Your 30s Are For...

...realizing that while you possess the intellectual capacity to contemplate the deeper puzzles of life and pursue them to their artistic, philosophical or academic conclusion (on or off social media), you actively choose not to, instead devoting much of your free time to constructing penis & fart jokes.
Until you are confronted with a situation that demands you summon your highest self and act from a place of reason, nuance, kindness and empathy. In which case, you influence outcomes as positively as you can (from voting mindfully in an election, to helping an old person cross the road or being kind to a telemarketer) so that you can go back - as soon as possible - to your raison d'être i.e. constructing penis & fart jokes.

https://edwardsheridan.wordpress.com/2014/04/21/raison-detre/

Quote

"But plans are one thing and fate another. When they coincide, success results. Yet success mustn't be considered the absolute. It is questionable, for that matter, whether success is an adequate response to life. Success can eliminate as many options as failure."

~ Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get The Blues

Even Cowgirls Get The Blues

In Wonderment of Jose Mujica

Sometimes the robotic clicking of a remote can lead you to fantastic things.
Like this Christiane Amanpour interview of Uruguay's president Jose Mujica.
Read the CNN article here:

It's so refreshing to see someone in political life, let alone a president, who doesn't talk like a slick car salesman.

On relations with the US:
What is it like for a former Marxist guerrilla to enter the White House, that most potent of Western’s symbols?
“I cannot deny reality,” he told Amanpour. “I don't know whether I like this planet or not, but I have to accept it.”
There is not just one “United States,” he said. Yes, the country wields tremendous – “scary” – influence in Latin America, and the relationship between the region and America has a troubled history full of attempted coups and CIA operatives.
“However,” he said, “there's also a big debate in the States. There's human progress. There's a technological and scientific development that helps the whole of humanity. So we cannot just put everything in one bag and just say one word to describe the U.S.”
“I know that the U.S. is a bit of a global policeman, but I also recognize something really positive about the U.S. which has helped humanity.”

On Uruguay legalizing marijuana: 
“It is a measure against trafficking, drug dealing. We are trying to snatch the market away from them, because it's 80 years now that we are repressing drug use.”
“So like everywhere in the world, repression by itself doesn't do the job. We are trying to find another way.”
Regulating use of the drug, he suggested, could even lead to a decrease in usage.
“When you surround that with this forbidden aura, you are actually calling the younger to take it up. However, if you place it as a controlled product that you can purchase at the chemist – like some other drugs like morphine, which is used for certain prescriptions – then we are taking the mystery out of marijuana and we hit the drug dealers.”

On his past life as a political prisoner:
“If you catch a black ant, a normal common ant, you grab her with two fingers, you put her right inside your ear, and you hear it scream,” he told Amanpour. “But of course you need time to do that. And you have to be really lonely.”
“When you spend a long time by yourself in solitary confinement, a frog, a rat that comes to eat because you leave some crumbs there – it's life. It's the life you have there.”

On being the 'poorest president in the world':
He donates 97% of his salary, drives a 1987 Volkwagen Beetle – the original “peoples’ car” – and sells flowers with his wife at their home.
Mujica, a former Marxist guerrilla, lives in the same modest Montevideo house he always has, forgoing the presidential palace.
“I do not need much to live. I live in the same way I used to live when I wasn’t a president and in the same neighborhood, in my same house, and in the same way. And I am a republican” – small ‘r.’
“I live like the majority in my country lives. It was a majority who voted for me. And that's why I identify with them. Morally, I do not have the right to live like a minority in my country.”

*****

On a totally whacked-out tangent, the only other politician who seems to be (relatively speaking) a straight-talker and someone who doesn't beat about the bush (too much) when answering journalists' questions is the mega-creepy Amit Shah.
Watch his interview with CNN-IBN's Rajdeep Sardesai and tell me if I've lost it:

On The Endless Waiting To Be Understood

Tough love dished out by Anton Chekov to his brother, Nikolai:

"You often complain to me that people 'don't understand' you. But even Goethe and Newton made no such complaints. Christ did, true, but he was talking about his doctrine, not his ego. People understand you all too well. If you don't understand yourself, then it's nobody else's fault."

