Simple...

Few quotes by Iris Murdoch :)

-Happiness is a matter of one's most ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self.
-Between saying and doing, many a pair of shoes is worn out.
-I think being a woman is like being Irish. Everyone says you're important and nice, but you take second place all the same.
-In philosophy if you aren't moving at a snail's pace you aren't moving at all.
-Anything that consoles is fake.
-Being good is just a matter of temperament in the end.
-Falling out of love is chiefly a matter of forgetting how charming someone is.
-Human affairs are not serious, but they have to be taken seriously.
-I daresay anything can be made holy by being sincerely worshipped.
-Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.
-One doesn't have to get anywhere in a marriage. It's not a public conveyance.
-Philosophy! Empty thinking by ignorant conceited men who think they can digest without eating!
-The cry of equality pulls everyone down.
-We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality.
-We defend ourself with descriptions and tame the world by generalizing

Yea...the pic is a wildflower. Its some sort of propagative grass-like plant. The leaves and flowers look so simple, like from a child's painting! aint it? :D

Animal Farm...

When i used to belong to the "indian youth"(yes now a days the folk with wierd hairstyles wearing T-shirt and jeans who marches on roads with candles after every 'tragic incidence' in india(and does ONLY that)), i had tremendous interest in politics. I am still young, not that i have grown 'old' :D but rather i will say over a period of time, i have grown 'up'. And while growing up, i lost interest in indian politics (I have seen lot of people dont grow up ever and growing old doesnt necessorily mean growing up :D). I still have academic interest in politics, especially international politics but i find politics in india 'boring'. I dont have any political opinions or inclinations, so if someone wants to say that i am lazy uninterested indian and 'because of such people india is not progressing' then say so, i dont mind. Now a days it has become a fashion to show that 'we are intellectuals' and also a (mis)conception that intellectuals should have opinions about everything. As most fashions are based on "show",there is a belief that it is necessory to 'show' intelligence than actually 'be' intelligent. I find so many of this class in IT. These folk are not only boring but worse, they are irritating. If you are working in Information Technology and you are being paid N-lakhs salary, does it mean that you can comment on anything and everything done by others on the face of the earth? i dont know. In this age of media, everyone around us thinks that they can run the government better than the people who actually run it and if this empty talk at tea time gives them satisfaction of 'participating in democracy(does democracy still sound 'by the people for the people?':D)' then so much the better for them.

Anyway, why i started saying all this is, i recently read Animal Farm by George Orwell. Its a short story in which animals living on a farm decide to become free. They overthrow and oust the human owners of the farm, setting it up as a commune in which, at first, all animals are independent and free. They write commandments like "All animals are equal". However, class and status disparities soon emerge between the different animal species. The story describes how a society's ideologies can be manipulated and twisted by those in positions of social and political power. Soon the commanments start evolving and "All animals are equal" becomes "All animals are equal but some are more equal than others" and so on. This book was originally written to reflect on Stalinist russia and we need to understand that we live in a society that believes 'everything under communism is bad', but my advice, dont read the book from this point of view. Read the book as a story and you will find that it gives interesting thoughts on human society and classes in general(including india where people say we have unity in diversity).

On Orwell's lines, i will say that when india became independent we had started with a commandment "all indians are free" but now, maybe , it makes more sense to say "all indians are free but some indians have more freedom than others" :D.

Yea, that pic is some flower from a bunch dad got in a ceremony :D!!

Sunset...

I read a line in The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand that "Men develop brains when they have failed at everything else", Interesting huh? (actually... i dont agree to some of the opinions of Rand hehe). Anyway, that pic is sunset from our terrace. The tower that you see belongs to All India Radio :D)

Mundane life

This picture was taken during my last few days of stay in bangalore. There was this tiny old fashioned house with some empty space in front and lots of trees. I believe it is important to have a calm, safe and ordered routine life. Just to be yourself, without any pretense, without any obligations.

Spidermania...

Yes, that is a spider! It is a different kind I guess, I have never seen it before here. One day I went to our terrace in the morning and saw the fellow there! There was a huge net, the kind they show on national geographic. If you see carefully, the net is reinforced with small white zigzag fibres. The fellow did not find any pray for a whole day, obviously due to wrong choice of place, (aka our terrace :D)and when I checked the next morning, it was gone!
Anyways, I am in a bit low mood(blame it on terror attacks, recession, global warming, population explosion, pollution etc etc...) and want to go into years of 1980s(or still further?1970s..60s..), to enjoy relaxed afternoons in parsi cafes, to watch movies of Amol Palekar, to hear simple melodious songs of Lata(freshly done),to play carrom boards with chalky fingers, to eat Ice-golas with wet hands, to play hide and seek, games of marbles(with my childhood friends of course!), to play cards with my cousins(with worn out suits of playing cards for getting easy 'clues') and Banker, to watch Jungle book, Moglee and Ducktails, Bharat ek khoj, Baje sargam, Des raag on doordarshan(while sitting on the floor on sunday morning parallely eating samosas).

Maiden over...

Photo by - Endevourme
Every morning somewhere at around 9 o clock the doorbell rings. When I open the door I find her standing outside. 'She' is our maid.
I call out loud 'bai has come', and suddenly the house is on alert. All roomies are woken up. Beds are rolled up, newspapers are picked up and it feels like the day has really started. She washes clothes, wipes the floor and does some miscellaneous things (for which she charges 'extra'). Maids are necessary and here good maids are rare. So sometimes I wonder wheather she is for us or its the other way round.
When the first time she tried to talk to us she gave options,'kannada...? telugu...? tamil...?'and we kept nodding "no...no...no...", when we asked "hindi...?", it was her turn to say "no"! So we talk very less. She knows few words like 'paisa', which she happens to utter every month. Whenever soap is finished, she tells us with gestures that she is out of soap and then one of us has to run to gocery shop. We normally give sturdy clothes to her for washing cause she is a bit rough. Delicate clothes go to laundry. She also wipes the floor, then she puts ON the fan and the floor becomes clean and cool.
Being bachelors, all of us are tuned to universal vibes of confusion. So on some days there are no clothes to wash and some days there are too many. So she too has to adjust to this disordered nature of ours, which she does uncomplainingly. There are times when our maid becomes too sincere. We understand that it is time for increment.
She is the only feminine element in our house. Instinctively, this element brings tidiness and order. When outside, we see her many times, a small girl, her daughter walking along by her side. As per the protocol, we never smile. Her daughter looks more like a reduced xerox copy of hers. Now, when everyone is talking of young India, I am not sure what will happen to the little girl. Or she too will become what her mother is. Another maid and another maiden over for India.

