Take it or leave it

An article in the Speaking Tree last Sunday spoke about equanimity. The context was that of emotion. It said that all of us want happiness, but without the sadness; joy, but without the sorrow. The essence of emotion is that everything comes in pairs. The balance of this pair causes equanimity in our lives. If you want happiness, you must be prepared to undergo some measure of sadness. Alternatively, without sadness we cannot appreciate happiness as an elevated state of emotion. Same goes for joy or satisfaction. Either we accept that circumstances come in pairs, or we live in equanimity-without either emotion.
On a personal level, this article took me back to the basics, so to speak. A few years ago, in a particularly emotional time, I swore to myself that I would detach from human relationships rather than get involved in them. The pain they caused did not seem worth the intermittent happiness. In time I realised that it was not so easy; it seemed far easier to love and get hurt than to not love at all. And what is life without emotion? It's like watching a movie without sound or eating food without salt. If Life was a fruit, emotion would be the juice that dribbled down your chin as you bit into it. It is an intrinsic part of living. Without emotion there is no life.
Take it or leave it.

Motichoor ke Laddu

Partly because I have a sweet tooth, partly because motichoor ke laddu is one of my all-time favourites and partly because what I'm about to blog is something I wouldn't want to forget anytime soon, I have the named the post so.

It's been a while since i put the finger to the keyboard "for the blogging purpose" (inspiration for the use of this phrase to be revealed in a while) so I'm thrilled to have finally got inspired. After nearly a month, the perfect motis (pearls) are just popping out of the keyboard, it seems. So here goes.

Friends are my strongest link to sanity. Truly. In my world there are currently 2 people - Me and the Rest of Them. That's what it feels like most of the time - like I'm fighting a lone battle with the rest of the world. It's those gtalk chats and phone calls stolen during work hours, the SMS rallies in the middle of the night, the occasional but raucous dinners in swanky restaurants in the city and the even more occasional surprise cross-continental calls, that make it all worth the while.

College life is now this distant memory, almost like as if it happened in another life. The world seemed so much simpler then, almost like a toy world. Things were either black, or white, or any other colour which someone seemed to have figured out and told me.Barely a year into the corporate world and I find my settings changing hues so rapidly, I feel stunned and clueless most of the time. Far from being able to share my true feelings, I have to contend with having to figure it out on my own. It's a dog eat dog world. Nothing is what it seems. At last I understand what these phrases mean!

As I quoted to someone recently, "it was the best of times and the worst of times". An oft repeated quote by a senior guy at work, I find it to be quite apt to describe my current state of life. I can safely say that I am leading a very exciting life currently. Hundreds of new things happening every day, tons of learning to be done, decisions to be taken, impressions to be made.. it seems that 24 hours are just not enough! Sometimes better gets better; sometimes worse gets worse. The peaks are as stark as the troughs in this sine wave. Neverthless, I know that twenty-odd years later I will look back at these times and say "Those were the days."

Me and My Nike

Through the last 6 months, I've faced some trying times, exhausting times and seemingly never-ending times. This post is a tribute to a silent but constant companion, having been the proverbial dependable shoulder whenever required and therefore now having become an inseparable part of my daily life.

My Nike.

I walked into a Nike showroom to replace my worn pair of shoes (not Nike). I was just starting on an assignment that required me to be on my feet the whole day. That meant upto 8 hours of standing and upto 6 hours of continuous walking. And yes, I do get paid for it :P

I knew I had to be suitably armed. What I was not armed for however, was the price tag that "the" shoe came with. It fit like a glove and cushioned my feet. In short, it was perfect. Except for the cost. No prizes for guessing the outcome though. I parted with a cool five digit sum and bought the pair.

My friends reacted with "Ew, it's flourescent yellow! Didn't you get any other colour?"

I was resigned to wearing it, reactions notwithstanding. Irrespective of weather, trouser colour and day of the week. And the funny part is, it went quite decently with most of my clothes. As luck would have it, my work took me to many shoe outlets and my choice of footwear has worked in my favour many a time :)

Six months later, the only change in me from using Nike is weight loss. My feet were.. still around, despite the insane amount of walking I had done. In shape, fresh as a flower and stout as ever.