Find the full text here: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2013/07/every-hour-is-precious.html

******

On a slightly different but related note: The final spoken verse from 'Mori Araj Suno' sung by Tina Sani with Arieb Azhar (Coke Studio Pakistan, Season 3)

Iss surat seh arz sunatay
Dard batatay, Nayya khaitay
Minnat kartay, Rasta taktay
Kitni sadiyaan beet gai hain 
Ab jakar yeh bhaid khulla hai
Jis koh tum ne arz guzari
Jo tha haat pakadnay waala
Jis jaag laagi nao tumhaari
Jis say dukh ka daaroo manga
Toray mandir may joh nahin aaya
Woh to tum heen thay
Woh to tum heen thay

Translation (with some alterations, from here)

With this visage, you plead
Recounting your pain, Rowing your boat
Asking to be blessed
Then waiting expectantly...
Countless centuries have passed this way
Only now to reveal
The one whom you had appealed to
The one who held your hand and guided you
The dock where you anchored your boat
The healer you sought a panacea from
The one who did not visit your temple...
...Was you all along
It was you all along

Happy Republic Day (or the Justice Verma Committee Report)

 The constitutional guarantee of the right to equality....

(Urgency of response) from everyone in the world except those who are supposed to act on it....

If the politicians and others don't see the writing on the wall....the people of this country, particularly the youth, will not forgive them...

If there is a murderer or rapist, do you think he's going to support a law that culls murder or rape?....

(Swearing into public office of Himachal Pradesh leader accused of murder of Dalit woman) An affront to the dignity of the people of India...

In 29 days....if we could gear up a bunch of youngsters to help us, the government with all its might & infrastructure if it can't do that, it would be exposing itself to the criticism of lack of capacity to govern...

For anyone to think that sexual assault would in anyway be associated with the performance of any official task, well, needs to think again....there is something radically wrong with that thinking....

If the DGPs (Director-Generals of Police) didn't respond...thinking they are insulting me or my committee, they are living in a make believe world because it goes to show their apathy to their duty....and the issue of gender justice, which is the constitutional right of every woman in the country...

If there are such insensitive people to this important cause holding the highest office, a serious, prompt review of each of them is required....

Talking about police (and electoral) reforms - isn't it related to gender issues? Anyone who says we exceeded the brief must be having a very narrow vision...

****************

Sometimes, when someone in a place of authority speaks simply & logically, the supreme-level bullshit rhetoric and dangerous platitudes offered to us by others suddenly become exposed and we're reminded that we can't afford to get tied up in knots anymore.

http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/your-call/no-response-from-those-meant-to-act-on-my-report-says-justice-verma/263015

Obsessed

With

BBC One's Sherlock based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes Mysteries
Image Courtesy 'Eat Sleep Draw'

Probably because

“The Implicit Holmes”, Edgar W. Smith, 1946

And then there is inspired retelling of the Holmes' mysteries in the modern age and the logic of why it needed to be done:

Mark Gatiss, writer of BBC One's 'Sherlock':
"This may sound like heresy but really it isn't. Although Steven and I are second to none in loving the flaring gas-lit atmosphere of a lovely old London, it felt as though Sherlock Holmes had become all about the trappings and not the characters.
Also, the original stories are models of their kind. Incredibly modern, dialogue-driven, fast paced and short! What better way to get back to the roots of these fantastic creations than to make Holmes and Watson living, breathing, modern men just as they had been originally?"

Sahi

The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.
~ John Steinbeck

Fiction writing which does not acknowledge the uncertainty of the narrator himself is a form of imposture.
~ W.G. Sebald

He Just Wanted To Be A Real Boy

Sometimes things just take time

I like when the unlikely character makes it.

A few years ago, I was watching Paris Je T'aime for the second time - having fallen asleep midway the last time it came on TV (not the film's fault, I was exhausted). I'm glad I stayed awake through to the end because the final story '14e Arrondissement' by Alexander Payne reached right inside me and made me cry. 

This was the genius of Margo Martindale - whose name, I'm ashamed to say I didn't know until last evening when the 2011 Emmys were broadcast in India. It was a great evening for unlikely characters. Peter Dinklage won. The funny women of American TV gathered en masse on stage and suddenly I had a glimpse of what the world might look like one day when more women were at the top of not just their game but THE game.

