Beauty in the Concrete Jungle

There was traveling in a boat to a remote lodge in the Amazon Rain Forest in Peru. There was living amongst the nature, seeing unheard, unseen, undecipherable (but highly distinguishable) creatures including insects, reptiles, mammals, birds. There was walking in knee-deep muddy waters and getting bitten all over by who-knows-what-all, and seeing the sunrays struggling to creep through the tall canopies. There was a boat ride in the dark, to locate the caimen. There was the slight rain (by Amazon standards), there were interesting breeds of trees... there was everything one would want to be amidst when one said ´ I want to be one with nature´

But a 45 minute bus ride in the heart of Lima during peak hours was way more entertaining/involving.

Finding out one´s way around a country whose language one does not know is an under-rated challenge. When in school, I remember a teacher telling us that an average English-speaking individual knows a couple thousand words of English. I found that rather unelievable. That´s a LOT of words. But when I simply could not ask for directions, and then when I managed to ask, I could not fathom the reply... it struck me that all I was looking for was simple words like ´bus number´, ´last bus time´, ´frequency´.

But living in a similar city teaches you many skills. Smiling and gesturing, without any hesitation puts the person at ease. Also, most people are willing to help and try their best in assisting if one shows enough concern on one´s face. Public transport is almost always safe and challenging and exhausting (thats the fun of it). Walking confidently is the best way to walk, no matter how little one knows about where one is going.

The sigñor who helped was a middle aged guy who spoke no english. NO english. And yet we smiled and talked. He took me to a place to eat, bought some bread for himself, and bought a ´pollo´sandwich for me, took me to the bus, and instructed the bus driver in no unclear terms as to where to drop me. I dont know how to show gratitude to such people except to keep chanting ´muchos gracios´.

The bus was almost as crowded as the local trains of Mumbai. And after a long time did I have to use my arm strength to keep my body in place. I heard the all-familiar chattering of young, professional girls discussing the day, the tired laborer sleeping while standing amidst the brouhaha, the beautiful lass staring alternately between her mobile phone and out of the window, the college kid lost in the music playing in his earphones, the conductor squeezing by where ants wouldn´t dare to tread!

And then I reach the destination (after pushing aside everyone heartlessly, to disembark).

It was a sight to behold. The yellow lights decorating the proud cathedral, the municipalty building matching wits, standing tall, the shops in the adjacent streets with the vendors beckoning to all those who passed, the colorful wares displayed temptingly, the discount and sale boards placed such that no one could overlook them, the smell of fresh food... and amid all this was the huge garden with a fountain in the centre. All this made it a beautiful sight, but what made it so fetching/appealling was that the garden was abuzz with young lovers... arm in arm, hand in hand, kissing, smiling, arguing, laughing... lost in their paradisical world. None cared as to who else was passing by, watching them with envy/curiosity. They were there just to enjoy companionship. It was like a typical garden in Mumbai, or bandstand, or Marine Drive, or other such hang outs... except there were no moral or actual police monitoring any activity. The world was free to a large extent.

Love, in any form, makes events or terrains or places or even activities more beautiful. Jungles and mountains and nature have their raw beauty to fall back on. But people typically are more interesting to people.

A questionable Shangri-la

There was a moment of suspended bliss.

All around her were lush green mountains subtly hidden behind the fleeting clouds. The clouds moved like proud vagabonds, changing the view dramatically with their slightest movement. The combination of slippery mud and wet rocks made the path look like that in the jungles of children´s drawing books. The vegetation adjacent to the path was wet and flowery... wild flowery - flowers that have grown out of choice, and not by planning and nurturing.

The slight drizzle combined with the light wind made her skin titilate. Walking in such a weather, at such a height (couple thousand feet) amidst the Rain Forest and the Cloud Forest was an unforgettable experience. She felt like a small child out of a fairy tale, only alive to sing and walk with a springing gait, to ask questions to the trees and to get answers from the winds, to speak softly to the clouds and see the mountains move in unison, to be curious about her body, to question her life, her smile, her motivations, her ideaologies, her philosophy... her.

