Who am I? Where did I come from?

Clearly, there was an India when I grew up. An India that influenced me heavily in becoming who I am today.  There was a city, Bangalore that I called home, there were things that constituted my world. The world around me was complex, it was that of a middle class household, modest life style, an awareness of the poor and the touch-points with the elite and the rich which kind of made the journey rather complete in its own way. However, despite how complex India was, life was truly simple!

I realized if I ever had to define myself, my core would come from that world. It was influenced by realizing and experiencing the value of money. It was about having a steadfast respect for education and a relentless faith in hard-work.

Using public transport kept me grounded to all people that constituted society. Conversing with strangers over long rides in the Indian Railway coaches,  made be bond with diversity of religion/region/food and class. Going every summer to the small towns in Madhya Pradesh and spending my vacation in villages, made me appreciate the small bits of comfort I had in our humble abode in Bangalore. Spending my time in the South taught me why music/fine arts and intellect can be wrapped in simplicity of a house with just basics and only essentials. Whilst spending summers in the North of India made me realize that there is sometimes joy in just taking risks and being fearless about experimenting and coming home and enjoying some indulgence. My world was a microcosm of so many contradictions that at a very early age I had to think and make choices and choose things that became my identity overtime. I had the time and space to think while cycling peacefully home after a long day or when there was an electricity outage and all of us friends would just be out on the streets chatting. Life was busy, physically exhausting, but I just felt like I had time and space and there was not too much to clutter my mind.

Far away from those years, I just look around and I am in London, on a couch, typing on a computer which of course brings the entire world right next to me, one click or search away. I have all the time to experience virtually. I can read the story of the making of the Indian railways, I can even get the map and explore the stations I passed every summer on my way from Bangalore to Delhi. I can probably get back to India from London in lesser time than what I spent travelling to Delhi. I can read about classical music, I can even find my little village on google map. But what I see is clutter, data and information. These days I cannot seem to find the space and time to assimilate what I experience and actually absorb from it. I cannot find time to reflect and make choices. I just feel overwhelmed with it all. In all this comfort, I want to slide back on a uncomfortable sleeper coach or sit by the street light of Rajajinagar chatting away with my friends waiting for the electricity to come back. I don't know the right or wrong of it all, all of the above are just opinions and not judgement of any sorts. I guess I am for now energized to cage my thoughts and times and start to tell you stories of when I was a child!

Hopefully I do get down to doing it.

Sometimes, Dreams dont let you give

I have a picture in my mind,

The paint is still wet,

It is good I wish to stain it now

Since the colors haven’t set

I shall paint a white sky

I shall paint a blanket of snow

I shall paint a picture true

A picture that has an endless flow

I don’t wish to show it about

I don’t wish to put it on my wall

I just wish to have a painting

That you are not ashamed to call

All this while I painted a picture

Of a dream I wished to live

I forgot that sometimes

Dreams don’t let u give.

Unusual Shadow!

Like a long unwinding snake, crawling across broken streets
Wading through the changing persona, that of splendor and then an emptiness
A black boxed extension of my universe, plays a song
Brings back a memory, a story, a desire!

I try to comprehend my own mind
I fail and give up wanting to just walk
I walk look, capture and click
I learn, I unlearn, I am drawn

In the background, I notice a face
Constantly hounding me with a smile
Following me, telling me, just being around
I think its my shadow and leave it to hound!

The sun sets just the way it rose
The moon creeps up shining in the sky
I see the face, still alive, wanting a peep!
At the hour when they say shadows go to sleep

I wonder what it is then?
Who is it I should have thought!
Instead I am lost writing an experience
The shadow was just my reason to not!


I know for most this is the most unusual form of poetry or prose, who cares I am glad I just expressed. After all my blog is my space, or so I think!

About addictions and giving up

I always believed I was born to be the Buddha!:-) Then reality hits me that I am just as human as the 'Hungry Buddha' is for food, or the 'Worldly Buddha' is for material needs. We all as human beings 'need' and constantly fill our lives with shallow but yet relishing fillers such as chocolates, ice creams, relationships, chatter and what not. Some of us come with an additional dimension called determination which can work either in keeping away or leading to 'addiction'.

I admit there are things I wish I could give up but have failed to.
There are people I wish to forget,
There are habits I wish to discard,
There are words I wish to delete from my vocabulary,
There are thoughts I wish that never come by,
However try as much as I do, the mind always attracts the very thoughts and things we are trying to evade.