Miss Martindale is as far from the LA cookie-cutter star as your imagination can take you. She fumbles, bumbles, sobs most unprettily, does not have great posture or body, is not a 22-year-old 60 year old and she has never, until very recently, been recognized for her powerful talent.

Then this happens to her:

And in her acceptance speech I find the faith I sometimes struggle to have in my own life: "Sometimes things just take time..."

Twittervada - How Twitter Helped Me Gain Inner Peace

There is a story about the ancient sage, Adi Shankaracharya, that my Indian Philosophy teacher loved to tell us undergrads.
Once, on one of his many book-signings across the land, Shankaracharya was confronted by one of those annoying followers who only follow you to make wise-ass comments on everything you say.

"O Wise Man," said he, "If you were in a jungle and you came upon a man-eating tiger, would you run away?"
"Why, yes, @Disciple67456, I would," said @Shankar_ARox.
"But why? You only said everything is maya no? Then even the tiger is maya. Hehe."
"That may be so, idiot child, but so is everything else. Which makes the world my material self lives in, real for now. So, when the tiger gnaws on my ankle, it may be maya. But unless I attain moksha right about then, it will still hurt like a bitch."

Disciple67456, suitably enlightened, went on to RT Shankaracharya's words to all his tweeps. But what relevance does this story have to me & my inner peace? You see, being a Twitter whore has helped me understand the material world a little bit better.

* Hari Om Twat Sat*

1. Fresh as a freshly powdered baby bottom: When we sign up on Twitter, our profiles are pure. We can be whoever we wish to be - funny, confessional, depressed, suicidal, attention-junkies, newshounds, stalkers, leaders, individualists or cult-members. There is no desire to acquire followers. There is no desire to create virtual bonds with unknown people. The fact that our neighbours, relatives and friends are on our lists is good enough. Ah the innocence, sigh....

2. The New World: However, if your pure soul is unemployed and has access to too much free time & broadband, it begins to uncover the cliques that exist on Twitter. Soon, the Dalai Lama has been unfollowed, replaced instead by Shit My Dad Says and the descent has begun. (Which is ironic, since this 'descent' is misinterpreted by the Tweeter as an ascent up the Twitterati ladder. People, who abandoned their budding careers as rockstars to become bankers will identify.)
At this stage, as with any stage in life, one has a choice to disengage and not get sucked under the veil of illusion...

3. Part Becomes Whole: So this Tweeter has spent a couple of weeks/ months navigating this bewildering soup of 140 characters. She's sifted through thousands of Twitter profiles and what remains is a list of brilliantly funny, raging & sarcastic buggers. The idea that Twitter is a vast universe full of endless possibilites (a notion held right at the very beginning, when signing up) has now been whitled down. The Tweeter becomes further myopic. She begins to believe that Twitter, as a whole, is a brilliantly funny & raging place full of sarcastic buggers.
Ignorance.

4. The Switch: Deep within, the tweeter is always aware that this is not real. That there is a world outside Twitter, where she is a more complete person. More loving, giving & prone to random acts of kindness (also capable of tremendous feats like giving flesh-and-blood hugs). Yet, she disregards that inner awareness. She begins to change. She begins to unleash her negativity. The more she descends into the hallucination, the more popular she becomes.
She now makes a fatal mistake.

5. But You Said You Loved Me: The Tweeter begins to believe what the 'voices' on Twitter are saying. After all, she is being discussed in third person by strangers and her brain vomit is now being tracked by some of the most respected writers she has admired in the blogosphere. The illusions of grandeur know no stopping. She believes she has discovered the meaning of love. Worse still, she stops reading books.

6. The Fall: Then something stupid happens. She becomes an object on Twitter. Others begin to sexualize her, vilify her, worship her. They, equally ignorant in this mayalicious world of Twitter, have lost the ability to see beyond the DP. (People who humiliate security guards performing safety checks at malls will identify). She realises that no matter how many times she is retweeted, she is in fact alone and this, in truth, is not reality. Bummer.

