Follow up anxiety...

My dad works for the government so we were shifting places every couple of years in our (my sister and I that is) growing up and college years. Now work ensures we stay put in a city while he still moves around quite a bit.

We got it from those early years I think. This urge to keep moving. Just when we started to settle in a place, along came his posting. But we never complained about it. It was always so exciting to be in a new city with new people around. The joy of packing up (well, there was this sadness of losing half our belongings in the process as well) and the joy of unpacking. That lovely sense of change. That excitement of a new exploration in the offing. And we took a little from all places we went. And left behind bits of ourselves.

Which is why I was earlier a reluctant tourist and longed instead to be a traveller. A superfluous distinction perhaps. A fleeting glimpse of places and people was just not enough. I wanted to live every place I went for a while. To pick up the dialects. Observe and absorb the ways of the people there. I never kept notes of any of the places I visited which I regret so much now.

But now even being a tourist seems a luxury. Feels like life is slipping away, while the entire world remains unseen. And so now when I visit a place I feel the anxiety of not being able to soak it all in. I gape with eyes wide open. Try to remember every building, every road, every roundabout, every person, every stray dog, every restaurant and indeed every details of the place I visit. And cheaply click photos like if I didn't that place would vanish not just from my memory but from the face of the earth. And I talk to whoever comes my way. About everything and nothing.

I think I'm always trying to make up for not belonging to that place and almost feel a peculiar sense of guilt for belonging elsewhere (now this 'elsewhere' is elusive too!).

But I think it's an affliction. A sickness of sorts. A lifetime is surely not enough to see and experience the whole wide world. So why feel anxious about these things!? People who have never stepped outside of their houses or villages or cities or countries are not lesser beings for that. If I'm destined not to travel all that much, then so be it. I should thank my stars and/or God for whoever I am and for 'wherever' I am. So that's how I keep trying to rationalize my situation. And fail miserably.

PS: Come to think of it, I feel this anxiety even when I'm browsing around in a music shop or bookshop or library.

PS: Jill asked, and set me thinking all this.

To think again...

what do I think
why do I think
or do I think at all?

I think of this
but cannot think
the thoughts that seem to stall.

Right now, I'm neither a traveller nor a tourist.

But I don't mind being either as long as it means not stopping at one place for too long... And I've been here long enough.

I'm restless.

Emily... wherever I may find her...

And this was found with joy untold...

I felt a cleaving in my mind
As if my brain had split;
I tried to match it, seam by seam,
But could not make them fit.

The thought behind I strove to join
unto the thought before,
But sequence ravelled out of reach

Like balls upon a floor

Emily Dickinson's 'I felt a cleaving in my mind'.

Lost in silence...

On the silent mode. And lost forever. Diminishing the otherwise strong faith in the inherent goodness of every taxi-wallah, every auto-rickshaw-wallah, every bus conductor, indeed every soul in charge of, or hanging around, all means of transport my father's been on. He was proud, up until this moment, of having tested this goodness (as a matter of chance, not choice) and happily reporting a positive result at every instance of his mobile-phone unexpectedly finding its way back to him hours after he would leave it 'there somewhere'. It was as if he planned to lose it but loved to find his plans come to naught. And every time my mum and my sister would annoyingly say '…one day it'll not come back ok. You're just lucky some decent guy found it', in a manner that suggested they perhaps prayed sincerely for such misfortune!

I only knew that when it'd finally go (I always hoped it wouldn't but believed it would) the sense of loss would not be borne with a fitting sense of equanimity for the simple reason that he was no longer a creature of the pen and none of those numbers were jotted in any diary unlike in the old days. He rues it now. This time his plan succeeded. My mum's and sister's prayers answered. And it's a joyless moment for everyone. More regrettably, the verdict now is- 'what's the world coming to… this would not have happened in the days of the yore'! Of course it wouldn't have. Who had cells to lose in those days!

Aged (albeit not matured) beyond his years Mr. Inal... This was halfway to the Indo-China border from Sikkim.

And Emily said...

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us- don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public , like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day

To an admiring bog!

Emily Dickinson's I'm Nobody! Who Are You?

PS: To Emily, from an admiring 'blog'!

I like Threptin biscuits (the regular flavour). I always have since I was about 3 years old. My earliest memory of them is from Agra (of the Taj Mahal fame yes) where we stayed for 2 years from 1980 to '82. The box hasn't changed at all I think. And I like it that they call them diskettes.

A tin lies right within reach as I write this. An unlikely reminder of the past. Mum said her grandfather liked it too... the past just got older!

Peace in small steps...

Rumtek again... where peaceful souls abound...

There goes... my pauvre petite weekend...