...and you feel an intruder

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Egypt, the country of pyramids and sphinx. 4th November 1922, was the day which saw the most magnificent find in the history of Egyptian archaeology: discovery of mummy of Tutankhamun by Howard Carter.
Carter arrived in Egypt in the year 1891 and he and Mr Carnorvon, the financer, spent some 16 years in search of Tutankhamun's tomb, finally with success. But there is a legend that the tomb was cursed and Carnorvon died within few days of discovery. Eventually, there were many disputes, legal and political, putting the people involved in excavation in not so good position.
Legends apart, the discovery itself carries tremendous value because most of the other tombs were already looted by tomb-robbers and Tutankhamun's tomb was the only one surviving more than three thousand years, untouched.
So much happened in the world during three thousand years and yet the place of the dead was undisturbed, as it was intended to be. An archeologist's job is to excavate and it tells us about ancient history of mankind, but still, do we have a right to break open grave of someone? I wonder. These are feelings of Howard Carter from his own diary about the day when the tomb was opened-
"...Three thousand, four thousand years maybe, have passed and gone since human feet last trod the floor on which you stand, and yet, as you note the signs of recent life around you - the half-filled bowl of mortar for the door, the blackened lamp, the finger mark upon the freshly painted surface, the farewell garland dropped upon the threshold - you feel it might have been yesterday...Time is anhilated by little intimate details such as these, and you feel an intruder..."

Harmony...

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Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
-Leo Tolstoy

Baawraa Mann...

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Baawra mann dekhne chala ek sapna...
Baawre se mann ki dekho
Baawri hain baatein
Baawri si dhadkanein hain
Baawri hain saansein
Baawri si karvaton se nindiya tu bhaage
Baawre se nain chaahein
Baawre jharokhon se
Baawre nazaaron ko takna

Baawre se is jahaan mein
Baawra ek saath ho
Is sayaani bheed mein
Bas haathon mein tera haath ho
Baawri si dhun ho koi
Baawra ek raag ho
Ho baawri si dhun ho koi
Baawra ek raag ho
Baawre se pair chaahein
Baawre taraanon ke
Baawre se bol pe thirakna

Baawra sa ho andhera
Baawri khaamoshiyaan
Thartharaati lau ho maddham
Baawri madhoshiyaan
Baawra ek ghungta chaahe
Haule haule bin bataaye
Baawre se mukhde se sarakna

Baawra mann dekhne chala ek sapna...
Lyrics - Baawra mann from Hazaron Khwahishein Aisi

Happy Diwali!!!

All photos - Endevourme
I wish all my blogger friends a very very happy Diwali and a prosperous new year :D!!

All for nothing?

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A few selected quotes of Karl Marx-
-The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.
-Religion is the opium of the masses.
-History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.
-The only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain.
-Natural science will in time incorporate into itself the science of man, just as the science of man will incorporate into itself natural science: there will be one science.

Naturally diplomatic...

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Few selected quotes of Winston Churchill-
-A joke is a very serious thing.
-A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.
-A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.
-All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
-Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.
-Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities... because it is the quality which guarantees all others.
-Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
-Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.
-Eating words has never given me indigestion.
-History is written by the victors.
-However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.
-I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.
-It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.
-It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is also very important to be right.
-Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
-Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong.
-The power of man has grown in every sphere, except over himself.
-There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.
-Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.
-Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.

Summer-soaked...

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The paragraph is from Agatha Christie's, "The ABC murders". Elizabeth Barnard, a young girl has been murdered. Poirot, the detective, is enquiring her sister Megan about the dead girl.

"Death, mademoiselle, unfortunately creates a prejudice. A prejudice in the favour of the deceased. I heard what you just now said to my friend Hastings,"A nice bright girl with no men friends". You said that in mockery of newspapers. And it is very true- when a young girl is dead, that is the kind of thing that is said. "She was bright", "She was happy", "She was sweet-tempered", "She had not a care in the world", "She had no undesirable acquaintances". There is a great charity always to the dead. Do you know what I should like this minute? I should like to find someone who knew Elizabeth Barnard and who does not know she is dead! Then perhaps, I should hear what is useful to me - the truth"

An Unofficial Rose-2

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...continued from earlier post,"An Unofficial Rose", this is a paragraph from a novel by the same name authored by Iris Murdoch. Randall, the horticulturist, once a creator of exquisite hybrid roses, wants to quit.
...He told himself that he was tired of it all anyway: tired of the endless feverish race to market new floribundas and new hybrid roses, the endless tormenting of nature to produce new forms and colours far inferior to the old and having to recommend them only the brief charm of novelty. What was it all for? the expulsion of the red, the expulsion of the blue, the pursuit of the lurid, the metallic, the startling and the new? It was after all a vulgar persuit. The true rose, the miracle of Nature, owed nothing to the hand of man...

Shrug, Smile & Forget it!

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Its not that I dont suffer, its that I know the unimportance of suffering. I know that pain is to be fought and thrown aside, not to be accepted as a part of one's soul and as a permanent scar across one's view of existance.
-John Galt-a character from Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged"

Refracted reality...

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...reality, at times, can be so much deceptive!
You think that you have found it, but then as you dig deeper, you realize how deep the rabbithole goes...

Silent witness...

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Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.
-Albert Einstein
And when you start living a really happy life, you realize that there are so few things that really count! (when i say really happy, i mean it, no lying to oneself for being happy). And I am the most grateful to the power that makes everything exist. Life is so beautiful, isnt it?

Washed with light...

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"I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way... things I had no words for."
-Georgia O'Keeffe

An Unofficial Rose...

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The paragraph is from Iris Murdoch's "The Unofficial Rose". Randall, a character in this novel, cultivates roses in the countryside. He is leaving his farm for good and is standing on his farm,among the roses, for the last time before departing.

"...The old roses were at the height of their season, and Randall stood still among them, completely absorbed into a heaven of vision. There were moments when he knew that he loved nothing in the world so much as he loved these roses; and that he loved them with a love of such transcendent purity that they made him,for a moment, like to themselves. He could have knelt before these flowers, wept before them, knowing them to be not only the most beautiful things in existance but the most beautiful things concievable. God in his dreams did not see anything lovelier. Indeed the roses were God and Randall worshipped.
Moving slightly in the breeze the intense little heads surrounded him and drowned him in their odour. Lifting a few towards them he looked with his ever new amazement at the close packed patterns of petals, these formulae that Nature never forgot, those forms that were the most desirable of all things and so exquisite that it was impossible to carry them in belief and memory through the winter; so that every year one saw them as if for the first time and as they must have looked like in the Garden of Eden when in a felicitous moment God said: let there be roses..."