7. Enlightenment: She puts on her pants and goes for a walk. Outside.

*Hari Om Twat Sat*
 ---------------------------------
Read also: 7 Deadly Kinds of Twitter Followers at 42
                 So Much To Say at Oculus to Oculus

Apologizing: For Dummies

When our mummies and daddies were teaching us to say 'Sorry' and 'Thank you' to gali-waley-Uncle & next-door-Aunty, many of them neglected to explain the finer nuances of these niceties. I'll save the 'Thank You' for another day...
...Because saying sorry, to steal a page from Elton Uncle's songbook, sometimes really does seem to be the hardest word.

An apology incorrectly made can cause more damage than good. Therefore I've prepared what I feel is a comprehensive of Do's and Don'ts in the aftermath of a blunder that needs to be atoned for:

1. Inflection:The tonal quality of your apology is of paramount importance. Before you craigslist 'vocal coaches near Shalimar Bagh', let me assure you, you don't need the chops of a Groban to do it right. 'Sorry' is a word that's said slowly and with deliberation. Not to be barked out in an 'eat my shit' tone. If you choose the latter approach do not be surprised if the Wronged One throws you a swift one-two in the 'nads.

2. Prefixes and Suffixes: Sorry is often accompanied by words either preceding or succeeding it. Choice of these words is indispensable to an effective apology. Words like 'Really', 'Extremely' and 'So' are great when used before the sorry. The word 'Fine!' and 'But' are counter-productive to the apologizing process when used before and after the sorry, respectively.

3. Facial Expression: All veteran Fucker Uppers know that a solid sorry is only complete with the appropriate sorry face. This does not mean channeling the Olsen twins (circa 1990) and making poochie faces. An insincere apology can be spotted from a mile away - especially if your eyes wander over her shoulders to catch the umpteenth rerun of the friggin IPL. The apologizer MUST channel the adult in him (hard, but worth the effort), look deep into the eyes of the Wronged One and take responsibility for being a champion bozo.

4. To the Pros: Some smarties amongst us figured out long ago that the best away to reduce time spent in the doghouse is to immediately apologize. They've got the inflection, prefixes and facial expressions down pat. However, they are eventually recognized as repeat offenders and much like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, get a rather gory ending.

5. Intent: And so we get to our next essential point:Apologize only when you mean it. Only when you acknowledge that your actions messed someone up. If you don't get it, save your breath for when you go hunting for new friends.

6. Sorry isn't a standalone word: Just saying sorry without conveying what you're sorry about makes no sense. The bigger the mess, the longer the discussion must be. Sorry boys - try to stay awake.

7. Sorry cannot be replaced with expensive gifts: This does NOT however mean that it can't be accompanied by them.

8. Sorry cannot be said via email or sms: Do not - I repeat - do NOT use the internet or a pager to do your dirty work - unless you are trapped under a 20 tonne truck and have just enough life-force left in you to text the Sorry template to the Wronged One.

9. Sorry cannot be conveyed through Third-Party: Saying sorry through beloved sister, mother or best bud is wrong. If it's done through an ex-girlfriend, that's even worse. There's no excuse for third-party-apologizing unless there's a restraining order against you; in which case you've made bigger messes than the one you're apologizing for.

10. Follow On: An apology means nothing if your subsequent actions don't back up the apology. "Sorry I frolicked with Seeta" does not work if you're out partying with Geeta 2 weeks later.
----------------

PS: One will notice that this blog assumes that most of the apologizing will be done by men. Since, it is in this blogger's experience that 99.93214% of the times it is in fact the male Homo Sapien who fucks up (and since said blogger is only 0.06786% imperfect), this post has been tailored accordingly.
For those who disagree, two words: Jesse James.
For those who still disagree: Sorry.

Rowing That Darned Boat

Was talking to a close friend yesterday about being chronically single and battling a horrific fear of intimacy at a rapidly advancing age.
I told him how, just that morning, I'd walked into a book store (my path to inner peace goes via the shopping mall) and stumbled upon a touching tableau - a mother buying her infant daughter her first book.
Now I've seen squealing babies in the park, I've seen kids snuggling up to their mummies and daddies, who lovingly wipe the snot and spit off their faces and I've gotten sentimental enough. But this image was mine. This was supposed to be my thing to do with my kid - bonding over Dr. Seuss or See Spot Run or Jataka Tales. It made me very weepy (I've been a bit of an MCD tap lately - waterworks when least expected, dry when required).