A fraught weekend ahead. A life shorter by another weekend. Very tacky perhaps but just thinking about it makes Floyd jump up in my head… shorter of breath and one day closer to death…

So what if I'll be working the whole day long on a Saturday and on a Sunday? It wouldn't be the first time (which actually should, and does, make it more depressing?)!

But a wise man said to me toady that it's just a weekend. And I'd like to agree... for my own sake. Lovely defence mechanisms are conjured up!

In other news:

'Delhi needs more swimming pools' says a frustrated swimmer banging into someone or the other every three strokes. To no one in particular.

'What're you doing to the weather God?' asked a man who found the one-day-I'll-give-you-hail and the-oven-the-next-day game being played on Delhi slightly amusing. Or perhaps this man should ask the entire person-kind (himself too, if either of the two words are applicable) this question.

Finished The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. What a beautiful work!

iPod's on shuffle again. The Dead sang love is love not fade away and I wondered if that's true. Then Dido did I'm No Angel and I wondered nothing. Simon 'n Garfunkel sang a Poem on the Underground Wall but I was restless in anticipation and the song (much like the train) was gone suddenly. Don't remember much else of what played but considering I was on the road for nearly 2 hours in total today, there must've been a lot.

A funny thing happens on the shuffle, which is regarding this BBC Eyewitness series I've got on the pod from the 1900 to 2000. Odd things (odd-pod) play up from this series and sometimes it feels like being pulled into a completely different time and space (all depends upon how much traffic there is on the road at that time actually). Some of the sound-recordings come from as far back as in the 1910s! Oh! The lovely static! I'll try jotting about some interesting ones if they come up and I remember them later. They're of all kinds: the Falkland wars between Britain and Argentina; the Ist World War; the IInd; Princess Di; Thatcher; Major; Lockerbie tragedy; partition of India; control of the government on the BBC; pop music's influence in the 60s; affluence in some decades; poverty in others; Sarajevo; George Orwell on something; Tony Blair on another; sinking of the Titanic; racism; John Lennon; etc etc.

It was an unhappy coincidence however that maybe just 2 days before the shooting in Virginia Tech the shuffle played a series' segment on the Hungerford killings in the UK in the late '80s where someone shot 17 people including his mother and then himself. It is baffling how the human brain can function (or dysfunction).

On a brighter note (and I've not had the best of days actually so this took some 2 minutes on the watch to figure out; actually 5 and counting)… the music's still playing and books still await to be cradled and I'm hoping to watch Majid Majidi's magical film Children of Heaven again tomorrow!

Goodnight to some of the world and good morning to some. Aaftah-noons 'n evenings somewhere too!

Someone said... circa 170 (yes, A.D. 170!)...

It's normal to feel pain in your hands and feet, if you're using your feet as feet and your hands as hands. and for a human being to feel stress is normal- if he's living a normal human life.

And if it's normal, how can it be bad?

From Marcus Aurelius' 'Meditations' (translation by Gregory Hays).

Can't say I agree but just the thought, that this could well have been said yesterday, seems so strange!

Books & Bullets...

Rumtek Monastry... I found guns so out of place here!

Schoolward bound...

Kids in Tsongmo (Sikkim) off to school on a rainy day.

S and I passed our 3 sem French exam at the Alliance!! Yippie!!

Dogs life...

Just after I posted that last one, heard one of the stray dogs in our locality whimper. He was hit by a car earlier today but it didn't look all that serious. We thought the car just nicked him a bit or something. So took some biscuits and roti for him but the minute you approach, he limps away to a distance. Finally just left it all there. And now here's hoping he'll eat and that it's not all that serious.

Wish they led a safer life. But we're in a city where many people live likewise sans any security, so it's too much to ask for I guess.

Nothing new. Upsetting all the same.

Random

Nothing to report except:

There was a hail storm again today and LASHING rain this time as opposed to just lashing rain last time.

Got some jasmines/chameli at a traffic signal. Rupees 10 for 3 strings. They're some 10/15 in a string I think. Suddenly remembered Jill had suggested a snap. But no camera unfortunately!

Swam in rather murky waters. Kept the elbow up as much as possible. Few laps down it became a bit difficult.

Got a French exam tomorrow. It's midnight and I've yet to commence preparations! Mais non!

S was upset she didn't get flowers on her birthday. A day late is useless. It's another matter she was too busy to meet. But they could be delivered. And so on and so forth…

Nick Drake floated in the car a lot and I faded in and out. Caught 'hadn't had the time to choose…', then caught some traffic. Then 'gonna tell him all I can…', and then a call took my mind away.

One of my closest friend got engaged on Monday. Getting married in July but I may (actually won't) be able to make it. So happy for her. Wish I could be there. She'll say this won't be the first time I let her down… And, sadly, she'll be right.

