And I Shall Miss....

With less than 2 weeks left for my 2 year B-school journey to end , I wondered how much will I miss these days – and If I will , at all ? How much ever I would like to believe otherwise – I know , I will. There is always something - about everyone, everything and every phase– that is worth cherishing. My two years were no exception to this.

As the DJ played the cliché “yaaron” and “summer of 69” towards the end of our farewell bash, we couldn’t help but become a bit “senti”. As we walked back to our hostel rooms on this chilly winter night ,I was caught between the past and the future . But let the future rest for a while , I will use this space to scribble some moments of the past ….those which I will miss the most..

Ø I Will Miss my friends – who knocked on my door at odd hours , wore their dirty chappals and walked around in my recently cleaned room , borrowed stuff and conviniently forgot about it, also never expected getting their possessions back from me . I will miss those night-long “addas” in our hostel rooms , where hours flew away with the aid of maggi spiced up with “short stories of x, y and z”. The expert opinion of everyone on everything, the hours spent on analysis of the past and plans of the future .

Ø Will miss..Waking up at 12 noon , bunking classes….knowing that a friend is giving proxies .Wiling the time away , mastering the art of doing “Absolutely NOTHING”.

Ø The immense utility derived out of that first paani puri or the first bite of a mayo-filled Mc burger after weeks of “mess(y)”soda rice and mirchi rasam.....sigh!

Ø I will Miss “acting like an MBA”, competing for our GPAs -- saturating every statement (intentionally or otherwise) with our favorite jargons – ROI, competency gaps , Maslow’s , locus of controls , TQM ..and blah blah .. will miss cooking a common recipe to every problem and every case , writing exam papers as easily as writing a blog and still managing a respectable CGPA.( also writing every damn thing in bulleted points like this :P )

Ø Making presentations with the most incompatible group members on a night before, arguing and cursing them- smartly and selfishly avoiding those slides which wouldn’t fetch marks -but still being a “team” rather than a group the next morning.

Ø I will Miss my companion, my virus-ridden laptop and the junk within, where to create that “extra space” for a new movie – we deleted projects crafted by our blood sweat and tears in the last semester.

Ø I will Miss my Nirvana @ 6. To silently view the sunset from the terrace of my high-rise hostel is something to die for- to witness the world change its shade from a serene blue to a feral saffron to a melancholic purple…and finally to the gorgeous black studded with silver stars.

To put it simply - I will miss- “belonging” somewhere ,where I found many things worth missing. Its a new end ...its a new beginning.

Peep Into The Closet

A lazy afternoon, my Monday started at 12 :D. I decided to clean up my closet, since there was nothing better to do- well that’s not entirely true (with hundreds of assignments and their deadlines impending ), but to stay away from books this was a pretty good excuse.

I am a neat freak , but this only remains a reality till one gets to peep into my closet , as I dump all the mess from my room inside it . This creates an illusion of orderliness in my immediate surroundings: P

I opened a drawer-----long forgotten pieces of receipts ,tattered greeting cards in all colours possible , photographs which I took in the old old times when digital tech. was still far away and in which I stood wearing the then “HS” and now “LS” fashion , junk jewellery and the oversized hoops – now corroded and entangled , just like everything else around , the numerous studs, the anklets , the stick-on tattoos with incomprehensible designs – which were very central to the then incomprehensible phase of my life .

Right at the corner , a bundle of paper was resting - almost yellowish now , a red threadbare rubber band tied around it . It was my collection of letters, and my collection of memories .In Life, I have been lucky to meet a lot of people ,and to make a lot of friends out of those and also to collect a lot of goodbyes. This bundle was a memoir of those people and those goodbyes.

I sat on the floor ,with the floor now as messy as my closet, and I read each one of them. There were “ Why I will miss you ?” notes from my Mgt. Trainee batch of the previous organization – (this was an exercise done to improve our teamwork and people quotient during our training , but it def. had much more significance ….so much of it that after 3 years I still preserved it and cherished each word ). We were a closely knit gang , spent 25 hours of a day together :D
I read each word, remembered each one of my friend and each moment of the most wonderful 2 months of my life.
I smiled and I laughed , I remembered and I missed , and I enjoyed myself on this lazy afternoon in my hostel room . It took me sometime to decipher few signatures on those notes, of those whom I am no longer in touch with - those who were buddies before and now are just another name on my “orkut” list .

