Category: Life Ordinary

  • World Views

    Sometime back, a work related trip took me to two completely different worlds in the same city – one, a software giant’s well designed campus, and the other, a market area. I’ve been in Bangalore now for 6 years now, but still can’t claim familiarity with a lot of places.

    The tech park was exactly as I had pictured it, from the large amount of written matter dedicated to it regularly in newspapers. Large and well laid out, with its own studio, food courts and bustling with activity. The activity is not techies just slaving in front of monitors, though I am sure that happens inside too, but having animated conversations over cups of coffee, cycling between building blocks, discussing a cultural activity happening in the next few days, and some even  watching the world go by.

    Gandhi Bazaar isn’t exactly the most written about place in newspapers, probably because its residents are not as appealing to the readers of the newspapers I read. But it is bustling nevertheless – the granny in the bullock cart surrounded by flowers, multitudes of roadside sellers, trading everything from vegetables to fancy jewelry to toys to clothes, a lot of happy, smiling faces drifting in and out of shops. I saw faces that just blended into the surroundings and others that didn’t perhaps belong there. (like me)  From where I stood watching, I couldn’t see any branded outlets around that I recognised, but in the vicinity you could get the best coffee and masala dosa. Pleasures of a different kind, but great ones nevertheless. Anything more would sound condescending.

    These are two worlds separated by a few kilometres, but almost isolated from each other, both worlds unto themselves, oblivious to each other, except for the few who occupy both. I can imagine the young local huduga who is now a techie and handles both worlds with ease. I feel happy for him, and hope he realises how lucky he is to be part of both these worlds – one  that helps him stay grounded and the other that helps him fly high.

    One planet, so many different worlds, and so many different stories.  A lifetime wouldn’t be enough to experience. This thought created a sense of deja vu, and sure enough, a search yielded this post. I guess the lessons of Nude Ellie are seeing a change of perspective.

    until next time, deja view 🙂

  • Class Act

    “I’ll be gentle, it won’t hurt”, he promised. She was apprehensive, she hardly knew him. Noticing this, he added, “I know it takes time to trust someone new, so let’s start slowly and talk as we go along.” As her muscles expanded and contracted, she still wasn’t sure whether to trust the new yoga instructor.

    until next time, breathe out 😉

  • Keep Walking

    A long time back, almost 4 years ago, after seeing Farhan Akhtar’s Lakshya, I’d written about meaning, and purpose, and its relevance in an individual’s life. I guess, as I moved on in life, and feared that time is running out for something, the search for this purpose became more frantic, until I tried to see it in everything that happened to me, and around me. I tried to look at what others were doing, trying to find some parameter of reference. But even if it did exist, it doesn’t seem to be easy to find, and that’s a despairing thought.

    And then, sometime back, this wonderful person shared these lines with me

    “For years, copying other people,
    I tried to know myself.
    From within, I couldn’t decide what to do.
    Unable to see, I heard my name being called.
    Then I walked outside.”
    …… Rumi

    And then, I found some more food for thought in Hermann Hesse’ “Siddhartha”. A conversation about searching and finding and the difference between the two approaches. Yes, these seem to be two different approaches, and I thought one was the result of the other. 🙂

    Searching means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal.

    When a person searches for something, even something that he defines as a purpose, he focuses on that so much that he is usually oblivious of everything else. It becomes an obsession.

    That really does not mean neglecting every responsibility. But it does mean that I do not automatically categorise experiences as good/bad, useful/not useful etc and be done with it. A mindset change from searching to finding will allow me to look at an experience as just that, and to treat it with more calmness. As one of my favourite tees says, “Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling”

    I guess we all know it, we just need reminders ever so often, because we set goals which we think will ensure happiness… movie this weekend, vacation next month, party tonight…but are we really conscious about the  transient nature of that goal? I’m not going to stop any of it (except for the partying, I never did that anyway:) ), but I will be conscious of its relevance.. and irrelevance  🙂

    until next time, destination nowhere

  • She’s just not that into you….

    The moment he saw his ex-wife at the party, he cringed. A confrontation between ex-wife and current girlfriend could never end well. But even he hadn’t imagined the scale of disaster. The moment his girlfriend saw the other woman, she told him, “Honey, she’s so beautiful that I don’t think I can think straight anymore”

    until next time, love is blind, among other things 🙂

  • Headcount

    A whole multitude of them were swept away in the deluge. Others calmly stayed rooted, with the serene acceptance of a ‘Here today, gone tomorrow’ philosophy. They didn’t seem bothered, he thought. But he couldn’t afford the complacency. After all, with the hair being lost every time he bathed, he was one who’d become bald!!

    until next time, a hairy tale ending please?