Gin-Soaked...

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I am the darkness in the light
I am the leftness in the right
I am the rightness in the wrong
I am the shortness in the long
I am the goodness in the bad
I am the saneness in the mad
I am the sadness in the joy
I am the gin in the gin-soaked boy

I am the ghost in the machine
I am the genius in the gene
I am the beauty in the beast
I am the sunset in the east
I am the ruby in the dust
I am the trust in the mistrust
I am the trojan horse in troy
I am the gin in the gin-soaked boy

I am the tigers empty cage
I am the mysterys final page
I am the strangers lonely glance
I am the heros only chance
I am the undiscovered land
I am the single grain of sand
I am the christmas morning toy
I am the gin in the gin-soaked boy

I am the world youll never see
I am the slave youll never free
I am the truth youll never know
I am the place youll never go
I am the sound youll never hear
I am the course youll never steer
I am the will youll not destroy
I am the gin in the gin-soaked boy

I am the half-truth in the lie
I am the why not in the why
I am the last roll of the die
I am the old school in the tie
I am the spirit in the sky
I am the catcher in the rye
I am the twinkle in her eye
I am the jeff goldblum in the fly

Who am i?
- "Gin-Soaked Boy" by Divine Comedy

Beyond Faith...

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Writtn by Leutenant Bruce E Davis (Battle of Arnhem, World War 2 - 1944)

"...I am not trying to sound courageous, for courage was commonplace and heroism was the rule. God knows i was badly scared a good deal of the time...
...I learned this from the Arnhem operation, that men, born and bred as freemen, have a great strength and will power which they distrust until they need it. I saw men who were hungry, exausted, hopelessly outnumbered, men who by all the rules of warfare should have gladly surrendered to have it all over with, who were shelled until they were helpless psychopathics; and through it all they laughed, sang and died, and kept fighting.... "

Our own Independence day is near. There are very few people living today who have seen the pre-independence India and to tell us that freedom comes at a cost. Time makes things look faded, and we tend to feel that the spirit of independence day has become diluted. But i do believe what the Leutenant said above, that, "...men, born and bred as freemen, have a great strength and will power which they distrust until they need it" and that, if crisis comes, WE as India will stand united.
Also, many people today dont know that during World War-II, there were indian soldiers too, who faught against Axis Powers in Burma, north-africa and southern Europe under British command. During World War II the Indian Army became the largest all-volunteer force in history, rising to over 2.5 million men in size. There were total of 2,582,000 indian soldiers on various fronts, indians had 86,838 casualties, 64,354 wounded and 79,481 taken prisoners of war. There were 30 Victoria Crosses, the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" to members of the armed forces.
Last but not the least,
Jai Hind!!!

Milipede...

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Location : Public transport bus in pune. It is fully packed as usual and i have managed to grab a seat. After 2 stops an old woman gets in and is standing nearby. Following is what goes on in my mind.

You must get up and give her your seat.
No! i have to travel quite far, i have done a big fight to get this place so i must remain seated, i must!
You are young and healthy, look at her, she is so old. Standing for half an hour is nothing for you.
But its so much burden for her. Cant you see?
Would she even feel grateful? i have given seat in the past and people dont just bother to even thank you. They think it was anyway my duty to give them my seat.
How does it matter whether they feel gratitude? you must help if you can.
These are all social doctrines, as i have found out, most of them are wrong or relative. This preaching is just to maintain a manageable social atmosphere, nothing else.
It is your moral responsibility to help her.
Moral responsibility? huh! why dont you go and help people on weekends instead of enjoying your days out? there are loads of them needing help!
See you always have to choose between you and others, isnt it?
Yes thats right, but this is nothing, you dont have to do much, its just about standing up for a while! you must give her your seat!
See, these buses are always full, always, and there are old people coming in, does that mean you shouldnt sit at all? and by the way, there are so many young people sitting around and not a single person cares about the old lady, why do you have to?
What others do or dont has nothing to do with your helping people, isnt it?
It has! see now, if i do give her seat, i will grab atleast some attention from onlookers, and what they are going to think?'look he is trying to be a showoff!, is he trying to impress the girl standing there?' and besides, it will do good for her to stand, if she is poor and cant afford going by auto she must get habit of standing, so standing will be good for her!
What a horrible thinking! she is a poor old woman, cant you see?
Its getting ugly and its a sin.
It isnt horrible, i am just trying to say that you must desensitise yourself in order to survive. There are much more horrors in this world. You must learn to live with all this disorder. And you can do lot of things for 'poor old people' on weekends huh?, why dont you do it? Isnt it a sin when you enjoy life when there are loads of people needing help?
hmmm...
And there is nothing like sin, these are age old absolete concepts, just to make people feel guilty so that they get sense of so called 'social responsibility'. And you have been good to people in the past, what happened? Did anyone help you when you were in need? And these are collective responsibilites, arent they? Why should you, only you, when there are others who just dont bother? You must learn to ignore all this, you cant fight everything, things dont work like that.
The old woman gets an empty seat after a few minutes, and the chapter is closed for me.

The call...

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(Warning:Sad post ahead)
Does Heaven Have a Phone Number?

Mommy went to Heaven, but I need her here today,
My tummy hurts and I fell down; I need her right away,
Operator, can you tell me how to find her in this book?

Is heaven in the yellow part? I don't know where to look.
I think my daddy needs her too; at night I hear him cry.
I hear him call her name sometimes, but I really don't know why.

Maybe if I call her, she will hurry home to me.
Is Heaven very far away, is it across the sea?
She's been gone a long, long time; she needs to come home now!
I really need to reach her, but I simply don't know how.

Help me find the number please, is it listed under "Heaven"?
I can't read these big, big words; I am only seven.
I'm sorry, operator, I didn't mean to make you cry,
Is your tummy hurting too, or is there something in your eye?

If I call my church maybe they will know.
Mommy said when we need help, that's where we should go.
I found the number to my church tacked up on the wall.
Thank you operator, I'll give them a call.
-Anonymous

Water...

