Shrouded in Memory

A friend long lost in the passage and pace of time
And the series of 'what ifs'
Caress the margins against the faded background
In the evening sun.
Reminded of Mrittika a lot..

Too much to post in a title

Its been a long time since I have penned down anything here. Life is going on its own pace- some pebbles here and there. Frustration continues as far as research is concerned and again I am at the threshold of another deadline without much progress! :P

Nevertheless, suddenly situations are a bit different. How does one feel when all of a sudden one comes and tries to awaken the heartbeats of yours which are in slumber for a long time. Especially when, you have accepted and have reasoned your heart beats not to create  chaos while maintaining' friendship' with that particular 'someone.' How does it feel when you are given an option of possessing that same person, knowing it already that this person will never be able to love you the way you want him to be. It is better at least to see him happy with somebody else while having a genuine friendship with me and not faking relationship instead. Many are quite happy at the sudden turn of events but I am faced with this question-- is this what I wanted? The answer is a clear cut 'NO'. But still you find it hard to convince yourself and all the more, you find yourself at loss of words in convincing others.

I just want to run away from here. Taking everything with me. The smell, the colours, the emotions, the feelings, the tears, the laughters, the tensions, everything of which represents him to me ---I will take with me and preserve them as I am sure one day or the other he himself will destroy everything he stands for. Before it happens I need to preserve a little of him with me.

I can live with the love I have for him. But not with the 'love' he has for me.

Random Musings

Today is Mahasaptami. And here I am, 'far from the maddening crowd' of Kolkata(my hometown), sitting alone in my hostel room, venting out my feelings in this virtual diary. To make  matters worse, even my Tamilian room mate has also gone to visit C.R.Park( considered to be a mini version of Kolkata at the heart of the Delhi) with her friends. It is not that I can't venture out alone. But sometimes you just don't feel like it. Trying to find familiar flavours in an unfamiliar-sometimes- hostile city needs some company. It is however not to say that I am a loner or I don't have friends. Yes, I do-not many, but a few-- some of them are with me, some not. Most of them are busy in some part of city, India and abroad. Maybe if I call them up, they would be happy, would probably try to make me feel better, but then what? Again this void will engulf me.....because in spite of everything I have withdrawn myself from each of them in fear of getting hurt anymore. 

History repeats itself, when I see I tend to value those people more to whom I am 'one of the many' options. Sometimes I just want somebody to read my silence. I might sound very pessimistic, but I have no aspirations for myself now. Career was never my first priority, and personal life- better left unsaid. If anything matters to me now is my Mom and to some extent my Dad (after so many years) because I have realized only these two people are actually bothered about me. But its not easy. In order to bring smile on their face, again I have to emabark on another long and tough journey. So many years of bitterness and trauma-- I know that is not easy to forget, or worse forgive. But I have to. If not for anybody else, then for my sake only. I don't know whether I would be successful or not. In the process I know I have to make compromises, which have already started.

Its already two days since the Puja has started. But still I have not been able to visit the Puja pandals. I was planning to go to C.R. Park tomorrow morning, but altered situations has prevented me from pursuing my plan. Sometimes I think, not everybody deserves a soulmate, or the concept itself is an utopia?

I better stop. Before everything gets blurred.

Reflections of a Pessimist

Why death is so much important in our lives and also at the same time unacceptable? Is it because of the fear of the unknown or something that signifies the end of something considered to be the epitome of vibrant potentialities and hopes i.e.life. We hate endings,be it anything, don't we? What we are afraid of then, beginning of an unknown realm or end of known world?

Have we noticed how much death is absent in our everyday conversations? We shiver, we feel uncomfortable at the utterance of it. some show it. some not. We become silent whenever we witness or hear about somebody's death, be it an accident, or a natural one. However, in case of suicides (which more often than not mainly remain as 'attempts'), suddenly people become very vocal. All of a sudden everybody starts emphasizing on the beauty of life and the futility of committing such 'irresponsible mistake.'  After all you are no orphan, you belong to a family which are well above the below poverty line--whatever your grievances are nothing but 'fancy stuffs', after all you should think about your parents, your siblings, your friend, colleagues, if possible, enemies , right?

Can anybody tell me why life is celebrated and death treated as something unexpected ? Is it because, 'till death there is hope'? Hope of what? Having a stable career, having a 'complete' family, or at times (in leisure and seminars, of course) dreaming of changing the world--these are what we really hope for? In reality, how many people mean or achieve them?Ironically,contrary to the theoretical assumptions, the reality is quite different.It is only the Darwinian model of struggle for existence that's applicable. Starting from birth you have to strive harder and harder to outdo the others in the race not to survive only but to excel at the same time, by hook or crook. Did anybody notice, how many deaths a person dies in order to 'live' such a life? But still we want to achieve them as  we are trained to believe that only such success can lead upto the making of a 'perfect life'. Life is only worth living only if these conditions are satisfied. Thus, the  social-psychological parameter is set and the rat-race is on.

Death is only a logical conclusion to a process which is already going on in the name of 'life'. As opposed to death I feel life is something that  is weird and unknown. In fact, I doubt whether life has an identity of its own because its only what death is not,( which is at least definite and inevitable). So, instead of saying that death is an end to life, its better to see life as the beginning of death.

