Crack

Mahino porane crack aaj phir nazar aane lage hain
Shayad cement achhe quality ka nahin tha
Chalo chodein in poorani baaton ko
Kyon na bazaar se aaj kuch naye rishtein le ayein?

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Cracks from the past have started resurfacing once again
Maybe we did not use a good quality sealant
No point trying to mend something so old
Why not go and get ourselves some new relationships today




PS - i always find it difficult when i think in one language to translate it to another. These were just 4 lines so i dared to attempt. suggestions on the hindi - english translation are welcome :)

Of user-generated content, ego trips and responsible journalism

I was sent a link to this article this morning which talks about how the web is creating online ego monsters indulging in solipsism. At the first glance it made some sense.

Yes, the anonymity of the web does lend itself to (some) people making exaggerated claims about their achievements or compensating for possibly real world limitations by indulging in virtual world fantasies. But the article took an extremely one sided stance about the issue.

''There is something about the web that brings out the ego monster in everybody… Even in their quieter modes, denizens of the web seem to lug around huge egos and deeply questionable assumptions about how interesting they and their lives might be to others.''

There are blogs out there which bring forth social, political issues people are facing forgotten parts of the world which people would otherwise have not noticed or bothered about. Collaborative blogs that have offered critical and timely help in times of crisis. Blogs discussing art, poetry, literature, business and what have you. There are blogs functioning as online help lines – yes there is only so much one can help through an online medium but it at least offers people a platform to vent their feelings and know that many others in the world go through the same issues. But Mr. Kinsley decided to leave aside ALL of these areas and talk about sites that are only host content that is personal in nature. Fair enough! Nothing wrong with that…Except – please tell me how does some one posting about his life making him an ego monster?

The web has provided a platform for people to share their experience as they go through life. So many people post pictures, videos and write about their daily life on public sites. It’s an effective way for them to reach out to their families and friends, all at once rather than sending multiple emails loaded with pics and cluttering up everybody’s mailboxes.

What I consider most important is – that people’s opinions and thoughts expressed on the web through blogs and sites have brought about some objectivity to issues. When earlier we lapped up content dished out by main stream media and other so-called authoritative sources, now there is greater choice available to the reader. User generated content offers the much needed reality check. Just read through the comments at the end of Mr. Kinsley’s article and you’ll know what I am talking about.

Sites like MySpace help people connect with others, much like Orkut or Friendster or online chat rooms of yesteryears. People go there looking for fun, companionship, titillation or an ego trip. People also build serious interest groups and learn from each other. You just get what you are looking for and Mr. Kinsley’s post is a case in point!

Signed
Ego Monster!

I'M Irony

We see each other everyday
You and I…
Close enough to share
the same few inches of space
yet…distanced by the silence
that has filled the space for years
You ‘away’ in your world
And me ‘busy’ in mine

*IM - Instant Messaging

Life is a voyage that is homeward bound

Living away from one's country of birth can be the fulfilment of a childhood dream, the end of a quest for a better life, a compulsion, and sometimes a decisions that you spend your life trying to reverse. For me it has meant many things...it was definitely not the realization of any dream. While growing up I never harboured the secret desire to 'go west'. It started off as being just a transition into a post married life. I did not like the experience of living in cold places, being away from friends and family, without a job, of not having the comfort of familiar sights and smells. Not then...and not now though its been six years. Fortunately, I have not been in a situation where i've had to dig my heels deep into a place. Through the last six years, on many occasions I have travelled back to India and lived there. Such transitions put you in a 'constant comparison mode' - while you are in one place you are longing for life in another and vice-versa. But these moments of transition also give you a chance to reflect on what is it that really matters to you, what do you value, how do you want to live your life and more importantly where?

There are pros and cons to every decision. I have often heard people say - that outside india - the systems work & the air is clean and there is no filth on the streets and no potholes on the road and the standard of living is higher and there is respect for personal time and space and people don't cheat you and everybody is so literate and polite and courteous and its ok to see on celluloid - shahrukh khan go to the village & try to create electricity but ground realities in india are different!