People spoke of marriage in the office today. 2/3 people there scheduled to tie (or get entangled in?) the knot soon. Got the feeling it was being treated as an inevitable and not a choice. Funny, but when you're going out with someone you feel quite married already in a way… But only 'in a way' and one hears it's a different ball game when you actually married. It's a game?

So that's how it was. A random day.

Swimming in the rain...

Swimming in the rain... what a glorious feeling I'm happy again!

A hail storm of sorts and lashing rain for a bit. Just what was needed to cool down the otherwise boiling Delhi.

Happened without warning just when I turned right from underneath the Nehru Place flyover towards the pool. Had made a point to leave work early (how cruel times are that we call 8.30pm early!) to make it in time for a quick swim before the pool shut.

My first thought was how I'll swim now? Then realized it'll be great for the pool shouldn't be too crowded!

Well, it was neither here nor there (which is a great Bill Bryson travelogue!). Quite a few people were swimming. But I managed fine.

Had tender coconut on the way out, which is now a ritual. Chatted with the vendor of here and there (which too has become a ritual!). And then waded through the traffic back home realizing I do some 40 kilometres nearly everyday because of the detour I take for swimming. All worth it nevertheless!

The Namesake beckons… as does some music…

Don't think twice it's alright...

This one goes out especially to Jill!!!

She bestowed upon me the honour of mentioning my blog in a post on her site. What does that mean?

Firstly, it means I'm really very touched and so very grateful to her. Then it means perhaps that we all cut across so many barriers in our lives like geographical and culture distances to find common ground, or like Jill puts it, 'inside we’re all pretty much the same!'

This honour comes with 3 rules, which are that I've got to a) link 5 blogs that make me think; b) link to this post so that people can easily find the origin of this info; and finally c) proudly display the award with a link to this post!

Jill I'm seeking your permission to sidestep the first rule since I only read 2 blogs that make me think and make me so very happy: These are your blog and my friend Faizaan's. Faizaan bhai was the one to encourage me to write and in fact his was one of the first blogs I ever read and still check everyday for any new post (one look at his layout and you'll see where I'm coming from!). He was two years my senior in school (we were in a boarding) although I probably remember much more of him from those years than he does. We got in touch again recently after maybe some 12 years or so. And that too through his blog our old computer teacher told me about! I'm simply happy at what time has told me...

Jill's blog was pure serendipity! I don’t quite remember now how I stumbled into it but vaguely recollect looking for online dictionaries and word-game sites and perhaps typing 'wordsmith' in the process. And voila! I found a 'wordsmith extraordinaire'! Since then I've been a regular visitor. I enjoy it so very much. It's like when you meet a complete stranger and feel some connection. How, and what, she writes is for anyone reading this post to explore (and then smile!). As for me, Jill's blog is sort of like a Tiffany's I go to for breakfast!

Jill, till the time I don’t have 5 names on my list, I think it would be improper to display the award. You've brought up a mention in your post and it doesn't get bigger for me!

So my two winners are Jill and Faizaan bhai!

Jill, thank you once again ! :-)

Our new librarian, amidst sorting out the tons of law books from cartons in the new office, said it finally- "How boring these books are!?" And I said, "Now imagine our lives!"

Aye, there's the rub...

It is a common saying that dog eats dog. The man who said it first did not know dogs. Dogs do not eat dogs. They work in packs and a pack animal is not a cannibal. It depends upon its fellows to bring down its prey and being dependent has the morality of a social being, an instinctive morality but morality for all that. Man, on the other hand, has not natural or instinctive morality. The process of history proves to the contrary and the history of religion reinforces it. If there were any natural morality in man there would be no need for religion or indeed for law. And yet without morality man would not have survived. Another conundrum, gentlemen; science destroyed the belief in God upon which morality depended for its source; science has likewise substituted the means for man's destruction; in short we are without that moral sense that has saved us from extinction in the past and in possession of the means of extinguishing ourselves in the future. A bleak future, gentlemen…

From Tom Sharpe's 'The Throwback'. Black humour… at its blackest!

Two (of the many) things that I find disconcerting...

1. When a child doesn’t smile back at me.

2. When a dog barks at me.

Both thankfully don't happen all that often! But when they do happen it makes me feel there's something wrong with me. For both, I think, judge people right. And that's probably because they don’t intend judging!

And if I were a train I'd be late again…

So much to say and time just runs out. It keeps adding and I don’t know if I'll say some things at all now…

But what's been on my mind… is where I see myself few years from now: tried all professional responses to this but then just think of how much better I should be swimming!

On my bedside is… a Tom Sharpe…

On my agenda is… to build one!

And the music plays on shuffle these days.

Hi!

Between some 70 odd page contracts…

Had this irresistible urge to say hello to myself…

Hope to do 50 yards of fly soon! Getting slightly better but Shweta says shoulders not flexible enough...

Back to the contracts…

If I were a swan I'd be gone... la la la