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Its a dry afternoon and the watch shows three

i stand near the tap,
leasurely, on one leg,
another hanging free

i think nothing, i just see,
reflections on water,
soft, still and green

the window is open,
there is a hint of wind,
i do nothing, i just breathe

i fill the glass,
with clear, pure water

half full - half empty?
why should i care?

i put it to my mouth, drinking it in
slowly, quietly, stopping in between

it tastes sweetish but not quite sweet
transparent, cool, liquid, flowing with ease

for just a moment, the water is me,
but once the moment has passed,
there wont be water,
but just me.

the glass will be empty, that is for sure,
but then, why should i care?

And the award goes to...

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Emotions really exist at the bottom of the personality or at the top. In the middle they are acted. This is why world is a stage, and why the theater is always popular and indeed why it exists: why it is like life, and it is like life even though it is also the most vulgar and outrageously factitious of all the arts.
- Iris Murdoch (lines from "The sea, the sea")

Simpli-5...

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...entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.

- Franciscan friar William of Ockham.

(more commonly known as "Occam's Razor")

All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best.

Deja Vu...

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I will be back to pune after 3 long years. These three years were full of experiences. And they taught me so much, especially because i was away from my family. It is a real good experience to live independently, maybe everyone should try, at least for a few years.
Most of the pics i post here were taken in pune on short trips, and since now i am full time in pune, hope i can take better pics. And maybe i will change blog style too, because as my lifestyle gets better and better(and...simpler!), i find less and less to write. Again the same question comes to mind which i posted in my first post, Why do we complicate things so much?

Photo Courtesy - Google

I will be off to Greenland on holidays with friends from office. Greenland is not at all green but its ice everywhere. Someone told me they fool people by giving that name, so as to make people go there HeeHee :). Leaving hubby at the mercy of maids is what makes me worry.
Reminds me of this song from Armageddon...

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go
I'm standing here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye
But the dawn is breakin', this early morn
The taxi's waitin', he's blowin' his horn
Already I'm so lonesome I could cry

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go
Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh babe I hate to go

There's so many times I've let you down
So many times I've played around
I tell you now, they don't mean a thing
Every place I go, I think of you
Every song I sing, I sing for you
When I come back, I'll wear your wedding ring

Now the time has come to leave you
One more time, let me kiss you
Close your eyes, I'll be on my way
Dream about the days to come
When I won't have to leave alone
About the time when I don't have to say
I am leaving on a jet plane... :)

Quotology

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I get the best feeling in the world when you say hi or even smile at me because I know, even if its just for a second, that I've crossed your mind.

Have you ever wondered which hurts the most: saying something and wishing you had not, or saying nothing, and wishing you had?

It takes a minute to have a crush on someone, an hour to like someone, and a day to love someone -- but it takes a lifetime to forget someone.

It's better to keep your mouth shut and give the impression that you're stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.

If I could be any part of you, I’d be your tears. To be conceived in your heart, born in your eyes, live on your cheeks, and die on your lips.

Never tell your problems to anyone...20% don't care and the other 80% are glad you have them.

Never give up on something that you can't go a day without thinking about.

There are three types of people in this world: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder what happened.

When life gives you a hundred reasons to cry, show life that you have a thousand reasons to smile.

If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it's yours. If it does not come back, it was never meant to be.

Sometimes people put up walls, not to keep others out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.

I always knew looking back on the tears would make me laugh, but I never knew looking back on the laughs would make me cry.

Cheers!!!
-Asmita :)

Borderline...

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"A proper man loves a woman on three levels: as a dear child who is to be chided, perhaps even punished on account of her unreasonableness, and who is protected and taken care of because one loves her. Then as wife and as a loyal, understanding comrade who fights through life with one, who stands faithfully at one’s side without hemming in or chaining the man and his spirit. And as a goddess whose feet one must kiss, who gives one strength through her feminine wisdom and childlike, pure sanctity that does not weaken in the hardest struggles and in the ideal hours gives one heavenly peace."

Ironically, these lines were written by Heinrich Himmler, who, during Nazi regime of Hitler, arranged for systematic murder of over 9-million people in concentration camps.

Days of waiting...

Photo by - Endevourme
Some times you just run out of options. All options are equally bad. All you have in hand is to sit back and wait. Wait for alternatives to open up, for stalemates to break. These are times when you feel helpless and dependent. Your future depends on people who have no right to choose for you. But you can do nothing. You cant even argue, for arguing might be taken for hostility. And keeping quiet might be the only way to steer clear out of troubles. These are the times when you feel that head on troubles are better than long standing, slow, pulsating pain. When time seems to have stopped and mind seems to have become numb. Dark clouds float in the sky, but it doesnt rain. Suffocating dampness fills everything. All the colours seem to have faded. Everything is dark, everything is gray. Happy chatter seems like unbearable noise and warm smiles seem like deliberate torture. Days of stagnation and dead quietness when shadow of the evil looms in the background.

Numbers are not everything

Photo courtesy - Google

"One french apple cake, Please", the sentence wrooms out of my mouth and S starts getting mentally prepared for another twenty minutes of nothing- to-do-but- just-to-sit session in the cafeteria. It is crowded today and there are whirls of people moving around. There are unintelligible human voices everywhere and we have to shout to make the other one listen. S is healthy-turning-plump girl-turning-lady trying to improve her maths using arithmetic of calories. S has said a prompt 'no' to most of the eatables in the menu and is trying to eat some salad which as i found out had only boiled vegetables in it. How she manages to eat 'that' is something i will never understand and i will prefer to be fat than eating 'that'. The cake arrives and we see that there are four cherries they have put in for garnish. I nod my head towards S prompting her to taste the cake. She says,'no', rolling her round face sideways. I carefuly lift one cherry in a spoon and give it to her. She takes the cherry while trying to hide her reluctance and puts it into her mouth. Two seconds pass. She cant hide her face becoming cheerful as the sweetness spreads in her mouth. The cherry is finished, and she looks around helplessly, desperately fighting thoughts of eating more. I push the plate towards her side and her patience is lost. She picks up the spoon again and cuts a small bite. I am fighting like a kid to eat as much as i can, competing with her and simultaneously acting like a grown up not to show that i am fighting. The cake is finished and S is drowned in guilt feeling. She looks miserable but i manage to divert her attention towards a nice couple sitting there. We laugh like two college going girls and we start walking back to the office. There is a weighing machine near the door, i see that, i dont want S to feel more guilty so i try to rush ahead but after few paces i look back and i see S standing on the scale with gloomy dark clouds on her face.
Next morning i get a call from S, asking me if she can join me for jogging and,"if you can wait till i come there...?". I say OK and she arrives fifteen minutes later wearing a purchased-with- enthusiasm-but-never- worn-before tracksuit. We start. I actually dont jog but out of habit i run and being tall adds to my pace. Since it is her first time, i try to keep in pace with her so as to make her feel comfortable. She jogs awkwardly and her motion is something in between running and galloping. I try to ignore faces of people looking at us. Hardly two hundred meters and S is red in face and she is struggling for breath. I stop and make her sit. She prompts me to go ahead till the time she rests. I give a sigh of relief without showing it and finish my usual two kilometers track. When i come back i see S has made a face that looks like a lost child on a busy street. She is almost in tears and after seeing me she is actually in tears. She tries to talk but what comes out is just some strange sounds. I take her home, make her drink some orange juice. "You know asmi, i thought if i jog like you everyday i will also be like you",she says.
I didnt tell her that i dont gain weight even if i dont run for months and even if eat like a dog. Thats the way my body is. Better to keep her hope than to disappoint her. S came for jogging for a week and then stopped. She has gained a couple of pounds lately. Had she come regularly.....well.....i dont know..... :)

