I remember those moments many times…..they come as stray wandering thoughts when the mind needs comfort….a need to slip into fantasy……to soothe itself with honey like thoughts…..sweetness and a little chilly…….that’s what real honey tastes like….thats what i've heard
What I remember seems to touched by the magical….those moments seem untouched by the intellect….they have wonder……a mistiness surrounds them…..and a happiness which comes from innocence……probably for those few years I lived in paradise…..something I probably got with me from where I came :)
Afternoon naps in the quiet gentle sunlight, early morning with my grandfather when he plucked flowers, late evenings watching TV without the lights on….diwali baths early in the morning with my father bursting crackers outside and then in the darkness of the evening with lamps lighting it up….
Only a child could have felt like this…….now when I go back to the places where all this happened I see “reality”…..broken fractured musty relationships, how human beings go on and on like cockroaches…..without destroying things when they get ugly but just dragging on….and on….the noise and pollution…..the loneliness of old age….the ordinariness of death…the ordinariness of most things actually…
When my mind couldn’t take this reality, it dried up ready to die….but for some reason it didn’t …..it wasn’t time I think….
The colours went away…..the smells of the wondrous times disappeared……I was left with nothing
Now when life seems to be coming back, I remember my childhood wonder and awe more concretely……. It makes me smile with love for myself, the way I was so many years back….

I feel saffron
But, exist in dark grey
Constant
Tussle
Between body
Mind
Spirit
To leave shackles
And
Emerge

Life Before Death

You entered this world…..
Quite Effortlessly,
A special gift to some around you.
You don’t do much but breathe, cry, eat and sleep.
Life seems rather simple and peaceful.
The village is small but beautiful.
Happiness and contentment are intrinsic to existence.
You think to yourself, Life is surely going to be good.

Time goes by…..

You grow and so does the world around you.
Things appear different from what you remember.
Complexities seem to increase,
Challenges are mind numbing ,
Peace is lost.
Poverty, Indebtedness, Violence every where.
You fail to see life as a gift any longer.

Times goes by……

The struggle continues.
Life seems to be filled with bitter dualities.
To live with family but in constant fear and insecurity,
To Study and not succeed.
To Work and not like it.
To make money in return for the sale of your body, mind and soul,
To marry and not be in love.
To live but lifelessly.
Life seems to get caught up in the web of ‘chances’ and not’ choices’.
Drugs and drinks give momentary relief, but the pain and resentment continues.

Times Goes by.....

Then one day, Life is cut short.
Abruptly.
Shockingly.
Unexpectedly.
And then sudden consciousness dawns upon you –
As your soul begins to leave, first your body and later the world
I should have tried to ‘live’,
Somehow…..,
Anyhow......,
Fighting chances and situations,
Rather than merely succumbing.
And wishing time and again that it would be better to die.

In conversation with a 35 year old, rescued victim of commercial sexual exploitation, succumbing to HIV/AIDS.
Latur District of Maharshtra. 3 years back.
May her soul rest in Peace.

The image, the voice, the story has remained with me since then. And today I somehow mustered enough courage to write it down.

Its unfortunately true that - "Death is more universal than life, everyone dies but not everyone gets a chance to live."