Who was she? Did it matter? What matters? What was the goal, if there was one? Happiness? Or happiness at ANY cost? How did one measure cost? What was the goal, again? Is it just a vicious circle of questions that get answered if the previous one gets answered? Does any previous one get answered?
Is thinking about this of any worth? Is ignorance really bliss? At what levels? Is she a human incorporation of all that she was taught in her school, home, travels etc? Or is there such a thing as original thought?
What if she was kept in a closed enclosure for 23 years? Would the intersection set of her thoughts then, and now, be non-empty?

Or should she just laugh and be merry now.. and be inquisitive about why she occasionally feels miserable for no reason?

Treking in the high mountains gives her a vague confidence... She thinks the same thoughts she once thoght in the Garhwal trek years ago...
Mountains don´t have a sense of beauty. For the mountain, there is no definition of a beautiful mountain. It is just the way it is. It does not try to fit in, or to become more like it´s role model mountain.
A mountain is.
It is happy the way it is. It does not try to do anything about it, but be itself.

That is why ALL mountains look beautiful. Or all rivers look appealing. They just are.

Does the capacity for thought make us want to improve ourselves? To fit in? Or to stand out? Or to become an epitome of all good things for others?
Why do we have a collective sense?

The path curves, and she sees an opening. The scene is perfect, except for one anomaly. Her.

Mujhko chaahiye Mummy ABHI!

As I sit amidst all the accumulated paraphernalia, an old receipt flies... out of rebellion. It has been stored in some god-forsaken packet for some months... only to be disposed off in an undignified manner.

Damn all this packing, damn all this fitting 3 months of clothing into one small ruck-sack, damn all those clothes that I always wanted to wear and never got the 'right time' to wear and how they stare at me coldly and mockingly, and damn all those 'extra lexi pens' that landed up in my XXL-sized stationary box... got in the world of computers, and damn all those mobiles and their respective chargers and the cameras and the batteries and the chargers and their converters.... and damn all those socks that I neither use nor dispose... and damn all those free printers and cheap tables, damn all those close-to-my-heart posters of humorous quotes, damn all those carefully written words of Tennyson whom I have gotten attached to simply by reading them regularly... damn all those burdensome memories with each possession that stops me from disposing them... and worries me because of the fact that I won't feel their absence if I don't see them.

Phew! I am tired of clearing up the clutter and discovering more.
It's a pandora's box of seemingly-useful-but-never-going-to-be-used-items.

Suddenly the essence of aparigraha sinks in. Jain philosophers got it all figured out thousands of years back.. and here I struggle and fight the battle against a captured cause.

I want mom to figure out all the flight tickets and the itineraries, and remember where I kept those passport size pictures, and do my last minute laundry... and do all this in her typical sthitapragya style, as if this were a piece of cake

Victim of Cliches

She was standing in the room, enjoying the performances.
He was standing in the room, evaluating the performances.

She was an audience.
He was one of them, a performer.

He had just performed.
And she had just applauded.

And then, he had moved down to give space to the next one.
And she continued enjoying the performances.

The room was dark... and she could see the bobbing of faces when the comedian struck with a good one. She could also see the girls in the first row enjoying the drunken oblivion more than the intellectual tickle of the humor.

She was enjoying her experience of a first hand stand-up comedy show.

She knew she was sorta lonely... in a sorta different way. It was quite a while since she had met someone who gave her pleasure... the real pleasure. The bliss of a smooth, coherent, complete conversation, or the joy of a carefully placed joke.

So, she was enjoying the part pleasure gotten out of this public event... where there was something beyond raw carnal pleasures.

And then she felt those eyes. His eyes. It was difficult to tell whether they really rested on her, or was it a trick played by the dim lights. She used her tried and tested stunts to see whether he was looking at her.

She still could not tell for sure.

Then she remembered, he had a squint. Hadn't he cracked a joke on his squint in his session?
Damm!! What a challenge now.