Dewed

Photo Courtesy - Google
Place:Hotel Sheraton
Occasion:Usual-phoney-boring-formal-lunch

People:Me, A(My hubby) and G(A's guest)

The hall looks too big even for the occasion of a party. There are few
tables, placed widely enough to give privacy. Three of us are seated at the table with me in the middle, A on my right and G on the left. Now introduction is over, the order has been fired and an unbearable period of waiting has started. Occasionally waiters in impeccable white clothes hover around with hurried quickness. Out of boredom i observe them as if i am seeing a waiter for the first time. A and G are discussing business, i nod at certain moments to show that i am listening and manage to smile when other two laugh. G is a fat man of about forty with a wife and two kids, he is wearing a suite for the occasion and a tie.
Our waiter comes back, bows a little and tells that the wine we ordered, isn't in the stock and 'if you would you like to order something else...?'.
For a few moments A is placing the order, i am looking at the waiter and i find that G is looking at me. I need not look at his face to see that, in a hurried moment he observes me, his eyes start from my face, first to make sure that i am not looking at him. Then to my hair, to lips, to the motion of my earrings, to my shoulders and following contours of my hands all the way to my wrists resting on the table. His eyes see the ring in my finger with a shining diamond in it and his glance jumps. Just at the same time A has finished placing the order and he turns to us. His face is normal and I wonder whether he has noticed. We wait for a few more minutes, for the order to be served, and during this time occasionally G's eyes rush to my hands resting on the table. This is not new to me. A typical sight, helpless begging eyes, waiting for a chance to look at beauty. I am indifferent and i choose not to care. I allow appropriate number of moments to pass and then i lift my hands off the table and keep them on my lap. I straighten myself up to keep my face away from the table. G has probably taken the clue and he prefers not to look at me again.
The lunch is over and A and myself are on our way back home. I am driving, as i always do. For a long time A is silent, rare for him on an occasion like this. "Tired?", i ask. "No", he smiles. "I love the ring i gave you Asmi, quite appropriate for an occasion like this". I look at him, my eyes wide, startled."You noticed...?", i ask."Yes i did"."Did you get angry?", i ask. "No dear, i owned you more in that one hour than i do now".

Forever & ever

Photo courtesy - Google

He comes home after a hectic trans-atlantic flight. I open the door and find him standing outside, all thinned out and sleepy. I give a sigh of relief and welcome him. Though tired, he manages to smile and tells how healthy i look like. He comes in and sits down on the sofa. His throat is dry and i give him a glass of water. He drinks slowly, trying to get our house back into his senses. "Everything looks just the same", he says. I give a silent nod. "Not that I expected something". "hmmm...I know", i reply. He smiles back. I sit next to him, on the floor and look at him closely. His face has become greasy and his shirt is crumpled. His shirt is folded at forearms and his hands are lying limply on the sides of sofa. I lift my hand from the floor and place it next to his. His masculine and strong, mine thin and delicate. "You know asmi, i want it to be always like this, just what we are now, you and me, do you understand?", he asks. I say,"i do", looking into his eyes. "For all this time, i always felt you near myself", he says."I did too dear", i reply," but I missed you terribly". A tear rolls down my cheek and he sees that. He leans down close to me , we look at each other and i see how gentle his face looks like. "Did anyone tell you that you look horrible when you cry?". That makes me laugh, "Why did you go away then?", i ask. But this is not a question, and both of us understand that.

Haunted by dreams...

Photo by - Endevourme
Memoirs of unknown reality boil up to surface
when why how....they dont care

they live through my mind
easily and effortlessly
like ghosts living in a haunted house
they belong here, but not me

they own my mind more than i do
and my imagination helps them more than it does to me

to avoid them, i lie restless and fully awake
cause ghosts dont come during daytime,
but i know they are there somewhere
and they appear when i least expect them

fear is reigned by the unknown and the unseen
and faith seems to run away only when i need

dreams of an unseen reality start to come true
while line between dreams and reality
grows thinner and thinner...

Asmi all alone

Photo Courtesy - Google
Hubby will be back next week, after 3 months :)
Why do people have to go away ?

Seeking truth...

Photo by - Endevourme

Some selected quotes by Richard Dawkins -
(I personally recommend to read "Devils Chaplain" by Dawkins. Must read for all!)

It's been suggested that if the supernaturalists really had the powers they claim, they'd win the lottery every week. I prefer to point out that they could also win a Nobel Prize for discovering fundamental physical forces hitherto unknown to science. Either way, why are they wasting their talents doing party turns on television?

I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.

The popularity of the paranormal, oddly enough, might even be grounds for encouragement . I think that the appetite for mystery, the enthusiasm for that which we do not understand, is healthy and to be fostered. It is the same appetite which drives the best of true science, and it is an appetite which true science is best qualified to satisfy.
You don't have to be a scientist - you don't have to play the bunsen burner - in order to understand enough science to overtake your imagined need and fill that fancied gap. Science needs to be released from the lab into the culture.

One of the things that is wrong with religion is that it teaches us to be satisfied with answers which are not really answers at all.

Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time.

Isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be part of it?

By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.

Personally, I rather look forward to a computer program winning the world chess championship. Humanity needs a lesson in humility.

