Lest I die...

Opinionated, i may sound....but this one thing about death has really made me wonder. Death may be anything, but what matters most about it is the suddenness of death. "Not even a Goodbye could be afforded God?", well, that is the question I wanted to ask the One, and the only one. Is death seemingly sudden only  to those who are still alive (Atleast those of us on earth) or is it the same for the subjects as well.

Nevertheless, what saddens me is the suddenness. It seems just like we are all climbing, clambering up a hill if you llike it, and suddenly we make that last move and take the last step to that valley. i do not venture to say we fall, we may simply fly away, for death may have a power to give us those wings, that make all obstacles and hurtful things, just that, redundant. 

This is to death... Had it been thus, that before dyeing, a person would be accorded a moment to meet every one, one met, laughed with, shared sorrows with, had dinner with, traveled on the metro with, flirted with, with enemies and friends alike, just to say, "Good Bye, and Thank you!" Just these words, why did God make it that way, that death catches us unawares. God, could it not be more pleasant ?. Like, first a dream, a signal of death. The person now prepares for his or her death, and tries and meets everyone, lives that last few days with the fullest zeal and does not bother for the trivial things in life, that really do not matter if I die tomorrow....But sorry, I believe such a life would be more painful than the surprise of death. I just wish, if after death could be a warm welcome, and another, Better Life, hopefully it shall be like that....

Again, Lest I die tomorrow, i shall thank you today. 

And why Lest....? It is certain, did someone promise eternity, no, may be longevity, but not eternity, so death is not sudden at all. Death at best is a drastic step nevertheless, but is the most certain thing on earth. And thus i feel life is best lived in uncertainty, as Morgan Freeman says in the movie "The Shaw Shank Redemption", " And i , I feel like a free man at the beginning of his journey, the end of which is uncertain"

Thus in vain have I avoided Uncertainty, while reminding myself of such an inherent and all pervading Uncertainty will make me embrace Certainty with out the need to wait and say , "Good bye, And Thank you!" for worse, I may never be able to say them, Lest I die tomorrow...

For saying good bye hurts the most, especially when it means a Good Bye for good...probably we have been spared of such an ordeal.....and hopefully, there shall be no good bye's but only occasions when we say so...

No i wont end it there, I have written this as it seems more like a duty to me to write about this particular thing we wish not to think about....Have a good day!!

Walking on a HILL

Charles H Spurgeon's famous quote, "Humility is to make a right estimate of one's self"

There are promises, kept for the heck of it, kept well and not kept. Here I am talking of promises not kept.

If you have heard Baz Luhrmann's lyrics in "Sunscreen", please try remember the line that talks about the "Real Troubles in life", which will be those that blindside you on the noon of some uneventful day...

1. Okay, it was almost 7 pm as i stepped out for the customary evening walk, crossing the traffic signal by probably 7:20. I think I can vividly remember thinking about Debbie who used to tell me that a woman is safest when she is back home before dark, and the most developed nation in the world was no exception to this fact according to her. By 7:30 I was on the causeway, but this time the new faces disturbed me, for no other reason but because they were new. Among these unfamiliar faces, i spotted Dorris. Okay, Dorris and i met almost every day, shared howdy's and sallied forth with our individual routines. I can't claim we knew each other, we did not...! But this evening was different. I felt relieved on having spotted her and we walked up and down together. She told me it was not safe to be out with out a car at this hour and insisted that she'd drop me home. I instantly agreed. Now we started talking about her family. She had 4 kids, a husband and 2 dogs. Originally from Thailand, she had come to USA with her husband in the 80's (this made me think that she was pretty MUCH older than I was). It was an interesting story. Her husband was in Thailand on business and was staying in the hotel where Dorris worked. Somehow, they fell for each other and one day he asked her if she would like to come to USA with him, obviously she blushed at the proposal (though she omitted saying this, but I could make out..:)) but later agreed when he proposed her for marriage as well. Since then she has been there with her husband and kids. And then she talked a little about her daughter of which I remember nothing. We then discussed Thai Cuisine, tapering on to Indian curries and vegetables, and it was here that I made a promise. Probably, i successfully made this impression on her that Indian Cuisine is much more than curry and spices...."I will cook beans and carrots the Indian way and get it for you tomorrow" I promised as i got down from the car. "Look forward" she said enthusiastically.

Such a simple promise, never thought I wouldn't be able to keep this one. Sometimes i think what would have Dorris thought of my sudden flight to the oblivion in so far as our little evening walk was concerned. Probably she has seen much more life than i had so as to not wonder...

2. I was waiting at the library. We were to meet for the first time today. Chris told me she would come by 9 am or so after her Pilate classes. And so I waited. At some minutes past nine she walked in, brisk, slight and cheerful. "Oh ! Good Morning, Chris talked to me about you, How are you doing this morning", she said "Perfect, How about you..." With this she opened the beautiful library, tiny and filled with books related to religions, mainly Christianity (now i got the obsession when another woman at mass asked me what is the Hindu Belief and I was speechless, till the time i told her that we believe in One God, seemed even politically correct, though my first thought was "Oh....I never thought about this"). 

