Banglored, Backstabbed and Back!

Last week was fun, as I was all over Bangalore. Under the aegis of my cousin t3rmin4t0r who is working at Yahoo, Bangalore, I rejoiced a laid back vacation. And there was of course Vaisakh, who took my Scary House ticket. The biggest place I have seen yet, Banglore (Hmm, is it?)- impressed in form, grandeur and spirit (Hmm, did it?).

I took two full weeks to read 'the Sicilian'. Sicily is treacherous, with backstabbers and bandits, rogues and usurpers, people on the two extremes of love et al. Sicily in hindsight, resembles my circumstances. I am doing third year at CET, if you need reminding. This place is equally deep with self-centered people and treacherous cheaters, money-swindlers et al but/and also thick acquaintances. Backstabbers, deceptive deceivers and loose-mouthers. I am not exaggerating. It is a place to learn strategy, to sit and watch and learn and so on. I have had a few lessons. I am not saying that I invited everyone when I adventured, I did'nt. Not that my small group packed bags for places while announcing our plans in inviting tones. We fuuking did'nt. Its dog eat dog and I ate some and got eaten as well. But at the end of the day, I realize the sicilian saying, "only the man who plays alone, wins".

I am back from the out3rorbiT! Obviously it did'nt go well.

I wanted to participate in English Extempore but then Wayanad happened!

I love the cool breeze brushing my face while standing on the edge of the train bogey, staring at the fast moving expanses of green fields and sturdy palms. I love to be alone and talking to myself. It is perhaps the best time to think about oneself and also to forget about oneself; and both at the same time! I have always been warned about standing thus, but I have loved to see my shadow dance along at the train's pace, despite the landscape; flitting by the train and jumping at every odd stone.

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After Ragam, Eric asked me 'was the promise kept?'.

Yes it was fucking kept fuckingly!

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When I was in s4, I was disillusioned about Ragam and CET. I had castles in the air and an air of cheer. I had thrown an ace hoping that the nine was amiss, but bingo! came down the nine and drowned my ace.

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I saw a few TV slow shots and found that the most venomous of snakes arch backwards to take aim before lurching to bite. And I learned somewhere along the way that the fighter might crouch before the pounce.

I can say that I wrote whatever I did write with a sense of purpose and with audacity wherever it needed to be. And I read with an open mind and acuity. I went along with a bubbly spirit and met with dire death a coupla times but remained stone facedly stoical. I found in people the will to do and aided them doing. I sapped from them without compromise. But like the snake and the fighter when did I take the breather that ain't a breather! Okay I take it now!

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Wayanad is the most beautiful place in Kerala. And that is where it all distilled over.

There were tea estates and scenic backdrops on the way....

A rock and a few rock climbers....

A cave and a few old paintings and writings...

A waterfall and a few jobless people.

We all posed for photos, wondered at what we saw and imagined being heroes.

The rock climbing at Edakkal taught me the value of perseverance.
The cave writings humbled me.
And Soochipara mesmerized!

Thanks Pranav for helping us in not being killed by Eric.
Thanks Ajay Chettan for the camera gimmicks.
Thanks Amar for the one-liners.
Thanks Aravind and Vineeth for the safe driving.
Thanks Pattar for the foiled drama.
And Thanks Eric for all the POLICING!

Now to be reclusive and distanced. Lost.
I came home to durga and her hymns.

PS:- Eric wanted an explosive and a forceful blog. I wanted a soft one with a lot of hidden jabs and pre-suppositions. I win!

MAGIC

I am here for personal reflection. I have turned into a very poor blogger. I do not blog about what I do, mostly. Not even about where all I go. Its increasingly personal reflection. Not that things are not happening. They are. But for me my disillusionment and loss are still the issues that find blogspace.

Despite the disillusionment I find that I cant keep from contributing. This week was for the college mag stuff with pattar. Quality stuff.

