the spirit is willing but the flesh has been lethargic

It's been a few years since I last posted. The reasons I give to convince myself range from hectic schedules to new set of priorities. But it also boils down to a whole lot of lethargy.. Hopefully I shall be able to be pen my thoughts and ramblings more often this time. 

Red Earth and Pouring Rain(with due apologies to Vikram Chandra)

The monsoon has arrived with much gusto. Besides nostalgia, twilight evenings, wine and romance (and pnuemonia) in the air, it has also laden my city of lousy infrastructure with traffic chaos, short tempers and non- exsistent roads.

The road outside my residence now looks like a bad patch of the Paris Dakar car rally route. What little tarmac I see everyday seems to be engulfed with red earth.
All doomsday soothsayers would rejoice if they happened to pass by. Human presence has considerably shrunk and canine, amphibian and bovine population seems to have increased.

When God said "Go forth and multiply", I am sure the dogs in my area heard it first. At any point of time, there are atleast 8 pooches in packs, 2 cows mulching wisely at car tyres or old slippers and one mega crater like pothole.

The Municipal Council in all its wisdom has decided that the monsoon is a good time to build upon the communication mess and has dug up most of the road too and to make sure people do not get electicuted have put a small red cloth to the wire which serves its purpose to that of a G string on Carmen Electra or a clinging wet chiffon sari to Sridevi !!!!

The Gita states "Na Hanyate Hanyamane Sarire" which roughly translated means " Consciousness is eternal and it is not vanquished with the destruction of the temporary body"”. I am forced to think of this when i drive on the road everyday.

I must stop now as my rantings are getting quite rabid...

Mid week blues..

A wedding invitation which was sent by one of the misguided souls at work has made me shed my laziness and write about it here..

What is it with wedding invitations?
While my wife always cribs that our wedding invitation read like a formal business dinner invitation, I find that wedding invitations are getting more and more kitschy.

Like the one read yesterday which goes on the lines of “Please do come and be a part of one of our happiest moments of our life..." or something else which spoke of "All hearts becoming one".

Well, I have hypertension and do take valsartan tablets. I am sure the newly wedded ones would not want my heart hobnobbing with theirs.

Also, Another glowing example of man becoming less of a social animal and more of an animal in the digital era manifested itself in the morning today.

My neighbour who with great insight told me in the lift that he had sent me a mail about a function in his house scheduled for this Saturday.

Conversation went on these lines -
Neighbour: "Vivek, I see we have met again in the lift"
Vivek (not being very bright in the day before 2 cups of espresso" with weak smile (a la Bela Lugosi before he sunk fangs into forlorn women in Dracula movies of old) - "Yes"
Neighbour - "I have sent a mail yesterday regarding a function in my house, Please check and respond"
Vivek - "I will do that, What is the function about and where is .."
Lift reaches basement ..

Neighbour - "Got to leave, check mail, It will tell all. Have a good day ahead..."

Parting shot - "Please read mail the first thing in the morning and send me a mail. I need to plan for the food..."

Well, if that was not surreal, I do not know what is?
Even if I had plans of reading the twerp’s mail, I will not do so now in addition to boycotting the event...

Dec 6 2006 - Do I have a life or what?

another day working late. is this getting to eb a habit or have I turned into a low life form who has no social behaviourial habits. to rub salt into my wounds, my mother lectures me about neighbours who are home by 5pm and take regular holidays.
she definitely is getting back for all the tiding up of the room I never did when I was a kid !!!

The only advantage of late night outs are working in peace without the phone ringing every 10 minutes and the blogging !!!
Called home to find the clan asleep. Why oh Why oh Why

Dec 5, 2006 - Late night ramblings

After months of non activity on the blog front (no thanks to horrid work and , ennui), I realised I had vegetated. Between a client video conference and some tepid expresso, decided to check if my Blogspot account still existed and glory be - yes it did !!

white beard and stubble rash

the last few months have been mundane. life has continued at a humdrum pace with things alternating between work, late hours and absolute rusting of grey cells. to try out something different and entertain myself, i grew a french beard or a goatee as its properly called by the nexus of un employed poets, down and out street performers and the supposedly uber cool crowd.