She looked at him a couple of times. She thought she saw the trace of a teasing smile. The show ended.

She prepared to leave.... and he stopped her. "Won't you have a drink?". She smiled. She got nervous.
This was unchartered territory. Had he been a Masters of Computer Science working in a successful corporation in the Bay Area, she had all her arsenal geared up for her assault. Or had he been a commerce student from Mumbai, she knew the movies he would have enjoyed.
Even if he were a firang with a lot of education, she knew some tricks of the trade that she could barter for more.

But he was like none before. Apurva. Or unprecedented!
A sparkling, confident, squint-but-not-affected-by-it comedian.

She could feel the silence heavy in her throat. What the hell does one talk to a comedian?? "Tell me a joke"... "Are you generally this funny, or are you working right now?".
She didn't know. She hadn't read an quotes on comedians either.

She liked challenges... as long as they were not insurmountable.

She smiled. Her smile was a powerful and universal asset. He smiled back. She ordered vodka with Orange juice. He asked her what she had ordered. She smiled and said, "I think it is tequila sunrise". He smiled. She had already goofed up. And how!!

But then, he was simple and unassuming. And they talked and talked. She was surprised. "Do you want to dance?", he asked. She was nervous again.. She knew she was good at dance. Hence she was nervous. "I know a really good Salsa place". She agreed.

It was an awesome place.. not one of the popular wannabe places where everyone wanted to see and be seen. It was a haunt of a handful faithful Mexicans who really knew their dance. She LOVED the music. And he danced sooo freaking well. She threw away her coat of inhibitions and did her real groove. They grooved in unison, two strangers connected only by the desire to enjoy without any hangups. She did all her moves, and he danced like crazy. They were a part of one huge bunch of people, all there to really enjoy dance. There were smiles and laughters and a feeling of genuine merriment. No one cared how their hair looked, or whether their stomachs bulged in the tight clothes, or whether they were being seen, or whether anyone else was dancing.
Everyones body fluidly lost in the music.

And then they left the place... to go to a better one. It was the terrace of a building. A breath-taking sight... one that is shown in the more expensive postcards of the city.

All the skyscrapers glazing with the lights, and all the stars competing against them... and winning. The distant sound of a boisterous laugh, the empty streets decorated by the yellow lights and an occasional speeding car, the light drizzle and the slight blow of the cold tantalizing breeze... and the feeling of being far far away from the burden of obligations or self-righteousness, or from accumulated guilt.

She smiled, with a sense of victory. These were those moments when she was swept away, when she was filled with joy enough to last her through another rough patch.
He smiled back. "You have beautiful hair... and there is something in your eyes, that's very... hmm... i don't have the right word".
She laughs. He laughs. "Do people always expect you to be funny?". "Yes."

She looks up. "Didn't I tell you it looks beautiful?", he asks. "Yes, it looks brilliant".

She looks at him, and is suddenly jealous. He is looking at her with one eye, and all the other brilliance with the other.

Can't remember that good title I thought for this post

I get an email from the university about refund on some bills. I smile, and add it in my mental list of "things to do". I realize that the list has only one item currently.

I have to go on a long drive, and I tell myself that I need to remember to buy an audio book. I try adding it to the mental link list of "things to do". I realize that the list contained an item. (the head pointer is not free). But what the hell was it???

I forget things at an alarming rate. Strangely enough, I always remember that I was "supposed to do something". But I hardly remember what that was.

Why can't the human mind register all the information anyway? Is it a personal handicap, or a generic way the mind works?

We sense a million things perhaps. And if one were to store everything one sensed, one's mind
would be filled with a lot of "junk". So, there is selective remembrance. The awareness captures all. But the conscious mind retains a significantly small subset of it. To give an analogy, in all its lifetime, it retains a handful of sand from a vast beach it has to choose from.

At least this is what "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" says.

But my 2-pence worth questions:-
1. Is the conscious mind under control of the volition of its rightful owner?
Can I select what I want to remember?