“What do we write for the college mag.. we wondered.. and we zeroed in on 'nonsense'.. Not nonsensical prose mind you..but how absurd is the logic behind the world’s behaviour at large.. “

What churned out is not exactly nonsense. We dug at all 'em big guys. We dug at them who we think are our people and they would take it in their stride. Why not one peg for torque when they are household name. What about one for Pranav, the gsec. Why not roast Eric, pattar, Anila and kk.

Between I got kicked with caffeine. That was pattar's magic. How could it happen just after being swahahed.

Today was rocking. CCD is magic. They sell all the God knows what at exorbitant prices and I still keep going.

It was t3rmin4tor's treat. Me, Reuben, Kamal and Manu.

Despite the disillusionment and excessive school-nostaliga-obsession, I know these guys too are my people. Driven. Hilarious. Able. Thanks Manu for Uniart. Kamal for Opera and Reuben for What not!

Thanks t3rmin4tor for dapper.

Thanks Lord for all the magic.

I used to eat sweets slowly.

I used to eat sweets slowly, very very slowly, savouring every mouth watering nibble. Somewhere along I started gulping them down and that’s when I started losing. I can’t give you an exact date, sorry friend. Nevertheless I would like to savour them like before; for then I was smarter and more importantly innocent enough to believe that sweets are sweeter when taken slowly. Somewhere along I lost the innocence. Till yesterday I did not care who the fuck would be reading my blog. Today I am too tired to care. But I hope I will wake refreshed tomorrow.

My school gave me a few tools and my teachers blessed them on farewell day. I put them in my bag, carried the magis, and returned home a proud loyolite with an ex- in between. Today I spotted my old school bag but the tools had rusted. I was awed and wasted no time in cleaning them with oil and paint. They lie beside me now sparkling neat and ready. But I find my shoulders weak for the day, and I can bear them only after a nice long rest.

I have lived with people and I have seen that some of them are driven. I have seen people go to all ends. I have seen focus and determination. I have badly wanted to identify with them. I was disillusioned, and the general fabric of my college fuelled my disillusionment. It was all because of my inability to watch-out for detail. The lack of an eye for detail, I understand, now that I reflect in retrospect.

I come from extenuating circumstances, friend. But that is no longer reason to me.

I have lived with people and some of them have been exceptional in thought and deed. I have stood positively aghast at them. There are people who have a special knack to run the world. There are good people in the world. No wonder I managed truck loads of blood for my father before he packed his bags. Unfair to him, he was given no choice but to pack. But getting back to those special people, I found them invigourating.

I have found them dotting my schoolscape, my college’s fabric, my cityscape, and the alumini of my institutions. That’s clue enough for me to tell they dot the world. And what did I take from them? Did I come home tired that I badly needed sleep because my energies were spent to make the world a changed place; that I felt a heart-warming satisfaction? Did I? Did I not shy away from my jobs when they were ready and lay?

I waited for people to pick them when I could have.

I have lived with people and some of them have been truly unconscionable. I have never even sensed the meaning of being so until off very late. I have lived with people and some of them have been all filth. Shame on me that I chanced by them with an eye for detail off-late! Who is a friend, my friend? The one who tells you to tag along and gives you his scale? I am sad that I buried mine in my schoolbag and I had to use other peoples’ scales and weighing pans when I had mine. The real friend would instinctively prod you to your own devices. I found today that my friends are those people who go home drained of their energies after having diverted them through the day for all that they thought were worth fighting for.

I do not know you by first name friend, because you keep changing shape and form. But you come to me everyday with your quests. I have felt exhilarated by your energy. You have no name because you are not always one and the same. But I do not feel a difference for I identify not with you but your trademark manoeuvrability.

You are free to slap me on my face from tomorrow on, but you better have a reason.

Did I do what I felt is right? Did I drain my energy for what calls I got? Did I answer them, my calls? If so, you have no reason to slap me. And I know that you won’t if I keep these few records straight. Did I eat my sweets slowly and then you can fuck off unmindful of the slap.