Hence here I am yet again, determined that tomorrow will be a new day and I renounce! I do know already however that I might have this same conversation, yet again with 'You' my blog tomorrow. Afterall life is about addictions and giving up!

PS: I love chocolates, I enjoy conversations, I crave friends, I am a firm believer of love!

Old connections and new relationships

From the moment they set their eyes it was intense. The twinkle in one lured the other and before they knew it, just like that, by the works of destiny they were involved. Involved in each others emotions. They were invested! Invested in each others lives. They were bound! Bound by each others presence. It was rare to ever experience strong instant attraction and yet, it just seemed to have happened leaving them with no space to decipher the laws of nature. And then…. they walked past life’s significant milestones, doing things they were driven or destined to do. Not knowing if the other even existed. The passion was lost, the familiarity gave way to distances, the connection seemed broken. They often wondered- “What had really bound them back then? Not interests, not passions or causes. Probably it was sheer emotions and a strange untold bond.” They often wondered why it ever happened and if it really did happen??

After many years of being strangers, they met again. Two different people traversing the same spaces of time starting together often end up becoming complete strangers. Simply because their experiences, their evolution probably was so different. However memories have the power of connecting people in strange ways. They discovered, they spoke, they felt a connection. Except they were surprised at what they found. Over the years when they started as two complete different people, went over different experiences they somehow today seemed like they had found their common ground. They were after all very similar indeed. There is no definite end to connections we make, no defined ways in which they shape up, no predictable ways in which they evolve. But it seems like most connections have a purpose and if not today after several years we do learn to appreciate what we never saw in them. They could then be sheer memories or just sometimes if you are lucky  a connection once can become a new relationship with the same person in the same life time.

Who am I?

I have been on a journey of self realization, pondering and discovery off late. Just wanted to jot down things that came to my mind. 

• I love free flow more than structure.
• I am curious but not to conclude.
• I like shades and not defined colours.
• I appreciate small things but dislike details.
• I enjoy logic, but know that there is randomness behind reason.

• I have not mastered or even gotten close to knowing how to communicate.
• I have to do something about an idea in my mind in the first few minutes of its inception. Else I know I never will!
• I always reconcile very quickly with behavioral realities of people, even if it is something I do not completely understand. In the process I have begun to forget what I truly agree with.
• Human behaviour can be understood and not many have the time to delve into it beyond words, actions and discover intent.
• I would probably be very unhappy if things would turn out to be exactly how they seemed.

There is a pattern to me and I am beginning to discover it. I am not sure where this phase of discovery is going to end. All I know is that it is sometimes extremely taxing to spend time with yourself to understand; as it might be relaxing to unwind into the soul. Someday, I might again jot down a few notes and the blogging world just might help me reconcile the change!

Time...

Some times I find it hard to get past a few hours. Sometimes there is just so much to do! Despite the fact that time is ticking by and our experiences get summed up over its axis, I wonder if there is any other dimension that controls our lives as much? A lot of people find it hard to find time and yet  I know some that are literally whiling it in my view. Though I claimed that I am unable to strike a balance with contradictions to my personality, I think I have in a lot of ways managed to strike a balance and mostly find time for things that I care about.

People, Music, Work, Experimenting with everything in life, Art, Fitness and myself! 

I seldom find 24 hours too little and maybe it is because I do not value sleep as much. Or maybe it is because in everything I do, I try and find passion and joy! Some people tell me it is probably because I am a free bird not responsible for any other life or lives. But come on, aren't we all free or bound by our own making? Anyways, I am glad I have struck a balance, despite the corporate life that binds a lot of us and mostly it is also thanks to people around me that make this time killing a joy ride!

I admit afterall!

I admit I am intrigued!
I admit I am annoyed!
I admit I am lured!
I admit I am desperate!
I admit I am calm!
I admit I am restless!
I admit I do read a palm!

I love chases and chase I will! Till I know beyond doubt that it is an illusion or it never was!

A strange silence I want to break

There is a strange calm in being patient and silent amidst chaos and noise!

There is a silence I want to break! I glare into my computer waiting, typing with back spaces, looking, reading, re-reading, listening to the silence around me. Chat windows blink and I type in rhetoric, in boredom and then just ignore some. I am restless I know and yet so calm. People seem to function just fine, the day goes past like it always does, birds continue to fly, the moon plays peekaboo, all seems like it should be; and yet, there is something amiss! There is a strange silence I want to break!

Travel music and a cluttered mind.