Then there were other letters, some even from my school days – "the corny ones", the "I am sorry ones" , "the confessional ones" , the overtly "sentimental and/or hilarious" ones , the ones which were “important” for survival in our teenage, and the ones which were the lifeline of our gossip sessions all night long . I spent an hour going through them – and it was an hour spent well , there was indeed nothing better to do than this , today on this lazy Monday afternoon.

Of Life , In Life

The most noble truth amongst the 4 , which Buddhism preaches is that 'attachment is the root cause of all suffering' .I can’t decide whether to appreciate the simplicity , or the complexity of this statement. It took me a few years , number of books, a small amount of research, some “enlightened” people and hands-on exposure (ouch ! ) to realize that why everyone from parmhansa to osho invented the same recipe to moksha.Recently, I witnessed something that made me think of a slightly different version of this noble truth .

Waiting for my friend on the station, I was busy preparing a mental list of what to shop , where to shop and plunder as much as possible with my limited resources. An unkempt malnourished middle aged man, stinking of a mixture of sweat and ammonia in oversized clothes came and sat right next to me. My reflex - a disgusted look and an intentionally rude, audible “tch ” , before I occupied another bench nearby. I later noticed that he was a blind fellow and the guilt pinched me hard.

He was holding a yellow/ now black bag close to himself with his two arms wrapped around it – staring into the darkness, closely watching the void with his fictional eyes. He then lit up a beedi , holding it between his third and fourth fingers , thick end inwards , followed by deep drags . He seemed to be in bottomless thoughts, his head tilted in an angle as if sensing everything around him.

He took a half-torn piece of paper, and scribbled something on it, or attempted to do so. To check whether the pen worked - he held the paper close to his nose and smelt the paper, then the tip of the pen- one by one for 20 odd pens and bundled them together .They were cheap plastic pens – fluorescent green and shocking pink – which u and me will never buy.

The train approached, he headed towards it making his way through the crowd. Each individual in isolation would have been keen to the poor guy, but when the same individuals make the crowd – cruelty creeps in. He was pushed and yelled at, was given those contemptuous looks when he brushed against anyone- the same treatment which I gave him moments ago .

He managed to board the train and tried to earn his evening bread through those cheap 20 pens, which he made sure worked, but about which no one really cared. His feeble life, a hopeless one …
I wondered why the effort to cling on to such a fragile life after all? “To attain moksha give up attachment with happiness.” ----In this case where was happiness in first place to be attached to?
Each noble truth has an answer in spirituality, but there needs to be one more truth and one more answer.
Why In spite of utmost suffering, there is utmost attachment? Or is it because of utmost suffering, there is utmost attachment? .I wish there was a recipe to overcome just this only inconvenient truth – of life, in life!