Mundane..

“Hearts have been exchanged, thousands deaths have been died, accompanied many as anklets in their feet/Went from door to door cajoling people, only giving and receiving sorrows in the process/Only tears were there to form garlands as decoration for my blood-scorn heart.”

(Excerpts from one of Tagore's poems)

Sometimes in life, you need to let go of many things that you have held dear. However, although we need to do it at times, it seems to be the most difficult thing to do. As I had already mentioned previously, such difficulty is usually posed due to the attachments we share with everything around us, without which we feel incomplete and feel anxious of what would happen next. In fact, it is again the fear of unknown that actually drives us to be obsessed with these things, because we tend to get comfortable with whatever is there. But the funny part of it is this, that life is/was never static. The same ‘status-quo’ which we really want to maintain, was never static. The situation from which we now derive comfort, probably was not comfortable in the beginning. But we tend to forget that. We adjust, we ‘move-on’, but still not ready to accept this oft-quoted phrase, ‘change is the only constant thing in this world.’ Sometimes, it’s the monotony of our fast life,that prevents us from realizing the picture that lay beyond such petty nitty-gritty of everyday life. I did read somewhere that in order to live at times, you need to die a little inside. In the long run, I am sure, it’s going to yield positive results. Just we need to keep our spine straight and be brave in letting go of those elements from your life which has ceased to be important in your life, clinging on to which can only increase your pain and nothing else.

Today I would enclose one sketch drawn by me not long ago, in a strange mind setup. Although, I attempted to make a sketch of Tagore, it is far from being ideal :D

Just-Like-That

Life is about challenges, we all know. Life is also about  choices. In most of the cases its often seen that whatever challenges we meet in our lives are dependent on the type of choices we make. Yesterday(6/3/13) was an 'unusually' ordinary day. Ordinary in the sense, there was no extra ordinariness in it viz. following the daily schedule of running around, attending classes and searching for materials for my seminar paper from here and there. But two incidents made it unusual. The first one was about a choice. A choice that was long impending. A' choice' (read 'decision') of ending a relation that was only causing 'hurt'-aches for quite a long time. Probably, I could have prevented that. Probably I could have argued, could have pleaded, could have talked more, could have waited for some more time,(just like I have did time and again). But I didn't. I made a choice of accepting the verdict. Because somewhere down the line I was relieved. I was relieved of the tension I was subjected to for days I have lost count of. At the same time I know from my heart that this feeling of numbing pain for losing someone who was so close to you is temporary. In the long run, it would save both of us from the guilt of hurting each other and ruining the friendship we both held dear. Its better to move away when it was getting dirtier each passing day. I was prepared to face the challenge then :)

The second incident that made my day quite 'unusual' was not related to any choice and challenge.

Its about a discovery. In my quest of searching primary materials for one of my seminar papers I landed in the central secretariat library at New Delhi. Suddenly, while going through my much-sought Commission Report of 1990, I looked up at the racks that were surrounding me. I could see numerous files and reports of different years, some on urbanization, some on slum clearance, some on rehabilitation and housing programs from 1950s onwards etc. I know it sounds very boring! But what seemed remarkable to me is that interestingly, I had heard of these reports and the debates on them from newspapers and footnotes of history textbooks. But for the first time I was using these  documents on my own! The red binding, the yellowish pages and the typed minutes of the Commission Reports gave me a different feeling , which was completely alien to me. No doubt  I was exhilarated.

Hoping for a productive day with this Bob Dylan song

Warmly, :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrQ4saKGI5k

Loving attachment or Attaching Love (in whatever way you want to read)

"'Ruddho dwarer bahire dnaraye aami

Ar kotokal amone katibe swami

Priyotomo he, jaago jaago jaago!"

(O Lord! O Beloved!  Arise!How long should I wait before the closed door before it embraces me inside?)

This excerpt from the Tagore song perfectly describes the state of mind i am now into. Its about all of us, our quest of life, our quest for love, our quest for happiness, our quest for anything that is positive. Does anybody of us actually search or want negativity? Perhaps not. The inherent nature in us would not allow it. SO, everybody of us, in some form or the other is in front of something that is unknown to us or beyond one's comprehension-- as if in front of a closed door. The more we strive forward and open one door, another door comes up in front of us. The entire life is about this only, isn't it?

Actually the quest for happiness comes from our desire of avoiding unhappiness. From  where does such unhappiness come? From the fear of us getting hurt; physically, mentally, economically, materially and the list goes on. It was not long back, when I had read a certain column in the segment of 'The Speaking Tree'( which is a regular feature of the TOI) where a distinction had been made between love and attachment. It argued that while love is an unconditional feeling bereft of any sort of negativity within it, it is the attachment to that thing/person whom we love that causes our unhappiness; because attachment leads the person to possess that object of love(no intention of objectification plz! :) ) lest it ceases to love him/her back. Thus, condition is unconsciously imposed on the unconditional nature of love. As a result, in most of the cases its seen that people are crying not for losing their love( as it remains permanently with a person throughout one's life) but for the attachment they held for the object.

I found the argument to be quite apt for me. Not sure whether it holds good for others as well.

Have a good day ahead :)