2.30s

How 2.30s in my life has changed?

My faintest memory of afternoon 2.30 is of summer of 1989 is. Didi would come jumping around from school, hug me and shower her kisses on me. Mummy would ask both of us to go for shower and didi and I will sing:

 I hear thunder, I hear thunder.

Hark don't you? Hark don't you? 

Pitter, patter raindrops, 

Pitter, patter raindrops,

I'm wet through; so are you.

I would laugh at my loudest. Seeing her singing gave such adrenaline rush. One of the most absolute form of happiness, I can recall from the initial years of my life. I would clap and dance. Mummy would come and wrap both of us in towel. Lunch  was followed by afternoon siesta. Papa would try to sing to make us sleep and didi and I would silently giggle at his attempts waiting him to sleep. We would quietly slip away for our singing, jumping, dancing.

It was 1995. I was happy that papa was transferred to a nice place. Only because I changed my school and I could spend more time at home doing nothing than sleeping on my sister’s lap in school bus. The new school was just ten minutes walk. 2.30 was the time when I would be finishing my lunch. I would be painting after that. I had this nice drawing note book with camel poster colors. These were my prized possessions. I also had brushes of all the number. All my life will be focused on 2.30 afternoon drawing sessions. There was a big study table in our room which didi used. I was very attached to the school uniform especially the white shirt; the only oddness in otherwise colorful 2.30s. Mum would scream at me but I would never change. It was only during evening that I would change. What a moment of solitude it used to be. Starting from 2.30, everybody at home would be taking the afternoon nap and I would secretly paint. Secretly because mum expected me to take rest but I discovered in me the indefatigable painter.

2004, we would be sitting in lab, waiting for the titration results to come or Frog's muscle twitching. Those centrifugation tubes, pipette, titration experiments. There were no chairs in the lab. I would always wear my torn jeans so that when diluted hydrochloric acid falls on my jeans, I would not regret. We looked like those car mechanics with greased white lab coats. I so much hated these 2.30s. There was nothing exciting about them. All I would look for will be running away, escaping to some unknown territory away from that four walled laboratory. I would have those silent tears in my heart.

2009, I will be sitting in environment law classes discussing polluter pays principles, M.C Mehta’s cases, wildlife protection act, Public Interest Litigations. How much engrossed I would be. The next class would talk about diminishing resources, optimization and marginal utilities. I was glad to be away from four walls of lab but that longing for siesta would often remain especially triggered by the lectures.

2013, I am supposed to be analyzing policies, intricacies of what renaissance forestry sector in India needs and the description of this 2.30 is shortest. Probably, I left my heart in 2.30 of summer of 1989 and I never use brain when I visit ‘catharsis’

Soliloquy

I am healing, I am not growing. I am perfectly fine. You cannot grow until you have retained your original self. I dipped to negative, I thought I was growing but I was slipping into nadir sooner than soon. It scared me. Those lonely dark nights when all I did was staring at the stars, the gaze becoming hazier due to waterfalls in the eye. The salty liquid kissing my lips and touching my tongue. It was all so real. The ‘renaissance’ man did that to me. I forgot my benchmarks; I started living a life of hallucination. Simple things stopped mattering to me. Nothing seemed important but chase. After all when you run, then only you feel the pleasure. Then only you lose yourself. Chase and you become synonymous. But here I am tonight. I bruised myself running so much so that I can’t run anymore. I disappointed Renaissance man. I thought I will be healed but then chase will suffer if anyone waited for me to get healed. I now here in the dirt, the mud; believe it as my reality. The cold mud soothes me. I take deep breaths. I can’t run further. I am enjoying this dirt. It comforts me. I can still see the Renaissance man running as fast he could. He looked back at me. That one gaze infused a gush of energy. I tried gaining inertia again but I fell and mud is soothing me. This healing seems eternal.

Trivia

Happiness, how you chase it and how it eludes. My dear grandfather used to tell me, ‘the world is within. You really think you need to see whole of it to be happy?’ I would always label this kind of statement as preachy and in my head will tell myself ‘he is a crazy old man who will not understand my generation’. Now when he is not here, I miss his preachy talks.  At the peak of depression when I had no clue what will keep me happy, it was his lines which helped me. My world is within. External stimulus just helps in perceiving things but the power of perception is within. Probably I had lost that. Those silent minutes of conversations with myself every night has helped me tremendously. Happiness I realized lie in simple things:

1. Exercise: What I liked about my grandfather was his formidable freedom. In his 70s,  he could be free because he was physically fit. An hour of running makes you feel like an achiever. The incremental speed you achieve each day is like a blessing you receive from god.
2.   Money:  Earn more. Money gives you happiness and freedom to exercise your will. You might have a great support system around you but then you should be really possessive about your earnings. It keeps you contended and happy.
3.  Job/ career: Do your job. May be it’s just a halting place before you really do what you wanted to do but it’s paying you. Get it done and value it. There are lots of people who are craving to get it. May be your job was a career for them.
4.   Sleep: If you can have 7-8 hours of sleep every night, you can’t ask for anything more
5.  People: Pessimism is dangerous. Avoid people who waste time on just brooding and want you to listen to their negativity in pretext of being realistic. Stop helping people who can help themselves. Don’t be comforting at the cost of your own basic minimal comfort. Morality and humanity could be dangerous sometimes.
6. Family: Spend time with them. They may not be the people who are exactly compatible with you but they are the ones who will stand by you in your thick and thin. Don’t distance yourself with them.
7.   Eat healthy: I have started enjoying my diet a lot since the time I am doing my own cooking. Eat fruits. An apple makes my day. J So much so that I miss it when eat when I don’t have it.
8.  Reading/ Intense conversations: I think both helps me in unfolding the layers within me. I come closer to myself but be careful about what you read and who you converse with.
9.   Be Social: Meeting people helps. It does not mean you have to cut open your heart and start sharing things but light conversations, sharing common interests and being nice to people helps. Do little things to make your friend’s happy.
10.  Love J : Stop finding it. It comes in little ways. It tickles can stay or just go. Make peace with it. J

As Heisenberg says, ‘It’s impossible to determine position and momentum simultaneously’, I don’t know my position but this momentum which little things have built in me keeps me going. 

Diary Entry

Sia loves these lonely journeys where she can just shut her head for few hours. Surrounded by strangers, she knows she has to shut her mind and heart and be an island, and just say occasional thank yous and excuse mes if needed. What a relief it is to be in the stratosphere, where none can reach you, especially the known ones. Often she would close her eyes and let feelings play in her heart like kids. She allows the heart to take over. The kids playing want to be heard and dance fearlessly before she lands in the known world again.

You were the cutest thing that could have happened. I never thought I could get attracted to someone as fat as you ever. Did you ever see how sleek and fit I was. Your giant persona of seventy two inches was something I would not detest but also would never find complementary. God has always done this to me. He makes me shed my beliefs. You were such a strange combination of paradoxes. Your giant persona in black combined with that innocence of a kid. Your strange ways of trying to get romantic were bold yet so chivalrous. How unimpressive and disgusting it could be to hear about drugs during the first date, yet when you showed your chillam, I could not stop smiling. How hard you tried to dance and deal with my flexibility. You gave it up in a strange way. You allowed me to fall but in your arms. The funniest was that you made me eat junk food so that it initiates the beginning of what we could aim to be; a socially acceptable couple. You were so happy to see a fatter me; yet it nowhere matched what you were. Whatever we shared was also such a strange combination. I looked like a kitten in front of you; me sixty inches and you seventy two inches. I liked it when you claimed to be sixty nine inches and not seventy two. Immediately after you said I don’t think you are sixty inches. You appear to be sixty three inches. That makes the difference lesser. Also, when you gave up on make me trying to eat junk food and reach your obesity level, you started to think seriously about working out. I loved it.How you held my hand tightly when we were crossing the road. You did not even ask me. I have been crossing roads all alone for one and a half decades now. Getting up in the morning surrounded in your fat arms; it would give me so much cushion in life.  So much warmth and affection they had. It felt that I have a safe mini world in this bigger world. You know how it is with those Russian dolls; one inside the other. I loved it when I could so comfortably slipped into your arms in the taxi and sleep. I loved it when you held me tighter while I was asleep. I loved that kiss on the forehead before you dared to kiss me on lips. How you held me tightly when I was falling off after that hangover. That 5 am long drive in the morning is one of the most special morning I can remember.  How could you see the softer side so easily? How you could let femininity take over feminism.

The flight landed.  The heart was in hind sight now, kids had hidden themselves somewhere. Head took over and his words echoed, ‘I don’t think we can be together.because of obvious differences.’ She wondered what she should believe in; heart or head. She chose head and had a sound sleep after stabbing her heart for the nth time. Kids have to grow up someday.