An Eve in Retrospection

My love for Christmas has been crafted by a mélange of memories. Having done my schooling in a Catholic School , spending a precious teenage year in a church hostel amongst grey habits and growing up with a multi-ethnic group of friends has made this day as much special for me as Diwali or Dushhera.
I can’t think of any other better time for Christmas to arrive - right at the end of the year to make you merry, no matter how the year behind had been. On this chilly winter night, the world drapes itself in beautiful red and green, dotted with the silver and shimmer.
This Christmas Eve, As I sit down to scribble some words , I couldn’t help but wonder about the 20 odd Eves that I have witnessed. Each phase has been different from the other. Each centered around a different set of people and places and around a different me. But if I had to choose the special Xmas Eves – they are the forgotten ones, tucked away in ancient times.
I must have been 8 years old . The school holidays used to start on 23rd Dec and it was ( the one and only ) day on which I never had a stomach/tooth/tongue ache or any such innovative anomaly , and I looked forward to get to the school.
Throughout our lectures , we waited for the Santa’s arrival .Especially after the recess , we grew more and more restless . Finally when we heard the Jingle bells approaching our classroom , each one got ready to run and grab the maximum number of goodies from the Santa. Now these were not expensive gifts – but just any other candies we already had an enormous stock of. But the joy of climbing up the wooden benches , screaming the jingles at top of our voices and seizing the maximum amount of those candies was a big big deal, then..
The real thrill, however started towards the evening, when I used to rush home and s and join my friends – on the terrace to make the wish-list. It was a task which involved a lot of consultation and racking of our little cerebrums.As a principle , we used to write only 3 wishes and reserve the rest for the next year . So after much calculations , I used to neatly write those essentials that I required to continue living – like say , a black pilot pen , a squeezee water bottle , complicated 15-door compass box ,sometimes evil spells for my teachers :P n pink lip sticks. The last one almost always featured on my list. These chits , were then inserted under our pillows.
My mom used to ask me over dinner, what I have jotted down and I proudly declared the list. She pretended to not listen to it very carefully, though.
I used to force myself to sleep off early on the Eve - worried what if Santa missed my home this year !But he was efficient - never missed a thing .Every Christmas morning gave me a reason to cheer . More than the fact that I have received my “pink” lipsticks – the fact that he had remembered to drop by , was my achievement.
As years passed, I realized who Santa was. My mom , who pretended not to hear my precious list used to fill the Christmas stockings with those gifts, every yr. Now that I look back , it feels such a stupid and such a wonderful gesture . Beautiful enough, that I shall remember it for the years to come.
Those were the years ,Xmas was simply beautiful and beautifully simple .Merry Christmas !

Volatile Spirits

To keep myself going, I visit aamchi Mumbai every month , squeezing some time out of my not-so-busy schedule, which obviously is not very difficult. Being unemployed as of now and given the frequency of my travel, I certainly can’t ask for kingfishers to fly me home and so I often settle for the bhartiya rail. 26/11 , 9 p.m. – I boarded the train from Hyderabad Deccan , and even at an average of 2visit/per month – my excitement remained intact .

Being a single-lady traveler, I always get a separate “women-only ” cell and though this ensures some comfort, the continuous yapping makes my journey troublesome. As a remedy, I was quick to put on my earphones and engross myself into the oshotimes ,I had just bought from the station .

It was hardly 10:15 p.m.; My inbox started overflowing with “where are u “, “are u ok” messages. I guess that the network had just sprung back to life. I wondered what they were for….only to know after sometime about some terror strike at Mumbai ! I felt uneasy but dint bother much, and was back to my business. To be frank after living through the 1992 riots, 1993 blasts and years of travel in those explosive-laden local trains - this wasn’t something new. Inevitable almost .

The next morning, things sounded worse .Usually I don’t encourage anyone to specially come and pick me up from the station, but this time my protests stood in vain. I reached my city. This city with millions looked strangely deserted. I was not used to this Mumbai .I am used to that Mumbai - where you can’t walk without hurting someone or getting yourself hurt , where getting in and getting off a train is a everyday battle - preceded by small rituals like tying a knot with the duppata around the waist or rolling up the sleeves of the shirt, and yes - taking that one deep deep breath before the plunge . Today I missed all of that.

On the TV I watched at the symbols of this city being murdered one by one. The Taj was a place where I had spent evenings- sometimes as a guest and sometimes working in its back areas wearing chef-coats and cravats as part of my HM curriculum. I remembered those nights with friends which were spent, after college at the marine drive looking at the expanse of the dark Arabian Sea bejeweled with the lights of this city. Night-outs with friends on the stairway of the British library - sipping tea , chatting and cherishing every moment …a time when Mumbai was Bombay , and it was as Bindaas as we were.

I spent much time at home , too beleaguered to venture out. But things moved on and they did because there wasn’t an option. I travelled to CST to shop for some junk jewellery from the colaba market . The stations and trains were again overflowing with people. Some may have lost their lives..but it was hard to notice the few missing amongst the thousands. The same rituals were repeated -people pushed , they fought for the “fourth” seat and the little kids who have been begging since years were again on duty with the all time favourite “pardesi-pardesi” on their lips , and their little fingers expertly manufacturing music from two lifeless pieces of flat stones.