I guess it has been a rather long day. However the last few days with instruments and access to them (courtesy the vacation) has got me addicted(almost).  While the day started with 1 hour of drumming and forcing myself to get up and leave, I also realized just how much there is to see if you keep your eyes open. I had to get my pair of footwear fixed and was most intrigued by the folks I saw at a cobbler stand at 8.00 a.m. There were random people wanting to sit and read the telgu news paper. There was also an old man almost committed to the cause of the cobbler and was busy keeping all customers seated and at ease whilst the guy did his job. Only later I found out that he wasn't related to the guy but just someone who did not know how else to while away time. The engineering needed to fix a shoe made me want to go back to a workshop and really get down to fixing, cutting, welding and whatever else. There is so much joy in the sheer mechanics of physical craftsmanship! You work on an object and you see an end product!

I finally completed my pending list of daunting and most mundane tasks- Taxes, Claims and Bills ! I discovered when I filed my travel claims, I almost re-lived most moments of my trip. "Recalling" is a strange word and a strange phenomenon. It was in those moments that I realized that I had a lot going on in my mind. I was aware of a few effects and only today realized the cause. I seem to be oscillating between clear and unclear territories. Exciting and depressing times. I am doing things that I cant seem to understand and yet been in control of most parts of my day. It takes a few bills and "recalling" and quiet time to realize that maybe your mind can think clearly and unclearly at the same time. I have been in the moment and away so many times that I did not realize it this far. I am amazingly ambivalent at this phase of my life.  I guess I have submitted my claims and that shall apparently settle the trip and clear my mind. Aah so easy apparently:-) if only the mind was so easy to please!


I did get back to my harmonium the last few days and its amazing how easily I can suddenly "recall" the lessons I learnt for a few months in my 2nd grade. I remember the Hindustani key notes, the fingers and the non-stop practice - mastering speed and precision. I also remember how the teacher left and my lessons came to a stop. I finally never found a Hindustani harmonium teacher again. I had a book of harmonium lessons stacked in my stash of books. I realized I have come so far and yet have to go back to where it all began. I can of course re-play the lessons in 5 mins now as opposed to 5 days of practice years ago. I can read a lot faster and move my fingers at a much faster pace. All the years of moving my fingers on keyboards of different sorts has made it easier. All the "no years" of learning has taken me back to learning from that book today.  I started to read and learn about Hindustani classical music last night till late hours.  Played the harmonium even to try out a few things at random hours of the night, thought about it through the day and finally got back home and been playing on my Harmonium for whatever part of the day is left.

Every one has a few favorites and mine for today during this late hour is "Raag Darbari Kanada". Listening to this

recording just made me imagine an empty palace with a large courtyard and a broken man sitting in the midst, below the moon surrounded by a cold structure of white marble. Suppressed and yet wanting to let go and then he almost gets into a trance singing and wakes up in a dream at the end of it. I guess my imagination has always been an overkill but I guess this is what came to my mind. It possibly a reflection of my state of mind or maybe my madness!

I also know that imagination is a good escape from reality. Reality is only perception! My perceptions sees:


Jet planes, mid night jogs;
Mirco breweries, early morning fogs.
An endless wait; a constant need!
Garden breakfasts and planting seeds.
An empty airport a sleepless mind!
Perfumes so many and yet just one of a kind!
Excitement, Rush, Desire Afar;
Long conversations driving in a car.
I can go on about reflections I see
I guess that was also just mee!

Of words and life

Humans are so complicated.

People constantly struggle and find a purpose to life. Some create this animated life for themselves, full of exaggeration. Some underplay it so much that you wonder if they are already dead. No matter which ways they try and get past, they always have friends, foes, family and loneliness. Love? Well it is inexplicably the reason for existence. Life can be simple, desire screws it up. I don't know which pattern defines me but I think if i could master the art of realizing that I have nothing to lose, I will win!Only to find win is not the soul I amlooking for.

Someone asked me what is love....and for the first time in my life I could not describe it. It was disturbing since I have spent pages all my life writing about it, endless hours talking about it and most of my life feeling it. Something has changed and I have realized I was betting my life on the wrong word all this while. The secret my friend, is not to bet on a word but chase all those words that after all are words too. My vocabulary of words and people has always been limited. Life is a cynic and me an optimist. I move into the night really wanting something, hopelessly knowing it will never come by. I already dislike this post and yet lazy I am, to delete it after all. Its just easy to click on "post"!