My point is - yes - if you buy what you just told me and are happy living like that, if you chose to lead a systematic and ordered life and a materially comfortable life, please go ahead and live it. My choice is different. I chose the chaos, the colour, the noise, the warmth, the feeling of belonging, the rootedness, the comfort of familiarity, the pollution, the potholes, corruption, inefficiencies, faith, the sound of my language, sunshine, crowds, sweat, curious inquisitive people and everything that comes along with a life in India. I feel an inexplicable sense of peace and calm when i am there.The reassuring feeling that one experiences after returning home from a luxurious holiday. The home that may be a far cry from the comforts of the hotel you stayed in - but warts and all -it still is your home! I know so many people who have lived abroad for so so long that leaving everything behind and returning is a next to impossible situation - because of a feeling that their kids may not be able to live in india, they may not find work that suits their credentials, they may not be able to adapt themselves to the work culture of this country - but still yearn for life back home as it were. My point is know what you want and make that choice! Don't spend a lifetime yearning for one thing, doing the other and regretting your decisions when you look back. And for god sake don't travel on a road so far, so fast that you forget your way back home.

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I had this conversation with my mom (whose family had to leave their home town during partition & moving to another country was not a decision - but an unfortunate play of fate) a few days back who asked me

Mom: mujhe to samaj nahin aata ki basa basaya ghar, basi basayee zingadi ko ujaadkar log kahin aur jaakar kyon rehna chatein hain?
I dont know why people would want to uproot themselves from where they have been living and go and try and settle down somewhere else.

Me: (not very interested in the conversation) Paisa...mom...money!

Mom:Kitna paisa...kya karoge paise ka...humne to jitna mila otne mein zindagi guzar li...aur achhi hi guzari
How much money...what will you do with it...in our time, we learn to make do with what we had...and i think we led a good life

Some days back i was listening to the song from the movie naam (chithi aai hai)- that describes a father's plea to his son who goes abroad to earn money & before he knows it gets sucked into the situation so badly that is unable to get out ...and these lines stuck in my head...

Tune paisa bohot kamaya, is paise nein des chudaya...Aaja umar bohot hai choti...apne ghar mein bhi hai roti...

You have earned a lot, tis the money that made you leave your homeland. Come back - life is too short...we have enough at home to afford our meals.

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As I sit today and reflect on my choices, my conversation with my mom and the song i heard some days back...and though I think i can still trace my way back home, just in case i falter these thoughts will act as a beacon of light that will help me find my way on my road ahead. And I hope you find your way back home, too !

Home,india,living away from home,

When Boredom Strikes..

Its quarter past eight
When boredom strikes
3 rounds to the kitchen I make
But nothing appetizing insight
Why oh why
Do I suffer this plight
When inertia takes over
…The psyche
Then the fly on the wall
And I are alike
Not an inch we feel moving like
What does one do?
When boredom strikes
When staring at the TV
Becomes a rite
Or writing up verses like these…
So trite!

Vidya's story - Part 3 - Her questions to the universe...

If you'd like to read about Vidya you could read it here (part 1) and here (part2)

She gazed out of the window as houses, trees and people ran countercurrent. Beads of water trickled from one curve to another on the corroded window grill. Hanging with resolve for a while before they would ultimately give in and fall below to the next level and then the next… until there was no trace left of them. Where would they all ultimately go, she asked her self? Some droplets flew right at her along with the cool breeze that gently slapped her face. It had stopped raining only minutes back. Unusual for the time of the year that otherwise had incessant rain washing away the fringes of life that existed alongside railway tracks. Vidya, though was oblivious of the starting and stopping of the rain. Her eyes focused on the rain droplets that fell into a rhythm, pulling her thoughts inwards. I watched her closely sitting at the diagonally opposite end.

There was an unusual silence in the compartment. No sound of women clamoring for seats…no bunch of giddy college girls breaking into a raucous laugher at a drop of a hat. This silence created a song of its own. The cadence of the metal handles atop swaying from side to side and the near empty compartment lilting to that tempo. Her still…calm face veiled the battle of thoughts in her mind. Her small voice throwing at her - a dozen questions a minute...it did not wait to even get an answer to one question before there were a barrage of others…Vidya knew that any answer she would give to herself would only open a chain of new thoughts…new questions. Years of conditioning and advice from elders about ‘learning to accept’ her situation had quietened her senses.

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Vidya was amongst the brightest of her 8 siblings, a trait that won her disproportionate affection and encouragement from dada. Amma of course was quick to express her displeasure. ‘Don’t encourage her so much that her expectations take her soaring into the sky. One cannot fly high on pure hope alone. It is not in our means to let our girls study forever. After her matriculation, we must find a suitable house for Vidya. That’s it. Then our duty is over. Then she has to comply with what her in laws wish for her. You don’t fuel her desire to study further. She cannot think of herself and her life only when she has 5 younger sisters in the waiting’

Rukmini Devi (amma as we know her) was a woman of few words. Most of her time and energy were consumed by the domestic duties. In a marriage defined by traditional roles she did not find it her prerogative to voice her opinion. But Vidya was coming of age and amma knew that if her dreams were allowed to rise unfettered…the fall from those heights would be equally excruciating.