But If I say Mumbai was back..I would be dishonest. As the train picked up speed , I felt something was amiss. It wasn’t the Mumbai I have lived in, which even after mishaps, limped back to being itself. People looked at burkha-clad women and any man with a beard with distrust . Any black bag on the steel rack above was looked with suspicion –and some exchanged glances over it .The fruit baskets covered with old sarees by the local bhaji wali (who were always trusted) – now were asked to be exposed by some passengers. People feared each other .Any rumour could have led to an stampede at that moment . I have never felt suffocated even in most packed compartments - it was an expertise built over the years. But this time , I felt my heart pounding so loud that I thought the girl standing next to me would hear it but as I looked around I saw and heard many such hearts. The undercurrent was obvious – though on the exterior we all stood there composed, busy with our mobiles and indifferent towards everything.

In spite of many cancellations on my things to do list, the dinner date with my friends was still on- in a place not so far from my home. We finished late, as always, (almost 1 pm) and my friends dropped me a little distance away from my house. As I walked back, at this hour - the city was alive and kicking . The aroma of fresh butter sliding and melting on the hot tava from the pav bhaji stalls stilled filled the air ,serving customers of all ages, religions and classes . Men and women took a stroll , in their night clothes . People slept peacefully on the cold foothpaths ...

I walked back …confident and casual. In a single day, my outlook in the same city was volatile , just as lives of millions around me.
The irony was I felt safe on the street at this dark hour , perhaps I wasn’t so only in its broad daylight…

SEASON'ed Contemplation

These days, I unlock my day a little late than usual, and keep bargaining for “just two more mins” with myself. An hour up - still under the duvet, I have to trade-off: either attend the classes or stay back and appreciate the lovely weather outside. I, obviously, pick the latter.

Though I believe every season has its own charisma, winters are special. It manages to create an “elusive calm” in my mind, like none other. There is no harshness of the summers or the melancholy of the rains… and spring though beautiful; you miss it before you know it has set in! Winter comes right at the end of the year (at least in my part of the globe) defeating all the other seasons – to give life a much needed stillness.

After idling around in my bed for another 20 mins, I step onto the terrace, wrapped in my woolens, and it starts drizzling. I drag in as much fragrance of the wet earth as I can- and I wish I had a magic box in which this smell could be kept captured forever. The fog, though not very dense, makes everything appear vague. The only thing clearly visible is a small road speckled with the rain water, on which a brown colored stray dog (lazier than me) is curled up like a ball.

The droplets of water and the chilled air try to pleasantly pierce through the pores of my skin. My palms look pale and the finger nails -light blue. But it’s too mesmerizing a place to leave. I enjoy holding the small stainless steel glass of piping hot tea in my palms, trying to absorb the heat -as I sip it miserly, so that it lasts longer.

The sky is grey and gloomy, the winds disturbingly cold - and then the most beautiful thing I have ever known appears - the winter sunshine. In a moment, everything lights up. The leaves of the trees shine as though an artist has just colored them - and the paint is still wet. The droplets on my black woolen act as small mirrors, reflecting the sunshine and looking like tiny stars. I open my palms, to soak up as much warmth as I can. As I close my eyes and stare at the sky, a golden-yellow warmth seeps into the soul taking me to a place where I have never ventured before –nirvana-(ish) ;) indeed !!

I sit there wondering, about the contrast – of cold and warmth. Each is incomplete without the other, and each derives its meaning from the other-half. Just like I realize the value of home – after being a migrant for 4 years, or , say, we term someone beautiful, only because we know what is “ugly”. Without the ugliness, beauty loses its significance. At a more macro level, I thought, we value happiness only after life gets interspersed with bouts of grief and sorrow.

I thought as I came back to my room…this little contemplation was worthwhile – much more than the classes I bunked this winter morning.

This Corner Of The World...

Nothing to lose and nothing to gain,
There is no love ,nor disdain.
There is no present , and there is no past ,
The moments are illusions and they hardly last....
A place to forgive , a place to forget,
A place to let go of every regret...
I let go of every thought and
Of every dream I have ever sought.
It’s a corner where I cease to think,
It’s an ocean in which I love to sink…
The numbness is angelic, the intoxication more so,
At this corner of the world my soul lay aglow.
I drop the veil, and I come alive.
At this corner of the world…the world itself futile!