The world and the universe is an extremely beautiful place, and the more we understand about it the more beautiful does it appear. It is an immensely exciting experience to be born in the world, born in the universe, and look around you and realize that before you die you have the opportunity of understanding an immense amount about that world and about that universe and about life and about why we're here. We have the opportunity of understanding far, far more than any of our predecessors ever. That is such an exciting possibility, it would be such a shame to blow it and end your life not having understood what there is to understand.

....& the last one is so much true in my own case! and when you realize this naa, you feel all the pain was worth it...life rocks really :D!!

Rising sun...

Photo by - Endevourme

Rising sun...bringing with it the promise of today!

Like that song of brian adams,

It's a new world - it's a new start, it's alive with the beating of young hearts, it's a new day - it's a new plan. Here we are - we've just begun, and after all this time - our time has come, here we are - still goin' strong right here is the place where we belong. Here I am - next to you and suddenly the world is all brand new. Here I am - where I'm gonna stay and now there's nothin standin in our way

Here I am - this is me. There's no where else on earth I'd rather be...

Spice n Curry!

Photo Courtesy - Google

Today was my final day of lunch-at-office - I did not bring lunch from home the whole of this week because the mom-cook-alike maid is not well. And since I love experimenting, I think that you have to eat at least small amount of food outside once in a while to realize the worth of home-cooked food! I am not good at cooking thanks to first my mom and then to mom-cook-alike maid who cooks for us here in canada. These people have pampered me with their delicious-consistent home-made-food and now i am afraid how i will survive if left alone. After waking up from one-hour-seemingly-never-ending meeting at office, I headed to Mirchi, an indian-canadian restaurant that happens to be just around the corner. Handling hunger-pangs at midday was ordinary, but ruminating as to what to eat for lunch was special. So, today was no exception with respect to this strangeness as I seriously gave a thought to the menu for lunch. As I am identity-less daughter of mom-north-indian-dad-south-indian parents, I am not typically against anything in indian food. After running through thick-leather-multipaged-menu, finally, I settled for the good old exotic bengali fish curry meal. Sadly, I managed to finish it off in 10 minutes and went again for a second round with aaloo paratha with pickle!. Even this was not enough so i went back to thick-leather-multipaged-menu, ignoring irritating glance from waiter thinking she-looks-so-lean-how-can-she-eat-so-much. As it was supposed to be quick lunch, I ordered thick tall glass of fruit salad with two scoops icecream for a round of dessert. I tend to take pleasure in whatever I eat and I have no care about it. But if you imagine me licking fingers and all stuff, let me clarify - no, i dont do all that. Being brought up in a high family, I can eat like a high-class girl outside and enjoy it too. So, here I was, savoring every spoon of my sweet mouth watering dessert and lost in my own world when I happened to see the table opposite mine. A German guy there was taking in the scene before him, with a most amused expression. At these moments my mind snaps to handle-a guy-staring-at-you mode. Since he was not indian, I stared rudely at him meaning mind-your-business for sometime and continued eating; nothing can come between me and food and that includes a german fellow. I don’t waste energy in staring at indian guys staring at me, I just ignore them. Having (sorrowfully) done with the last eatable on my table, I was on my way out when I heard a pleasant voice above my head, "Do you know that you happen to look quite amusing while eating?” I looked up to find the same german guy smiling at me. I nodded quick up and down in response and made a quick exit.

Why so many colors?

Photo Courtesy - Google

It was a week before the markets crashed. I was talking to daddy on phone about what should be the theme for his bought-for-cheap-now-being-renovated hotel at jaipur. He always asks me about aesthetics and stuff like that and values my opinions more than my dear bro's. Suddenly he became serious and asked in grave voice,'Asmi you did quite well in the past one year and i am very happy, you know, i always felt you too had that sense of what is good'. The fact was I did lot of humpty dumpty investments initially without asking him and finally ended up wasting some of my hard earned salaried money. I bootstrapped and was doing good for almost a year now and this was the first time dad was appreciating me. 'But beta it is bit tricky now and this time you have to do as i say', he said. I became cautious, when he is serious he means it. He fired some rapid instructions as to what to keep what to sell and all that. I took the day off and started doing just exactly as he had said. Its bit difficult you know to do transactions with different currencies for indian markets sitting in canada. Hubby happened to check our account in the afternoon and he become worried. He called me up and asked,'what are you upto?'. I just said,'dad told dear'. He said,'ok, go ahead'. The thing is though my hubby is quite young-and-lucky-notsoproud-but-succesful businessman, he is afraid of my dad. Quite so. Might be because dad has capacity to feed us and our next 7 generations happily, if he decides to. After a week or so the markets collapsed but we were already on the safer side. When i talked to hubby after that he just said,'hmmm... i knew that would happen'. Simply men, cant help them with their ego.

But my dad rarely becomes serious like this with me. Before marriage when i was pathetically-working-all-day-to-get-middleclass-salary and then throwing all money down the drain on silly-immature-market-speculation, he kept cool. As I am very proud girl (my name also implies that :)) , i wouldnt tell dad that i lost money so stupidly but ultimately he used to find out everything from my mother. He never discussed it though, he would just see that i am sad and then he would pull me out to play golf. He looks you know like a high cultured raymond-complete-man who was born-to-play-golf! But he was not born like that, i know, and mom knows better :)

Asmita-Tagged!!!

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E'me has told to write 6 random things about myself. He told me this is called tag in blogsworld. So here we go! enjoy maadi :-)
1. I own two horses. Alex and Nikki. Yes, these names come from 'Fullhouse', my all time favourite! They are with my dad now along with 6 of his own.
2. I met my hubby 2 months back and now it seems like a long time. TeeHee!.
3. I hate all men who try to give emotional support just because i am away from my hubby. I dont need them, perhaps they do. Sometimes i wish i werent as good looking as i am now.
4. I have 19 pairs of footwear. I never wear most of them!
5. My dad is the most important man in my life. Hubby comes next HeeHee :)
6. When i was young, i used to dream of being a housewife like my mom. Guess it will never come true!
I have been told that after this i have to tag someone. I would love to do this but i dont know anyone here, so whoever wants can take it happily :)

3 faces of endevourme...III

Photo by - Endevourme
Please read earlier two posts if you have not read, to understand this one better.