So, as I was saying - I spoke to my friend about my moment and he seemed most unimpressed. He's a couple of years older than I am, as woefully single as me and I suspect, as clueless as I am about what goes into making a healthy, grown-up, intimate relationship with a member of the opposite sex. When I told him I felt I had missed the boat he was vociferous in his belief that I was very much on that boat, that I'd not tipped overboard yet.

How do you know?
Because I'm rowing that boat. And there are plenty others on it.
I'm not alone?
You're not alone.
So, you're rowing this boat and you're sure I'm on it with you?
Uh-huh.
And you say there are others right with me?
Yup. The boat is abso-friggin-full.

*Silence*

So we're on this boat in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by a bunch of people all headed for the same destination,all hoping to stop feeling alone?

That's right.

Errr...

Ritual

On the last day of every year, since I was in school, I've been making journal entries that sum up the year : mostly things I'm grateful for, experiences and people that propelled me to the next level of personal growth (or were just a lot of fun).

For some reason, I'm unable to do the same thing this year. Not because I'm not grateful - this year has been singularly life-affirming, the ups and downs have been monumental but not catastrophic and I feel as though I've surfed through them and emerged more intact than I was going in. So it's not lack of gratitude, rather it's the insistence of two words, buried deep inside & dying to come out, that makes me do things differently...

The first is Fear. For as far back as I can recall, this word has held me in a vice-like grip. So much so that I'd started to believe it was inseparable from me. Fear in speaking my mind, fear in liking what I liked, fear in living the way I wanted, fear in reaching out to other people, fear of allowing others to reach me. Fear of the dark, fear of the outside, fear of the new, fear of the unknown, fear of the future, fear of everything I didn't immediately understand and fear of myself. Last year, I began to grasp where this fear was coming from and how it had sometimes saved me from myself. This year, I realised it was time to let it go. Fear had served its purpose and now it must leave.

2010 then, must kickstart the Year...no, the Decade of No Fear. It must be one where I speak my truth, live the life I know I was put on this planet to live and be the most authentic version of myself as I possibly can. I'm excited.

The other word is Trust. It's come up a lot in the last two weeks, more in the context of 'lack of'. I hurled it at someone and had it hurled back at me. When I launched my 'No Trust' missile, I meant no harm, thinking it was nothing more than armour to protect me. How could it ever cause damage? But when it was lobbed back at me (meant, I'm sure, to innocently graze my shoulder and whizz past) I realised just how explosive and destructive it could be.
Trust, I realised, isn't this flaky tool of the weakling or the naive. It isn't detrimental to my inner strength. It doesn't take away from my ability to protect myself. Trust, in fact, allows me to experience everything I've been too chicken to experience all this time.

I don't know...things are still a bit jumbled up in my head. When I say I'd like to trust, I mean it. And I also know that like 'Love', it is more an action than a word. I have no idea how I will allow this word to become a living, breathing organism. As for today, I guess I can start at the very beginning. I can start with trusting the process of life.

Girl Before A Mirror: A Facebook-ish Critique

Having already been told by Facebook on an earlier occasion that I would meet my maker via lethal injection and that I have a couple of secret admirers pining for me somewhere on this planet, I didn't expect much from a quiz called 'A Painting That is Me'.
But then the Girl Before A Mirror by Pablo Picasso popped up claiming to be, well, me.

After the ooo-look-at-all-the-colours reaction (I love visual art but am not the most educated about it), the next thing I noticed was her body. Shite! How does Facebook know about my tummy? How does Facebook know that horizontal stripes look like crap on me? How does Facebook know about my struggles with my hairdo? And how does Facebook know what a non-traditionally great looking babe I am?

Then and only then did I turn my attention to (forgive me, Pablo) the mirror and the fact that she stands opposite it, not just looking at but reaching out to her reflection. According to me the actual girl is way prettier than her reflection (a fact she'll never know, so focused is she on what she sees, thinking that this is what everyone else sees of her as well). I love the half moons of her face - much more serene than her reflection. There are powers this girl possesses that her reflection never will. Yet, she clings to that reflection.