I owe it to My Nike.

I want to

1. I want to get up every morning and look forward to going to work
2. I want to spend a day off without answering the phone or checking email even once
3. I want to watch a movie without getting emotionally involved with it :P
4. I want to spend one hour each reading newspaper and other sundry stuff, everyday
5. I want to live near the sea so that I can watch the sun rise every morning and end the day with a walk along the beach
6. I want to visit all the places where I have friends, just to relive old times
7. I want to recall all the songs I learnt since I was introduced to music
8. I want to lower my expectations from myself. The disappointment is killing sometimes
9. I want to stand up for myself, once in a while

Margazhi

Margazhi is the Tamil month that begins in the middle of December. The beginning of the Madras Music Season, when even the otherwise difficult weather co-operates, with cool breeze and just-warm-enough sunshine. I was fortunate to be a part of it for 2 days, and those 2 days were one of the best I've had in a long, long time. Great weather, an air of festivity and above all, fantastic music. An out of the world experience.

Although Bangalore is where home (and therefore the heart) is, Chennai as a city has a unique energy to it. You can see it in the wide pothole-free roads, tasteful buildings and umpteen saree and jewelry shops, and you can feel it in the cultural events and happenings. It is elegance and beauty, borne out of years of perfection and adaption to changing times but without losing touch with history and tradition. Chennai is the uncrowned cultural capital of South India, and is at its most beautiful in December.

As quoted by S Ramadorai, Vice Chairman, TCS, 10 things to do in Chennai during the music festival season:

1. Visit Sampradaya music library which has 7,000 hours of music from the great masters, old and rare books, photographs and gramophone records.
2. Go to Ayodhya Mandapam in Mambalam, sit on the floor and listen to religious discourse which blends humorous storytelling of the epics with songs.
3. Get up early and join the bhajan groups marching to the temple; make sure to sing a song at the temple; get pongal as reward.
4. Go to the house of your favourite film star and have a photo taken of you with him or her; all stars employ photographers for the purpose.
5. Don’t fret if your favourite star is out for a shooting. Go to Marina Beach and take a photo with the star’s life-size cutout.
6. Eat chilli bajji at Santhome; drink filter coffee anywhere.
7. Eat “full meals” on a plantain leaf.
8. Spend Christmas at the church on St. Thomas Mount, where the Apostle Thomas was killed in the First Century; also, visit Santhome Church where his body was buried for some time.
9. Shop at Ranganathan Street for trinkets; Nalli Silks for Kanjivarams; Usman Road for jewellery.
10. Have your fortune told by a hawker’s parakeet.

So I have my task cut out for my next visit :)

States

Sometimes I can't help feeling that Life is like a badly constructed Indian road. Potholes all over the place, steep bends and humps at the wrong places, mad and noisy traffic.

Unlike for the Indian road, I know there would be no fun if we were warned of happiness or calamity before it hits. Though it would definitely help to be prepared. It's ironic, all these phases. You don't enjoy them - the periods of anticipation, confusion, lack of clarity. But it gives your mind something to chew on, and to create infinite possibilities. When you reach the end of the road and the fog clears, you actually miss the excitement! It's a roller coaster ride, this one.

I guess the thing to remember is not what happens, but what you make out of what happens.

Someone wise once told me that if we focus our efforts in giving our best shot at all that we do, the results will show for themselves. I understand now that for a 16 year old writing THE all important board exam along with thousands of others, it was great advice. Because then, everyone is judged by the same yardstick. Everyone was doing the same 5 or 6 things, reading the same 10 or 11 books.

Now, some x years later, I realize I have been hanging on to advice that should have been left behind, along with board exams and school. Because in the real world, everyone is not doing the same thing. Everyone is working at chipping away their own and unique bit of rock, hoping to hit the jackpot. Or is that why they are hitting the rock?

Everything is not simply black or simply white it seems. Most of the time I know exactly where I am and exactly where I will be. But sometimes when this neat scheme is given a hard shake and all the colours flow into each other, flowing and mixing, I get shaken too. Sometimes I succeed in making sense of the mayhem; sometimes I don’t.

It’s agonizing, this intermittent dip into blur-dom.