When i decided to split the roles, i thought i will have to deal with two personalities and it will be convenient. I was right, but only partially, life became simpler really. But then happened something that i had not earlier thought of. Even after splitting, my mind kept itself integrated. There were OuterMe, DreaMe and yet another Me, my integrated self. Our mind always shows us life as a consistant story. We go through life as a sequence of experiences and our 'self' is what binds this story together, story which we call as 'my life'. If there are two different personalities which are inaccessible to each other then there are two different stories, which is inconsistant(something similar happens with dissociative identity disorder or split personality). But a sane mind is self-organizing. My mind kept itself consistant, with an integrated third personality, an integrated self or Me, the story of whom encapsulates everything. This Me is what keeps everything bound together, it decides to switch between the other two and full range of capacities is accessible to it. Now why do i switch to one end or the other? why cant i stay always as Me?Me is highly powerful but Me is also highly complex, complex to such an extent that he tends to seem irrational. To our mind, OuterMe and DreaMe are two extreme ends, handling them at the same time is difficult. We see people which are down to earth, which stick to die hard reality, facing imperfect side of life. We also see people who are imaginative and sensitive. But we rarely see a person who is blend of both. Different types of people are successful in different ways but i wanted to give chance to most of the abilities that i have. Having an integrated Me as a combined OuterMe and DreaMe makes my life extremely complex. It leads to lot of internal conflicts, because these two personalities have different goals and different needs. But when i become one or the other, the goals are perfectly defined, i know what exactly i need to do, and that reduces conflicts greatly. Mind is more focused and it is more efficient as well. If i am at office and i get tonnes of workload, i switch to OuterMe, person who deals with crisis efficiently and coolly, without expecting much and accepting that things can go wrong. If i am at home and comfortable, my mind switches to DreaMe, a gentle, refined and sensitive person. If i start being sensitive at work, i wont be able handle it and if i stick to strict schedule at home then i wont be able to enjoy my hobbies. Both the personalities serve different purposes and both have different needs too. OuterMe is more 'problem oriented', his purpose of existance is to solve problems. If there are no problems then he is of no use. We dont need army if we know there wont be any war. DreaMe is vulnerable and he needs to be protected. Like everything else, nothing is completely black or completely white, but rather we have multiple shades of gray. Sometimes i need creative instincts at work, some shades of ideas which make my work simpler and more interesting. Also, imagination happens to be a crucible where i try out my behaviour while dealing with real people. These are the times when i am gray, i am somewhere in between.

It is a damp cloudy afternoon of rainy season. I am sitting in the corridor in front of my house. There is a cat resting on my lap. Simple creature with a simple mind. We are relaxed, witnessing the drag of a slow afternoon. After some time, wind starts blowing hard and along with that, it starts bringing few drops of rain too. Slowly the drizzling picks up speed and it starts pouring. The atmosphere is filled with a steady sound of rain. Slowly, at some places small ponds begin to form. Water accumulates, and it flows. I can see drops of water on leaves, on blades of grass. The wind is still blowing and along with that it brings small droplets of water, in sudden bursts of fine droplets. I feel the drops on my skin, the cat can feel them too and we together share a moment. A moment when we, the living things, feel. Moments that show us the promise, promise of creation, promise of existance, promise of new life. Moments of existance when my dreams look faded. Both of us see that and both of us feel the freshness and liveliness, almost exactly the same way.

These are moments when it doesnt matter what you are or who you are. Doesnt matter what you do to survive or how complex you are. Just matters is that you exist. Its such a wonder that life exists...and that we exist.

3 faces of endevourme...II

Photo by - Endevourme
Face-II DreaMe and his pond of dreams
Someday...i would like to climb mount everest and see sunrise from the top, looking at the thick blanket of clouds below
Someday...i would like to be a new born baby and start it fresh all over again
Someday...i would like to join back perfectly a broken glass
Someday...i would like to swim in the blue ocean and play with dolphins
Someday...i would like to fly like a bird on vast unending land, then cross borders without passport and visa, and think what i lost and what i gained being a human
Someday...i would like to go to the moon, point my finger towards beautiful earth and say "do u see that blue planet?.... you know i have been there..."
Someday...i would like to go straight, take left then go straight, take left go straight, take left go straight and then wonder how i reached the same place again
Someday...i would like to live in a jungle, get drenched in rain and then drink hot fuming tea
Someday...i would like to grow very very old, and then sit in a chair and tell big...big...stories to small.. small.. children
Someday...i would like to sit relaxed in sand, sipping orange juice listening to the music of waves
Someday...i would like to become a crow and join weekly meeting of crows on our terrace, discussing conspiracy about yesterday's rain , 'Yeh saajish hain boondonki...'
Someday...i would like to become a music director, deremix® 'oooo hoozoooooor...' and make a new album on gramophone
Someday...i would like to discuss with Albert Einstein about solution on corruption and see all his hair standing up straight
Someday...i would like to run alone in Olympics, and win first second and third place at the same time
Someday...i would like to dive deep into ocean where Titanic sank and find the diamond necklace dropped by Rose
Someday...i would like to lie down below clear open black sky on a cold night with a blanket, counting stars, wondering how small we are...
Someday...i would like to find the key, open the door and run through vast open grass field and shout, 'i.... am...... free...'
Someday...i would like to know, why HE made me?...