Loss of ideology

As a root canal of my stagnant life and my desperate attempts to infuse some enthusiasm into it- I went to a mall today-by any given standards-the mall's architecture was futuristic in its portrayal of the rise of the urban jungle masquerading vast spaces surgeried with steel glass and cement.
It did not feel that it could have been owned by one person...its life through its brilliantly lit shops looked so colorful and expensive that -my middle class skin itched with the allergy of not being in the bracket of super haves or for that matter that of have nots....
Several times I got lost walking on cement plastered earth and it was only with the help of the platoon of security guards stationed at every metre of the mall-that I could reach for my two wheeler in the parking lot- more tired than before I entered the mall-my thrombus jammed veins looking for rest....
I was feeling small...very small..malls have that kind of effect on me and this place was huge to make me wonder if my salary slip will ever allow me to feel at peace inside the modern temples of consumption.
Consumption determined by our purchasing power( I would say our spending fundamentalism), seems to be the most potent factor in our growth - wonder if that has always been the truth of the times- the city, its new buildings and their flesh baring ads preach the seamless sermon of consumption as if existence has but one goal to its account.
Consumption to me is the next multifaceted orkut or youtube of the city – strangely though making things and people very common in the way they look and behave in public. I have been trying to understand that why most of our generation look and behave the same-common(mass) consumption ?
I find its not that simple-consumption is screened as a highly individualized affair right from the age of being born(remember Johnson and Johnson ads) to greying (HDFC pension plan...Sar utha ke Jiyo) -often suggesting us in ways more than one- what we should be and buy like.
Like religion and politics then, consumption seems to be the new form of human interaction and truly so is creating its own propagandanist and followers with instant gratification being its unique selling power.
With glorification of youthfulness and fun- its dominates our fear of decaying with time and in turn creates spaces in our minds that color every existing thought and behaviour pattern with its potency-making me feel small as a consumer inside the big mall. I realised its this influence of consumption that makes me question the profession I chose over a dozen other ones and makes me miserable and out-caste in front of an IT or MBA crowd.
I have had a very powerful set and system of thoughts that have guided me through all my immoralities and weakness and suddenly they seem to have evaporated leaving me at the mercy of consumption. Ideas made me feel full on a rainy day -they made me feel rich when I had three meals a day-they made me feel useful even when I was skimming books for eight hours-i never felt lonely when I was alone-they filled me with where I was empty.....I used to have an ideology...
Sitting in a multiplex on a weekend – watching sarkarraj-which would not have been possible if the movie tickets were not gifted- I understand that its the erosion of ideology that makes me tired every morning-that I have sprayed the chemical of consumption in my work and life and though the grass looks greener-its standing on a dead soil. My loss of ideology has cost me my peace. I see it better now...

dying everyday

dear beings of earth and elsewhere,

one of the truths that i have realized is that life is about dying everyday and getting born the next day. Though simple it may sound it is the most difficult of things to do- but without that our search seems improbable. Like cholestrol deposits around the heart-atleast i seem to have deposited layers of survival on my life-trying to balance things which doesnot allow me to live.its not that i am scared of life but i guess i have made it scary-only purity can make life beautiful and for that i need to cleanse the layers....as our cells die and new are created i wonder why we are trapped in memories.....is it really that hard to die everyday?

हर लाश चलनी चाहिए...मेरे सिने में ना सही तेरे सिने में सही आग लेकिन जलनी चाहिए

जैनेन्द्र के लिखे हुए ये शब्द मरना मुशकिल कर देते हैं - परिवार,समाज ,देश, दूर की बात लगती है , मेरा अंतर्द्वंद ही मुझे खोकला कर रहा है । सही ग़लत का भेद मिट सा गया है -सोच की सीमाएं लाँघ दी है मेरे मन ने -अब ये सवाल नही रहा हम क्यों जीते हैं -सवाल है कब तक जीयेंगे -हम मर क्यों नही जाते ?

My first posting on the blog...written after much debating with myself..should I, should I not?
Do I have anythin worthwhile at all to say?
But then Kavi's post urged me to write, when she spoke about the angst to search, to find, something resonated inside me and spontaneously replied.
I asked myself, why the search? And then being located as I am in a Women's studies Centre, constantly reading histories of struggles, triumphs, negotiations, I ask myself who do I not feel the energy for change, for transformation that the previous generation felt, why can I not be more like the generation of the 70s? While the answers for our restlessness might lie within, I wonder if it also is a result of the breakdown in movements for social change that we see today? and then is the development sector the answer for this lack of social dynamism?

Raju?

“The guy who drove you to Mumbai this weekend died due to a heart attack at 4 in the morning.”

Ideally this news should have just given me a momentary pause from my busy work schedule to grieve for him. Ideally I should have just forced myself one last time to remember his forgotten face only to forget again. Ideally I should have just spoken some good words as condolence about his good mannerisms. Another sigh and a pause should have been perfect and it was all over.

If it was then why are my eyes swelled up with tears? Why did that momentary grief which should have lasted for a few moments continue to linger and overshadow my thoughts? Why that is then this forgotten face is trying real hard to be remembered?