Tomorrow you would find me head held high, my weight on my sturdy legs, traversing the college lobby with a clear conscience and a broad mind. Tomorrow you would find me at the school chapel, palpably silent and devout. You would even find me home reading the works of great men. You might even see me take a voluptuous bite from a coffee brown cookie careful to melt it in my mouth before sinking it down in slow speed and mirth. If not as I said you can slap me but I won’t give you even a wanton chance.

Spare me for today but, for I need a nice long sleep.

A battle begins.

A battle begins.

It is as much a battle against convention as against change.
It is as much a battle against myself as against the world.
It is as much a battle against individuals as against their conglomerates.

It is more intellectual a battle than physical. It is more spiritual than it is intellectual.

Nevertheless it is a battle. A rebellion. A revolt. Therefore there would be blood, there would be destruction. But it is a revolution. There will be a new dawn every day. A new synergy, a new spirit, a new form for the old.

In my battle I am both beholden to everyone and everything, but at the same time independent and free.

I would be a loner in the war. But I wont be alone all through. I might have to take a leaf from your books, and you might even want a couple from mine. I would still be alone and mind you, you too.

Not that I wont befriend. Not that I wont criticize. Not that I wont partake. Not that I wont share. Not that I wont at times be hostile and inimical. Just that at the end of the day, my battle would be with my mind and its perceptions and yours with yours.

"Our greatest battles are with our own minds."
- Jameson Frank


12/2/07
2:15 pm

Kalyan – A small spiritual promise!

Time flowed past me and I onlooked. Life was on collateral as time ironed a few incongruities.

Rewind……

I was then a seven year old, atmost eight. I unveiled the small veil that hid the white letters of ‘Kalyan’, my family’s house at Ernakulam. The house warming back then!

The house was no mere project. It had a lot of earthwork and foundation issues for it was made for full five storeys. It had the blessings of engineers at the Harbour Engineering Dept. Ours would not be a small house.

Kalyan means a drive for spiritual progress and enlightenment, said my father when I once quizzed him non-stop ‘Why kalyan?’. Like how that quest is bedrocked in foundations deep, our humble house too. It is much like the Dana building in the FountainHead, a building that will do its purpose. Speaks a lot about the man behind! As simple, as austere and as ‘spacious’ ! No frills, no sops! And I liked it.

Canfin Homes had a heyday; its manager had a few feasts. A few feasts later the dream was re-born. The first floor! A few years had passed. Time had flowed past me as I onlooked. Life had been on collateral as time was ironing out a few incongruities.

I lost my old man not his dreams.
I lost my father but not his words.
I lost his company in prayer but not his hymns and his prayers.
I lost his ailments but not their scars.
I lost him. I lost him, not. [Don’t mind the touch of Douglas’ Adams in all this]

Tomorrow I pack off to the queen of the Arabian. The house warming, now!!
Between there is still a promise, this time one I will keep.

A small one! A spiritual one!

The one that I would love to as a margi!

Kalyan- the spiritual thrust to merge in Him in man’s last breath.

So be it.

New Year Resolutions

I have a large flask brimful with tea and the year-end bumper issue of the Outlook beside me as I prepare to crusade into the New Year.

Two years back [in 2004(Dec)] I had a few recorded (in writing) resolutions and by the end of the year (2005); now do not be surprised; I had met with quite profound measures of delectable success. And then again in (2005) December I had notions about the year ahead, but they were not exactly recorded (in writing). But primarily they were met with, but this time with adequate success. The year that is about to leave by was a didactic in itself for me. I hope I have taken my lessons well. Its time for a new set of aims to aim for! Is it not?

Now this time I am going to make things quite simple for me. I have roughly two things to take care of. That’s all to it, I have decided.

1) I have decided to drink more tea through-out the year.

2) I am going to take the Outlook more seriously. I am going to flick through every page in the coming year and I am going to read everything worth a cent or say even half.

If I do the two above well, I will be successful in life. Surprised!?!?

