Tiniest, littlest thing and such profound sorrow

I went a little further up the path today. On my way back just before I could cross the only house on the path I saw the tiniest, little boy walking ahead with a school bag. I caught up with him. I put my hand on his head so that he could look at me and I could smile at him. I was greeted by big eyes with tears running down them. I bent and asked him what happened. Controlling his sobs and shaking his head he said, no one drops him to school, he said this a few times and then I understood him. I told him its ok, not to cry, I will walk with him and asked to give me his bag, which he did. He also had a two rupee coin in his hand. I wonder what would be his reaction if I had asked to carry the coin too. After a few steps and some consoling, I pointed back to the house and asked him if he lived there he said yes, and that brought back his pain and again he repeated that nobody drops him to school. He was so tiny, I had to walk at a snail's pace to keep pace with him.

Then he poked a finger in a hole in his T-shirt and said something about his dress and his mother. With his attention focused on the Tee, he continued saying something, so I kept saying yes to acknowledge, only to realise that he kept repeating the same thing. So I bent down and asked him to repeat again. He was asking me if I would also come to pick him up after school. I told him I have to go to work and it won't be possible for me to come when his school ends. He was fine with that. He pointed to the end of the path and asked me if I will go off from there. I said no I will take a right when we reach the crossroad. We could here some barking from the direction I had to take. He said there are many dogs that side and they are saying bow bow. I said what to do but I still have to go that way. When we reached the crossroad I asked him where his school is, it was at the dairy, with very few cows left now, which is a few steps straight ahead on the path. I gave him his bag and said bye. He said a very crisp bye and started walking to the school with his back straight.

When I left him he had his own company for the small distance he still had to walk and he had stopped crying.

Ashes or Gold

There is a fire inside
Why does it have to burn
the self and everything else?
Why can't it be the light
that gives courage to keep walking?
I don't understand
Why does it have to burn?

There is a fire inside
Why should it be angst
to rant through rhyme and song?
Why can't it be love
that warms countless chilled hearts?
I don't understand
Why should it be angst?

Ever felt love welling up inside. So much love that you start feeling compassion for even people who say nasty things to you. I was telling motu the other day that how it is so easy to love a child. One can just shower love on them, adore them and they never find it out of place. They are so matter of fact about it. But the same is not true for adults. No matter what the expectation for reciprocation comes in. And of course, it is not possible to show affection unless the person allows it. And also there is this whole thing about living a lie. It is so difficult to figure out if one is dealing with a real person. People seem to be caught up in role play. Ever known what it feels not to be part of the drama.

Birthday present and something else

They woke me up with cake in their hands and gleeful smiles on their faces. It took me a little time to come to senses and realise that my birthday had kicked in. I smiled back, cut the cake, and did not complain when some cake was smeared on my face. When we laid down in our beds to get back to sleep, one girl asked how was my birthday usually spent back home. I told her it is usually dinner with family and friends. Then I remembered and said, there is one more thing, it always rains on my birthday. When I woke up in the morning it was raining, just like it does in Mumbai. Not before my birthday and not since has it rained similarly here. Once the weather was worse but it did not rain the same. I went out to buy something and my trouser was drenched. At the most clothes become damp here in rain but never drenched.

I wanted to buy Totto-Chan for someone here. So I wrote to a book shop asking them if they had it in stock, and if not, would they order it for me. To my surprise I got a prompt reply, telling me they could, but it will take a couple of weeks, should they order it for me. I wrote back saying I don't have much time (no am not dying), I will be leaving the city by end of this month, so if it comes later it can be part of their collection. To my utter surprise again, the person wrote back saying they have ordered it and in case I can't pick it up they will stock it, cause just like I said they think it is a wonderful book and wished me luck for the future. In the world of updates, likes and being busy someone has actually communicated with me beyond the minimum needed.

Presents from the heavens and personal communication from a stranger. Chalo thodasa roomani ho jaye.

"Having eyes, but not seeing beauty; having ears, but not hearing music; having
minds, but not perceiving truth; having hearts that are never moved and therefore never set on fire. These are the things to fear, said the headmaster."

