Saturday, August 23, 2014

Of Lifetimes and Will Yous

No. We won't be together for a lifetime. Lifetime is a word coined by poets. Waterman just borrowed it since it made their pens look more interesting. Nothing lasts a lifetime. Over the years, we will die many a deaths. In some we will be together; in most, I will die my own death and you will sulk somewhere in the dark corridors of souls silences and whimper away little deaths, many, frequently, soundlessly. The best I can do is trust you. Trust you to share with me the storms that will rise in your life. Most, you will weather on your own, for they are not storms of this world. They will be the ones that rage deep within you. Storms that rise from the strife of everyday living. And then there will be those in which you will call out for me. You will hold my hands and together we will thunder into the storms. Lord be willing, we will survive.

The tango and the waltz that we do is not all of life. It is at best our weekend at the movies. Movies don't last a lifetime my love. Nor does life.

The tyranny of time echoes in the lines on our faces. I never knew when the laugh lines turned into lines of destiny. Engraved, endearing and forever. I don't have all the answers, but I love your questions.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

All this strife

I was all of twenty four then. There was this girl who lived in a house with a very big Tamarind tree. In the monsoons of Kerala, the house always looked wet and the gates always brown and leaky. There was moss on the driveway and the flowerpots looked as if they would crumble at the slightest touch. There was a grandpa chair that used to look desolate and abandoned. The old man who used to sit there passed away some years ago. They did not know what to do with the chair.

She was one of the most beautiful woman I ever laid eyes upon. And on Sundays, on her way to the church, she wore the whitest Churidar  and Chunni that I have seen. She looked like an angel walking among the clouds. The skies would stop the showers and rainbows would spring across the horizon. Small kids will be playing with cycle tires and the cars on the roads will look freshly painted.

Strife has a way of making ordinary memories extraordinary.

Saturday, August 9, 2014

How long is life?

How long is life?

Can we actually stretch the minute into years where required? Is there a remote that slows down a day that I don't want to end? Is there a repeat mode into which I can forever live in endless loops?

Why do long journeys make me sad? Why is that the best memories are from times that are past? Is there no software that would help me predict the next best patch in my otherwise short and dreary life? How do I count blessings? Can I remember the smiles of all those wonderful people I might have helped in my own way? Can I store their joy and consume it little by little? Can I use it as my emergency energy bank?

Where is everybody? Why do we, like the ever expanding universe, keep continuously moving away from each other? What happens between birth and death? I have been on this journey a million time before. My friends and my lovers have had the same faces. Even my grandma has come back as one of my neice. So there is a loop right? A longer one than the one I wanted. But a loop there is.

Ah Padbanabha!, The immortal in me strives for escape. Your dwarapalaka awaits your arrival!

Everybody's Life

Its 2.40 am. The cab driver calls in to check on the address. His wife and kids will be sleeping next to him in his small one room shack. They would have overheard our call. I walk down to our guard's room and knock on the door. His wife hears the knock and I can hear her waking the watchman up. "Sir is calling, please open the gates. Seems like he is traveling again", says she. It is 3.30am.

The young man at the check-in counter has a smile on his face. You have already been checked in sir, says he. I thank him. He had been at work since 10.30 pm last night. The smile on his face surprises me. He is a good human being.

By the time I begin my meeting today at 4.00 in the afternoon, I will have traveled about 1500 miles and directly and indirectly impacted the lives of at least 50 fellow travelers in time.  Our lives are intrinsically intertwined with those of others. Any omission or commission affects the balance of things. My life is not just mine to live. I need to accommodate the lives of a million others who are impacted by how I go about with this business of living. I just don't live my life, in many ways, I live a little bit of everybody's life.

Saturday, August 2, 2014

The First One is Always Special

I lost an umbrella of mine the day before. It had been with me for many years now and I miss it terribly. I ordered another one quite like the one I lost. They should be delivering it any one of these days. I know how I will feel when it finally gets delivered. I will love this one just as much but miss the one that I lost forever more. I pray that it is discovered by someone who would love it just like I did and care and polish its burnished wooden handle year on year. Not many people care for their umbrella the way I do. An umbrella has a personality you know.

I had lost a blue Cross pen years ago. It took me three years to find a replacement. I keep the new one very guarded. It reminds me of the one I lost.

There is something wonderful about the first of many. They all remind me of what was once with me and is now no more.

Sigh!