Hell, why do I keep thinking people are interested in my life so much as to be surprised at my esoteric New Year resolutions!!! I know its all about me and my pursuits and dear reader you don’t give a dime. Fine!

But I need to be aboveboard on not fooling you by being superficial. So much for my peace; and hence the diligence in explaining why the two above are more than superfluous.

i) People who have seen me know me to be a fat guy. No matter whatever I do at the gym, the fat stays. Not that there has not been an 8 kilo downward shift in 2 years time! But still I am flabby and fat. Somewhere in my blog I had told about running on tea until the college canteen happened. So I can run on tea and go hyper, and its part of dieting. Eating less! and tea is very little calories. So 1) above takes care about the pounds Xtra!!

ii) I am a self-proclaimed dilettante at etymology. Its going to be a long journey from dilettante to tyro to novice to rookie to amateur to ‘bring it on’ to expert. I will learn new words and keep refreshing them and who else will help if not Vinod Mehta with his Outlook. So 2) above takes care about ‘words’.

iii) The Outlook is by far the most sensible thing that has happened to the Indian print media. I began my sidekick-ish journalistic career with an opinion expressed therein. Furthering my affection to the Outlook will make me oil my literary gear-levers and it’s a message to the Metro Plus – ‘I am not dead’! It was in the first week of November that I was presumed dead at the office.

iv) Then what about books and question papers, records and rough records, travel and learning. This is where the skeptics start forgetting that caffeine (from tea) is something I am addicted to. In a more positive light it spurs me on to keep reading perspicaciously through the night, to speak cogently through my speeches, to write lucidly through my literary escapades, to travel convivially through the vast lands of my country. Tea stops me from being banal. Tea gets on to my nerves. So again that’s settled.

v) It’s important for an young man like me to keep abreast of the happenings of the world. All the talk about GK and current affairs, debates and elocutions, stage shows and GDs, interviews et al. Outlook is my one-worded answer.

2007 is going to be rocking as long as I keep drinking tea and reading the Outlook. Can life be even more pleasing?

So at the end of the day I feel as long as Vinod Mehta does not choose 2007 to end eleven years of speaking out and the hills of north India and the Ghats do not start complaining about all the tea being grown, I will be Okay and successful.

I conjured a few resolutions this time around as well. Thank God!

The Govt Calender!

A few things I had deduced in life are being proven true again and again.

But before I get to that there is something personal to share.

I was switching 2006 calenders with 2007 ones. The new year's eve is important in terms of a few resolutions and stationery-switching! One of the calender's I replaced was a Govt of Kerala one and that with a 'some-other-brand' calender. For as long as I can remember the Govt calender has been a part of my household's little things. Suddenly it is not. I did not flinch. No point in pausing.

In life if you are dogged in your pursuit there will invariably be returns.
There is no point in either hate or adulation. Throughout life good people shall stand with you provided you return the favour as and when. You need not bank on individuals. By some chance of fate good people take turns to be in the right places. The important factor is being part of them, and viola you will never be lost alone.
Money has a way of keeping no records by itself; its peculiar. But God is even more peculiar in His ways of bringing some to you when in need. Just ensure that you keep subscribing to him.
Just a fleeting recount is enough for such basic tenets of life to dawn lucid and clear and for them to fall in place.

No point in pausing.

I mentally frowned, That was a mistake. I shouln't have!

“When a man has begun to be ashamed of his ancestors, the end has come. Here am I, one of the least of the Hindu race, yet proud of my race, proud of my ancestors. I am proud to call myself a Hindu.”

--- Swami Vivekananda.

It is most profoundly true that man derives his will from his ancestors and his sense of pride is inextricably rooted with the past. It is important for man to follow the Gods his forbears prayed to. Thus I began my journey a few months back, alone!
God created man and man his Gods, said a wise man.