results were varied - wife complains of stubble rash if i smooch her, son said i looked like a tarantula (did not have the heart to ask him why)
the beard is like a gumboil. it is annoying at first and then it grows on you. if its not around, its like missing a woman in your life. on the flip side, everyone knows when i have had noodles, white hair creeps in at an alarming rate making it look like a horde of termites have had a field day.

to shave or not to shave that is the question.....

chianti sutra

over the last couple of months I have seen my self transgress from a man to a drone going through the motions. it may be winter ennui. it could be the listless work but its quite apparent there's been a lack of passion in the things I do.

on sunday, i noticed my little son spend time dismantling things meticulously with his cycle. Whatever he was doing looked laboriously boring to me but passionate to him . His sole aim was to grind crayons under his tricycle wheel.
The gameplan was simple, the execution near perfect. the result disastorous for the crayons and his parents but triumphic for him.

within 30 minutes, he had ground a dozen crayons and had also dirtied the marble flooring not to mention his tri cycle wheels. He had also incurred grandmother caution, maternal wrath and father's look of annoyance.

On a casual note, the crayons were all gone but he didn't think so. it was quite apparent to him that life did lurk within those wasted objects. Life which had to be dealt with. he grouped the dismembered crayons together and drove the cycle all over it again.
This bought to mind something I had seen on CNN during the war on terror. An highly sophisticated million dollar stealth pounding foot solidiers or soldiers on cycles.

Anyway that was something one does not explain to a hyper 3 year old.

Here are some poems which made sense pre and post chianti stupor...

Regina Derieva - All My Life
============================
All my life
I sought
an angel.
And he appeared
in order to say:
"I am no angel !"


Matsuo Basho - How admirable
============================
How admirable!
to see lightning and not think
life is fleeting.


Wislawa Szymborska - Going Home
================================
He came home. Said nothing.
It was clear, though, that something had gone wrong.
He lay down fully dressed.
Pulled the blanket over his head.
Tucked up his knees.
He's nearly forty, but not at the moment.
He exists just as he did inside his mother's womb,
clad in seven walls of skin, in sheltered darkness.
Tomorrow he'll give a lecture
on homeostasis in metagalactic cosmonautics.
For now, though, he has curled up and gone to sleep.

bronzed days

come the weekend and my life follows a routine.saturday is mostly spent on finishing the domestic chores and the inevitable trip to the supermarket.

on sundays life continues between limbo (read that as inactivity, wine and sloth) and guilt ridden pangs of spending more time with the clan.
into this state of non perfect nirvana ,rhetoric questions of how creativity has been wasted has been surreptiously seeping in.

one of the things i have been noticing about is the number of bronze and brass figurines at home. i see them all over blackened by years of neglect and the sorry state of this world's pollution problem.
as i was contemplating about how these figurines must have looked before they all darkened,i decided to find out.
armed with economy size vats of brasso, silvo and other products which have sung and danced on television, i sat and laboured on the polishing. after nearly an hour of arm wrenching work peppered with with swear words as and when figurine has fallen on leg, i noticed they looked only slightly better.

2 clear options stood before me, give up and do something else like read a book or try something different.
the first looked good but would only induce pangs of guilty remorse later, hence i decided to do something different. Thinking back to what my grandmother, my mother and scores of indian women in the past would have done came to the rescue. voila - tamarind soaked in water (acidic prep...) and liberal use of dish washing powder later was the balm to instant polishing.

yes, i smelled terrible and would not be asked for a date by la lopez but the figurines glowed, the dirt and rust having disintegrated away.

next mission impossible - fix the ever growing army of my son's stuff with broken wheels, books without binders, etc.
here's a job for mr araldite man...

Sufi poetry for the soul

this one is for a wonderful person who is also an amazing kid :)
so grab your nearest swirling dervish and get your wine and let sufism take over.....


"I tried to find Him on the Christian cross, but He was not there; I went to the Temple of the Hindus and to the old pagodas, but I could not find a trace of Him anywhere.

I searched on the mountains and in the valleys but neither in the heights nor in the depths was I able to find Him. I went to the Caaba in Mecca, but He was not there either.

I questioned the scholars and philosophers but He was beyond their understanding.

I then looked into my heart, and it was there where He dwelled that I saw Him; He was nowhere else to be found."