--From 'Totto-chan: the little girl at the window' by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi

Being busy seems to have become something like being in love. How actually being in love is more about being in love with the idea of being in love. Similarly, more than being actually busy people seem to be busy cause they think they are busy.

Hope that was not confusing.

Eternal sunshine of a spotless mind
Is this how each life begins
With the promise of new, unknown
To be broken each moment
When life is more than mere existence
A tiny speck of remembrance
Wonders if all this has been before
Eternal sunshine of a spotless mind
The speck, it grows

It is ironical, what we call fiction is so real whether it is literature or cinema. The real as we know it is made so contrive, the real ends up being a farce. I happened to watch the movie 'P.S. I love you' day before yesterday. Chickflick is it? Anyway today morning the girl from the movie popped into my head. And I thought, this movie is nothing but an example of how by constantly living in fear we make our worst fears come true. Here is a woman living in fear of being left alone by the man in her life. Because she has seen her father leave her mother alone with two children to take care of. She cannot bring herself to have a child and there are several excuses set up as a boundary around her decision. Eventually her worst fear, of losing the man, is manifested and in such a fatalistic way. We are so afraid to live our life fully always afraid of something or the other. The funny thing is always standing at the periphery, never taking the plunge into the river of life, bound by our fears, yet we think we are qualified to tell others what to do with their lives. Let go.

give me some sunshine, give me some rain, give me another time, I wanna...

Put your guard down and bang they zero in on you. I didn't see it coming, settling in and then playing havoc with my system. i am talking of expectations, other peoples, that are conveniently passed on to you as something that belongs to you. Before i left Mumbai for my brief sojourn abroad every damn person, even the ones that don't bother to be social otherwise there is something in it for them had an advice for me. And the advice was, find yourself a guy there! Now, before some conclusions are made, let me clarify, finding a guy or to say it more appropriately to have a partner is definitely on the agenda. But it can't be 'the plan' not for me. Important things happen in life, they do, it is the mundane that needs planning. And to find a partner is not mundane. So here I was giving myself a hard time since last two days for being myself. For not going out there and finding a guy :). For being a disappointment, to others. And it did not help that it was raining here, it actually only drizzles. But when it does it becomes very cold and there is always breeze flowing (does breeze flow?) making you stay in to be warm. Two days of no sunshine and seeing hot guys (Oh the policemen here. and they dress in black. This is how men in black should look) I think took a toll on me. Actually it all began when I started reading this book which I have to analyse for my socio term paper. The disappointment I felt with the book got channelised to me without me even realising. I was like what's happening. Everything was fine until the last time I was out in sunshine and looking at hot policemen. And fortunately, all those unfulfilled expectations, of others, toppled out. They got washed down by the rain.


To the world,

I love you, yes, but I can love you only when I love myself for who I am and not for who you want me to be. I disappoint you, I make you proud, I fulfill your ambitions or I don't, I fit in or not, well I don't care. This is me and this is what is.

Love
FM

Grab your towel we are getting hitched

You got to recognise serendipity when it comes knocking. My friend did and now she is getting hitched. Yesterday she was telling us about her chance meeting with this guy. The sort of weird connection people make, when your antennas start resonating with another pair of antennas and for your life you can't figure out why. Something like that happened with my friend. Before she embarks on the intergalactic trip called marriage, though she has not asked for any advice, I will still say 'DON'T PANIC', Serendipity is here to stay.

Sometime back, I read a very simple paraphrase of Buddha's view/thought on his enlightenment. One of the 4 things he says he achieved freedom from is opinionated views. When I read it, it made sense. However, just because something made sense does not mean it is easy to incorporate. It is difficult, very very difficult. That is the paradox of existence, you might know one thing, but end up doing another. And only you can change that, to make the paradox cease.

Women who can ...

In the movie, 'Alex and Emma', Emma says to Alex.

"Like when its time for the first laundry. I know, I know. In great romantic novels there is no laundry or there's people like Ylva or Elsa to do it. Maybe that's why I like them. They can wash their own clothes."

Why do long buried things surface to the conscious mind when what it (the mind) should be doing is deliberating on the assignment?

Weirder things happen. Emma and her words popping up out of the blue is still close to normal.