There is only a singular power in existence; it has never been a matter of contention. If you have ever been misled otherwise, you have been misled. I believe in the Almighty, and I believe in his omnipresence and I am obsequiously at His disposal. But at the same time I subscribe to the aggressive Tandava of Shiva, I believe in the favour of Ganesha and I took home a Sea-Goddess the day of christmas . The multi-facetedness of God is no issue for me.

“The word ‘khila’ in Sanskrit means ‘latch’. 'Akhila' therefore means that which cannot be contained or closed, that is this universe. The creation of this universe – the substance of this universe is one, though the creation is manifold. Just like how apparently you are many, but fundamentally you are one. The one is manifested in the many.”

--- Shri Shri Anandamurti

The essence of the spiritual path is that you yourself are the God. Search deep within your own I-ness and feel it dissolve away into his infinity.
I believe in my God(s) and others in theirs.
I need not mentally frown. If I did it was a mistake. I am sorry.

Author’s note to ‘the song of the bird’

“This book has been written for people of every persuasion, religious and non-religious. I cannot however, hide from my readers the fact that I am a priest of the Catholic Church. I have wandered freely in mystical traditions that are not Christian and not religious and I have been profoundly influenced by them. It is to my Church, however, that I keep returning, for she is my spiritual home; and while I am acutely, sometimes embarrassingly, conscious of her limitations and narrowness, I also know that it is she who has formed me and made me what I am today……”

---Anthony de Mello S.J

I found the book worth a lifetime of travel and learning. I am convinced books are my short-cuts.

Gypsy Me

Suddenly the question of being a gypsy or not is important.

My cousin had blogged, “I start crossing the road and dodge cars coming my way and it kind of works for me”.

Analogously “I set off to the lab tuition and find my way to the place as and when.” Unfortunately I do not remember places from the plan/top point of view of the city, and I do not have the knack to remember ill-placed and less frequented (by me) roadways. But I reach places, I find a way to!

I wonder whether that’s part of being gypsy. The whole road is for the gypsy! For he owns not the world in one sense but owns the whole world in another!

pic :- http://www.adepti.com/adepti.orig/images/gypsy.gif

Trees- they have never been in my crush-list.

I spent a considerable part of today in an express train connecting the commercial capital of my state to its administrative counterpart. As always I was jobless on the train and let myself into thinking, dreaming and the other freedoms of joblessness like, eh!... eh! Am I lost??

I had been out of station for four days now and in that time Trivandrum has partially adorned the colours of Christmas. I saw stars everywhere on my journey from the station to home. Along with my luggage was a small cover with fresh bananas – harvested from a few banana trees my father had planted in our land at Ernakulam. People; I just realized that could well be the last banana(s) I would be eating, that my father planted. Though I will have the fortune to enjoy its descendants. My father was a tree-lover and a God-lover.

At his death I had written,

“It is time to start from where he stopped.

I will have to plant for him his trees,
I will have to chant his hymns
And worship his God.”

Trees- they have never been in my crush-list.

But God has somehow managed to creep into my life quite dominantly. Yes the same God who Douglas Adams purports to have vanished promptly in a puff of logic!

I will take solace in the fact that whenever possible my father has planted lasting and ecologically important trees in his land, in his offices’ lands and in and around temples.

And I will take cue from my cousin’s plagiarized (from God knows where) words;

“What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us;
What we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.”

Hmm! Whatever I speak or write about somehow offers connection with my dad’s deeds or words. Come on, dude I have to move on Nah?

It’s true my dad put up a fight and lost to kidney failure. But when it’s a kind of war you would end up losing no matter what, there is honour in losing dauntless till the last breath. I move on, I will have to. I have come to terms with death, particularly my father’s. I don’t feel a churning revolution tumble about in my entrails about what has happened. I still have my system and good music. A nice warm cup of tea to wake up to! A bike to aimlessly amble about! And the long reaches of the night to explore without question. Death is now too boring and commonplace to ponder over. Uninteresting to dissect and understand! Dark and stark unlike man’s enlivening white concrete and hue-full paints!