"I made some banana bread and got some for you , thought you'd like it" she said as she opened her cabin and unpacked her stuff. Were we meeting for the first time, was my first thought and then I was extremely thankful. I do not remember how many times I said "thank you" but clearly I overdid it, not so much for the bread as for the gesture. Later, we talked about her family and her daughter and her dietitian who had unveiled the secret of beautiful skin to her, it was "Water, plain, not carbonated, unsweetened and thus boring Water" and she kept chewing some cabbage leaves for lunch ( she was about 70-75 years old). About this time, after having understood my duties at the library, where I was supposed to serve every Tuesday, I looked up all the shelves and saw "Great Religions of the World" published by the National Geographic. Seemed interesting. I took the book and the banana bread, promised to return this book on the next Tuesday. I reached the apartment, just in time as it was now stormy weather outside. How I sampled the Banana bread with coffee and liked it too. One thing i am happy about is that i called Barbara and told her how nice the bread tasted, thanks once again. But the promise for the "very expensive" book could not be kept. Again, as with Dorris, I wonder if Barbara was beyond wonderment to understand that one moment was enough to change life, anyone's, and may be mine had changed.

 Many promises and most of them made to myself have not been kept. But the two above are particularly painful for may be I never will get a chance to even meet these people, worse, may be they wont even remember my promise. For i wanted to ceremoniously thank Tim, Kelly's husband, who really thought well, I wanted to abuse the British lawyer whom I do not wish to name here for being such a mercenary, thank the African American couple (who were probably engaged in recycling waste from dry cleaners) who were kind enough to drop me to my place on my first day in the southern storm, meet Mr. Manish Soni and thank him for the selfless "service" he had so gracefully rendered for a noble cause, meet Abal and tell him that probably some dreams are best left unfulfilled, for we do not have the guts they charge, meet Nasreen, the Pakistani lady who minted money....I just wanted to see the living face of consumerism, and lastly to collect those Cherokee trousers in the apartment opposite to Lakshmi di's, for I know not what fate met them.....such are the mysteries of life, and may be , gentle reader, you will curse me for having read this for it may mean nothing to you, but I had to write this one....For Grace...!

Forgive me as the names mentioned in the post are most unrelated to you, but even in your life these characters will appear bearing different names....

So, let me think of my next post now....


Good Night...!

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Transcending squares and other regular polygons

Hi there!
I have the Indian Express, Chandigarh Edition on my desk. One of the headlines, somehow, caught my attention, and with that reappeared a few moments which I spent at the Kashmere gate metro station, hitherto these moments were salted away in some stray corner of my minds workshop.

"SC lifts Maharashtra dance bar ban, says it is unconstitutional", says the headline.

A bench with honorable Chief Justice of India, Altamas Kabir and Justice S S Nijjar upheld the Bombay High Court verdict, which gave a very sensible and logical reason for declaring that any such ban on a particular profession was unconstitutional.

Now let us, together, recollect that particular morning, though very uneventful, in Delhi. I was supposed to travel to Delhi Mumbai by the 9:30 flight. Now, in order to reach the airport, we have in Delhi a very convenient arrangement of the Metro air link. Also having not much baggage, I felt that the safest way to travel from Kashmere gate to IGI Airport was the metro link, the decision seemed even better as I was to travel at 4 : 30 am. Not only safe, but also economical.

The taxi dropped me at at the Kashmere gate metro station at 4:45 (why was I there at 4; 45 is a different story, it was a continuous journey from some other place, so let us forget that part as it is of no consequence). I got down with my luggage and saw many other people, predominantly men waiting for the metro station gate to open. Cool. I still had a 15 minute window to stand and stare before getting back to my regular polygon.

As I was the only female around till then, I was over alert and that is a real pain. But lo! I saw an attractive female, very skinny, wearing a very attractive outfit (which somehow, I would have considered unsafe as it attracted much attention). This gave me an uncanny relief. She appeared from nowhere, confident in her stride, she walked up to the lorry selling Jaljeera, had a glassful, put paid to this guy. Walked further to the Pan ka Galla, lit  a cigarette and stood there smoking, oblivious to stares or comments.
A couple of minutes later, came another beautiful girl, again clad in an outfit that made me now wonder what may be the reason for hanging around on this busy street with such devil-may-care attitude. What was the reason that these women were tarrying on the edge considered most vulnerable for a woman. They may be associated with any odd profession, but why would someone want to expose oneself to such circumstances that may engender irreparably harmful consequences. Now as the two of them, together crossed the street and were on the other side, I kept staring, till I could no longer see 'em.

Here I was still standing inside the regular polygon of morality, sides of which are dictated by religion, fear, society, education, economic strata, comfort, repression and know not how many sides does this polygon conform to. We add sides to such polygons every moment, in every choice, in every transaction. Now, let us assume that we keep on adding sides to our polygon, one moment the number of such sides reaches infinity, now, our polygon turns in to a circle, then, as is our nature we still keep adding dimensions that reflect not as sides now but as an expanding circle, just see what has happened....!! We were trying to constrain our polygon by adding numerous, infinite restrictions (symbolically sides), but when we keep doing this for a long time, such restriction is doing exactly opposite of what is the "moral" (irony intended) intent of doing so, in the parlance we end up creating a larger region, that will keep gaining and eventually become all encompassing....that is the place we actually belong to...this place knows no boundaries of good, bad, moral, immoral, small, big, important, unimportant, useful, useless, safe, easy, correct etc.

Is crime part of the criminal's  psychology or that of the victim? Going by the way some people plan to ban scantily clad mannequins wearing lingerie, deemed as "titillating", we may be forced in to a Burqua system. The best way to avoid wrongdoing is to avoid the "Doing" part outright. Instead of building a progressive culture, we wish to be dictated by whims of those who do not wish to get to the root of this criminal syndrome, pushing us in to a vicious regressive cycle...let us not be swayed by what is moral/immoral, let us all be first wise enough to decide for ourselves, probably that should solve most of the problems sans government interference.

Let us aim at education, exposure, governance, tolerance, non-discrimination...It all starts with us, and thus only we have the potential to nip the criminal intent right in the bud.

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there." - Rumi