I know perfectly that very few wishes like these will come true in my lifetime. But does being so make them less precious? We cant always measure things based on whether they are possible or not. We are small, we are imperfect and we live in a world which is imperfect. Thats why we have been given imagination, to see things which dont exist so that even if the world around you is imperfect, you still can have a taste of perfection.
Earlier i used to dream for myself, as everyone does, but then mind doesnt free itself, rather it tends to stick to reality. So now the person who lives in my dreams is not OuterMe but is another face of me, he is DreaMe. A character whose purpose is just only that, to exist in my dreams.
DreaMe lives a perfect life. He was born at the right time at the right place(nature) surrounded by people which were themselves perfect(nurture). He was born somewhere around 1920 because i love the good old times. People and life both were so simple. He was brought up in a well cultured family. He is not too rich to be spoilt and not too less to worry about money, rather, the concern of money doesnt come up in dreams. He is well educated, had an education without mental tensions(before this i didnt know that education can be so wonderful, it can make creativity inside you boil). He is decent, well mannered, mannerism means only comfortable one which comes from natural social freeness. There is also a she perfect. She is beautiful, she is calm, they are a perfect match and they have the loveliest life together. Fortunately we have ample love songs and many of them go perfectly with their moments of affection. Its really wonderful how our mind can show us a world by blending reality(music) with imagination. Here life is not at all fast but it drags much slowly. There is enough time to communicate feelings and easy unhurriedness to appreciate precious moments. His life has drama because there is a sensuous pleasure in drama especially in anticipating good moments. There is uncertainty but situations always end up in happy endings.
The purpose of dreaming like this is not to run away from reality because remember that OuterMe is facing it. Rather the purpose is to come closer to reality, in a more final sense. As a child we see a fresh world, with a surprise of seeing a new creation. But as we grow up we stop getting surprises. We think this is because we are grown ups and we know so much. But infact the reason is not that we have grown up but that we have stopped exploring, we have stopped seeing. As we grow up and we mature, gradually our vision gets coloured. We see the world from point of view of our 'self', with respect to our identity, identity which is a concept of what we think we are. As i grew up i found myself changing and there is a huge difference between what i was few years back and what i am now. If i see the world from the point of view of my older self then it looks like a really horrible place. But if i see it now, then, its not that bad after all. We are not born in a perfect environment and not all of us are young and with impeccable health with a clean mind. But if we were, then would we see the world in the same way? We put limits on the way we see the possibilities because the possibilities are for 'us', or rather for what we think of ourselves. But if we had a perfect unbiased mind then we would have seen things in a much better perspective than we do now.
It really takes effort to imagine your own self, with a healthy, open, free mind. We always carry our imperfections, our guilts, our expectations with us, even to our dreams. At some point of time we decide,'yes, this is me, this is how the world is, this is my life and this is what will happen to me'. Our entire life runs around this,'me' and somewhere we settle down to that. We stop exploring. We form a concept of world,'this is how it is' and we stick to it. We just dont have the courage to go and see what lies outside because we think it will give pain to us. But while doing so we also miss the good part of it. Most important thing to do is to accept, accept what is good and what is not. Few years back I too started accepting, i stopped lying to myself that i am satisfied with everything that exists in the world and the way things are. This was when i really grew up. It takes courage, courage to accept that some things are not perfect instead of just being satisfied with whatever is thrown to us. It is painful to accept that, what we are getting is not perfect but it is 'just about' or 'just enough', but then even that pain has a quality. A quality of acceptance, acceptance of the truth. When we see outside with a clear unbiased mind we start finding good things as well, things we have not seen before. I too tried the same and i started getting surprises again.

When we say, 'free your mind, free your imagination', ever wondered from what we are trying to free it? it is from your 'self'. We are so much occupied with ourselves that we just dont see the obvious. For most of my life I used to think of myself as OuterMe. I didnt know i had creative instincts, that i can do photography, that i can write, that i have a whole spectrum of capabilites. At one point of time i even thought i am dead and i have lost my ability to feel. But no, we dont die that easily. Creativity and imagination are integrated qualities of us, if we exist then they exist. They come naturally and thats why creation is so satisfying. Nature achieved its biggest feat during evolution, it gave us imagination, an ability to see beyond reality.

We are like grass, it looks like it has become dry but it is not dead really. It is just the way it survives. Let the first drops of rain come and they enliven the will. The will, to rise.

3 Faces of endevourme...I

Photo by - Endevourme

Face-I Outer Me
OuterMe is the person people see when they meet me. The practical side of me, the person who deals with uncertainties and not so perfect side of life. His basic aim is nothing but to survive and to be sane and many times more than this is luxary. Our world is where things can and often do, go wrong. Not that he expects negative things to happen but just that he wants to be mentally prepared. He was perhaps born at the wrong place at the wrong time(nature)and surrounded by people which were themselves not so perfect(nurture). He had a rough childhood, often bullied, outnubered by others where people force impression on your mind,'you dont deserve to exist'. But since he has grown up, he doesnt mind, he accepts the world and people in it as it is. World is imperfect and thats a fact. What people do is just what they do,and we cant reason with them on their terms about what they did to you. And now sometimes when he sees their miserable condition he wonders whether to blame them or to pity them. Impressions of childhood still bother him but he accepts them and even manages to live with them. So as far as life situations are concerned he has only one rule.'Face it!'. He does just that,and he is quite good at that. Its not that he has come out victorious always cause he is a real person. He failed, not always but many times, its not that he is of the unbreakable kind. He broke, often, but sooner or later he recovered. He rarely dreams, for himself, he thinks they make him unstable and he will even ask, 'why to dream when you know that they will never come true?' be practical . So people see him as a low maintenance fellow with a simple lifestyle, not much talkative and bit of reserved. But once you become aquainted then he is a good company. He has friends, not so close cause since childhood he has drawn a circle of caution around himself. And at any cost he will not let you know what lies inside that line. But whatever people think about him, i like him. Most importantly because he has his priorities right, he thinks straight and he is sane. And he has not done bad, he did quite a good career inspite of some of the failures that he had. He faced failures and came up well. There are times when he does more than his expectations but as always he keeps doing a reality check. He is bit hard on himself, with a strict routine and minimal lifestyle. He doesnt have much preferences. He will accept things uncomplainingly. Very few things are perfect, thats what he thinks. He evaluates many things based on their utility and that makes him look emotionaly insensitive. Emotions have given him more pain and misery and they often caused more harm than good. Like others, he never had a guide,people to support and help. And that made him grow independent. If you dont get help outside, you have to help yourself. Read, think, imagine, work and get things done, by facing them.
On a typical saturday morning , you can see him drinking tea at a roadside stall, sitting just next to a daily wage worker and he is at peace sitting there just like that. Thats what keeps him connected to a practical day to day life. Plain down to earth life where main aim is just to exist. He knows that there are people, many people who face life harder and uncertain than himself and no work is good or bad when you do it for survival.
OuterMe is what protects me and thats what makes him sometimes look harsh and insensitive. By being so he protects a hidden, more sensitive side of me. For most of my life i lived primarily as OuterMe. Slowly, over time, he kept learning and kept growing up, understanding better how the world works. And then came a time when he started outperforming himself, sometimes doing things he never thought possible. Then came more dreams for himself, more expectations and more pain. He is efficient, he is good and i adore him but this new life started making him unstable. Many facets of myself started coming into light, but i coudnt accomodate them into this OuterMe. OuterMe is an efficient survival machine, but now nature wanted more out of me. It wanted me to heal, and healing needs you to be sensitive. This person coudnt do that. I was growing, and i needed dreams, mostly to clarify what i really want. They help you to unlearn and help you think more freely. Old habits dont die easily. OuterMe started applying reality checks on my imagination and utility checks on my creativity. I was in a conflict. But i needed OuterMe, for his ability to survive, to go on and on for years, a life which was empty.
Dreams rest on imagination. Sanity rests on reality. And I needed both. Hence it became necessory, to split.