Lakshmi was talking about the supernatural. We shared quite a few interesting stories about magic and magicians, ghosts, spirits and deities. But as always talking to a lawyer (or a law student) became extremely one-sided. But wasn’t I saying I am going to keep my ears open for longer and my mouth generally shut.

The sea and beyond.

And then suddenly there were just the men, the sea, the warm-beach sand and the shadows. I was lost staring at the vast expanse that lay in front of me. Water! The element; It made three-fourths of the earth. The waves lashed relentlessly and the noise around faded. The sea had called me to her feet again. She does it again and again. And I relent.

Was it not last week that I found myself with KK at good old Shangumugham? Tell me who else has the temerity to accompany me on an exam week to the beach. Was it not a few long years back that I wet my feet at KanyaKumari? We had stayed at the Kerala House. Ajayan had accompanied us. The cheerful guy who did a bit of shopping there! (And yet last week I saw the same guy with wet eyes, as he said goodbye to a house named ‘Thankom’ in a quite sub-urb of Trivandrum. Long story that.)

And yes, Goa was fun! Literally drenched myself in the salt water! The white beach sand et al. And Kovalam yesterday boasted the same white sand. In places we had black sand as well. Much like the sand at Papanasam! And was it not a small detour that had taken us to Papanasam, not so long back. Somatheeram in 7^th standard, Allapuzha beach as kid… Yes, I have repeatedly subscribed to the sea breeze. I have been the mystique sea-lover all my life.

I have always loved ‘the sea’ taking me over. Lashing me and surrounding me. Only to go back unobtrusively! Yeah. In his last months I had accompanied my old man to the sea front many a time. At some point I had lost count. The sea goddess at Shangumugham and the quite sea breeze upfront were all twice a week experiences.

The beach always had a mystery. The mandapam and the Indian Coffee House! In my ninth, for Christmas we had gone there and I met Kiran and Arun Gopal there. Later in life I have been to the self same beach with Kiran et al innumerable times. I can’t forget the sands of Allapuzha. Those were the days when my father was part of the board at Foam Matting India. The rest house was very close to the beach and the lighthouse was then as is now an intriguing column of concrete silhouetting the horizon. I have since not been to that place I lovingly treasure. And when I joke to Aswany about the sands of her beach (she hails from the land of narrow roads and backwaters) little would she know that I am in fact relishing my days with my father in the green of health. That was long ago and life has taken me to a place remote and strange.

After all the chilling at the beach(Veli, and Shangumugham), we left to Pippinmoodu and our good old ‘Viswanth’. Gluttony is a sin, nevertheless a pleasurable one. (wink). The gym followed and then we watched ‘Pattiyal’, the film that Vignesh was telling me about just the other day. Pattiyal is ‘A’ rated for its violence and objectionability.

And thus ended the better part of another day in my life!

I still crave for the sea.

I still hear the bell at the Inchcape rock (ICSE days, dude, long story that!)

And I still search for the sea-temple, the one with a thousand bells (from ‘The Song of the bird’ Anthony Mello S.J).

Unanswered Questions!

For me the night has arguably just begun. It is tender and fresh and offers promise.

It has been an extremely tiring day. Yes, to be frank an eventful one as well. I am here to ask a few questions. I wont get any answers; maybe. But I cannot move on without asking them. I have touched the rock bottom of my mental fortitude. Don’t be mistaken; it’s not all about today. It’s just that today I will have to ask. Today; yes, of all these days.

What was wrong with today? Nothing. Absolutely nothing!

It was day I of freedom. My exams were postponed and today opened the stage for a 20 something day long vacation. I am an over sleeper. That has never worried me, and as usual the sun was up and ready to welcome me out of my deep sleep. These days I do not forget to chant a short morning prayer before quitting bed. I managed the same, half dazed and semi-automatically. I practice a form of meditation, its part of my marga. But suddenly I ask myself, when was it last that I meditated. Meditation is peace. I am pissed off. I am. Of all days, today I find myself deep in the bottomless precipice of unanswered questions. Did I do my first two exams (incidentally they weren’t shifted to next year) well? Yes, I would say they went quite par. KK would know. So that is answered. I was talking about unanswered questions wasn’t I?