I've been doing a lot of 'mirror work' recently. It's a meditative process of sorts, a highly charged and extremely powerful way to get to the core of oneself and make changes at that elemental level. It involves chanting positive affirmations to oneself while looking deep into your own eyes. It's a completely no-bullshit technique, you can't hide from yourself. If you feel ridiculous, there are things to uncover, if you feel resistant there are things to uncover and if you feel a deep sense of sadness there are things that need to be healed.

And then one day, you look into that mirror and you say something fabulous to yourself and your insides don't fight it. They vibrate with the recognition of the words you're saying. The reflection and reflected come together.

Keep It Simple Stupid

Have money, will spend
Have time, will write
Have friends, will laugh
Have rhythm, will dance
Have song, will sing
Have gravity, will jump
Have love, will make
Have breath, will live


(Please don't sue me, xkcd.com...it's just that you're so good)

Recurring Dream

I have a recurring dream, where I'm either at the airport or making my way there, extremely excited because I'm taking a flight out to Anywhere-But-Here.
However, each and every time my best laid plans are thwarted due to some silly reason or the other. Either I've left my passport at home, or I lose my luggage, or I go the bathroom just before the flight's supposed to take off and I miss it. Once, I missed my flight because I forgot to pack underwear & decided to go home to get some. I thought I'd make it back in time. I didn't.
It is the MOST frustrating dream one could have - worse than being chased by wild animals or being stuck in a burning building or hiding from terrorists (all of which used to be recurring dreams but then stopped for some reason) - because I can almost taste the freedom of getting way, I can feel the promise of something new on my skin...and then I get left behind.

Perhaps this has something to do with my grandmother. She built a house for herself by the sea. She spent her whole retirement gathering things to decorate her house with. She did it up, furnished it from top to bottom - all for that day when she would move triumphantly into the apartment she'd built with her entire life's savings. Then a few days before she was supposed to move in bag and baggage, she had a massive heart attack and died.

The other night, I told you this story of my grandmother's passing. Just as I was getting to its moral for me ("Don't just spend all your time & energy planning. Learn when to take the plunge."), you say - "It sounds like your grandmother was really happy when she died...knowing that she'd realised her biggest dream."
As I looked at you, I felt a release. I laughed, then you did and we both couldn't stop for the longest time.

Perhaps because my flight had taken off the runway and I was finally on it.

Learning To Accept the Good

Here's a lesson for everyone who feels they've been shortchanged, that the world is full of mean-spirited people, that goodness is only exchanged for a price.

We need to start trusting again. Tough as hell. Tough not to keep looking for loopholes, tough not to keep wondering when that pound of flesh will be extracted. Tough to believe that the goodness is there just because.

But what if there's a teeny-tiny, infinitesimal chance that it's all for real? That the decency, generosity and concern is as natural as the air I breathe? What if it's as basic as my god-given right to exist on this planet.

Well then, as David Duchovny told Benicio Del Toro in a fairly pretentious movie, I have to learn to 'Accept the Good'. I just hope that I learn to do it before the Good gets tired of waiting around and leaves to go to someone who won't doubt its very existence.

Prayers Work

I grew up in a largely irreligious household (is that a word? 'Irreligious'? It should be. Now it is). We didn't visit temples, we didn't have an alter at home. I saw my paternal grandfather do his daily prayers. A highly disciplined man, I always thought that was part of his morning ritual, not very different from that first sip of coffee perfectly timed with the unfurling of the newspaper.

My maternal grandmother was the first adult to infuse me with a real sense of 'faith'. My sister and I would meet her over our summer holidays. She would line up all us grandkids and teach us the basic Gayatri Mantra and Sri Vishnu Sahasranamam. I enjoyed these sessions thoroughly because she was a 'fun' grandparent and injected everything with laughter and joy. [Today these prayers are on Youtube and as I listen to them, the sounds of my childhood and my beloved Ammamma come back to me.] I once asked her why she prayed as much as she did and more importantly why she wanted us to do the same. She answered that as I grew up and moved through life, I would need these prayers more and more. That when all seemed blurry and confused, my faith and these prayers would stand me in good stead.