2. Is the lifetime of the memory I choose to remember under my control?
For instance, if I see a simple quote in a shop in San Francisco, and I really want to remember it long enough to tell my kids. Do I have a choice of adding the "lifespan" parameter when I store this particular piece of information in my mind?
(The saying was: May you live long enough to annoy your kids.
Now that I write it, I dont think it is witty. And I think that is primarily because I dont remember the exact wordings. Duh!!)

3. How is it that when I see only the roads, I dont remember having come there before. But when I see the roads coupled with the buildings and the skyline and some more factors, I remember having seen it before.
Is it that the conscious mind does not retain individual parts, but retains the "entire capture"? If so, what encompasses the capture? Just the entire snapshot? Or the snapshot with the sounds and smells of the place? Or the snapshot, sounds and smells, AND an incident that occurred there?


Too many questions on how memory works.

If only I can remember at least the directions when I look them up and sincerely memorize. But I still have to keep the laptop on front seat and cautiously keep consulting the open page.

aha!

You may try to party, go out with random people in a big boisterous group and enjoy the illusion of making merry, but it's a phone call from an old friend who calls to hear your voice that you truly enjoy. It's the orkut scrap of a roomie who says "stop being a bitch and come back" that one enjoys more than all the compliments one gets in a month!

You may try on all the clothes in Macy's and Marshals and everything in between... but it's when someone special gives you a second look when you are in an old worn-out jacket that makes you look beautiful.

You may eat an un-pronounce-able plate at the fancy Chinese restaurant, and feel upbeat about it. But it's when the Bay Area version of dahi bateta puri melts in your mouth that you feel the epicurean within you moan with pleasure.

You may consume the hard core tequilla shots or have sake with your food... but it's when you laugh with unstoppable momentum at a classic joke, that you get the real high.

You may feign enjoying the subtleties of Superbowl... but it's when you see all the males of your house cheer for team India in cricket world cup that makes you feel the adrenaline within you gushing.

There will be intellectually stimulating men around you... but it's when your chaddi-pal (who has now become rather interesting) pulls a couple of hard-hitting jokes on you that you really appreciate intellect.

You may take and hear and overhear piles of advice... but it's when you take a step, and falter, and stand up again, and find the courage to admit to yourself that you failed, that you really grow...

You may enjoy all the thrills of the witty sayings on Google... but it's when a revelation hits you at an unsuspecting moment, and you articulate it with brilliance, that you find a quote worth remembering...


You may read all you want... and write random thoughts.. but it's when you are in a confounding situation with steep consequences and a significant amount of 'pressure' that you really realize what you want. Perhaps.

:)

Driving crazy!

400 miles. Or a little more than Mumbai to Goa.
That is what I drove in ONE DAY.

Yesterday was an exceptional day. It was when I drove the most... probably drove more in one day than I did in all the years before.
Yesterday was also when I discovered that I was such a good company :)

I laughed... I cried... I screamed with joy and anticipation.. I played games with the music... and won!

I changed moods from being excited about the drive... to laughing at my incompetency at taking the correct exits... to apprehensions about a blaring fire brigade who was struggling to get past me... to the loneliness in a dark road with such nothingness in the rear-view mirror that I was convinced that it was at a wrong angle... to the thrill of getting down in the snow to fill gas... to the adrenaline pumping at 92 miles per hour... to the swaying to the tunes emotion-loaded songs of Atif and Kabhie Kabhie...

It all ended happily... or unhappily (coz I did not once want to reach the destination).

It was one of those times when I could do nothing but think... and at most listen to songs.
It was when I had all my thoughts and all my privacy... and all the freedom.
It was when I looked back at life, evaluated it categorically, re-lived the moments of euphoria and laughed at the sad moments, analyzed my expectations, compartmentalized them into realistic and ambitious... and all those things that one ought to do. One ought to take a periodic break and re-calculate.

Now I have a better picture of what to do :)

Also, an idea for my entrepreneurship list - an automatic camera mounted on a car... and a click on the dashboard. Pretty cool huh?
:)