******
There is a candle in your heart...
There is a candle in your heart,
ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul,
ready to be filled.
You feel it, don't you?
You feel the separation
from the Beloved.
Invite Him to fill you up,
embrace the fire.
Remind those who tell you otherwise that
Love
comes to you of its own accord,
and the yearning for it
cannot be learned in any school.

From: 'Hush Don't Say Anything to God: Passionate Poems of Rumi'

************
Lover whispers to my ear,
"Better to be a prey than a hunter.
Make yourself My fool.
Stop trying to be the sun and become a speck!
Dwell at My door and be homeless.
Don't pretend to be a candle, be a moth,
so you may taste the savor of Life
and know the power hidden in serving."

Mathnawi V. 411-414 (translated by Kabir Helminski)

*****
Listen for the stream
that tells you one thing.

Die on this bank.
Begin in me
the way of rivers with the sea.

Rumi

*******
In the dead of night, a Sufi began to weep.
He said, "This world is like a closed coffin, in which
We are shut and in which, through our ignorance,
We spend our lives in folly and desolation.
When Death comes to open the lid of the coffin,
Each one who has wings will fly off to Eternity,
But those without will remain locked in the coffin.
So, my friends, before the lid of this coffin is taken off,
Do all you can to become a bird of the Way to God;
Do all you can to develop your wings and your feathers."
Farid ud Din Attar, - 'Perfume of the Desert'

**************
Hidden behind the veil of mystery, Beauty is eternally free from the slightest stain of imperfection.

From the atoms of the world, He created a multitude of mirrors; into each one of them He cast the image of His Face; to the awakened eye, anything that appears beautiful is only a reflection of that Face.

Now that you have seen the reflection, hurry to its Source; in that primordial Light the reflection vanishes completely. Do not linger far from that primal Source; when the reflection fades, you will be lost in darkness.

The reflection is as transient as the smile of a rose; if you want permanence, turn towards the Source; if you want fidelity, look to the Mine of faithfulness. Why tear your soul apart over something here one moment and gone the next?

Jami, translation by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut.

**************
Whether your destiny is glory or disgrace,
Purify yourself of hatred and love of self.
Polish your mirror; and that sublime Beauty
From the regions of mystery
Will flame out in your heart
As it did for the saints and prophets.
Then, with your heart on fire with that Splendor,
The secret of the Beloved will no longer be hidden.
Jami, translation by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut

***********
Longing is the core of mystery.
Longing itself brings the cure.
The only rule is, Suffer the pain.
Your desire must be disciplined,
and what you want to happen
in time, sacrificed.
Rumi

********
The Morning Wind Spreads
The morning wind spreads its fresh smell.
We must get up and take that in,
that wind that lets us live.
Breathe before it's gone.

Rumi

*********
I wonder
from these thousand of "me's",
which one am I?

Listen to my cry, do not drown my voice
I am completely filled with the thought of you.
Don't lay broken glass on my path
I will crush it into dust.

I am nothing, just a mirror in the palm of your hand,
reflecting your kindness, your sadness, your anger.
If you were a blade of grass or a tiny flower
I will pitch my tent in your shadow.

Only your presence revives my withered heart.
You are the candle that lights the whole world
and I am an empty vessel for your light.

Rumi

**************
O bird of the morning, learn love from the moth
Because it burnt, lost its life, and found no voice.
These pretenders are ignorantly in search of Him,
Because he who obtained knowledge has not returned.

Sheikh Muslih-uddin Sa'di Shirazi - The Gulistan of Sa'di

tsunami's and other waves ....

it was the day before xmas when family abandoned me and vamoosed to the unsalubrious shores of madras.I had thought I was in for a week of serene reading and calm broken by regular intakes of vodka / wine, music and possible blending with couch in front of tv. in short vegetate and grow roots slowly.

but life,as rod stewart puts it, is a bitch.i had driven clan to airport putting on a stoic face akin to families lost during partition.svelte woman behind counter in velvet voice which made harps ring and angels sing told me that flight to madras which came in from delhi was 5 hours late due to fog in delhi. i could have burnt woman to stake (in her mini skirt and revlon smile).