I sold off a few old newspapers that were cluttering my house. Yeah, I still remember Lawley Road (12^th ISC syllabus, dude) and the house being cluttered with correspondence. I wouldn’t take this to that level. But old newspapers are frankly quite a nuisance.

I went to Kochanman (my mother’s youngest uncle) and heard out a long story that Kochammai had to narrate. I was listening to a lady in her old age, a virtuous lady who led a teaching career for about four decades. She had lost her son (only son) to some heart problem in 1993. Around the time I learned a then new word ‘relative’ – a long story, that! She never asked me anything, but I could feel her question surround me. The question suffocated me and rendered me a listening machine. I heard her, I had no choice. Ramachandran had a keen interest in fiction, in agents and intelligence maneuvers, like me! He would have been 43 now. I didn’t have an answer. I won’t have one. I don’t want to find one. And she was speaking about Osho aka Bhagvan Rajneesh, and his broad-mindedness. He was poisoned by Americans! As if I cared.

Kovalam was fine. We had a blast today. The white sand at the beach, the towering red lighthouse, the Australian madames, the parking fee; I walked and enjoyed the tanning sun. I wet my feet and so did my friends. The whole of CET and SCT was there rejoicing their Christmas dreams. And yet the same question came back to me. ‘I lost a wondrous lady to cancer’, my friend had said somewhere in the most profound IMs I have had in Yahoo, (around this time yesterday). The statement doesn’t qualify as a question; ‘coz it read ‘I lost a wondrous lady to cancer’, I don’t have an answer! I won’t find you one, my friend.

On our way back we had food from ‘Viswanth’, in Pippinmoodu. That’s near where my uncle had lived for more than a decade. It was not long back that I had to sign in a white paper as a receipt of his body at MCH, mortuary. That was a day of signatures and a day of death as well. I didn’t have to refresh my memory for it has not really gone from the level one cache. I carried the body (partly; like we do it together) on the way to the crematorium. It was my duty. A sign of last respect! The last rite! In between I found enough time to tell a small ‘Thank you’. Thank you for having spent a few many nights with my father in Cosmo, MCH et al. I lost my old man to disease. I lost my uncle to disease. Nobody asked me anything. But I still kind of thought that somewhere amidst it all I would find an answer. I did not.

We went to the gym today; after all the chilling-out and after the 10 day gap, gym was fun. And then again I remembered a similar gym session a few months back, around the time a member of the place who had gone to China to answer his call in life came back in a coffin. I had gone there with another friend on that day. I didn’t know the guy who died but this friend knew him really well. That day I had used a coin phone. Yes, the coin phone! I didn’t have an answer to support my friend with. I still don’t. I am in no mood to find out one.

Today night we saw the movie ‘Saw’. Some people, it said, are really ungrateful to live. None of the people above fit in.

I started out in the mind to ask a few questions and ended without asking nor answering.

I hold the line, now

A light has just gone out of my life;
And that too my guiding light.
I am still reeling from the shock,
And I am groping in the expansive darkness,
Searching for a prop, a support pole, an anchor;
A new meaning for life altogether.

I still feel like a kid, waiting for my father's loving hug,
I still feel its early to know about life, but sadly it is not.

An instance too many is long lost and past
And I have lost my loving papa this fast.

It is time to know what he wanted of me and not.
It is time to forget the botched up past.
It is time to start from where he stopped.

I will have to plant for him his trees,
I will have to chant his hymns
And worship his God.

I feel re-energized as it continually dawns on me that I am holding the end of the line; and will have to till the date arrives to pass it on.

Like my forbears I will have to take care and hold it high along rough terrain and low amidst sandstorms and one day find the hand to pass it on to.

TVM
17/8/06 VISh