change in a date an opportunity to unwind and reflect on what has gone. I think there is only one kind of Time. Past. Even the present becomes past in a second. Future is never there. Mind has a way of popping constructs and we are so deeply chained by pre-defined sets that any inevitability seems banal.

Struck by meaningless-ness all the time. My reflections are devoid of any baggages and sometimes sense. Too much importance is put on deciphering events and people, it is such a senseless exercise. Let's all be as we are and let others also be as they are, strip all expectations and enter the cave of tranquility.



There is another sky,
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there;
Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent fields -
Here is a little forest,
Whose leaf is ever green;
Here is a brighter garden,
Where not a frost has been;
In its unfading flowers
I hear the bright bee hum:
Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come!
- There is another sky By Emily Dickinson