Checkpoint

Today is a checkpoint in my life. I have to look back and see what I have turned into, what I must change.

I am strung to different people through obligations and other ties. I have become a blind workhorse. I have more work than I can handle in the stipulated time. Time spent outside of work is mostly under the influence and it passes quickly. Numb.

The old me was certainly better. Carefree to the point of madness. Strong willed too. And stronger and independent.

That's not something I can roll back to, now. I seek to be calm & collected now. The rest are immaterial. At the time of this checkpoint.

Love, Life and Philosophy

Love
Hard to be in.

Life
It must go on.

Philosophy
Wondering at it.

Rituals

Today I am travelling back to Madras. I'm in a bus right now. Big silver Mercedes Benz multi axle  bus. It was just aching to get out on a wide highway after being suffocated on the cramped roads of Trivandrum.

The bus started from the Music College junction, the usual departure point for a lot of private buses. I got there by an auto rickshaw, looking like a tourist in my hometown.

The auto driver stopped at a small koil at Aaltharamukku, did some prostration and got a garland of yellow flowers. Which he hanged on the single windshield wiper. He told me that was something he does daily.

I got down near the Women's College at Vazhuthacaud to withdraw some money from the ATM opposite to it. Walked down to the Music College to catch the bus on which I'm on now.

The bus has only one driver in it now. He is expecting the other driver to join him at Madurai. The bus driver slowed down near a dargah near Balaramapuram, a place which I associate with delicious mutton curry. The cleaner ran out, gave some money as donation and ran back in.

Their rituals beseeched two different gods, one Hindu and the other Islam, for protection from the dangers of the road, with which I'm no stranger to. We humans are a weird lot. We need belief that someone's out there watching over us, when we tread zones of uncertainty.

Red Moon

The moon was full and red tonight.
There were no stars shining bright.
There was just red moonlight.

Pearls before Swine

I got introduced to Pearls before Swine in a newspaper back when I was working in Mumbai. My memory has gone so bad now that I don't even know which newspaper it was. I grew to like the Rat, the Goat, the Pig, the Zebra, the Crocs and the Guard Duck. I miss that strip.

I don't know if you know about Matthew 7:6. If you don't, that's probably where the expression came from. 

Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

This has deep meaning. I didn't know that back then. Life and its experiences slowly makes one understand that scriptures too make sense. One must learn to not cast pearls before swine. It is a vain exercise. One's time is wasted, and swine none the less wiser.

Snarky

Got described as 'snarky' the other day! And to my horror, I didn't know its meaning. I have a fairly good idea of how good or bad I am in most things, or at least I like to think that I do. For example, yesterday night I spent a lot of time with Godel Escher Bach and then fell back to the familiar realm of Google and YouTube in order to figure out what a fugue is, before finally accepting that my intellectual capacity is not sufficient to digest what the book has to offer.

That extended to my not knowing what 'snarky' was. I had to use WordWeb at office to figure out what it meant. To me, that was something embarrassing. Well, Tennyson's Ullyses was right -


Yet all experience is an arch wherthrough
Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move.

Note to self - Be less snarky!

On travel, Monday and other things

Today is a Monday. The clock is at 11:46pm. I need to finish this post off before midnight, before Tuesday dawns. This post is spawned from a request from an old friend, who reminded me that this website still exists.

Well, today was Monday. It was a tiring day. Tired of convincing strangers that their software systems are at fault. Tired of reviewing an endless stream of technical documentation. Tired of talking about the same things with the same people. Tired, in general.

Been travelling a bit these days. Went driving to Bhutan and back. Took a car from Bhopal to Chennai. And many other forgettable trips. Travel frees me. When it is on the road. When someone I trust, is driving, or when someone who trusts my driving is around when I drive. On long and strange stretches of tarmac and dirt.

I need to travel. It is my drug. One of them. When I am on the verge of a meltdown, travel springs up from nowhere. Like a random gesture, playing the role of a safety valve. I am grateful for that.

There are certain times in life when all you want to do is comfort the person next to you, who is going through pain. And you can't. It's just another Monday. Just like the ones before it. Blue. I have 8 more minutes. It is still only 11:52pm. I didn't think I would run out of words so fast.

It is partly due to the job. The place where I endorse brevity and disparage verbiage. All terse and bulleted. Words which are distilled and shot in emails. To an audience who might just delete them without a second glance. Not looking at the words which make an attempt to reach out, to connect. To be human.

Language is a wonderful thing. Someone close to me once said that I feel words. Sometimes I do. At times I even feel I am being manipulated by this misgiving of mine. Words move me. Music does it too. But words hold more sway over my soul. So far.

This can change. Everything changes. People, places, things, theories. Just waiting to be devoured and digested by time. To be metamorphosed into something new. Or it might just be history repeating itself. Its 11:57pm now.

I am a bit ashamed right now. I have said a bit about nothing for the sake of writing a post in a dead blog. To fill this space with words. To be done with them by midnight. Well. I think that's one accomplishment in this otherwise futile day. Fare well.

The day ended with a whimper

The day ended with a whimper.
Like most days before it,
And like many yet to come.