All I can recollect is a small, thin, soft spoken, modestly dressed figure. Some of this I didn’t notice even while I was with him. But that’s how it is now.
My interaction with him was just limited to an enquiry about the route or whether he needed a tea break?

Do I know his name?
Raju?

Then why?
Why doesn’t he just leave me alone and spare me this agony?
Why am I not immune like many other around me?
Is there something left unsaid, undone?

Something more than the just obvious!

Why there are tears in my eyes for a stranger whom I had known for only few hours?
I fail to fathom.

While he has departed for his heavenly abode he has left behind this despair.
Why didn’t he just take them along? May be he did!

Unfinished business, unfulfilled promises and postponed dreams for a day which he would now never see.

Did he get a chance to contemplate with them?
May be he did.
May be he didn’t.
Does anyone do?

Is it really about him?
Or is it about someone else?

Someone more than the just obvious!

All day we sit at the computer
Sometimes we work
Sometimes we don’t
Our arteries harden
Limbs break off and fall away
What is left is just a thought
A sea of thoughts
That remind us
That we are still here
Because Otherwise
We might forget

And then there is me………
The last one, the lonely one
Left in the blue desert
Wandering
White chiffon ribbon of the sky
One strip of creation
Warm air
Holding tightly
Not letting me go
Far into the cave
With cold water stagnant for many years
Many secrets hidden with silver and gold fish squirting about
The light let in through an opening of stone
White light
Blinding to the eye
Half dead
Half alive
Life goes on in the veins of man
Quiet light takes care of me
Nothing more to be said
Silence all through
Silence in my ears
Silence in my shoes
And my legs and toes
Go fish she tells me
Go into the darkness of forests
Smell the smell of trees
The smell of fruits
The smell of worms
Don’t come back
Till I tell you
Come forward with open arms
Cut off your thick skin
Throw it to the jaws waiting at the door
Open up in your little while skirt and pink apron
With welcoming smile
Incense smells coming from within
Dettol, phynel, disinfectant and soap
Cardboard and iron
Cold floors with nothing on me
Taking care of small people
Insects and worms with busy families inside
Cut open
That’s the end.

Kavi's Introduction

Yesterday, I received an email from a friend, in which he suggested that I should daily write for two hours and develop my ideas on development. He said it was a step forward that I was thinking about these larger issues and not spending too much on self searching. The later part is not true; I have been spending inordinately long hours in 'self -search', and facing crisis after crisis of existential angst, and predictably horrible repetitive bouts of depression. But my perspective has enlarged after going through a random sampling of blogs belonging to people my age, especially from my country, India. It was then that I realized that my angst was not unique. Blog after blog is a testimony to young people's search - the nature of the search is fervent; the object of search is un-namable, amphorous; its only defining characteristic being its ubiquitous promise of greatness. This angst is the human condition today. I read in the papers that more and more people in their late twenties are facing a crisis similar to mid-life crisis. Every generation has its burden to bear, and existential crisis seems to be our.

When I realized this, I also realized that my condition was connected to that of society; my angst was symptomatic of the society. Perhaps, Gandhiji was right when he spoke that the growth of the individual is possible only with growth of the society-for an average individual, and even exceptional one at that, cannot transcend society. So now, questions about the self inevitably lead to questions about the society.

In this, I am lucky that after a few false starts, I find myself in a field –namely development- that allows me to question, if not change, society. Yes, this field like any other has its share of hypocrisies and biases. But it is a vantage point to view the direction of human growth. To analyse the direction the country is taking. It is a good place from which to raise questions.

I think it will be our questions rather than our answers that will get us together on this page. For answers are ours, they cannot possibly be shared. We can share the doubts, never the assurance. We can be companions, but never walk the walk for others. But yes, there is much to be said about companionship- as it is what makes the journey memorable, and perhaps even bearable.

To start , a bit about myself…. Based in Delhi… shifted professions from architecture to urban design to development… it is difficult which way my work would go- but my work would be centred around Indian cities. After years of devouring books, I now turned my attention to movies and music. I love writing, and arty-crafty things… But all I seem to do nowadays is travel….

It would be great to read about rest of us.....