Lighthouses and icebergs

There are so many lighthouses in my life. Especially with a decade alone in this city, there are moments when I feel like a sinking ship in the dark. These are the days when I have not done much work. Interestingly not working causes more stress to me than being busy throughout the day . I make sure that I am running, exercising or socializing so that my body and mind gets tired when I go to bed at the end of the day. Now there are days when I am very depressed especially because I have not worked enough. The worst part is I always realize about this depression during bed time and it causes unbearable insomnia. Anyways,  this one is about how I tackle these depressed states. So as I told earlier about me being a directionless ship during these days sailing in the dark. Now, I have lighthouses in my life. So my friend ‘A’ is a really nice girl. Even if she is bogged down in life, she would always smile and tell me,’ Be Positive’J. I love her persistence to be positive. Even though it does not seem to cause much incremental progress in positivity in her life, I often sympathize and become positive.  Lighthouse B is different case altogether. He appears as a chronic depressed but I like him. He talks about the concept of positive neutrality which means you should neither be positive nor negative. Accept that life is gross and its sole purpose is not always hedonic fun. I like the concept. It does not help in being positive but then I tell myself life is gross. It could have been worse. It does help me in some ways. J Now coming to my favorite lighthouse C.  C lits up my face like none does. He is someone who just needs to look at you once to cheer you up. I don’t understand what he talks but then his face has so much glow. He is less intelligent but what I love is that he knows he is less intelligent. With him life seems to be the best things that ever happened to me. It appears to me that all I want is this sort of dumbness when life gets dry and overloaded with intellect. You see there is wisdom in dumbness too. J

About icebergs I’ll talk later. Off to bed now!

Escape

Of late everything looks like mechanism to survive.

I feel like going on a sabbatical to figure out what life is. Was the grandiose I always associated with it exists actually? A lot has been said about human life, how we are different from other lower forms of animals. I wonder why we say all this. We also eat, shit, sleep and breed. How are we different? Now, don’t give me that crap about human brain size. We have just used our brain to breed more and create another level of speciation within human species; rich –poor, male-female, literate-illiterate, modern –traditional; the list goes on. Sometime I feel there is a nerve which goes straight from the brains to genital and all attempts have been to prove Malthus wrong.  The only quest which Homo sapiens seems to have is to find out how to breed and feed more each day to support our ‘mankind’?

It’s all machinations of culture which teach us wrong things. We spend quarter of life to learn to fit ourselves in the system. If lucky enough, we get enlightenment and opportunity to unlearn what we have learnt. How much time that leaves us with to live actually? By the time I figure out what life means to me, I am on deathbed. All wisdom flows only during the penultimate days. I wonder if Buddha ever lived. After he saw the travails of senescence and began the quest for life, what his life meant? Did he live? Could he love? What was beyond realizations?

Ever wondered how much pain it causes initially to unlearn even one thing which your upbringing has taught you. I remember my initial years away from way. How difficult it was to change my eating habits, speak to new people, and avoid comforting things and sleeping patterns. It took me years to unlearn these and learn the new ones. This cycle of unlearning and learning is continuing and I wonder what I am doing. In this whiling away of time, am I living?

I want to go away. I want to taste 'LIFE' once.

What kind of people you should avoid talking to?

What kind of people you should avoid talking to?

1.       The forever negative ones: Being ever positive, you are bound to get attracted to those ever negative ones. Their pull is as strong as gravitational pull and believe me it’s hard to escape. At first instance you would feel this urge to understand them, and that’s where you get trapped in mindless and endless discussions. I feel that being positive requires effort and once you have reached the level, just ignore any downfall. Respect your efforts.

2.       The ‘intellectuals’: You name a book and they have read it. After reading all the possible literature available on the planet, they have unlearnt their worldly ways. There are men who would blog and brag about women’s safety but would conveniently ask their female friends to manage themselves at odd hours after a late evening party. Well, you are a ‘feminist’ and a strong woman; you could have figured it out yourself. Feminism always comes in a way of chivalry.  Also, I know some ‘feminists’ who had their glory during college years while making grand speeches. The years after college, I see them as absolute ‘normal’ women producing fat babies, depending absolutely on their husbands and in many cases dragging relationships in which they are unhappy. They say they were naïve back then. They still read a lot because they have to transfer their ‘feminism’ to their kids.

3.       The convenience lovers: We all love convenience but there are times when we don’t mind travelling extra miles for loved ones. Well, this category would always prioritize and since you would not be making their life any convenient, you would be the last priority always. Ranking in the priority list is directly proportional to the convenience.  Just chuck them out!

4.       The ambitious ones:  Now this is the category between 25-30. They still have unfinished tasks from their earlier 20s and they would be forever busy in achieving them. You mention about work-life balance and they would hang you because work is worship and dare you talk about chilling around and having a life.

5.       The self –obsessed: They would start with ‘I believe’, ‘I think’ and ‘according to me’. You keep waiting that your chance to talk would come once. You actually get it but then you see yourself talking about them. Such is a power of ‘I’. It’s painful to be with such people. Plain ignore.

I deal with all these kinds on daily basis so I know what it means. The worse is that they don’t realize that how intolerable they are and what a favor people do by even showing faces to these losers. Anyways, back to work!! It’s work-life-love-hate balance after all.