They were coming to see her. Her pleas were met with silence. This is the first time she had seen her father’s stone grey eyes filled with helplessness instead of hope for her.

His silence infuriated her even more. She paced up and down vigorously. Amma circled around her, holding the bright pink saree in her hand trying to calm vidya’s nerves. All the while that she was made to sit in front of her prospective in-laws she did not utter a word…nor did her eyes move away from her toes. Her face brushed with a crimson hue stuffed with anger that she could not express. If the fate of her life was to be decided without any consultation, she saw no sense in offering her approval or the lack of it. She married Shaym not knowing what he even looked like. That was her first and perhaps biggest lesson in ‘acceptance’.

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Over the course of her life….she learnt to accept….an early marriage, a sudden loss of support and encouragement from her father, an almost overnight change in status from a girl-without-a-care to a woman responsible for a family of five…an acerbic mother-in-law…loss of dreams…loss of freedom…loss of personal time and space…being treated like a guest in the house she grew up in…that every night she would have to sleep with a man for whom she was always less beautiful than the cover girls on cine magazines…less attractive than the characters from the prurient literature that he indulged in….that nobody would ask her even once how she felt or what she wanted…constant fatigue…that holidays only meant more work at home…that children who she devoted herself to would grow up and get a life where she was not going to fit in…that when she fell ill people in her house got irritated until she dragged herself out of bed and started cooking again…that her life was all about give…give…give…that no matter how hard she tried she would never be good enough for them!

The day started as usual today…nothing out of the ordinary…except it was one of those mornings when repressed emotions and rebellious thoughts refused to listen and stay contained with the bounds of the self where they would not been seen or heard by anyone else. One of those mornings when on waking up you get the feeling that someone or something has died and you silently mourn the death of a part of you! One such days Vidya would lose herself in introspection…trying to draw strength from her thoughts. As she wound up her morning chores her eyes were tearful - a result of the acrid smell of onions which she chopped deftly. She thought – that she chopped onions everyday – they why today did she feel a pain in her heart while her eyes shed water?

The storm caused by such an upsurge in emotions did not take more than a couple of hours to settle down. The cacophony of noises of women laughing and joking in the train drowned out the feeble voice of her conscience throwing questions at her. Except today when Vidya was alone…well almost…there were only two others besides her…me and a woman standing at the door holding up the fluttering end of her saree in an attempt to dry it. Vidya had involuntarily fixed her gaze at the speeding train that she could see sitting by the window. She thought about the length of time ahead of her…all the days…months ahead that she would have to live. She wondered whether it was it possible for her to remain stoic, unemotional…undisturbed by her life? Was it possible for her to hold back her reactions, remain unaffected by their constant barbs? She had learnt to accept no doubt, but had continued to be affected by it all. Then in a flash, a thought nudged her out of her trance like gaze.

If the soul is the seat of all that one senses and the body only a vehicle to facilitate this experience, she questioned - whether it was possible for her to allow her soul to die a premature death and leave her body to lead its mortal existence on this earth?

Her thoughts escaped her being. She looked expectant. As though she had posed her question to the universe and was waiting an answer. As the train approached the shadowy domes of the tungsten lit VT station, the universe answered…‘The train arrived on platform 1 is slow local for Thane…’

Vidya slid her bag on her shoulders and walked away into the distance. My eyes followed her as I saw people from the opposite side, almost walking into her and moving away just in time…giving her strange looks. She seemed oblivious of her surroundings…as though her soul had just escaped her.

The sun and his twin

The sun has a twin
Who looks at him through the day
Like it’s shadow…
He rises alongside every morning
And at dusk…merges with the sea

The twin - whispers to the sun
Though I’ve always been with you
How come you don’t know me?
If I can see you
Then why cant thee?

Is it possible then?
Like this sun
I have a twin too
Oblivious of its existence today
I will discover it someday

Standing face to face
Will I hear him - telling me…
Though I’ve been with you
Since you’re first heart beat
You have looked for me
Sometimes in stones and rocks
At other times in temples…and around trees