day 1 friday - lost in airport and no cath zeta jones too. only consolation amazing plum cake provided by neighbours and some wunderbar wine........ hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

day 2 sat- nature takes revenge on my decadent living. family in madras but frantic calls from wife that there was an earthquake there and to make matters worse, mr. tsunami does his bit too.all that was missing was noah and his ark.sat glued to telly watching various regional weather newspersons being prophets of doom. son being oblivious to surrounding disaster would call me every hour that his pogo and cartoon network channels were on the blink...

day 3 sunday - my house has the curse of the wood goddess and is the environmentalist femme fatale delight. since the time i moved in, bees have taken particular liking to the place and have built hives of disparate shapes. pest control men being wise in their financial matters have ripped me of moolah and have tried everything from grease to something close to napalm. !!! in any case it has not solved matters.

the bees this time came in to work with much gusto and built something like a radical mullah's beard within 25 minutes. they then admired their handiwork and started to fight among themselves. now in addition to house being swarmed by bees, it was swarmed by rampaging tyson like bees.some restorative brandy did help and the homicide count among winged friends was quite high which I had to mop up. bee hive is now looking like day old stubble.

day 4 (today) monday - decided to get back to work and be slave to cubicle rather than stay at home and face impending new disaster.

moral of the story - elements are women and am sure wife has bribed them to ensure i am not lazing around.

volvo bus diary

Saturday saw an extremely cold morning. maybe its a sign of the times.my wife's office in all their dilligence planned a get together meet for employees and their clan in a resort in the wilderness near to hassan. this is a ironic statement as if we wanted seclusion, why a resort?

Anyways, mine not to ask why. we got up at a crazy hour. son who normally gets up at 4:30 am decided that he was rip van winkle and wanted to sleep longer. we rushed through empty roads and a few stray dogs to find we were the earliest.

Bus ride was un eventful broken sporadically by enthusiatic folks who wanted more participation from people in songs etc. since I valued my sanity I prayed fervently for a comet or lightening to come through the roof and vaporise the cretin who wanted everyone to sing.

Son slept most of the way. wife decided to catch up with her pals on whats happening where scene.i pretended to sleep so that I did not have to consume the crisps passed around at regular interval or make banal conversation (e.g - so your name is vivek and you are kamala's husband?".). Someone please kick me - I am getting far too old and far too crabby.

We reached the place, which turned out to be quite nice and looked secluded. but no man is an island by himself as from nowwhere sprung Prince, an extremely repulsive dj, vj , public pest all in one, who decided he had to shout through the sound barrier to make him self heard. He apparently was the guy who made sure guys were welcomed and would stick to us like porous plaster over the next 2 days.

To cut along story short and not make the blog like a films division documentary, i will summise and say a good time was had by all. the high point being a visit to an old derelict 16th century portuguese church by the river side. it was like a ghost city and im sure there were voices from the crypts which were drowned with cries of " I want more cutlet"or "Can I have an extra coffee please".I went to the altar which had stood the test of time, dusty roads and moronic modern day lovers (the ramu loves smitha type of idiots).Iam sure when I die and if I go to the pearly gates, I will find one of those grafitti etched in the wall.

A sleep rejuvenated son decided it was time to give his old man some exercise and ran like Forest Gump. Whatever extra flab I had gained through cholestrol ridden food was all exercised and i could have competed with all the artificial beauty ladies competing in shanghai. a better part of the night was spent around campfire with wife and many bottles of the demon drink. morning arose too quickly and strange rhumba sounds reverbrated in my head. After a mammoth orgy of a breakfast,we came back to civilisation. The bus driver had very resourcefully got his hand on a bollywood potboiler and insisted on playing it full blast.

I must add that my son slept through it all. I now plan to invest in a bus and keep it at home so he sleeps longer on weekends and not get up at unearthly hours.
PS - There were also morale building group activities but I read Paul Coelho and some books on code breaking anagrams and did not take part in them much to wife's dismay.
PPS - Discovery of the week - unattended plants on country roads look gorgeous unlike gardner attended plants at home !!!! (maybe there's a moral somewhere...)

rain

it poured last night. funny how everything smells so good under warm rain. no current too. need to decipher why son who loves to watch lightening in sky gets scared watching lightening on Disney.

A blog is born..

after months of reading blogs and contributing to others blogs, i finally mustered guts and created one myself. one small step for man ....