She died when I was 12 and I got busy being a troubled teenager. I forgot the Gayatri Mantra and only remembered the first two words of the Sahasranamam. I had no idea what it meant to have faith in anything unshakable. I relied completely on my own resources and made a mess of most things.

In my late twenties, I began a journey back to myself. I met a wonderful therapist and started reading important books. I worked hard on understanding where I came from and took responsibility for landing where I had. Then, one morning, I returned to prayer. Completely devoid of my own spiritual anchors, I drew on the faith of my grandmother. I hinged all the hopes of my fractured self on the fact that she had once, more than 15 years ago, told me that when all else failed, prayer would help me.

My prayers were not like hers at all. They were in English and derived from a self-help book. The first few times I said them, I felt desperate, needy and ridiculous all at the same time. I said them anyway. Then I said them again the next day and the next. By the second week, I didn't care that there weren't immediate, tangible results. I felt lighter because I was sharing the load with something else. I was letting someone else carry the burden for a while. The more I prayed for good things, the more my insides began to believe that I deserved the good things. The more I believed I deserved it, the more I - consciously and subconsciously - went after the good things. The results were surprising. I did get - and continue to get - amazing gifts everyday that I'd never imagined possible.

But what really surprises me is the change in my insides. I have always thought that I'm a depressive type. But I've always known that I have a place of joy inside me that's more real than the depressive aspect. The depression has always followed me like a shadow but I've never been able to access the joy, beyond occasional snatches. I was beginning to believe that life is mostly sad with a handful of happy moments thrown in to keep us going. I never imagined that things could be the other way round too.

I can't aptly describe what prayer does for me. I know that it affects me at my cellular level. I know that it has changed my DNA to a large extent. It helps me work harder at things that mean something to me. I give up less easily and things are more fraught with meaning than ever before. I carry it like a legacy from my grandmother, a protective layer that takes care of me. The more I believe in it, the more energy I feed into my prayers, the stronger its influence becomes in my life. The more my life lights up.

(Sculpture by Allan Houser)

Have I Lived Enough?

If there is one question that's plagued me since the age of 15 it is - Have I lived enough?
The definition of 'lived' has changed several times. I've tried to map out its chronology:

1996-2000:
Have I been to enough 'girl-boy' parties?
Have I smoked enough cigarettes?
Have I tried all varieties of Kingfisher beer more than thrice?
Have I studied enough ancient Indian, Greek, Western philosophy?
Have I entered enough inter-college competitions?
Do I have enough people who like me?

2000-2003:
Have I travelled enough across India?
Have I survived enough night edits?
Have I behaved sufficiently badly on said night edits?
Have I made sufficient money?
Have I 'struggled' enough to tell stories of it when I'm 50 and sitting in an air conditioned office ordering my minions about?
Do I have enough long-haired, male friends?

2003-2006:
Have I been daring enough to throw away everything I've worked for because I'm 'not happy'?
Have I done enough narcotics (no harder than E)?
Have I been stoned/ drunk for a sufficient stretch of time without break?
Have I met a sufficient number of 'crazed yet artistically-inclined' people?
Have I lived on my own & been poverty stricken enough?
Have I had enough 'near death' experiences?

2006-2009:
Have I been hugged enough?
Have I been outdoors enough?
Have I been brave enough?
Have I been kissed enough?
Have I been vulnerable enough?
Have I had enough therapy?
Have I made enough phone calls to powerful people?
Have I worked hard enough at improving my writing?
Have I travelled enough across the globe?
Have I heard enough cool music?
Have I fought enough for what I want?

Art of Loving

We keep forgetting that we have an infinite capacity to love. Love that is separate from lust, infatuation, vanity, codependency or guilt.
Love of the simple kind, the kind we have an unending supply of.

Ok, I'm off to my satsang now...hyuk
:P

Being Stupid

Conventional wisdom would beg the question – Why would you dive headlong into a situation that has a huge chance of blowing up in your face?

Because all I’ve done these last few years is follow conventional wisdom. It worked wonderfully and brought me to this point – now, I’m ready to be stupid again.

Because stupid is fun, because stupid makes the world go round and because stupid lets you feel more things than safe. Because I have a feeling it’s possible to be stupid and safe, all at the same time.